Seattle City Council Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, & Arts Committee 9/11/18

On today's agenda, we have a number of items.

We will start out with several appointments.

We have appointments to the Human Rights Commission.

There are five council appointments and one commission appointment.

We have appointments to the LGBTQ Commission, one council appointment and one commission appointment.

And then we have an appointment to the Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities, and an appointment to the Seattle Music Commission, and finally, two appointments to the Seattle Arts Commission.

Then we're going to receive a briefing from the Office of Arts and Culture on the Cultural Facilities Fund Racial Equity Toolkit.

This is a review of the use of this fund using a racial equity toolkit lens, and we'll hear about the observations of the Arts Office in doing this work.

Then we're going to hear an ordinance related to a piece of legislation that was passed about a month ago, a couple months ago now, in Councilmember Mosqueda's committee.

This is a companion bill to the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights related to the need to protect folks who are using those new rights under that law from retaliation, discrimination, and harassment.

And then we have a couple bills related to Seattle Public Utilities.

One is hearing about the water system plan and the other is related to drainage and wastewater rates.

And with that, I think we'll just move right into public comment.

We have seven people signed up.

Newell is keeping track of time.

If you can keep an eye on him, you have two minutes to speak.

And he'll let you know when you have one minute and 30 seconds and also when your time is up.

I'm going to call people's names two at a time.

And there are two mics.

Feel free.

And actually, it's useful to keep the flow of things moving if you line up at both mics.

So first we have Alex Zimmerman followed by, I believe it's Rojo Burgess.

Hi, my name is Alex Zimmerman.

Yeah, everybody know me.

I come in talking about civil rights here because I try to understand, guy, why are you stopping acting like a Nazi Gestapo pig?

And I cannot.

I spoke many times to you.

You are pure fascist, 100%.

Look, who's go for Human Rights Commission?

It's a puppet.

One senior citizen like me tried to go inside for 10 years, he cannot.

This year, two months ago, I made an application, nothing happened.

Marta Ivory is a pure criminal.

She was supposed to be fired many years ago because she chose somebody who belonged to Nazi social democratic mafia.

And you guys, you are a criminal.

It's nothing surprise me.

Maybe because I'm senior citizen cannot qualify.

Maybe I cannot qualify because I am a Jew.

Maybe I cannot qualify because I have different opinion.

It's nothing surprise me in here.

Look, she's a pure anti-Semite.

You know what this mean?

She's approved.

Freedom of speech in street, but not approve my freedom of speech here under Constitution.

You are a Nazi.

You are anti-Semite.

It's exactly what has happened now.

So I have trespass for one year, what is give me executive branch.

So I cannot go to legislative branch.

It's a pure constitutional crime.

And nobody, nobody talking about this.

And nobody, and how many times I complain to you, Consul Halbert, how many times?

And you not react about this.

It's a problem what we have right now.

When you stop acting like a Nazi, Gestapo pick, when the city start be acting like Americans, like a constitution, this exactly what has happened.

The high majority Nazi pick, the high anti-Semite, tax sucker, criminal, and killer.

It's exactly who you are.

So I think I've butchered a name, but it looks like R-O-U-O, and then a first name that begins with a B.

Does that sound like anybody here?

OK, fantastic.

And then followed by Inez Penaloza.

Hi, good morning.

This is Rocio Burgos and I've been a house cleaner for 10 years ago.

So now I'm helping the household helpers to organize at Casa Latina.

And I just would like to share my story.

I just remember one day when I just started as a nanny when I came here.

So one day, I was taking care of a little girl.

And then the dad just came to me, and he asked me if I If I was a dancer, and I told him, no, I'm not a dancer.

And he just went around the house and came back to me again.

And he told me, oh, so are you sure that you're not a dancer?

And I said, what kind of dancer?

And he told me, a pole dancer.

And I was like, what?

Excuse me?

And I was like, no.

And he came back again and told me for the third time, would you like to go and see the dancers?

And I was like, no, thank you very much.

And then that day I felt very uncomfortable because those questions.

And I think that's harassment.

So during the years that I've been working with the household helpers, I've been hearing a lot of stories, and that is harassment.

So I just would like to, I'm happy to be here so I can share my story and tell that it is very important for us to have this legislation.

And thank you very much.

Thank you for sharing that experience.

Inez Penaloza, followed by Veronica Fecinelli.

And I'm going to translate for Inez.

Good morning.

My name is Inez Penaloza.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm a domestic worker at Casa Latina.

I went to work in somebody's house.

The client, the patrona, opened the door to me and told me what to do.

And in following, she told me to start with the kitchen.

And when I finished,

And the client came out of the bathroom completely naked.

And I had to ask her where the vacuum cleaner was.

And she told me there.

She showed me where the connection, the plug for the vacuum was.

And she started to touch me.

So I was feeling very uncomfortable, and I couldn't continue working with ease because the client, the employer, was touching me every now and then.

I was feeling uncomfortable.

I couldn't really work.

I had to continue working because I had to finish the work and also get money, but I didn't know what to do.

Thank you for passing this legislation that will help all domestic workers.

Thank you very much.

And I'm Veronique Facchinelli.

I work at Casa Latina, and on behalf of Casa Latina, we are very appreciative of your leadership, all council members from that committee, to expand the protection against sexual harassment to all domestic workers, being employees or being dependent contractors.

I work with domestic workers, with more than 100 domestic workers every year, and I hear many of those stories.

Stories where they have to leave their workplace, where they feel uncomfortable, where they feel harassed, and they don't know what to do.

They don't always have the language to respond to those.

harassment, and they come to us.

And at that point, what we do when it's employers from Casa Latina is we put in, I mean, we remove that employer, that client from our employers list, but there is not much more that we could do, at least to that point.

So we are very appreciative that there is this companion bill that will be attached to the Bill of Rights of Domestic Workers because it is essential.

There's more than 33,000 domestic workers just in the city of Seattle that would need that protection.

So thank you very much.

But it's going to be very important at this point, as you know, is like the budget that would accompany so that we can do all organization as well as domestic workers out there.

They can be informed about that new legislation.

They can know where to go and how to act.

So it's crucial that there is budget behind that so that we can continue that work.

Thank you very much.

Next we have Josh Vogt followed by Rodney, I believe it's Schlaff and Joel Larsley.

Good morning, Chair Herbold, Council Members Swann and O'Brien.

Nice to see you all again.

My name is Josh Vogt, and I'm the Public Affairs and Communications Manager for Fair Work Center and Working Washington.

We had a couple more nannies lined up to share their stories, but life intervened at the last minute, and they weren't able to make it, so I'm going to pinch head a little bit this morning.

Thank you for following up on the Historic Domestic Workers Bill of Rights with this really important companion legislation.

It's timely, and we're really thankful that you took care of it before the budget season started.

Some of the most powerful stories we heard throughout the campaign and again here this morning were domestic workers courageously sharing their stories.

of sexual harassment, abuse, and even worse, while working in folks' homes.

And, you know, time and time throughout the campaign, we heard stories of the incredible power imbalance in domestic work, where you have low-wage, often immigrant women working in the homes of wealthier, more privileged folks.

And those workers' livelihoods depend on being welcomed into someone's home, and they don't often have the power to speak up.

when they feel like something's going on or when they're being abused or worse at work.

You know, we appreciate you extending the legislation, or extending the harassment and discrimination laws in Seattle to domestic workers.

But of course, our work doesn't stop here.

Like Veronica just said, for these standards to be real for domestic workers, we need to back it up with strong, proactive enforcement.

And that means we need continued resources for outreach and education among both domestic workers and employers so that every nanny, house cleaner, gardener, and everyone in this city knows what their rights are and how to enforce them if they're being abused.

Thank you again for your support, and we hope we can continue to count on your support in the city budget this fall.

Thank you.

And lastly, these two folks are signed in together.

I don't know if you intend to speak together, but we have Rodney Schlaff and Joel Larsley.

Yes.

Carsley, we have some letters we'd like to submit.

Thank you.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, esteemed members of the CRUDA committee.

My name is Joel Carsley and I'm here with Rodney Schaaf on behalf of the Water System Advisory Committee.

Our volunteer committee participates in reviews of Seattle Public Utilities programs related to water quality and customer confidence.

First off, we'd like to commend SPU on their overall approach to managing a top quality water utility.

We're here today to comment on the 2019 water plan.

To be clear, we're not requesting any changes to the plan.

We would, however, like to highlight some areas in which we believe SPU is doing well with regard to the plan and encourage this committee, city council, and SPU to continue to focus on these areas and to elaborate on the areas introduced, Rodney.

The document, if you've had a chance to preview it, is pretty extensive, several pages long.

But we wanted to point out three areas that we thought needed to be or would be appreciated to stay focused on.

First, planning for the increased system resiliency should remain a top priority.

Planning for and continued emphasis on climate change modeling and planning for those future and anticipated changes.

Additionally, the Water System Advisory Committee recognizes the efforts of SPU as they continue to assess, prepare, and address needed seismic improvements and to the water transmission and distribution systems.

And knowing what we see going on around the world in the way of earthquakes and other major disasters, wanting to make sure that that stays as a priority within the plan.

And finally, WASAC has also delved into the background on Seattle's Comprehensive Plan and Racial Equity Toolkit.

We recognize that balancing the need for continued investments while prioritizing equitable service and affordability for all customers as our region grows is no easy task.

Now, our letters that have been presented to you have more detail around these.

These are just some bullet points that we wanted to make sure and mention.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for your service as well.

So with that, I conclude public comment.

Those are all the folks that we have signed up.

And we'll move right into the agenda.

Noel, if you could read items 3 through 7 into the record together.

Great.

Turn item three is appointment 1-1-0, appointment of Brian Egger as member, Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to January 22, 2020. Item four is appointment 1-1-1-1, appointment of Elizabeth W. Picard as member, Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to July 22, 2020. Item five is appointment 1112, appointment of Jackie Turner as member of Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to July 22nd, 2020. Item six is appointment 1113, appointment of Adrian Glover as member of Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to January 22, 2020. And item seven is appointment 1114, appointment of Valentino Montesinos as member of Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to July 22nd, 2020.

Thank you.

And before we get started, I should note that I'm joined by council members Sawant and O'Brien.

If we could start with a round of introductions.

And then after that, Marta, I believe you're going to talk a little bit about what the commission does.

And then we'll talk a little bit more in depth with folks about their interest in the commission.

So just a quick round of introductions.

Good morning.

My name is Brian Egger.

I am a senior analyst with the US Government Accountability Office.

Marty Edel with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Adrian Glover, Seattle Public Schools.

Valentina Montesinos, a program officer for the Mize Family Foundation.

Ingrid Adams, CEO and founder of ALA Consulting Firm.

Thank you.

Jackie Turner, Zillow Group.

Elizabeth Pashad, a business owner in Seattle.

Thank you.

The principal duties of the folks that are on the commissions are to advise the mayor, the city council on issues that affect their commissions, their respective commissions.

I was just going to say a little bit about Brian Egger and then turn it over to him to give a little bit more about himself.

First of all, Brian Egger has already started his involvement in the Seattle Human Rights Commission and has been attending meetings and participating as a civil servant responsible performing oversight of federal programs He is interested in offering his talents, knowledge, and expertise in working with the city to help advance its agenda and offering feedback on proposals related to education, human rights, and community involvement.

He has a keen interest to serve on the Seattle Human Rights Commission.

and feels that his experience both in Oregon and in Washington, D.C.

demonstrates his ability to work with a variety of stakeholders to develop and manage a legislative agenda.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts, Bases of Public Administration, and a Master of Public Administration, and is looking forward to his work on the Human Rights Commission.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marta.

Well, good morning again.

It's a pleasure to be before you today and look forward to hopefully being appointed to the Human Rights Commission.

As Marta mentioned, I have spent my life working to advance the efficacy of federal and state and local programs as an analyst and an auditor.

Obviously, having been in Seattle now for two years, I'm looking for ways to use my subject matter expertise to serve Seattle and citizens in need, especially those whose rights are being infringed upon.

I hope to use my analytical abilities to help interpret studies and surveys that are being done of vulnerable populations, as well as provide new ideas in how the commission can advocate for those in need.

Thank you very much.

And Brian is a commission appointment, is that correct?

Okay, great.

And Shannon, you're going to introduce the council appointments.

Yeah, and would you like me to introduce them all at once?

Yeah, why don't we do that?

Why don't we introduce them all at once, and then we could just do a quick go around, and folks can talk about why they're interested in being on the commission.

Perfect.

So I'll start with Liz.

Liz is a council appointment to the Human Rights Commission.

Liz has a lifelong relationship with public service, including membership on previous boards and commissions, and is a member of the Seattle Small Business Community.

Liz holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in urban planning, and tells me that she's looking forward to her work on the Human Rights Commission.

Jackie Turner.

Jackie is a council appointment to the Human Rights Commission.

Jackie is a very compassionate person.

Through her work on the commission, she wants to ensure that people remain the heart of decision-making.

Her lived experience on the margins has given her great insights for protecting, collaborating, and motivating those around her.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and French as well as a Master of Arts in Interactive Journalism and is looking forward to working on issues of justice and fairness as a commissioner on the Human Rights Commission.

Adrienne Glover.

Adrienne is a council appointment to the Human Rights Commission.

Adrienne is a human rights advocate focusing on racial and social justice for all.

For over a decade, Adrienne has been a champion for equal treatment and accountability, showing support by joining social activist groups, political campaigns, faith-based initiatives, and fraternity national programs.

One of Adrienne's proudest accomplishments was establishing an accredited nonprofit focusing on reducing recidivism of incarcerated youth.

Valentina.

Valentina Montesinos is a council appointment to the Human Rights Commission.

Valentina holds an MBA in sustainable business, as well as a bachelor's in anthropology and women's studies.

She has over 15 years of experience in managing projects, people, and programs in nonprofit, philanthropy, and business environments.

Currently, Valentina works as the program officer with the Maiz family.

My family foundation, where she manages the climate justice portfolio, partnering with organizations globally and nationally.

She holds this position in addition to working at a community nonprofit as the operations manager.

She serves as a professional consultant at 501 Commons and enjoys volunteering at several local organizations.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

So maybe we just start with Adrian and work our way around.

Just say if I, Shannon did a great introduction, but maybe you want to fill some things in.

I know from your materials that you're a civil rights investigator at Seattle Public Schools, so that's a really relevant experience that you have.

Thank you.

I've been with the district for maybe seven months or so, moved from Dallas, Texas.

I'm living in Kent right now, but trying to relocate Seattle pretty soon.

My whole capacity there is doing investigations of discrimination complaints based off of protected classes.

And then I'm looking also to get involved in mediation and type of appeals for work.

I look at this organization as a stepping stone to continue to help give back to the community as well.

I like the racial and gender equity team, task force, along with the immigration and recently getting involved with the Human Rights Day initiatives for December.

Also, last week or so, I think two weeks or so, me and another colleague, Commissioner went through the appeals training to also be better being involved.

So know how to do appeals if one does come up with so You know any other questions you're looking for comments.

That's great.

Okay Folks have questions.

Maybe we could just hold them to the end.

Is that all right?

Thanks.

Okay.

Thank you Good morning.

So happy to be here.

Thank you for the opportunity I have been a women's rights advocate and for my entire life and as a Latina immigrant have been working on race equity as well and immigrant rights and I'm hitting the ground running, going to all the meetings and working on letters as well as doing the appeals training and I'm excited to do my civic duty and participate in the city of Seattle to meet the highest standards of human rights.

I guess me, yeah.

Hi, I'm Jackie.

Okay, however you wanna do it.

I'm Jackie Turner, and I'm very, very excited for this opportunity to help support all the people of Seattle.

The last few months I've been working on the Immigrant Rights, Refugee Rights Task Force, and the work has been just really, really exciting.

I'm hoping to use my skills on that task force as well as on the appeals process And all the commission work, my background is in communications.

I'm hoping to accelerate all of the great work that our commission's going to be doing.

I'm very excited about just getting to help other people.

That's really what I'm really passionate about.

In my day-to-day life, I'm working to create a more equitable environment for all of our employees at Zillow Group.

and to be able to use my skills and my communication skills in the same way for everyone who's fighting for equal rights in our city and in our country.

It's just an incredibly important time to get involved in.

This is the way that I want to give back.

During my free time, my full time, I really want to make sure that I do everything that I can to make this a better place for everyone.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Liz Pashad.

As Shannon mentioned in my introduction, I have previous experience on boards and commissions for the city of Kirkland and also the city of Detroit.

I'm a Seattle native, but I lived in Detroit for about five years and was involved there.

I moved back to Seattle about three years ago, or sorry, four years ago to start my business.

And I'm finally sort of out of the day-to-day grind of business entrepreneurship.

ready to get back to work in the public sphere.

The Human Rights Commission really checks a lot of those boxes for me.

I'm extremely interested in the work plan that they published for 2017, and it involves a lot of issues that I was already sort of grasping to get involved in, but didn't have a direct pipeline.

I think boards and commissions are kind of where the unglamorous work of cities gets done, and I like that they are unelected and citizen-led, and I'm anxious to get involved.

Thank you.

And we have, so out of order, we have Ankita here for, which is appointment number 11, item 11 on the list.

All right, so how do we want to handle that?

I already know Dusa, she's with my.

Dusa, would you like, would you like to read into the record, Ankita, now, or do we want to wait and do it at the end?

That sounds good.

Okay, number 11.

Appointment, agenda item 11 is appointment 1121, appointment of Aniko L. Adams as member of Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities for a term to April 30, 2020.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

And then if Margie, you want to say a couple words about the people at the disability commission.

Yes.

And Quade is excited about coming on the commission to work on issues that are important to her.

She has already started attending meetings and looks forward to making contributions to the work of the commission and using her leadership skills.

She is the CEO and founder of ALA Consulting Firm and a management consulting firm and belongs to several clubs and organizations, including the Greater Seattle Business Association, and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

And Queda earned her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with minors in Gender Studies and Leadership Skills from Mississippi State University.

And also, another thing to add, Lean Six Sigma certified with green belt from the University of Tacoma.

So don't mess with her.

Do you want to add anything?

I am Inquita Adams.

I'm CEO and founder of LA Consulting Firm, a boutique firm with expertise in seeing systems.

I stand before you today as an individual with a moral compass that has always led me to be of service of navigating myself, I'm sorry, and individuals without a voice to become more aware of themselves and others.

I'm sorry.

It's okay, it's okay.

To allow them with the voice to be heard amongst the noise around them.

What that brief statement said, I always find myself in a situation in which I've either, sorry, stood up and, sorry, thank you.

You want to just take a pause, and maybe it'll feel a little bit better if we do some Q&A.

OK.

All right.

I didn't know what hit me in this thing.

I'm always coaching my clients, but I didn't know what hit me.

It's hard, because I'm really passionate about speaking up for individuals without a voice, and also in a respectful and fair way.

I'm really appreciative of how you are moved to do this work.

It obviously comes from a very deep place of commitment and passion, so thank you.

Thank you.

Well, you can ask your questions and I can compose myself.

Do other council members have questions for the nominees?

Member O'Brien.

Going back to the Human Rights Commission, I want to clearly, all the nominees, you clearly grasp the importance of this work at this moment in our history and have a long history of commitment to this work outside.

And so I'm really grateful for your commitment to helping us make the city a better place and live up to those ideals.

I want to just let you know that the Human Rights Commission has a long history and tradition of pushing the city to be bold.

And at times, that means telling leadership at the city that we have more work to do and invite that feedback, whatever it is.

You're independent volunteers with a lot of expertise.

And personally, I rely on you and other commissions to make sure that the policy decisions we're making are well informed.

and that we're pursuing the policies that we need to be pursuing.

So I really am excited and grateful for the commitment that all of you are doing to join these commissions.

I know it's a real-time commitment.

And someone said it's not a lot of rewards or attention, unglamorous, toil away in the basement of City Hall making decisions.

But the work is amazingly important.

And we're really grateful for that.

So thank you.

Council Member Sawant?

Just to add a couple of thoughts.

One, to in a way echo what Council Member O'Brien said that you are, and something that you said Liz, that it's precisely because you're not the, you're not the politicians, you do have and both an opportunity and an obligation to not tow the line of the politicians, of the mayor or the city council, and to bring perspectives that you know accurately and truthfully represent the realities of ordinary people.

And if those interests of ordinary people are not represented by the politicians, then you have to hold, you know, elected officials to account.

And while there are no obvious rewards, obviously, you know, yes, you will be, your office is in the basement, but your actual role is much, and I'm sure you know this, I'm just saying what's on your minds already, that your role is far bigger than that.

And as Council Member O'Brien said, there's a long tradition and history, a proud history of the commissions actually trying to do the right thing.

And sometimes that, Even for the commissioners, it will take courage.

And I know you, I'm confident that you all do, but I also wanted to say that I will absolutely support you in having that courage, standing up for what's right, even if some powerful people may not support you immediately.

Yeah, and just to add a little bit of history for the viewing public and maybe for some of you who may not be aware of this, but one of the reasons why we have so many appointments before us today is because this council, based on the advice and and recommendation of the four Office of Civil Rights commissions, we recently expanded the size of the commissions.

We not only expanded the size of the commissions, but we increased the percentage of commissioners who are nominated and selected by commission members.

And we did those two things and rightfully upon the recommendation of the commissions as a way to expand and enhance your own independence from either the mayor or the council.

The mayor and the council hold some influence in that some of the commission members are mayor or council member appointees and so we want to make sure that there's a balance there and I think The council members at this table really believe that we are better representatives to our constituents when we are held accountable by the folks out there doing the work, doing the hard work for the city.

So thanks a lot.

If there are no further questions, I will move appointments.

It's really passionate for me because I've always been in a situation where I've always had to speak up for myself or others around me because of injustices that have been posed by a systemic system.

So for me, this is a chance for me to actually speak up for people without a voice.

Thank you.

This is definitely a good place to do that work.

So I'll move appointments three through seven and appointment 11. All those in favor vote aye.

None opposed.

None abstaining.

These appointments will move on to the full council for their vote on Monday and congratulations.

Thank you.

All right, Noel, can you read appointments eight through 10 into the record?

Item 8 is appointment 1117, appointment of Michael B. Garrett as member of Seattle LGBTQ Commission for a term to October 31, 2020. Agenda item 9 is appointment 1118, appointment of Jesse Murray as member of Seattle LGBTQ Commission for a term to April 30, 2020. And agenda item 10 is appointment 1104, appointment of Esther Lucero as member of Seattle LGBTQ Commission for a term to April 30, 2020.

Great, thank you.

So let's just do a real quick round of introductions and then a description of the work of the LGBTQ Commission, and then we'll get a little bit more into the interest of the commissioners.

Good morning.

My name is Esther Lucero.

I'm the CEO for the Seattle Indian Health Board.

Thank you.

My name is Michael Garrett.

I am a principal at Mercer.

We're in Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Great, thank you.

Zaire, you want to speak about the commission and their work?

Sure.

Thank you.

Seattle LGBTQ Commission at Capacity consists of 21 representative residents of Seattle appointed to serve in an advisory capacity to the mayor, city council, Seattle Office for Civil Rights, and other Seattle city departments.

The commission is working on several issues with a focus on issues related to homelessness, human rights, and creating inclusive health care policies for trans and gender nonconforming people.

Thank you.

And I think we'll also have you introduce the commission and mayoral appointed seats.

Esther Lucero.

Esther is Diné, Navajo, and Latina, two-spirit identified woman who currently serves as the chief executive officer of the Seattle Indian Health Board.

She also serves as co-chair on the King County Accountable Community of Health Governing Board.

Esther is a transplant from San Francisco, but has called Seattle home for the past three years.

She's dedicated her work to promoting policy change for urban American Indians slash Alaska natives using a multimedia approach.

She's committed to increasing the visibility of urban American Indians slash Alaska natives living in urban environments to transforming the way research is conducted in urban Indian health.

and to making media and technology accessible to Native communities.

Great, thank you.

And do you want to speak a little bit to your interests before we move on to the other commissioners?

That'd be great.

Thank you.

First, yá'át'ééh ebéne.

It's really a privilege to be here before you today to be considered for this commission.

I think that the things that I offer are both related to my indigenous identity, bringing two-spirit voices forward.

What we do know about LGBTQ environments is they're largely dominated by white culture.

And I think that it's very important that we bring our indigenous voices to the center and to the heart of everything that we're doing here in Seattle.

I think that my experience within healthcare recently changing the environment at Seattle Indian Health Board to best serve our LGBTQ two-spirit populations.

Listening to our communities will allow me to hear their voices and bring them to this commission.

So I am just grateful to be here.

And it's good to meet, I think I'm just meeting you for the first time, but it's good to see both of you again.

Thank you.

Michael.

Great.

Good morning, Michael Garrett.

I am a native Washingtonian and been in Seattle since 1980, and I live in the East Lake District.

In reflecting on what brings me to the table here, I think it's important for me to say that we are multidimensional.

And even though this is the LGBTQ Commission, in my career, which has been in healthcare the whole time, I've worked with people with disabilities.

I'm a parent.

I'm a homeowner.

I'm a brother.

I'm a son.

And I think one of the things that's important for this commission is to make sure that we have a whole person approach and so that we incorporate all the needs because we have LGBTQ people who are homeless.

We have people of color who are LGBTQ and other characteristics.

And so that's what's really important to me.

The other piece is I also work in the healthcare area.

And in my day job, I'm actually doing a lot of work around diversity and inclusiveness as it relates to employee benefits.

And working with large employers to make sure that benefits are designed to be inclusive in all aspects, LGBTQ, women, veterans, people with disabilities, and so forth.

And so it's become a real passion of mine.

And I come to the commission now because I'm not traveling as much for work, and so I'm more grounded here in Seattle and wanted to get more involved in the community.

Thank you, Michael.

Thank you.

Shanna, did you want to add a little bit?

I'm sorry, I didn't.

I missed your introduction.

No, it was my bad.

No, you're great.

I'm happy you covered many things.

I'm happy to do the introduction, but you also introduced yourself perfectly.

Thank you.

No, it's good.

And Sarah, you were going to speak a little bit about the...

Jessie's a reappointment, is she not?

Okay.

I might want to amend the title because she's listed as an appointment, but.

Sure.

Jessie Murray has been a community activist, leader, and volunteer for more than half of her life, particularly in the realms of reproductive justice, healthcare access, and LGBTQ advocacy.

She strives to always make a positive impact on the world, especially for marginalized communities.

And that has led her down a variety of unexpected paths from a then unaccredited Olin College to her current job at an open source software firm facilitating HIV and cancer research.

She also enjoys singing and has found her way to several communities that blend social justice and music.

A native of Massachusetts, she's been in Seattle for over eight years.

And you can usually find her in a coffee shop on Capitol Hill drinking an iced chai.

All right, that's great.

Thank you.

I've had the great pleasure of working with Jessie on her through her time on the Commission and I think she was get engaged appointment beforehand as well.

She does really great work and much like the Human Rights Commission, this Commission's work at this particular time in our country's history is incredibly important.

So thank you for your willingness to serve.

Council members, do you have any thoughts or questions?

So with that, I think what I'll do is I will move, I will move appointments, let's see, eight, appointment 0117, and appointment 10, which is appointment 01104. All those in favor vote aye.

None opposed and abstaining.

I'll move on to full councilor.

And then for appointment number nine, which is appointment 01118, I will move to amend the title so that it is a reappointment of Jesse Murray as member of the Seattle LGBTQ Commission.

I'm pretty sure we can do that because it's a clerk file.

If it was another kind of legislation, I don't think we could.

But all those in favor of the amendment, vote aye.

Aye.

And opposed, and so now I'll move the amendment, move, I mean, I'll move the main bill, appointment 0118. All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

These two appointments and reappointment will move on to the full council on Monday where they'll vote.

And congratulations and thank you.

Thank you.

So we've done 11. Let's move on to appointment number 12 on the agenda.

Agenda item 12 is appointment 1122, appointment of Nate Omdahl as member of Seattle Music Commission for a term to August 31, 2021. Thank you.

Hey, Nate.

Good morning.

Greetings and welcome.

Do a quick round of introductions down the line.

I'm Alex Rose.

I'm the Creative Economy Advocate with the Office of Film and Music.

Nate Omdahl, lead organizer with the Seattle Musicians Union.

And I'm Kate Becker.

I'm the director of the Office of Film, Music, and Special Events.

Great.

Kate, you want to say a few words about the commission, what it does?

Sure, absolutely.

The Music Commission is an industrious and productive commission of 21 volunteers who really work very hard to equitably sustain and grow our music culture and economy and ensure that we remain a thriving city of musicians, city of live music, and city of music business.

Great, thank you.

And I think Newell is going to introduce Nate, since Nate is a council appointment.

Sure, just a few words about Nate Omdahl.

He is a council appointment.

He is a musician, composer, and producer, advocate for musicians' rights.

Currently on the director's board of the American Federation of Musicians, local 76493. Works as a contractor at Sky Muse Studios as well, and on a variety of other projects.

Thank you.

You want to say a few words, Nate?

Sure.

Well, happy to be here.

I guess in my capacity as the organizer at the Musicians Union, It's been a privilege to get a chance to speak with musicians of all different walks of life that come from every imaginable background.

And I'm always humbled to hear the scope of issues that they face.

It's pretty simple to boil it down to the working class struggles that any industry would face.

Where am I going to work?

Is my workplace going to be safe?

And am I going to be able to afford to keep a roof over my head?

Unfortunately, in the last year, we've uncovered a lot of really troubling criminal behavior that is coming out of the nightlife industry.

And in any way that I can advocate for worker safety and musician safety, that's my privilege to do so.

Thank you.

I really appreciate the work that you've been doing to make nightlife locations, which are essentially your workplace, a safe workplace.

It's important for musicians as workers, but it's also important for the folks who go to watch your art.

So the work you're doing is great, and I know there's more to be done.

Thank you very much.

Council Member O'Brien.

Nate, I'm also really grateful for the work you do and the folks trying to protect and make sure that folks in the music industry can actually thrive.

It's been disturbing this year to hear some accounts of behavior that's happening.

I'm, it's not what I expect.

Like so many things in life, you know, you think everything out there is working well and then you hear these stories and it really kind of shakes the foundation of what's going on.

And I'm curious, is it a case of there's just a few bad actors or is there like a culture and tradition that's just kind of embedded that, you know, those of us that are just basically customers that show up and enjoy music shows and assume everyone else is, working things out well that we miss and you're bringing that to light?

That's a pretty tough question.

I would say that there's a lot of rumors and a lot of stories and a lot of, I don't know, maybe even pop culture phenomenon that you kind of associate with rock clubs.

And I think it's pretty safe to say that there's some validity to any rumor you would hear about a workplace issue.

There are a couple, not to name any particular names, but It's been proven how extreme those rumors, when proven to be true, can be.

I don't know the scope of the depth of these problems.

I do know that any musician that would consider themselves a worker in the nightlife industry would probably have a story or two of something that they've seen out of the corner of their eye that would lead them to believe that maybe their safety isn't the first priority of the night.

It's a really complicated industry, the nightlife industry.

There are people that are in and out of it as employers, as workers, like blink of an eye.

And anything that we can do to keep the appropriate eyes on just the worker safety that's happening, I always think that there can be improvements that can be made just on what's happening in the after hours.

It's just a wild scene sometimes.

And not to create any more rumors that I'm speaking about, but there's definitely a lot of paper trailing and oversight and maybe just some safety programs that would be relatively simple that I think would make a real impact that wouldn't take wouldn't take a whole lot of energy and money.

And anything that I can do to help create programs like that, that will just make the actions more readily visible, if that makes any sense.

That can't do harm.

The education piece is incredibly important so that folks know who to turn to.

But we all, I think, we all have a responsibility to address these kinds of issues.

The employer does.

We need workers to speak up.

And patrons also need to speak up when they see something happening that is illegal or otherwise inappropriate.

I would also just add, as the liaison to the Music Commission, that recent news in the local music industry has definitely been top of mind for the Music Commission.

And so adding Nate's expertise and experience working on safety issues is very timely.

Thank you.

That's great.

Any further thoughts?

Just really glad that you are also, the work that you and others in the Musicians Union are doing is important because we know we can't address these problems individually.

There has to be a collective and organized effort.

And also, thanks for adding your voice when we were discussing the show box.

a question in August.

I mean, obviously, it's still a work in progress, but it was important that you brought in the question of workers' rights, the rights of the Showbox employees, and how everything is connected.

We're talking about affordable housing, we're talking about having cultural spaces that are affordable and accessible to everybody, and we're talking about the rights of the employees at those venues as well.

I'm always shocked at how interconnected all the issues are.

And any opportunity I have to work on one of those little pieces, it's kind of a thrill.

Agreed.

Well, thank you.

If there are no further comments, I'm going to move appointment 01122. All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

And I'm so glad to have you on the commission.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Thank you all.

So now we have appointments, or agenda items 13 and 14.

Agenda item 13 is appointment 1119, appointment of Chieko Takai Phillips as member of Seattle Arts Commission for a term to December 31, 2019. Agenda item 14 is reappointment of Stephen M. Galatro as member of Seattle Arts Commission for a term to December 31, 2019.

Great.

Thank you, Noel.

Welcome.

Hi there.

Good morning.

Do some introductions, please.

Hi.

I'm Randy Engstrom.

I'm the Director of the Office of Arts and Culture.

I'm Chieko Phillips.

I currently work at 4Culture in the heritage funding area.

Great.

Thank you.

Randy, you want to tell us a little bit about the commission?

Sure, the Seattle Arts Commission was chartered in 1971, and their work is around advising, advocating, and engaging with the community in service of the mission of the Office of Arts and Culture.

They help shape our work.

They advocate for the value of arts and culture in our city, and they serve as a bridge to the community.

There's 16 of them, seven are council appointments, seven are mayoral appointments.

One is nominated by the commission itself, who's one of the ones we're talking about today, and one is a Get Engaged member.

They do their work through currently three subcommittees, the Public Art Advisory Committee, of which Steve Colatro is a co-chair, the Facilities and Equitable Development Committee, which Chieko has been a member of at large prior to joining the commission, we hope, and through a new Cultural Investments Committee, which is looking at how we distribute the resources of the office in the most equitable way.

It's worth noting that the cultural space program that you're going to hear a presentation from following these appointments was incubated by the Arts Commission for a decade before it became formal work of the office.

Likewise, there's an Arts Education Committee that incubated what is now the Creative Advantage with a relationship with the school district going back to 2007. And they're also absolutely our partners in our racial equity work from co-signing the statement that we released in 2016 to keeping us accountable to that work today.

Great.

Thank you, Mandy.

And Noah, are you going to introduce Chieko?

Sure.

Yeah, Chieko is a Council Appointment Heritage Support Specialist at 4Culture.

Previous positions include Executive Director at BlackPast, Public Program Curator at the Photographic Center Northwest, and Community Engagement Manager and Exhibitions Manager and Curatorial Assistant at the Northwest African American Museum, in addition to numerous other projects.

Thank you.

Jaco, you want to fill in the blanks or tell us a little bit about your interest in the commission?

Sure, I would love to.

So, yes, I do currently work at 4Culture where I work in the heritage funding area.

For the past two years I have been Ruthlessly just out in the county getting to know a lot of our history-based organizations.

That includes museums like MOHAI, but it also includes historical societies like the Rainier Valley Historical Society that are mostly volunteer run or small staff.

I work with grant programming, so coordinating the management and deliberation of our five grant programs, as well as creating and supporting professional development opportunities for practitioners in the heritage field.

So I'm excited to bring the knowledge that I have of heritage organizations, specifically within Seattle, to the Arts Commission and make sure that heritage-based organizations are being represented in the arts scene, arts with a big A, because we have a big role as well.

And you're, previous to this appointment, you're a member of one of the Arts Commission's committees as well, is that correct?

Yes, the Fed.

And that's the Arts Facilities and Equitable Development Committee?

That's correct, yes.

And did you become interested in serving on the commission from that committee work?

Yes, that definitely helped.

I did not really know much about the Arts Commission's work before being on the Fed.

You know, I knew that the Arts Commission existed and I know that they supported the Mayor's Arts Awards, which is a great way to recognize folks in the field.

But I didn't really know what happened in those committees and kind of how those, you know, the advocacy letters that I would read, like kind of how they came about.

So being a part of the Fed really helped to just open my eyes to the types of conversations that happen around space, cultural space in the field.

I actually think, I look forward to being another bridge between 4Culture and the Arts Commission and the OAC because definitely as our artists and cultural bearers and people who make the art scene in Seattle get continually priced out, they're moving into parts of King County and we're seeing the effects of that in the demand for funding at 4Culture.

So I think it, I really look forward to kind of being a part of conversations that are happening at the Office of Arts and Culture and the Arts Commission and being a bridge between how we can work together to make sure that we continue to support the cultural sector as it's changing.

And Randy, I appreciate understanding what appears to be an opportunity you provide non-commissioned members to serve on commission committees.

I think that's a great way for people to sort of dip a toe in and see whether or not the commission's for them and develop that leadership.

So thank you.

Yeah.

We've been happy to have Chieko in the capacity we've had her and we very much look forward to having her join the commission as a whole.

Any thoughts?

No?

All right.

Oh, and that's right, we have the reappointment also, don't we?

And I'd be happy to speak to that.

Please, that'd be great, Stephen.

Well, Steve's the Executive Director of Pratt Fine Arts Center, neighbor to our Langston Hughes facility up in the Central District.

Steve's been, he's the at-large member, so he's actually nominated by his peers on the Arts Commission.

And in addition to the great work that Steve's done at Pratt, which has won him accolades like being a 40 Under 40 a number of years ago, I really appreciate the way that Steve brings a racial equity commitment both to his work at Pratt and in his capacity as a co-chair of the Public Art Advisory Committee.

Those meetings are hours and hours long every month, and they involve a lot of rigorous sort of review of installations that are going to go in the public right-of-way for 30 or 40 years.

And Steve does that thoughtfully with an appreciation for the artist, but also with a commitment to racial justice, which is a good fit for the commission.

With that, I will move appointment of 01119 and appointment 01120. All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

None abstaining.

And this will move on to the council on Monday.

Thank you.

I'll walk you over.

Yep.

Item 15 is the Cultural Facilities Fund Racial Equity Toolkit.

Thank you, Noel.

Hello.

Hello.

Can the two new people at the table introduce themselves?

Hi, I'm Matthew Richter.

I'm the Cultural Space Liaison in the Office of Arts and Culture.

Erica Lindsey, Communications Manager for Arts.

Great, thank you.

Who would like to kick us off?

Well, I'll just open by saying thank you, Councilmember, for inviting us back.

We presented the results of all of our racial equity toolkits at the beginning of this year, as all departments do.

And I believe that you invited us back today to sort of share what the impact of one of those toolkits was.

In this year's budget, our cultural facilities fund, which has been historically available for sort of capital needs, expanded by about a million dollars.

We thought that was a significant enough shift that we should run a toolkit process on it to ensure that we were aligning with our stated racial equity values.

And so this is a summary of sort of what we've learned so far.

The panel hasn't convened yet, so this is really just what has happened since we implemented some of the recommendations.

But we're excited to share that with you.

Great, well thank you.

It's I think really helpful for us as council members but also for the public to really understand in a tangible way how the racial equity work that we talk about actually makes concrete changes in our programs.

Great.

And we're happy to have the chance to talk about it and share that as well.

So as Randy said, we're in the middle of this process.

We ran a racial equity toolkit for about a year and emerged with recommendations that were approved about six months ago.

We have closed the window of accepting applications and the panel will meet in October.

So you're catching us literally right in the middle of the process.

We'll have more to report after November when those recommendations are finalized by the Arts Commission.

But for now, we can talk about what the first four recommendations from that process were and how we're acting on those.

The first was to establish a new fund for smaller awards with lower barriers to access.

One of the things that we heard through the process was about expanding eligibility and expanding the types of organizations that can be recipients of these awards.

This is part of the project that we're looking at launching in 2019. non-annual fund.

This will be an ongoing fund that will review applications potentially monthly, bimonthly.

The goal is actually to move money out the door every week to projects.

It would be eligible not just to large organizations with large capital projects, but potentially even to individuals with issues related to studio space or occupancy costs, anything related to the cultural spaces themselves.

The second is to make unsolicited awards to cultural spaces and communities of color to support access for those communities.

Another thing that we heard through the process was about the applications themselves being arduous and everyone not being necessarily aware that they're eligible for these awards at all.

And so taking it on the office to be more proactive about identifying recipients.

And this is something that you see generally through philanthropy now.

is an acceptance of the responsibility to identify recipients and not make them sort of jump through the hoops.

We're going to be piloting that in a limited respect with this current year's Cultural Facilities Fund as well.

We'll be using the same panel to advise those awards.

And so how do you envision identifying, in a proactive way, arts organizations that would be eligible for these funds?

So for the last six months, since these recommendations were put forward, we've been working to generate a list.

And that's a list of organizations out in the community that are cultural spaces that provide access to their communities.

We'll be presenting that list to the panel, along with a list of criteria that we're currently developing.

And at the end of the panel process for the Cultural Facilities Fund proposals, we'll spend a day looking at this list and those criteria and have them make recommendations for awards from that.

The third recommendation is to launch a program to bring expertise in community, I'm sorry, in commercial property development to cultural communities of color.

This is a CAP report recommendation.

It's often referred to as the BASE Certification Program, Build Art Space Equitably, BASE.

This has been a very popular program, both with the group that we ran the Racial Equity Toolkit with, as well as the Equitable Development Initiative and other groups that we've engaged through a lot of these broader processes.

This group launched in 2018 and will continue through 2019, and as the text there suggests it's about bringing expertise around commercial development out into communities of color and demystifying some of those processes.

And what do you see the outcome of demystifying those properties with this kind of a certification program?

The goal is to sort of knit the community together.

And so the initial cohort is about 30 people, almost equally split between people coming from the cultural community and people coming from the commercial development community.

It's an entirely POC-based cohort.

But knitting those two sides of the equation back together again, both of which tend to view the, you hear a lot from cultural organizations and cultural creators in town, that they see the commercial property development process as sort of a black box of technological, something happens inside of there, we know that we need to be engaged with it somehow, but we don't know exactly where the handholds are.

You actually hear the same thing from the commercial development world about the cultural world, they would love to be involved with these organizations and these communities, they don't know exactly where the handholds are, how to engage, or what the timelines are, where the pipeline is, et cetera.

creating that knowledge based on both sides of the equation and sort of knitting that community together, creating that dialogue, creating that cohort learning.

The goal ultimately is to put together more relationships where these new property developments, which we're accepting 50,000 people a year, we're not gonna build a wall around Seattle, we are growing.

How do we grow our infrastructure in a way that doesn't close out cultural communities?

And then the last one, the most salient one for today is the structural changes to the current cultural facilities fund.

We made a suite of almost a dozen changes to the current rules around the cultural facilities fund.

And those have increased, have broadened the eligibility for who's able to apply to the fund and have shifted the review criteria more towards racial equity in how we administer those awards and choose projects to partner with.

Let's move to the next slide.

We can look at some of those.

The peer review panel is mandated to be at least 50% POC, which this current one is almost 100% actually.

Separate subfunds for large and small projects.

We found in the past that a lot of the large projects would chew up so much of the fund itself right off the bat.

And now we've divided that to create two separate pools to maintain the presence of smaller projects in the mix.

Raising the level of the maximum award to $100,000, which had been at $50,000.

The fund has quadrupled, so we've doubled the amount of the maximum award.

Allowing small for-profit businesses to apply.

And when we say small, what we're really talking about is what we're calling micro-businesses.

We're talking about under $5 million a year and under five full-time employees.

We're adapting the match requirements so that organizations don't have to have as much of a war chest built up before coming to the fund.

So we can partner with, we can partner earlier in some of these campaigns.

I'm sorry, can you explain that a little bit?

Adapt the match requirement from the current 100% match minimum.

We had traditionally said that organizations, in order to come to the fund, had to have half of the entire campaign in place before asking us to be part of the second half.

And that is still true for the larger awards.

We've divided into two tiers, up to 35,000 and 35 to 100. So for 35 to 100, that's still true.

The project has to have half of its own budget in place.

For smaller projects, we've reduced that to nothing, and so organizations can come to us without, we can be the first money into a smaller project.

Thank you.

We're broadening the definition of allowable expenses.

We are looking at pre-capital expenses, which really means sort of extending the on-ramp deeper into communities to help organizations get ready for major capital projects, funding feasibility studies, that sort of work.

We are looking, and this is the base cohort, this last bullet around creating the cohort of artists and community members and developers in the 18-month certification project, program, process, all the Ps.

Like I said, we're right in the middle.

We know a lot about who's applied now.

In a few months, we'll be able to tell you about where the money went out the door.

There were about $3.6 million in total funds requested.

That represents about $35 million of cultural capital activity.

So the total budgets associated with these proposals is about $35 million.

We've been asked to support about 10% of that.

We have 1.2 to award.

So in the end, we'll end up supporting about 4% of the total capital cultural activity in Seattle this year, which is, I think, significant.

The proposal split close to half between the large and the small.

The applications, we have talked about the Spacelab Northwest tool that we've been running for the last few years at this table.

Through that tool, we estimate that about 6% of the cultural spaces in Seattle are reflective of communities of color.

As we all know, those communities make up 30% of Seattle, severe under-representation there.

Two mechanisms, we ask the question outright, do you represent a community or does half of your constituency represent that community?

We've since refined that question to be both subjective, do you feel that you represent these communities?

Does half of your leadership represent the same, does half of your leadership align with that identity?

And does half of your constituent base align with that identity?

And when you say constituent base, whom does that encompass?

In the wording of the question most recently, I believe it was staff, artists, and teachers is how we identified it.

So it's not necessarily audience members.

Right, I was just wondering because audience members is also a big component of it.

True.

In terms of, you know, whom the art invites to observe, for example, for communities of color, for the native community, or for women, for example, you know, what kind of art draws you?

into an art space?

I'm just thinking about it.

It's a really, I mean, we've spent many months, we've spent years trying to tease this question apart, and greater minds than I have worked on it.

One of the issues that I've seen in it is we've applied the 50% bar as a switch, a litmus test.

In a town that is 70% white, you've got an organization like CD Forum, Central District Forum for Ideas, that has a, the last time I checked in with the director, about a 47% people of color audience.

Clearly a POC organization, but in a very white town, it's difficult to meet that bar.

And so we're looking for other ways to slice it a little bit more finely.

And I would also add that one of the reasons we wanted to specifically pull out staff people who work there and on board is because they're the ones who are hopefully making decisions for that organization.

So if it is more POC centered, then it's going to do more for the community.

So of the 72 applications that were started this year, exactly half came from POC organizations.

Of those 72, 57 were completed, and 43% of those completed applications represented organizations of color or communities of color.

Clearly, there's potentially in that number an indication that there's something in our application process.

Sorry?

There's a drop-off.

Right.

And so that clearly deserves closer examination.

There are a lot of reasons why organizations don't complete applications that get started.

Some of them were started under one name and actually the same project, same community, same proposal was completed under a different name.

But it deserves pulling apart for sure, as you point out.

In the past five years, applications from organizations of color have averaged about 20%, and so we've more than doubled that representation, which I feel good about through the RET process.

Our panel is going to consist of five people, four POC and one white person.

All five participated in a half-day anti-bias training that the office created specifically for the grant-making program.

I mentioned that we're sort of in the middle of our process.

The panel's going to happen in the middle of October.

The awards will be vetted by the Arts Commission and announced in November.

We provide a two-year window for these projects to take place.

They're large, complicated capital projects.

Often you're competing with every other building project in Seattle to get a contractor on site.

It was originally a one-year window.

We ended up extending so many of the awards that we now default to a two-year window.

In 2019, we'll be doing ongoing assessment of the program and relaunch again in August of 2019 and continue to evaluate the fund.

And then the last bullet that we wanted to look at was what are the impacts of some of these expanded eligibility requirements?

We're saying at least 12, so about 20% of the proposals were from groups that wouldn't have been eligible the year before.

I didn't want to get too deep into the picking apart what percentage of a budget would have been committed, what percentage of a budget might not have been committed.

When I say at least, I think that number is likely closer to 30 or 40% of the proposals actually wouldn't have been eligible last year.

So this is from micro small businesses, this is from organizations that want to fund pre-capital expenses, the feasibility kind of expense, et cetera.

And do you have an approach that you're going to be using, aside from the demographics of who's applying, how you're going to track whether or not you are accomplishing what you intended to accomplish with these changes?

Sure, we do a fairly subjective final report with each organization that looks not just at the numbers of community served, but looks for anecdotal stories and a good mix of data that comes out of each project.

Clearly, there's a lot of hard numbers and data that'll come out of it that'll continue to get reviewed as well.

Applications that have come in that you're going to be reviewing and awarding in November, that's for the current cultural facilities fund.

Correct.

The recommendations of which it looks like three of them were for new funds, can you tell me if you know already how much you're going to be devoting to each of those new activities?

Yeah, in 2018 for the unsolicited awards, the list that we've been generating, $50,000 of the $1.2 million will go towards those.

It'll be five $10,000 awards.

So as I said, it's a pilot.

We want to look at the idea and start with.

What I think will be impactful money, but not significant compared to the full 1.2.

And the base certification cohort was funded separately.

It was a $50,000 budget this year for this first cohort and will be at least $50,000 going forward.

And then the establishing a new fund for smaller awards with lower barriers?

And that's a different source of funding as well, right?

It's the same source, but it'll be 2019's source.

It'll be $2019.

I see.

And that's a function of administrative capacity.

We run a number of funding programs and process an awful lot of contracts and invoices.

And it's just a matter of human scale, being able to convene a panel and distribute those resources in a way that's manageable.

Anybody have any questions?

I really am grateful for the work you all have done on this.

I think the proactive thinking of recognizing that the fund is at a moment where it can pivot a bit because of the expansion and stepping back and taking the opportunity to engage with community and kind of evaluate and reevaluate how that works.

The fact that you continue to center race and equity at this work is something that's really exciting and the results seem to be showing that.

I think your department and your collaboration with others in the community and the city continues to be a leader within the city and it's really great to see what you all are doing and I look forward to other departments continuing to take this up too.

Yeah, to follow up on that, I mean, there are a number of departments within the city that fund communities.

And I think it would be really great if there was a way that you can share the kinds of changes that you're making with some of those other departments so that they could consider maybe not making the same changes that you had, but making ones that are sort of appropriate to the kind of funding that they award and for the kinds of activities.

I hope that there's some sort of a peer-to-peer structure that you can create to share your work and your successes.

I think that's something that there's a lot of interest in across different departments.

I just also wanted to acknowledge that while it's exciting for us to be able to come and present this, I want to recognize that Erica and Kathy Shea, who runs our cultural partnerships team, Alicia Johnson from our public art team, Sandra Boas-Dupree from Langston Hughes, and Jenny Frowork, who manages all those aforementioned contracts and invoices, were also part of this RET team.

So it's, I love that we get to come to the presentation, but there was a lot of folks behind this, dozens of community members that were also engaged in shaping it.

So kudos to everyone.

Thanks for mentioning that, Randy.

You always do a good job of acknowledging all the people who are not at the table as well, so thanks everybody for your work.

Just one question I had is, what kind of inroads with all your work that you've been doing have you been able to make to incorporate native, indigenous art and opportunities?

I just would like to hear maybe a thing or two about that.

There are of the 57 proposals that are in there for the represent indigenous communities We one of them is not under the Chief Seattle Club project But we're working with Chief Seattle Club on some of their other projects outside of the new building to explore possibilities of how we can support them

Erica, do you want to mention the Yahaat show?

I mean, it's not necessarily through the facilities fund, but it's...

No, and just let me add one other thought, and if there's been any consideration to maybe somehow collaborating with the Indigenous Peoples Day celebration, I don't know what, but just...

Yeah, I owe Marco, if you're watching Marco, I owe her an email back about helping with that event as well.

We're committed financially and we're also hoping to be able to participate.

Right.

So, as you guys know, we're moving into King Street Station, and in January is when we're going to have our first exhibition.

It's going to be an Indigenous show.

It's Yahaw, and it's curated by three incredible women, Tracey Rector, Asia Tale, and Supreet...

I can't remember her name now.

Kalon.

Kalon.

And yes, and so they actually did an open call for all artists that were recognized as indigenous.

And so they did not put a limit on it.

So everyone who submitted is gonna be in the show.

And because of that, the show is not gonna be just at King Street Station.

I believe there's like 20 satellite locations that it's going to be at.

So in addition to really letting people speak for themselves and their own art, and they really wanted to take that curatorial voice and give it to the people.

So we're super excited to have that as the first exhibition.

And I think we should also add that there is the SPU Waterways Project, the Ship Canal, and for all of the artists that we chose, they're all Native.

So we're, I would say, in all areas of our office, we're doing what we can to recognize the Indigenous voice, but bring them into the work that we do.

And I think, I don't know if you mentioned, there's over 250 artists that are gonna be part of that show, indigenous artists that we know of so far.

Could keep growing.

Well, thank you.

Thanks for being willing to come back and talk to us more about this work.

It's really exciting, and I just love hearing about it, so thanks so much.

Thank you.

Anytime, thank you.

Agenda item 16 is Council Bill 119351, an ordinance relating to the Human Rights Code, broadening coverage of unfair practices to include domestic workers and hiring entities, extending protections to domestic workers, and extending obligations to hiring entities, amending sections 1.404020 and 1404030 of the Seattle Municipal Code, and adding a new section 1-404-230 to the SMC.

Great.

Thank you, Noel.

Can we have introductions, please?

Asha Venkatraman, Council Central Staff.

Hi.

I'm Lori Noton with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Shannon Perez-Darby, Councilmember Herbold's office.

Thank you.

So we heard the first briefing of this proposed legislation back in August, the August 14th committee meeting.

And Asha, do you want to kind of kick us off?

Yeah, absolutely.

So originally this legislation to come from the discussions around the Domestic Workers' Rights Bill.

And at that time, we had discussed creating a new chapter to create these protections.

As the discussion evolved with the city attorney's office, with the Office for Civil Rights, excuse me, central staff, and then your staff, we sort of evolved how the actual protections would be codified.

So that's really the biggest change from the last draft we discussed, which had amended all of Chapter 1404, which is where the Fair Employment Practices live.

This version of the legislation essentially creates one new section that applies all of the protections that currently exist for employees to domestic workers except in very limited circumstances.

So a single new section as opposed to adding domestic worker throughout?

Yes, so we only amended the declaration of policy section essentially to include domestic workers.

throughout the chapter and the definition section to make sure that all of the places, bless you, that all of the places in which we're intending that hiring entities should be where employer is, that domestic worker should be where employee is, and that domestic service should be where employment is, are in the right places.

And Lauren, can you talk a little bit about what the effect of this ordinance change will mean for domestic workers and how they can use this new right?

Yeah, so the motive behind this was that we realized that there's a subset of domestic workers who are not currently protected by our nondiscrimination laws.

Many domestic workers are considered employees, but there are some who function as independent contractors, and existing non-discrimination law didn't provide that protection.

So moving forward, if this were to pass, any domestic worker would be able to contact our office and file a harassment or discrimination claim.

It would go through the same type of process that people who currently access or assess their rights through our office would go.

They would come, they would either call us or come into the office or use our online form to file a claim.

They'd go through the intake process.

We would then decide whether or not it's something that we can investigate.

And then they would go through the investigation process if a charge is filed.

So yes, I think the aim here is to ensure that all domestic workers are covered.

And this would allow for domestic workers to come to us.

And what kind of work is going to be necessary for the employees that we are trying to extend these rights to, what sort of work is the office going to need to do to make sure that they're aware of this new right?

And I want to recognize Councilmember Mosqueda who has joined us and who I really thank for her leadership on this entire issue and bringing this issue forward to me.

Yeah, so I think as with any new protection, you know, we like to, we need to go through a process of doing outreach and educating, building capacity in the communities that are impacted.

So I think with this, domestic workers are a very unique subset of workers too.

And so there are going to be, you know, we might have to look at different ways of reaching out to community and engaging with community to ensure that people, one, know their rights, but also know how to assert their rights and how to come forward.

And I think the other thing that is important is that, you know, this law protects against retaliation too.

So folks can come forward and also know that the law protects them from being, you know, from any compounding issues.

Thank you.

I think you would like to add.

This is the last critical piece of the puzzle.

One of the stories that we heard about repeatedly over the last year has been how domestic workers, because of the isolated nature of their work in many cases, don't have a place to go when experiencing sexual harassment, intimidation, discrimination based on their gender or sexual orientation.

or their race and ethnicity.

So this is a critical piece of the puzzle.

I think in addition to the outreach that the Office of Labor Standards is planning to conduct to make sure that every worker knows their new rights under the law and that every hiring entity knows their responsibility under the law, it seems like another great partnership opportunity for the Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Labor Standards to do outreach and education.

to this workforce and the hiring entities given the unique nature of this situation.

I really look forward to having conversations with the Office of Civil Rights and Labor Standards about how they will potentially be doing outreach and mirroring some of the outreach efforts we've seen in other states.

So eight other states have passed I think we are very proud that we have one of the more robust comprehensive packages because it was rooted in the community ask.

But what we've seen from the eight other states is that there is really ample opportunities to look at where domestic workers might gather.

So, for example, with nannies in New York, they go to Central Park and they go around and they make flyers and they have conversations with folks and it's done in bilingual and bicultural ways so that people feel like they can initiate a conversation and begin a trusted relationship.

So I think there's some really great opportunities from the other states, but I also think our own city has done some really good work when it comes to outreach and enrollment.

So I think, I'm sorry, outreach and education when it came to labor standards policies that were passed at this council in the past.

So I think it's an excellent question and I really am excited about the opportunities that we have to learn from other states and our existing community partners.

Yeah, and I think an issue that I want to talk about a little bit before full council is precisely if OLS is doing the education and outreach for the bill that Councilmember Mosqueda passed, I'm wondering, do we need a different process for SOCR to do this element, or could we have them both happen together.

It seems like that would be more cost-effective and more efficient since OLS has deep relationships with community-based organizations that work with workers, and this is clearly an area of worker rights education that those organizations that are funded to do that work are already doing.

So let's talk a little bit more about that.

Great.

Council Member Sawant.

Could you talk in general about the ability of the Office of Civil Rights to...

I mean, walk me through an investigation.

Like, how do you, from the time a worker comes to you, what is the process and also sort of go a little bit into specifics of how you as a department are able to enforce remedies or penalties.

And it doesn't have to, I mean, I would also, I would like you and maybe Asha to, you know, also for us to talk offline maybe with my staff about how things are going and, you know, for example, the OLS has so far, the Office of Labor Standards, as you know, has been able to actually recover a few hundred thousand dollars, hundreds of thousands, I think.

I'm underestimating how much they've done.

Obviously, it is still the tip of the iceberg.

There's a lot more to do given how prevalent wage theft and other violations are, we know that, but it's actually something that they're able to enforce, and we have penalties on the record.

Is OCR able to do a similar thing, or do we need to go farther?

I'm just trying to figure that out.

And also, do you have the staff resources to do it?

Okay, I'm gonna, well, these are a lot of questions, and I wanna make sure that I, I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability, and I'm not in the enforcement division, so I want to make sure that I'm doing justice to that.

And just to clarify, I mostly just wanted to register those questions today, and certainly my officer working with you, Arshad, will be working with you, so no problems.

Yeah, I mean, I can say that, you know, our laws are mostly enforced by individuals coming forward.

So an individual comes to us, we determine whether or not their claim is, whether or not they can actually file a charge that, you know, is determined by jurisdiction, statute of limitations, a variety of other factors.

And then we go through an investigation process.

And I wish that I could speak more to, you know, remedies and all of those things.

My understanding of that is not as complete as someone on our enforcement team.

But, yeah.

You can follow up.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Shannon?

The question about outreach, is that someone else on your staff would be best to respond to that, Lauren?

I was just hearing Council Member Sawant's last question about outreach or capacity for reaching out?

Yeah, I mean, we don't currently have, you know, for instance, a dedicated outreach staff person in our office.

We do outreach.

A lot of the outreach happens within our enforcement division.

We have people who do trainings on, you know, Know Your Rights trainings, and sometimes it's specific to fair housing, or it might be broader and cover all of the civil rights protections that we offer.

We do campaigns periodically that are targeted at specific laws that we enforce.

Very recently, we did a fair housing campaign that was specific to fair chance.

So, you know, in that regard, no, we don't have ongoing outreach funding or outreach staff, but, you know, we've been able to make do with what we have.

Yeah.

I think it's an excellent question.

I think many of us know the pain of having passed legislation and then not having the enforcement arm necessary to make those words on paper matter.

And so the question that Councilmember Herbold asked about how we can potentially partner with the Office of Labor Standards is I think critical for making sure that these words actually translate into changed behavior by hiring entities and experienced rights by domestic workers.

So I really think that it's an opportunity for us to look at the outreach structure that has been already put in place by the past council to make sure that there's the trusted community partners that are doing outreach and education again, both for hiring entities and domestic workers.

And what we know from a complaint-based system, especially having worked on these issues at the state level for so long, where they do have a complaint-based wage theft system, is that it is the most vulnerable workers who are less likely to come forward because of fear and intimidation, because of language barriers or cultural barriers.

So having those trusted entities that the city has already partnered with is a really great starting point.

So I love the question that you put forward before.

We take this to full council so that we can have a robust answer to explicitly make sure that enforcement is meaningful and also education, that we lead with education, especially when new laws are put forward, but that we also hold those who are intentionally violating the new laws accountable so that there are changes in behaviors and norms.

And I believe there's an amendment we should discuss.

Yes, so there is one amendment and essentially what it does is in so in response to some concerns that Using the term domestic services as a parallel to employment the the actor in that in that phrase is a little different for both of those.

In employment, you could be talking about the condition of being employed or an employer providing employment.

Domestic services speaks more to who is providing the service.

So when it comes to saying something like unfair employment practice, unfair domestic services practice is a little bit different.

not so much from an enforcement point of view, but just in sort of understanding that when you're saying it's an unfair practice, it's not the person that's providing the services that is the problem.

And so to deal with that, the amendment essentially changes it from domestic services to domestic service, which is a tiny change, but essentially it changes the actor in that to the person providing domestic service, or it's the state of domestic service instead of the party that is providing domestic services more widely.

And I mean, more simply said, I mean, I think you're being very technically accurate, but it's changing it from the employee to the employer.

Essentially.

Essentially.

Less technically correct, but conceptually.

Yes, absolutely.

And so that shows up pretty much anywhere where domestic services is referenced in this bill, except for in the definition of domestic worker.

We've left that as domestic services because it's the nature of the reference is just a little bit different.

And I believe I should probably move the amendment as a substitute to the introduced bill.

Yeah, I think that works.

Otherwise, I think I'd have to do them all individually.

Yeah, and then there was something from an enforcement standpoint that we caught earlier this morning, which is that if you look on page 7 of the original of the original bill on line 17 in the definition of party it's actually 17 and 18 it says party includes a person charging or making a complaint or upon whose behalf a complaint is made alleging an unfair employment and domestic service practice.

From an enforcement standpoint, this is actually a bit confusing because it suggests that someone has to allege both an employment and domestic service practice.

And the amendment you have as well, it's the same page and same line, so you can look at it.

So it We would suggest changing that to unfair employment or domestic service and both lines 17 and 18 just to make it clear I do so strike in the substitute strike and in lines 17 and 18 on page 7 and Replace it with an or yes

Great.

And so with that, I would like to move the document entitled CM Herbold Sponsored Proposed Amendment 1 as a substitute to the bill that we have on our agenda.

All those in favor, put aye.

Aye.

Great.

And unless we have further conversation, discussion, or questions, I think Councillor Muscata.

Just for clarification, so that we're all clear and it's on the record, the reason that we don't have domestic service defined in the legislation is because it is already being defined in the definition.

of domestic worker on the bottom of page five, lines 21 and 22, as the type of service that we're talking about.

So in the future, as we're doing rulemaking with Office of Civil Rights and Labor Standards, just so that we're all clear, that's where the reference is to go back to.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Appreciate you reminding us of that.

That was something we talked about way back in August, but that's an important piece that we were kind of struggling with at the time.

So that's great.

If there are no further questions, I'd like to move passage of the amended Council Bill 1193.51.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

None opposed?

None abstaining?

And this will move on to full Council on Monday?

Yes.

Great.

And thank you for joining us today at our previous meeting.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

I think folks who are doing this work are their own best advocates, and you've proven that to be true today.

And I also appreciate the policy work that you've done using your own lived experiences to make recommendations to us on how to have better protections for your your livelihood, so thank you.

All right.

Agenda item 17 is Council Bill 119-347, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities adopting the 2019 Water Systems Plan.

This is listed for briefing and discussion.

Okay, thanks.

Greetings.

Greetings.

Introductions, please.

Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

Mami Hara, Seattle Public Utilities.

Joan Kurthard, Seattle Public Utilities.

Great, thank you.

Brian, would you like to start off?

Sure, just very briefly.

So this item would adopt the 2019 water system plan for the city, which would replace the 2013 water system plan that was adopted in December of 2012. The plan focuses on near-term actions or plans for the next 10 years and also discusses longer-term plans over the next 40 years.

And just in terms of process, today SPU will introduce and describe the plan, and then the expectation is that this item would return to committee on the 21st for council consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold and Sawant for the opportunity to present our 2019 water system plan, which we hope that Council will consider adopting in the next meeting.

Providing reliable, high-quality water services to 1.4 million people in the central Puget Sound region requires a lot of thoughtful planning and strategic investment.

And the results of our planning in order to allow for strategic investment are contained in the water system plan.

And it focuses on both long-term and short-term investments with a real focus on updating the work that has happened since our 2013 plan, both in terms of planning and investment.

Our water system plan projects out, goes out for more than 20 years.

And Joan Kirsner and her team have worked under the regulations adopted by the Washington Department of Health and have also developed a plan that's consistent with the state's water use efficiency rule requirements put forth by Washington's Growth Management Act, as well as local and regional land use plans.

And so Joan will walk you through the plan's findings.

Thank you.

Okay.

As Mami mentioned, the water system plan covers the area that serves 1.4 million people.

This is a map of our service area.

We serve retail water to the yellow areas.

That's the city of Seattle, plus parts of the city of Shoreline, Burien, and Lake Forest Park, and parts south of the city limits.

It also includes wholesale service to 19 other utilities that are shown here in orange.

and also the Cascade Water Alliance shown here in brown.

The plan has several updates.

It looks long-term at the supply and demand.

It sets a new water use efficiency goal.

It updates the water shortage contingency plan and also identifies investments that are needed in order to maintain our delivery of high quality reliable water service to our customers.

So I'm going to go into more detail on all those aspects during this presentation.

The plan was released for public review on March 12th, and we've received some comments.

You also heard the Water System Advisory Committee has also spent time reviewing the plan and has given us some comments through various discussions over the past year, year and a half.

So some of the changes we made were to add a little bit more background information for the general public.

And we also corrected an error to increase the cost for water main replacement that existed in the previous plan.

So this is a part of the plan, describes how we're going to supply water to, to our citizens, and it includes a forecast of water supply.

This is a forecast that shows how we're going to deliver our forecast of needs out to 2040 for the retail service area, which is in the light blue, and the various wholesale customers, which are shown here in the various colors, as well as our non-revenue water, which includes leaks.

And this is compared to our current firm yield, which is based on historic weather.

This is the amount of water that's available for use.

And as you can see by this plan, that there's no need for new supply before 2060. We also looked at uncertainty around that demand forecast and climate change impacts on water supply.

And we did find that as climate change is going, as time goes forward, climate change is going to have more and more of an impact on water supply, but the timing and magnitude of those impacts are still very uncertain.

So the plan calls out for further and additional assessment as time goes on and making adaptation strategies and implementing those adaptation strategies as we identify more specifically what those needs are.

And on this slide, we have on one side the actual between 1980 and 2015, and then we have the forecast between 2020 and 2060. Do we have a mechanism for comparing the actuals for that 15-year, no, 35-year period to what was projected at the time, just to get a sense of?

that I don't have available here, but there is one in the plan that shows how we have forecasted over time and how those forecasts have come down as we readjust our demand forecast, recalibrating it to the conservation programs that have occurred and the decreasing conservation.

So we have never yet under forecasted or needs for water supply, but those needs are coming down over time.

That's super helpful.

So that is, those programs that you mentioned are why the forecast line is lower than the peak of the.

Right.

I have a graphic later on to show per capita water use that will shed some light on that.

Thank you.

So the plan covers four topic areas.

The first one is our water resources, and that covers our sources.

We have two surface water supplies on the Cedar River and the South Fork Tolt, and those are used to supply water for people, also for fish through in-stream flows.

They also generate hydropower at those locations, and we also manage for floods.

We also have three wells that are used for peak season and for any emergencies.

Some of the needs that have been identified in the water system plan are those adaptation strategies to make our system more resilient to climate change, as well as some upgrades to address dam safety issues over time.

It also includes a new water conservation goal.

This is that graphic I was talking about.

Before our aggressive conservation programs, our water use of our customers was over 160 gallons per day per person in 1990. Now it's half of that, or less than half of that.

Going forward, we're still projecting a continued decrease so that we'll be less than 80 gallons per person per day of our water use.

Seattle administers a regional water conservation program called the Saving Water Partnership.

And that includes the city of Seattle and 18 of our wholesale customers.

And so this goal will cover not just our retail service area, but our wholesale customers.

The goal is to keep our total average retail water use below 110 MGD, a million gallons per day, through the planned period through 2028. And that's going to require this continued per capita water use reduction over time.

The old goal was 105. We are increasing it because of the extension for the next 10 years in anticipation of population growth over time.

And the per capita water use has steadily gone down.

Right.

It's steadily going down there.

Yeah.

There's a dip there in 1992 during a drought response, but otherwise it's been going down.

Can you give a sense if this is typical for most metropolitan areas right now, given that our policy is aggressively geared towards conservation?

Or is Seattle like a shining star?

We certainly were leaders and were contributors to the markets that have changed over time where customers can go and buy appliances that are very low water using.

There have been plumbing codes adopted at the state and federal level that do contribute to this declining per capita water use.

So that is incorporated into these forecasts and anticipated code changes as new development occurs and as remodels occur.

So.

Do we ever actually do a comparison of our per capita water use as compared to other cities?

Yes, we do.

And there are differences, reasons for differences.

Some places have more industries that use higher water use than we have.

So you have to take that into account when you do a utility to utility comparison.

But within the utility, this kind of comparison really shows progress.

being made to reduce water use.

Thank you.

Another element of the water system plan is an update of our water shortage contingency plan.

We had learned some lessons when we were responding to the 2015 drought, so we incorporated those changes into this updated water system plan.

Water Shortage Contingency Plan.

This plan is a framework that guides SPU during droughts or other types of water supply emergencies so that we can balance available supply and demand or water use.

For droughts, it's a staged approach where we have increasingly more stringent requirements as conditions become more and more severe.

So one of the changes that we're being made during this plan update that's important to point out is that it will allow SPU to enter into the advisory stage, which allows us to do the upfront planning without asking customers to change how they're using their water so that we can get all of our strategies and communications in place.

Should conditions become more severe and we need to go to the voluntary or mandatory stages, then the mayor would activate those stages.

So in the previous plan, SPU, the utility, did not have the authority to enter into?

It was the mayor who called us even going to advisory stage.

And that created a lot of confusion about what are we asking of customers and So us still needing to do all that upfront planning before we're ready to go out.

Yeah, that's helpful.

Thank you.

The second area covered in the water system plan are the water quality and treatment.

It describes our objectives.

We have three.

First and foremost is to protect public health.

then also to meet regulations around drinking water quality.

And then lastly, and not leastly, is to ensure customer confidence in their drinking water so that they feel comfortable drinking our water.

We have treatment facilities.

We have treatment plants on the Tolt facility that went online in 2001 and another treatment plant on the Cedar that went online in 2004. Some of the needs identified were to replace the floating covers at Bitter Lake and Lake Forest Park Reservoirs to protect water quality and also to maintain those treatment facilities as they become older with time going out to 2040. The second part covers the transmission system.

These are the larger diameter pipes that bring water from our surface water supplies to our wholesale and retail service areas, as well as the associated pump plants and storage facilities.

Some of the needs identified here were to continue our mitigation strategies in the slide area between the toll regulating basin and the treatment plant.

SPU also found an issue with a pipe called lock bar pipe with internal corrosion.

And so our plan calls out doing inspections of those pipelines and then to address those issues as we find them.

What is a lock bar pipe?

Lock bar pipe.

It's a little hard to explain, but it's imagine two semicircle pipes that are connected with a bar that runs along it longitudinally.

When that happened, they had put some liner over that bar area, and some of that has been sloughing off, causing that bar to corrode in some areas, but we don't know the extent of that.

So that's the kind of corrosion we're talking about there.

So the decision to do ongoing inspections of this particular element in the system, I don't know how many lock bar pipes are there.

I don't have off the top of my head how many miles of that.

And then a smaller percentage would have this issue.

So we would need to do inspections to look at that.

Another element is to address corrosion in our other pipes is to install cathodic protection.

This prevents, it actually slows down or stops corrosion internally on metal pipes.

And so we'd be installing that where it's cost effective.

Another element that impacts our system are the seismic improvements.

We recently completed a seismic study and this plan will implement and provide a capital plan for making those improvements.

The next section is around the distribution system.

This is the network of smaller pipes that delivers water from the transmission system to Seattle's retail customers.

The main needs that we found there is to increase the funding for water main replacement.

Right now, our pipes average about 71 years.

of age.

They're in relatively good condition at the moment with only nine breaks per 100 miles, which is relatively low for water utilities in the U.S.

But that's going to change over time as the water mains continue to age.

So we would be targeting replacements at critical mains and where we find a break history that warrants replacement of those pipes.

One of the points that the advisory committee made relates specifically to the implementation of the plan in a way that's consistent with our goals related to race and social equity.

So for the capital improvements that you're describing, what is our approach for implementing those in a way that we're putting these investments in areas that are most vulnerable?

It's physical.

You know, we're looking at condition assessments of those pipes and targeting where they're most critical.

They can be scattered throughout the city depending on various elements, the type of pipes, the age of the pipe when they went in, the corrosivity of the soil.

So there's a lot of factors that go into the life of a water main and why we would want to replace them.

now versus later.

So assuming that there are capital needs throughout the city that you identify, how do we implement the funding for those capital needs in a way that's consistent with our race and social justice objectives for the city?

Right.

We do programmatic plans for these water main replacement projects where we look at the system as a whole and across the whole city and target it versus the criticality of the pipe.

In terms of executing that, the Basin Social Justice Toolkits are used at planning level, but more importantly, when the projects go in place on the ground and the communication occurs at that point in time.

So for the distribution system, there will also be seismic improvements that will be needed.

So this graphic shows the capital investment needs all in 2017 dollars.

The colored bars going forward to 2040 shows the future investments broken down by different areas.

The bars going back to 1990 in gray show our past investments, our actual expenditures.

on the water system.

Going forward, the total is about $2 billion.

Going backwards in time, we spend about the same amount, $2 billion, for the past two decades.

A couple of caveats on these.

These are cost estimates.

They're projections of needs, and they're subject to change.

They're also subject to council approval of the budgets over time, and we'll be using the regular budget approval process to actually get approval for this expenditure.

So you're not approving this expenditure rate at this point in time.

And the text over the bars is just to get a sense of what's driving the magnitude of the expenditures at that point in time.

So the highest part you see is associated, in the past, was associated with the Tolt treatment plant coming online along with Parallel Pipeline.

So that is calling out some of the major investments that have occurred over time.

Another thing I want to point out here is that the dollars shown for 2018 to 2023 are the same as what council adopted in November 2017 and also consistent with the strategic business plan.

This is another view, the blue and green.

are showing about 75% of the future investments would go to the distribution and transmission system to address that aging infrastructure as well as the seismic improvement needs.

So SPU is now and will continue to provide high quality drinking water reliably.

We are very well positioned to do so.

The plan also concluded that no new supplies are needed before 2060, even when we consider the climate change impacts and the uncertainty in the demand forecast.

The letter from the advisory committee also references specific water system seismic vulnerability study details and timelines that they say are in an updated document.

Is that this document?

In terms of the climate change pieces?

Yeah.

I'm sorry, seismic vulnerability.

Study details and timelines.

The seismics is a separate study and we'll be coming forward with a separate topic that warrants a whole discussion in and of itself.

And the issues related to climate change, resilience, and seismic needs.

How does this plan elevate those issues appropriately?

There are a number of strategies called out there and plans for additional assessments and to make the system more resilient over time to address climate change issues.

some options laid out in the plan that would need to be further assessed down the road.

So the WASAC, the letter you received there asked for us, for council to consider reemphasizing those studies and make sure that those assessments are going on and actions are taken.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

So the next step would be council approval process, and then after approval, we will submit the plan to the State Department of Health for their approval before the deadline, which is in April 2019.

And the genesis for the state approval, that's just something that's in the code?

That they have a role in approving this?

Yes, the state regulations require approval by the State Department of Health in order for SPU to have its operating permit.

And there's some other actions that require an approved water system plan, such as getting low interest loans.

such as not needing to submit for every single project a separate design review of certain types of projects, water main replacement projects, for example.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I don't have any further questions.

I have no other committee members at this point.

We still have another item.

So we'll see you again when we bring this legislation forward for approval.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Agenda item 18 is Council Bill 119355, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities, amending sections 21.33.030 and 21.76040 of the Seattle Municipal Code to adjust drainage rates.

Agenda item 19 is Council Bill 119356, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities, amending sections 21.28.040 080 and 21.76040 of the Seattle Municipal Code to adjust wastewater rates.

Thank you.

Let's see, the new people at the table, could you introduce yourselves?

Cameron Finley, Finance Division Director, SPU.

Ben Moray, SPU Drainage and Wastewater.

All right, great.

Brian, you want to kick us off?

Sure, thank you.

So, as Noah mentioned, these two bills revised the drainage and wastewater rates for the 2019 to 2021 period.

Last fall, Council adopted two pieces of legislation that were related to these rates.

One is the Resolution 31760, which is what adopted the 2018-2023 strategic business plan update for SPU, and that plan does include an endorsement of a six-year rate path to support the plan.

And then also Ordinance 125443, which increased the 2018 drainage and wastewater rates, which the effect of that was to moderate the rate increases needed during the rest of the six-year plan period.

And just one final note before turning it over to the department to present.

The rate study that is the basis for the proposed rates is attached to the summary and fiscal notes to the legislation.

The correct version of the rate study, which is version two, got attached to one of the bills correctly in the system and didn't get attached correctly to the second one.

So that'll be updated before the next committee and there's no council action required.

It's just an administrative process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brian.

So as Brian mentioned, we are here to talk about our drainage and wastewater rate proposal for 2019 through 2021. And as you will recall, we worked with you and council and our cost review panel to develop a rate path for our six-year strategic business plan, and that plan committed us to an average annual rate crease over the six-year period of 5.2% or less.

And so I'm very happy to say that this rate proposal, the rate proposal that we would like to discuss with you today, is lower than we were projecting through the strategic business plan.

It's important to note that this is a critical time for our drainage and wastewater in Seattle.

The proposal before you seeks to address our need to meet our regulatory requirements in the short term and also to invest in a way that we can plan for a more sustainable and affordable future in the long term.

So I'll turn it over to Ben Murray to give you an overview of the system and our upcoming investments.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm just going to set some context briefly here before talking about our near-term CIP.

Seattle has three types of drainage and wastewater systems shown in the figure here.

They are separated, which is purple in the map, partially separated, which is green, and combined, which is yellow.

This is a very old system.

The first elements of the system, which are the combined system, were constructed in the 1880s.

And over time, the separated and partially separated portions of the system were built.

And that's what results in the mosaic that you see here in this map of systems that we have today.

I'm gonna talk briefly just about each of these types of systems.

In a fully separated system, separate pipes carry sewage and runoff from roofs and streets.

The sewage is sent to West Point Wastewater Treatment Plant in Discovery Park in Magnolia for treatment.

And the stormwater runoff is mostly untreated and is carried via storm drains, ditches, and creeks to receiving waters around the city.

A partially separated system is subtly different.

The legacy connection of roofs to the combined sewer system is maintained, but in recent decades, a storm drain system that's separate was built to carry runoff from streets.

The sewage and the portion of stormwater from roads is sent to West Point for treatment, but the storm runoff from streets is mostly untreated and is carried to receiving waters around the city.

And then lastly, in a fully combined system, which is our oldest type of system in Seattle, all of the sewage and stormwater is conveyed to one system in West Point.

This is a complex system to maintain and improve over time.

I can imagine.

Now I'm going to briefly talk about three significant elements in our near-term CIP.

The first is the Ship Canal Water Quality Project, which is about half of our capital improvement program over the next six years.

This is a 29-million-gallon storage tunnel extending from Fremont to Ballard, about 2.7 miles.

And it will keep an average of about 75 million gallons of polluted stormwater and sewage out of our water bodies each year.

Another way of looking at that is the number of overflows from our system in the area of the project will be reduced from as many as 120, 130 times per year to an average of less than six per year.

The cost estimate for this project is $575 million with a 65% confidence and a cost range of 533 to 598 million.

The project will be complete and operational in 2025. And it's a joint project with our partners at King County Wastewater Treatment Division.

I want to talk about innovative approaches to our wastewater and stormwater challenges.

One of those is green stormwater infrastructure.

GSI can be incredibly cost-effective and it has many benefits.

And I want to thank council for their support in doubling our investment over the next six years from 30 to 60 million dollars to strengthen and broaden our work on this type of, on these types of projects in the most rapidly densifying areas of our city.

I also want to expand on what Mami described in the introduction.

Last year, we launched a new planning effort in drainage and wastewater at Seattle Public Utilities.

We're developing an integrated system plan.

And what we're doing is expanding our focus to identify future infrastructure investments, like green stormwater infrastructure, that provide the greatest community value.

We want to address a broader suite of drivers with our projects, not just combined sewer overflows and water quality, but also flooding, aging infrastructure, climate change, and growth.

You will begin to see the results of this planning in future presentations and projects.

And I'm assuming that there are goals associated with the GSI programs, perhaps individually and as well as combined.

Is that something that we're going to be looking at as part of this planning process?

Absolutely.

So the goals of overall as well as the different strategies, are we going to be considering new strategies, new GSI strategies?

Yes.

Okay, I mean...

It's critical.

Yes.

Director Hara, I've talked to you about my interest.

in replicating something that Portland has done, and I know you can't do it in every place in the city, but the disconnecting, the downspouts, the success in Portland is astronomical.

I mean, the amount of, the number of gallons of diverted waste water is just astounding.

It seems to have been very, very effective in Portland.

And again, I understand that just like rain gardens, you can't do them everywhere in the city.

They have to be sort of geographically targeted to, I think, the soils.

It's something I'm really interested in.

That's right.

And the integrated plan will address physical strategies like that, as well as funding and financing and partnership approaches that will help us to try to be much more cost effective and bring more benefit to the city.

Of course, we have to be attentive to the system.

We already have.

In the past, we have deferred needed work on our system in drainage and wastewater.

And our CIP in the near term moving forward includes significant spending on system repair.

For example, pump and pipe stage.

and pump station rehabilitation and also facilities improvements for our workforce.

The average age of our wastewater pipe is over 80 years.

So over half of our pipe in the city is over 80 years old.

We have 68 wastewater pump stations.

They are on average 50 years old or older.

This is old infrastructure.

So we're working really hard on improving those systems.

And I wanted to mention that for pipes and other drainage infrastructure, we're working really closely with SDOT to take advantage of every opportunity to fix what's broken when the street is being repaired.

We want to make repairs to our system at the most efficient moment.

So those are some of the significant elements of our capital improvement program.

And now I'm going to hand it over to Cameron to talk about rates.

Thank you.

So Councilmember Herbold, you'll recall as we were here about a year ago talking about the strategic business plan, the top table is the rate path we worked on together with that average annual rate increase of 5.2 in the right-hand corner.

The table just below it shows what our proposal before you today will do to that.

And just as Mommy mentioned, we're happy to say that it's coming down to 5.1.

And the area that we, the drainage and wastewater line of business, because of all of our investments that we need to make, is a large driver of this rate path.

And we've been able to move in this rate period everything down from eight and nine percent increases to seven and eight percent increases and the overall average annual rate increase for the entire line of business down.

I just want to make one mention in 2018, in the far right-hand column, 2018 to 2023, it looks like the shading on one of them, the 8.6 is red, really it's green, so they're all coming down.

It was just an error on my part.

So as we move the green is indicates everything that's gone down exactly You'll see that there are some some areas outside of this rate period that that are going up But it's overall the six-year period is coming down for our overall customer bills.

And we're going to get a little detail on why that is?

Yes.

OK, great.

Thank you.

Jumping right in.

Good lead in.

So what's changed since the strategic business plan?

We've had two things that have caused increases.

One is higher CIP, predominantly the ship canal, which your committee received a briefing a few months ago.

We've kept all of those assumptions that you received a briefing on consistent with this.

The other piece is a lower consumption forecast.

We were planning on flatlining, like you saw in the water presentation just moments ago, but we've had a dip in 18. So we've updated based on our latest consumption.

And it's primarily seemed to be driven by the construction market.

So we're seeing less excavating and dewatering, and we're moving into a different phase of construction.

So they're using less water, and less is coming into our wastewater system for treatment.

The things that have caused the decrease in rates, the good news is in 17, we had improved results.

That's primarily due to a little bit lower spending and higher consumption.

So in 17, we had higher consumption for the same factors that are causing it to dip down, more construction, excavation.

As you know, in 17, we received favorable bond ratings.

And so we're folding all of that good news into this rate proposal to drive the rates lower.

And then, and part of that is using the additional cash that we've been able to hold on to to bring down the rates slightly.

The other piece is King County, which is a big part of our expenditures, the cost that we spent, we pay to them for the treatment costs of the wastewater.

They've approved, they recently approved rates lower than what they were projecting.

So that's helping us bring down.

the overall rates.

And then additionally, we've updated some assumptions and have gone through a bit of a reduction exercise to make sure that we keep our eye on that affordability ball and continue to bring it down while still maintaining services.

Are there, in the last bullet, you talk about updated cost assumptions and reductions or project delays.

Are these intentional project delays in order to meet a goal or are they just, things are over schedule?

Part of it's intentional and part of it's to take advantage of opportunities to move things out so we can deliver them in the best and most cost effective way.

So it is intentional and I'm sure we'll be having more conversations about those details.

Just to give you a sense of how big are the pies, both in revenue and expenditures, on the left-hand side, you'll see the revenue side of the equation.

So we have one fund, but there's two, essentially, lines of business involved in that fund.

So wastewater, which is about 68% of the overall revenue stream, and drainage is about 30%.

The other piece of the pie is just less than 2%, but it's really services that we provide to others that people pay us to do.

And then on the right side is our expenditure.

You can see, as I mentioned, our treatment costs are the largest part of our pie.

It's that light blue, about 42%.

And as we move along the bottom there, the O&M portion, which is this is SPU operating the pump, operating our system, building, just normal course of business.

It's about 24%.

And as you move along the pie, you'll see those other elements, taxes, debt service, and then the cash, which is kind of like your down payment on your mortgage.

And remind me, the changes that we've asked the utility to make through the strategic business plan on system development charges, were they already, the increased revenue associated with that, was that already built into our rate assumptions?

For water, a lot of things were.

For drainage and wastewater, they weren't because we still have, this is a deliverable that we're scheduled to come back to council with at a later date.

water is really the bigger revenue impact.

Okay.

With a separate development charge?

Yeah.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay, so as Ben mentioned, we have quite a big capital program, which is a primary rate driver for us.

It's consistent with the strategic business plan for the most part.

As you can see, previously we hadn't been investing in our system as much as we need to, both in the past few years and going forward into the next six to ten years.

We have a large capital investment that we need to make.

A lot of it around regulatory compliance, but also just in, you know, maintaining and investing in an old system.

And so what are the, aside from the Ship Canal Project, what are the drivers, the main project drivers for these three years that are highlighted here?

I think we'd say Ship Canal is probably the largest piece.

Some of the other things that we have going on, like Ben mentioned, with the rehab and the pump station, we could happily provide a breakout of the big bodies of work within.

Yeah, I don't need every little project, but yeah, the drivers, that'd be helpful.

Yeah, thanks.

Okay, so on consumption, I mentioned earlier, this is very similar to the water bit you just saw.

You can see that since the early 2000s, we've come down quite a bit in consumption based on conservation, and this is linked to our water consumption.

We've had a little bit of variability in the past few years, which has made it difficult to project where it's going to be in the future.

The orange line is the strategic business plan where we projected that it would kind of stay at that high and just flatten out.

Our 2018 results are coming in and it's a bit lower, so we're level setting and adjusting the consumption accordingly.

I have one more question about the previous slide, I'm sorry.

Sure.

So the spending starts to come down in 2022 and 2023. Isn't that when the major construction is happening with the Ship Canal Project?

No, it's earlier.

It's earlier?

It's earlier, yeah, as the bars show.

So, okay.

We begin tunneling next year.

Okay.

And I believe it's a two to three year effort.

So I think that actually building the project is in the main components.

It's in that three-year period.

Say again, I'm sorry.

There's several projects in the ship canal, but the largest portion of it with the drives the biggest cost, as Ben said, is in this three-year period.

All right, thank you.

That's good, thank you.

Okay.

So I'm going to give it my best shot to go through the rate structure.

I find drainage wastewater is pretty complex, as we're talking about two lines of business.

Wastewater between the various customer classes is the same.

We charge a per CCF, so it's based on your consumption, but it's no different for residential, multifamily, or commercial.

Drainage and wastewater is different based on the size of your property and the amount of pervious or impervious surface.

So it breaks up into two major chunks.

One on the residential side, anything less than 10,000 square feet.

We have five tiers that we found are pretty homogeneous between the tiers so that we can accurately charge those customers.

Anything above 10,000 square feet, whether it's residential or commercial, we charge it based on your actual lot size and your impervious or pervious surface.

So there's these combination of factors that determine the size of your bill.

And it's intended to capture your impact on the system.

How much water is the system having to manage through the drain that's coming off your property?

I'm sorry.

You probably explained it.

I just missed it.

I don't understand the horizontal dotted line in the gray box.

What is it?

Well, so that's a good point.

It covers both of them.

I think what we're just trying to show is that portion of residential above 10,000 square feet falls into the same category as commercial, and then that dotted line is that both classes, whether you're commercial, multifamily, or above 10,000 square feet are assessed in the same way.

Does that make sense?

I think so.

Okay.

So breaking it up between wastewater and drainage, what we have here is what were the wastewater, currently the wastewater rates per CCF, which is 100 cubic feet, or I think it's 748 gallons.

Today it's $13.46 per CCF, and going into the future with this proposal, It moves in 19 to 1448, all the way to 1668 by 2021. Below that, we have the typical monthly bills for residential customers.

The one thing I do want to mention is that for residential, while it is based on consumption in the water in the winter, it's your actual consumption.

And in the summertime, it's whatever's lower.

If it's your summer consumption or whatever your winter use is, and that's intended to capture the fact that most additional water in summer is for irrigation, so it's not impacting the system.

On the commercial side, it's your actual all year round.

So to give you an idea of how these tiers break down, we provided some photos.

This is the residential, all the residential tiers below 10,000 square feet.

You can see in the top left-hand corner, zero to just under 2,000 is more of a typical of a townhome bill.

And in 19, what we're projecting that would be is $170 a year.

And then all the way down into the far right-hand corner, which is the largest in this tier, up to just under 10,000 square feet, which would be 653. Our most common classification where we have the most of our customers is in that fourth from the highest, so the 5,000 to 6,999.

And what was the thinking of the distinction of the flat rate per tier at 10,000 square feet?

That's a great question, and I'm just going to go to the next slide to show you the visual.

We found a lot more variation beyond 10,000 square feet in the type of pervious and impervious surface.

So within the five tiers below that, we found that in these classifications, people were more similar.

So their impact on the system was similar, made it easier for that flat bill.

But as we move into the large residential displayed here is two 15,000 square feet parcels.

And you can see their bills are different because it's based on their actual pervious and impervious surface.

And that generates a different impact on the system.

So more water flows to the system from one versus the other.

And so the larger lots are more likely to have those sorts of variations.

Exactly.

So this is the residential piece.

And if we move, applying the same theory to general service, which is also commercial, what we've provided here are three different lots that look very different, and their bills are actually very different.

They're 100,000 square foot lots.

One, you can see on the far left, which is really, looks kind of like a forest.

It has lots of trees.

West Coast Park, it is a forest.

It is.

And there's lots of places for that water to go, all the way to an extreme on the right-hand side, where there isn't a lot of places for the water to go, so it tends to enter into our system.

You can see that, and the bills are quite different, so $2,563 versus $14,399.

Does that make sense?

Yep, absolutely.

Thank you.

All right, so we wanted to walk you through a few of what does this mean to our customers by class.

So we have three examples, starting with the typical monthly bill of a single family person.

In 18, the average monthly bill is about $97.95.

And you can see we've broken out wastewater in the dark blue, and drainage in the light blue.

In 19, with the proposal before you today, that increases by $7.37.

The one thing I want to note is that for transparency purposes, 2021, the bill shown here, that $24 increase, actually is a little bit higher than the ordinance because what we have in the drainage and wastewater is we have what's called a pass-through provision for treatment costs.

So when King County adopts their treatment rates, because they're such a large portion of our bill, We usually come back to council for a pass-through ordinance to pass that along.

Well, we have confidence in 19 and 20, 20, because of those are adopted.

But 2021, we have a projection from the county, which we're displaying here.

But they won't adopt it until that year.

They do annual rate studies.

So at that time, we'll come back.

But we think it's important to be able to share with you, what does it look like?

What's it likely going to look like?

And the difference is about $2.

Does that make sense?

The next bill is a small store.

The total bill today is approximately $366 a month.

In 2019, that grows another $26 a month.

And then in 2021, an additional $87.75.

And the last example that we have for you is a supermarket.

This, currently today, in 2018 dollars, it's about $4,000 per month, and then that grows, you know, another almost $300 in 19, and then in 2021, $979 per month, with the rate increases before you.

The last thing I wanted to talk to you about today really is our financial policies.

So SPU has been very lucky.

Council has adopted financial policies that help guide us both to maintain short-term financial health as well as long-term financial health.

They were adopted in 2003 and then again updated or relooked at in 2012 at council's direction.

The thing that's different with drainage and wastewater than our other funds is the market continues to evolve in terms of how they look at us from a rating standpoint.

So what we're recommending in our proposal is that for some of our financial policies to adopt rates that hold us at a bit higher than our adopted financial policies, and this is to be responsive to rating agencies and the city's financial advisors and debt manager in order to maintain our our market rating, and right now we're lucky we have a pretty high one, but that allows us access to low-cost capital.

And given where this fund is and how much capital that we have to expend over the next six to 10 years, it's a pretty important indicator for us.

But it does kind of jump out on the page, so I want to be able to walk you through real quick.

The first policy is net income.

We generally have to be positive.

You can see that we have a history of being positive and we're proposing to maintain that.

The two financial policies that the freighting agencies have been looking at us with more concern on is our debt service coverage and our cash balance.

So the debt service coverage, our adopted policy is 1.8.

But their feedback we're receiving is to keep it above two times.

And so basically, we have to have the revenues to recover to be able to pay our debt service two times.

And that just gives them assurance that their bondholders will be paid back.

And then the next one is our cash balance.

The adopted policy is one month of treatment costs.

But what we're really shooting for is 45 days of at least operating expense.

And this is where you can see where We have a larger cash balance, and so we're trying to maintain it remaining high, at the same time drawing it down over this rate period so we're being able to buy down some of the rates.

So we're trying to balance both of those things, maintaining that rating and not charging our customers more than what we need in this time period.

So the your internal target is 45 days operating expense and remind me you're the adopted target is 30.

It's 30 days of our treatment cost which is actually very small our treatment cost.

It's a big line item for us annually but just one month of it is a is a pretty small cushion.

I think it's about $15 million to $50 million.

But I would love to fact check that for you.

That's quick math in my head, very dangerous.

And then as we move down, other ones that we are exceeding is our cash financing to CAP.

We have to maintain about 25%, so we don't want to issue any more debt than we have to, because it's more expensive in the long run.

But we're going to continue to do that.

We're going to continue to do that.

So we try to balance that financial policy.

And the last two, debt to asset ratio, which we just have to be under 70%, which we're holding.

And then we don't have any variable rate debt.

So we don't, there's nothing to measure at this point there.

And so there's been this footnote down here where you talk about your internal target being based on feedback from rating agencies and the city's financial advisors.

Are there differences in the practices versus what the adopted targets are for any of these other categories?

And should we consider amending the policies to address those changes in practices based on the advice of rating agencies?

I think it's definitely a conversation we can have.

I think the two that we've received feedback on are the debt service coverage and the cash.

The other ones, we haven't received any feedback whether they're too high or too low.

The last time we looked at it was 2012, and I think it's something that as we look forward in terms of our affordability, we're going to be looking at variety of things.

This would be one of them.

I think what I found interesting over the past few years is the market has evolved quite a bit every year and so we just want to have a good conversation about what do we amend and when do we amend it so that we're keeping ourselves both strong in the short term and the long term.

Just to wrap it up, as mentioned before, this rate proposal is within the 5.2%.

It reflects changes in both O&M and capital.

Consumption, we've refined a bit down in terms of demand.

And we are meeting all of our financial policies.

So we think that we're in a place of financial strength.

And remind me, I had this number in my head when we were doing the strategic business plan.

A tenth of a percent represents how many dollars?

Well, on this particular fund, I'm going to take that one back because it, as it changes, as we change these variety, every update, that number changes, but we could provide you with it for both the overall and then on the specific fund.

Yeah, I mean, it's, we were, within the context of the strategic business plan, we were looking for savings and reduced expenditures in order to reduce the rates.

And so we kind of had a ratio of a tenth of a percent equals some number that we needed to.

And you're exactly right, from the SVP when we were talking about that, particularly with the efficiency study, we equated it to about 15 million in operations across all three lines of business.

That's right, and it's different for capital, isn't it?

Yeah, that's right.

Just want to make sure that we get you the variables.

Well, thank you for bringing a proposal that is under the rates approved in the strategic business plan.

A lot of people deserve credit for that.

It required a lot of hard work on many people's hearts.

So we aren't going to vote on these today.

We'll bring them back at our next meeting.

And I think our next meeting will be the last one we have before budget.

Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

And with that, it's 12.10 PM, and the meeting is adjourned.

All right.