Libraries, Education & Neighborhoods Committee 03/14/2024

Good morning, everyone.

The March 14th, 2024 meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It's 9.31 a.m.

I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Wu?

Present.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Councilmember Moore?

Present.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Four members are present.

Thank you.

And I also want to note that Council Member Hollingsworth has also joined us.

There are a few items on today's agenda.

First, we'll receive a briefing from the Seattle Public Libraries.

Following that, we will learn about some pending appointments to some historical boards and commissions.

But I also do want to take a second to welcome a delegation of international folks that teach English.

across the country.

The delegation is from the World Affairs Council here in Seattle, and they are here under a program with the U.S.

Department of State.

So welcome.

Thank you for being here.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be approved.

Seeing no objections, the agenda is approved.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently, we have two in-person speakers and one remote.

Thank you, clerk.

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

We will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

The microphone will be muted if a speaker does not end their comments within the allotted time.

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first speaker is Maggie Haines.

But thank you to the council and Min Xiaoli for the work that you've done behind the scenes to get candidates for the Market Historical Commission to this point.

It's really, really, really an important position, and we appreciate your work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next in person speaker is Margaret.

Feel.

Feel.

Hi, Margaret Peel, I'm here today in support of the appointments of Sarah Baker, Lance Wagner, and Mark Childs to the Market Historical Commission.

And I'm here on behalf of Friends of the Market, as was Maggie Haynes.

It's a grassroots organization that started in 1964. Something you may not know about Friends of the Market is that it was started at the suggestion of Wing Luke, who wrote an op-ed about the necessity to start a citizen's action to save the market.

This ultimately with Victor Steinbrook leading the effort led to the voters initiative that saved the market in 1971 from the wrecking ball from the city.

And the same ordinance that Seattle voters signed voted on for that 1971 initiative created the Market Historical District, the ordinance for it, and the Market Historical Commission and its role.

And today, Friends continues to protect Pike Place Market, but also teach about its history.

And we are so grateful for the work of Lance and Sarah just coming on, and also Mark.

And we can't underscore how important that is in helping to preserve the market.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The first remote speaker is Melanie Allred.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted.

Hi, good morning, city council members, and thank you for the opportunity to make a public comment about the potential closing of one of Seattle's public schools.

INTERAGENCY AT QUEEN ANNE, THE RECOVERY SCHOOL, IF I MAY.

MAY I CONTINUE?

YES, PLEASE.

MY NAME IS MELANIE ALLRED AND I'M THE PARENT OF A STUDENT AT INTERAGENCY AT QUEEN ANNE, SEATTLE'S RECOVERY SCHOOL, AND IT'S THE ONLY ONE OF ITS KIND IN WASHINGTON STATE.

IT'S A SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOL.

FAMILIES LEARNED THIS WEEK ON TUESDAY, MARCH 12TH, that Sharonda Willingham, principal at Interagency Academy, advocated amongst her leadership team to close the recovery school, and they all voted in favor of it.

We believe this issue may go to the school board.

So my goal this morning is to bring this issue to Seattle Council's attention in order to raise awareness for the Seattle Recovery Campus and to briefly share my own family's experience with the school, if I may.

This last year, my daughter has struggled with the pervasiveness of drugs and alcohol inside her former high school, Nathan Hale.

She rarely spent time in the classroom, was failing all her classes, and developed an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

Our family decided to remove her from Nathan Hale and enrolled her at Interagency at Queen Anne, the recovery school.

However, before returning her to school, she required a month's worth of treatment across the country.

She arrived back home on January 4th and return to her new school the very next day.

Since then, she has not missed a single day of school, has begun credit retrieval, and most importantly is on the road to recovery with the support of a new group of peers, each committed with their own sobriety.

So not having this amazing resource will be detrimental to our daughter's life and to our family, and we want to raise awareness for the possible closure of interagency at Queen Anne a very small but life-changing school.

I thank you for your time and attention.

Thank you.

And thank you for sharing your story.

Are there no additional speakers?

So we'll now proceed to our items of business.

Will the clerk please read today's first agenda item into the record?

Agenda item number one, a briefing provided by the Seattle Public Libraries.

Thank you.

Today we have with us Tom Fay.

the Chief Librarian for Seattle Public Libraries.

We also have Rick Sheridan, who's the Director of Institutional and Strategic Advancement for Seattle Public Libraries.

Thanks to you both for being here.

Please introduce yourselves for the record after you get settled, and then you can begin your presentation.

Thank you, Chair Rivera.

My name is Tom Fay.

I'm the Chief Librarian for the Seattle Public Library.

Councilmember, I'm Rick Sheridan, Director of Institutional and Strategic Advancement for the Library System.

That's the part of the library that deals with communications, marketing, and government relations.

Thank you.

All right.

Share the screen here.

All right, well, thank you again for having us here to brief this committee.

We're proud stewards of Seattle's libraries.

Those include 26 branches and the Central Library, which is actually 20 years old this year, believe it or not.

Seven of our branches are Carnegie's historic landmark buildings.

These beautiful branches are Douglas Truth, Columbia, Fremont, Green Lake, Queen Anne, University, and West Seattle.

One thing to note is that they're unreinforced masonry buildings of that time and from that time.

which means that these buildings are at increased risk for damage during a seismic event.

The current seven-year levy includes partial funding for seismic retrofits at three of the most vulnerable branches, Green Lake University and Columbia.

and we're happy to say that Green Lake will be opening up this year after its seismic retrofit, so we're excited about that.

The levy, which passed with 70% voter approval in 2019, also provides funding for library open hours, collections, technology, maintenance, and children's programming.

The library also has a maintenance and operations center in Georgetown.

This is where our facilities and maintenance crews work out of.

It also hosts what we call our automated material handling system.

For those who may have gone through Central over the years, we used to have that big machine in the second floor of Central.

It's now gotten to be a much larger operation, so it has its own space out in our maintenance and operations center.

And anytime anyone would like to see that machine, let us know, and we'd be happy to take you on a tour.

Our library staff...

are the heart and soul of our organization.

We have 667 folks working for us today, and the work that you will see in this presentation is their work, their passion, their commitment and dedication to the people of Seattle.

Our library work is inherently people-oriented, meaning that the majority of our resources are dedicated to personnel, people serving people.

Our 2024 budget for capital and operations is 102.2 million from all sources, including our private funding.

Next, please.

A little bit about governance.

The library is created in state law and in the city charter.

The library is a non-executive department.

And as such, the library is governed by a five-member board of trustees, which provides both fiscal and policy direction and oversight for the library system.

Their duties are outlined in state law and include guiding the fiscal and policy direction as mentioned.

Members serve five-year terms, are appointed by the mayor, and confirmed by the Seattle City Council.

Current members are listed here on this slide.

And of note, we do have one board position expiring this year.

Next, please.

So this slide provides just a snapshot of 2023. These are all annual numbers.

We had 353,000 active patrons, a record high.

75,000 new patrons last year registered, which is a very large number to register.

We have 2.8 million items in our collection, 3,500 classes and events with over 100,000 attendees, 431,000 questions answered by our information services team.

Folks ask what assisted means.

It means that, again, that people serving people, that was all people interactions, not machine-based interactions.

We also had a record 13.4 million items circulated both in print and digital.

last year.

We had 1.6 million public computer and Wi-Fi sessions, again, trying to bridge that digital divide.

Next, please.

This particular slide represents the library's budget.

We have the city's general fund budget, which is about 61%, and represents about $62 million.

We have the library levy, which represents 30% of the budget and is about 32 million.

And then we have other, which is about 8 million.

We have broken down the other to the right.

We have the library fund balance, which is if we're saving funds or saving money over the course of the year, it's about 2%.

REIT, unfortunately, has been down, so that is a very low or no number at the moment.

We also have our foundation resources.

That's all private funding that comes in.

That's about $5 million gift each year and very much appreciated.

And then we have other library gift funds that are historic funds that have been with the library for a number of years.

Next, please.

This particular slide actually takes the budget and represents it in a dollar.

As you can see, as I said earlier, 71% of our costs go to personnel.

Again, those people serving people.

11% goes to books and materials.

5% to our capital improvement and major maintenance programs.

and 6% for our facilities, rent, utilities, equipment, and 7% is all of the other things that you might think you need to run a library system, programming funds, and all of that.

There is, as I mentioned, 667 staff represented in that personnel budget.

Next, please.

So library services.

As everyone knows, our brand is books.

And so obviously that is one of the biggest things that we are known for.

And as I said, 2.8 million in the collection, 13.4 million in circulation in 2023. I wanted to note that when we talk about digital materials, the Seattle Public Library ranks eighth in the world for digital checkouts, and sixth in the United States.

So we are pound for pound.

As truly a small city compared to these other cities, we do very, very well.

We have great readership in this city and obviously a very literate city.

Information and reference, that was some of those assisted questions that I referred to earlier.

The library is also here to look up information for you, help you with your library account, offer reading recommendations, and more.

Next please.

The library offers thousands of events a year, including story times and other early learning programs, author events, performances, community discussions, business networking, free tax help, citizenship support, writing workshops, and more.

Our special collections department assists researchers, historians, and anyone else in the community with access to local history items and historical research expertise.

We also host, excuse me, we also collect a number of items throughout the community.

Those could be manuscripts, they might be maps, other important documents, and it's collected primarily for the city of Seattle, but also the Pacific Northwest.

If you haven't had a chance to see our special collections, please do let us know, and we'll be happy to give you a tour of that area.

Next, please.

And, of course, another favorite of most library patrons is our mobile services.

They deliver materials to about 1,400 children each month and home services for those with long-term illnesses or that are homebound.

Our mobile services actually has four vehicles, and we're able to have mobile service stops throughout the entire city.

We have about 140 stops a month.

with our mobile services team.

We also have free meeting and study spaces and or low cost if you happen to be at the Central Library.

We had over 6,100 room bookings in 2023. And, of course, the other noted areas are programs for all ages.

We offer thousands of those a year, including story times and other early learning programs, author events, performances, community discussions, much like the one tonight that we'll have on public safety at the Central Library.

Next, please.

Oh, I'm sorry.

We're at the right one.

The other item I wanted to mention is our Library Equal Access Program.

It's a well-established program that includes accessible library program services and assistive resources for people that may need extra assistance or have issues with sight or hearing.

We also offer additional accommodations under the American with Disabilities Act.

Our social services team is new and newly reconstituted post-pandemic and now includes a social services librarian and two social workers.

One is youth-oriented and the other adult-oriented.

This team provides important community support and resource referrals in particular for Seattle's unhoused populations.

It's also important to note that this team and with that social services librarian also provides our reference librarians throughout the entire system, all of those referrals by region, so that if someone stops into a branch, they also would get the same information that one of our social workers would have, and it's based on region, so that it's the closest support for those people seeking that assistance.

Next, please.

Technology access.

The library helps close the digital divide, as I mentioned, in the city by providing free access to computers.

high-speed Wi-Fi, laptops, tablets, printers, scanners, and fax machines.

We seek to make the patron experience easier by providing the ability to use self-checkouts at all of our locations and 24-7 pickup lockers, which provide access at five branches currently.

We also provide free access to mobile Wi-Fi hotspots within our collection and out in the community.

And of course there's the library online at www.spl.org.

And it acts as our 24 seven library resource with access to e-collections, free newspaper access, databases with millions upon millions of articles for research and much, much more.

The library is committed to equity and inclusivity.

We are focused on listening and learning, building relationships, and co-designing our approach to services and programs.

Our goal is to stay responsive to community interests and needs.

And just two examples of the hundreds include our support to encampments and our commitment to ongoing community listening.

The library conducts outreach to sanctioned encampments and tiny house villages where we provide onsite library services and long-term use of Wi-Fi hotspots to keep these communities digitally connected.

And then community listening is done both at the system-wide and neighborhood level.

This work is ongoing to help shape what services we provide and how we provide them.

Recently, we have engaged the community in strategic planning work that we are excited to launch in the next few months.

And finally, opportunities over the next 10 years.

As I mentioned, our strategic plan is wrapping up, and that is really taking a 10-year view.

We actually started this process by actually having a future study or foresight work done, and then moved into the strategic planning.

We know coming out of the pandemic, we want to actually lift people up and think about what could be, not what we had just gone through.

We also wanted to take that opportunity through our strategic planning process to re-engage our community, find out what the needs are post-pandemic, not what our assumptions were going in.

Some other new and exciting pieces, as I mentioned earlier, is reopening Green Lake Branch.

For those that will remember Green Lake Branch, it's going to look a lot different.

I can assure you when we were in the middle of that construction, it was a very large hole that was opened up.

We did extensive work.

This building will be much safer.

It will have structural steel now that will hold up the roof in a seismic event, and we will be moving on to university later this year.

We also will have a new library app.

This has gone through a very extensive public process.

We did a racial equity toolkit as well on this, really working with our communities to discover what they need from a library application that would make the library system more accessible from a phone or any other type of device that we hope to have later this year.

And we also just received new funding for electrical vehicle chargers for six locations, so we're excited to move through that process this year and hopefully bring those on.

Those are in locations that have parking lots large enough to accommodate EV charging stations.

And then of course, we have some other potential state and federal funds.

We also have been awarded a FEMA grant for climate resilience, which will allow us to electrify five additional buildings and also put in air conditioning.

As all may know, we've all struggled here in Seattle in the last few summers with heat, and those buildings without air conditioning, we have seen close on numerous occasions when the temperatures got unbearable inside.

And then of course, as I mentioned earlier, we had the 2019 levy and unbelievably the next levy is coming up in 2026. So our planning for that begins, especially as we look at our strategic plan and some of the new work that we want to do in the community.

And with that, I will turn it over to any questions you might have.

Thank you, Chief Librarian Fay.

My colleagues, do you have questions or comments?

Council Member Wu.

I have a comment and just wanna say thank you for all your work.

I grew up in our libraries, going to libraries after school and of course reading all of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books that were made available through the libraries and engaging after school programs and really appreciative of their continued work, especially during the pandemic, allowing for the general collection to be able to be made available.

And I also heard that you have one of the largest collections of band books too.

available for people here.

And also in terms of helping our unhoused neighbors be able to have a safe place to go and the services offered.

I know it's a tough situation sometimes, but I'm really appreciative of the work that you continue to do.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember, and thank you for the note on the Books Unbanned.

That is a program that we actually started about a year ago.

Provides all of our digital collections to anyone in the United States and its territories, ages 13 through 26. And it provides all of the books, not just the Books Unbanned.

This past year, we saw 85,000 checkouts and 6,500 folks sign up for that program nationwide and across the territories.

One of the things they have to do is tell us a reason why they need it.

If you ever wanna see some of those stories, they truly are heartbreaking as to why folks need these services.

Could be ranging from I live 75 miles from a library to all of the things you might think about when we talk about banned books or issues that people have concerns with people knowing what they read.

So we're proud to do this.

We joined our colleagues in Brooklyn who started this program.

This now has six other large library systems in the country doing the same and sharing that burden and making sure material's available.

So thank you for that mention.

Thank you, Councilmember Wu.

Anyone else?

Oh, Councilmember Morales.

So I have a question about the Books on Band program.

You mentioned that you had 75,000 new digital subscribers.

Is it connected, do you think, to the fact that you offered this program last year?

I think it's part of that, absolutely.

We also...

I think we had multiple ways of that information getting out, obviously, nationally.

Our foundation is our private investor in that.

There are no public funds that go to Books Unbanned.

So they fully fund that.

And with having all of that marketing out there, I do believe that helped bring in even more people who said, hey, what's going on here at the Seattle Public Library?

So it was a great, great year from a sign-up perspective.

Yeah, I'd be really interested in reading some of the stories that you mentioned.

And then I just wanted to comment on the photograph that you have of the mobile books.

It took me way back to being seven or eight myself.

My grandmother's neighborhood didn't have a library branch, so we relied on the mobile book truck to come and check out books.

Thanks for the memory, and I'm really glad to know that that service is available.

I've always loved it.

I grew up in a rural area, and that was one of my first experiences with libraries myself.

And when I started in libraries, I actually drove one of the bookmobiles for a little bit of time, too.

So I've always enjoyed them, and I think many people have fond, fond memories of the bookmobiles.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So I too am a huge fan of libraries.

I took my three sons there from the time they were very little to the time they grew up, and it was a wonderful resource to us.

So thank you for providing that space.

And we have fabulous libraries in District 5. Lake City is a huge resource to the community, particularly now that we don't have a community center, and Northgate Library in Broadview.

So you do amazing work.

So along those lines, I noted in your slide that you're talking about challenges and you talk about budget.

And I'm wondering if you could maybe just elaborate a little bit on the impact of hours, collections, programming, and maintenance.

Well, I'll start with kind of the maintenance piece of it and buildings.

As you know, here in Seattle, our construction costs have been through the roof and continuing to escalate.

And that creates considerable challenges, especially when things like REIT have fallen extensively and those funds are not as available.

It also means that even in the levy that was actually built in 2018 and 2019, when we put that package together, construction costs were considerably less.

So as we look at the levy and trying to get these projects to completion becomes more and more challenging.

However, the one thing when I came in as the chief librarian was I felt we were not turning over every rock.

meaning we weren't looking at, you know, were there other resources in the city?

Were we looking at state resources and were we looking at federal resources?

We've now changed that.

We received state funding from state commerce.

We received almost $2 million on a project for that.

As I said, the FEMA money, looking at other funding from commerce like the EV chargers, all of these funds, you know, going out and getting them is an important piece.

We can't, you know, just rely on our foundation and our friends groups, can't just rely necessarily on general fund.

We have to really expand and cast that net wide to make sure we get those funds.

All of those things are very similar when we talk about staffing and the expanded hours and the levy.

That was predicated on 2019 staffing levels.

So if 2019 staffing levels are not available, it means that we cannot maintain those hours at all, depending on what the situation is.

So that's always a challenge.

We saw that challenge during the pandemic.

That's why we couldn't bring on the expanded hours during the pandemic, because we didn't have the staff at the 2019 levels.

So those are always challenges that we face.

But we are most certainly always looking at ways to resolve that and always appreciate the collaboration with council and the mayor's office in doing that work.

And I think I had heard in previous conversations that a major expense too is the digital collection and having those fees to pay.

That is most certainly a challenge.

So digital materials, when you talk about e-books, are two to three times the normal cost of a print book.

E-audiobooks can be three to five times the price of a physical book.

Now, you as a consumer, individual consumer, will pay less.

Publishers have found ways around and loopholes from the Fair Use Act to say, well, libraries are competitors and we should pay less.

more for that right to be able to share those books.

Now, we know that's not really the case.

We actually are the best gateway for authors and titles that any publisher could ever want.

They could never promote as much as libraries can provide in access to material.

But that is where we sit.

We are looking at ways, there is an actual committee statewide forming to look at how this might be dealt with legislatively.

Of course, we work with the city's government affairs as well as we look at that moving into the next biennial budget process with the legislature in 25. So we'll be looking at that kind of legal piece that may make some adjustments there and hopefully get those costs more reasonable.

The other piece is we also have to, we have also done a lot more data analysis in the last year and a half to say, how can we change how we buy?

what we buy, when we buy, which is key.

My teams have been doing great work, data analysis on that.

And there are some changes that we're making that will create greater capacity.

Because what we want is a digital collection that's not this deep, but much deeper.

And the only way to do that is not to overbuy because it's the hottest thing somebody wants.

So yes, we want to be in fulfillment, trying to make sure patrons are happy.

But I'm also not Amazon, and I don't have a budget like that.

So we have to realize what we can do and still create depth in our collection.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Chair.

I just had a comment and then a quick question.

I wanted to toot my favorite library, which is the Douglas Truth Library in our district, because it has a little bit of oldness, and then the new add-on, which is absolutely gorgeous.

A quick question I had when I was learning about some of our systems was the maintenance piece with the air conditioning.

And I don't know how many libraries have that.

I know some of them...

had to shut down because of the increased heat waves that were going on in our city.

Could you talk a little bit about that?

Absolutely.

I would say the last four years have been pretty tough.

And when I look back at basically right around the pandemic time and the heat was starting to come in, it was shutting us down considerably.

We would have between five to seven branches closing quite a bit throughout the summer.

As we were able to start saying, hey, let's get the electrification in because that gets rid of the fossil fuels, and let's go ahead and start figuring out how we get AC, we are now down to five, or will be once Green Lake opens, five locations that don't have AC.

And with this FEMA funding that we received, we should be able to get, if not all of them, close to all of them open.

back in with AC, which means we're open during the summers.

short of, you know, smoke events or something, you know, that we sometimes get here as well.

But yes, we're very excited about being able to stay open in the summer.

It's a critical resource.

Folks think mostly for the insecurely housed, but there are so many people in this city without air conditioning.

And our seniors really struggle when those temperatures heat up.

So we're excited to be able to provide that kind of respite during the summer.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Any other questions?

Council Member Morales.

Now I have two more questions.

Related to the lack of air conditioning, can you tell us which libraries you still need to get to?

Probably.

Let's see if I have that handy here.

I know one of them is Queen Anne, Fremont.

University, and for some reason I'm drawing a blank on the other ones.

Oh, Columbia is partial, but needs to be finalized with new air conditioning.

And one more that is escaping me at the moment.

Okay.

Thank you.

We can follow up on that.

I also wanted to get back to the staffing question that Council Member Moore asked about.

We did have folks come earlier this week and comment about the hiring freeze.

Can you talk a little bit about the impact of that on current services and potential future services, especially given the fact that you are reopening a library, looking at the next library down the line?

So what is the potential impact of that?

So the impact on any kind of freeze obviously is that we would struggle for stability in operation, right?

Looking at those open hours.

But what we've been working to do here in the last, I would say, three weeks or so is to figure out how can we stabilize that with some of our intermittent options that we have, meaning temporary employees, to be able to manage some of them.

And we are working through that process now.

We stay in collaboration with the mayor's office on this too, letting them know when we're going to have issues.

We know as we go deeper into this, it will have potential impacts where we might have to close a branch if we have sick calls.

Those are things that can happen already today or would have happened and did happen last year if we get close.

The one thing we always want to do, and we know that our The security of our branches is important to the public and to our staff.

That's been a challenge for the post-pandemic.

And so we will not operate a building that's not safe to operate.

So we will most certainly close if we don't have the staffing classifications that we need in the branch to operate successfully.

So yes, that can happen.

Will it happen?

Likely the longer we go deeper into this.

But we are trying to work on methods to at least stabilize that as much as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tom, so you have 667 employees now.

How many vacancies do you have?

Currently, we have about 55 vacancies.

Full-time?

That's across all types of positions.

That could be janitor, facilities worker, or frontline public service workers.

Okay, thank you.

And that's part-time and full-time.

And what numbers do you normally operate, meaning on any given year?

I mean, because every department has a certain number of vacancies on any given year, so...

Correct.

Our fully authorized workforce would be 705 bodies, which we generally carry and anticipate a 4% vacancy.

Obviously, immediately post-pandemic and everything else, that varied widely, but we're back to our normal vacancy level.

Which would be about 30-something.

At any given time, 25 to 30 at any given time, yeah.

So not too far from your usual.

It's a little more than the usual at this point, yes.

Thank you.

Any other questions, colleagues?

And I know we've talked, so I don't have a ton of questions, because you've answered my questions in the past.

So thank you so much both for being here.

I want to say that libraries are very special to me, as well as growing up in the inner city.

My local, well, first of all, I was learning English.

So it was a great resource when I was learning English.

And also it was the only place my mom would let me go by myself in the inner city.

So it really was a refuge for me as well.

So super love libraries.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you for your questions.

Thank you both.

And we will get back to you.

And thanks for the partnership.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, we will move on to the next items of business.

Will the clerk please read items two through five in the record, into the record.

Items two through five, appointments 2752 through 2755. The reappointment of Anthony R. Salazar as a member of the Ballard Avenue Landmark District Board for a term to June 30, 2025. The appointment and reappointments of Mark C. Childs, Lance Wagner, and Sarah E. Baker as members of the Pike Place Market Historical Commission for a term to December 1, 2026.

Thank you.

All four appointments have been read into the record.

We'll first consider and vote on the appointment to the Ballard Avenue Landmark District Board, then we'll follow with the Pike Place Market Historical Commission.

We are joined by Minh Chau Leif, who is from Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods.

Minh Chau is the coordinator for both of these historical boards and commissions.

Thank you for being here, Minh Chau.

Please introduce yourself for the record, and then we can learn more about these four nominees, starting with the Ballard Avenue Landmark District Board nominee.

Hello, thank you Chairperson Rivera and all committee members for your time and consideration today.

My name is Min Chow Lee from the Department of Neighborhoods and my role there is the staff coordinator as the council chairperson mentioned for two historic districts, Ballard Avenue Landmark District in District 6 and Pike Place Market Historical District in District 7. So beginning with the appointment of Anthony Salazar to the Ballard Avenue Landmark District Board.

I'll first start by saying that this is a board, a seven-member board that is responsible for reviewing and approving or not approving proposed physical changes located within the Ballard Avenue Landmark District.

A few unique distinctions about this board.

It is advisory to the Department of Neighborhoods director, and also it is one of very few boards in the city for which some of the positions, not this one, but some other ones, are actually elected by community members.

So with that out of the way, I will briefly describe the qualifications of Mr. Salazar.

This is a reappointment, and he has successfully already completed one two-year term, and that was an extraordinary term that spanned 2023, which was a historic year for the Ballard-Averdue Landmark District Board.

we had unprecedented record-shattering levels of public participation in this board and a level of interest in the board's activities and discussions by a number of measures, including public participation at meetings, the number of meetings requested and held to discuss landmark district business, the amount of participation in terms of both voters and candidates in the district election, and the number of public commenters, as well as those coming to participate from outside of the district boundary.

So it was wonderful to have his very steady and thoughtful and consistent decision-making precedent through this very exciting year that we just had.

The second thing I wanna highlight about Mr. Salazar is that he is interested in histories of all types.

You'll see from his resume that he has been involved with historical organizations related to baseball in America, as well as home beer brewing in America.

So this is really complementary to the City of Seattle's current approach to preservation, which is that it is about people and community and social histories as much as it is about the history and preservation of physical structures in the brick and mortar environment.

And lastly, I would like to highlight that Mr. Salazar comes from a long and successful career at the University of Washington, working in advisement.

And as you can see from the materials, he brought a very strong lens of racial and cultural equity to that role and a stressing of the importance of using that lens when undergoing activities of recruitment, mentoring and retention.

And so that is a very good match for the Department of Neighborhoods approach and philosophies about community boards.

And so he is highly recommended and thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Min Chau.

Thank you for presenting the reappointment of Anthony Salazar as a member of the Ballard Avenue Landmark District Board for a term till June 30th, 2025. Colleagues, do you have any comments?

No?

Okay, terrific.

Then I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 2752. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

It is moved and seconded to confirm the appointment.

Are there any further comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointment?

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Moore?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the recommendation that the appointment be confirmed will be sent to the city council.

Now we will discuss the three appointments to the Pike Place Market Historic Commission appointments.

So Menchau will return to you.

Menchau, would you please put the microphone closer to you?

I'm having trouble hearing.

Absolutely.

Thank you for flagging that for me.

Is this better?

Oh, okay.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Well, we have three for consideration today.

And if you don't mind, Chairperson, I propose that we start with the two reappointments and we finish with the new appointment.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The reappointment of Mark C. Childs for the architect position.

So he has successfully completed one term and seeks a reappointment to a second three-year term on the commission.

Okay.

So really briefly, the Pike Place Market Historical Commission is a regulatory decision-making body.

It's 12 members, and it makes decisions about proposed changes to both use and design in the Pike Place Market.

So moving on to Mr. Childs.

He comes from a very accomplished and esteemed background in architecture.

As you can see, his most recent role before retiring was as the Dean of the School of Architecture for the University of New Mexico.

So quite a bit of depth of knowledge there.

and an ideal fit for this role of architect, one of two architects on the board.

So he has, in addition to a depth of knowledge, quite a breadth as well.

So as you can see, he's written many books.

One is the award-winning Imagining Cities That Remember, Another title is Parking, an Implementation and Design Manual.

So you can just see the interest and the knowledge just spans the range from the highly aspirational and profound to the practical and everything in between.

And that's just incredibly valuable for historic preservation within a central downtown context.

Another thing I'd like to highlight and the final thing about Mr. Childs is he has had a long history involving all sorts of roles and participation in land use, including that of staffing, citizen design and review boards, which this could be seen as one of.

So it's really valuable to have the professional lens and to also understand the city's role and how all of the different roles fit and work together to achieve these aims.

That concludes my comments related to Mr. Childs.

Should I continue?

Yes, please.

Thank you.

Moving on to the second of three, we have Lance Wagner for the merchant position.

So he is a merchant within the Pike Place Market, and specifically he operates a photography studio.

So he is an artist who has been active and practicing for decades.

We feel this lens of an artist and somebody who understands the role and importance of arts in our society is a really critical lens to have on the commission.

and very central in many ways to so many of the conversations going on at this critical time, both for the market and for downtown Seattle.

The second thing to highlight about Mr. Wagner is he is the inaugural resident.

So I guess his role as merchant doesn't fully speak to his perspective.

He's the inaugural resident of the Market Front Cottages.

So when the Market Front redevelopment was completed in 2017, It was intentionally designed to include artist work housing.

So he is the inaugural resident in that housing.

And so just a really different lens there.

And if you're at all familiar with the market, you'll know that the artist cottages are on the western edge of the market, right at where the Overlook Walk will meet the Pike Place Market, right at this exciting brand-new juncture that is being built created and all of the new community relationships and connections that will also be created by that joining of the Seattle waterfront to the Pike Place Market.

That is his living room, so that is an incredibly valuable lens.

I will move on to the final candidate, Sarah E. Baker.

So this would be a brand new incoming member representing the Friends of Market organization.

And so the first thing I wanna highlight about Sarah E. Baker is she is a powerful leader.

So student body president at North Seattle College, manage a produce stand, a working historical produce stand in the Pike Place Market, and a bit more recently, chaired the 20-member board of the Japanese American Citizens League.

So this is a person who is capable of leading others in a wide variety of contexts.

She would bring some generational diversity to this commission.

So at Don, we really embrace and recognize the importance of all sorts of diversity, generational being one of them, and that would be a very welcome addition.

And then finally, I will say, and as you see from the application materials, her board chairship and past participation has been among other organizations with the Japanese American Citizens League.

So that has been a very focal point.

And obviously that community has been central in many ways to the formation of the Pike Place Market and its evolution from that formation in the early 1900s, including the events of World War II and the aftermath.

And so that will be a very complimentary and important and currently not fully represented lens among the Commission.

Thank you, Min Chau.

Do any of my colleagues have comments or questions?

No.

Then I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 2753 through 2755. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

It is move and seconded to confirm the appointments.

Are there any further comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointments?

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Moore?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Chair Rivera?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the city council.

I really want to take the opportunity to say it's really great to see our fellow Seattleites who are willing to step up and volunteer their time to help preserve the history and culture of our city, particularly at these very well-known historic sites, the Pike Place and Ballard Avenue.

So we very much appreciate it.

And Menchau, we appreciate you coming here today to present them to us.

Thank you for all the work that you do.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you again to the Seattle Public Libraries for their presentation.

This concludes the March 14th, 2024 meeting of the Libraries Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

Our next committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 28, 2024 at 9.30 a.m.

If there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

Hearing no further business, it's 1023, and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.