of the committee.
Council President Juarez, let me know that she...
Oh, so now I should just restart then?
Sorry.
Thank you, Madam Clerk and Mr. Clerk.
The June 15th, 2022 meeting of the Seattle City Council's Public Assets and Homelessness Committee will come to order.
It is 2.04 p.m.
I'm Andrew Lewis, chair of the committee.
Council President Juarez informed me she would be absent and is excused from today's committee.
Will the committee clerk please call the roll?
Council Member Herbold.
Here.
Council Member Morales.
Here.
Vice Chair Mosqueda.
Present.
Chair Lewis.
Present.
Chair, there are four members present with one excused.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
Approval of the agenda.
If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
Just briefly gonna give an overview of the agenda items for today.
We are going to be hearing a couple of pieces of legislation that will be in front of us.
The first item of business is going to be a bill from Seattle Parks and Recreation authorizing a concession agreement with Compass Group USA.
for doing business in the canteen of Seattle Parks and Recreation.
We are also going to be hearing another piece of legislation from the Parks Department regarding an agreement with Seattle Preparatory School to replace the Mott Lake play field and continue the ongoing relationship with the Mott Lake community and Seattle Prep on the use of that field.
And then finally, we are gonna be hearing a presentation from the Parks Department on the Cycle 1 accomplishments for the Metropolitan Park District.
Although we are not convened today as the Metropolitan Park District, we are convened as the committee, the public assets and Homelessness Committee, I did extend an invitation for the record at council briefing this week to all council members to attend this meeting.
So if folks wanna join for that agenda item, and I expect additional council colleagues may attend for that agenda item, that would be the reason to overview that critical Metropolitan Park District as we take that business up later this summer and into the fall.
So looking forward to that, it will be a parks heavy day.
So with that overview, we will move on to public comment and the public comment period, I believe now has a video that precedes it.
Are we going to be playing that Mr. Clerk?
No, okay, I'll just get there.
Yeah, I've been on a couple committees now where there's this prerecorded video, but I'm happy to just do the typical prelude to it.
The public comment period is going to be 20 minutes.
Each speaker is going to be given one minute to speak.
There will be public comment online and in person.
And I believe we do have some in-person public commenters.
Do we have online folks, Mr. Clerk?
Mr. Chair, we have one public commenter, David Haynes, but he is not listed as present.
Mr. Haynes, if he could please call in now, we're almost ready for public comment.
All right, why don't we start with the in-person public speakers and Mr. Clerk, you can start that process for the in-person list provided is fewer than five speakers.
Our first public commenter is Marguerite Richard followed by Alex Zimmerman.
You know, in three minutes, they can chop us up.
they don't take our time away from us.
And I heard somebody say that we pay your taxes and we don't come up in here for this.
So I don't know what's so important today that you would even say that you want one minute from us.
What is this?
And then someone said that our faces should be on the screen, just like all other times, unless you're saying the pandemic got all up in the system and the mechanism of things, right?
Mr. Schor, are you speaking to an item on the agenda?
You're the item on the agenda.
Isn't your name on here?
No, tell me right here.
Doesn't it say Andrew Lewis, the chair?
So I can address you any way that I want to in one minute.
That's my constitutional right, okay?
And if you want to take it from me, you come right down here and do it.
Come on, come on.
Do you have five more seconds, Mr. Sharkey?
I don't care what I have.
You heard what I said, didn't you?
Alex Zimmerman, you are second public commenter.
I'm crying.
Yeah.
Open, open, open, open.
Yeah.
I am crying, I'm very crying.
You don't show my face, you don't show my sign, you don't show my yellow David star.
Who are you, a Nazi?
Why white people like you not respect me in peril because she's black and I'm Jew?
Why you sit this up, Nazi?
fascist, Gestapo, psychopath.
Why white people not respect minority like Peril or me, Alex Zimmerman?
What is going on?
Who is this freaking psychopath?
Mr. Zimmerman, are you speaking to an item on the agenda?
Nothing, nobody here.
Sorry, yeah, I speak about agenda number one, yes, about Seattle Park Recreation.
Who's this idiot who close park to people?
Who did this?
He did this?
He's a clown.
He's a third clown in the whole world as we have.
Thank you very much.
Can you give me another minute?
There's no people here.
Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman.
Mr. Haynes is present.
Mr. Haynes, if you unmute your mic, you will have one minute to speak.
Thank you, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
You can begin when ready.
All right, thank you.
David Haynes, District 7. Is City Council giving a monopolized service contract to the Compass Group?
Is it the same company that has a United Kingdom-based parent company with a North Carolina-based subsidiary that's worth $20 billion?
Are they gonna be monopolizing the food and the beverage that's being allowed to be purchased throughout the entire Seattle Park system?
And if so, what about competition?
That doesn't seem right.
And secondly, in a separate concerning issue about local realities, is the city council could correct a bad policy, a wrong that they committed when they redirected I believe somewhere around $120 million of American rescue plan dollars away from solving the homeless crisis for all of these suffering people who have no, they don't have any proper 21st century shelter to go to.
And city council used that money to pay off newly created nonprofits from protesters.
That's treasonous, that's unconstitutional.
Appreciate.
you calling in.
We will now close the public comment period and move on to the first item on our agenda.
Mr. Clerk, will you please read item one into the record?
Item one, council bill 120341, an ordinance relating to Seattle Parks and Recreation, authorizing the superintendent of Parks and Recreation to execute for on behalf of the city, a concession agreement with Compass Group USA Incorporated doing businesses canteen to provide food and beverage vending machine service in city park facilities.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
We are joined virtually by our presenters and they can introduce themselves.
I believe that we have the panel moderated by Superintendent Williams.
Is that the case?
Yes.
Great.
We have Terry Burns from our contract staff here with us today who'll make the bulk of the presentation today, but I can get us started here.
First, thank you for the opportunity to describe the concession agreement.
We want to provide a few points of background before I hand it over to Terry.
Seattle Parks and Recreation piloted a healthy food vending machine initiative back in 2011. That served as a model for other city departments.
Our goal is to provide healthy food as part of our mission.
And we look to do this in our vending machines.
It's part of our healthy people, healthy environment, strong communities model for the department.
You know, and particularly when you think about how many young people go to a community center, we want to expose them to healthy food choices at our vending machines.
We have over 35 facilities with vending machines.
The machines are located in community centers, teen centers, lifelong learning centers, child care, rental facilities, and our park administration buildings.
Basically, wherever people show up, we've got some vending machines.
The vending machines are selling healthy snacks and provide it to benefit park users versus commercializing the system.
So this is a direct benefit to people who use the park versus you know commercial activity that has no relationship to park users.
We conducted a request for a proposal process prior to selecting the new long-term vendor and at this point I would like to turn it over to Terri Burns on our team.
Thank you Christopher and thank you for council for us to having us here today.
My name is Terry Burns, I'm the parks concession coordinator for Seattle Parks and Recreation, and I have the she, her, hers pronouns.
The ordinance that SPR is presenting to you today is a long-term concession agreement with Compass Group USA, who is doing business as canteen to provide food and beverage vending machine services to SPR indoor facilities.
Next slide, please.
Thank you.
As Christopher said, SPR has 35 facilities that have vending machine services, and the machines are in a variety of our different locations, community centers, teen centers, child care, rental facilities, and our administrative buildings.
Next slide, please.
So I'd like to give you a little history.
Canteen has provided SPR with a reliable vending service since 2011. Canteen agreement with SPR expired in January of 2022. And to ensure that the business community was aware of the opportunity, SPR conducted an RFP process in the fall of 2021. To market the RFP process, the RFP was posted in the Daily Journal of Commerce, Tudor Seabase, FACTS, Seattle Chinese Times, and The Scanner.
Additionally, it was posted on the Seattle Parks and Recreation website and social media sites.
In addition, the invite was sent to 77 businesses who provided vending services or supported local business companies.
These companies were identified from the following resources.
Vending businesses who had registered on the city online business registry.
Companies that had previously inquired with Seattle Parks and Recreation to provide vending machine services, as well as the vending machine companies that were found online.
As an additional way to ensure that the business community was aware of the opportunity, a copy of the RFP posting was sent to Office of Economic Development, Ventures Nonprofit, and Washington State Food Trucks.
From this RFP posting, Seattle Parks and Recreation received two proposals which met the minimum qualification, Swire Coke and Canteen.
Both proposals were reviewed by a diverse panel.
The panel consisted of SPR employees and a community center user.
The panels recommended Canteen based on the variety of healthy products offered, financial terms, and the bids that met SPR vending needs.
Currently, SPR entered into a one-year agreement with Canteen to ensure that SPR guests and staff had continued vending service while our staff prepared this long-term agreement and legislated it through city council.
Next slide, please.
Seattle Parks and Recreation is asking that we go in to be able to enter into a five-year concession agreement with an option to extend for an additional five-year terms with Canteen.
The commission and revenue that we expect to receive from Canteen For SPRs, the percentage of the gross sale, 25% of beverages and 28% of foods with an annual minimum revenue of $25,000 for all vending machines that serve the public.
For the SPR administrative vending machines, Canteen is required to set up a separate agreement with Canteen to pay commission payments to Washington State Department of Services for the Blind.
I'd like to go over a few highlights of the agreement.
This agreement with Canteen is that they must stock only the machines with the items that are considered healthiest or healthier on King County healthy vending items.
This requirement in the agreement exceeds the ordinance 124128 requirement that the vending machines on city property stock a minimum of 50% healthier and healthiest food and beverage items.
Another item that we'd like to highlight is Canteen will refund the customers directly to improve customer service, as well as to remove Seattle Parks and Recreation from the cash handling requirements in the refund process.
And the last is all machines must be ADA compliant, energy efficient, and be able to take multiple payment types to be able to serve our customers well.
Next slide, please.
And at this time, I would also like to let people know that Joe Lucera is from Canteen, who's the general district manager, is also online to help us answer any company-related questions.
We'll open it up for questions or any concerns at this time.
Thank you for that overview, Terry.
Colleagues, are there any questions about this concessions contract.
Okay, I don't see any, I do just wanna say that I appreciate the overview in the slide deck of the, process and the outreach for the RFP, where in addition to advertising at the distribution to several vendors proactively and the process that narrowed it down to two vendors for full consideration that bidded and the diligence here and reporting the criteria that were instructive for the department and making this ultimate decision.
I don't have any additional questions for this.
It doesn't look like my, have those questions either.
So if that is the case, I am fine with moving this item forward.
So is there any objection from the members of the committee to taking, oh, Council Member Mosqueda, I'm sorry, you have your hand up.
My apologies.
No objection, Mr. Chair.
I just wanted to get in the queue to make some comments after you get a second.
Thanks so much.
So Mr. Chair, why don't I go ahead and second your motion if you want to put it in front of us.
Yes, I move Council Bill 120341. Is there a second?
Second.
Okay, having been moved and seconded, the floor is now open for comments on the bill that is in front of the committee.
Council Member Muscata, do you have a comment?
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.
I wanted to just express my support for this legislation today and really to thank Sajal Parikh, chief of staff in my office as well, for reaching out to Teamsters 117 to get their feedback on the legislation.
I'm really happy to hear that the company has a good track record of good union contracts with the Teamsters and that the Teamsters are supportive of this concession agreement as well.
So with that, Mr. Chair, I'm happy to go ahead and vote on this and be in support.
of the legislation.
I wanna thank the departments and the Teamsters for their work and for the feedback.
Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda.
Are there any other comments on the bill that is in front of committee?
Seeing no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll on passage of the bill?
Council Member Herbold.
Yes.
Council Member Morales.
Yes.
Council Member Mosqueda.
Aye.
Chair Lewis.
Yes.
Chair, there are four in favor, none opposed.
Thank you.
The bill will go forward to full council with a do pass recommendation of four votes in favor.
Mr. Clerk, will you please read item two into our agenda?
Item two, Council Bill 120342, an ordinance authorizing Seattle Parks and Recreation to enter into an agreement with Seattle Preparatory School to replace the Montlake Playfield and continue an ongoing relationship with the Montlake community consistent with the non-government agreement and attachment one to this ordinance.
Thank you.
And we are joined again by a panel from Parks led by Superintendent Williams.
We also have Sam Reed with us from Seattle Prep.
So, why don't I hand it over to you first, Superintendent Williams, to introduce the panel and the other members who are here to present to the committee.
Great.
Sure.
I'm Christopher Williams, Acting Superintendent, Seattle Parks.
And we've got Christopher Powell from our park staff here who has worked on this contract, and then we have some guests from Seattle Prep.
Sam Reed is here.
Is there anyone else, Sam, from Prep?
Yeah, we have a few others joining us today.
We have our school president, George Hoffbauer, with us today, as well as one of our head coaches, Sam Bennett, and one of our student athletes that has used the field as well.
Great, awesome.
Well, maybe I will make some introductory remarks and turn this over to the capable Christopher Powell here on our team.
Thank you for providing the opportunity to come here today to make this presentation.
We also wanna start out by thanking our partners at Seattle Prep.
This turned out to be maybe a longer than anticipated process to get through the development of the legislation and negotiations on this so we really want to give a hats off to our partners at prep who were patient with us as we did our due diligence on this.
This is kind of a repeat.
Seattle Prep did this back in 2011 at their own expense, and we're approaching this contract with similar terms and conditions.
The agreement adds a public benefit requirement, which you'll hear about later.
Seattle Prep will be able to continue to use the play field during the times and dates outlined in the new agreement.
The terms of the agreement are consistent with existing SPR policies that allow the department to establish scheduling priorities to particular sites in return for major facility improvements or other considerations that benefit the public.
It's important to note here that Seattle Prep is paying for the synthetic turf rug and they will also be paying for the opportunity to use the field.
Uh, you know, it's kind of a good deal for the city here and taxpayers.
Uh, this field is an example of one of the fields in our inventory.
That's probably in less demand.
Uh, it's not big enough for regulation soccer field.
Uh, on one side of the field, there's probably 40 feet of peat bog.
Uh, this is in a part of rather adjacent to a part of Lake Washington.
which has become eutrophic, which means that it's got a peak fog and the field is actually sinking.
Montlake does not have lights at this location.
However, we're able to schedule the fill year round, limited to seasonal daytime hours.
The fill schedule at Montlake will be available from 8.30 a.m.
to sunset, seven days a week.
Seattle Prep School will use less than half of the hours reserved at the field.
So that is also a big benefit to the community.
So at this point, I'd like to hand it over to Christopher Powell on our team to talk about the details of the agreement.
Thank you for that, Christopher, and thank you for the council for hearing this.
We're talking about the Montlake play field, which is right now a synthetic field located at 1618 East Moon Street.
It's near the Montlake Community Center.
And as Christopher said, one thing to note about this site is it is very close to the water.
And because of that, nature isn't quite on our side at this site.
So there is a peat fog in that northeast corner that is actively moving in on the park in Cremona.
So the main sports that are scheduled at Montlake play field would be lacrosse football ultimate frisbee and field hockey and for those sports typically in a calendar year will schedule about 1300 hours of use at the park of that Seattle prep.
is our primary user there.
They only use about 38%, which means the 62% of field time left to us is what we're able to use for the community.
And with this site being a formerly grass field in the past, pre-2011, before the previous agreement, we were only able to schedule this field about five months per year, which is less than our other grass sites.
And that is because of the nature of that wetland there in the peat bog that limits our usage.
With the synthetic going in there, we are able to reserve this field every day of the year, seven days a week, which significantly increases our usage and also lets the community get on that site a lot more for drop-in use as well as use sports.
So pre-2011, Montlake Playfield, as I said, was a grass site and often muddy.
But with this agreement between Seattle Parks and Seattle Prep, a turf was donated by the University of Washington to Seattle Prep to be installed at the Montlake Playfield.
That's where the original agreement came from as far as getting this field in place, and that is the current turf that we have down at Montlake.
It's still the University of Washington field.
At this point, that field is over 10 plus years old, which in the life of a synthetic field typically means it needs to be renovated, but coming to us, it was also used by them before that.
So this field is now worn down and definitely needs to be replaced.
Some of the key terms here is this, again, is an extension of an agreement we already have with Seattle Prep, something that's been in place for the past 10 years.
And for this project, Seattle Prep will be paying for all of the planning, design, and construction of the new synthetic turf, which is, again, worn out and needs to be replaced.
And Seattle Prep will also be paying field use fees for all of their usage, which we will touch on in subsequent slides.
As well as this agreement and it adds a public benefit component that the previous agreement did not have and we will go over that more in later slides as well.
So some of the conditions here this would be a 12-year agreement with an option to extend that an additional 12 years seeing where we are at that point.
Again Seattle Prep is paying for the field and paying for all the costs related to construction Once the field is installed and everything is ready to go and opened up, the city would be responsible for the maintenance as we would own the site as well.
And then we would operate all of the field scheduling and getting both the community and Seattle Prep scheduled on that site.
So what Seattle Prep gets out of this besides the synthetic field is they get priority usage for what equates to our spring and fall seasons.
That's March 1st through June 15th, and then again, August 10th through November 30th.
And they get that field Monday through Friday, 3 to 5.30 PM.
And at this site, this is where Seattle Prep does almost half of all of its reservations with the city.
As far as their sports, they do both lacrosse and football at this sites.
They are limited to four junior high or junior varsity games and for freshman games.
Again, this site is only used for lacrosse and football for them, as it's not big enough for a full regulation soccer field.
So at this time I'd like to hand it over to Sam read to go over the public benefits.
Thank you, Chris, and thank you, Council, for hearing this today.
As Mr. Williams said at the beginning, this is something that is multiple years in the making, and so it's a big day for us to be in front of you today and hopefully to provide a new field and new space for not only our students and student-athletes, but the community as well.
One of the things we're most excited about in this kind of renovated, updated agreement is the public benefit that goes beyond the donation of the turf and the continuation of our fees.
It includes work that we've already been doing to some point, but now formalizing and kind of holding all of us accountable to it.
One of the things that fits in our mission is to be active in the community, partnering with organizations, youth in low income and marginalized neighborhoods, and being able to expose them to opportunities that might not have been available to them otherwise.
One of those prime examples, and I'll pass it over in a second, is some of the work that we've done with middle school aged children, exposing them to the sport of lacrosse.
Lacrosse, one has been traditionally a very expensive sport that is not very available to all people within the community.
Through some of our work with schools in the South End specifically, and some of the work with Coach Bennett, who is on the call with us today, we've been able to expose students and youth to the sport of lacrosse through some of the camps that we've done.
We've also worked and would like to continue working with Montlake Community Center allowing our students at Seattle Prep to serve and work with community youth in terms of tutoring, in terms of on-field activities, recreational play, and non-sport specific activities as well.
One of the benefits of the COVID times for us is it forced us to think outside of the box and do different work.
Um, one of the things that we, uh, really found important with our students, um, was non-sport specific training and exercise.
And so, um, some of that, uh, free play work, some of that, uh, strength and conditioning, speed and agility, all of that.
Um, we're looking to build programming that would allow us to bring in kids from around the city to free opportunities with our coaches and on this field at Montlake play field.
But I think one of the benefits is to see the work in actuality.
And I'd like to, at this time, kind of pass it over to Sam Bennett, who is our head lacrosse coach.
He's also a teacher at our school.
And with him is one of our student athletes that's kind of benefited from this programming in the past, Nat.
Thanks, Sam.
So, over the past three winters we've been able to run lacrosse clinics working with I used to teach at a school called Seattle Nativity School, a school that exclusively serves low income youth as a free tuition school.
So we were able to utilize Seattle preps resources to put on camps.
over the winter and fall to expose kids from Seattle nativity, as well as then expanded to to other Catholic middle schools, as well as other local middle schools and high schools to expose them to lacrosse training in partnership with some coaches from Bishop Blanchett.
It was great to be able to utilize the Mott Lake space this fall as an easy to get to location that was available to us in the winter.
Nat was able to coach with us at a number of these camps.
We were able to have kind of each year somewhere between 10 and 20 kids consistently coming to camps that lasted eight weeks for about an hour and a half of programming.
on Saturday mornings during that kind of nine to 12 slot that Seattle Prep uses at Montlake.
So it was a cool opportunity for us to expose lacrosse to people who otherwise wouldn't have been exposed to it.
And we're just starting to see students come through that program who spent time playing at youth lacrosse programs with the Seattle Wolfpack.
play a couple years at the Wolfpack, and now a number of them are matriculating into different high schools with the opportunity to come into high school as experienced lacrosse players.
With that partnership, we worked with the Wolfpack to ensure that students have access to gear throughout that time.
Lacrosse can be a really expensive sport, so there's been a lot of work done to ensure that there's funding for lacrosse gear for players who are interested, and to pay their rec fees as well.
Thanks.
Thanks, Sam.
Yeah, I think that's hopefully that gives a high level overview of sort of the additional public benefits.
And as we move through the 12 years of this agreement, hope to continue to expand what we're able to do in the community, specifically at the Montlake Playfield site.
Pam, thank you so much.
And thank you also to the Parks Department for that really helpful overview.
Council colleagues, are there any questions for the panel?
Council Member Morales.
Thank you.
You mentioned that you work with or connect with middle schools.
Can you tell me some of the schools and how that connection happens?
What does that mean?
Yeah, specifically most of our camp offerings are just open to area youth within that middle school range.
There are some rules and regulations in my world in my life regarding about what sort of formal partnerships were able to do with the public schools.
We've done work specifically with some of the private Catholic schools in our area, but most of our camps, such as the one that coach Bennett was recommending are talking about there is open to the nativity school population as well as any other.
You know area middle school aged students so it's more that age range than whether school and specific.
So I'm sorry so you're not allowed to work like schools.
Other kids can come if they are middle school age.
So The WIA, our athletic organization, the private schools would have some rules around formal partnerships with public middle schools.
We can offer programming to students within that age range, but not a formal partnership with a specific school.
So I guess what I'm trying to understand is if the public benefit that we're getting in exchange for this is in part that you are working with students from presumably outside the Montlake community, how are you making connections to students of middle school age who are not part of that community?
That's a good question.
A lot of it is through some of our, I mean, the name brand of our athletic program, the work that we've done at the high school level.
the exposure, the programs that we want, but specifically Coach Bennett's relationships with our youth organizations.
He mentioned the Seattle Wolfpack there, his prior work with the Nativity School, connections that we've built over time and making those opportunities available.
Next week, for example, we've got youth football camps on that field.
Not necessarily part of the public benefit per se, but those are available for anyone in the community to sign up for.
So can I have a few questions, Chair, if that's okay?
Perfectly fine, thank you, Councilmember Morales.
Can you talk a little bit about the 50 hours of public service hours?
What does that look like and how is that determined?
Chris Powell could jump in here as well.
Traditionally, what we've done is we've, I think there's a date within the agreement that we present the request for the use by a certain time of when we will put those public hours in place.
we would request the use of Mott Lake Playfield within that 50-hour allotment for that eight-week lacrosse camp, for example.
That eight weeks of an hour and a half of lacrosse play each of those Saturday mornings would effectively tally through that 50-hour public benefit.
That's correct.
From the park side, an annual report provided to us so that we can see what program Seattle Prep plans to run to fill those 50 hours for the upcoming year.
I would also jump in here and say whenever we work with a partner who is offering a public benefit, we like to advertise those public benefits on our website.
I appreciate that.
I guess I'm just, I mean, that's less than an hour a week.
for sports programming or camp programming.
So I'm just trying to get a better understanding of what the benefit is.
And I think really, Mike, maybe these are really questions for, I don't know if this is for parks or for central staff, but I'd be interested to know, and we can follow up later, how many agreements we have that are set up in this way offer reserved access to the fields in exchange for investment.
I'd also be interested to know what analysis has been done on fields across the city to assess local neighborhood access versus, you know, prioritized access.
And I'm asking this because I'm sure I've said this in this committee before, but down here in the south end, you know, we have a lot of low-income students, we have children who don't have great access to some parks, I'm thinking particularly of Georgetown, who don't get access to their neighborhood park because we have private schools that have reserved use during after school hours and Saturday morning hours.
And so I will say I'm a little concerned about the extent to which this is a normal practice and in our public parks across the city.
I would like to get a better understanding of how many of them are reserved in the after school and Saturday morning hours for for outside students to come in or, you know, even adult soccer leagues to come in rather than having our local kids be able to play on the field after school.
So I will stop there.
I feel like I'm sort of beating a dead horse with this question, but I would like to maybe put in a request for this information to be provided at some point soon.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Council Member Morales.
Those are really good questions.
There are a couple of fields in District 7 that have similar relationships with local colleges and private institutions.
So I would be interested in an analysis like that as well.
So I'm happy to work with you in requesting that from parks and from central staff.
So are there any additional questions from, council colleagues.
Council Member Herbold.
Thank you.
It's pretty much in the same line of questioning, but just wanting to get baseline understanding of this public benefit agreement.
Is this just a continuation of the current levels of public service under the current Seattle Prep SPR agreement, or is this a change from that agreement?
So Chris.
Yeah, so this would be a complete new addition.
So the current agreement does not include a public benefit piece.
It just involves the field and the priority rights for Seattle Prep.
So this entire public benefits piece now is an addition to the agreement as we're extending it, something that we're looking to get more for the community.
very helpful.
Thank you.
I want to just echo my interest on sort of the value per hour associated with this, the public benefit analysis and the decision that the minimum of 50 public service hours annually is is an adequate public benefit.
Interested to learn more about how you conclude that number.
So appreciate that.
My understanding is that this public benefit requirement is identical or nearly identical to what is required of Seattle Academy that is doing the turf installation at South Park.
Christopher, let me know if that's wrong, but I think that's what we used as the model.
That's absolutely right, Tracy.
In fact, these are not necessarily cookie cutter.
agreements.
I think what is unique about the South Park agreement is 90% of the hours are being reserved for community use.
So we really try to look at the needs of the individual communities and think about what works best in the public benefit regard for communities.
But that said, we would be happy to go back and provide you with the information you requested.
Thank you.
And I do wanna just underscore, I think this is significantly different than the South Park facility because of what you just highlighted, Superintendent Williams, that's a difference between 90% community use and 60% community use.
So it just seems like there should be some, some logic or some policy-based rationale, or again, value per dollar associated with the city investment.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions from colleagues?
So just to clarify, I do want to clarify something from the presentation.
Council Member Herbold, I think just touched on it.
38% of the available hours for the field would be for use of university prep under this agreement.
That component is consistent with what's been in place for the last 10 years.
The new addition is the public benefit, just to clarify, is that right?
Okay, so there wouldn't be an additional, can someone actually, for the record, maybe affirmatively answer that?
I see head nodding.
Yes, we are not seeking any additional hours over what we have been previously using for the previous 10 years of the agreement.
Great.
Thanks, I just wanted to confirm that and put a finer point on it.
But otherwise, I don't think I have any other clarifying questions I want to raise at this time, unless another comment from a colleague is requested.
I don't see anyone else looking to jump in.
So colleagues with that, given the presentation and the question and answer period with the panel, I would be inclined to vote on this today.
So I'm gonna move the bill to put it in front of us.
And so I move council bill 120342. Is there a second?
Second.
Okay, moved and seconded.
The bill is in front of the committee.
Are there any comments on the legislation before the committee?
Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll on recommending the passage of council bill 120342 to full council.
Council member Herbold.
Yes.
Council member Morales.
Same.
I'm sorry, council member Morales, could you repeat your vote?
I'm gonna abstain.
Thank you.
Vice chair Mosqueda.
Aye.
Chair Lewis?
Yes.
Chair, there are three in favor with one abstention.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
So the legislation passes and we'll go forward to full council for consideration.
So thank you very much, panel, and we will be in touch as this continues to work its way through the legislative department.
So thank you so much for making yourselves available today.
But Superintendent Williams, don't go anywhere.
We're moving on to agenda item three, which is gonna be another parks panel.
So Mr. Clerk, will you please read agenda item three into the record?
Agenda item three, Seattle Park District cycle one overview, 2015 through 2020.
Okay, so as we are now getting started in earnest, this will be the year where on the council in our capacity as the board of the Metropolitan Park District, we'll be considering an additional cycle of investments with the Metropolitan Park District.
We are now, as I mentioned in my initial chair's report, convened as the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee, but in that capacity, we'll be having some briefings about some components of the Metropolitan Park District investments as relates to Seattle Parks and Recreation, which is under the purview of this committee.
And for one of the first things we'll be looking at as we're early in this process still is the cycle one accomplishments from the Seattle Metropolitan Park District, which is a property tax levy supported park district supplementary to the general fund that the Seattle Parks and Recreation received.
So we're really looking forward to diving into the slide deck here and this presentation from department officials as an early part of our process to dive into the potential of the Metropolitan Park District and what we might wanna do in a second cycle.
And with that context, I will hand it over to our panel, which again, we are joined by Interim Superintendent Christopher Williams, and I believe Michelle Finnegan.
Yes, there's Michelle, excellent.
So Superintendent, I will hand it over to you to introduce the rest of your panel and start the presentation.
Okay, thank you, Councilmember.
We appreciate the opportunity to be here.
So it's myself and the extremely capable Michelle Finnegan will walk through this today and she'll help fill questions here and I might take the lead on the presentation.
So a lot of this information isn't going to be new to most of you.
You've seen, heard some of this during presentations when you have your Park District Governing Body hat on.
But this is a report out on the Cycle 1 report.
So when we say Cycle 1, that refers to the end of the six-year cycle.
The interlocal agreement required that we publish three reports, an annual report, a mid-cycle report, and an end-cycle report.
And what we hope to capture here and highlight for you are accomplishments, lessons learned, things we thought, well, gee, we thought that was going to work out, but that didn't work out so well.
So we want to provide that kind of transparency in this presentation.
Next slide.
Uh, we are in a unique reflective moment.
Uh, normally when we would be, uh, doing a mid cycle report, uh, you would already be, uh, convening to adopt the next cycle, but because we have these pauses due to the pandemic, uh, there's this unique reflective moment before you take up the actual, uh, uh, second cycle park district work.
to be reflective on what we've learned.
We went through a period of strategic planning.
We recently worked with the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners to conclude roughly two to three months worth of work to make a set of recommendations to the department.
We submitted those recommendations to the mayor's office and that two-year pause really allowed us to complete the in-cycle report and to better inform some of the recommendations that have gone into I think the park district work.
So we just want to highlight here that this is a unique moment in time.
Next slide.
Okay so today we'll provide a brief overview and context of the cycle one park district report Lessons learned, of course.
Let's see here.
Next slide.
So there were a couple of choices at the beginning.
Were we going to do a levy?
or were we gonna do a park district?
And historically the park department has done levies where we've gone to the voters every six to eight years and ask for funding for new shiny things.
What is different about the park district ballot measure is that it was designed to supplement the basic operating efficiency of the department.
It was designed to extend the life of our assets to meet public expectations for the amount of available hours at our community centers and park maintenance.
It was also designed to insulate the organization from ebbs and flows in the general fund.
One of our goals is to bolster partnerships and to leverage these dollars while saving taxpayers money.
Next slide.
Okay, so ultimately, the committee, when they were looking at the idea of a park district versus a levy, they ultimately decided on a park district for lots of reasons.
And this was supported by the mayor and the council.
And there were a lot of concerns raised by a park district model.
Some people viewed it as writing the city a blank check.
And therefore, we established an interlocal agreement with several key provisions.
And those provisions include sort of the provision that the City Council would serve as the governing body for the Park District, that we would engage in a six-year planning cycle to be consistent with the State Growth Management Act for comprehensive planning.
that we would establish a community advisory board.
And we recently consolidated that into the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners.
and that we would establish a general fund commitment floor to the department.
And basically what the community was saying is, hey, if we support this, we don't want the city to shrink from its general fund obligation to support the park department.
So that's where the general fund commitment came in.
And then once again, it required some regular accountability reporting with an annual annual report, a mid-cycle report, and end-of-cycle report.
Next slide.
So basically, what we want to highlight here is that for the first six years, more than $250 million was invested across the system.
The plan adopted assumed 60% of this would be capital investments, There were some funding changes over the cycle.
However, a majority of the funds supported capital investments such as major maintenance and asset management work.
Next slide.
Okay, in this slide, this is a before and after picture of the pool renovation I think that is Medgar Evers pool.
And the idea here is that pool renovations are really expensive to do right and maybe without the park district, you know, it's sort of who knows when we would have gotten to a project of this magnitude.
At the time we adopted the park district proposal or rather plan.
A snapshot of our deferred capital maintenance was more than $275 million annually.
So no question that number has grown, but the Park District has provided us some capacity to do big projects like this.
We made a commitment to do 120 major maintenance projects.
We actually completed 123. Uh, we identified six community centers that needed structural, uh, uh, upgrades just to make them, uh, durable into the future.
These weren't major renovations.
They were, uh, more or less, uh, sustainability projects to keep the doors open.
Um, we also, uh, continue to invest in the zoo and the aquarium.
Even though these are operated by non-profits, they are still park-owned facilities.
We completed improvement projects at 21 P patches and eight dog off leash areas.
Next slide.
Superintendent, can we actually pause for just a moment on this slide, please?
I have a couple clarifying questions and if colleagues do, I'm happy to maybe open it up a little here as well.
Do you know off the top of your head, the six community centers that receive structural and system upgrades?
Yeah, so those were Lake City, Green Lake, South Park, Jefferson, Queen Anne, and Hiawatha.
And these were basically stabilization projects that added more useful life to the building and did some major repairs.
Great.
On the off-leash areas, this is something that I certainly hear a lot in my district about off-leash areas and the popularity of parks off-leash areas.
Were any new off-leash areas funded?
It says here that eight were improved, but did we get any expansion of off-leash areas in the cycle one over the park district?
Uh, I believe we did.
Unfortunately, I can't recall them right off the top.
Um, you know, so this was not only, uh, eight off leash area, uh, improvements and some mix of new off leash areas.
Uh, I know we have one in Georgetown, uh, that we're still working on.
Um, that one comes to mind.
Uh, We also developed an off-leash comprehensive plan or strategic plan with the citizens for off-leash areas.
So a lot of work has gone into this with the local stewardship group that stewards our off-leash area parks.
Great.
Thank you.
Do council colleagues have any questions on this slide before we continue?
Okay.
I don't see any additional ones.
Um, uh, go ahead, superintendent.
Thank you for, for pausing there.
Sure.
Why don't we get to the next slide?
Okay.
So, um, additional first cycle accomplishments, uh, Our community centers are open and available to the public during the day.
And it is really difficult to do things like finish gymnasium floors with the fumes and paint thinners and that sort of thing.
So we created a third shift overnight crew to do a lot of the work that is just not appropriate to do while the public is in the building.
We also funded more support with our partners in animal control.
So ironically, while there is a lot of support for off-leash areas, one of our number one complaints, believe it or not, is off-leash area dogs in our parks.
So we partnered with animal control to develop a program to enhance enforcement in our public parks to ensure the public is leashing their dogs and obeying scoop laws.
We issued 1,650 citations and 300 verbal warnings over this period.
Superintendent, just to clarify, you just said complaints about off-leash areas.
Did you mean complaints about dogs being off-leash?
I just want to clarify.
Go ahead, sorry.
Thank you for that clarification.
No, I was saying, ironically, we just talked about off-leash areas, and those are great.
However, one of the complaints we get are dogs off-leash in developed parks.
And because of that, we developed a program working with animal control to make sure we have enhanced enforcement.
We want to encourage people to follow the dog leash rules and or to use the dog off leash park.
So I went on to say that we issued 1650 citations, and 300 verbal warnings were issued during this period of time.
Other accomplishments here is a We also developed a program to enhance restroom cleaning across the system.
We expanded the cleaning at 41 comfort stations is what we refer to them as in our public parks.
And we are supporting the reforestation and maintenance of our green belts and natural areas.
We're doing a lot of work with the office of sustainability on trees.
And I think what you're gonna see when the park district proposal comes to you as an investment in more trees in our urban area.
Superintendent, just to pause a little on this slide too.
Do we know how many, I mean, I see the volunteer hours for the forest restoration and maintenance.
Do we know how many trees were planted as part of these efforts in cycle one?
That would be a good statistic, I think, to share with folks.
You know, we can certainly go back and get that metric.
I bet Michelle could pull it out as we go through this presentation.
It's not specifically trees, but native plants, they plant the, Through the GSP, we planted over 600,000 native plants in our forested areas.
And that's great.
Thank you for sharing that.
Absolutely.
All right.
Why don't we get to the next slide?
Another emphasis for Park District resources was on improving access to recreation services and our attempt to reach people in communities that have been historically underserved.
We have a big focus in this organization on raising social justice, equity, and access.
So we made investments and new public open space across the system.
Let's see, are we on the right slide?
Are you on slide number nine?
Yep, yep, you're on slide number nine.
Okay.
We have more, we awarded more than $7 million in grants.
We made improvements to 14. All right, Christopher, I must be on a different slide than you.
So I think this one was I think you started it to increase access for recreation programming, including we added a new recreation scholarship fund.
Oh, right.
And then Yeah, we have three new granting programs that support community, bringing art into our parks and doing programming that further gets people moving in a healthy way, especially those that are most at risk of health-related disparity, and then a Recreation for All program that brings community organizations into our facilities to bring more diverse programming.
So we've served over 500,000 or sorry, 50,000 participants in that endeavor this cycle.
And I think you are on this one.
Yeah, thank you, Michelle.
Good.
Good save and good catch.
I jumped ahead of myself here.
So again, we made investments and new public open space.
We purchased 18 properties totaling more than nine acres.
We awarded more than $7 million in grants for community based projects through the major project challenge fund.
Five of the 14 land bank sites were developed.
And, you know, a lot of this work is the kind of work that has a lot of community engagement.
as a component to it.
So we just talked to a lot of the community when they came to us with grant proposals, and the park board was heavily engaged in that work, as was the Park District Oversight Committee.
And then certainly the park development projects had huge community engagement components to them.
Next slide.
Okay, so on this slide, you know, continuing with accomplishments.
The first five-year cycle went more or less as planned.
In 2020, as you know, the world changed and we were dealing with a global pandemic due to COVID.
The Park District funding allowed us the flexibility to respond to this major unprecedented emergency.
We pivoted our mission to essential functions and staff became essential workers.
During 2020, more than 250 people were provided shelter at three community center locations across the system.
Almost 1,000 youth were served in all-day COVID-compliant childcare programs.
Our staff acted as social distancing ambassadors at busy parks across the system.
And I'll just say a little bit about that.
You know, the social distance ambassador program was piloted right here in the Seattle Park and Recreation Department.
But that model would become a national model across the United States for helping the public enjoy public parks in a safe way during the pandemic.
We worked hard to keep our elders and people with disabilities engaged in our programs through the offering of virtual programs across the system.
Next slide.
more lessons learned here.
You know we've been engaged in a process of continuous performance and improvement with regard to the park district.
Some of the observations or lessons learned we have is that the decision to create the park district has proven to be the right decision from our perspective.
It's helped build critical resiliency in the department and has helped insulate the department operations from unanticipated swings in the general fund budget.
The stability and flexibility of the park district resources has allowed us to creatively reprogram resources to mitigate general fund and park fund shortfalls through multiple budget cycles and most recently during the period of unprecedented uncertainty due to COVID-19.
Our 2020 pivot pandemic response is perhaps the best example of the role these resources played.
You know, because the Park District resources are fungible, meaning that we don't make a distinction between capital funding and operations, it's worth noting that the Park District was able to step in and help relieve some pressure on the general fund.
Next slide, please.
So what this slide is attempting to convey is that on the operating side, let's take that top line, activation, get moving, recreation for all, arts and parks.
Those are various grants and the park district funds about 30% of that overall effort Let's take another one.
Let's use golf, for example.
There are no park district dollars that go into the golf program.
It's an enterprise fund and it operates on a self-recovering model.
Under recreation facility operations, about 18% of the park district revenues are supporting our community center hours and community access.
under capital acquisition Park District revenues were providing 50 percent of our acquisition dollars and we've we're actually going to zero that out in this next cycle because King County just adopted a measure and the CFP funding where they will provide 100% of the funding for properties in low income areas.
And so that was good news here recently.
Also, We don't have any current debt service, although we anticipate there will be some debt service in this next cycle of funding.
And then, of course, our urban forestry program, the Park District is providing 42% of the funding.
So this gets into kind of an interesting conversation, because as we're talking about the Park District, you see that 19% There at the bottom, one would believe that the Park District was responsible for a greater overall percentage of our $288 million budget, when in fact, the Park District makes up about 19%, a significant 19% of our budget.
Next slide.
Okay so some of the lessons learned is we thought we should maybe redo or re-establish the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners to advise and provide oversight on the park district.
We made that change this year and what drove us to make that change is we have people who serve on the park board and they have a scope of decision making that didn't include advising the department on the park district because there was a separate citizen oversight committee and it seemed kind of silly to have these two advisory groups not be able to talk to each other about some fairly important issues concerning the department.
So we brought to you some legislation that changed how the park board is organized.
The other thing that we've done is really had a focus on centering equity and amending the interlocal agreement to reference a community response fund versus a major project challenge fund.
This was a big capital project challenge fund where you could receive up to $1.8 million in funding match.
when most communities probably can't raise that level of funding.
So we wanted to do something, make a change that recognized, you know, a more equitable access to grants in the system.
Also, we amended the reporting timelines to better reflect the planning.
So there were examples in the interlocal agreement where Uh, we needed to be delivering recommendations to you, uh, before we had actually presented our end cycle report or presented an annual report.
And we wanted to sort of true up those expectations.
Next slide.
Yeah.
Um, superintendent council member Herbold has a question.
Okay, great.
Thank you so much.
On the lessons learned, the narrative says that you've renamed the major projects challenge fund to a community response fund, but I'm sure it's more than just a name change.
Was wondering if you can actually explain what the difference is.
Sure.
So the major challenge project fund was basically designed to recognize that we had some really big facilities like the Green Lake Rowing and Sailing Center project, you know, was a several million dollar project that the Advisory Council had been working on for years.
Not everybody across Seattle has a neighborhood project that big and that size.
It had some pretty clear parameters on your access to be able to apply for a grant for that funding.
I think the minimum threshold was a $1.2 million level of application fee just to apply for it, all the way up to $1.8 million.
That left out a lot of community initiative and a lot of neighborhoods and communities that might have just wanted to do a play area project.
So the big change is we've taken that funding and created this sort of equity-centered community grant opportunity that will give communities all over the city an opportunity to apply for grants.
And the other good news is this won't, this will not require a match.
So no match is required and you've lowered the minimum threshold from 1.2 to just no minimum threshold or?
no minimum threshold up to $750,000.
Okay, thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Michelle, were you trying to get in there?
Okay, okay.
Next slide.
Okay, so another aspect of the Park District being so integral to our programs and services is talking only about one fund.
So one of the things that's hard for us is just by way of example, we were on the phone here a few days ago with the school district.
And there was discussion about coming down to the school district or rather coming down to the park district building.
And the reality is we want to be able to talk about the park district in the context of the overall mission for the department, the overall services we provide, the overall work we do with the community.
We recognize that it is important to be accountable for the park district dollars, but we would like to, I think, change our narrative and how we have the discussion with the community.
of the department's budget since 20% of the department's budget is made up of Park District resources.
So we're not stepping away from the overall accountability, but we'd like to step into a more comprehensive discussion about That's one of the big lessons learned and one of the takeaways we have in our discussion about the park district.
Next slide.
Superintendent, can we go back to slide 15 for just a moment, please?
Thank you.
I have a strong preference for continuing at least at some level to track at the initiative level, the Metropolitan Park District items, I don't have an issue with that data also being, or that information also being accessible or visible in an operating lines of business format, but I would have a hard time transitioning completely to from a park district initiatives to operating lines of business.
I'm happy to continue to talk about it, but I just find it easier to track and do this work with the park district initiatives items.
It's just a personal preference.
I don't know if council colleagues wanna weigh in on this chart as well, or if, if central staff also has clarifying questions at this time, but this is one that I wanted to flag in the side deck for some future discussion about how we can accommodate some of the interests that parks is flagging, but also not lose track of the detail of having park district initiative level line items.
I don't see anyone else wanting to comment on this slide.
So I just wanted, oh, Council Member Herbold.
Sure, I mean, I just, I probably would need to spend a little bit more time with this slide, but I agree with you, Chair Lewis, that the objective should be to communicate with the public.
what their park district dollars are buying and make accountability and transparency easier.
And it seems to me being more specific on the lines of business for the park district initiatives that that actually enhances communication, accountability, and transparency.
I'm not opposed to a shift to a different approach.
I'm just, I don't wanna lose sight of what sort of the overall policy goals are for the use of the lines of business.
We hear you on maintaining the transparency and the, uh, I think reporting and visibility of the initiatives in the budget.
Okay.
All right.
I think we can go to the next slide.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You bet.
So this slide, uh, is attempting to, so I'll, I'll tell a story here.
You know, um, there was, there was once upon a time, if you would ask Seattle parks and recreation for any performance management data, you know, you would have got goose egg, right?
Or it would have been really difficult for us to provide you that information, because we didn't have a system set up.
We didn't have the technical tools readily available to us.
We didn't have a data informed decision making process in the department.
And What this dashboard really shows is that we count everything, right?
I mean, you know, uh, there were some questions today about metrics.
Well, I don't have those on the top of my head.
We have this website available on our, uh, on our website.
And, um, uh, we have lots of operating budget data related to the park district, uh, on our data dashboard that is available to anyone can go on and look at that.
It is up to date.
We talk about dashboard reporting and data management almost religiously in this organization.
So I think one of the big learning and growth opportunities for the department related to the Park District has been this immersive, I think, commitment to data gathering, collection, curating data, and reporting it out.
Next slide.
So more on the continuous learning, and I know Tracy will remember this, we were required to look at three lines of business over the course of the six-year cycle.
There was a park maintenance report, there was a recreation division report, and there was a planning and development division report.
And we looked at how to improve the operations in these three specific areas.
Under our park maintenance program, we established a comprehensive asset management program.
We even have piloted a stage gating program, conducted routine condition assessments across the system.
Under our community centers or recreation division program, We have done a lot of work to ensure the Seattle Park and Recreation, Associated Recreation Council relationship is functioning as intended.
We've worked hard to increase data collection and strengthen performance measures in the operations of our community centers.
We use public dollars in low-income neighborhoods where we expect more revenue from higher income neighborhoods.
So continuing to double down on that.
And then in our planning development division, we had a significant level of underspend in that division, underspend in capital.
We made some significant changes structurally and organizationally.
Some of it was staffing and staffing capacity changes.
Some of it was integrating a stage gate process for capital projects.
And then really upgrading our technology and workflow systems was a part of that work.
Next slide.
So if you're interested in more Cycle 1 report updates, you can see those various colored dots represent projects across the system.
We were able to leverage 25 partnerships in underserved communities in the mid-cycle progress.
We treated 2015 like a ramp up year.
Implemented programs in 2016 and 17. We provided 62 grants to community groups.
And Christopher, that's just an example of the level of detail that if you get into those reports, you'll find that for each of the cycle one initiatives.
So just an example there.
Yep.
Enticing people to dive in deeper with us.
Dive into the data.
Okay, and then the next slide is just a Q&A slide if you have questions for Michelle or myself.
Well, superintendent, thank you so much for this presentation on the first cycle and sharing those additional resources and the dashboard and everything else that I've availed myself of.
And I'm sure council colleagues have as well.
Are there any questions now that we're through council member Herbold?
Thank you.
I'm just reviewing the central staff memo dated June 10th.
And I'm trying to orient myself on sort of where we are in the planning process and pending recommendations.
There are a couple of attachments at the end, and I see attachment one, of course, are the cycle one initiatives funded in the adopted budget.
But attachment two, is proposed pre-commitment projects.
And I'm assuming that these are proposed by Parks and Recreation to the board and then attachment three is parks district cycle one initiative proposed for inclusion and cycle two plan and 2023 proposed budget.
Can you just give me a little bit more of an understanding of where we are in the process?
These are proposals that parks have made to the board and the board has or hasn't taken action yet.
The Board of Parks and Recreation Commission did take action on those recommendations both on, primarily on the, and you will hear about this all next Friday, on a new set of investment opportunities, about $30 million of new investment opportunities.
an affirmation of those pre-commitment projects, and we'll go into further conversation about that next week as well.
And then I also think they gave a nod to or affirmed that what SPR was recommending is recommending, which is that all of the initiatives that were funded in cycle one would in fact be carried forward into cycle two.
So that list that we just saw on one of the slides back here that listed all of those Initiatives, they would be recommending that those initiatives all be carried forward, I think, except for two of them that actually in the end get picked up as.
new proposals in the cycle 2 recommendations from the Board of Parks and Rec.
So we will be having further conversation about all of this, including in particular the part that you have not yet seen, though I have sent a couple of follow-up emails that would give you more detail on these 38 new investment opportunities that the Board of Parks and Rec Commission adopted at their May 19th meeting.
And so what's happening on next Friday?
Are they presenting their recommendations?
They will be, I think the co-chairs will be there to give some opening remarks.
They are not going to go through every one of their recommendations.
Eric McConaughey and I will walk the council members through those on the 24th.
Got it.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you for those questions.
And for those viewing at home, that was an exchange about the early part of our process on recommendations for cycle two, just to foreshadow a little bit, which is great.
Actually related to that, Superintendent Williams, I don't know if this question is too premature, but, Does the department at this time anticipate carrying over all of those line items from the previous cycle or are there places where the department anticipates consolidations and reapportionments in some of the initial recommendations you guys will send down?
If that is too premature now, feel free to tell me.
We're gonna be talking about this a lot this summer.
So.
I mean, I can say high level.
I think the way we talk about what we consider pre-commitments internally is that funding, at least to us, recognizes that for the first 10 years between the year 2000 and, well, I guess 14 years in 2014, that we had taken significant levels of budget cuts and reductions.
to the department and our ability to operate staff community centers, maintain our parks, do our facility maintenance.
And we have thought about that baseline as a way of backfilling, you know, sort of ensuring that we continue to backfill those reductions going forward.
A lot of the funding on the operating side would mean that, for example, in community centers, you might reduce hours at community centers, for example, right, or have some other unintended consequence across the system.
That's how we got to kind of a conclusion that we felt like what's included in that description of baseline was really just bolstering the department's operations from years of prior budget reductions.
Okay, that's good context.
Are there any other council questions?
Okay, I don't see any.
Well, panel, thank you so much for being here to share that cycle one report with the committee.
It's a good way to kind of kick off this work, to have a good overview of how the first, you know, six year plus cycle has gone and, you know, what some of that work is and how that sets the foundation for moving forward with our work this summer and fall on building a plan for a cycle two.
And looking forward to a lot more of these discussions as we queue up that work.
So with that, I think we're good on this item of business, which was our last item of business.
I do wanna do one last shout out while you guys are here.
Superintendent Williams, I appreciate the Parks Department sending along to my office, and I discussed this at council briefing, the large amount of summer job opportunities that Seattle Parks and Recreation has, particularly for, you know, for lifeguarding, but also staffing our community centers, staffing waiting pools, recreation counselor opportunities.
Great jobs, especially for young people in the city who are looking for an opportunity this summer to make some money and get outside and have a job of responsibility and good experience.
And I am gonna be sending out a newsletter to my subscriber list, which will be available doing an all call for people to sign up for those jobs.
Did just wanna make that plug also in public session for folks who may be listening or invested in our Seattle Parks and the Metropolitan Park District and everything else.
That work is made possible by the folks who do these important jobs in Seattle Parks and Recreation.
And there's a lot of opportunities to join that family.
and strongly encourage folks to reach out to Parks and Rec to apply for those jobs so we can enjoy those great public assets this summer.
With that, is there any other business to come before the committee before we adjourn?
No one is looking to keep us here, great.
So with that, it is 3.38 p.m.
and the meeting of the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee is hereby adjourned.