Sustainability, City Light, Arts & Culture Committee 6/21/2024

Good morning.

The June 21st, 2024 meeting of the Sustainability City Light Arts and Culture Committee will come to order.

It's now 9.34 a.m.

I'm Tanya Wu, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Moore?

Present.

Councilmember Saka?

Here.

Chair Wu?

Present.

Chair, there are three voting members present.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales and Council Member Strauss have been excused from today's committee meeting.

I'd also like to acknowledge and welcome Council President, who is in attendance.

Thank you for joining us today.

If there are no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objections, the agenda is adopted.

We will 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 remote speakers.

Thank you, so each speaker will have two minutes.

We will start with the in-person speakers.

Speakers will be called in an order in which they registered, and there'll be a chime within 10 seconds left in your time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if you go over your time.

And the public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first remote speaker is Alberto Alvarez.

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

One moment, please.

Sorry, one moment.

technical difficulties.

So just a reminder, you'll have two minutes and you'll hear a chime within 10 seconds.

Thank you for your patience.

We'll get started as soon as we are able to.

Good morning, counsel.

Today's presentation states the following.

65% of creative workers are non-traditional workers and thus had difficulty accessing unemployment insurance.

A worker days ago reminded the city council that they are an audio-video professional who is also a long-time gig worker.

In fact, many creative workers are also independent contractors in rideshare, grocery shopping, and services like DoorDash and UberEat.

They do this to make ends meet when they don't have access to unemployment and to cover living costs in between projects.

I want to remind the present council members that for a healthy and pro-Seattle economy, fair wages and worker protections must be upheld and affirmed.

Support the rights of workers across the board.

A thriving Seattle is a working Seattle.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next remote speaker is Sabrina Beaulieu.

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

Good morning, council members, and good morning, Chair Wu.

I'm calling on behalf of the Council bill that will adopt the agreement between the Port of Seattle and the City of Seattle for the Shore Power Connection project.

This is a long time coming.

We are so excited to support it.

For the record, I'm Sabrina Beaulieu speaking on behalf of the Port of Seattle.

And we are so excited to electrify our waterfront.

We will be the first port in the nation to have a fully electrified waterfront for our cruise vessels.

It's huge for downtown recovery.

And I just want to thank you for your leadership and please reach out to me with any questions you might have.

I look forward to full council adoption the first week of July.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So as a reminder, members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the sign up cards available on the podium or email the council at council at Seattle dot gov. Looks like there are no additional speakers and we'll now proceed to our items of business.

So we will move on to the first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Agenda item one, arts economic round table for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

So I'm so excited to have Council President Nelson here to join us and to also co-sponsor this roundtable.

So I'll let you speak about how this got started.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Wu, for having me here.

I really appreciate this opportunity.

And thank you all, and the panelists who will be seated at the table shortly, thank you very much for coming as well.

I'm Sarah Nelson, and ever since taking office, I have been chair of Economic Development.

And I'll explain, well, my comments will reveal why I asked to participate and suggested this roundtable.

The arts and culture sector in itself is a powerful driver of economic activity and job creation, in addition, of course, to contributing to the vibrancy of our city and in quality of life.

For some perspective, it's been said that the arts draw one million more people downtown than sports games annually.

And so that just gives you a sense of how many people we're talking about.

Not sure if that is what that correct number is, but the fact is I give it as an indication of the magnitude of the economic impact of arts, culture, heritage institutions, and not just downtown, but across the city.

And remember that these institutions feed the retail and the hospitality businesses in the region as well.

So it's important from an economic—the arts are absolutely vital and crucially important to the city of Seattle for our revenue that we have to work with also to run local government.

It's because people decide to spend their discretionary income taking in the arts.

Sometimes we think about it as sort of a nice to have or elitist because maybe that's, you know, because only people that have the wherewithal to to appreciate or attend a show take part, but that is not the case because we're also talking about all of the workers, not only who are on the stage or the screen, we're talking about the people that support the institutions from behind the scenes.

the people that clean Fifth Avenue Theater, the people that really just are part of this vital community.

And so that is why I feel very strongly that local government has a role to play in supporting the art sector.

And the very fact is that Seattle is lagging other West Coast cities when it comes to people returning to their seats in venues and I learned this from from Manny who will be up here and again we actually have people outside City Hall who representing the needs and interests, and that is an indication that there are very specific policy priorities that we should be carrying forward to ensure that not just our arts sector, but our city as a whole, rebounds from the pandemic.

And so the idea to actually have a roundtable came from a meeting that I attended with leaders of arts institutions across the city, arts, culture, and heritage institutions.

And they were talking about all the things that ails the sector.

And of course, one of the things that people noted was that people will not come back to downtown specifically if they don't feel safe coming back after hours.

And there have been a few recent surveys that do show that too many people feel concerned about coming to the downtown core after dark.

That is a different policy.

discussion and I'm not going to pull the council member kettle and make this about public safety.

I just simply want to note that I am interested today to listen.

I'm not going to talk much more.

I want to know some of the questions that I'm interested in is what other cities are better supporting the arts sector.

and what can we replicate here, if anything, and then also just understand more how I can take in what is said today and incorporate it into my work as chair of the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee.

So thank you for having me, and I look forward to the discussion.

Thank you.

So I'm very excited to co-host the round table in this committee.

We're committing every third Friday of the month during committee to the arts and economic round table.

Every month we'll have a different focus with some participants rotating as well.

And there's two main goals for this round table, provide a platform that uplifts this work, not just by our city departments, but our external partners as well.

and to also, number two, inform and educate ourselves and the public about the arts and culture and economic development intersection.

I acknowledge it's one big ecosystem and all the components are important and connected and wanting to lift this creative economy as much as we can.

I want to acknowledge that we may not have all the answers and we may not always be in alignment.

There are so many amazing ideas.

But we'll love to have these conversations and inform people on what's happening and be able to inform ourselves as well when we look at policies and legislation.

So before I turn this over to our presenters, I want to encourage my colleagues to listen and save our questions and comments for the end.

Manny will facilitate a question and answer period for us.

I also want to encourage people who are watching and listening to submit their questions and forum topic suggestions to our office so we can incorporate feedback for future conversations.

Now I'd like to invite the roundtable participants to gather at the community table.

And when you're ready, please go ahead and introduce yourselves.

And I want to make sure that you might have to pull the microphone really close to your face.

And there's a little green light that will appear that will let you know that the microphone's on.

Let's start over there with Seth.

Good morning.

I'm Seth Geiser.

I'm the Manager of Urban Planning for the Downtown Seattle Association Metropolitan Improvement District.

Good morning.

I'm Gülgün Kem.

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

Marken McIntyre, Director of the Office of Economic Development.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Manny Kowalian.

I'm the executive director for Inspire Washington.

To share a little bit about myself first, I'm a lifelong Seattleite, third generation.

I live in the central area at 30th and Cherry.

Of course, I've had a long service of partnership with the city of Seattle as a former Seattle Center commissioner.

as well as a lot of participation in a variety of programs that serve our Seattleites.

And I am so grateful that you have started this conversation and to work together with all of you.

Inspire Washington, we are your cultural advocacy organization.

We exist to serve every state community from Spokane to Seattle, from Wenatchee to Whatcom.

Inspire Washington serves communities by supporting all of our cultural partners.

They are the ones that inspire Washington communities every day in every state region, in every city of Seattle neighborhood through their valuable community centered programs.

I am honored to be here to talk about our cultural partners, the different fields within the creative and cultural sector with all of you.

Our partners, they are a coalition of nonprofit cultural and science organizations and the commercial creative industry.

Statewide, we are nearly 18,000 businesses, thousands of employees, and countless creative contractors who drive significant economic and social impacts.

Every city and town in Hamlet and Washington benefits from programs in science, heritage, and the arts.

All of us share common values, passions, and beliefs.

Our cultural work adds uplifting value to community life, bringing joy, forging human connections, and inspiring tremendous social and tremendous economic impacts.

We are not nice to have.

On the contrary, communities count on us.

Cities count on us.

We are an essential partner for building resilient, vibrant, and connected communities.

Culture.

is vital and inspirational.

It ignites curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, and that connection of people and places around us.

Arts, culture, and creative work, they are exceptional here in Seattle.

We are a cultural capital of the world.

What happens here in our beautiful city matters to our citizens, to the state, to our nation, and even internationally.

I do not exaggerate.

The breadth of our programming, the high quality of work is the envy of many cities across the nation and world.

We have something special.

We are a leader, and you all are stewards of a tremendous cultural legacy and have the power to inspire more growth that will bear tremendous social and economic impacts and, of course, just make life beautiful and vibrant in Seattle.

And that is why we're here today and why we'll be talking more about our sector and the opportunities for collaboration.

Of course, as we've discussed before, the pandemic has had tremendous impacts on our businesses, but many of our partners are still here.

Many of our creative people are still here, and they're looking for more support so that they can do more, be more, and support our neighborhoods and our citizens in Seattle.

I'm really honored to have this tremendous panel to be talking about their ideas and the information they bear and the unique role that each of them plays in supporting a cultural and creative economy.

To wrap up, I do want to kind of make a few statements just to kind of ground today's conversation.

One, this is a representative conversation.

Certainly, we are just a dozen people here in this room, as well as on the Zoom space.

But of course, what we're talking about today is personal to so many folks across Seattle.

It's personal for the individuals that are providing work.

It's really personal for the people that are benefiting from this work.

This is an opportunity for us to learn.

There's so much within this work that we can learn to inspire us for action.

This is also an opportunity for us to discover shared agreements.

What do we agree on?

What do we not agree on?

And how will we collaborate into decisions for the future?

And of course, this is an opportunity for us to inspire.

cultural and creative programs to make sure that more people work, more people are benefiting from the cultural programs, and also that it has a ripple effect into businesses and sectors beyond theaters and performance venues as well.

Of course, a lot of talk happened last year towards the end about the tremendous impact of Doors Open.

Inspire Washington was a driver for that.

And of course, we believe that this will provide transformative opportunities in building cultural infrastructure outside of Seattle, where there has not been as much infrastructure.

Let's think about Black Diamond.

But it is also an opportunity to drive support at the county level to our valuable organizations in Seattle.

That doesn't mean that Seattle's role in supporting cultural programs is not necessary.

In fact, it makes it more important than ever.

There is no other place in Washington state where it is more expensive and challenging to do cultural creative work than in Seattle, Washington.

But it is also one of the most inspired places for us to do this.

So I welcome this collaboration and conversation with all of you and I know that from this starting point we're going to go a great distance and we're going to discover a lot of great things that we will do together.

Thank you, I think that's my cue, right, Manny?

Yes, let's start with the presentation.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so I was asked to put a brief presentation together just to get us started.

The purpose of this presentation isn't to be comprehensive, but to give us some information to go on.

We decided that we were going to spend a tiny amount of time in definitions and kind of identify where it is that we're working.

And so I pulled together a sort of a way for us to think about that and then move on to just a very small touch on what the pandemic did.

to the creative economy, just so that as we are coming out of that phase, so that we can all have that context in front of us as we think about the creative sector.

So without further ado, I'm just going to move forward in the presentation.

One thing I should say also is that the issue of defining the creative economy has come up.

as we've put together this presentation and this panel.

And we would love to have a further conversation with you about what that means.

But from the historical standpoint, it's a sector that's been hard to define.

How do you define creativity?

There's been a lot of...

research done around it, nationally and internationally.

And lately, especially, there's been a lot of data that's been pulled together in collaboration with federal partners.

So the Bureau of Economic Analysis has actually been working with WestAFT, the Western States Arts Federation, to pull together a comprehensive view of the creative sector, because without an ability to define it through data, it's very hard for us to talk about it and what it needs.

So that's one thing that I'm very excited about that's happened in the last, I'd say, five, six years.

OK, so moving forward.

Next slide, please.

So I want to just start with a reminder of the city departments that really have direct touch on the creative economy.

And what I mean by that is the Office of Arts and Culture, the Office of Economic Development, and Seattle Center, we are all directly engaged with the creative economy on a day-to-day basis.

Other departments do have some involvement, but I would, as you will see in our discussion on definitions, we're really involved in the production and support of that sector.

And we'll talk a bit more about that.

We're not gonna go into our particular program areas.

We're going to, that's gonna spend too much time, but we are just gonna acknowledge that these three departments kind of create the infrastructure within the city together.

Next slide, please.

So I put this slide up here just to give us some ability to talk about what we do in terms of economy.

So economy is a system of exchanges.

And there's some aspects that we should just bear in mind.

First of all, this particular graphic comes from my work in the city of Minneapolis, working on defining and measuring the creative sector.

And this particular definition really amplifies the interconnected nature of creative production.

So what I mean by production is of producing products, events, stuff, things that are maybe a play we want to go see, objects in a museum, et cetera.

So in the center of this, we visualized it like a solar system.

In the center, there's the sun.

So you've got your skilled producers who are making the thing we're calling art.

Surrounding that are the art service organizations or those organizations that provide technical assistance.

So Shumpike would be a local example.

And so organizations that really are there to amplify a particular project audience.

So for example, Pottery Northwest, that's there in order to amplify the pottery audience.

And they also provide technical assistance and investment for that particular genre or field.

Outside of that is arts education.

And why is arts education important?

That's because we're training the future artists or creative producers and audiences.

And having informed audiences is very important.

As you can see, there's lots of connections along this line.

There's creative industries, arts festivals, cross-sector arts, philanthropy and public sector support, civic groups and arts fans.

And all of these work together like any ecosystem does.

It's interrelated.

And the two outputs of the sector are social and economic.

which we all talk about in terms of GDP or revenues or jobs, but there's also social output.

And we shouldn't forget the social impacts that the creative sector has.

And that can be in terms of vibrancy, belonging, et cetera.

And I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that later.

I'm gonna pause here because my colleague Mark Markham wants to talk a little bit about the work he does in relationship to this.

Thank you.

I really like this slide.

One, because I'm a visual learner, so I like to actually see things mapped out.

Two, because as Gulgun mentioned, it's illustrative of just how interconnected all these different pieces are, which is both fabulous because it means that there's so much crossover and so much potential kind of in those gray areas, but it also means that it's complex because it's hard to kind of tease out who's doing what.

But when I saw this and Gulgun and I were preparing for this presentation, I had a little bit of an aha moment thinking about how the Office of Arts and Culture really is taking care of that center of the solar system.

And then OED is really focused a little bit more on the periphery with the creative industries, arts festivals, place making, cross sector arts pieces.

And so I'm really excited as we go forward in this creative economy discussion to draw something similar for our city, something that's representative of kind of how our own solar creative economy solar system works.

I think that'll be helpful in kind of with some of the definition, but also again, continue to illustrate the complexity of the cross connections.

So looking forward to that as a future piece that we can collaborate on.

Thank you.

And as Malcolm mentioned, art spends most of its time in the production space.

So we're supporting the people making the art in various ways.

We do spend some time in industries and some time in festivals because they come to us for support.

But we're really there to make sure that the center is healthy.

Okay, moving on.

As I mentioned, so the creative sector also has social returns.

And what are some of these?

Some examples are wellness, community engagement, quality of life, social cohesion and community building, creative placemaking and belonging.

We could add to this list, but I wanted to remind us that that is something that the creative sector produces in addition to to the numbers.

And one of the things that I think we all debate about in terms of nonprofit creative sector organizations is that when we think about return on our investments, we should be also counting social returns, not just the number of tickets sold or the revenues that they produce, but how many people came, what the vibrancy result is.

Those things are harder to measure, admittedly, but they're really, really important because nonprofits are not going to be about producing revenue or profit.

They're going to be about the social impact.

So I just wanted to remind ourselves about that.

Since we did have a healthy debate about that, it's a both and.

Okay, moving on.

I'm going to hand this over to my colleague to talk a little bit more about.

But now we're entering into the section that reminds us, before the pandemic, what were the creative economy returns on investment?

What were the economic returns?

And this particular slide comes from OED's Creative Economy Report.

So I'm going to hand it over to you, Markham.

Thanks.

And I'll start by putting a little caveat on this.

So first, as Golgun mentioned, the definition of what is the creative economy is still in development.

And I think we've agreed at this table that what we need is a definition that works for us, for our city, for our own unique ecosystem.

And so even though this data on the slide reflects the OED Creative Economy Report from 2019, we are in the process of kicking off a refresher of that report Neither Gulgun nor I were in our positions when that report was commissioned or made.

So I'm really excited that we get to co-create this between our two offices alongside Seattle Center and alongside all of our stakeholder partners to really think about post-pandemic.

What are we talking about?

What is within the creative economy?

How do we measure it?

And then how do we find the strengths and opportunities in there that we can really go to work on, as well as what are the gaps that we need to address both immediately as well as long term?

So just a caveat that what we're looking at is a look back and doesn't necessarily represent the entire creative economy that we'll be talking about as we go forward.

A couple other caveats.

One is the data here doesn't include nonprofit revenues, which I think is a little bit of an oversight because employers are employers and they are important to our economy.

as well as the caller earlier was reflecting on kind of the gig economy and how important that is to the creative economy.

So I think, again, as we figure out what we're going to measure and how we define the creative economy going forward, these different nuances are really important choices that we'll make that will drive our decisions on investments as programming and whatnot.

Relatedly, the workforce numbers that we chose for this 2019 report include both the kind of traditional creative industries, arts and culture sector work, and some tech sector jobs.

Because again, the creative economy skillset, the workforce cuts across many different sectors.

There are jobs in many different industry sectors that require creative skillsets.

So just wanna make sure that as we look at these numbers, we understand that there's some nuance to it that's important to grasp, and that we will be coming back to you, as we refresh the report to get your strategic advice and counsel to kind of drive that decision making.

So anyway, you can see here though that creative jobs are incredibly important to our economy, both from a GDP perspective, as well as just a raw numbers of how many people have these jobs.

So it's a driver for economic growth.

But I think we all know that we pride ourselves here on Seattle on being innovative, having innovative spirit.

And that comes from that creativity and harnessing that creativity and figuring out how to commercialize it and how to actually have it make money is an incredibly important asset that we have here.

We've demonstrated time and again in many different industries I'm excited about how do we figure out what that next set of industries are going to look like, whether it's the green economy or artificial intelligence.

How are we leading the forefront in thinking as well as then the actual doing of that economic work?

Golgud, I'm actually going to turn it back to you if you want to talk about the Creative Vitality Index.

Oh, sure, yes.

You've probably got a better handle on the definition.

So as I mentioned, West Staff is a data aggregator and provides numbers on jobs and revenues within the creative sector.

And when you purchase this data, you are able to compare yourself to other cities who are using the same data sets.

So the data they pull from is national data.

So the Bureau of Labor Statistics is one example of one of their data sets.

And when I created the report in Minneapolis, I pulled CVI data.

I was interested in nonprofit and for-profit revenues.

I was interested in the workforce.

So that included the gig economy, not just the people hired by organizations.

And so this is, I would say, the closest we can get the CVI data to a comprehensive data set that provides a big view, a big umbrella.

And so the CVI index value is a combination of numbers of jobs and revenues within your city, and it compares it to other cities across the country.

So what this tells you is Seattle is seventh in my list of cities.

When I say large cities, there is a consortium of cities, 60 cities in the United States with populations over...

a half a million.

And we tend to compare ourselves to each other in a lot of measurements.

And so I can tell you that Minneapolis is actually six, and it's a smaller size city.

And we can talk about why that is.

But that is where Seattle was in 2019. And that means it's 4.5 times larger than other cities.

So its combination of jobs and revenues is four point times larger.

So I hope that explains it.

Okay, next slide, please.

One thing we also want to note is when you invest in the creative sector, as I mentioned, you're investing in more than just direct revenues.

You're investing in social impacts and also ancillary spending.

What is ancillary spending?

That's the type of spending people do when they come to see an event or go to a festival.

They will buy a parking ticket.

They'll park their cars.

or they'll go to a restaurant, or they'll go to a bar, or some other aspect of the business corridor that the event is in.

And so this type of ancillary spending does have an impact.

We know that when there is a movie theater or a bar that produces performances, it does tend to draw people.

It does bring foot traffic, not just animates the street, but actually supports other businesses.

And there's certain festival data that can really support how certain festivals really drive business for the rest of the year.

And so that's something that I wanted to make sure we all understand.

So just a couple of numbers here.

In 2023, arts and culture events generated 30 million in ancillary spending in the downtown core.

And then there's also creative sector direct spending.

And what I mean by that is we include that in the ancillary spending category.

This is not buying a ticket.

This is the amount of money spent by the organization to make the creative product.

So it could be you're creating a set for a play.

You've spent all this money to...

purchase the materials, et cetera.

So that type of direct spending also has impact.

Okay, next slide, please.

Moving on to the workforce, as mentioned, this is a gig economy.

So 65% of creative workers are non-traditional workers.

So they're piecing together their work from lots of different contracts.

And so that is actually a challenge and proved itself to be during the pandemic because this workforce in particular had difficulty accessing federal support in unemployment insurance.

Also, what happened over the pandemic because of this difficulty, there was a cultural brain drain.

What I mean by that is folks in the creative sector had to move into other jobs in order to make a living because of the dire consequences of everything shutting down.

And then looking at the data in more detail, we learned that creatives of color were particularly impacted by the pandemic.

And if you can move over to the next slide, this will be a good illustration.

I'm not gonna spend tons of time on this slide, but just to note that the most impacted BIPOC communities were at 78% were native Hawaiian Pacific Islander.

Those identifying under that category.

And then 72% of black and Middle Eastern Arab creative workers, as well as 70% of Latinx workers.

These were the ones that really felt the impact the most in terms of accessing, in terms of loss of income.

So moving on.

Other types of pandemic impacts during the pandemic, we know everything shut down and there were federal supports.

Pandemic relief and resources took many forms.

However, one thing to note, this phrase we use, first to close, last to open, was really real for the creative sector.

It was one of the first to close.

because, obviously, social engagement.

And as it was closed, it was actually one of the last to actually receive supports.

So through these various federal programs, like CARES, Paycheck Protection Program, and Emergency Injury and Disaster Loans, American Rescue Act, et cetera.

We have data to show that the creative sector actually was the slowest to receive support.

And one illustration about that is that in the relief support for the shuttered venues, so these are venues of all sizes, music venues, et cetera, They finally received support in 2021, but that's because they did direct advocacy at the federal level.

They went to the federal feds and said, we haven't received any access to operating our venues.

And then the Paycheck Protection Program excuse me, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program did an analysis of who received its funding and 37% of gig workers received its funding.

So that's all gig workers, not just creative.

So it just shows you that being a gig worker was very difficult during the pandemic.

It meant that you weren't able to recoup any of your income or very little of your income through pandemic related supports.

OK, I don't want to spend tons of time here because we have to move on to a conversation.

But this next slide, please.

All right.

So we're in the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

And this particular data set actually is the same data set used by Westhoff.

It does not include the tech data that was drawn into the Office of Economic Analysis.

development report, but here we see the same industries.

We're looking at the same things.

The two things I think I'd like you just to spend time on here is that industries at the top, the top five industries by value add, and what they mean by value add is by gross domestic product.

These particular industries are the distribution systems.

So what they're talking about there are the ways in which creative sector distributes its products.

So those are the top five distribution systems.

And underneath that, the core arts and cultural industries are the ones that are producing the products.

So back to this idea of production and distribution.

Next slide, please.

So I just moved three of those out to make it easier to look at.

So publishing, retail, and information services are the top three in terms of distribution.

And architectural services, advertising, and promoters of performing arts are the top three in terms of production.

So next one.

Next slide, please.

And then this particular graph is also very interesting because it's longitudinal information.

It tells us what happened before the pandemic where we were and then what happened during and after.

Now, one thing I didn't mention is that this is about the state, not the city.

We couldn't get data down to the city level because we haven't produced our report yet.

and the BA only does state level reports.

But it's fair to assume that Seattle's the economic engine of the state, so a lot of it applies to us.

So given that, we can see here that there was, where we were before the pandemic in 2018, the dip that we had, the dotted line compares us to the rest of the states.

So against the rest of the country, we're not doing well.

We are recovering slowly.

While we are third in terms of our gross domestic product, we are 48th in terms of recovery.

So that's something to bear in mind.

And that's the same with employment, not just the production, but employment.

We are slow to recover.

Next slide, please.

And this is the final slide.

And again, back to the GDP, exactly what I said earlier.

Sixth among all states for employment, 36th among all states for employment growth, third among all states for GDP, and 48th among all states for GDP growth.

And that's it.

We didn't want to provide any conclusions because we wanted to use this just to stimulate conversation, provide you with some context, and to have a good conversation.

Thank you so much for providing such a wonderful presentation.

Clearly, we're really lucky to have such passionate, thoughtful, and informed leaders in this work.

So now I turn it over to you.

This was a lot of information.

What are your comments, your thoughts, your questions?

Colleagues, any questions?

Council Member Saka?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you all for this very insightful, wonderful presentation.

Awesome, super important and impactful topic.

Director McIntyre, thank you for being here.

And also thank you for taking great liberty with casual Fridays with that polo shirt.

You see me very buttoned up all the time.

So this is a different look.

Yes, in this esteemed chamber.

Summer Friday.

All good.

I have a polo shirt underneath this as well.

So no worries.

Welcome, terrific presentation, love all this.

And one thing that I heard is that we're working hard to construct a definition of the quote unquote creative economy and various thoughts and considerations involved in that.

How I generally approach these issues is because it can get easy to get hung up on defining any number of things.

How I generally approach these issues is taking a step back and thinking, what is the underlying that we're working towards here collectively?

One way to think about that is, what are some of the underlying challenges or problems we're specifically seeking to solve?

In a limited resource environment, for example, where can the city best optimize its resources to drive impact and further advance our creative economy?

Whatever we decide that means.

I think it is important to...

identify and state with clarity purposes and goal of the body of work, because I think that will inform, you know, the definition.

And then, I'll just share, kind of in the absence of that, kind of generally how I approach creative economy, what I think that is.

And I'll say that is, what I'm about to say is, intellectual property lawyer.

So I think of the creative economy as anything that qualifies for any form of intellectual property protections, whether it's patent, trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks, which all of which are, et cetera, all of which are a form principally of state and federal statutes in implementing case law, and in some cases, international regimes like patents and things like that.

But this right here, so right here, I have...

My anti-ash formula, this is Vaseline Intensive Care, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Radiant, excuse me, Cocoa Radiant is a brand.

It's a trademark.

Someone designed this, and so whether or not you seek formal protection, that intellectual property protection exists.

So that's one example, and no doubt there are many others.

I think probably the broadest form, and there's obviously overlapping forms of protection, intellectual property protection, patents.

Something can both qualify for patents and copyrights.

But I think broadly, things that might be subject to copyrights are probably the most germane for purposes of this discussion, because it includes a lot of things.

original works of authorship, and that's a lot of stuff.

So...

But rather than get super academic and legalese on you, I share that as context because I think it is instructive in terms of how we just generally approach this work or one potential path and view on that.

But the broader opportunity I think we have is to really hone in on and lock down a consensus set of goals and purposes that are going to inform this work.

because the creative economy in our city is thriving broadly, but as we know, including through the impacts of the pandemic, it's not...

the benefits of that aren't shared equally across the spectrum of creators.

They're doing very well at Microsoft and Amazon and Adobe, which makes creative tools and solutions for creators, digital creators.

But some of these most vulnerable creators that are selling art like paintings and performing shows and any number of other things, they're the ones most, in the absence of city involvement, investment, they're the ones most in need.

So in any event, I just wanted to kind of reflect, self-reflect and share kind of how I generally approach this work, but also ask you all, where do you think, the city can best optimize its investments in this space, given the limited resource environment, to serve the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

I'll ask, I guess, the two city folks.

Sure.

Thanks for the question.

Focus is always important.

I guess I want to be clear that even as we're refreshing this report, that does not mean we're kind of waiting in the wings.

We've got an entire creative economy team over at OED.

Golgoon's got a lot of staff.

We're working with some tremendous partners.

And I'd say that in an area of alignment where we've all identified a significant challenge is downtown.

Downtown's the economic engine for our city, our region, our state.

In the mayor's Downtown Activation Plan, reestablishing downtown Seattle as a center for arts, culture, sports, and entertainment is one of the goals.

And clearly, some of the institutions downtown are hurting, as well as we've got tremendous opportunity with all sorts of vacant space.

So I'd invite Seth to actually jump in here as well to hear from one of our partners, DSA, that's working on this, that's put together a great table to kind of come up with some recommendations.

So Seth, if you wouldn't mind talking from your perspective, the answer to Council Member Saka.

Yeah, no, I'm glad you asked because hopefully the document has made it to you.

But so since last fall, DSA has been convening what we call the Arts and Culture Coalition.

You know, it's a group of people that range from folks who come downtown to work in arts venues and galleries, the people who sort of own and operate those spaces, up through like CEOs and executives of major nonprofits and institutions.

And part of it was just to talk.

I think folks realized that a byproduct of the pandemic is that things got very sort of siloed and isolated within sort of individualized communities.

But then there's this remembrance that, you know, these are these like intricate internet connected systems and that it would be a good service to each other to talk and share, like, what's your experience been?

How can we get through this together?

And how can we, you know, move to a future that's a little more resilient for the next sort of shock that may be coming?

And so we now have a priority agenda that has four key components.

I can go through just the highlights.

There's so much more, and we have work groups that are now sort of spiraling off to talk about some specifics, but I think the key ones for the city is to talk about sort of streamlining permitting and code support for folks who want to create new spaces or shore up the ones that they already have.

Improve access to resources and connections for artists.

A big part of the thing is there's a lot of things happening, but if you don't know about it, you can't show up to it.

I think there's sort of like a joke within creative folks that they're all very supportive, but a lot of times it feels like sort of passing the same $10 entry fee in a circle.

And so how do we make sure that the broader sort of community in Seattle also knows these and helps sort of invest through their like physical presence at performances and shows?

relating to the visibility of the arts and culture, and then also making sure that the city recognizes that there's a dedicated support system, both financially and in policy.

There's a concern that sometimes when there's this large movement towards sort of civic funding, that then the philanthropic or the private sector sort of says like, oh, we're good then, you know, that's taken care of.

And then they pull out all their resources.

And so how do we make sure that the entire sort of ecosystem is being taken care of?

And then we're not yet sort of losing people as we're moving forward.

Yeah, thank you.

I'm gonna add, so I agreed 100% with my colleagues here.

The only thing I would add is the places that I see the city needs are in, the creative sector is undercapitalized.

And what I mean by that is there isn't enough revenue, there isn't enough set aside, there isn't enough cushion to deal with absorbing shocks.

And some aspect of that is related to the fact that many of our large nonprofits are in city-owned facilities.

So they're unable to get a line of credit, let's say, on their building when they need extra cash.

So cash flow is a real problem.

So capitalization and questions around how to help assist these larger institutions who are employers in stabilizing.

And then on the job side, one thing I did wanna mention, and I think I was maybe not as direct about it, is that this interconnected nature that we're talking about for the creative sector, well, your musician working in a small club may actually also be a graphic designer during the day.

working for a big business.

A perfect example is Mopop was designed by a very famous architect, Frank Gehry.

He was also a sculptor.

I know that because the museum I worked in exhibited his sculptures.

So people are interconnected and working across the sector.

So investing in one will actually spur other types of products in another.

Anyway.

But going on to workforce, clearly the information that we, when we disaggregate the data by race, tells us that certain communities are struggling more than others, and we should be looking at why.

Looking into what is the precarious nature of work for the gig economy, and ensuring that we are providing support where it's needed, technical assistance where it's needed, because at the end of the day, they're also businesses.

Thank you, thank you all.

Really appreciate your thoughtful comments here and the great partnership and collaboration that's reflected in your responses, but also some of the work that led you all to this table sitting together.

So thank you, Madam Chair.

Any other questions, Council President Nelson?

Yeah, I have a question.

Going back to many of your opening comments, you made the point of emphasizing that Open door, is that?

Doors open, I always get that wrong.

Me too.

Okay.

The doors open benefits arts institutions, arts, culture, heritage, science outside of Seattle.

Is that a policy choice or was that in the legislation?

Doors Open supports every city, every community in King County, and of course that includes Seattle.

What I was pointing out is that 25% of the investment of Doors Open is really as a floor and not a ceiling, is an extra layer of funding for communities outside of Seattle.

Okay, so that's in the legislation.

That is in the legislation.

We were just recognizing the tremendous amount of cultural infrastructure in Seattle, the need, of course, to develop more throughout the county.

And also, like I said, we came to that agreement understanding that the city pours a lot of investment in, and that is how we were able to make that agreement, recognizing that through...

All of those investments, all of our cultural, all of our communities will be served.

And therefore, all of our businesses will also be supported as well.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

And so I had some questions about some of the data presented.

First of all, I'm glad that we mentioned that there's cross-pollination because that expression, well, he's a bass player, but his day job is X, Y, and Z, right?

And so people move in and out of the creative and the corporate culture over the course of their day.

let alone their night or the phases of their lives.

I mean, so you're designing a website at work and then you're painting at night, whatever.

So let's, sometimes I feel like when we try to define things too much, let's not miss the undefined.

Anyway.

On page five, there was a figure that said that we're seventh in that index, right?

But that was seventh in terms of...

Revenues and jobs.

Right.

That was in 2019?

Yeah.

So what are we now?

So the data actually, so it was the 2019 report.

So that was when the report was produced.

The data itself is always lagging.

So it is 2017 data because it takes a while for the federal government to collect all of the, you know, Bureau of Labor Statistics, et cetera, to collect the data.

So we're always looking two years behind.

So that comes from 2017 numbers.

OK, well, that's not very much use to me because I'm worried about the problems right now.

So no diss on you, but could you go to the page 12, I think it was, with the lines?

Yeah, that graph.

This is striking, and I want to know what's going on here.

So I note, and I recognize that the blue line is Washington, not Seattle, but Seattle is well represented in that blue line.

So what happened here?

I noticed that our decline from 19 to 21 was not as sharp as the dotted line, and I have theories about why that is, but the more striking part is that The dotted line goes up right after 2020, and ours continues to fall.

And so this is related to my comment about the seventh in the nation.

That's from 2017. this is what's important to me.

We're not bouncing back.

And I want to know why.

And is that, okay, so one of my theories is we're a very technologically advanced town.

And I heard that many performance venues enabled their subscribers to join or to continue participating in the arts online.

We also, music and things like that, published online.

So could that be a reason why, number one, our decline was not so sharp and devastating, but also why it's not going back up?

Or is it because we were one of the last states to end the civil emergencies?

So I don't have the data to answer that question.

That's a great question.

And I'd be really curious what my colleagues think.

I can tell you from survey data that we've done just of nonprofits, so I can only speak to those 241 nonprofits we surveyed.

When we asked them about this, back to this capitalization question, when we asked them about the fiscal cliff that is going to happen to them when pandemic supports leave at the end of this year, we asked them what would be the impacts.

And we were told less programming, less products, because they will not be able to produce.

And what we're looking at here is product production and employment.

So we're looking at those two things.

And so we're seeing that product production is down and it isn't recovering in the same way.

And we're looking at employment has been down and is not recovering in the same way.

And those two are connected, right?

Because these are employers hiring people to make things.

And they're making fewer things, especially if they're worried about cash flow.

If they're undercapitalized and they're unable to have the cushion they need to make sure that the work happens.

So that's just a very informal, non-scientific, we did survey of 241 organizations.

That's what we found out.

But I'd be really curious to dig into that question further.

And Markham and Seth, what do you think?

Well, I think that when I look at this graph, what I read is that Washington, and as we've discussed then by proxy Seattle, has the ability to excel both in employment and production.

Like we've demonstrated that previously, we hit a very, very rough patch and we are not recovering well, but I'm seeing opportunity there.

And so if we take this seriously and answer some of these questions that we're asking about, how do we recover faster?

How do we kind of put ourselves back at the forefront of leading this across the United States?

There's tremendous economic opportunity to be had, but clearly we've got some decisions to make in the near term to put us back on a better trajectory.

Because this is alarming, because this is us competitive against the rest of the states.

And as Gulgun mentioned earlier, that cultural brain drain is real, and that, to me, is one of the longest term threats that we have in our creative economy.

And so we've got to solve for that very quickly here as a group, as a team, in kind of a concerted one Seattle manner.

Otherwise, we're going to be at risk of kind of continuing this downward trajectory, which would be really problematic for our long term economic outlook.

Yeah, because I'll note that it's the fact that Everybody else is producing, and we're still in decline.

The top graph is stunning.

I mean, the lines go in the opposite direction.

So I'm going to be focused on that going forward.

And when we were talking about we also have to compare ourselves to other states and cities to a lesser extent.

But everybody celebrated when Washington state increased its incentives or its support of film, the film industry in general, two years ago now.

there were $3 million allocated for support in the form of grants for film in Washington, and then now it's 15. And that's a tremendous increase.

But when you compare us to other states, and this is partly why I was so focused on establishing a film commission, is because Seattle has lost its...

it's rightful place at the top of the heap as as the best filmmaking city in in the country and it's because of competition there are other states that can that um that provide incentives for producing there or cities so when you see that peach at the end of a movie of a major production georgia i think their uh their pot of money is like 50 million or something like that for example and uh and individual cities.

We lose to Vancouver, BC all the time.

So if that's in part why that blue line is going down and the dotted one, orange one, is going up, note to the legislature.

Anyway.

Thanks.

Go ahead and comment on that.

A quick comment to also personalize it for all of you.

Let's talk about production in real terms.

Many of you represent very specific communities.

Look at the organizations in your communities.

Theater companies, Arts West, for example, they're producing less shows with less actors on stage.

It is very expensive to be able to produce product, and organizations are doing the best that they can as the cost gets steeper.

And of course, so I think if you look at the organizations citywide, you see examples of production.

It's not just this kind of like ambiguous term.

We can see it everywhere in the cultural sector.

They are still producing, but they have more drags on the work.

And some solutions, organizations are looking for solutions for sure.

We just heard about a recent merger with ACT as well as the Seattle Shakespeare Company.

They're looking at alternative models to get control of costs.

So this is just one example of many that has happened in the nonprofit sphere.

I'm curious about what music venues are doing.

I'm curious about film venues.

And I'm curious about individual workers, especially as we see a lot of out-migration of workforce.

to the metro, and as other parts of the state, like our neighbors, become then our competitors.

So as Bellevue invests in its creative sector and produces work there, then folks in the creative sector that live there will stay there.

We will be sort of creating our competition against downtown.

So we talked about how important downtown is.

Well, this investment by Doors Open has the threat for us in creating our competition and pushing against our efforts to bring people downtown.

I have one last thing.

So one last question.

I realized, oh yeah, that's the meeting that I went to.

So that was convened by DSA.

Thank you very much for everything that DSA does for downtown and the whole city.

Anyway, are we unique amongst cities to have an admissions tax?

I think it's like 10%.

What is, I don't know how much our admissions tax is.

So a dedicated revenue stream is not unusual for cities.

The way in which Seattle has decided on its dedicated revenue stream, I think is unique.

Again, in my last position, I did research among other cities because we were looking at a dedicated revenue stream and this was definitely unique.

It has its pluses and minuses.

Some cities use TIFF, funding, so tax increment financing.

What does ours pay for?

I'm sorry?

Can you please let folks know what our admissions tax funds and how much it is?

Yes, so the admissions tax goes to a number of across all of our program areas, so it goes to support individuals, support organizations.

We also support work at the Seattle Center.

We also contract with the State Tourism Bureau that focuses on promoting arts, so In that arena of promotion as well, we support festivals, so we really go across the board with our admissions tax in ensuring that it gets to all parts of the sector.

So it is spread thin, to be sure, but the focus is on the production and the distribution systems for arts and culture.

We also have an amount of work in education.

So that if you think about that solar system, those three arenas are where we spend our emissions tax funding.

Thank you.

But it is unique among cities, just to be clear.

That said, some cities have really been creative about their dedicated revenue streams.

Some have used taxes on smoking, for example.

So there's a range of ways in which cities have sought to have dedicated revenue streams, primarily because it's very hard for elected officials to run on an arts platform.

So therefore, they're looking for dedicated revenue streams so that their arts and culture investments don't have to go through the general fund.

Thank you.

Hey, thank you, I have one question.

You spoke about the opportunities and thank you, Steph, for all the suggestions.

Is there anything you could think of for the entire panel of specifically council can do in terms of any opportunities that you may see or has any opportunities you would like council to support?

Yeah, we like low hanging fruit, just kidding.

Easy to get high impact.

I mean, I think the most immediate is the recognition that, so the last time we did a survey of downtown within the 300 blocks of the mid, there were 533 ground level vacancies.

And if you, you know, as building owners come to us and say like, hey, we're at a point where we want to think more creatively about leasing structures, there's not a shortage of people who are like lined up at the door to get in there.

They just need assistance.

And either that's through a program like Seattle Restored, which I'm a massive fan of, to help sort of mediate that conversation.

but sometimes it's just simple matchmaking to like introduce those people together.

We're now sort of trying to build up within the DSA itself, a roster of like, who are these building owners who want to opt into some of these more creative ideas, but also who's out there that like get a two pager ready to go.

So that way, when that building owner wants to give you the keys, like we can hit that ground running.

So yeah, whatever council can do to sort of provide sort of that information sharing, but also if, you know, resources go a long way.

Yeah, just to, I agree with Seth that space is a really big priority for downtown generally, but also for creative economies.

So I think...

for you guys thinking about what types of uses are allowed and which types of spaces, how do you permit those uses and what's the speed at which those permits move through.

And then as Seth mentioned resources because Seattle is a very expensive city and so anything we can do to creatively offset cost or rethink different types of models for leasing or ownership I think are really important.

And in my arena, I'd say helping solve the recovery issue is going to be the biggest concern that I would have, and collaborating with the executive on that.

So what I mean by that is we're thinking about downtown recovery, but we're also talking about arts and culture recovery, which hasn't, you know, we're dealing with a fiscal cliff at the end of the year in terms of federal funding going away from many nonprofit organizations, And as I mentioned, they're employers, they produce products.

How can we ensure that they don't fall off the cliff?

And what does that look like?

So there are some solutions that we're working with the executive on bringing forward on how that could be possible.

But that is a concern.

I would also add low-hanging fruit would also just spur more partnership, more conversation with philanthropy, businesses, corporations, and also just being an active partner in every way that anyone is advocating for more support that will find its way to Seattle.

So that could be Inspire Washington or anyone that is going after support in the next state session or with other forms of government.

I think return to work is key, but I'm talking about return to work for Seattle and county employees as well.

And so we don't tell the private sector what to do, but we lead by example.

Thank you.

So I just wanted to let everyone know that this was an amazing conversation.

This was a great information and ground setting and setting the foundation for our future conversations, our future roundtable.

So I want to thank all our participants for sharing your work and joining us this morning and giving us your time.

Thank you, Council President, for your co-sponsorship.

And again, if anyone has any questions or feedback to help inform the next forum or have a topic that, you'd be interested in discussing, please let our office know.

Again, we're convening every third Friday of the month in this committee.

So thank you all again, and we'll see you next month.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we will now move on to our next item of business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Council Bill 120802, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department authorizing the execution of a two-year agreement with the Port of Seattle for the construction of system improvements associated with Terminal 46 and the Pier 66 shore power project and negotiation execution of an operations agreement.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, so once our presenters are ready, please join us at the table, share a presentation and introduce yourselves and begin when ready.

Good morning, Maura Brugger, I'm Director of Government and Legislative Affairs for Seattle City Light.

We weren't planning on going through the slide deck again, but we do have it available to us if it's needed, if that works for you, the council member, so.

Good morning, council members.

Andy Strong.

I'm an interim officer for Seattle City Light, overseeing our engineering project delivery and environmental teams.

Did you want...

Should I pull it up?

Okay.

You can do that one.

Oh, I thought I was going to go on that one.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, and then go share.

Go to here.

Oh, oops, sorry.

Share, share.

Close out and hit share again.

Can I say this?

While we're setting up the presentation, I want to thank Maura for reaching out to our offices and willing to answer any questions we may have.

Thank you for presenting this at the last committee meeting and looking forward to learning more and asking your questions.

Okay, so this is the last page of the presentation, which explains what the ordinance that is before you, what it does, which is execute and deliver a two-year memorandum of agreement with the Port of Seattle.

And then we will move forward as well with executing a 30-year operations agreement between City Light and the Port of Seattle.

So that's the vote you're asking for today.

I know Council Member Saka had some questions before.

I don't know if you, we did send you an email, but I'm sure you get thousands of emails.

And so we're happy to go through the answers to those questions if that would be helpful to you or.

Madam Chair, may I be recognized?

Yes.

Okay, okay.

Go ahead.

All right, cool.

That is the formal process, by the way.

We shouldn't just be speaking out of turn.

Get permission from the chair or council president, as appropriate.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, no, I did see that, and I just did...

Ask my staff to forward that to the top of my inbox.

So yeah, I just looked at it now as well.

So appreciate the clarity on there.

I guess for the benefit of the viewing public, it might be helpful to just kind of cover the substance there.

I have one follow-up question, but yeah, might be helpful to cover the substance of what you followed up with.

Thank you.

Yes, certainly.

Thank you for that.

So there were three questions that were asked.

Is it more or less costly for cruise ships to use shore power instead of running their diesel engines here in Seattle?

At this time, it's perceived to be more expensive when ships plug into shore power than if they continue to run their diesel auxiliary engines.

Typically, ships will plug in for within an hour of when they arrive at dock.

They'll unplug about an hour before they depart and time that they are on shore power is about seven to eight hours according to the Port of Seattle.

The projected utilization rate of shore power appears 66. It's anticipated for a full season up to 2027 at about 70% of the calls would currently be on shore power.

by Port Commissioner's order at a June 11th meeting.

It will restrict all cruise ships to plug into shore power at the beginning of the 2027 season.

So it's perceived that some of the ships lack the technology that when they dock to be able to plug in at this point.

So thank you, really appreciate the additional clarity and follow up there, follow through, really helpful.

My other question, which isn't gonna be a material blocker issue for purposes of me voting, if that's what the chair decides to do today, but I would appreciate follow up additional follow-up is needed my sense you probably don't have information on this but uh and get to know that the port commissioners passed that order on june 11th to uh requiring all cruise ships to plug into shore power at the at the start of the 2027 season um and i would agree i mean that is 100 a port uh decision and seems to make a lot of sense and uh But, you know, of course, everything we do doesn't happen in isolation.

It has impacts, and no doubt they thought all this through when doing this, but...

Wanna make sure we're also thinking this through on our end too.

So you mentioned one factor, not all ships are currently technologically capable of doing that and meeting that requirement, meeting that compliance obligation in 2027, issue number one.

Issue number two is we have less control over these factors.

Issue number two is because of what you mentioned in response to the first question, specifically that it's more expensive for ships to, today at least, it's more expensive for ships to plug into shore power rather than continue to use their diesel engines.

It's more expensive, more costly, and so some cruise ships could make the business decision, hey, it's a requirement here, maybe we don't wanna use the port.

as a docking station because it's too cost prohibitive.

So it's too cost prohibitive to comply with because they don't have the adequate number of ships that are technologically capable of compliance or even assuming they do, they make a business operational decision that Seattle isn't the best place for that.

So yes, it's true that 100% of of ships will be required to plug in by 2027, that doesn't mean we'll have...

That leaves and doesn't address the potential demand.

So in light of those factors and potentially others, how does that impact demand?

Have you all thought about that?

Well, if, you know, really from the perspective of demand, if 70% of the perceived ships for the 2024 season and 25 season, up to 27, if it's truly 70% of the calls do plug in, we're not having any demand side issues.

Certainly from a capacity perspective, we have the ability to feed cruise ships even at 100% starting right off.

You know, it's multiple years down the road before you're starting to look at any capacity impact from the further electrification of the port.

But we already have plans in mind to expand our electrical grid in that area.

potentially build another substation at the Port of Seattle and really work ahead of the Port of Seattle's electrification needs.

They've been very transparent with us what their future needs are perceived to be, and this 30-year operating agreement is intended to capture all that as we move forward.

Thank you.

And so on the demand side, assuming it 100%, like the current rates of these ships, or maybe a marginal decline potentially, or even a spike based off of what we know today, we are prepared as a city to meet the demand from a capacity perspective?

Absolutely, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What is the timeline?

So we signed the MOU, and then there is a, does that also execute a 30-year operations agreement that looks like it's coming soon?

I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?

Oh, the timeline.

So the MOA is a two-year agreement.

But there's also a 30-year operations agreement?

That's correct.

So what you're approving today is the two-year agreement, which is for the current project, which is underway right now and will be completed by the end of the summer.

And then we're directed as well to go ahead and develop

a longer operations agreement with the port.

And do you know when we'll be able to see that or when that will be developed?

We can...

If Andy doesn't know, then we can have Phil Ambrose, who's the project manager, provide that information to you of when that would be available.

Okay, that sounds like it's...

And that focuses on how the maintenance and operation of that marine cable, which is owned by the port, how that relationship between the utility and the Port of Seattle works.

Thank you.

I'd like to call out that for the coordination with our local tribes, which include the Suquamish, Muckleshoot, and others.

Do you know if that's being done currently?

Has that been done?

Is that still forthcoming?

Or is that a question for the port?

The work that the port has done for the construction of the marine cable?

Or with the coordination with the local tribes?

Do you know where that is?

We're happy to get more information about the port's coordination with the tribes.

Okay, great, thank you.

But I think this is pretty straightforward.

I don't have any further questions.

And if there are no further questions, I'd like to move that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120802. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Are there any further comments?

that the bill passes.

Councilmember Moore?

Aye.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Chair Wu?

Yes.

There are three in favor.

The motion carries and the recommendation that Council Bill 120802 pass will be sent to the City Council for final considerations.

Thank you.

So we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Are there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are now adjourned.

Thank you.