Seattle City Council Committee on Public Assets and Homelessness 2/16/22

Thank you so much, son.

The February 16th, 2022 meeting of the Seattle City Council's Public Assets and Homelessness Committee will come to order.

It's 2 p.m.

I'm Andrew Lewis, Chair of the Seattle City Council's Public Assets and Homelessness Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Thank you.

Council President Juarez.

Here.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Thank you.

And Council Member Mosqueda?

Seems as though Council Member Mosqueda is not present.

And Chair Lewis?

Present.

Chair, there are four members present.

Thank you, clerk.

And just for the record there, that's Parker Dawson filling in for Jacob Thorpe, who is on a well-earned vacation.

So this afternoon, Parker Dawson will be your committee clerk.

Approval of the agenda.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're then going to hear from the parks department on the recommendation of a couple of new commissioners for the committee's consideration.

So it should be a fairly quick committee meeting by some of the standards of the past committee meetings that have been heavy on, particularly on homelessness agenda items.

So looking forward to this, to drill into a great new public asset that the council has been monitoring for several, years and that over the past several months has very much activated the core of District 7 and looking forward to that consideration of filling up some of our boards and commissions, which.

we know is very prescient after the last couple of years of having fewer nominees to consider.

So those are going to be the agenda items.

And with that, we'll go to public comment to hear what folks have to say on those agenda items.

So I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

The comment period for this meeting will be 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given one minute to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they are registered on the council's website.

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone, and an automatic prompt if you have been unmuted will be the cue that it is their turn to speak.

You must press star six to begin speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or within the committee's purview.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

Once you have completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following the meeting, please do so via the Seattle channel.

The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Parker, who is the first person on the list today?

Mr. Chair, the first person on the list is Teresa Parker.

And do we still only have two registered speakers?

there has been a third added to the list.

Oh, okay.

Um, excellent.

Then we will begin with.

Can I get the names actually just of the other two at the top here before I call injuries?

Of course, the second person is David Haynes, although they are not yet present.

Um, and the third is John Grant, who is present.

Excellent.

Uh, thank you, Parker.

So with that, we will now recognize Teresa Tracy.

You are recognized for one minute.

Thank you, Chair Lewis, and I have in my communication that there was two minutes allowed, but I'll go ahead and just begin my public comment.

This is Tracy Barker, and today I'd like to comment on parks and homelessness.

As many of you know, I'm an organizer of Ravenna Cowan Community Alliance, a group of neighbors on all sides of Ravenna Park.

And as you know, our park has been impacted repeatedly and often disastrously by the crisis of homelessness in our city.

At the same time, we have schools that use our park daily.

We have moms and dads with their kids at the playground and on the trails, young people and seniors in the park at different times of the day.

And we just need parks as a refuge and a place of restoration and recreation.

And we need meaningful and effective homelessness assistance.

And we need the continued commitment of the city and the regional homelessness authority to make this happen.

As you know, in our, We just are appreciative of the commitment of the Regional Homelessness Authority and of the city, as has been listed in the last couple of meetings.

And we just need parks to stay open and accessible for all users in our city.

And I'll go ahead and cede the rest of my time.

Thank you.

The next speaker is David Haynes.

Are they showing present, Parker?

They are still not present.

Okay, seeing that Mr. Haynes is not present, we will proceed to our third speaker, John Grant.

John Grant, you are recognized for one minute.

Good morning, council members.

My name is John Grant.

I'm the chief strategy officer with the Low Income Housing Institute.

Thanks so much for taking time today.

I just wanted to get some good news on the 2021 outcomes for our Tiny House Village program.

And really, thank you to the council for supporting this program to help get folks off the street.

We had over the lifetime of the program since we launched in 2015, over 2,500 people sheltered in tiny house villages.

And in 2021, we served 745 unduplicated folks to get off the street and get connected to shelter and services and eventually a home.

56% of the folks that we serve found permanent housing or transitional housing, 50% being permanent.

So this is an incredibly successful model where typically you see a mat on the floor type shelter has a much lower success rate.

65% of folks move out within six months.

About 114 days is the median stay in the program.

So just wanted to share those really great numbers and thanks to the support of the council, the Tiny House Village program continues to be a success.

Thanks so much and we'll be following up with more information.

Thank you for calling in.

Is Mr. Haynes now present, Parker?

Mr. Haynes is not present.

Okay.

Well, Mr. Haynes, do please send in your written comment.

Sorry, we were not able to get to you this afternoon.

Proceeding on then to item one on our items of business.

Parker, will you please read item one into the record?

Item one, Climate Pledge Arena Presentation, Briefing and Discussion.

Thank you so much.

Before we begin the presentation, can we do a quick round of introductions from the panel by stating name and role?

And Todd, why don't we begin with you?

And once you introduce yourself, maybe popcorn it off to the next person on the panel so we can keep it rolling here.

Very good.

Thank you.

Chairperson, thanks for having us today.

I'm Todd Bywicky and I am the CEO of Seattle Kraken.

I'm going to turn it over to my brother, Tim.

Hello, chairperson and fellow council members.

Good to see everybody again.

I'm Tim Laiweke.

I'm the chairman of OVG.

Mr. Mattson.

Thank you, Tim.

Hello, chairperson and everybody.

Steve Mattson, executive vice president and general manager for Climate Pledge Arena.

Great, and I do just want to state for the record before the presentation that Council Member Mosqueda has joined the committee.

And Parker, if you will let the record reflect that Council Member Mosqueda is now present.

So with that, I don't know how you guys have organized the presentation, but I'm going to turn that over to you.

And then we ask that committee members hold questions until the conclusion of the presentation.

And I just look forward to hearing an update.

I'll just take a chair's prerogative here at the beginning to say I've been now to Climate Pledge Arena on three separate occasions.

It's a great asset to our Seattle Center campus.

I've had a great time every time I've been there and look forward to hearing more about how things are going and what the future might have in store.

So I'll hand it over to the panel.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So let me speak briefly before we put up the presentation.

So I just want to start by thanking members of the council who are on this call who helped give life to this dream.

This was a long time coming and this community really wrestled for a long time with how we were going to fix this.

I was here in Seattle for many years.

I ran the Seahawks but left.

My brother convinced me that we could fix that arena and convinced me to come back home.

And what we've seen in the last four years is a dream come true.

through the courage of a lot of people, my brother included, but certainly the city council and Deborah Juarez, you did something that many other people have ever done.

And that is you read every single page of a very complicated three party agreement.

So we're just very appreciative.

We want to be super respectful of time, but you know, in these times where there is a lot of division and some acrimony, we've got a great story to tell.

And we would have never thought that we would have embarked upon this only to walk into the middle of a global pandemic and all the challenges that is brought.

But big ideas sustain themselves even in the toughest of times, and that's what we've done.

The other thing I would say just to start out is that We know that there's not anything that we can't do substantially better and that truly our best days are in front of us.

So without further ado, we want to just give you a quick overview of what we've done.

And we're actually going to start on something we're so proud of, which is sustainability.

And we're going to go to that slide now, and I'm going to turn it over to my brother, Tim.

So as everyone knows, mostly because you encouraged us, you inspired us and you pushed us, We are the first carbon neutral arena in the history of planet Earth.

Very proud of the commitment we've made towards trying to save our globe.

In addition to that we have integrated really interesting moments of truth for everyone to experience as part of walking through and being at an event at Climate Pledge Arena.

So it is amazing the steps we've taken to be the greenest arena in the world as it should be in Seattle and everything that we set out to do and the goals and ambitions that we have to ultimately be declared carbon neutral.

We are on track.

We're hitting all of our different meters.

And so at this point the last major step for Steve Madsen and his team is the elimination of single use plastic.

And we've committed to that by 2024. So amazing step forward for the planet and absolutely the right place to start this movement here in Seattle.

Steve any further comment on that.

I just really couldn't be more proud of being a leader in this.

I mean we're we don't want to follow.

We want to be a leader and we are.

One of the things obviously we're very proud of what we built, but we're also super proud of how we built it and the next page really shows that whole process led by OVG.

We set goals and some said the goal of $136 million.

Engaging minority owned businesses and contractors might be an outlier, but in fact, because of our commitment to the men and women in the unions and labor, We've exceeded that goal and we couldn't be more proud.

And I'm gonna let my brother comment on that.

Again, we made a commitment early on in particular, influenced and I would say gently pushed by Deborah on making sure that we were of the people, by the people and for the people.

And this was truly a Seattle project.

So not only were we very proud of the fact that the union trades built this arena, But our commitment to WNB was at $179 million.

And in particular, we had 88 different firms from Seattle that ultimately participated in the development of this particular arena that were minority owned or are in particular qualifying in the WNBA standard.

So surpassed it.

Uh, as my brother will now tell you, we have continued this commitment based on our hiring of our full time and part time employees.

So we wanted to be different.

We are different.

We're in Seattle.

We can do things differently.

And so another thing we're super proud of is the organization that's been put together to run this enterprise.

Uh, an arena and a hockey team that really set goals to be one of the most diverse organizations in sports across North America.

And we've achieved it, but we're not done.

But some quick statistics close to 45% of our staff represent gender diversity.

25% of our staff represent BIPOC diversity.

We place great emphasis on this, and I'm going to just briefly comment that tomorrow night our hockey team plays in Winnipeg.

And tomorrow night we make history.

As the play by play announcer for your Seattle Kraken and the color analyst are both African Americans.

It's never been done in sports, and it hasn't been done in certainly in the NHL, and we're only on the front end of this.

This is a fundamental part of who we are in our DNA, and we're going to keep pushing.

We want to talk a little bit about community and at the risk of reading words, which I was told never to do in a presentation.

I'm going to read a few words here if we could go to the next page.

We took the arena and team and pushed them together to create the One Roof Foundation.

And we really think about our world and our community a little bit differently.

The well-being of an individual is connected to the well-being of every other individual.

Homelessness, racism, inequity don't affect just those.

They affect all of us.

They affect all of us in the community.

The health of humanity is tied inextricably to our planet, and we're all in this together, the one roof.

We've just started, and I am so proud of the work that we've done already in the community.

We've cast partnerships with youth care.

We've raised millions of dollars already for youth care, and there were expectations set forth of what we would do.

We've tried to beat those expectations at every turn.

For instance, when we launched the team name, 100% of the proceeds from the initial merchandise that went on sale went to our friends at youth care.

But it's more than youth care.

It's other organizations that fit the mission I just talked about.

It's community passageways.

It's the Urban League.

It's the Refuge Women's Alliance.

It's the Duwamish River cleanup efforts.

It's a big project we're doing in South Park.

And it was a project my brother put together to open the building with Coldplay.

And we're going to talk about that in a moment.

We've only just begun.

We have the arena available to us, and I'm also here in D5 at our beautiful Kraken Community Iceplex.

Every single day in this community, something good is happening for the community by the organization, because that's really how we've been chartered.

Those are those are things that we set up, but one of the issues that people were most concerned about our enterprise was transportation.

And I'm going to ask Steve just to talk a little bit about how we focused on transportation, how we worked hard for literally years in advance and some of the success we've had.

Thank you, Todd.

You know, as of yesterday, we've been open 120 days since October 19. That's 53 events and over 600,000 people.

And we knew going into this, 1 of our stigmas was going to be transit transportation, getting people to and from.

And not disrupting, but I think we, as we check down some of those biggest issues, we, we couldn't be more proud in this area where we've.

been able to bring people to and from largely through public transit.

Our role in the monorail is a big part of that, where we've had up to 5,000 to 6,000 Kraken fans on a 17,000 sellout coming through the monorail.

We think it's our future that gets less vehicles off the road.

It's part of our commitment to the climate pledge, and it's working.

This is literally a screenshot from our app.

And we give people choices, and you can see that driving and parking is down the way here.

One of the things we did to encourage public transportation is we literally embedded an OrcaPass in every ticket sold by the hockey team.

And we're, we think, the first organization to do it.

The results have been awesome.

So Dan, you know, Andrew, The success we've had in your district and keeping people from all driving and really it was viewed as one of our most challenging issues.

But in fact, we're so proud of what's happened in transportation and how we've been respectful to the neighborhood.

We made a $7 million investment in the monorail and it's worked and there's more work to be done there.

But the initial results are just absolutely terrific and on any given night.

any given hockey game, 25% of the people are taking the monorail, the last mile.

And when East and West now connects on sound transit, this is going to be an idea whose time really came.

We want to talk a little bit about events, and I'm going to turn it over to my brother, Tim.

And we start actually with a slide on COVID, because We've had great plans, but something big happened along the way.

And so we paid great attention to this and built best practices, Tim.

We led the charge on trying to implement standards that were important to the health and the wellness of not only our employees and our part-time employees, but all of our customers.

We were the first organization in the live entertainment industry to go mandatory on vaccinations.

Every one of our employees, every one of our part-time employees, every one of our vendors, and every one of their employees, we required vaccination early on.

Amazingly, very little kickback.

So we were proud of that.

We've done a phenomenal job with our commitment to clear and using ClearPath to verify vaccination of all of our customers that are coming into the building.

And finally, we have seen zero cases within our full-time staff and our part-time staff of any outbreaks.

And so if you take into consideration the roughly $50 million we spent on a new air ventilation system that ultimately is state of the art for how we cleanse our air and how we trap germs within our building, it is a revolutionary building as to the standards that we created to keep people safe.

Very proud that we opened the building first with the hometown heroes, Foo Fighters, who came in and did an amazing show.

Proud to announce that we made about a half a million dollars for charities, that both the Foo Fighters and us will donate back to local and regional charities, and in particular a heavy emphasis on charities that are green focused.

And then we had literally millions of people tune into the opening of Climate Pledge Arena from around the world on Amazon Prime for the opening of Coldplay.

It was one of the largest streamed live concerts in the history of the industry, shining a bright light not just on Seattle, Seattle Center, but our commitment to carbon neutral.

Steve, this next page is just shows that have happened and Steve's going to share that we haven't hit our show numbers yet, but we're going to in large part because artists are very anxious to play to this building.

We think the dark cloud of COVID is lifting, Steve.

You know, we were blessed to be able to open to full capacity.

I mean, that was done only under these stringent rules.

And we've done it now, as I said earlier, over 600,000 people.

We're 27 games into the Kraken season.

We're 14 concerts in.

We've hosted CLU and other basketball and proud to be able to show the versatility of this venue.

I think we're seeing just how hungry this community was for a new modern arena.

The region needed it and we're delivering it.

Our hockey team has had an amazing reception.

Tim, did you want to add anything there?

Yeah, I just add, look at the end, we'll talk to you about problems that we're still solving and problems that we need to overcome.

The largest issue we have is we're 40 events short of where we projected to be.

And so that'll probably turn out to be about a $35 million hit year one because of COVID.

And this certainly hasn't been for the faint of heart, but we have had the fans with us.

And I'm going to talk a little bit about our hockey team here.

The reception has been incredible.

This next picture image really shows it.

People have stood and cheered despite the challenges, despite the intrepidation of being in public places.

Our support has just been awesome.

And something great that's happened for us is our players are proud to pull that jersey on.

They're proud to wear the S on their chest.

And our jersey is not only one of the, is the best selling in the National Hockey League, it's one of the best selling jerseys in the entire world.

Just for the record, we don't retain all of that revenue.

It goes to a league wide pot, but we are so proud.

Anywhere we travel, there's Kraken fans in those communities wearing our gear, cheering the team on.

But most importantly, they've showed up at our arena and created a great, great place for our team to play.

We've not won as many games as we want.

The first half of the season, we lost 17 games by goal or less, but by goal.

Um, but we're going to build this team the right way.

We're going to build it through the draft.

We're going to build it in a very smart way because we don't want to be one hit wonders.

We want to build a team that can win here long term.

And we're doing that.

I'll just pause and say this past weekend, We did something that no other team in the league had done, and that is we invited our fans to a skills competition.

10,000 fans showed up to see who could shoot the fastest puck, who could tape their skip, stick the fastest.

We did all sorts of wonderful things, but the most important thing we did is we took 100% of the ticket proceeds, $100,000, and put them back to work through the One Roof Foundation.

When we stood up in front of you and made promises about giving back to the community, we meant it and we're living it.

And then the last slide we have before we can open this up to questions is we've also built something pretty fantastic in D5.

We we felt that if we were going to be serious about this and serious about giving back to community, we couldn't put our training facility in some remote suburban location or in a business park.

So this was as ambitious as anything we've done.

We built one hundred and sixty five thousand square foot facility right here.

It's the centerpiece of the remake of the Northgate Mall this year.

on a calendar basis.

At the end of this year, we will attract one million people through our doors.

Three sheets of ice, a medical clinic, a full on Starbucks, where 100% of the proceeds go back to community, and a fantastic bar and grill, the 32 Bar and Grill.

Again, doing all of this in a very, very dark and challenging time.

And what happens when this dark cloud lifts?

Our best days are going to be in front of us.

So Chairperson Lewis, we are happy to answer any questions.

I want to actually turn it back over to my brother and see if he had any additional remarks.

Just Chairperson, before questions, I'd add two additional things.

The cloud is lifting.

We're very appreciative of the city and the state and the way you've handled trying to guide us through this virus and this crisis that is probably the largest any of us will face in our time.

Uh, we're proud that during all of this, uh, this team just was named as the best new arena in all of the world.

So an amazing compliment back to Seattle.

Uh, we have a very special announcement coming this Friday on, I think the most significant artists to play the building since we've opened that will create a 60 year loop and connect the dots, um, and be something extraordinary.

Uh, we still have issues and problems.

I think the biggest issue we'll have going forward now is working and asking for the help of the state, the city and the county on, um, we're doing something that's fairly unique, uh, chairperson, and that is we're paying taxes.

And so, um, one of the pieces we had to now work through is the valuation of the building in which we'll pay taxes on and asking for some help to make sure that we don't get taxed on things like COVID mitigation, our commitment to climate pledge, our commitment to preserving the roof.

So we still have work to do, but I would say overall, considering everything we dealt with, getting this building open, having the accolades for Seattle that we've been able to garner, and on behalf of you, our commitment to the Seattle Center campus, our commitment to being a mirror image of the community that we represent, and being a platform that ultimately helps those that have fallen through the safety net.

We're very proud to be your partner, and we thank you profusely for giving us this opportunity.

Well, thank you so much for that presentation.

I mean, I'll just start off on one of the points that was just mentioned at the tail end around the impressive public health measures and COVID mitigation measures that were made is something that I have definitely noticed.

You know, anecdotally in my visits have been very impressed by with the clear app and all the other precautions that the arena has been taking.

And really appreciate that modeling of how to do big indoor events in a way that's cognizant of public health guidance.

It makes our jobs a lot easier.

So thank you so much.

I have a couple of questions and then I'll open it up to committee members.

The first one, the slide went by a little quickly.

Do you factor into the sustainability impact some of your transportation mitigation measures?

I didn't necessarily see if that was incorporated on the slide because it seems like you're doing.

I mean, I know that you're doing really great work that we covered in the slide on the monorail and everything else.

I'd be curious to know what the impact of that has been.

relative to an arena that has not mitigated what would otherwise be a large volume of single occupancy vehicle trips that are just being taken out of contention because of the souping up of the monorail, the transit passes being sold along with the tickets and the seasons passes.

And I wonder if that's something that's been looked into in terms of the impact relative to an otherwise situated arena that is not doing that transportation mitigation work.

Very good question, Chairperson.

So here's one way of putting it.

We're so overwhelmed with how well we've done on mitigation measures.

Our parking numbers are half of what we projected day one.

Good news, bad news for you and us since we share the parking revenue with the city.

At the end of the day, we're shocked at how many people have grown accustomed to the monorail and using light rail to get to the monorail station.

and then take that into the Seattle Center campus.

We have not had the traffic or the congestion that everybody warned would happen.

That just hasn't been an issue.

I think this only gets better as time goes along, but yes, every trip count, every car that comes to our building and parks for one of our events, council person, we then put that back into our mitigation members.

and our emission standards that we then have to go balance out with either activities in the building that eliminate carbon or carbon credits that we have to then acquire in order to pay for the emissions that are being created from the cars that park.

We go as far as a carbon green tax that Steve puts on every event for every truck that comes into that building on behalf of an artist and a commitment they make for making sure that they are equally as committed as we are for creating either carbon credits or carbon standards to balance out the emissions created by whatever they used to get to Seattle and the production trucks that they used in order to carry their equipment.

So we are to the car adding that into our equation and trying to make that part of what we need to overcome to get to carbon neutral by the end of this year.

Andrew, we're measured every year by the Living Future Institute.

So every year we have to produce all the results, but we're measuring event by event.

I'd also add that one of the largest solar farms in the entire state is on top of the roof of the building I'm in now, which is the community ice place.

Great, thanks for that clarification.

Can I ask then if it's half of the anticipated parking, what is that in real numbers?

Like what are you seeing and what was anticipated in terms of the total number of single vehicle trips?

Councilperson, I don't know the exact number of cars off the top of my head.

I can tell you it's about a five million dollar on what we projected in parking revenue for the city and us compared to what actually occurred.

Again, fairly good news story.

I tell my brother, I get mad at him occasionally.

He's done too good a job on the monorail.

But look, these are the things we gotta go learn in our industry to live without.

And as much as I will tell you, we missed that revenue this year because of COVID and the number of events that have disappeared on us.

I will tell you we are going to learn to live without parking revenue if we have to, because there's no way to be carbon neutral without that commitment.

So we're going to have to adjust going forward and understand we have done a good job of convincing people to take the monorail to come to the campus.

I don't think every year will be five million miss for us and you, but I think what we are learning is there has been a tremendous pattern that has been established by the Kraken and the concerts.

of trying to convince what is about 4,500 of our customers to use the monorail on any given night, which is just an amazing number.

Andrew, we're so excited.

We are thinking about adding a dining car on the monorail.

Just kidding.

Oh, you got me all excited there, Todd.

That would have to be really quick.

It would have to be all microwavable food.

That trick could work really fast.

It would be popcorn that was pre-popped.

Or cooked in advance.

Yeah, I had the microwave would probably dang round about Virginia.

So I had that point you're a quarter done with the right.

What's so exciting is, you know, there was discussion of another building but and what people said as well.

You can't say that building because transportation fact is when sound transit now connects east to west.

The hub of that is right in the basement of the monorail.

This is going to be one of the most accessible buildings in the entire world.

And it's one thing to say it's accessible.

It's another thing for the fans to prove that it is and to use the embedded Orca pass inside every ticket and come to the games by using public transportation.

It's super exciting.

Excellent.

Well, I will now open it up to committee members.

I see Council Member Mosqueda has raised her hand.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I believe Council Member Herbold was in front of me in case you'd like me to wait.

I'm happy to fall back.

Oh, I apologize.

I didn't see that Council Member Herbold had raised her hand.

But of course, if I'll take your word for it, if she was first, she was first.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.

Don't care the order in which I'm called for future reference, but really appreciate everybody's kindness here.

And I apologize for not being on camera.

so much to be so excited about here in this presentation.

This is just you know a wonderful project where we have so much to be proud of.

I appreciate the the vision as well as the stewardship and the city's role in making all this happen.

And I just want to make sure that in my questions, we don't lose sight of that.

I do have a couple of questions.

In my capacity as chair of the Human Services Committee, I also want to say I really appreciate all of the financial investments that this project is making into so many social safety net programs.

Two things on that.

One, I recently received a message that due to the loss of dates at the Climate Pledge Arena and the inability to find alternate options, that there's not going to be a Seattle King County Health Clinic this year.

And I know that over the last six years, they've been able to provide $20 million in dental, vision, medical, and social services to over 23,000 participants.

I know that they're going to try to replicate the Vision Clinic.

But is it really true that the clinic can't be accommodated at any time during the climate pledge arena?

This is just such an amazing opportunity.

I promote it on all of my social media every year.

And I just know it's really something that the community loves.

I mean, I think I hold some responsibility for failing to make sure that our agreement addresses potential displacement.

I assume that that's the case.

But that's my primary question.

And then I have two other much shorter ones.

OK.

Steve, do you want to answer that?

Or I'm happy to.

Go ahead, Todd.

I'll add on.

Yeah, so we work every day with Robert Nelums, who is a great steward of what we're doing, and some of it is just working through dates.

One of the complications is we have a lot of WNBA playoff dates.

I'm going to just pause and say we have an absolutely fantastic relationship with the Seattle Storm.

And there were people that said, well, maybe that's not going to happen.

Maybe this building coming in with all their pressures, maybe they won't have such a great relationship with the storm.

It's as good a relationship as one could have, and we truly consider them partners.

And, you know, they've got a special season coming up.

But part of the challenge has been working through dates, working through their playoff dates.

We're committed to making it happen, and we're looking at alternatives right now, so we will get back to you specifically on this issue, and I pledge to get back to you sometime in the next couple of weeks as we sort this through.

We're working on it right now, though.

Oh, that's so great to hear.

Thank you so much.

Then my other two additional very short questions.

Of that on page 10, the page that is devoted to your COVID protocols, it looks like everybody's masks, but on page 18, it's a huge number of people that aren't wearing their masks.

And I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about not so much what happens to get into the facility, but what happens when you see people not wearing their masks during the event.

And then my last question, I'm just gonna get it out there now, relates to the staffing.

Those are great, great numbers for women and BIPOC staffing percentages.

I'm wondering if they apply to full-time or part-time or both.

And if you do break them down according to full-time and part-time employees, do they hold about the same percentages?

Thanks.

So let me take the employees.

Certainly what we're reflecting here are the full-time employees.

I know you're looking at three white guys here, but we're really proud of our leadership team.

We're very proud of how we're developing people through the organization.

We're proud of our retention already of great people because we've got a reputation now where other organizations come and want to take folks from us.

And people are wanting to stay because we're building something different here.

I'll let Steve comment on that.

I'm actually looking at this picture.

I think this could have been early in the season because our compliance on mask has been as good as any arena in the world.

We do have people coming in and watching every game.

And our compliance has been terrific, but you're right.

I'm going to check on that.

And I owe you a second response.

Okay, thanks.

I want to add on to the mask here for Council Member Herbold.

And that is, you know, you can see from the exterior of the building, the before you go messaging and When you're in the event, you're going to see literally paddles held up to remind people to wear their masks.

It is supplemented with LED throughout the building.

It is not a SWAT team, but it is reinforced regularly up to this point.

So we're pretty proud about how we've been able to have that not become confrontational.

To your other point on the percentages, yeah, very proud of our full-time staff in the arena, into that 45% female, 25% diverse.

On the part-time staff, that approximate 900 staff, I can't tell you the exact percentages there, but I will tell you one of our city obligations we are proud of is the full and part-time workers that worked at key arena previously that we had a worker retention program with many of which have joined us here in the ranks of the arena.

Thank you so much both of you.

Thank you so much Council Member Herbold, Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Hubbard's first question was the question I had as well about the health clinics.

So thank you for your commitment to getting back to us on whether or not there's a date available.

Beyond wanting to support it, I know that people actually need it, and that should not be on Climate Pledge arena to solve for lack of access to healthcare.

This is one safety net element, but I wish it wasn't needed.

And we will work to make sure it's not needed in the future.

We'll continue that effort.

But in the meantime, thanks for continuing to try to find dates for that important event for folks who really do rely on it for medical and dental care.

The second thing I want to raise is also related to the vaccinations and the great work that you all have done.

You talked about the stringent rules that you have within the arena, and how those have been widely adopted by both patrons and staff and I think that's just so important to lift up so thank you for that work that you've done, and for the strong public health policies and commitment to helping address.

our population's health through the policies at the arena while also making it possible for folks to enjoy the events there.

With the news today from King County that the vaccine requirements for places like restaurants is going to go away, I have heard a number of folks already call me and say, but we wanted those in place.

It's helpful for workers to know that there's a backstop So if people are coming in and they do take off their mask to eat, for example, or in the rare occasion that maybe they're at climate flagellate and they're eating in the stands there, that workers know that folks at least that are there are vaccinated.

And I think that's important too for the players.

Myself, I have a two year old and she's not yet eligible for vaccines.

And so knowing that I'm going inside somewhere and that they've verified for vaccines is really important to me.

So I'm just wondering if there's any effort or possibility to still require vaccine verification for patrons and if you're going to continue to keep in place for a while, your your vaccination requirements and the processes you put into place.

So we're looking at all that right now.

We're proud of the work we've done.

The adoption of our app was incredible and it wasn't easy because there's different every man, woman and child in this community has a reason to come to the building and it means there's a lot of diverse people coming with a lot of diverse opinions.

but we were steadfast and vaccine verification and it wasn't easy and there was tension in the plaza at times, but we held true to what we believe and that was following government policy and being fully compliant to what our elected leaders feels the right thing for our community.

So we will always follow the government's direction here and we followed the county.

So now they've given new edict We've got to do some examination on what our policies are for our own employees, what they are for workers in the building, and give us a little time because we've just read this as well and it's work in progress.

Tim?

One last thing I'd add on the first point, Councilperson.

We are committed to the health clinic and it's just trying to, the good news, bad news is all of the dates that disappeared for the first fiscal year, have all moved to the next year and we're under siege on dates.

We're currently, we have some ideas on some things with an NBA team possibly coming to the building and having a few days in the building.

So there's a lot going on that we're trying to balance out.

What we did do, much to the credit of my brother, is when people started falling through the cracks during COVID, and the United Way went out and raised money to put meals on the table for people that couldn't afford it.

And again, we're literally starving.

We donated a million dollars.

And so we are very conscientious of, as you said, those in need.

And we also understand the platform that that clinic serves for people that can't afford to get regular health care or health checkups.

So we hear you loud and clear.

And it's something we're trying to figure out how to come up with a solution for.

Councilor Muscatia, do you have any further questions?

No, thanks on both fronts.

And yeah, again, appreciate you all being a leader in the public health arena.

unintended.

And for the work that you've done during COVID, because I think it really showed people what's possible.

And these large crowds that are gathering, you know, if you're saying that there hasn't been an infection among the team, that's that is great evidence to bring to other cities.

And I think it just continues to show our leadership in this corner of the country.

So Thanks for that work.

And, you know, Deborah was council president.

She invited me to come to a cracking game.

I'm still waiting for that ticket.

You know, I still haven't been yet.

So hopefully she invited me and never followed up.

So, uh, so by the way, Todd, interestingly enough, the only place where we actually had to deal with a COVID outbreak was actually the team and it was on the road.

Yeah.

We, you know, I know time's short.

I just want to say that we are brimming with enthusiasm and we have some very, very interesting and powerful announcements we're going to make in the coming weeks and next couple of months.

We have a big announcement on Friday.

So this only, you know, as I said, if we can take the shot that the last two years has brought, I would have never thought that we would launch something like this in the middle of a global pandemic.

My brother's fortitude of just hanging in there, never cutting a corner.

It's a credit to LBG, it's also a credit to David Bonderman and the ownership of the Kraken.

We signed up to be great partners and we're gonna endeavor to do that every day.

Watch our news because we're gonna announce some things that reinforce much of what we've talked about today in the coming weeks.

Great.

So I have actually a few more questions, but before I do, I want to just make sure no other council members have anything.

It doesn't look like they do.

So I have two more questions before you guys leave.

The first one is I've noticed a big uptick in, obviously, in economic activity in the uptown neighborhood since you guys started having games.

48 home games a year, as I recall, small amount of gathering thousands of people to the neighborhood, and I've heard anecdotally and seen evidence that backs this up, that a lot of restaurant owners and small businesses and the bookstore on Mercer Street, a lot of these places are getting a lot of renewed foot traffic and business due to this.

And I just wonder if Oakview Group given the assiduous amount of data collection and analysis that you guys have been doing, if that's been tracked at all in terms of the economic activity in the surrounding neighborhood and the business district, because that seems to be making a very big difference to a neighborhood that's been suffering throughout COVID.

Again, I don't have actual statistics, but like you, Chairperson, I ultimately, you know, I walk.

My brother gives me a lot of grief.

I walked back and forth from the hotel.

I actually lived in Seattle for six weeks.

I won't tell you which council districts, so I avoid a fight.

But I saw the uptick and it broke my heart a little bit in October, November, because I was shocked at how many restaurants had closed down.

It was really telling.

because there were so many storefronts that were empty or vacant, and so many restaurants that just never opened their door.

I was there Monday night, and one of the things I noticed is how different it is that the small restaurants and bars are all coming back.

And I think it's pretty cool that we have the ability to get people to come to games and have dinner before somewhere in the neighborhood, have a drink afterwards somewhere in the neighborhood, especially if they're on light rail.

I think that has to be an even higher priority.

I will tell you some of the announcements my brother's referring to are really geared towards tourism.

So we're working on three or four big events next year with the tourism and those that are trying to fill up hotel rooms and restaurants and bars.

We have some big ideas and some big events we're chasing because to your point, that's what really drives the economy and gets these restaurants back on their feet.

Yeah, I mean, I can just tell you, I mean, even as far as Belltown, right, people crediting a return to game days and people going to dinner before the game.

I mean, it's really a massive difference.

And Andrew, part of it is where this arena is located.

It's in a neighborhood and it made construction.

substantially more expensive, really challenging, but we didn't have any challenges.

We did it in the most responsible way possible.

We hauled hundreds of thousands of square feet of dirt out of the campus at night without disruption to the neighborhood.

And we've tried to follow a neighborhood first policy.

We love our neighbors and we're proud to see the restaurants, bars, and bookshops filled up as a result of this dream.

So Todd, on that, that's actually a good segue to my next question.

And then Council Member Morales has her hand raised so she can close us out.

But I did want to ask, the only complaint that I've heard about Climate Pledge has been that some residents on the west edge of the arena where there's large concentrations of very bright lighting, have complained about some of the effects, the level of brightness in the lighting.

And I do wonder what the plans are going forward to mitigate as those complaints come.

And I mean, it is foreseeable that kind of that light element is something that could have an effect on livability.

So I'm curious what, what we can do going forward to help some of those constituents mitigate that and what the arena's actions have been so far.

Yeah, our actions were to dim the lights to turn him off earlier than we actually had the right to, and we will always listen.

We know that there's one tenant in that building across the street who continues to not be happy.

That's probably one too many for us, and we'll try and do the best we can.

But we've been super responsible citizens.

We're good listeners.

We act upon things.

I'll write that down as my third takeaway here and be back to you, Sir.

Oh, go ahead, Tim.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Sorry, Chairperson.

One other issue, just so you're, we're not making excuses here.

Our dimmer switches for our, a lot of our lighting panels on the campus haven't come in yet.

So like everything, they got stuck in shipping and we're still waiting for them to come in.

And we're hoping that that's a part of the solution going forward.

Well, I mean, it's encouraging to hear that, that there's a technology component that's not installed yet that might be able to mitigate the impact.

So yeah, no, that's great.

Let's stay in touch.

I'll just say that in working through this issue, Oakview Group and the arena have been really good and responsive partners and trying to solve for these issues.

I mean, as Todd said, above and beyond what you are legally obligated to do, but fitting with your commitment of being a good neighbor.

So I appreciate your offer to continue that discussion and appreciate your engagement.

Council Member Morales, your question.

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I would love to get your thoughts about our Seattle Junior Hockey Association.

I'm sure you're familiar with.

We have quite a robust system, you know, different leagues here, young people who are very excited about hockey.

And they have, you know, in the past and still practice at rinks, many rinks that are sort of locally owned.

So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how you plan to leverage your position and work with the existing leagues and particularly with the young people who are interested in hockey to develop, I don't know, a collaborative development pipeline maybe for the Kraken and just how you are working with or plan to work with some of the local hockey leagues, particularly the young people.

Yeah, let me just pause.

I'm actually here at Northgate and there's young skaters right here learning to play the game.

We've seen an amazing amount of interest in the game, not just here at our three sheets, but across the region.

And what's been amazing is there was an initial concern that we might drain some of the interest from the other facilities.

the Snow King facilities in Renton or Bellevue or Snoqualmie or down in Tacoma.

It hasn't happened.

Everyone's business is better and the activity we've had in this building has been substantially in the neighborhood and most all from the city of Seattle.

When we talk about drawing potentially a million people through the doors here, most of those people will be repeat customers.

Those aren't unique visits, but most of those visitors will come from the city of Seattle.

We're just thrilled because we want to grow the sport and it's not just hockey, it's figure skating.

We have a young man who's actually made it to the World Regional Tournaments for figure skating.

And our dream isn't just that somebody here today on this ice that I'm looking at makes it to the Kraken, but someday somebody on this ice makes it to the Olympics.

And those are really cool things that do motivate us.

So I appreciate that question very much.

Todd, I think it's fantastic that the council person was gracious enough to slightly encourage you to get some more scores.

No one's asked that question yet.

This has been one of the greatest half hours of my week.

Because we need a couple of more scores on our Seattle Kraken.

But we're very committed.

If you have ideas, Councilperson Morales, we'd be wide open to hearing from you.

Well, I appreciate that.

I will tell you that the second you started answering my question, I got kicked off my computer again.

So maybe I'll follow up with you.

But really happy to hear that there is an answer.

And we'll be in touch.

Thank you so much.

Very good.

We'll review your excellent answers on our award-winning Seattle channel later.

So that was great.

So, okay, we will close out this agenda item.

I'd be remiss, though, if I didn't ask one more thing.

Are we going to get an NBA team at Climate Pledge?

We literally are working on it every day.

And I'd add, because it doesn't get a lot of mention, I'll give my brother a lot of credit.

We're also working.

I think Seattle would be a wonderful place for a women's professional hockey league team.

If that league starts back up again, I think we owe it to balance that out.

So we understand both and we're focused on both.

Well, thank you.

Every team that plays in our building.

will play in a building with a five-time champ, Seattle Storm.

We're so proud that they're in our building and their economic fortunes have changed because of this arena.

And hopefully they're gonna change for the WNBA because of what we built here in Seattle.

We're really, really super proud of that.

Sue Burns, that's you.

Excellent.

Well, panel, thank you so much.

Really appreciate you joining us and we will move on to our next agenda item.

Mr Clerk, will you please read agenda items two through four into the record?

Agenda items two, three, and five.

Appointments 02101, 02102, and 02103. And apologies if I get any of these names wrong.

But the appointments of Davon Thomas, Justin P. Umagat, and Stafford Mays as members of the boards of Parks and Recreation for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, Parker.

With us, we have Acting Superintendent Christopher Williams from the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department.

Thank you, sir, for joining us today.

And will you please introduce yourself, join us at the virtual table and introduce the appointments?

You bet.

Thank you.

And before I get started, congratulations to the Kraken And the Seattle Center Climate Pledge Arena is just magnificent.

I actually have been there and was fairly blown away.

So this topic is one that is going to kind of set a lot of wheels in motion for us as we appoint new members to a redefined Board of Park Commissioners.

As many of you are already aware, Historically, we've had a separate Board of Park Commissioners and a separate Park District Oversight Committee.

This Citizen Oversight Committee for the Park District had oversight, obviously, of ensuring we had some transparent accountability to the Park District.

We essentially had two citizen groups functioning at a high level.

advising the Park Department on a variety of issues.

We were, however, constrained by the ability to have broad discussions because the scope of the Park District Oversight Committee was limited to kind of the scope of the Park District Governance and Oversight.

And the broader Park Board dealt with a whole universe of public park and recreation issues.

So last year, the council passed legislation to rename the board, expand its role, creating a board of park and recreation commissioners, capturing our underlying recreation mission and that name change.

So we're calling it the BPRC, and this combines the park commission and the PDOC or the Park District Oversight Committee to improve public accountability, diversity of representation and utilization of expertise and knowledge of community volunteers in an efficient manner to create sustainable uses of our volunteer energy.

It allows the board to consider resources in the full context of the department's overall mission funding, policies, and just a whole variety of needs.

So the board retains the representation of the 15-member structure of the former Park District Oversight Committee, and this body will be responsible for the traditional duties of the Park Board and oversight of programs, policies, and reporting on specific park district issues.

So today, we're here to add three new members to the Uh, new board and, um, I will introduce, uh, the first member, uh, that is Justin UMA got, and he is a D one representative.

Justin is a lifelong participant and advocate for Seattle park and recreation programming.

He has spent numerous years coaching out of Delridge community center and now serves on the board.

of Associated Recreation Council, or better known as ARC, just in work for Sound Transit, making local transit dreams a reality for the residents of Seattle and King County.

His lifelong passion for public service, professionalism, management, experience, public space, and desire to make the world a more just and equitable place for himself and future generations, including his daughter, motivates him to make positive changes where he can.

So that's Justin Umagat.

And then the second candidate we have is Stafford Mays.

Stafford is a D7, District 7 representative.

Stafford worked at Microsoft for 20 plus years.

His responsibilities included managing PR efforts for Microsoft's global diversity and inclusion team.

He was also responsible for external PR in media and online print.

In addition, he focused on external relationships with civil rights and human service organizations, as well as K-12 and minority colleges and universities.

Stafford worked to create and implement programs that provided equal access to technology to underserved communities, These efforts delivered Microsoft technology and infrastructure, teacher preparedness, training and access for minority students.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Stafford earned a scholarship and played football at the University of Washington.

Stafford was drafted as a defensive lineman for the St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings from 1980 through 1989. Stafford served on local boards of several nonprofits and speaks to various K-12 schools about academics and technology.

He's currently on the board of O'Day High School and upower.org or upower.org.

So you'll hear from Stafford.

And then last but certainly not least, we'd like to introduce you to Davon Thomas.

Devon is a D4 representative, or District 4 representative.

He's an MPA student at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington.

Through his lived experiences, he realizes the important role parks and recreation plays in the community.

As a child, his neighborhood community center taught seniors how to use laptops, provide reentry workshops for former felons, and so much more.

He knows that recreational facilities serve as the bedrock of communities no matter one's age, ethnicity, or background.

As a former student leader and city commissioner, he brings experience in public policy, youth enrichment, and working to ensure local government Helps communities they serve.

Unfortunately, Devon was unable to join us today due to a scheduling conflict.

We will have 2 additional appointees coming before the committee.

Hopefully, at the next meeting, which will enable the board to start their park district work with board members.

from every council district.

So again, our goal here is to have a representative from each council district.

And I think what you'll hear today is that these appointees have a broad passion for community service and are passionate about stewarding their community park and recreation department.

So I'll turn it back over to the chair.

Superintendent, thank you so much and it's really great to be joined by these nominees today as someone who served on a city commission a decade ago and I know Councilmember Morales on this committee is also a former city commissioner.

It's always great to hear from people stepping forward to join us in public service and help the city in this way.

I will call on folks in the agenda order and would love to hear a few words about what folks hope to do on the commission and where their passions for parks and open space and recreation come from.

And why don't we start off with Devon Thomas and then I'll proceed along to the other nominees.

So Devon, please take it away.

and Devon was not able to join us today.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thanks, Parker.

So that will take us then to Justin.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Really excited to join the BPRC.

I grew up born and raised in West Seattle, played basketball in the local community centers.

And by the time I got to the end of that program, you know, selfishly, I just wanted some more hoop time.

So I started volunteering and coaching through the local community centers.

And then I realized a lot of these folks are volunteering their time to help make the community great.

And that really inspired me to continue to do that.

coached through Seattle Parks and Recs for 15 plus years before joining the Arc board and really saw the equities throughout the system, which really inspired me to make a sustainable and positive impact on the community that I serve.

So that's kind of what I do outside of working for work.

I spent most of my career at Sound Transit.

I'm over at King County Metro now doing a lot of public transportation work.

And it's just really interesting to see what's best for the public and how it streams throughout the city and all the different levers that you can push and pull to help make the place better.

So excited to be a part of this commission, excited to represent the communities that I serve and the communities I grew up in.

Justin, thank you so much for coming forward to serve.

Really appreciate you being here today.

Really appreciate your words.

Stafford, you're up.

All right.

I'm also a coach at O'Day High School.

So we have our practices down on Genesee.

So I get to see the parks and get to see who's using the parks.

And I just think if I can add any value to this committee at all and ideas, new fresh ideas possibly, That's what I want to do.

I'm also a person that grew up in the parks and played basketball and football and tag and everything else down in Tacoma.

So I'm all in.

Stafford, thank you so much.

I will now open this up to committee members if there's any questions for our nominees today.

Okay, I don't see any questions.

So that's good.

Oh, sorry, Council Member Herbold.

I think it's because you're not on camera for some reason.

You're not popping up when your hand is up.

Sorry, Council Member Herbold.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you.

And again, for the panelists who haven't heard me apologize earlier, I apologize for not being on the screen and all the complexity that that creates for everybody.

Really, not a question, but just want to thank everybody for their willingness to serve.

and want a special thanks to our District 1 nominee.

Justin, thank you so much for everything that you do for the district, your many years coaching out of Tall Ridge Community Center, and really, really appreciate your commitment to West Seattle.

Just want to know that the Parks Department reached out to me when they were considering putting you forward, make sure that I had any feedback and we were all just so excited about about your interest in serving.

So thank you.

Thank you for the kind words.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

We will now move forward here on a vote on the nominees.

So Council Members, I move the committee recommends confirmation of appointments 1945, wait, hold on, I'm sorry.

I don't think that, that doesn't look right to me.

Clerk, I only have two appointment numbers in my notes here.

We're doing three appointments today.

Yes.

That is correct, Mr. Chair.

Yeah, can I get the missing appointment number?

The missing appointment number would be 020, or sorry, 02104.

OK, great.

So I will, council members, I move the committee recommends confirmation of appointments 02104. 0-1-0-1, 0-2-1-0-2, and 0-2-1-0-4.

0-3, you mean?

Oh, 0-3.

Sorry, 0-2-1-0-3.

Yes.

OK.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any comments on the motion?

Hearing no comments, will the clerk please call the roll on committee recommendations.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Vice Chair Mosqueda.

Excuse me, yes.

And Chair Lewis.

Yes.

Chair, there are five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Parker.

The motion carries in the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the February 22nd City Council meeting.

Apologize for the confusion in making the motion.

There was a last minute withdrawal of a nominee, and as a result, the script has not completely caught up with that adjustment.

So thank you, Superintendent, for joining us.

Thank you to our new commissioners, or new nominated commissioners, and we will consider your appointment at a future full council meeting.

You need not be present at that meeting, but of course, you are more than welcome to come if you would like to, and I really appreciate you stepping forward to serve.

So thank you so much.

Council members, that is our final agenda item today.

If there's no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.