Budget Committee Meeting Session I 10-14-26

Good morning.

The October 14th, 2026 Select Budget Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.32 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, Chair of the Committee.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Saka.

Good morning.

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Present.

Councilmember Juarez.

Good morning.

I'm here.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lynn.

Councilmember Rink.

Councilmember Rivera.

Chair Strauss?

Present.

Five present.

Thank you.

For those not present, they are excused until they arrive.

We have four items on today's agenda.

We have Office of Housing, sorry, Central Staff Analysis of the following departments, Office of Housing, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Seattle Center, Seattle Department of Transportation.

I'll try to call for a one-hour break today at a good stopping point, but before we begin, if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We're gonna move right on in, and I think that the computer has finally started working, is that correct?

Fantastic.

Thanks to tech, we are here, ready to roll.

With that, clerk, will you please read the first item into the record?

Agenda item one, Office of Housing for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

We are joined by Jennifer Labreck and Calvin Chow of Seattle City Council Central Staff.

I'm gonna turn it over to you.

We're gonna run through the whole presentation and then I'll turn it over to Council Member Foster as the chair of the committee overseeing the department.

Great, thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm Jennifer Labreck, City Council Central Staff, and I will be providing an overview and proposed policy considerations for OH's budget, proposed 2027-2028 budget.

Overall, OH's budget is quite stable from the 2026 adopted budget for both 2027 and 2028. The most significant change is a 14% reduction in the home ownership and sustainability BSL, and that is primarily due or only due to removal of a 3.4 one-time appropriation.

So that was a $3.4 million appropriation in the 2026 budget that was removed from the 2027 proposed budget.

And the overall impact in terms of the percentage of the decrease is significant because the overall amount of appropriation for homeownership and sustainability is relatively low.

There are no changes to FTEs and OH from the 2026 adopted budget to 2027 or 2028. A couple notes on the revenue side.

The jumpstart appropriation remains consistent, generally around 140 million.

Again, from what was in the 2026 adopted budget to what's in the proposed budget for both years.

Other major sources of funding in that other row include the housing levy at about $138 million annually and mandatory housing affordability fees, which are currently budgeted at about $20 million annually.

I do wanna take a few moments to talk about the year-end supplemental, which is actually where we see the most significant change to OH's budget.

The year-end supplemental reduces OH's jumpstart appropriation by $65 million.

This is the beginning of a change to basing OH's annual jumpstart appropriation mostly or largely, let's say largely, on its cash expenditure needs.

Overall, and I do wanna say with the second bullet point, I wanna soften it a bit.

I don't think it's fair to say that the executive's overall goal is only to carry forward for the following purposes, but I think it is moving to a model where it is carrying forward funding based on certain purposes and sort of thoughtfully rather than assuming 100% of all dollar amounts will be carried forward.

And at this point, the executive knows that it would carry forward at least the minimum needed for multifamily capital expenditures in the next fiscal year in any awarded but unspent home ownership funds.

And the note that I wanna make here is that this is a significant change from past practice in which past practice has been 100% of all available jumpstart at OH is carried forward each year.

And this has meant essentially that when OH has made a funding award, the amount for that funding award has been reserved and is not used for any other purpose.

And this reduction of OH's PET by 65 million means that there is a change in strategy now in which OH will be making or could make PET awards that will be paid for with future year appropriations instead of the current year appropriation that is then carried forward until it is drawn down.

The executive's position is that while this is a decrease over the long term, in the short term, it will not impact capital investment levels, capital awards, or the speed of construction for awarded projects.

And they cite this primarily because OH's jumpstart appropriation is held consistent at 140 million in the 2027 and 2028 proposed budget and the out years.

I do wanna state here it's difficult, if not impossible for central staff to verify the accuracy of the statement because in truth, the impact of the $65 million reduction depends in large part on future decisions.

It depends on if that appropriation is held steady at 140 million.

That in part depends on what happens with jumpstart revenues over time.

And this assumption assumes that the executive will put money into the annual notice of funding availability that goes out for OH.

It will be willing to include PET funding in that notice of funding availability, knowing that it will be paid for with future year expenditures.

So I think there's a lot of questions here around what the long-term impact of this change is.

I will now talk through three policy considerations.

and these are all related to this change in the year-end supplemental that we just discussed and the move to making PET awards for multifamily projects based on future year appropriations.

Thanks, Jen.

I'm just gonna note, we have Council Member Lin and Vice Chair Rivera, and just clarifying, when you say PET, you're referring to Jumpstart, is that correct?

Thank you, Jumpstart.

Yep.

Thank you.

We'll use that going forward.

Yeah, no, you're fine.

OH, so the first policy consideration is that basing OH's Jumpstart appropriation on annual cash expenditure needs, I say only here, but I should say largely, will require careful financial management.

OH will be using future year appropriations to pay for commitments made in the current year.

So as an example, that means OH may make an award in 2027 with jumpstart funding that they don't have the cash for in 2027. And they're planning on using future year appropriations in 2028, 2029, 2023, 2030 to pay for that obligation when essentially construction invoices get submitted to OH and they need to pay on them.

OH and the city budget office will need a strong system for monitoring expenditures and a strong methodology for determining jumpstart amounts to be included in the annual multifamily notice of funding availability so that there is assurance that the city will have future year appropriations to pay for the obligations that it's making in the current year.

Options for Council are adopt a statement of legislative intent or SLI requesting that OH provide quarterly budget to actual information and quarterly updates to its projected expenditure projections along with an explanation of any refinements OH has made to projecting project expenditures.

Option B, adopt a slide requesting that OH inform council prior to the publication of the 2027 multifamily NOFA of the amount and purpose of any jumpstart included in that NOFA and provide the methodology for how this amount was determined.

And again, the reason that this would be important was so that council could have insight into essentially future year commitments that the executive would make with future year appropriations.

And option C is no change.

The second policy consideration is around making awards based on OH's future Jumpstart appropriations, which might require unknown future trade-offs.

If Jumpstart revenues decline, the city will need to make difficult decisions about reducing funding in other priority areas so the city can meet its public and legal obligations.

Just to walk through this for a minute, when OH makes the funding award, the first thing they do is issue an award letter.

and housing developers, once they have that award letter in hand, use it to line up other funding, we're sort of first funder in, and because they have OH funding, they probably begin to incur more pre-development expenses.

So that award letter has meaning to the developer and they are gonna take on some costs and some risks when they have it in hand.

It's not yet a legally binding contract, but I think it's fair to say that there could be legal risks to rescinding an award without good reason.

12 to 24 months later, OH will execute a legally binding agreement with the housing provider for funding.

And at that point, the city's commitment is legally binding and backing out of it would obviously have repercussions.

So council may find itself in a position or the city may find itself in a position in future years in which we have made both public and legal obligations to a project.

But depending on what happens with Jumpstart revenue, may see available revenue change.

And so the city may have to be prepared at that point to make trade-offs unknown at this time in order to be able to meet its public and legal obligations.

Options here are adopt a slide requesting the OH informed council prior to the publication of the 2027 multifamily NOFA of the amount and purpose of any jumpstart included in that NOFA.

And again, the goal here is just for council to have awareness and be informed of what types and the extent of any essentially future year commitments it is the executive is making that will impact future budget decisions or option B is no change.

Option three is that basing OH's jumpstart appropriation largely on annual cash expenditure needs may impact OH's ability to react minimally to emerging provider needs.

Over the last several years, OH has been able to quickly respond to emerging provider needs as they are able to decide in real time if available jumpstart should be prioritized to stabilize existing properties or be awarded for new capital projects.

that includes over the last couple of years, $28 million in urgent operating support loans, over $50 million in debt restructure loans that help to stabilize existing properties.

And I forget the exact number, but a substantial amount of what we call supplemental investments to help projects that have seen their construction costs increase or that need assistance to say convert from their construction loan to their permanent financing.

and it has really been the carry forward of appropriations from year to year that has allowed OH to be able to react nimbly and quickly to emerging needs and that opportunity will likely be more limited under this new scenario.

Options here are A, council could adopt a slide requesting that OH inform them prior to the publication of the 2027 multifamily NOFA of the amount and purpose of any jumpstart.

Oh, I think I have an error here.

I think that here the option would be that the slide could request information from the executive about how they responded to provider needs in 2027 and how they plan to respond to them in 2028. And I will stop there.

Thank you.

Thank you Jennifer and Council Member Foster is chair of the committee overseeing the department you're recognized to kick us off and then I'll take other comments.

Also Council Member Kettle joined us during policy considerations as well.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Chair.

Thank you so much Chair Strauss and as always thank you Jen it's a pleasure to get to work with you every day.

I will just say I know from my perspective I think this change is something we heard a good amount about during public comment and in terms of the switch in the accounting process.

And something that's been on my mind, I know, Jen, you and I have talked about is really around the actions that council might take now or in the future that could have this change, you know, either have more of an impact or sort of lessen the impact.

And I think one of the things that you spoke to earlier was that the impact of this shift depends largely on future decisions.

And so can you just share what future decisions might result in sort of minimizing the impact of this shift or lessening the risk versus those that might result in increasing the risk?

I think some future decisions could include things like how much of OH's jumpstart appropriation is carried forward each year.

Right now, in the 2026 year-end supplemental, what's proposed in the year-end supplemental is to significantly reduce the amount of OH jumpstart appropriation that will be carried forward from 2026 into 2027. That's the impact of reducing their appropriation by 65 million.

It's not clear what will happen in the future if OH has maybe still remaining available jumpstart appropriation at the end of 2026. It's not clear what will happen with that.

Will it be carried forward in the carry forward ordinance in the first quarter of next year or will the executive not carry it forward and use it for another purpose.

And the same question exists for 2027 and 2028, right?

And so that's one place where there's just uncertainty about what will happen.

I think other ones are, we can see in the 2028 proposed budget and the financial plan that the executive has proposed keeping the appropriation at 140 million, but obviously those are future budget years.

We don't know what's gonna happen to jumpstart revenue.

We can't know for certain that that is what will happen.

And I think the final one is just this whole plan is based on the idea that we will put out a NOFA in which we will make money available for which we do not have the current year appropriation, right?

And that's how we sort of hold harmless the impact to housing over the long term.

And the proof will be in the pudding when we see the 2027 multifamily NOFA about whether or not that has happened.

Thank you, Jen.

I appreciate that.

And the only other question I have is, I know we're not alone in this approach in terms of the, I guess, the forward funding approach.

And so I know something we've discussed is just other, there are some other jurisdictions that have a similar practice.

If you can just speak sort of briefly to what we've learned about other jurisdictions that have a similar practice.

Yeah, I've talked to three jurisdictions.

I talked to San Francisco, the local housing department there.

They do not do this, and in fact have said that the advice that they have received, including from legal advice, is not to carry forward funding like this.

Now, that's California, they might be working under a different framework, I can't say, but I think they also evaluated it as being more high risk than they would feel comfortable with as a department.

I also talked to the Department of Commerce, Washington State Department of Commerce.

They don't have the statutory authority to do it.

So it's sort of a non-question.

I did talk to King County.

They forward commit, but I really wanna emphasize it's on a much more limited and controlled basis.

And so, What King County is willing to do is to put out, and they're doing this currently, they put out a NOFA in 2026, a notice of funding availability with 2027 funds.

So they're willing to bet ahead a little bit, even though they don't have that appropriation yet, but once they award those funds, they put those funds in reserve and they hold onto them and they will get carried forward from year to year.

So I think it's a very different version than what's being proposed here.

Thank you.

And I ask that question just only because I think there are likely, um, things that, uh, steps that we may take or we may consider to help ensure that as we make this one-time shift that's necessary, given the really challenging budget environment that we were in.

And I know we've all talked about that a lot during this process with a, you know, $175 million deficit, um, that we're looking as a council at our options to minimize the impact.

And I think I heard one of the things being Decisions that we could make in the future around reducing the amount of carry forward if we have that opportunity, if the budget allows us, or ensuring that those dollars are held in reserve or that they are committed, again, also minimizes the risk of this necessary but I think challenging shift that is in front of us.

So thank you so much for that.

May I add one other thing too, if that's okay, Chair?

Which is that I do wanna say that there is a jumpstart reserve.

Tom spent quite a bit of time talking about this yesterday.

So there's a jumpstart sort of revenue stabilization account that's below the line.

It's part of those planning reserves, but that is sort of another contingency plan here in terms of the strategy and something the executive has cited several times.

Thank you.

Anything else, Council Member Foster?

No, thank you, Chair.

We've got Council Member Waters followed by Council Member Lynn.

Okay, sorry about that.

I was trying to get my facts straight.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So I was looking back at our notes from September September 29th, and we went through the mayor's analysis of Office of Housing, and we went through the numbers.

So some of our questions got answered in the meantime, but I just want to go back to refresh memory here.

I guess my main concern, and this went up with when they were attempting to do the shelter legislation and the money where that was going to come from, So as you know, back in 2019, under Mayor Durkin, we spent $65 million in 2019 to buy 8.5 acres for Northgate Commons.

It's a low-income affordable housing, I think 60 AMI, and there were three buildings there.

And so we bought that.

Those buildings are coming down and they're going to be replaced with six buildings, six what they call six stacks.

So the folks that were living there get to come back, which is great.

And of the six stacks, three of them will be market rate.

hopefully working with sale housing and office housing with the grocery store pre-K and a community gathering spot etc and also making sure that we have washing machine and dryers in the units and then that's for the I'm sorry for that's the three for market rate and then three for the quote unquote affordable housing again like I said former residents come back and it's also being called workforce housing and it adds up to 1400 units, which is huge.

And it's wonderful because they'll be right between Northgate Light Rail and Pinehurst and the whole point of transit-oriented housing.

This is what we've been working on for a decade.

and, you know, give credit where credit's due.

I want to thank Mayor Durkin and also Councilman Rivera, because she was involved in this as well.

Oh, we got the $65 million to buy it and to work with Sale Housing Authority.

And at the time, Andrew Loftin was a head of Sale Housing Authority and worked with us and rent there now, or he's been great.

Everyone has been great.

So my point is this.

So we had a commitment from housing, because it's still being developed, for $20 million.

and then long story short, we agreed to allow the mayor's office to have $5 million when they were looking at the shelter issue.

And then some issues happened in between.

So long story short, we're down to a promise from the mayor's office that there will be a $15 million commitment still and that $5 million is supposed to be replenished at some point.

So I haven't gotten any straight answers since then.

So, and I know that we've talked about this, I want to know and make sure that I get it on the record, especially after I'm gone, that Northgate Commons is a commitment that we made in 2019 for 1,400 units of affordable workforce housing, market rate, and all the good things that we had promised the voters and used taxpayer money for, that we don't start poaching that money because this is exactly why we passed, well, some people call it Jumpstart, Amazon, whatever you wanna call it.

This is the reason why we passed this is so the money could go to develop this type of housing around transit-oriented development next to a hospital next to a college next to a school and also put in the amenities like a pre-k a grocery store all the things that you need so you can not have to have a car but you can do everything there and we've had a lot of development up at Northgate for these very reasons with market rate and affordable housing workforce housing coming online So I guess my question is, what guarantees or what are we hearing from the mayor's office about honoring this commitment?

It was 20 million, now it's 15. What are our commitments there?

And Mr. Chair, I would also look to you to make sure during the budget conversations that that commitment stands for whoever has the seat after I leave.

Thank you.

Very well said.

And I'll direct it to Jennifer now.

In your policy considerations, talking about SLIs and reporting, would some of this help to address Council President Emeritus Juarez's concerns, or how would we best ensure that those projects and priorities are seen through to commitment?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That's exactly what I was looking for.

What, besides a SLI and getting it on the record in front of God and everybody, what do we got to do to hold on to this money to make sure because they're going to be tearing those buildings down.

The fire department is using them now, I believe, and I think they stopped for fire exercises.

So I drive by there all the time and I'm really concerned they're going to keep poaching this money and I don't know where it's going.

I will have a couple responses to that.

One is that I can say OH is tracking the $15 million commitment.

You know, for example, in terms of this change to basing appropriations on future year expenditures, they created a separate line item for Northgate.

It's 15 million.

They are tracking it.

They are making sure they have cash available for it.

So there is awareness of that.

Would love to think maybe offline about some ways to help ensure that that's what the money gets used for.

I'll say out loud, it may not make sense to proviso at all in 2026 or 2027, because I'm frankly not sure that that's when the money is intended to go out the door.

So would like to talk to you offline about some ways to do that.

I definitely hear the concern.

Can I add, too, that I think the sly idea is to make sure that the expected spending is known and shared with the council so that there's awareness of this going forward and that these high-profile projects get highlighted so that everyone knows what the plan is and how much money is there to support it when we're talking about a fund source that is, frankly, very volatile.

I would add to that OH has spoken with the Seattle Housing Authority and the Seattle Housing Authority has agreed to submit an application as part of sort of the regular NOFA process for funding.

OH understands that there is this commitment to around the 15 million, but it just makes it, we'd have to do a separate ordinance allowing this direct appropriation.

So I think they decided together it made sense for them to come in through the regular process.

So at some point there will be an award to the Seattle Housing Authority for this 15 million for this project.

I think there are some questions around timing for that.

So Cal's point around a slide that kind of lays some of this out and makes the timing very transparent and clear could be helpful.

Mr.

Chair, can I follow up?

You've got the floor.

Yep, all you.

Thank you, sir.

Well, first of all, I don't know if we passed an ordinance, but we did something to finalize the relationship between Office of Housing and Seattle Housing Authority that they worked together, and that was when we were holding at $20 million.

And in light of Indigenous Peoples' Day, instead of stupid land acknowledgements, this is what I'm talking about, a commitment, I was going to use the word treaty, but that's probably a little bit too dramatic, but maybe not for this group.

We started out with the 20, we spent $65 million to buy this thing and to work with the GATA developer, everything's online.

$65 million in 2019 for 8.5 acres, making sure we had 1400 units and the majority of those units, 80% are for workforce and affordable housing.

So we had 20 sitting there, five got taken out for the shelter thing that I don't know what happened to that.

But anyway, there's some other money that got scattered.

So I'm not comfortable with there's a commitment and we're going to watch this space because there's a lot riding here.

So, yeah, OK, we'll do a slide.

But I really want to go on the record, particularly after I'm gone, that this doesn't just go away where we have this huge eyesore up there with a bunch of empty buildings that are the fences around them are going to take them down.

that this is a commitment we made in 2019. And so I'm gonna look to my colleagues who will be here after I leave to make sure that this gets done.

And we have more than, we replenish that 5 million that was taken, that they said they would, they haven't, and that the 20 million stays.

And then of course, I know that we're, it's a moving, we're not, like you said, council or budget chair, you don't move dirt, twice.

And so once we get going, we're going to get going.

So I just don't want to have to hear that.

Well, the mayor's office took out another five or they're going to hold off on that or they didn't.

We can't have that.

That wasn't the deal that we made in 2019. So I will leave it at that and I will look to leadership to help me use whatever tools we have to guarantee we have more than a soft commitment that we actually make this a priority and honor the 65 million of taxpayer money that we used to buy this to ensure that the low-income people that were living there get to come back because they want to come back and that those 1400 units get built.

And again, I'll just say it again because it's important to me that 80% of it is for workforce and affordable housing.

That is exactly what we planned on doing.

This is exactly what we're doing.

And I hope the mayor's office honors their word.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

I'm gonna turn it over to Council Member Lynn, followed by Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, colleagues, for this discussion.

I think this is a pretty big change, having worked with the Office of Housing before on my current role for many years on these issues, these award letters, I just want to acknowledge that this is a big deal.

I also just want to acknowledge kind of to Council Member Juarez's point, you know, the difficulties of what OH faces where you might issue an award and it might be a decade later before those funds are really needed and how does that line up with our budget practices where we budget on a year-by-year basis And so what do we do?

Do we sit on that cash?

And it can grow and be pretty significant over time.

And so there's a challenge there.

And so, you know, on the one hand, I applaud sort of the mayor's office for getting creative here, but I also think we need to proceed cautiously.

especially when it comes to, you know, we have certain fund sources like the housing levy which can't be re-appropriated for other purposes and are predictable.

But other proceeds like Jumpstart are not predictable and really can be redeployed by future councils for a number of purposes.

And so I am concerned about I think in small amounts, future commitments can be okay, but I'd be concerned if it grew too large, especially with certain fund sources, and because when we issue award letters, oftentimes, when we finally break ground or finally close, that award becomes larger.

And so I guess to these policy considerations and options, I appreciate these considerations.

I also just kind of wonder, maybe there could be a policy consideration where there's a percentage, some sort of like cap future commitments and, you know, based on sort of, you know, historic trends, anticipated future cash flow, you know, I just want to be cautious that this doesn't grow too large and become an issue for future councils.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Lane.

Anything from the committee table?

Nothing right now.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle, followed by Vice Chair Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

and I apologize also for being late, the gender-based violence press conference downstairs earlier.

My question, first, Ms. LeBrecq and Mr. Chow, thank you for being here and your work on central staff.

My question goes to, you know, over the last two years, we've asked for a Seattle housing investment plan, and the first one, you know, is covering the affordable housing piece.

And did you find that interesting and helpful, actually the word I was going to use, helpful in terms of the work that you're doing and in terms of overseeing OH and the housing portfolio?

And are you asking, there was two, there was the original housing investment plan and then also an update.

I was going to follow up both.

Okay.

You can answer for both.

Yep.

So I'll remind the audience and council members that their council member Kettle had a slide that asked for a housing investment plan, which OH submitted in 2025 and then a slide.

the following year, asking OH to update that housing investment plan with information about sort of housing production by external partners like the Seattle Social Housing Developer or the Seattle Housing Authority.

So I have found those documents useful.

I think it is helpful for the city to be able to articulate what they think that they can achieve with the funding that they have in terms of unit production and unit by AMI and how that compares to the targets that we now have that were set by the Washington State Department of Commerce for King County and then apportioned out to the jurisdictions and the countywide planning policies.

So it is helpful to have all that in one place.

Of course, I do wanna be clear, unit goals that are part of that plan are all based on modeling that makes a lot of assumptions about things like interest rates and tax credit pricing.

And sometimes it's out of date as soon as it's printed, but it's still helpful to sort of see what did we think we could get?

And then if we're not meeting that, or we are sort of understanding what are the factors that, what change that sort of made the outcomes different than what might've been first anticipated.

And then I'll say to the second part, yes, it was helpful to see, to bring in the anticipated housing production from other players, especially the Seattle Social Housing Developer and Seattle Housing Authority.

And I think by doing that, we saw some interesting trends emerge.

The first one just being that obviously our greatest need continues to be at that zero to 50% AMI level.

and in fact that we may be in some ways overproducing at the 50 to 80, especially the 80% level.

So it just causes us, it provides good information for the city council and the executive to think about sort of where prioritization should be for resources.

Thank you.

And that was the goal, that was behind the original intent for me to put that sly in and to ask for that because I don't sit on the housing committee previous term or this term, and I just felt with my team that it would be helpful to have this basically report, almost an intelligence report, in terms of, hey, this is the state of play, this is what's happening, and kind of having a one-stop-shop approach to it.

And I think that helps us in terms of what we're trying to do here in budget.

and then for the updated one, I don't think people really realize all the other pieces that are there.

Obviously, there's different pieces like Seattle Housing Authority, and there's now the Seattle Social Housing Developer, and to keep the bigger picture.

It's easy to get boresighted into lines on a budget item, and then you're just OH, but in terms of keeping the bigger picture and how it fits, I think is really helpful.

So I appreciate AOH for producing these two reports and I think it's something that should be ongoing.

And two, that it's helpful for central staff because the more we can help central staff, it helps central staff's ability to help us in terms of doing our job.

And so that's the intent behind it.

I recognize my questions about the social housing developer earlier was creating a a strong interest, but that's the rationale behind it.

I'm not going to have any, Chair, I'm not going to have any Seattle Social Housing developer, CBAs, Council Budget Actions, or anything related to that, but I do think it's important for us to take it in as part of our considerations and our understanding of the broader lay of the land, if you will, to help us make our decisions.

And I'll be keeping track on that, too.

There's a press conference later this week that I'll be joining because that insight is really helpful and particularly as it intersects other areas as well.

Because as I've said, I have nausea probably to some people's minds, but when I talk about the scene between public safety I say public health, but next is housing and then human services.

The housing piece is really important to what we see on our streets.

And you highlighted a point that I don't think most people really understand.

It's like the emphasis is needed.

Like there may have been overemphasis on the higher AMIs and less on the lower.

And it's like, okay, how do we square that circle?

How can we move forward?

And that's the kind of insight, particularly those that are not sitting on a committee in depth day in and day out, you know, I think I find it to be helpful.

And so I appreciate the feedback.

If there's anything else that can help you do your job to help us, let me know and I'll put some more in.

But I do think the SHIP, Seattle Housing Investment Plan, the SHIP Maritime Connection is just by accident.

If that's helpful moving forward, we'll continue to do that.

Thank you.

Anything right now from central staff that you can identify that can help Councilmember Kettle in these endeavors?

Not off the top of my head, but I'm really happy to work with your office on that.

Fantastic.

Vice Chair Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks, Jen and Kel, for being here and presenting this, and Jen especially for presenting these policy considerations.

Colleagues, some of us may remember that we've had this conversation at least as far back as when I started in 24 in terms of how to best manage for this housing fund that we have that is quite robust.

We're always in this deficit situation.

Those funds aren't going to be utilized in that year, because these are long-term projects, and whether we continue to land bank the money to make sure, you know, if we hold it in reserves, we know it's definitely going to be there at a point in time where the developer will need it, or do we do as the mayor has done in this case, which is, you know, not hold the money, but make sure that we're, you know, continue.

Obviously it's a commitment when it's in an award letter.

So many of us have, as I said, talked about this in the past and the best way of doing this, because it is not advantageous to have a pool of money sitting somewhere.

when we have other needs.

If we can make true to those awards in the future, why not use that money now?

we've had the conversations about the reasons why.

I think both truths can, we can sit with both truths that it is a lot of money to be reserving when we have other needs in community.

And also we wanna make sure that we have the money available when we have to fulfill our commitments.

I really appreciate Council Member Juarez.

I do remember this project I'm really excited about this project even though it's not in my district, it's adjacent.

And what's really great about this project besides the fact that it's transit oriented development is North Seattle College is there as well.

There's just so much going on in that area of the city and I think this project is really gonna just much enhance that area.

And so I have similar concerns about ensuring that the money is there to complete this project.

So you have my commitment that as long as I'm sitting on the council that I will continue to support the completion of this project.

Because you're right, this is something that's really important.

We can't start something and then not finish it.

It's really important.

And these are the types of projects that we should be supporting to all the great points you made earlier.

That said, I wonder if, and Council Member Lynn, I appreciate you saying about the housing levy because that money can't be used.

It is dedicated funding.

And so we know we have that money that we can utilize to fulfill some of the commitments if things come due sooner than we think, because that's the other thing, Jen, right?

Is that part of this is we're not entirely sure when that money will have to commit we will have to fulfill some of the commitments.

It won't be all at once though.

I mean, my understanding of housing projects is you give money a certain amount at a time as the project gets through completion.

That's true.

It's not as if you get billed for 100% of the project.

It does come in over time.

I don't know if you can use housing levy money to pay for a jumpstart obligation because the housing levy is is highly regulated and restricted to certain uses and has to meet certain outcomes.

It's not clear to me that you can just sort of swap those as needed.

I think that that's probably something OH would really need to explore probably, you know, with law about sort of what their options would be there, but I wouldn't assume it.

I think it's worth exploring as we're looking for creative solutions to this issue, because I think there's a way to thread the needle.

And I really appreciate all the points you made in your policy considerations.

You know, we do need to build more housing, obviously.

So we, again, we wanna make sure we fulfill our commitments at the same time.

I know it's really hard for the city to continue to hold on to funds and not be able to do some of these other priority things.

So I appreciate any and all creative ideas to solve for this very important policy consideration that you've raised.

and I wonder whether we can do some more digging and to see whether, you know, the housing levy money is something that we could, you know, pull from later if we should have to while we're waiting for jumpstart funds to come in.

You know, things of that nature.

How can we get creative here where we can accomplish both goals is what I'm trying to say.

And I think that there's some other things probably that we haven't considered that we should be, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

So happy to discuss further, Jen.

But I do think it's important, and I think it's important for the public to know that this is a really hard issue, is that we are holding on to a large sum of money.

And this is what we identified back in 24 when we had to deal with a deficit there.

And it's hard to be sitting on a large pool of money that we know is not gonna get utilized today.

and we were saying since then, if we can make sure the money's available when it is needed, then we should be able to use some of those funds now.

So that's right, what we're trying to solve for.

And anyway, so again, Jen, happy to explore further on some potential alternatives for maybe not land banking all of the money in reserves, being able to utilize some of it, but at the same time, do a better structure for the issue that you've identified in terms of what do we do as things come due and we need to pay.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Deputy Director Calvin Chow.

Councilmembers, I just wanted to say that I think a lot of the conversation I'm hearing is really talking about acknowledging the big change that is being proposed here, and that really kind of speaks to OH's financial policies and, you know, how are they updated to look at these different possible scenarios, because that's really the conversation.

We don't know what the future is going to bring, but we want to understand what are the financial options we have to be able to make sure we're meeting our obligations.

and are able to track the things that we want to do.

So I think, to me, this speaks to a look at what work is going on to update the financial policies in light of this change.

Please.

Thank you, Cal.

Agreed.

Also, I wanted to- I meant to say one other comment, Chair.

Thank you for giving me another minute.

In terms of the housing that's being created, we do have the county supports housing and then we have the social housing PDA and so how does the city go about partnering with both to ensure that what we're building you know it should all be complementary and not a duplication of efforts if you will and to ensure that the number of units that we need given that there are other entities also building housing, that we're clear on that.

And it goes back to a comment that Council Member Kettle made about the investment plan and just knowing, and we're not operating in silos as we so often do in government, which is unfortunate.

These are big bureaucracies.

I understand that piece.

So how do we partner with those other entities to ensure that our housing portfolio is meeting the need and that we are as accurate as we can be in filling that need?

One response I have to that is I do know OH has been meeting with the Seattle social housing developer to talk about sort of what their plans are and how they can best collaborate so they're not duplicating need.

I think that as Councilmember Kettle, we just discussed the housing investment plan, it's helpful for seeing that.

The social housing developer, their funding does not, the proceeds from I-137 don't come with any restrictions.

However, the social housing developer board has voted to sort of meet certain income targets, which was part of initiative 135 as well, to have sort of these mixed income buildings.

So I do think there's communication about that.

The Office of Housing over the foreseeable future is very focused on zero to 30% and zero to 50% housing.

And that's really where they're gonna aim.

And the social housing developer will create some units within that income ban, but is also going to have buildings that have 50 to 80% units and market rate units.

So I think they really are serving largely to different parts of the market with some modest overlap in that zero to 50 range.

And frankly, we know that we need a lot of housing in that range.

And so I'm not looking at it super concerned about duplicative efforts, but I do think that continued dialogue between them will be essential.

Thank you, Jen.

I do think in the longterm, maybe not immediately, we're not concerned, but I do think these plans are longterm plans.

And so we should have kind of a formal process in place for how we're continuously checking in to make sure that we aren't duplicating efforts and that the ecosystem hasn't changed.

And it's not just with the social housing developer.

I'm thinking of everyone who's developing housing, right?

It's also the county.

and how we partner with the county and what are they developing and what are their goals, you know?

And along with the income piece, there's also the, you know, what types of units are needed, like family sized, et cetera, and what is getting built.

So I think all of that needs to be part of this, you know, housing plan that shouldn't be like a one, I know, it was a sly, but it should be a living document that is getting updated regularly so that everyone knows what the city's plan is for housing and the needs change over time, you know, the details.

So I think that's important to do over time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks for the extra time.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

And before we move on to Council Member Juarez for a second time, Council Member Rink, any questions at this time?

Council Member Juarez, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

I apologize for coming back in.

So first of all, I want to apologize for coming in.

Jen and Kelvin, thank you so much for your presentation.

I didn't mean to come in so hot.

I know it's too early for that, but as I always tell Councilman Rivera that when we tease each other, I know that these are difficult issues for the Office of Housing, working with Seattle Housing Authority, working with the county, working with the social housing issues on the policies.

And I wanna thank Councilman Rivera for her words because you're right, some of these projects, they sit there and I understand if they're not being built doesn't mean you're going to take it away, but you put it on pause and you use that cash or that money to let another project that's further down the line get built into brick and mortar.

I get that.

I understand what Council Member Lynn is saying too.

I think Council Member Lin, thank you.

I think he's a little bit more cautious than me.

I understand I'm not asking people to have a crystal ball, but I do want to emphasize that this whole idea of transit-oriented housing and everything that comes with it has been a policy discussion and issue and being implemented in cities across this country since 2013, in which this city started adopting it in 2015. And we dedicated and did and spent the money with Seattle Housing Authority, the 65 million in 2019, which has been seven years.

So at some point you have to say, we got to get this done.

We can't just keep rolling it over.

and so I guess that was the point I was trying to make that some of these issues in housing and building are emergent and they're a commitment and that money is there but it's not only is it about the money being there because it's not just sitting in a checking account obviously but we also use that money to leverage to issue debt to build And we have to line up those, as you know, you guys know this, there's all these things that we have to do to line up to actually turn soil.

And so that's why I'm so passionate about this project because it was such a big deal in 2019. And remember the discussions before 2019 started in 2015. So that is what you're seeing here.

I'm not saying this is like a $3 million project that keeps getting rolled over every year, every year, every year.

This is a big deal.

And so I think I just want to let you know where my passion is coming from there.

So it's no reflection on you, Jen, or Calvin, and the good work and the hard work that you do, particularly you, Calvin.

We've been working together for a decade now.

So I want to thank you.

And thank you, Mr. Chair, for indulging me.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Anything from the committee table at this time?

Colleagues, other questions, comments for Office of Housing?

Otherwise, I'll make mine and then pass it to again.

One more time.

Okay.

Thank you, Chair.

Jen, did they continue the housing stabilization?

I know it was one time, but you can't continue one-time funds.

We do it all the time.

was that continued?

I think just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, it's the urgent operating support.

So that was a one-time RFP that went out in late 2025 and they've awarded the funding and there is no money set aside at this point in time for more urgent operating support.

And this is related to the third policy consideration that with this move to really basing appropriations on expenditures, there's really no wiggle room in the budget right now to provide money for, at least in 2027, for urgent operating support, assuming no carry forward.

There's just the money sort of allocated for anticipated expenditures in 2027.

And my understanding is those funds are still needed.

I mean, that's what the housing providers...

I know the award, the $28 million, those contracts go through mid-2027, I want to say.

So if they were to be needed, I think it would be for contracts beginning after that.

I'll confirm those dates for you.

But I know that they were more than 12-month awards.

Thank you, Jen.

I appreciate that.

It's important to maintain the units that we do have.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I'll just make my comments at this time.

I don't have questions for the table because we've had robust discussion.

I really appreciate it.

Just one of the things that Jennifer Labreck shared at the beginning is that there's no change in staffing.

And so I'll just bring us back to the seven year look back.

where in 2019 the department had $69 million of funding with 45 employees at about $5.8 million for labor costs.

In the 2026 budget and what is for the most part reflected in this proposed budget is it's now 349, it was $352 million with 24 staff at $6.5 million in labor costs.

labor costs, so that's an appropriate increase in staffing commensurate with the amount of funding that the department is allocating and the operations that the department is engaging in.

I share that, or I guess in our last meeting on September 29th, as Council Member Juarez noted, You know, we talked about MHA, we talked about the first housing levy, the second housing levy, Jumpstart.

I just say this because the first NOFO that was due to Jumpstart was in August of 2021. And the first projects that were funded with that NOFO only came online a year ago from today.

and so I say that because it takes so long to build housing and the outcomes that we are seeing from Jumpstart infusing a historic level of cash into the Office of Housing, those outcomes are only really being born in the last 12 months and in these years right now and ahead.

Even with that, Capital construction these days in places is too close to market rate for what I consider to be a strategic investment, kind of to what Council Member Kettle is saying.

We need that strategic housing investment plan so that we can know where we are over indexing and where we need to have more support.

Because as Council Member Rivera was mentioning about the operations, we know that operations continue to struggle.

We have the COC reserve, but that is different than the struggles that have already been occurring for these very affordable housing partners that we are trying to funnel money to.

So the question becomes, in my mind, there's not an answer and this is not people can't be looking into a crystal ball.

I've said things on the record that people are like, and this is what he means.

We're just up here having a conversation.

But it really is, if we are investing in additional capital construction that is near market rate, while operations of existing affordable housing are in jeopardy of closing.

I think that there's something that we really need to take a look at this.

I don't know that we're gonna take a look at this this year, but I look back at a decade ago was when HALA was put together with 12 recommendations.

We took up four of them and Jumpstart wasn't even part of that.

and so I just say we're a decade down the road from taking a very strong and focused look and investment into housing and I don't know that we've done a check back yet and so I think that that is important.

I'm glad that this budget retains that near historic level of funding.

I'm not going to mince numbers with $5 million difference that's historic to me, especially in the context of Seattle social housing developer bringing in an additional $120 million for housing.

Again, you can't look into a crystal ball to say that I'm going to do anything about social housing because I'm not.

but I'm just noting for the record that construction is near market rate, operations are struggling, we have a historic level of funding in our budget and we have an even larger historic level of funding including the Seattle social housing developer while we're making some changes into how we are structuring our cash flow to meet these objectives.

and I don't have a problem with it but I do appreciate Jennifer you bringing up what guardrails can be provided because we do need some guardrails as we're making the transition just to ensure that this company that we took from a 69 million dollar company in 2019 to a 350 million dollar company today that requires changes.

Some of that is cash flow and through these changes we just need to make sure that the correct guardrails are on there to make sure that places like Northgate Commons get built, to make sure that we are able to meet the objectives that we're setting out.

So no questions for you but if you have any reactions or things that I should be thinking about as I'm going through with that mindset.

I'll just say that you are correct in your statement that some of the OH funded housing that is online, especially our studios and one bedrooms are commensurate with the market.

It's sometimes a little higher than the market.

And so some of those units and projects are struggling I do think OH has adapted their underwriting criteria as they're funding new awards in the last couple of years to respond to that.

Being very thoughtful about when projects come in, what are the market rate rents in those areas, really emphasizing the zero to 30% units where there is a clear need, emphasizing the family sized units where there's a clear need.

So I have seen them, albeit formally not, according to a formal plan, respond and try to under really fun projects that will be meeting the need and more financially stable.

Thank you.

Colleagues, anyone who hasn't spoken yet?

Otherwise, I'm gonna go to Council Member Foster to close this out.

Thank you so much, Chair Strauss.

And I just want to appreciate everyone, all of my colleagues, for the conversation today and the commitment to supporting housing at all levels.

And I really appreciated hearing the shared commitment from folks around ensuring that the future dollars dedicated to the Office of Housing remain stable and committed.

There's a couple things I just wanted to speak to with some of the ideas that I heard today.

We've talked about this at length in committee as housing chair, but I just want to make sure to remind colleagues, we know that with our housing levy goals, which we need to meet, we will need at least 40 million of PET or JumpStart dollars just in order to meet those housing levy goals.

So I do want to make sure that that is, that we all have awareness around that.

I think it's important, you know, I really appreciated the discussion around creativity and ways that we can ensure that those resources remain committed to affordable housing and to OH.

But given that we need Jumpstart in order to support our housing levy goals, I do think it would probably require a lot of creativity to figure out the flexibility needed to have the housing levy goals sort of serve that dual purpose.

So look forward to any future conversation there, but I do want to make sure we have that awareness.

I really deeply appreciated the conversation around the need for regionalism and a coordinated approach and I will just take this opportunity to acknowledge some of the work that's already happening and thank Executive Zahalai for his Breaking the Cycle work where we've been meeting for several months with providers, with state leaders, with regional leaders, folks from the business community to talk about these exact questions and to ensure that we have strong coordination because housing affordability just like homelessness is not just a city issue, it's a regional issue.

So I know that work will continue and I look forward to continuing to serve in that capacity.

I'm happy to answer any questions about that work.

I also want to acknowledge, you know, and Jen, I think you spoke to this, the work that Office of Housing has already done to sort of look at what's happening in the community here in Seattle and to adjust.

I know in our most recent NOFA, and I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but they prioritized units that were family size units and that NOFA They also prioritized units that were for our lowest income residents.

So we're already starting to see that shift.

But I will also sort of caution around council doing anything to over constrain OH in terms of what they're able to produce.

Because part of what we're seeing now is that, you know, if we have that slowdown in those other units, that will come back to visit us six to eight years down the road.

And so I do believe that while we need to continue to make these investments, in most affordable housing, zero to 30, zero to 50% AMI.

I also know that if we have a slowdown in that 60 or 80%, we may not be where we are today.

10 years from now, we may be asking sort of a different question if we underproduce in that area.

So I think there is no shortage of great work to do.

I feel really grateful as housing chair to have the leadership of the Office of Housing I think we have some really interesting opportunities in front of us through the budget cycle to ensure that the resources in OH remain dedicated.

And I certainly will be looking for additional opportunities to put money back into the Office of Housing if we have a more positive budget forecast.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

With that, anything else?

Sorry, I should have checked with you first.

Then we're going to transition into the second item of today's agenda.

Clerk, will you please read the second item into the record?

Agenda, excuse me, agenda item two, Seattle Parks and Recreation for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

We are joined by Carina Bull as we are bringing up technology.

I did see Tracy Ratzleff here today, so she's still here.

Nobody freak out.

Now that technology has caught back up with us, I'll turn it over to Karina to run us through the presentation and then we'll run through questions.

Thank you.

Good morning, committee members.

I am Karina Boll from Council Central Staff.

Tracy is indeed the legend and she continues to mentor me in this work.

I appreciate her partnership.

So we're here to discuss an overview of Seattle Parks and Recreation's 2027-2028 proposed budget.

As you'll see here in this first slide, the budget would increase by 10%, $37 million in 2027 as compared to the 2026 adopted budget, and increase again by 12%, $49 million in 2028 relative to the 2027 proposed budget.

As far as funding goes, there is $134 million in 2027 from the general fund.

These other sources not listed here are actually comprised of 10 funds, the largest of which is the Park District Fund, which it receives revenue from the Park District Levy.

That revenue is spent according to a six-year financial plan.

We're in the cycle two financial plan.

This levy was first passed back in 2014, so we're mid-cycle right now, and there is a Park District Board meeting that will happen next Wednesday, and we will have a presentation from SPR where they will dive deeper into explaining how the Park District funds are used in the 2027 and 2028 budget.

Also notable as a source of funding is the Park and Recreation Fund, and that's funded at about $53 million in 2027. That fund consists of all the different revenue sources that are intended for parks, and that can include state and federal grants, recreation programming fees, sports rental fees, private donations.

There's a host of things that contribute to that fund.

They are intended for parks.

And last, it's not listed here, but the Jumpstart Fund, it's a light seasoning to the revenue for parks.

It's about $200,000 a year.

The proposed changes in the operating side of SPR reflect technical and baseline adjustments, strategies to maintain programs within the context of the general fund revenue shortfall.

These are budget neutral changes and also several reductions.

Most programs and services would remain at service would remain at current levels.

There's just a few new initiatives, and you see them here.

There's a new investment in Rainier Beach Youth Programs, increased support for recreation program scholarships.

It's essentially doubling the amount of money that parks has for those scholarships, and then reallocation of Seattle Conservation Corps funding to be spent on human resources, staffing for client needs.

Also notable is the continued transfer of the admission tax revenue from Office of Arts and Culture for SPR arts programs.

That's the Buskers, Arts and Parks, and the Teen Musical.

This is an ongoing strategy that was started in the 2025 and 2020 six budgets.

I think it's notable to mention that it was first introduced by the executive as money that would go directly to parks.

Council did pass an amendment that had that money go into Office of Arts and Culture and then be reimbursed to parks.

This is an ongoing strategy where that will continue to happen.

So the money will continue to go to Office of Arts and Culture from the admissions tax revenue and then parks will request reimbursement from that fund.

Same thing for Seattle Center, which is also receiving admission tax revenue or funds.

There also is a continued funding for teen late night program at High Point Community Center that is reflective of continuing a one-time ad from last year's budget, subsidies for aquatic programs.

The reductions we will talk about later, they are to the graffiti abatement and prevention strategy program and the unified care team.

As far as capital, this is where we see the increase to parks.

budget and the majority of that is because of the bond issuance and associated debt service for the four major community center renovation projects.

They're listed here.

Green Lake, Lake City, Loyal Heights, and Queen Anne Community Center.

There still are plans to build a community center at 8th and Mercer, but those plans have been, the funding for those plans has been moved to 2029 to reflect updated schedules.

for that particular project.

There also are ongoing, one-time and ongoing funds for new restrooms, play area renovations, and there's a fair amount of redistribution of park district funds because of the changes in bond issuance and debt service for those community center projects freed up and the pushing of the 8th and Mercer project to 2029 freed up park district fund balance that could be used for other projects.

There also is in this budget reflection of real estate excise tax reductions and the forecast for that is less than anticipated.

And so there are going to be reductions in the Gas Works Park Remediation CIP.

The city will still be able to meet its partnership commitments with SPU.

and Puget Sound Energy.

Maybe the most notable change here is that the West Magnolia Playfield Capital Improvement Project is essentially unfunded across this six-year CIP, and Parks is maintaining a commitment to funding that CIP, and again, we're looking towards the cycle three of the Park District for that funding.

There's also an ongoing realignment of park district funds to support ground maintenance.

It's $7 million, that's been going on for a couple of years, and now it is an ongoing strategy.

As far as policy considerations, when parks was presenting their budget a couple of weeks ago, there was feedback from council, many questions about the reductions to the graffiti abatement program.

So they consist of two parts.

The first one is actually, it reflects a reduction to the baseline budget.

It's a 500,000 general fund.

This would remove non-labor discretionary funds for graffiti abatement and prevention strategies.

This funding was added by the prior administration for creative strategies to prevent graffiti before it happens, such as youth education workshops, support for murals, art supplies, and additionally, vendor contracts to assist with difficult abatement on private property.

The actual use of these funds in the 2026 budget thus far has been for one-time overtime expenses related to the World Cup and equipment purchases.

So the impact of not having these funds in the current year won't impact service levels, but it depends on what council's priorities are, is what they want to see accomplished with the graffiti abatement program.

There's also a reflection of a removal of one-time council added funds in the 2026 adopted budget of $950,000 general fund for a contract with a community organization for graffiti abatement on private property.

Now, this isn't a cut to the budget.

It's a reflection of the executive's decision to remove this one-time funding and not add it back.

What will happen as a consequence of not having this funding is that Seattle Parks and Recreation will have a significantly reduced ability to address graffiti on private property.

The existing team of graffiti rangers can do this work, and they do, it's just a very small percentage of what they are able to accomplish because their focus is on graffiti.

abatement on public assets.

And so if you look at this year so far, they've had almost 11,000 graffiti abatement activities, a little more than 200 of those have been on private property.

So as far as policy options, there could be finding funding for graffiti abatement strategies or finding funding for a contract with a community organization, a combination of those, or of course, no change.

The next policy consideration, I'm just teeing up.

Ann Gorman, who staffs the unified care team that is coordinated by the Human Services Department, is going to dive deep into this during her Human Services Department policy consideration, but just to tee it up for you today.

I will note that the proposed budget does reflect a $900,000 general fund reduction to support for the unified care team.

That would include removal of three vacant positions and fewer non-labor resources for contracted services, I believe mainly for waste disposal, and would also reflect the moving of two vacant heavy equipment truck driver positions.

that had been designated for the unified care team back to natural resources, which is where they were before the unified care team was assembled at Seattle Parks and Recreation back in 2023. I will note that how I am framing the reduction to unified care team will be a little bit different than how Ann does in that I'm framing it as a $900,000 reduction in the general fund to SPR.

But when you think about the reduction in UCT capacity, it is larger because the money that would be spent on the two vacant heavy equipment truck driver positions is now being moved over back to the natural resources.

So what we've heard from as PR is that these changes will not impact current service levels for the unified care team, that they are being framed as right-sizing the budget for what is actually happening on the ground.

And so one could think about it as a change to the capacity for the UCT team.

And again, Ann Gorman will go into more detail about that during her HSD presentation.

And that concludes.

Thank you, Karina.

And over to Councilmember Juarez as chair of the committee overseeing this department floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I had an opening statement, but that's okay because you covered some of that, which went in a little bit more detail.

I got a little bit more nerdy in the budget, but on the operational.

So the good news is on the operational side, it looks like we're good.

with the change of what?

2.8 million change for that.

And the FTEs remain the same.

And I understand that it's budget neutral on the four and a half FTEs that were moved and then the FTEs that were put back in.

So my focus on the capital piece, I know that we had an increase because of the bond work.

I want to just focus on a few areas.

And if some of it you mentioned, but I just want to go back in case I need to have some follow-up questions.

On the new investments, you talked about the Reindeer Beach, the Recreation Scholarships, the Seattle Conservation Corps, and the Teen Late Night at High Point.

And then another for our viewing public on the CIP for the community centers, the Green Lake, Lake City, Loyal Heights, and Queen Anne Community Center, which should make people happy in D5, D6, and D3.

and then the priority projects and I don't know if you mentioned this and I was taking notes so please forgive me if I'm repeating some of this but I want my colleagues to hear this as well.

On the priority projects that were included are the Discovery Park Visitor Center in D6, Camp Long in D1, Little Brook in D5, The restrooms in Cheryl Chow Park in Northeast Seattle and D3 in the West Magnolia area, the inclusive Pali area, inclusive elements, it says D6.

So those are some of the projects that we focused in on to make sure that they were covered in the budget.

I had two areas where the, this is what kind of the bad news is, not bad news, concern.

Obviously, I am concerned about the graffiti abatement reduction.

the removal of the 500,000 and then the 950, even though it says removal of one time, I get that and what the options include.

And then going back to the Unified Care Team, and I know that I had learned that it is gonna be reduced and you are gonna have a deeper dive on that on Thursday when HSD presents and Council Member Rank will lead that discussion.

So I guess there's not a whole lot there.

I was looking at the fund swaps and just help me out a little bit here because I'm also the president of the MPD.

So we're looking at the fund swaps, the 7.1 in the ground maintenance, the 1.6 for the aquarium, the 600K for the Rainier Youth Program and 400,000 for the community center scholarships.

Those funds swaps will, I'm guessing we'll have a deeper discussion on those when we do the MPD budget, when we do that as a body as a whole.

So that was one question and then I'm going to hold all of my questions on Unified Care Team.

Unfortunately, this came about again, being the elder here, Unified Care Team grew out of SAFE back in 18 or 19 and certainly after 20 where we started putting money into parks, SPU, SPD, everyone basically.

I think there were like six city groups to focus on cleaning parks and providing more services to cleaning out the bathrooms, putting out the purple bags, making sure there's hand washing stations, etc.

And as you know, and I'm just going to touch on this now and I'll probably drill down more on Thursday, I'm really concerned about the UCT, the Unified Care Team, and the reduction when we continue to experience issues of public safety in our parks.

including the encampments, drug dealing, shootings, et cetera.

So I appreciate that you say we're gonna kind of kick some of this over to Thursday, but I'm hoping that there will be, in another word I don't like to use, but I will use robust conversation about why the Unified Care Team is so important and why it was created to begin with, particularly now in 2026 and what it's gonna look like in the next two years out with an increase in violent crime.

um that really concerns me so um you kind of already hit the points that I was prepared to share in the beginning but I I don't think I've ever said this I'm actually kind of happy with this budget piece of the operating in the capital some of these things have followed through particularly the new investments, particularly the community centers.

But again, the issues I'm gonna have are the graffiti abatement reduction.

And I know that you laid out some options for us, A, B, C, and D, and of course, the unified care team.

And with that, Mr. Chair, I think that's the end of my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Juarez.

Colleagues, I see we have Council Member Kettle, Rivera, anyone else, please raise your hand now.

Over to you, Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I really appreciate our Parks Chair, Juarez, for her comments and the two areas that she highlights, which are the highlights I'm gonna highlight as well, both as Vice Chair of Parks and Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Ms. Bull and Mr. Chau, thank you for being here and for your points.

Here's the point, right-sizing?

Really?

Half a decade plus ago, we went through the defund moment.

and now we're going through the unfund moment, and that's having major impacts.

You know, we've heard from the CBO and from the mayor's office that, you know, hard choices.

These are not hard choices.

These are wrong choices, and we can see it every day on our streets.

All of our neighborhoods are feeling the effects of the unfunding, not just in dollars, but also in attention and emphasis, and it's showing up on our streets.

You know, I called for the mayor to create a director of public safety.

I had her in my office.

I said, hey, create a director of homelessness, too.

And a few weeks later, she created the four.

UCT should be under Director Hellerbrook.

But it's been downsized.

It went from the mayor's office to HSD.

And now we see what's happening with not just parks, but also SDOT.

At the same time, I'm talking to people in community who are saying, hey, what's going on here?

Then we check in with UCT and others and other individuals working these issues.

Oh, we can't work that issue because we don't have the heavy equipment operators from parks.

Huh.

That's what we're dealing with.

This is the unfund budget.

Half a decade ago, we had the defund budget.

Today, we have the unfund budget.

And this is what we're seeing here.

This is like a perfect example of not just for dollars and cents, but also in terms of priority.

UCT should be reporting to Director Ellerbrook.

We shouldn't be cutting the positions from SDOT and from parks that support the UCT.

I believe in Director Kim, but it has to be at the mayor's level because it's cross-departmental.

and this is what we're seeing here.

Hard choices, wrong choices, and we're seeing it again on our streets.

And this has major impacts on our public safety posture, and to think otherwise is wrong.

to think otherwise is wrong.

We see it again and again, and countless people, the backsliding that we've seen over the last five months in terms of our public safety posture as it relates to encampments, because of the decisions of this administration, which are showing up in the budget decisions.

Chair Juarez from Parks, agree and support, and I've said this before, from a budget perspective, the nuts and bolts of budgeting, budgeteering, I support Director Panucci's work and that she's doing.

But she's also carrying forward the unfunding that Mayor Wilson's doing here.

And that's a problem.

and we have to look at this.

This is a major issue.

This goes to a major issue of the mayor's budget overall.

It kind of goes like we talked about SBD on Thursday.

It's all the, you know, everything's fine here.

It's everything's great when the budget was announced, but as we dig into it, you don't know how many people colleagues I've spoken to who've voiced that kind of rah-rah, you know, response to the budget rollout who are now having second thoughts.

They've been hoodwinked.

This is an example of that hoodwinking.

And then graffiti abatement, same thing.

Used to be in the mayor's office.

Mr. Jackson, working the issues.

Now it's being downsized and it's being, again, unfunded.

This is the unfund budget.

We had the defund budget years ago, but today we have the unfund budget.

And it's showing up here and it's gonna have major impacts on public safety colleagues.

And I think it's important to note and to frame it that way.

because if you look at all these other pieces, there's a thread that connects them all.

And at the end of the day, this unfunding is gonna hurt our public safety posture, it's gonna hurt our economic revitalization of downtown and other parts of our city, which in turn will only make our budget challenges even worse than the years ahead.

Chair, I don't think there's anything else I should add.

Thank you.

Anything from the committee table at this time?

Thank you.

We'll move on to Councilmember Rivera and then Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair.

I'm not going to disagree with anything my colleagues have said.

Councilmember Juarez, I really appreciate your leadership and your time as Chair of Parks.

I have grave concerns about the UCT team getting unfunded, as my colleague has said, and also I have concerns about this graffiti abatement program.

I want to say for the record, the organization that received funding to do the graffiti abatement on the private areas, Uplift Northwest is a great organization.

Not only are they doing that graffiti abatement in places that we don't do, they're actually providing jobs to people and second opportunities to people.

It is a really great program and it is unfortunate that the mayor has not, and I understand what one-time means.

As Councilmember Juarez has said in the past, we've had a lot of one-time programs that have turned into ongoing funding.

And I know that the mayor took some of those one-time ads and turned them into ongoing, except not this one.

And this is really important.

We hear from constituents, I hear from constituents all the time, about the need to abate the graffiti in our neighborhoods.

And to me, this is a no-brainer because you both get the work done and it's being done by folks who have a second opportunity at life and are trained for a job.

And this is a really great opportunity for folks that we want to help in community.

So to me, it's a win-win and it's unfortunate that that didn't make it into the ongoing bucket.

for all the reasons I have said.

I also feel, Council Member Kettle, I'm gonna take it a step further and say this mayor does not have a public safety plan.

We have not seen what the plan is.

There have been multiple shootings this weekend, still no plan.

So this budget, I agree with you.

What this budget does is take out public safety elements that this council worked really hard to include in on behalf of our constituents to address safety concerns across the city.

And Councilmember Juarez, thank you for giving always the history on, you know, in this case, UCT, because the unified care team was established to take care and to help address the encampments that we're seeing across the city and provide that public safety piece to our constituents.

and it is clear that UCT is not a priority for this mayor and this administration and that is very upsetting.

And it is upsetting to our constituents because we're the ones that get the calls when constituents need UCT in the neighborhoods.

We're the ones that have to manage for those calls and we're the ones that have to reach out and request and continue to request and continue to request addressing of the encampments in all our neighborhoods and this is all across the city.

There isn't one district or one neighborhood that hasn't been impacted.

And as I've said before, the UCT team are compassionate people who work really hard to ensure that folks are being offered services before they resolve encampments in the neighborhoods.

They connect people with services.

They go multiple times to an encampment site to do that work.

So to me, this is almost a silent unfunding of and deprioritizing really of public safety in our city and we cannot go backwards.

And that's where we're at.

and it is the mayor's responsibility to address and operationalize public safety in our city.

So we will talk more and I look forward to Council Member Juarez a robust conversation on Friday because this budget is not working for our constituents and it is not working for my district.

and it is just simply not okay.

Now it is council's responsibility to have to figure out how to fund fire, fire overtime.

Again, a chartered responsibility.

These are not optional.

UCT though not chartered is an important responsibility.

We do not, we have to address these issues in our district, sorry, in our city.

and this budget has rendered us incapable of doing that.

So now it's Council's responsibility to go back and see how we can reconfigure the budget so we address public safety in this budget in the way that it should be addressed.

So again, I look forward to the conversation on Friday.

In terms of the parks budget, this UCT piece is of huge concern as you can hear.

And then also this graffiti abatement piece is really important as well.

These are no brainers.

It is hard for me to understand what the thought process was behind the cuts to UCT and even graffiti abatement.

So I don't have any questions for you, Karina, but I did wanna make some statements about parks budget in particular.

And then I also have put in the tracker a question about the 10 bathrooms, that's FAS, but there's two in parks, the one at Cheryl Chow where the north end one is going, I have questions about that.

And then the other 10 restrooms because there is a need for restrooms across our neighborhoods.

so we can talk about that offline.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Anything from the committee table at this time?

Yeah, I will just let everyone know that Parks has not committed to the location for the Northeast Seattle bathroom that is funded in this budget.

It would be a prefabricated bathroom.

The Portland Lou has been floated as an example of what this bathroom would be.

It's self-contained, it's intended to deter vandalism.

One of them, as you've noted, Councilmember Rivera, is for Cheryl Chow Park, the one in Northeast Seattle.

It'll be in four or five districts, and it's been informed through community engagement, but right now SPR has not identified a location for it.

It'll happen, but they don't know.

We don't know.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, we can also follow up with parks then.

Thank you.

Thank you, Karina.

And Chair, if I may, One other thing about UCT that we discovered as we were trying to send information to our constituents, it appears the page has been removed.

I cannot find the UCT webpage on the City of Seattle site, but there used to be one.

I'll follow up on that, thank you.

That to me, again, if it is true that it is gone, I cannot find it, then that just goes to the deprioritization that this mayor has given to this team.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera, Council Member Saka, followed by Council Member Lane.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our central staff experts for your SAGE presentation and presenting, reporting out on the various issues and policy considerations, very helpful.

I wanna thank the Chair of the Committee, Council Member Juarez, for your steadfast leadership on, these many cross-cutting issues over a decade plus now.

And I mean that in the most polite, respectful way, of course.

Thank you.

But your leadership and expertise is very insightful and I think will be instructive on a going-forward basis as well.

Appreciate the comments from my colleagues.

Let me start off by saying I appreciate the mayor's attempt here to propose a balanced budget that meets as much of the community need as possible, and definitely an enviable position, taking that first cut of the budget.

And there are some good things to celebrate when we talk about the parks budget, some really good things, and then there's some things that raise more questions than answers, and some things that leave more to be desired.

Bathrooms, for example.

There's a lot of money for new bathrooms, and we have a problem with maintaining our current bathroom inventory.

We're a year-plus away from an audit, a damning, scathing audit, that revealed we can't even get our own house in order, quite literally.

Bath house in order, restrooms across the city, habitually suffering from graffiti, problem graffiti, vandalism, costing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of man hours Meanwhile, our ability to make appropriate capital upgrades to the existing facilities, harden them.

We can't even resolve, we can't even solve the problem of maintaining properly our existing restroom and inventory fleet.

And however many new bathrooms there are proposed under expansion under this.

And yes, my council district is the worst off.

It's no secret.

in terms of inability to properly maintain, because of problem graffiti and vandalism, our existing restroom fleet.

And now we want to expand, create new shiny things, and we can't take care and look after the things that we have properly today?

Hmm, okay.

Well, then there's the well-documented issue of UCT.

which, appreciate the comments from all my colleagues on this, plus one to the emphasis of those, or the essence, rather, of those comments.

I've been saying this throughout this whole budget.

The UCT's budget reporting structure, all of the above, reflect the collective deprioritization of the unified care team.

Having a single-threaded owner is great.

Having it within one department, not good.

You heard Councilmember Kettle a moment ago talking about no, like, people are getting stuck because, whoa, no heavy equipment from parks.

They're like, that is why you need an executive owner in the mayor's office to coordinate and avoid this, who's on first situation and, oh yeah, well, can't do it, mental, non-powered.

you need firm, clear decision-making at the mayor's office level overseeing.

And now, this might be a good thing to deprioritize it and bury that work down in a department somewhere, and it might be a good political bone to throw to your democratic socialist base.

But it does our communities harm in terms of changing and improving outcomes.

It does our communities harm in terms of improving the public safety situation in their neighborhoods.

It does our communities harm.

And by the way, our communities, including people experiencing homelessness in these encampments.

It's not good for anybody.

Again, I've been saying this the whole time throughout these budgets.

the funding levels and the bearing in this in the department somewhere, it might be politically expedient in certain circumstances, but it is highly counterproductive in terms of making a beneficial impact on people's lives and how they experience public safety in our city.

And as a council member who represents the district, two to three X higher RV lived in vehicle encampments than the next closest council district and were sort of sandwiched in the middle of non-RV encampments as well.

It's unacceptable.

I did a fairly controversial thing, I suppose, in some circles, some political circles last year when I led and was the prime sponsor of a proviso to ensure that in a period of political uncertainty, to ensure that UCT's budget could only be used for UCT purposes, and some people on the far ultra-left lost their natural minds.

Calls to employee wellness programs skyrocketed, apparently, in some circles after I did that.

but it was a wise and responsible thing to do.

We heard people saying they don't know if they support removing encampments in parks.

Encampment in a park where kids and families play, it's a no-brainer for me.

I'm gonna think twice.

In any event, appreciate the comments from my colleagues.

I'm flattered, actually, by some, and great minds think alike.

Flummoxed, flabbergasted, hoodwinked.

Who said it best?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Salker.

Committee table, anything to share at this time?

Just a little bit more information about the investment in restrooms that it's reflected in this proposed budget.

As I already detailed, there are the additional funds from a one-time park district balance and King County Park levy revenue for the two pre-fabricated restrooms.

The King County Park levy funding, this is new funding, $971,000 a year for restroom renovations that will contribute to four restroom renovations in 2027. I believe those are at Judkins, University Playground, Magnuson, and Walt Hundley.

There is existing in the budget participatory budget funding, which is making happen continued staffing at Cal Anderson Park on a regular basis for a temporary time period.

It'll fund staffing at the Freeway Park bathrooms for special events.

And then when the Hing He bathroom is completed, the participatory budget funding will be used for regular bathroom staffing there as well.

And then there is ongoing funding in the parks budget for how they frame daily monitoring and cleaning of the restrooms, understanding that the Office of City Auditor had recommendations for improvements to that system.

Thank you.

Council Member Stocker, anything else at this time?

No, thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Council Member Lynn followed by, and Council Member Warriors, we're gonna come back to you at the end, so we'll go Lynn, Foster, and then anyone else that wants to speak up.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Regarding UCT, do you know the total budget this year for UCT?

I do not have that information at my fingertips, but I can get it over to you.

I believe it is in the Human Services Department policy consideration and budget overview paper.

Okay.

And part of the reason I ask is I think reporting last year is it was about 30 million across all the departments.

And there was a proviso that it could only be spent on, you know, UCT-related operations and it couldn't be spent on anything else.

And I remember there was a big question to the mayor of, like, how do you feel about this proviso?

And I believe the mayor said she would work with this proviso.

And I guess my question, you know, where current operations and, you know, I hear from community members who are concerned about impacts of unsheltered folks in neighborhoods.

And I also hear from a lot of neighbors who see sort of a removal, but then it just goes a block away and just time and time again, there's a particular place on right off of Rainier in Bayview where it just goes from one side of Rainier to the other side.

And so people, what I hear is I've heard people say, hey, can you just not do this and just move it from one side to the other?

Is there another approach?

But kind of getting back to the question I have is the mayor's office is working under last year's budget.

The current mayor had no role in the budget that they're operating now.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Yeah, these are appropriations that were approved last year for this year.

So when we talk about sort of the current state of affairs, the mayor's office is working under the budget that this council provided to the mayor's office.

I just want to make that clear.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And have you seen, is there in the budget, is there a major underspend in UCT operations?

I mean, has the mayor refused to spend all the UCT dollars that were given to the mayor?

And Councilmember Lin, I'm actually, I'm going to come in and change the direction of this conversation because only because Karina specifically put in her slides that we will talk about the Unified Care Team on Thursday.

So sorry.

All that to say is if you do have questions about the positions for the Unified Care Team within the Parks Department, totally fair game.

I'm just watching us ask a lot of questions for somebody whose subject matter expertise is a little different.

I understand.

We've got a lot of commentary about the unified care team today.

Feel free to make commentary.

Okay.

Okay.

Fair enough.

Well, so my only, I'll just wrap it up and just say, what I hear is concerned that maybe the budget wasn't enough for this year because I've heard concerns, but I just, I want to, you know, and we can talk about this on Thursday, to make clear sort of that at least my understanding is that there has not been a major change to spending on UCT operations.

And so if we as a council believe that more needs to be spent on that, certainly open to that conversation.

But I just want for us to be clear that the current year's operations were based on last year's budget.

Thank you.

And if I can add one thing that I am familiar with as UCT relates to the SPR budget is that critical to thinking about how UCT on the ground with additional funding can increase their services is rethinking what positions are budgeted.

So what we've heard from SPR is that right now they proposed removing two and a half positions and non-labor resources.

SPR has said that if funding were restored for those two and a half administrative positions, the money wouldn't be spent because that is not what the UCT needs in order to increase its services.

SPR and the executive is saying is that there's been learning that's happened.

And I'm seeing that there's not agreement from the dais.

But if there's interest, I think it's worth considering how to reinvest those funds, if not administrative positions, perhaps different positions that could support an increase of services.

And Gorman has been thinking about this as well.

So again, this will be discussed and further detail during the HSD presentation.

Thank you.

And I see Deputy Director Chow and Councilmember Lin, I'm still going to give, you still have the floor.

If you've got more statements, I just want to make sure that we are asking the correct central staff for the correct set of questions.

That's all.

So statements are more than welcome.

Over to you, Director Chow.

Thank you.

I just, just to reiterate, you know, we're speaking at, with half the, well, less than half the information in front of us right now.

And I do think that conversation is better supported when we have Anne here tomorrow to help and the rest of the team as well to talk about how this affects our more holistic view.

I'm not sure that we at the table are prepared to help support, but obviously we understand the statements that council members wish to make.

Thank you.

Good.

Great, we're gonna go on to Council Member Foster and then we've got Council Member Juarez and Kettle who both spoken before, so we'll go back to them.

So if you have not spoken and would like to speak, now's the time to raise your hand.

Council Member Foster, welcome.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I really appreciate that.

And as always, thank you to central staff.

Thank you, Karina.

I appreciate you and your work.

I'm going to first start off with just a couple of things that we haven't talked about yet today that I'm excited to see in this budget, particularly as it comes to investing in our youth and our young people.

And so there are going to be a couple of comments here first.

So I just want to highlight, I think there's $600,000 dedicated from the Park District Fund for a new investment in afterschool community learning and programming at Reiner Beach High School.

including peer mentorship, contracts with community organizations, and a CLC coordinator.

And I'll just start by saying, I live in Rainier Beach and I think Rainier Beach, as Councilman Berlin speaks to frequently, unfortunately our neighborhood has seen more than our fair share of violence and shootings.

I myself called 911 last week because I heard shots fired in my neighborhood.

And often when I'm talking to folks and I've had the pleasure of getting to sit next to Councilmember Lynn at a few community meetings, what we really hear about is the need for youth investment and safe places for young people to go.

And I know that the youth violence in Rainier Beach has not just affected our community, but has actually had a really large effect.

citywide, particularly when we talk about connections to Seattle Center and other shootings that have been in the news.

So I just want to express my appreciation for this investment, and I hope that it's an investment we will continue to make and that we will hold stable through the council deliberations and the budget process.

I also want to highlight and I want to appreciate Councilmember Saka for his leadership on the teen late night program.

I think this was something, if I remember correctly, you added last year.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

And I'll just express my appreciation to the mayor for this ongoing one-year pilot.

or making this ongoing because I also know that the need around late-night programming is not unique to Rainier Beach.

I just spoke to that because I live there, but as a citywide council member, we see similar challenges in High Point and Lake City.

and many other places around the city that need more safe places for young people to go.

So I do think those are two really important adds in the mayor's budget.

And so as I'm highlighting those, I think that's about $900,000 in the budget, some of that park funding, some of that general fund dollars.

And then I wanna pivot to talking about UCT because what I see here is about a $900,000 reduction in UCT.

So it's really hard for me and I look forward to the conversation on Friday to get that report back in terms of what that $900,000 represents in terms of a total share of the UCT budget.

I had the same question that Council Member Lynn had, so I look forward to hearing that and having that as a robust conversation, particularly when we're talking about this question of whether or not we are unfunding or defunding UCT.

I think it's critical that we have that in context.

I will also say, and now I'll move into just a question before I share a few more comments, can you just talk to me really quickly?

It says that these are three vacant positions.

Do we know if these positions have been filled in the past, and if so, how recently they were filled?

They have never been filled.

They were added to SPR's budget in 2023, and they have never been filled.

To my knowledge, the truck driver positions have not been filled either for the UCT purpose.

So these positions were added in 2023 under the Harrell administration, and they were never filled over the last several years?

Correct.

Okay.

But we've had it as a carry forward on our budget representing $900,000 in investment, so it looks like we are updating to reflect the current reality, which has been the reality since 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026?

Correct.

Okay.

That's, I think, incredibly helpful when we get clarity about whether we are unfunding and what we can expect to see as a result of this reduction, because it's my understanding this reduction is not the equivalent of a reduction in service, but it's a reduction in open positions that have been unfilled for a number of years.

I also want to turn to this piece here around the natural resources unit.

Again, I want to check my understanding here.

This states that these were positions that existed prior to the formation of UCT.

So are these, can you just make sure I'm clear here, these positions have been filled previously, the natural resources component of that?

Yeah, I can't speak with a definitive answer to that, going to guess yes, and I can find that out for you, but when they were moved over to the UCT program, they have not been filled since then, and what SPR has said is they have not found that the positions were necessary to their implementation of UCT services, and so this budget proposes moving them back over to natural resources, and they're someplace in the hiring process for those positions right now.

For natural resources.

So those positions will be filled, they'll be filled as natural resources positions, which was the previous state of play.

and they were never filled after they got moved to UCT.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay, that's really helpful.

And then I want to also just make sure that I have clarity for the designated role of those three positions that have been vacant since they were funded.

Can you just speak to the sort of scope of work that they were intended to do?

As we know, UCT is a broad program that has a lot underneath it and a lot of really critical resident services and space management functions.

So what was the sort of designated scope of work for those three positions?

I don't have the designated scope of work as far as specific tasks, but they were administrative support positions.

Okay, got it.

So I'd love to hear more about that, and I'm happy to put that into the tracker.

I know that obviously the work that folks do through UCT, as I said, is sort of multifaceted, whether that means referrals, whether that means that we are connecting people with services, but it sounds like these were not positions that were sort of I would say forward facing, it sounds like these were sort of admin back of the house positions to support the functions of the team.

But I do hope that we can sort of dig more into that.

And I say this as a preamble, not because I don't believe that we have a need for connecting people to services or public space management, but I wanna make sure that as we're having a conversation around this budget, that we are incredibly clear about what positions we're talking about, not just the umbrella program and the umbrella sort of function.

So I hope that we can get that report back prior to the HSD conversation on Friday to support us in having what I think is a really critical conversation between the difference between public space management and connecting people to services.

You know, I will also just say as a comment, I really appreciated, I don't know what day it was when we had a public comment here last.

It feels like the days are blurring together.

But I really appreciate it.

I know we got to hear from Dennis from the Downtown Seattle Association, and I expect that we'll continue to hear more from them in the coming weeks around the need to continue investing in services and connections that are successfully resulting in getting people connected to housing.

like the pilot that we've seen in Pioneer Square.

So I look forward to having that robust conversation when we get to HSD's budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

Anything from the committee table right now?

Nope.

We are gonna go and we'll come back to Council Member Waters for closing.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to note that, you know, at the end of the day, it's not a Herald budget.

It's not a Wilson budget because it's a city of Seattle budget that is, you know, finalized by us, the city council.

And, you know, one of the issues on public safety particularly is the lack of implementation of law by the executive.

And I'm not saying this about one administration.

I'm saying the general sense.

And this includes budget, which is a law.

And so these billets, like let's take for example the real-time crime center, nine billets.

The law says, and granted there's executive discretion and so forth, that those nine billets were unfilled.

It was purposely done this year not to fill those nine billets.

They could have easily done it.

We'll learn more about that tomorrow.

And these other billets in the departments related to the UCT, not filled.

at the end of the day, we can have Ms. Finnegan back, but when I'm talking to city of government employees and they're saying, yeah, we have a problem here because we can't get the heavy equipment operator from parks to help us with this encampment, there seems to be a disconnect between what's being said in City Hall and what's being said on the streets and what's happening on the streets.

So we can go around and around on this, but at the end of the day, as everybody's noted in this city, I've seen it in District 2 in our walks.

I've seen it in District up on Aurora.

I've seen it all over the place as Public Safety Chair.

We are backsliding.

And I've been told this again and again, something that's been building steam over the last five months.

So that's another consideration that we should have here.

So we can talk about this budget piece or that budget piece, but at the end of the day, budget positions are not filled, then all of a sudden it's not in the mayor's office anymore, which everybody knows, that makes a huge difference.

And at the day, you know, we have these unfilled, we cannot rely on a wish or hope strategy to achieve our public safety goals.

And to be frank, that's what this, on public safety, I'm just talking public safety to include the UCT, it is a hope or wish strategy.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Anything from the committee table at this time?

Seeing nothing.

I will go into my comments and questions unless there's colleagues that have not spoken that would like to speak right now.

Seeing none, I wanna come back to the beginning of the presentation.

I'm actually gonna pull the presentation up for myself just so that I'm tracking through.

We talked a little bit about the So on page three, I would like to dig into, I don't, the Seattle Conservation Corps, for my team who's watching, I had noted this on my tracker earlier.

I'm glad that we are adding human resources staff to the program.

I do want to confirm that we retain three cohorts of Seattle Conservation Corps members.

I know that we had expanded those in the past however sometimes they hadn't been filled I knew that there were some challenges there achievable to overcome challenges but challenges nonetheless so I do want to make sure that we are retaining three cohorts if not more looking at The next slide, slide four, the LTGO bond issuance for these community centers, debt management policy committee this morning met and approved these LTGO bond issuances.

And so these will come to council as part of our budget practice, our budget process.

I will share of these notable changes I have some issues with how the Parks Department has communicated some of these changes I have been asked by the Magnolia community about the Discovery Park Community Center which has been closed due to a flood that took out its electrical They ask pretty much every month and I tell them every month that what I've been told by the Parks Department, which is that we were gonna go through a full renovation to add solar, to add batteries, et cetera.

I thought that was more than maybe what we just needed to get.

and I only found out that there was a change from that initial plan through this budget and so I need better communication from the department when these types of changes are being made, if something is out of budget to be more communicative because the outcome of this is as an elected council member for residents of the city of Seattle, they have been using my office for accurate information about city programs and projects.

And we could not provide accurate information because the parks department did not communicate this information accurately and in a timely manner.

I just use that as an example because it's happened across the board.

And so I raise it as we need to be setting and meeting Seattle residents' expectations for what they expect to receive and what we promise to deliver.

I'll dig into this, I believe it is on, where, yeah, so it was both, it was on this slide as well.

I see use of on, of one-time park district funds for priority projects.

Again, that visitor center that's been closed almost as soon as it was reopened after it was renovated.

But I see West Magnolia play area and restrooms here, but then the reductions is the West Magnolia playfield across the six-year CIP.

Am I understanding this correctly, that the playground is still slated to be built on schedule, but that the baseball fields are being delayed?

Correct, there's a distinction there in those projects.

And so the play area would receive funding from the park district to include inclusive play elements.

The turfing, the athletic field, right now does not have funding, and SBR has shared that it is prioritized for cycle three of the park district.

And so the play fields will be delayed from there.

I believe that they were on schedule to be completed by 2029 or 2028. They are being delayed to a future date unknown or certain at this time?

Unknown at this time because there's no money in the CIP for the project.

and has the parks department included the skate dot in the play area or is this still something that they are rebuffing community regarding?

That's something I need to follow up on.

Okay.

We need to look into that because if we are putting in a new play area that it needs to also have that skate dot that we've been asking for.

I will also just note my appreciation for the parks department for including an additional inclusive play area I wonder out loud if Magnolia is the right location for it, seeing as I believe we only have one other and it is in District Four near Children's Hospital, if that's correct.

Do you know if we have other inclusive play areas in the city?

We have, yeah, there are, and I should be able to remember all of these, but they weren't highlighted in this budget, but there's Pathways Park in District 4 that is a fully inclusive play area.

There are others as well that are fully inclusive.

There are others that have singular inclusive features, and I can easily get that information for you in a snap.

That's really helpful and thank you for challenging my assumption here because it is important that we have inclusive play.

I've been working with the Parks Department to reset their understanding that all playgrounds should be inclusive play areas, not just some.

And I guess my first reaction was again about communication.

that I haven't heard from them about inclusive play until I saw this in the budget.

They're adding it here, but slowing down the play fields, not including the skate park.

This comes back to communication, coordination, cooperation because we as district council members are very close to our residents and we're not here to be at odds with departments.

and when we receive information through budgets rather than through conversations, it creates unneeded and avoidable tension.

So thank you for that information at this time.

I do want to step into the Megablock Community Center funds.

You had mentioned the 8th and Mercer Community Center.

That funding has been put out into the future.

It was my understanding that that money originated from the Megablock sale of Broad Street as a street vacation.

If that was one-time funds that we received, did we spend that money and we now no longer have that money for that community center?

Or am I misunderstanding the current situation?

That's something I can look up for you.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

I want to touch in on Gas Works Park, that work that's been delayed.

Is that not work that is required for us to come into compliance with SDCI's red tag?

It is work that is necessary to come into compliance, but right now the schedule for that work wouldn't begin in 2027 anyway or in 2028 anyway.

So it will continue to move along a schedule that continues to be updated.

So that won't put the city at a disadvantage for getting that work done.

It was already happening at a slower pace than was envisioned a couple of years ago.

Okay, people have died, so I don't see how slowing down on making places safer.

When there have been deaths that have occurred, I don't see how this is a good idea, but we'll dig into that with you a little bit more.

The only statement that I have to make about the Unified Care Team, and I'll dig into this truck driver position, because it does sound as if we are retaining the position.

However, within the parks budget, that position is being reprioritized out of the unified care team and back into general work.

Is that correct?

Back into natural resources.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that is a de-prioritization despite all of the conversations of how many staff, when did they get positioned, all of that?

My statement about the unified care team is that we have seen in this last year, since last October, a complete change in how effective the city is addressing homelessness.

We were seeing encampments in one place for three weeks at a time, and now we have them in the same location for three months at a time.

I have a business in downtown Ballard that had an encampment in front of their business last October.

And we started working with the unified care team to come up with a solution.

It wasn't moved until I believe March.

And that person reported to me that they have had an encampment on one of the four blocks around their business.

And it's a small block.

270 days out of the last 365 days.

And so when we are talking about momentum or anything else like that, just the ability to interact and work with people has changed from a three week cycle to a three plus month cycle.

So that's my statement.

No questions for you there.

Colleagues, any other questions?

I see Council Member Rivera one last time and then I'm gonna turn directly to Council Member Juarez.

Thank you, Chair.

Just to confirm, the gas works remediation that's here is not, I don't think, what you were thinking of.

They did remediate the structure by the reason why those deaths occurred.

Oh, fantastic.

That got remediated.

I didn't want you to think, or the public watching, more importantly, that did get addressed.

This is a different type of remediation.

I always appreciate being wrong and challenging my assumptions.

Appreciate that, Vice Chair.

Council Member Juarez, over to you.

Thank you and I will make a just a quick statement because I know we I don't want to beat a dead horse but hey Councilmember Sokka thank you for being kind and recognizing my historical perspective in some of this stuff I appreciate that but I do want to put and I think context matters of how there was a transition in a marriage between Seattle Parks and Rec SPD SPU HSD Office of Housing and quite frankly, to me, it doesn't matter what political ideology is in the executive branch because it's what we see on the ground that matters.

So just so we're clear in context, all of this started in 2020, as you remember, Mr. Chair, with the Clean City initiative out of parks in response to clean up, prime, and then from that, it grew into the unified care team and it started out as a one-time thing then it expanded much to labor's chagrin because rightfully so a lot of Seattle Park and Recreation employees rightfully so with their labor representation said that they were not hired or qualified to remove hazardous material and do public safety so long story short we had to reconfigure what that looks like and get the right people in there and the right city departments.

And so that's how you got this marriage of the unified care team, which morphed into the, or I'm sorry, the Clean City Initiative, which morphed into the unified care team, which morphed into public safety, social services, you know, the LEAD program, Co-LEAD, all that came from that.

So it doesn't matter if it was two positions here.

Is it administrative?

Is it on the ground?

Who was mayor at the time?

What matters is the parks and the cleanup piece for parks in the budget, we had to pay people more and get more qualified people in there because of public safety where people were either dying or being killed or living and dying in a parks.

And so that's where that came from.

And I think context is important.

I'm not trying to politicize this.

So my concern, and I don't know if this is actually, and if I missed this, please somebody correct me.

As Council Member Sokka said, we are going to re-look at the Unified Care Team, and I know we're gonna talk about it Thursday, but in relationship to parks, if we're gonna put down 1.4 million for 10 thrown lab toilets, I'm gonna be concerned how we're gonna use money to take care of the parks, the toilets, and safety that we have right now.

and I'm just going to say that I'm just going to add on this note and you know and I think it's important to say and it doesn't you know kind of kind of quoting what we heard from the mayor of San Francisco It's not progressive to have people die on the streets and in our parks and get shot in our parks.

It is not progressive for over 800 people to overdose on fentanyl in our streets.

It's not progressive for people to their children to have to walk through open air drug markets.

People living and dying in our parks in violent ways and also by natural causes and drug addiction and other issues is inhumane.

And so that's why we have this discussion of how all this public safety piece landed in parks and the parks trying to adjust.

And if you remember, Mr. Chair, um back in the day when I was reporting and then I left parks and I think council member I can't remember who Lewis took over parks but we used to have weekly check-ins how much tons of garbage and needles and drug paraphernalia was picked up by parks because we wanted the public to know where their tax dollars are going to keep parks clean because those of us and this is nothing against people who are elected citywide I'm not trying to throw shade I'm just saying that those of us that have a district where we live and we see these folks and those are the calls we get and want to know what we're doing to keep parks safe and clean, the toilets, the playgrounds.

I know for a fact, well, you probably all have these stories, in D5 alone, I can tell you at least a half a dozen murders shootings that people have died in our parks because there were tents and we just didn't have the people in the unified care team to get out there and get them services and connect them where they needed to be.

That's why you're hearing the passionate.

Nobody's picking on any particular mayor or why no slot got filled.

We're saying that on the ground in the parks budget that this is really important and I am really excited and Looking forward to a robust conversation Thursday about how Parks works with HSD to talk about how we continue to address this issue.

We don't operate in silos.

And like I said, Parks was not prepared in 2019-2020 to take on some of this work.

That's why it was wonderful that HSD and SPU and Office of Housing all stepped in, including the county and then SPD.

So nobody's trying to criminalize the homeless.

People want people to have services.

Nobody wants to have people live.

It's inhumane to live in a park.

And that's my point of being share of parks one time for eight years or six years and then again.

So that is my passion here besides the actual operating budget, which looks good, the capital budget, all the things that are coming online, the new community centers that are coming online.

So that's my job.

I'm not trying to politicize or go after any particular mayor, though I do have some differences and that's fair to say, but it's about the policies, not the person.

We have to remind sometimes, even ourselves, we are three branches of government co-equal with checks and balances.

And that's what this is about.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Anything else from the committee table at this time?

Seeing none, we are gonna move on to the next agenda item.

We've got 1146 on the clock.

Will the clerk read the third item of business into the record?

Agenda item three, Seattle Center for briefing and discussion.

Fantastic.

We've got Eric McConaughey coming up with us right now.

Technology is taking a minute.

I will just share some of my comments now instead of later, which is that Seattle Center was also part of the Debt Management Policy Committee this morning, where we passed, DIMPAC voted in favor of providing an Interfund loan to get some of this work going for Seattle Center.

But with that, over to you, Mr. McConaughey, to open us up, and then we'll turn to Councilmember Saka for opening and closing statements.

Fantastic.

Good morning for the next few minutes.

And it's my shot to say it all to you at once, happy fall season.

It's one of my favorite times of year, not the least of which because of candy and Halloween and all that.

But that's just my little moment of humanity there.

I get to do that very occasionally with you all.

So jumping in, I'll be presenting on the Seattle Center budget today.

There was a presentation from the department here at the Select Budget Committee, I guess, two weeks ago.

It was pretty comprehensive, so I'll hit some high points to sort of frame things up.

With that, once again, I am Eric Connigy, the Council of Central staff, and I'll defer to the chair of the committee as the chair of this committee I just mentioned.

I apologize.

I may be misunderstood.

I thought that customer, you might have some opening.

Nope.

Okay.

Then I'll just jump right in.

No, no.

You would go first, Eric.

Thank you so much, but thank you for checking in.

We'll have you do your piece and then we'll go and then hand it over to the chair of transportation.

Thank you, Eric.

Go ahead.

So as I said, I'll just sort of frame things up in general.

So here's the budget summary.

You've seen these before for the folks that are watching from home, just jumping in.

BSL is a budget summary level, and we have been divided here by the operating and the capital appropriations for the Seattle Center.

Overall, moving through the years from 26 to 27 to 28 for the operating side of things, things that generally sort of hold fast.

Within the operating budget, of course, there are changes, and we can talk about some of those things as we go along.

The significant changes, though, to the total appropriations overall for the Seattle Center happened mostly in the capital appropriations.

The largest change is due to the fact that the Memorial Stadium redevelopment project has money programmed in 26 and in 27, and then that project will wrap up.

and so capital budgets can fluctuate through time as a result, not necessarily of policy changes, but just as a result of the timing of projects.

So that big drop that you see shown on this chart from 26 to 27 in the capital subtotal is largely made up of just the timing of spending on the Memorial Stadium project.

There's another drop from 27 to 28, and that has to do mostly with spending in 27 that is planned in this proposed budget that we'll talk about in a minute to support the campus revitalization program, and that would be money looking mostly at planning in advance of a potential bond measure to support long-term capital improvements at the Seattle Center.

And here, just reflecting the things we talked about just a moment before, some summing up and reading across that bottom line of total revenues, those numbers have a change of 14.4 percent from 26 to 27, and 5 percent from 27 to 28 are just indicators of the things we just discussed.

So the first policy consideration I'd like to queue up for you all is the Seattle Center Campus Revitalization Program, the Interfund Loan, and the bond measure that's associated with that.

The mayor's budget would propose that in 2027 through a UTGO Unlimited Tax General Obligation Bond, UTGO General Fund Bond, excuse me, Interphone loan would be authorized.

So that's a separate piece of legislation that would come along with this budget.

Chair Strauss just indicated that at the debt management committee that was discussed today.

So part of your decision making for this budget and along with the budget itself would be the approval of that loan authorization.

That would be for $3.2 million for spending in 2027. About 3.1 of that is sort of spending on staffing and project and the remainder to take care of the interest on that loan.

And the idea behind that is that that's the sort of money in to get the money out, the sort of like the city's stake in doing project planning.

This budget proposes four new positions, three of those temporary as well as part of an existing position to support that planning as well as actual spending on project studies and the like to get ready to make a bond proposal to the voters.

This is flowing from the resolution that you all passed this year that was 32205 that called for this work at the Seattle Center and the bond measure.

So...

Part of queuing up this issue here is just to remind everybody that the Seattle Center now has two Interfund loans.

One flows from the work in the key arena becoming the arena that we have now, and then added to that was money because right on the heels of that work was the COVID crisis.

So that Interfund loan now is at $16.5 million of total borrowing.

I will point out that I have a typo in the slide.

It says on the slide 15.5, so my apologies there.

Just something that missed in my editing of it.

The Seattle Center does have a repayment schedule that they've been trying to keep up with.

They are behind on that.

The proposed budget in 27 would add $2 million of general fund, and in 28, $1 million of general fund to help the Seattle Center catch up on those repayments.

So that's just a contextual piece.

The other Interfund loan is the Interfund loan of $40 million.

That Interfund loan is planned to be paid off with the proposed 2027 LTGO bond offering.

A part of the proceeds from that in 2027 would pay off the Memorial Stadium loan.

So in total, The Interfront Loan that I've been calling the Arena slash COVID Loan at about $16.5 with a significant portion of that outstanding.

The loan to Memorial Stadium paid off to $27.

And with this proposed loan, that would be the third Interfront Loan to the Seattle Center.

So the options offered here are to do not pass that authorization ordinance and amend the budget accordingly.

to remove or adjust the spending, or of course, as always, one option is no change.

So I think I'll pause there.

Let's just keep on going.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, the next policy consideration has to do with the Elliott Bay Connections.

This is a new public space, or I should say renovated, improved public space adjacent to the waterfront.

Includes Myrtle Edwards Park, Centennial Park that's owned by the Port of Seattle, as well as a Greenway, a group of private philanthropists, the Elliott Bay Connections Group, contributed about $56 million to renovate all of those areas.

The plan is that they have committed to backing maintenance of the city-owned portion of the area through the second quarter of 2031. The City is working out the details with that group, so Council should expect legislation accepting those improvements, and also authorizing the execution of the agreement with the Elliott Bay Connections group, as well as jurisdictional changes from SDOT of the Department of Transportation and Parks for the properties that are now in their jurisdictions over to the Seattle Center to maintain them.

That would be similar to the jurisdictional changes that happened a few years ago from parks to Seattle Center to maintain the waterfront park spaces.

I don't have any...this is a contextual budget issue.

I don't have staff options identified at this time, but it's worth highlighting as a significant aspect of the proposed budget.

And in the out years past the funding that has been sort of promised by EBC, the city would take on those costs, absent some other funding, to maintain them in perpetuity.

With that, Chair Strauss, Council Member Sokka, I will take a pause and take questions.

Thank you.

We are at the questions slide, correct?

Excuse me.

There you are.

Question slide.

Wonderful.

Council Member Sokka is the chair of the committee overseeing the department.

You are recognized to open us up and close us out.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Eric, for your expert counsel and advice here in framing up some of the issues here.

Yeah, there's various budget conversation, context-specific, depending on budget or department, rather, there's clear contrast between me and my office and the executive, or maybe multiple council members and the executive, This department, spoiler alert, not much controversy.

I'm overall really excited about the mayor's proposed budget for the Seattle Center.

The Seattle Center is no doubt an arts and cultural hub of our entire city.

It's a civic heart of our city.

and if we want it to remain that way, we must invest in it.

And a 2027 bond measure as set out in that resolution we passed earlier this year is our shared commitment as a city, executive, legislative branches, our shared commitment to preserving this critical space that unites us and ensures that the next generation has their own moments and is able to create their own moments of discovery and belonging.

So again, really pleased overall to see that the executive has proposed an Interfund loan to begin the preparatory work now so that projects are truly shovel-ready if and when that bond measure passes.

And as chair of the council committee that oversees the center, I'm confident that this campus will continue to shine.

as a beacon for hope and excitement and creation and imagination for our city for generations to come.

And at the same time, council is being asked to approve a third Seattle Center Interfund loan while earlier obligations remain outstanding.

if there's ever a time to do it, to do such a fairly extraordinary measure, supporting a doing so in furtherance of a bond measure that with both public, with both city and non-city investment, total investment could exceed $2 billion plus Well, I would posit that this is the exact scenario where we should be thinking about that and having the political courage to do such a thing.

I strongly support a voter-approved capital measure, but readiness must be matched by clear outcomes and timelines.

So on the investment side, strongly align with the I think the executive and at least me as chair of the council committee that oversees the center, I'm strongly in line on the investment level, appropriateness of investment level preparation for a bond measure.

On my end, just would expect to see a little more in terms of clear deliverables, firm decision dates, responsible loan protections, increased confidence that a proposed investment will produce a defensible project list and financial package that voters can evaluate next year in 2027, in line with our shared commitment.

So, to that end, Eric, just curious, does the proposed $3.1 million for the campus revitalization program fully fund the pre-bond work contemplated by Resolution 32205?

Colleagues, again, that's the one we passed earlier today, affirming our commitment to put a bond measure before voters in 2027. Does it fully fund the work contemplated by that resolution, including project prioritization, reliable cost estimates, public engagement, decarbonization planning, and coordination with our utility providers, namely Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities?

So I guess part one, part two, what remains unfunded or insufficiently scoped under the executive proposal for this?

So questions to this effect have been posted in our tracker, what we call the Q&A, so I can reply with some of the information provided by the budget office and the department in this vein.

The bigger picture of what remains unfunded or insufficiently scoped is difficult for me to answer.

I can continue to work with you on that, but The nature of the work is a scoping exercise, so it's a little bit of a...

For me to try to answer the question, my mind tends to start chasing its own tail on that one, but what I will say is that the work that we see as proposed by the executive does align up well with what was proposed in the resolution, and both of those things relied on the work that the Seattle Center did putting together a 10-year plan about what should happen at the campus, which I know you're well familiar with.

So from my point as an analyst looking at it, they look like they line up well.

You know, the work that was done by Seattle Center with stakeholders about what should happen at the campus, moving into the resolution, and then moving into this sort of planning work, the things that are identified are familiar to me from seeing those things.

Specifically, the money in the budget would cover a comprehensive campus plan, armory space planning, the armory bridge to monorail work, and the Fisher Pavilion revitalization and decarbonization.

Altogether, the dollars into that work are about 2.3%.

three to four million dollars.

The remaining is to fund these new positions to do the work that would be exclusively dedicated to that.

That may help to produce some confidence around the level of effort, if it's sufficient, but we can continue to sort of explore that.

Council members, if I may add, I mean, this is consistent with how the city has prepared for making proposals to do some project development and do the analysis to have something.

Whether that's sufficient is a little bit of a subjective decision about what we expect to put in front of folks.

This represents some cost and we still don't know for sure if the voters are going to approve it.

So it's that flip side of being able to do enough work that we can demonstrate what we're doing, but also We don't have the money.

So, you know, ideally you would have a project completely 100% designed, uh, so that you could say with certainty, here's, you know, my cost estimates, here's everything.

That's not reasonable for this stage where we are in the process.

But I think this level of funding is, um, kind of what we expect to be able to propose something and to have some certainty in the studies necessary and following the direction that the council has given in past resolution.

Thank you.

Councilmember Saka, usually I don't jump in, but I was engaged in deep briefings ahead of the Debt Management Policy Committee.

From what I understand, the needs of the Seattle Center in preparation for any ballot measure are fully funded, but if you are digging in and you find otherwise, please do let me know.

Thank you for that.

That's consistent with my understanding as well.

Back to my earlier point, I think we're aligned on the investment level and where I think we'll probably wanna dig in further is on clear outcomes and delivery and timelines.

And what I would just characterize at least at a high level is good governance features.

And my next question, is has Seattle Center or the Mayor's Office developed a specific bond package transmittal schedule to counsel for those two sort of ballot options in August 2027 or November 2027?

Has the Seattle Center or Mayor's Office developed a specific bond package transmittal schedule?

The best information we have right now is the council can expect in spring 27, some legislative proposal, but that's the Q&A, that's the most specific answer we have at this point.

We can continue to engage with the executive, you know, sort of staff hold a staff hold to find out more, but for now, that's what we have, yeah.

Thank you, and we'll definitely want to continue to engage with the executive, and my office has been, and appreciate the partnership there, both on a informal collaborative level, and then, you know, dotting our I's and crossing, or yeah, dotting our I's and crossing our T's, so to speak, and making sure that some of these shared understandings are documented and memorialized now during the budget process.

So in any event, well- Council member, may I just add an observation that, you know, the getting on the ballot, there's a cutoff to what we have to, file for King County elections.

And so obviously the August deadline, the deadline to get on the August would be much earlier than to get on November.

That feeds into your other question about what is sufficient project development and design so that we can actually make a good proposal that people can understand that fits into the work that has to be done.

So I think it's I don't know that we have any other insight into what the plan is, but but we're very aware of the the time trade-off.

Yeah, and I just note that this proposal at a high level has been planned now and contemplated by two executive administrations, two different administrations.

And so there is more concerted effort now at the development stage of a potential proposal, but a lot of these at least high-level scoping deliverable decisions on the executive side have been made over the past two or three years.

So on the one hand, we need a little more clarity and certainty.

On the other hand, we don't have to have every single conceivable operational detail known and contemplated and solved.

Yeah.

That's all I'll say there.

Appreciate the additional clarity here.

And no further questions, comments, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

I've got Council Member Foster, Kettle and Rivera.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate the presentation.

And thank you, Eric, as always, for your work.

I wanted to ask just in terms of the Seattle Center budget, can you just highlight for us the current proposal as it relates to the use of ad tax revenue?

So, Council Member, I think you're just referring to the admissions tax through the Arts and Culture Fund.

And in the Seattle Center proposed budget, that money, that kind of money, those funds would support $1.2 million of ongoing support from ad tax revenue.

Each year would be $460,000 for Festals, $401,000 for Northwest Folklife, and $222,000 for Winterfest in each of the years.

Thank you.

And do we know, and I apologize for not putting this in the tracker ahead of time, but do we know if those resources are primarily supporting city staff and operations or if those are sort of pass-through dollars going to support the various orgs who participate in those events?

I don't have that at my fingertips.

I mean, I do, but it would be a lot of paper shuffling.

The question, I think, has been asked in the tracker and answered, but I can make sure that that gets highlighted and sent to you in your office.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

I may just need to go back.

Sorry, I don't have that like that.

That's okay, it sounds like I just need to go back and revisit the tracker, and thanks to my team for already being on top of that.

At a high level, a significant amount of those funds are passed through to the folks that are participating in those festivals, or the performers, et cetera, but I don't have that one handy.

That's okay, I will go back and look at that.

Thank you so much.

We've gotten a lot of input on this question about the resources from the admissions tax from some of the arts and cultural organizations, As Arts Chair, I want to make sure that we're tracking it and looking at the opportunities to make sure that those dollars remain supporting working artists in the city.

As we know, that's just a really important part, I believe, is the original intent of the ad tax resources.

And I think, obviously, making the shift ongoing is one of the I think, challenging decisions that was made in the budget.

Okay, then I wanted to ask about...

Customer Foster, if you mind me, sort of a redo.

I actually did put my fingers on that number.

If you'd like me to call that out in this committee right now, if that's helpful.

Let's do it.

Okay, great.

Thank you for your patience, yeah.

So of the $460,000 for Festall, of the money that I think you're asking about, the payments to community partners for artists' fees would be like $86,000.

payments to artists from community groups of $303,000, $525,000, and then it lists a number of artists participating.

For a Northwest Folklife, of the nearly $401,000, payments to artists and community coordinators would total about $73,000, some travel reimbursements of about $12,000, and then it lists the artists involved.

For Winterfests, payments to artists and performing groups, and by the way, said it along to you, but I'm just verbalizing these things.

There's about $43,000 to payments to artist-important groups, and then it lists the number of groups involved.

So that gives you a sense of proportion, hopefully, and hopefully is responsive to your question.

Yeah.

That is.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

And then I want to turn to, and I'm just looking at the memo that you provided us, and I think I'm on page five of the memo.

And I will say, actually, before I get into this, just to kind of to comment about appreciation.

I know we're looking at this previous Interfund loan and just want to acknowledge and appreciate the work that the previous council did and Council Member Juarez did here.

I was just with somebody the other day who said, you know, if it wasn't for Council Member Juarez, I don't know where we would have been on Climate Pledge Arena.

So before I ask my question, we'll just express my appreciation there.

And so on this one, as I'm reading this, this was a loan that we had in 2018 and that we've then had to extend I know it seems like it was intended to have it wrapped up by the end of 2026 and through COVID we've extended out through 2033. Is that correct?

So the loan, the history of that introvert loan began with covering the costs that the Seattle Center was going to incur because they couldn't do things like have events, lost lease revenue, things like that just for the natural sort of disturbance of doing the big renovation on the arena.

That was like that $5 million.

Right at the heels of that came COVID and everything went quiet.

And so the loan amount was increased so that the Seattle Center could continue to do things like not collect rents, et cetera, et cetera.

There's a lot that goes into that.

I don't recall off the top of my head the due date for the original $5 million loan, but the current loan right now, the payment of that would be due in 2033 according to repayment schedule.

Okay, got it.

Yeah.

And then can you just walk me through the, it also says that this, the previous legislation changed the loan fund to the REIT II capital projects fund.

And this just caught my eye because I know that REIT revenue, unfortunately, has been one of our declining revenue sources.

And so I'm just wanting to understand the relationship between these two a little bit more in terms of any sort of future risk to the city as we continue to see declining REIT funds, which I know we're all committed to trying to work on getting those jump-started.

It looks like I see Deputy Director Chow there leaning in.

I'd be happy for Kyle to jump in on that one.

The lending fund is largely an accounting piece to make sure that we can point to the actual fund sitting in an account somewhere to be able to support the funding.

goes out of whack, we would have to consider identifying a different source.

It's mostly on, to be clear with the state auditor and everybody, that we can point to the right money.

But beyond that, there isn't really a direct connection.

Okay, that's super helpful.

Thank you so much.

And those are my questions, Chair.

Thank you.

I'm just gonna jump in a little bit because you've brought up this Interfund loan.

This is the only place in the city budget that it is currently being used.

We'll get to the conversation later today about the Seattle Department of Transportation that proposes to use a similar Interfund loan.

My understanding is that these Interfund loans are not allowable uses of this type of financial practice.

unless there are no other options.

So said in another way, these are not allowable tools in normal financial situations.

But from what Eric and Calvin just shared with us, it was the preparing for climate, and experiencing the impacts of Climate Pledge Arena construction leading directly into the pandemic where Seattle Center is a revenue-based department, a fee-based department that could not make payroll without this Interfund loan.

Did I get that correct, central staff?

Specifically, our financial plans do state that Interfund loans really should just be for capital, and that if you're going to use them for operations, it really needs to be a last resort type of situation to continue to perform, you know, Essential public services, you know.

And in this case, I mean, this would have meant probably evicting vendors who couldn't actually do anything during that time in COVID.

I mean, there's definitely a rationale to be made.

but it is an exception of how the best practice is really.

Thank you.

I would just add on that the city's policies do specify that different loans have to point to a particular source.

That's why they're called out REIT2 or some other source.

That's a part of the city's way of doing it.

Fantastic, thank you.

With that, over to Council Member Kettle and then Rivera.

Thank you.

Chair, just really briefly, really appreciate the presentation and I really appreciate the work the Seattle Center's been doing over the years between being in community and hearing council from former directors Nellums and Foster and now with acting director, interim director Engstrom It's been quite incredible to watch the Seattle Center and how they're engaged.

We just had the Seattle Center team at our District 7 neighborhood council that we had, our quarterly meeting that we just had, along with the foundation, which is really important, colleagues, by the way, is that foundation partnership with Seattle Center is key as we move forward with the moves related to the the bond measure and so forth.

And regarding policy consideration, number one, I do appreciate Mayor Wilson's team and Director Panucci for the work on the nuts and bolts of the budgeteering.

And there's a lot of improvements in this budget.

and, you know, and the work here is kind of, you know, part of that and so I want to thank them in addition to the Seattle Center team for their work related to this area.

And that goes across all areas in terms of the, you know, the budgeteering, if you will.

Everything that, like what the Chair had said, pretty much came out.

I didn't see any hiccups in terms of the processes, and so we'll have to continue to ensure that everything, because at the end of the day, we do need to revitalize.

It hasn't really been done for about three and a half decades, basically.

And so the aging infrastructure and all that needs to move forward.

But making sure T's are crossed and I's are dotted are super important.

and because Seattle Center's done such a great job, you know, by the way, one last thing too, because obviously Seattle Center's essentially center in my district almost.

I really appreciate it, and this came out in this District 7 Neighborhood Council meeting because we had Queen Anne represented, first and foremost uptown, but also South Lake Union and Belltown.

You know, those neighboring neighborhoods are the ones who, you know, when the game or the concert lets out, they're the ones who are feeling all that.

And so that engagement is so important.

And conversely, Seattle Center, in a way, is their park.

I, myself, went down countless times when my daughter was younger, and then going to the different play areas to include the Armory, and now the voice is seemingly different here.

It's feeding in and out.

So, that's important, too.

Now, switching to The second piece, Elliott Bay Connections.

Because they've done such a great job, the waterfront piece was important.

And I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Ms. Melinda French-Gates and Ms. McKenzie Scott and her team, Leslie Koch, and others that came out and really made this happen.

This is a great example of private-public partnership.

and I just wanted to say thank you.

And because it's forward thinking, I remember getting a tour in like March before it opened, you know, thinking forward like on the maintenance pieces that are here, we'll see how this plays out.

But that kind of thought, because that transition, because we have a gem now, and to include the Port of Seattle, and we need to ensure that moving forward it's in good stead.

So I look forward to working with Seattle Center on these issues.

I've been doing over the last couple of years prior to this year related to the rep and there's been issues just outside related to Pacific Science Center, of course the center, the Space Needle and the Chihuly and the ownership of that as well.

So a lot of moving pictures but things have been moving in the right direction.

I just thank you for this update.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Anything from the table at this time?

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you chair.

Um, uh, council member Kettle, you, you took some of the comments I was going to make, but really to think some of the partners, um, at the Seattle center, um, adding to the list you, you gave, I will also shout out the climate pledge folks, the Oakview group, and then one roof foundation that I know is working on the, Memorial Stadium piece there.

And, you know, the waterfront and adding the waterfront to the Seattle Center has really not only been a connection point, but a revitalization point.

And a lot of this public-private partnership, including Friends of the Waterfront, has been so instrumental to getting this done.

And this is where it's a great example of that public-private partnership, doing so much for a city.

And so I really just wanted to shout that out.

You know, the Seattle Center has had a lot of issues over the years, a lot of financial issues over the years.

The aging infrastructure, of course, and this revitalization piece, when Climate Pledge did come in and you see how revitalized the campuses is so important.

and then of course with the waterfront pieces just made it even better.

So wanted to shout that out.

Did want to ask about or at least say because I know the one bite what happened, the mass shooting at the center was tragic and then also I noted in the budget and also and I noted in the budget that there's some You know, there's some one-time funds that went in this year for some security pieces, but I know part of the security pieces called out support vehicles for campus security, it looks like, fencing trainings for crisis situations for the staff, which I think is so important, of course, and then this weapons detection equipment.

I don't know what that will look like, Eric.

and then that's all it says and so I don't know and I know I've asked a question in the past but I haven't received any answers about cameras at the center, what the technology is at the center to help because of course that is still being investigated.

We still don't have someone, it appears we have someone in custody but it might not be the person who actually did the shooting and so there's someone still out there, at least one person if not two.

And so, you know, how are we securing the campus is a really important piece and then I don't know what the cameras are currently on campus and whether or not there's going to be more installation of cameras across the campus because I don't think, I think that was an issue I had heard.

when they were investigating this particular incident

Yeah, I'm taking a note.

We'll follow up on these questions.

I'm noting that you're curious about more specifics around what weapon detection equipment is, like what it looks like, how it works, what that means.

Is that correct?

That's in the...

For the campus, yes, you're right.

Yeah, that's in the 2026 year-end supplemental, so to be purchased and spent in this year.

And then also following up on the question of cameras, which may be me or another member of central staff taking on that issue, but we'll follow up.

That's fine, just in general how we're securing the campus, not just this year, but obviously moving forward and if there's funding in the budget to make sure that we're doing those pieces as well because we do have a lot of events on campus and we want people to come to the campus and we want folks to feel secure and safe doing that.

We don't wanna have impacts because of what happened.

So thank you, Eric, for getting us that information.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Colleagues, any other questions, comments, topics?

I will just say, I already talked about the Interfund loan.

I'll just say that Seattle Center is asked to do more than what we help them to do.

They are a department that is general fund dependent, as well as their fees from within campus.

and they were asked to do the downtown activation plan program this last year.

They're asked to do the waterfront, now this trail, all the while the Armory is the most attended publicly owned building in our city, which if I'm just extrapolating here means likely in the state.

And so I will, on the tour that I took of the infrastructure of the Armory building, I will say that beyond, I had expectations of how bad it was and the tour exceeded those expectations in a negative way.

This is something where we are currently spending and this is where Eric, I'd love for you to follow up on the SharePoint of what is the annual operating cost of the campus what do they call it, the campus heating exchange building.

It's my understanding that we're losing 50% of our heating or cooling just in the transfer between the utility plant and the buildings that they serve.

those add up to millions of dollars of operating costs.

So when we are talking about addressing structural budget deficits, even though a capital improvement would be costly, it would save us operating dollars in the long run.

But if you can track down some of those current losses that we are experiencing, that would be very helpful.

I'd say all of this because we ask more of the Seattle Center than what we give them.

And we've asked them to defer maintenance all the while hosting our city and people from outside the city as being a landmark for not only just Seattle, also for the entire state.

So good job to the Seattle Center team for doing more with less and we need to back you up a little bit so hopefully we'll get to that next year.

With that, Councilmember Saka is chair of the committee overseeing the department and you're here to close us out.

Thank you, Chair, and first off, I note that City of CTAC Councilmember Joe Vinson is in the back of the room.

Welcome, Councilmember Vinson.

And also want to just close out with an expression of gratitude and thanks and appreciation.

And starting first with our Mayor, Mayor Wilson, for proposing a strong budget overall for the Seattle Center.

I think we're very aligned on investment level and that's a great starting place.

wanna address some of these nitty gritty, crossing the T's, dotting the I's, boring basics of good governance, but I still think we're aligned there.

And also wanna thank the entire Seattle Center team of just amazing, dedicated professionals doing the work, showing up every single day, serving our city, with great pride and distinction, showing up in many cases when the department is under-resourced, as Budget Chair noted a moment ago.

And I think this budget overall takes a strong step in the right direction to address that.

And I think together, collectively, next year, a bond measure would help close the gap even further.

at least on the significant maintenance and capital, addressing the significant maintenance backlog and capital needs there at the center.

So really excited about the budget overall, the opportunity that we have to create and develop and grow even stronger public-private partnerships.

The evolution of this journey as it relates to a potential Seattle Center bond measure started this year with the SONICS resolution, affirming our readiness and commitment to bring back and welcome the SONICS and stating that Climate Pledge Arena is today ready to welcome back an NBA franchise.

Ready today.

You don't have to build it somewhere in Timbuktu.

Build it right here.

It's here.

It's ready.

Open.

Accessible.

Great WNBA games happening there all the time.

Great hockey games, other arena events and concerts and the like.

Saw Burner Boy there.

Saw the Harlem Globetrotters there.

Love it.

It's ready today.

and also want to thank the many partners.

I've been on a tour with trying to visit as many of the 40 or so campus organizations, tenant organizations of the center as possible and recently connected with last week, among others, the Seattle Children's Theater Executive Director.

As we know, colleagues, the Children's Theater is located at the Armory.

We talk about supporting working families and providing great arts and cultural opportunities and experiences for families and kids.

That's one way we can do it.

Upgrade, completely reimagine the Armory, the broader Seattle Center campus, and do exactly that.

So thanks to the folks at Climate Pledge Arena, the ownership groups, prospective ownership groups there of the Sonics, and we started out with the Sonics resolution, then followed up quickly by the resolution to renovate the Seattle Center.

And for clarity, I'm intentionally drawing this this inference or making the inference more explicit rather is like renovating the Seattle Center isn't in and of itself gonna bring back the Sonics.

It's completely out of the city's hands at this point, but it could be the nice cherry on top.

And between the Sonics resolution, the Seattle Center renovation resolution, the mayor's proposed budget and the budget we're gonna ultimately review and pass as it relates specifically to the Seattle Center, and then next year, continuing on, closing that out, is crafting a bond measure to put before voters.

All those bits are related and they're all critical and important.

And we heard the budget chair, Strauss, mention, I think yesterday, talk about the importance of boosting construction activity in our city for various reasons, all worthwhile in terms of housing, but it's not just related to housing.

You know, we can get multiple cranes up in the Seattle Center within a couple years.

And with that public, with that city investment and non-city, private philanthropic investment, that's gonna put people to work.

I'm excited because that's gonna put people to work.

I'm excited because that's gonna, to boost our construction activity, providing a well-needed economic shot in the arm during these times of uncertainty.

So thank you again to all the partners, including at the foundation, former Councilmember Rob Johnson, I'm excited, more work to do, and looking forward to aligning on some of these good governance features.

What I care about most are the outcomes and timelines, firm decision dates, because we know the schedule and the work back, like, we need clear guidelines around and firm decision dates given the work back schedules we know.

So, in any event, Thank you again, Chair, and thank you to the Mayor, and let's go get this done, take the next step in our collective journey together.

Thank you.

Anything?

Sorry, I should have asked on the committee table.

You all good?

That's great.

And thank you for recognizing Councilmember Joe Vincent.

The SeaTac City Council is one of the most down-to-earth city councils in this state.

And they, like the other 280 cities in this state, are experiencing a structural budget deficit, again, because of the statewide policies.

But because of their council, and Councilmember Joe Vincent, and a good city manager, they have three years worth of cash reserves.

So they are not facing the same challenges that we are.

With that, good job council member Joe Vinson, the entire city of SeaTac.

We seeing no further business here before committee until we have recess or until we come back after recess, we will return in probably just about an hour.

I might give us an hour and 15 minutes just to take an extra break.

So we'll come back in an hour and 15 minutes.

So that will be at 1.45 p.m.

Which we will take up SDOT.

That will be our only department for the afternoon.

But they are in such a financial crisis that they cannot pay their payroll.

So we might be here for a while.

With that, if there is no objection, the Select Budget Committee will be in recess until 1.45 p.m.

Hearing no objection, we are in recess until 1.45 p.m.

Thank you.