Seattle City Council Parks, Public Utilities and Technology Committee 6/25/25

Oh, good afternoon.

June 25th, 2025 meeting of parks, public utilities and technology will come to order.

It is 2.02 PM.

I am Joy Hollingsworth, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Council member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Chair Hollingsworth.

I'm here.

There are four council members present.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And let the record reflect, Council Member Strauss has been excused for today's meeting.

We are, welcome everyone.

We are gonna be revisiting the Seattle Parks and Recreation Golf Operator Agreement and legislation.

Then we're gonna learn about the parks funding plan for landscape conservation.

Infrastructure program, also known.

In Seattle government, we like to give everything an acronym.

So this is LCLIP, which is South Lake Union in downtown.

And lastly, we'll learn about the interlocals agreement pertaining to the Chinook salmon conservation plans.

We'll now consider the agenda.

If there's no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

Awesome.

The agenda is adopted and we're now going to open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should be related to items on today's agenda or be within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many beautiful speakers do we have signed up today?

We have two in person and two online.

Awesome.

We have two beautiful speakers in person and two online.

Each speaker is going to have two minutes.

I will read the instructions.

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

Speakers will be called in order in which they are registered on the council's website and signup sheet available here in council chambers, starting with speakers who are here first.

If you are not registered to speak and would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period on the council's website.

The link is listed on today's agenda, or you can sign up on the signup sheet.

This is in front of the dais.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name, the item that you're addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime, 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time, the speaker microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next person.

Public comment period is now open and we're gonna begin with the first speaker.

Will the clerk please call the first speaker?

First is Alex Zimmerman followed by Julie Holland.

Thank you.

Yep, where is my two minute?

Oh, it's open.

Yeah, absolutely.

Open, open, open.

Zeheil, my dirty damn Nazi Gestapo, fascist pig, and mob bandita.

My name Alex Zimmerman.

I live here for 40 years.

I'm president of Stand Up America.

I support Trump from beginning.

I speak in Consul Chamber 5,000 times.

I have 6,000 days of trespass, and Democrats prosecute me five times.

And today, They cut my statement for election.

Yes, very nice.

So right now, first time in my life, I will go for election without statement.

This is how Nazi pigs operate for people who have different opinions.

It's a nightmare.

You are a bandita too.

$350 million for Park when 1,000 people dying.

1,500 or 2,000 homeless, social security people cannot find apartment, not rent.

This need be absolutely Nazi pig, degenerative idiot, spend 350 million dollars, like 350 bucks.

For park, so dog can call and piss in every tree.

Human cannot piss in every tree.

So $300 million look very good, and 1,000 people work for this $350 million.

So how about you, for one year, transfer this $350 million to 1,000 homeless or senior citizen?

You can do this?

No.

For 25 years, you're acting like a bandita, like Nazi pig, and bring Seattle in country, in all state Washington down.

Statistically, for last five years, from number one, we go to number 10, when system fallen, By 10th floor down, it's a collapse.

It's exactly what has happened.

So I speak right now to CEO of degenerative idiotov.

Viva Trump, viva new American revolution.

We need clean this.

It's not believable.

25 years, same shit.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Julie Holland.

Welcome.

Tough act to follow, right?

I'm sorry.

My name is Julie Holland, representing the South Lake Union Community Council and the South Lake Union Parks Task Force.

The topic, the proposed landscape conservation and local infrastructure program funding plan amendment.

First, I'm going to give a snapshot of one proposed open space investment and how it was determined.

Specifically, the Southlake Union Community Council Task Force-led projects.

In January 2024, the Southlake Union Community Council began focusing on the upcoming elk clip investment transition from SDOT to Seattle Parks and Recreation.

It did not take long to realize the complexity of the program and its value to the community.

We knew there was going to be a great deal to learn.

The first step was to form the SLU Parks Task Force in February of 2024, whose community members represented all three parks, the Lake Union Working Group, and South Lake Union Community Council.

Equally important, SPR's LCLIP Senior Planning and Development Specialist, Jonathan Garner, participated and has been a tireless source of LCLIP program information that kept us on track.

It is this collaboration, the multiple community visioning sessions, robust analysis of community priorities, and diligent cost estimating that resulted in the proposed 2.7 million for the South Lake Union Community Council Task Force-led projects.

Equally diligent work has been done by SPR by them looking at and amending the outdated original 2013 governing document and project list.

We ask that you support the proposed ELCLIP funding plan amendment in its entirety.

Thank you.

Next, we're going to move to remote public commenters.

Once your name is called, please press star six to unmute yourself.

I know that we have signed up two people, Alberto Alvarez and David Haynes.

Alberto, I don't see you.

We'll come back to you.

We'll go to David Haynes.

please press star six to unmute yourself.

And Albert, you are on the docket, Alberto.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

It's evident council is too afraid to do the right thing and ban naked voyeurism in Denny Blaine Park and elsewhere.

And it's as if you don't wanna upset the LBGQT community because it's another election year.

And it's not fair that people want to dump their personal lust into the public space and council is still languishing on doing the right thing.

It's another telltale sign that within all of the impaired judgments of the council's landlord conflicts of interest, it gets in the way of proper policies like solving the homeless crisis.

That's also languishing because nobody really wants to do much about it.

It's like, Oh, let them suffer during the summertime.

But, you know, maybe council and the Parks and Rec should get a sign out at Denny Blaine that says, if you feel like you're in an uncontrollable lust, just go into the Lake Washington and cool down and snap out of it.

You know, tell them to go.

I mean, it's just not fair that council wants to ignore that and then have a huge giveaway to Premier Golf and then Toon.

like they got a monopolized shelf space on everything.

And as long as they pay their alcohol sales tax, you know, the city's going to still send their multitudes of maintenance workers, but it's a great deal to be able to manage it.

It'd be cool if like premier could offer like, you know, a competition of tournaments that would really shine a light on the celebration of golf and maybe have like a amateur qualifying for like, like us open or something, you know?

But anyway, um, It's just not fair that the racial equity toolkit that council keeps wrongly looking through in their lens of ignorant, scorned experiences, it's giving away a proper policy on all levels.

It's like if you all could just get rid of the racial equity toolkit, which is like social engineered racism for the reverse backstabs of hypocrisy.

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

And caller number one will not be participating in public comment.

And so now that means that the public comment period is now closed.

Will the clerk please read agenda item number one into the record?

Agenda item one, Council Bill 120999, an ordinance relating to Seattle Parks and Recreation authorizing the superintendent of Seattle Parks and Recreation to enter into a golf course management agreement with Premier Golf Centers LLC for the operation of the city of Seattle's municipal golf courses located at Jackson Park Golf Course, Bill Wright Golf Complex at Jefferson Park, Inner Bay Golf Center and West Seattle Golf Course and their related facilities for briefing, discussion and possible vote.

Awesome.

Thank you so much, Nina.

Welcome.

Please state your...

Welcome back.

We really appreciate you all coming back.

Please state your name for the record, and then we can jump into whatever introduction you have, and then we'll hear from Tracy Radcliffe, our central staff, and then we will discuss.

I'm Andy Scheffer, deputy superintendent of our capital branch at Seattle Parks and Recreation, representing AP Diaz.

And to my right is Patrick Merriam, golf director for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

And Tracy Ratzliff, council central staff.

Awesome.

And Andy, between you and Patrick, how many years together do you all have at parks?

Close to 60. I have 40. Wow.

Over 60.

Over 60 years.

Wow.

That's pretty impressive.

It's a long time.

Well, Patrick's my favorite, so...

I think Andy's going to do a brief presentation about the legislation, and then I will talk about the proposed amendments.

Perfect.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I know we have two proposed amendments, my Council Member Strauss, so appreciate you working those up.

Tracy, and jump right in.

Andy, all yours.

Wonderful.

We're here today with golf legislation that we briefed the committee on two weeks ago.

We have a condensed version of the PowerPoint that was shared at that time to serve as a reminder of what we're asking you to vote on today.

First and foremost, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the superb work of our frontline staff who proactively attend to our courses, making them among the top 10 municipal courses in the Pacific Northwest.

Because of this, in part, our golf course program sustains itself without any city financial support.

Seattle Parks and Recreation contracts with a vendor to manage our four public golf courses.

These courses are managed for active and passive recreation and environmental services.

They are widely used by golfers, but they are not just used by golfers.

They are frequented by walkers, People enjoy the environmental services they provide, including the tree canopy and water quality.

As part of our operator agreement, SPR provides on-course maintenance for all four golf courses, and the operator provides full management of all other operations, including scheduling tee times and driving ranges, operating the pro shops and restaurants, managing special events, and offering lessons and programs in managing other amenities such as miniature golf.

As a reminder, golf is entirely financially self-sufficient, and this agreement is consistent with the financial policies your predecessors adopted by resolution in 2006. We conducted a robust RFP process for this new golf contract that included a lot of community engagement and received five strong proposals from companies across the country.

The legislation before you today would authorize SPR, Seattle Parks and Recreation, to enter into an agreement with Premier to continue operating the golf courses on behalf of the city.

The agreement covers roles and responsibilities in terms of services and programs, describes financial and public benefit requirements, and sets the framework for reporting.

While we get a little more specific on the next slide, I want to acknowledge that the new agreement has minimal changes from the current arrangement.

As discussed at the last meeting, the new agreement will have a slightly longer term, going from 10 years to 15 years, tighter PCI compliance requirements, i.e. credit cards, and a significant capital investment.

The capital investment is needed to support our asset management plan and support sustainable operations.

Additionally, a central element of this agreement with Premier is the formalization of public benefit planning and reporting.

The agreement now requires Premier to establish annual target metrics and provide a public benefit report within 60 days after the end of each physical year.

It also requires annual review of potential adjustments to public benefits and metrics.

This is important as the city priorities will evolve and this allows SPR to engage with Premier on opportunities to support these evolving priorities.

This is continuous improvement.

Accordingly, the agreements exhibit D provides an example of the types and scale public benefits envisioned.

As you can see in the chart above, First and foremost in Exhibit D are non-golf uses, providing hours of access to the one to four of the golf courses each week every year.

We are working with Premier to finalize that arrangement in the best interest of the public.

Finally, I want to recognize that we're requiring the operator to generate sufficient revenues to cover all associated costs, and we ask them to be mindful of this and honest with us as they plan for and propose their annual public benefits.

Premier has done this well over the years, and the new agreement formalizes and increases the transparency of this process.

I also want to underscore how important it is to manage a contract.

A contract is only as good as it is managed.

A park is only as good as it is maintained.

And I want to compliment Patrick Merriam for managing the contract.

and having a tight relationship with the vendor to support continuous improvement and to be always pushing for greater accessibility of our golf courses.

And that concludes our presentation today.

Awesome.

Thank you, Andy.

I don't know, Patrick, if you had anything that you wanted to add?

No, I think Andy covered it very well.

Thank you.

Awesome, and Tracy, did you have anything you wanted to add, unless we're going straight to you for the amendments?

Colleagues, did you have any questions about this before we jump into some of the proposed amendments?

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you for coming back, Mr. Scheffer, Patrick, everybody, and central staff, of course.

I appreciate the work that's gone into this.

It's quite evident and to the point that was being made.

You know, it's well run, financially independent, which is really important these days, as you know from headlines related to our budget process.

geographically dispersed to include having one in District 7, the Inner Bay Golf Course, which is co-located or adjacent to, you know, the Inner Bay Pea Patch, but also some environmentally sensitive areas.

And I think that's really important because it's very important to, once was a major tidal lands, the whole area water still is there despite what it looks like.

And so it has a very important role to play environmentally from that perspective.

And that's kind of a tie into the idea of public benefit environmentally.

I think the way they went around, and you went into depth in the previous briefing in terms of the The management, this goes to, I mean, there's different types of management.

The operations, there's the financial budgeting, as you noted, but then there's also being good stewards of the land and changing the practices from yesteryear to what we're seeing today.

And that's an environmental piece, but then there's also items like, you know, we're wolfing, canopy goals.

Obviously, the four courses help in that respect.

I mentioned the tidal lands of Inner Bay.

All these pieces, you know, are public benefits.

Then you add to it, and I really do like the youth-focused programs.

And this is where the geographically dispersed courses really helps out, because they're in locations, parts of the city, where there's not only youth, but underserved communities.

And I think the outreach on that front is really important.

And I've gotten to know one person who benefited from this, who may have gone to Odea High School afterwards and won a tournament.

And then last, the idea of off-season recreational you know, uses off-season, recreational uses.

I think that's another public benefit.

So the public benefit pieces, as it relates to the agreement, proposed agreement, I think are pretty self-evident.

And that's how I look at it.

I'm kind of restating, you know, using the previous briefing, but also your update, Mr. Schaffer, but to have an understanding.

And that's kind of where I land on this bill.

So thank you very much for the presentations.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Council President, anyone else?

Awesome.

And I'll make sure I look online.

I see Council Member Rivera, you have your hand up before we jump into amendments.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

Greetings from the AWC conference.

That's where I'm at.

So thank you for letting me join online.

I wanted to say, as I said last time, that I'm really supportive of this contract.

I remember a time not that long ago where we were, the city was, I mean, struggling to maintain these golf courses.

And it was a real conundrum.

And, you know, Parks having this relationship with Premier, has really changed that around.

And I am so appreciative to Harps and Patrick specifically.

And then this partnership with Premier, because we've been able now to, the courses are looking great.

We've been able to utilize the space.

In particular, my interest is always to find more opportunities for youth and youth engagement.

And I think this really, provides that opportunity.

As I said last time, you know, getting kids out playing golf, it's a real mental health piece.

that is associated with this and getting more youth involved.

And I talked to parks about doing even more outreach with Seattle public schools to get the youth engaged in playing golf is really critical.

And then of course, we have a lot of residents that enjoy to play golf.

And I know that in years past, when we were having challenges maintaining these courses, there were some of our residents who were very concerned that our courses were not in a shape for them to be able to play.

And I remember that in my time in the city and this really golf program has turned around significantly in this partnership with this third party with Premier.

So I am really supportive of this and not to mention all the benefits that council member Kettle you so finely laid out.

So really wanted to add my voice of support add the piece about the fact that this golf program has been so critical and that we really, the city has found a way to maintain its golf courses, which are very costly.

If you're a golfer, you know it's really costly to maintain greens.

So really appreciate the partnership that has gone into this and the turnaround of our courses.

to be able to have them for the benefit of many across our community, including youth.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to speak to this.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

And thank you for representing the city at the association.

So thank you.

Okay.

Tracy Ratcliffe, we have amendments.

We'll move to the two amendments that were emailed to the council members yesterday afternoon.

The first one is in front of you on the screen.

It is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss.

This amendment would amend attachment one, which is the golf management agreement.

It would authorize the city to change, reduce, or relocate the golf courses if the city creates walking paths for public access within the perimeter of the golf courses.

It would be intended that such walking paths would be built in such a way as to not impact golf operations.

if the city chose to make such a change, they would need to renegotiate or negotiate amendments to the terms of the operating agreement with Premier.

Awesome, thank you for that.

I don't know if Parks, if you had any comments at all, but I do see Council Member Rivera, your hand up, unless that's an old hand.

It's a new hand, Chair.

Okay, awesome.

Council Member Rivera.

Well, just if we're at the point where we're ready to talk about these amendments, unless Parks has something they want to add, I want to address the amendments.

I have to move the bill.

I have to move the bill.

My apologies.

Okay.

I have to move the bill first, and then I move the amendment.

Yes.

Okay.

My apologies.

Thank you.

Sorry.

All right.

So I'm going to move the...

I'm going to move the...

Council Bill 120999. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and second to amend, second to amendment the bill as presented.

Amendment number one, Oh, excuse me.

Is there a sec?

There was a second.

It's been moved in second to recommend passage of the bill.

Now on behalf of council member Strauss, I will move amendment number one.

So I'm going to move amendment council bill 120999 as presented on amendment one.

Is there a second?

Can I second myself?

Is that allowed?

I'll second.

Can we second for discussion at least?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, it's been moved in second to amend the bill as presented on amendment one council staff, you have already provided the overview.

Are there any other comments?

Council member Rivera.

Sorry, chair had trouble unmuting myself there.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to these amendments.

Though you are only moving the First Amendment, I'm just going to speak to both amendments, since it's for the same bill.

I will say that I have concerns about both amendments, mainly because having walking paths inside of the golf course is of concern golf courses are not places for folks that are not playing golf to walk they are a liability there are also walking paths around at least three of these courses so they definitely provide opportunity for folks to walk but Sorry, I don't believe that these are places that folks should be walking within.

If you're a golfer, you know, you don't want people walking within these paths.

Like I said, they provide or they're not provide, but there's a liability piece associated with this.

And then I wanted to give some information because I did ask central staff about, you know, we have so many walking paths around the city.

Obviously, we can always use more.

But in particular to these golf courses, I wondered about the walking piece associated with them and so what I learned was specifically that each of these courses or at least like I said the Bill Wright Golf Course has Jackson Park that's literally right next to the park and Jackson Park has multiple walking trails the West Seattle Golf Course next door to has Camp Long right next to it which has a lot of open space and opportunity to walk and also we'll be having an off-leash dog park located soon there.

And then the Jackson Park course has an existing perimeter that is a trail that runs almost entirely of the outside of this golf course.

So You know, there aren't walking paths currently in the golf course for just walkers, and it would also be very costly to add those.

And in light of all the things that we need to pay for on the capital side, I think that the paths within are not something that we should be looking at now, given we have those other alternatives near these golf courses for people to walk.

So I recognize that I was...

Thank you for your patience.

I was a little bit jumbled there back and forth because I was trying to toggle between my notes on my device and also speaking on my device.

But I think I got my points across.

So thank you for your patience, colleagues.

I do not support these couple of amendments for this purpose.

I am really excited.

Like I said earlier, it took a long time for us to get here with these golf courses.

I think this partnership is working great.

And I think this would add a level of complexity that is unnecessary because we have the areas nearby where people can walk.

And, you know, also golf courses are very expensive to maintain.

It's really hard if people are walking inside the course to keep them off the greens, which are very expensive to maintain.

So for all those reasons, I won't be supporting these couple of amendments.

But I appreciate the spirit in which they were proffered.

But we do have those walking trails around these courses.

um, or places open spaces anyway.

So anyway, thank you.

Thank you, council member Rivera.

And, and for the record, if parks could confirm currently at each golf course, there are, um, not necessarily a walking path, but there is a guard path, a cart, a cart trail and path in between different holes.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

There's a cart path that leads each course from a hole to hole.

Yes.

where people walk on or they ride the cart.

Right.

The golfers do to be clear.

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

But it's a designated path for a cart or for people to, right.

Understood.

Um, well chair for people to walk when they're playing golf, right?

I mean, you either walk to the next hole or you cart, but in terms of just walkers, there is, um, those other areas that i listed uh for each of the nearby that are nearby each of those courses that people can walk so there's opportunity for people who are just walking absolutely but but what i was trying to get to was there's designated paths where there is uh in golf courses where there could be walking or there's already

you know, a cart path that's already been designated.

That's what I was trying to get to, that there is.

Oh, that they wouldn't have to create new ones?

That is correct.

The amendments made reference to the creation of ones, or at least somewhere I read that.

So I was trying to speak to that chair.

So thank you.

Yep.

No, no, no, you're good.

I just wanted just for the record that just because there's not a creation of a walk path that that doesn't mean there's not available pathways for people to walk on the golf course that there are.

That's what I was trying to get to.

Yes, yes.

And I was saying as to those that golf courses.

walking in the golf, inside the golf course is of concern because there isn't a liability associated with it.

And also the greens are really expensive to maintain.

So it's hard to keep people off the greens in that scenario.

Thank you chair for letting me clarify.

No worries.

Thank you council member Rivera.

Council member Kettle.

Thank you chair Hollingsworth.

I just wanted to add Listening to Councilmember Rivera, two things.

One, Interbay Golf Course is in the Interbay Maritime Industrial Area, the Bend Mic.

So there's that piece.

We talked about the maritime piece, the tidal lands and the impacts of those.

But this also affords me the opportunity to basically highlight for those who do want to walk the Queen Anne Boulevard Park on top of Queen Anne where you can get you know, four miles of walking around in that area, because, you know, the Inner Bay piece is very different.

And it's not in my district, but we also have the Magnolia Boulevard, Discovery Park, and other locations for that.

And so I just wanted to take advantage, specifically, to highlight the...

For the immediate, near-immediate area of the Inner Bay course.

So thank you, Chair.

Awesome, thank you Council Member Kettle.

Council President Nelson.

Thank you very much.

Um, I didn't have a lot of time to research the way my colleague, uh, Rivera did, um, about, uh, other walking opportunities later, because this was, uh, I think it was a walk on, I'm not sure when it came, but, um, uh, council member Rivera mentioned, she appreciates the spirit in which this was proffered and I don't know the spirit.

It was proffered, but I will offer that over the years, um, there have been It seems like every so often an attempt comes to either use the land of our public golf courses for housing or for other uses, et cetera, and I understand the attraction of having people be able to use this open land to walk, for the reasons that Council Member Rivera laid out, the possible damage to the Greens is one reason why I would oppose this.

But here's the thing.

I have it in my mind that these attempts to add uses or transform that land into something else could be driven by this feeling that golf is somehow elitist.

I do not play golf for many reasons.

I'm uncoordinated, but my point is that these are public golf courses and it is really good that we have public golf courses because if these facilities are, if golf is a game that keeps people in isolated circles and in fact do serve to perpetuate elitism and inequality, et cetera, et cetera, then we need public golf courses to provide this benefit to everybody.

And that is why there are organizations such as First Tea that my friend used to direct, which is devoted to breaking down barriers, first line on their website.

And so therefore, I am unwilling to jeopardize the future of our golf courses, either the health of the greens or their financial, well, the city's financial status.

If we were ever to be sued for somebody getting hit with a golf ball that was flying at some hour, then that would jeopardize this effort to provide a benefit to everybody in our city.

So I will be voting against this.

Thank you, Council President Nelson.

I think that we, my take on this is I don't know the impact on what this has with our golf courses financially and the implement.

So I will be abstaining from this, but I do really appreciate the spirit of which Council Member Strauss is trying to figure out different public access as well, but I probably, I know that the golf courses currently have pathways as well.

And so thinking about, I know there's another amendment that we'll be talking about here in a little way that might be, might get to this as well.

So for, I will now call the roll for amendment number one to council bill 120999. Amendment one.

Councilmember Kettle?

No.

Councilmember Rivera?

No.

Council President Nelson?

No.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Abstain.

Three opposed, one abstain.

The motion fails and amendment number one is not adopted.

I'm going to move amendment number two, council bill 120999 as presented amendment two.

Is there a second?

Courtesy, second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and second to amend the bill as presented on amendment number two.

Will central staff please provide us with an overview of the amendment?

We do.

So this amendment would modify the annual public benefit table, which is an exhibit D to attachment one, the operating agreement.

It would add once a week walking on each of the 18-hole golf courses if and when the operator determines it is safe to do so based on facility condition and uses.

This walking would probably be intended to occur on Sundays, either before sunrise or before dusk.

This would require the golf courses to cease golf rounds to permit this activity to occur, resulting in a reduction in golf revenues.

This amendment would also increase the number of hours of non-golf uses on the courses by the public from 500 to 750 hours, and would increase the value of the public benefit provided by this activity to $224,000.

It also would add disc golf and fling golf as additional non-golf uses.

Thank you, Tracy.

And could you clarify, were disc golf in not an additional non-golf use?

They were not called out specifically, but they are offered at a number of the courses.

They are?

Yes, they are.

Okay.

Awesome.

Understood.

Thank you for that.

Just wanted to make sure.

Colleagues, are there any questions regarding amendment number two?

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

This amendment is similar but different from the first one.

I suspect it meant to read before sunrise or after dusk or sunset.

But this has some of the same challenges.

In terms of public benefit, I've already gone through And it was also in the plan regarding the public benefit to the city, which, for all the reasons environmental, the youth, off-season, tree canopy, all of the above, I think gets us to where we need to be.

I'm always referred the KISS principle, keep it simple.

And not to make light of my former golfing stage before my shoulder surgery, it would be dangerous to co-locate golfers and walkers.

So I don't want to say anything more about my ability to play golf.

Shoulder surgery, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

But to be serious though, there is a great amount of public benefit and we talk about well run and everything else.

I think if we do keep it simple, I think it's better off for Mr. Merriam for Mr. Scheffer and the parks team overall to ensure that we get as a benefit, as a city, all that has been listed.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I agree with my colleague, Council Member Kettle.

keep it simple and just keep the youth.

I do not doubt the amount of public benefit that we're getting.

Parks has crafted this very carefully with the third-party partner Premier, so I'm not concerned about the public benefit.

There's so many youth programs associated with this as well.

And so to quote my colleague, keep it simple.

And I think having this golf use as a golf use is the best way, particularly because we have other areas and avenues for people to do walking and other activities that are called out in this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

I don't know if there's any other questions.

I just had a couple just for the record.

The second paragraph in this, because there is potentially a risk of injuries that could happen on a golf course.

Just to clarify, the second paragraph would address the operator addressing those, making sure whatever type of implementation they would want to do to make sure that we minimize those risks.

It could be a number of different things.

Just to clarify that.

And then the second thing I also wanted to ask, and I see head nods.

I'm sorry, on TV you can't see head nods.

So that is a yes.

That's correct, yes.

Okay, I'm sorry.

And then the second question I had is, does this give the operator the flexibility to be able to do it as a pilot program to see how it operates at one location or...

Well, it's written to indicate that it would happen, that it would be a pilot program that would be happening at each of the 18-hole golf courses.

Understood.

So I read that to mean each, all three.

Understood.

Thank you for that.

So colleagues, this would So this would happen at all three golf courses.

This would happen in designated areas that the operator would say would be available for walking depending on the greens and the condition of the fields and so forth.

Well, never on the greens.

They would not be permitted.

Sorry, greens, not greens.

It would likely be the cart paths that they would be walking on and there would be instructions about how that, where people could walk and under what conditions they could walk.

Thank you, I said a bad word.

I didn't mean greens, I'm sorry.

Everyone's like, no.

Scary, but it could happen.

But anyways, I don't know if any of the parks, if you all wanted to answer, make comments.

Just to add, this would replace tee times So this impacts the financial sustainability to a certain degree, which is where that number comes from.

The 224,000 is in part representative of the T times that are then used to support maintenance.

So we just gotta balance the books a little bit more.

Understood, yeah, understood, okay.

That puts things into perspective and I think that's good to know that as well about the sustainability of the golf course and also the revenue that's coming in because the fact that our golf courses are an opportunity for them to be a self-sustaining and they don't take any money from the general fund is huge for our city.

And then also all of the other public benefits that we're getting with our kids and our youth and our tea time and all the extra pieces.

Um, for that colleagues, I'm going to be abstaining to this because I don't know the impact.

I appreciate the spirit, but I'm just not sure the financial impacts I do believe.

And I want to say that I understand that people do want to ensure that our golf courses, like we're figuring out how we integrate it with the, with community.

And I think, um, our city has done a really, really great, great job of doing that access.

There is disc golf at a number of courses there is different opportunities that people use the golf courses for as well there's a ton of public benefits that happen with our youth and our kids and also from disadvantages disadvantage and low-income neighborhoods as well and we are able to keep our fees incredibly low and affordable for everyone to use those golf courses as well And so I believe in the spirit of this, but I will be abstaining from this amendment just because I don't know the financial impact regarding to the potential loss of revenue that continues to balance our books for the golf course.

So I will say that.

And if there's no other comments, I'm going to call this to a vote.

So can we take the vote on amendment number two, version one for Council Bill 120999?

Council Member Kettle.

No.

Council Member Rivera?

No.

Council President Nelson?

No.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Abstain.

Three opposed, one abstained.

The motion fails and the bill, yeah.

excuse me, the motion fails for amendment number two, version one on council bill 120999. I do want to take this moment to thank council member Strauss on his amendments.

Cause I know he and his staff worked really hard on this.

So did Tracy just to try to go back and forth with premier and parks and try to find a common ground.

I know that we will be working hard with a premier to figure out other opportunities.

I know that they have been a great actor and a great partner with our city.

so we can be able to find different opportunities and avenues for people to be able to use the golf course.

And also Patrick told me for sure that he will.

I'm just letting you know.

Patrick said, he gave me his word, and I'm gonna tell you this.

Once you get Patrick's word, you can take that to the bank and Andy's word, okay?

Okay, so I'm going to, can we take the roll on the bill currently for Council Bill 120999?

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

No, wait a minute.

Oh, yes.

The overall bill.

Excuse me.

The overall bill.

I apologize.

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes and it will be sent to the council meeting Tuesday, July 1st, 2025. Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, Parks.

Thank you, Tracy.

I really appreciate all your work on this as well.

I'll read agenda item number two into the record.

I'm sorry, I'm a little all over the place.

I dropped some of my script.

Agenda item number two, Council Bill 121008, an ordinance amending to landscape conservation infrastructure program funding plan for South Lake Union in downtown as adopted by ordinance 12486 for briefing discussion and possible vote presenters from Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Thank you and welcome again.

Thank you and thank you for your patience while I share my screen.

You're all good.

Thank you, Andy.

And we will do the same thing as we did last time where you will present yourself for the record and we'll get started on your presentation.

I'm Andy Scheffer with Seattle Parks and Recreation.

I'd like to introduce our planning manager for our capital development division, Annie Hindelang.

and senior planner Jonathan Garner presenting on LCLIP.

LCLIP's exciting.

LCLIP supports our downtown activation plan.

LCLIP supports our increase in residents downtown.

And I'll pass it to Annie to take it from here.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And thank you for having us here today.

As Andy mentioned, we have some exciting work that can take place as a part of this program, the Landscape Conservation and Local Infrastructure Program.

But so that we're not here forever, we call it LCLIP when we refer to it.

But first, we need some council action in order to do that.

The program was created by the state legislature in 2011. The city itself started their program in 2013. It's established to support smart growth within the state between areas that we will refer to as we go forward as receiving areas and areas we will refer to as sending areas.

And if you read the legislation, you'll see it says, uses tax increment financing on future growth from TDR to give cities a portion of county property tax revenues to finance public infrastructure.

But what does that mean?

So I'm going to briefly kind of explain transfer of development rights to you.

As someone who's effectuated programs in other states, it is complicated.

And I think besides Andy and Patrick, none of us were here when the program was originally adopted.

So I just want to give you a little background on how this works to explain how Seattle has taken advantage of it and will continue.

The idea behind transfer of development rights is that, historically, properties have been evaluated based off of what their potential for development is.

And that development is established based off of the zoning that is assigned to it.

So if you can achieve a certain commercial development or if you can achieve a certain residential development, it has a market value.

Unfortunately, because of the fact that most natural lands or agricultural lands do not have as easy of a mechanism to kind of calculate that value, they were often undervalued in terms of what they provide to a community directly adjacent to it or the region as a whole, and they were often targeted as cheap opportunities for development.

In places like Washington, where they have smart growth principles and look to utilize tools to protect these valuable resources, the concept of transfer of development rights was created.

And I'll just say TDR from now on as I go forward.

And what it does is that market value that if the agriculture or natural land were to be developed, that it is assigned a certain level of credit value under the TDR program so that the participants in the program can still receive that benefit for not developing that land through entities, private developers in receiving areas like Seattle, purchasing that development market opportunity to use in places where growth should occur.

So this is a fully voluntary program.

The county, King County, runs a marketplace that people can go, and you can check right now, to purchase TDR rights.

You can see what's available, and developers can utilize those TDR rights to get increased density, additional units, additional square footage.

Seattle's, it focuses on additional floor area ratio, which is how much floor area you can have compared to the parcel size, as well as height.

But it creates an opportunity for growth and density to occur where it should and not where we would like to conserve our agricultural and natural resources.

The program itself then generates the additional development in these areas, creates additional revenues, and one of the mechanisms that helps support these programs is having infrastructure be funded by the revenue generated from this whole process.

So the county shares a portion of the revenue generated from these TDR units that are purchased with the city to then implement infrastructure improvements that support this increased development and the demands that growth might have on the infrastructure.

For the ELCLIP program, particularly in Seattle, but generally in Washington, you have to, the kind of steps for this process are designating a local infrastructure project area, which you can see on your screen right now.

The infrastructure funding that comes back to the city can only be utilized within this area.

This is also the area that the city previously rezoned to allow for the incentive zoning and the additional FAR ratio and height to be utilized.

And as such, the funding can only come back into those areas directly.

The program initiated in 2013, there was a few years of kind of getting things started and running.

The first 10 years were to be, the funding was to go to SDOT, the second 10 years it's to come to SPR, and then the last five years it's going back to SDOT.

This year we're gonna be receiving it.

We've already appropriated this funding into our 2025 to 2030 capital improvement plan and are ready to begin that work.

However, to effectuate the program, we adopted an interlocal agreement with King County.

Attached to that is a funding plan.

The funding plan lists open space investments to occur with the funding.

Only work identified on that list can take place.

Happily, we've completed all the work on that list over this time except one project that is being funded from a different source.

So we need a new list to outline what we're able to spend this money on moving forward.

But to do that, we have to amend the plan and have council approval.

The new project list that we provided today is based on assumptions for funding for the previous 10 years that we've already experienced, and that projects that we'll have about $14 million over a 10-year period, but we'll know each year what the actual amount will be based off of the previous year's collections.

Additionally, we distributed the projects between South Lake Union and the Downtown China Intertown International District based off of what has been the breakdown of where the funds are coming from.

And so, and that's also a requirement of the project.

It's not an annual requirement, but over the entire 25-year period, if 60% of the funds came from South Lake Union, then 60% of the funds need to be reused for infrastructure projects in South Lake Union.

So that's something we have to keep track of as we move through the process.

As you heard from one of our community members earlier, we've been using community engagement, existing new, like targeting community engagement, as well as our larger comprehensive planning and park district planning to inform the projects for this updated list of projects.

The South Lake Union Community Group did an amazing job working with Jonathan, who's the lead for this project, to create a plan with a list of projects that that really support and enhance what they'd like to see there.

And we have that kind of separated off into its own area for funding that I'll talk about in a second.

They met monthly over the past year and had some great professional resources that were volunteered and really produced a lovely document and a very strong plan for utilizing the funding consistent with the program needs.

The projects that you'll see specifically called out, those are really shovel-ready projects, and they're projects that have been identified by the downtown reactivation groups, the downtown interdepartmental team, and several other community groups and partners and stakeholders that believe these projects are key to our downtown recovery and strengthening the future here.

So those were called out specifically, and they're kind of ready to go in a little bit better scoped.

And then we will be kicking off later this year a community engagement approach based off of, because it was a really great way that they completed their work, the South Lake Union effort, for the Chinatown International District and the downtown area for the remaining funds.

As I mentioned, the specific projects that are called out are front-ended because they're pretty much shovel-ready, and we have a very clear idea of the scope of those and designs developed, and they have funding already to match the efforts there.

So if you look at the funding plan, we have those called out in the first five years, and then as we get into the second half of our 10-year program, we contribute more and more to the specific community-led task force projects.

For example, while we have the South Lake Union plan, we still have to kind of scope those out in more detail, confirm locations of utilities to support them and everything in a final budget to kind of refine those to get them more to understand when we will fund them and when they're feasible to be funded.

And we have to do the same process for the additional downtown and Chinatown International District funding.

So they're gonna take a little bit more lead time.

And I think that's it, yeah.

Awesome, thank you for that great presentation and all the work that you've done.

I want to pause here because I know that this is in Councilmember Kettle's district and I know he knows a lot about this project.

So Councilmember Kettle, you are recognized.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Mr. Sheffer and Ms. Hindenlang for being here and giving the presentation.

Sorry, I forget your name, sir, for being here as well.

Jonathan Garner.

Oh, and I don't mean to cut you off, Council Member Kettle.

Tracy Ratcliffe, do you have anything that you want to add to this?

My apologies, Council Member Kettle.

No, not at all.

Okay, awesome.

Council Member Kettle, the floor is yours.

And of course, central staff.

And yes, I am well aware of LCLIP, a very important program.

I will take the opportunity to highlight that in my district, I have a number of different neighborhoods and they're all very well represented with some very capable, smart, well-educated, motivated individuals that really dig in on these issues and really get to understand them and really put their shoulders in and the whole nine yards in terms of understanding what the programs are.

and been doing it to great effect on the transportation side.

And we're anticipating this change and made the transition to the parks.

So my office has been working with South Lake Union, particularly with the South Lake Union Community Council and others on the, I should add, with parks itself, particularly with South Lake Union Park, the Canoe Carving Center, and an understanding, and I think this is an important point, Which slide is it?

The bottom line of, yeah, the last slide there, the water, basically the utilities part, the water management of this, and that's something that's not often thought about, but if we start talking about restrooms on parks or we're talking about irrigation systems, not irrigation, yeah, irrigation systems and the like, if these base, you know, I invite everyone to get a briefing from Mr. Scheffer on, you know, putting in like an aesthetic ball field, you know, in terms of what goes in.

You go down and all the work that's done to really ensure that those fields are set.

It takes a lot of work.

And so what's reflected here is what, is needed in order to make Lake Union Park the best it can be, and then separately also the Northwest Native Canoe Carving Center, which I think is really important.

I think it's a statement.

I just had a meeting with the new representative at OIR for Tribal Governance and Native Communities, formerly of Department of Neighborhoods, and it's about Investing in these places and engaging with the native communities to ensure we're doing this for Portal Park as well early, not at the end, but early.

And it's the same thing here with the canoe carving center.

And so I'd like to thank our partners in this and on the government side with parks and recs, but also in the community as represented by Ms. Holland and others.

for their work, because it's really important.

And this is an opportunity, this is a decade's worth of opportunity to invest from a parks perspective in our communities, in the El Clip area.

And on that front too, by the way, because I also have the, we have a new downtown community council.

which just highlights that there's a lot of residents downtown, that I'm making a push, so a little bit separate from the briefing, but I'm making a push that we talk about the greater downtown, because separately there is a downtown, capital D downtown neighborhood, and we need to get away from the commercial core designation on our maps.

I don't know how we do that, Chair, I'll have to ask Council President and engage with the executive, but we need to get away from this commercial core.

That's a dead term.

It's commercial heavy, but it's a residential, it's a neighborhood.

And we should recognize that for downtown.

So sorry, moving off from South Lake Union for a moment, but we need to do this for our downtown neighborhood.

And I think that makes a statement too.

I just talked about making a statement for the native community.

It also makes a statement in that front to our neighbors who trust me, I've walked, I've been with our neighbors in the downtown neighborhood on a, on a regular basis.

So I was going to take advantage, sorry, chair out of parks, but to, uh, to highlight that point that we need to get rid of the commercial core neighborhood designation and go with downtown.

And then for the greater bell town, South Lake union, you know, the greater downtown, Denny Triangle, Tillicum Place, and all the like.

By the way, Tillicum Place, thank you, Mr. Sheffer, for work on that too.

With that, Chair, again, thank you for the opportunity to talk to the ELCLIP process.

It's really important for our greater downtown.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle, and definitely thank you, Ms. Holland and Elle Clipp for all the community partners and also all the work that you all have done.

I know this has been a labor of love and really appreciate it, and thank you for the presentation as well.

Looking forward to getting this going and moving it forward.

I believe today was only a presentation.

We're not voting on this.

I think we were voting.

We are, we could, we could, if people feel comfortable and I could suspend the rules.

I don't know if you feel comfortable council members, sorry, council member Kettle, I apologize.

Council member Kettle, council member Rivera, did you have any questions on this or would you like some more time?

Thank you chair.

I appreciate my colleagues comments and the presentation and I would appreciate more time.

with this, as you know, chair, I kind of, I tend to get in the weeds, so I'd appreciate more time and then some time with our central staff before taking a vote, if that's okay.

Understood.

No worries at all.

So we will move this for another meeting.

Thank you all so much for coming and presenting.

Really appreciate it.

And I know a lot of work went behind the scenes and we're looking forward to getting this moving.

Thank you.

Awesome.

All right.

We're going to move along here, colleagues.

We're at the end of our agenda.

Agenda.

I don't know what the anna is.

Agenda.

Agenda item number three is Council Bill 121002. It's an ordinance authorizing the general manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities.

to enter into two interlocal agreements to provide the implementation of Chinook salmon conservation plans for Lake Washington, Cedar River, Sammamish Watershed, and the Green River, Duwamish River, and Central Puget Sound Watershed, confirming certain prior actions.

Presenting are our wonderful members from Seattle Public Utilities and then also central staff, Brian Goodnight.

Please introduce yourself for the record and we'll jump into the presentation.

Hi, I'm Martha Newman.

I'm Seattle Public Utilities, Government Relations and Legislative Affairs.

And I'm joined by my King County colleagues.

Hi, I'm Iris Kemp.

I'm the technical coordinator for RIA9.

I'm here in lieu of Matt Goering, the salmon recovery manager's attendance.

He sends his regrets.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jason Mulvihill-Kuntz.

I'm the salmon recovery manager for the Lake Washington, Cedar, Sammamish River watershed.

And Brian, good night, Council Central staff.

Awesome, and then we have Bob Hennessy in the office, who's our great council liaison with Seattle Public Utilities.

Welcome, fellow Panther.

Ready to start the presentation.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much for having us today to talk about the two interlocal agreements.

So what you have today, the legislation today would authorize our general manager to sign two interlocal agreements.

They're related to Seattle's participation in the regional salmon recovery efforts for 2026 through 2035. And the two agreements, there's WIRA, which I will explain in a moment, which basically the Lake Washington Cedar Sammamish watershed and the Green-Dwamish and Central Puget Sound watershed.

These are two very, the most urbanized basins in Puget Sound.

You can see WIRA 8, which WIRA stands for the Water Resource Inventory Area.

This is a state designation of water boundaries, watershed boundaries throughout the state.

Every watershed division has a number and a label.

They get used for water rights.

They get used for other things, but they are used for salmon recovery.

designations, both fish populations and also funding and organizations.

So Waira 8, which is a Lake Washington Cedars-Sammammish watershed, you can see that that encompasses the upper watersheds where our drinking water supply is in the Cedars-Sammammish, all the way down through the very urbanized of the east side and all of North Seattle.

And you can see a way up to Mukilteo and some of Puget Sound.

And then Waira 9 is the green Duwamish Central Puget Sound, which is the green area there is above the Howard Hanson Dam, if I'm correct.

Yes, and all the way down through the highly industrial area, all the way through the Duwamish River.

So a couple of things about these interlocal agreements.

One thing to note, a version of these have been in place since 2001 when the Chinook salmon were listed as a threatened species under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

So this would continue Seattle's long participation in the regional cooperative So having an interlocal agreement in place helps with implementation and adaptive management as we learn more about the watershed plans and implementation of capital habitat projects.

It provides a governance structure for the regional jurisdictions to work together.

It provides a funding mechanism and a cost share.

There's an annual work plan and budget.

and we have technical and regional coordination both at the local watershed level and then at the Puget Sound level.

Seattle participates in a couple of different ways.

YRA 8, we're very privileged to have Councilmember Rivera who attends and participates on YRA 8 as a member.

And then YRA 9 is represented by Councilmember Saka.

Seattle is the staff lead for the city and the voting alternate for the council members.

That would be me.

Our technical staff participate on the technical committees and review grants.

And then Seattle SPU coordinates with other departments, particularly Seattle Parks and Recreation, who is a large sponsor of capital projects.

For those who are not familiar, this is the slide.

You can just look at that steep blue line.

Those are the Puget Sound Wild Chinook starting in 1870 when the railroad was built.

And you can see the Puget Sound runs have declined significantly since then.

They are persisting, but at a much lower level than is ideal.

This is a regional problem, so we need a regional solution.

Fish do not stop at jurisdiction boundaries.

Quick history.

The Chinook salmon were listed in 1999, and local governments throughout the region started working together in the early 2000s, and in 2001, they signed these interlocal agreements.

Each of the watershed, big watershed basins in Puget Sound has a recovery plan, and those were first approved in 2005, and they've been updated since to represent what we have learned since then and new projects.

And then those chapter, all of these local plans roll up into what's called the Puget Sound Recovery Plan.

So these are two pieces in a much bigger effort to recover Chinook salmon.

A couple of notes about the plans.

Each watershed is guided by a salmon habitat plan.

Each of them have an assessment of the local Chinook stocks and what's happening with them, what they need.

It's based on the best science at the time.

They all have habitat goals.

As you might imagine, they have different, you know, a goal in the Skagit watershed would be different than a goal here, say, in the Duwamish.

They have specific strategies for recovery.

They have their capital lists, what projects need to be implemented, which are the highest priority, mostly for the buck, and all support, monitoring, and adaptive management so that we can learn, see what we're learning, and adjust as we go.

Both of the watersheds have annual work plans.

These provide a lot of coordination across the watershed with different jurisdictions.

There's regional and state coordination and also legislative outreach, so working across with other jurisdictions in Puget Sound, doing legislative outreach both at state and federal level, particularly for funding and policies.

Project coordination and implementation.

Sometimes projects cross jurisdictional boundaries and we want everybody learning from each other.

And then the annual monitoring.

How is this work funded?

The interlocal agreements provide funding for WIRA 8 has a budget of $760,000 a year.

Seattle contributes about $193,716 for 2025. WIRA 9 has a budget of $606,781 and $157 is provided by Seattle.

And every jurisdiction, I'm going to say WIRA 8 has 28 jurisdictions and WIRA 9 has 17 jurisdictions.

And the cost shares are based on a formula with population and assessed value and land area.

And then the grant funding comes from state and federal, some local.

And it's passed through, then the WIRA looks, the watersheds look together at all the proposals and figure out where money should be spent.

Everybody gets some amount of money.

So you can see here the grant funding that has been approved for WIRA 8 and 9 over time.

This is over time or for the last year?

This is annual.

This is last year's money.

And some of the money comes through the State Salmon Recovery Funding Board.

So a couple of notes about what does this work accomplish by working together.

So Waira 8, this is the Cedar Sammamish, Lake Washington.

$38 million have been awarded in grants since 2016, over 200 projects with 22 sponsors.

And for Seattle, we've had 11 projects, 11 awards with four projects and $5.8 million in funding.

One of our biggest projects in Waira 8 is the Royal Arch floodplain and habitat restoration project along the Cedar River.

This is a very large project to reconnect the floodplain, which provides habitat and flood benefits in the Cedar River.

This is kind of far away, but if anybody ever wants to go see it, we would be happy to take council members there.

WIRA 9, $200 million of leveraged investments, so levee setbacks, a lot of revegetation, marine shoreline armoring being removed for habitat, seven awards for Seattle.

And you can see here, this picture is at Lowman Beach.

This is a Seattle Parks and Recreation project providing beach nourishment and reconfiguring the beach habitat to be friendly to fish.

And that is the end of my formal presentation.

Thank you, Martha.

Our friends from King County, did you have anything to add or anything?

I'll just take a minute and just say thank you to the city.

The city's been our largest partner since we started in 2001, and it's been great to have the city at the table, helping make those decisions, and also being a project sponsor to accept several funding awards and implement some of those really exciting projects on our river and stream system.

So really appreciate the city's participation and engagement in this work since the beginning.

Awesome.

And Mr. Goodnight.

Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, no, Jason said it better than I could, so I'll just second that.

Awesome.

And Mr. Goodnight.

Thank you.

The only thing I'll note is that the city's contribution, which Martha mentioned earlier, that comes from SPU funds.

So it comes from a combination of the water fund and the drainage and wastewater fund.

So the contributions aren't general fund dollars.

It all lives entirely within the utility.

Yeah, that's good to know.

Understood.

Thank you for that.

And it's really great to see all the investments that we've partnered with, with King County and to see how they're impacting our community.

That's a pretty, a good chunk of funding and money to go into some of the restorations.

And then also I would like, before I open up to discussion, Council Member Rivera, you are the city's representative of the Salmon Recover Council Cedar Center.

cedar river sammamish lake washington watershed you are recognized to give your remarks thank you chair and i really a shout out to martha newman and to our partners at the county jason who i've gotten the pleasure and honor of working with since um i got here last year and as the representative on the salmon recovery Council for the Cedar Sammamish Lake Washington Watershed.

I have learned more about salmon from these great folks at the table than I ever knew.

And I am so honored to be representing the city.

Truly, this is really important work.

And I, you know, Seattle's participation and leadership in this regional effort is really important.

I've really had the pleasure of working with so many other elected officials who also sit on this council.

I'm really colleagues excited to support this legislation and these two agreements.

As Martha delineated, you know, salmon recovery requires collaboration, cooperation, and problem solving across all the jurisdictions.

And Seattle has participated for nearly 25 years, and this is something that we should continue to do.

And I want to add also that, you know, the ILAs, as Martha stated, they provide funding, as you see.

And, you know, in light of the fact that the federal government has proposed cuts, which jeopardize Pacific salmon habitat restoration, these kinds of efforts become ever more important to make sure that we maintain funding for.

And this is something that is really important, salmon recovery, to our tribal partners.

And so I cannot recommend more, encourage us more to support these ILAs.

So thank you, Chair, for giving me the opportunity to say some words.

And I really encourage you to join me in supporting these ILAs.

And again, thank you to our great to Martha, our great Martha, I'm going to call her because she's been so instrumental in my participation on the council.

And we're just lucky to have Martha doing this work because she really is passionate about the work and we need someone who really understands it.

and really is giving her all to really help with salmon recovery.

So thank you, Martha, from the bottom of my heart, because I didn't know what I didn't even know when I joined this, and I'm so glad that I did.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

I have to second that.

Martha's phenomenal.

I just had a pleasure working with her the last 18 months and continue our work together.

So thank you.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

Should I join in on the Ms. Newman appreciation campaign?

Yes, who I usually see in partnership with Mr. Hennessey related to the Water Regional Quality Committee that you and I serve on, another area.

This looks more interesting than that committee chair.

But anyway, so thank you for coming and also to Ms. Kent and Mr. Mulholl-Cones.

And then finally, our own Mr. Goodwright from Central Staff.

Thank you.

I find it very interesting.

I don't sit on these, the RIRAs.

I do have some exposure.

But I just want to say thank you for the presentation.

And sometimes it's just the little things, like the graphic that shows the Chinook salmon recovery timeline.

in of itself, in terms of the numbers, but separately, and I know this for different reasons, partly for those earlier in the thing talking about engaging with the native community and tribal governments, When you look at the diversions of the various rivers and the impact that they had on the sound and then the impact they had on the native communities, it's striking.

And it's interesting in its own right, too.

So thank you for including this, because it's a great reminder for everyone to have that.

And then separately, the maps of the RIRA 8 and 9 And it's great to see all the projects and all the pieces listed in there.

My question is, and this goes to where I do have a certain amount of exposure, and that is because of, and I brought it up separately here.

You won't be able to see this, but I'm looking at a map, interactive map from Mountains of Sunway Greenway Trust that I've been engaged with over the years for different reasons.

And each year, I go to their dinner, and they have the stars, and they go through their projects, which is incredible.

And my family is the middle fork of Snoqualmie.

We've done hikes with the executive director and others.

A lot of great works being done there.

And so I was just curious.

And by the way, the area has been designated federally as well, and hopefully that does not get I won't say it.

Anything happens to it.

Can you speak, I mean, A, great to see the city and county work together, looking to do the same on, and we do do the same on the public safety front, which is my area primarily, but good to see this in this area.

But can you speak to the city and the county and its engagement with nonprofits, kind of like Mount Sassan Greenway Trust, and how does that flow into the overall goals of what we're trying to accomplish in terms of, you know, habitat recovery and, you know, salmon runs and et cetera.

Yeah.

I'd like to have Jason answer that as part of, as he's the salmon recovery lead for a basin.

And you can talk a little bit about that.

It's a big, um, it really helps the city to participate in this way.

Um, and let, and let the county, the county leads because they have a bigger picture.

Um, they're holding the broader picture.

Yeah.

It's a great question.

Um, thanks for that.

And thanks Martha.

Um, I guess I would say, yeah, the forum and the Salmon Recovery Council that the city participates on, that Councilmember Rivera sits on for RIA 8, is a great opportunity for that cross-jurisdictional collaboration.

And we also include, beyond just the jurisdictional partners, a whole suite of community stakeholder partners as well.

And that includes nonprofit organizations, state and federal agencies, special purpose districts like King Conservation District, and some water and sewer districts, some business interests like Boeing, some others.

And so it's a really broad group that gets together and shares information, receives the science, makes decisions about where to fund and prioritize project implementation.

And so it's a great space for exactly what you're talking about.

How did the county and the cities get to integrate and talk about, okay, where do we want to do these projects?

Where does it make the most sense to do them?

Where are we going to get the best benefit?

Where are we going to implement our relatively limited resources to make the best improvements for fish?

So it happens at kind of that scale, but then also at the ground level scale, too.

In particular, the county and the city of Seattle, Seattle Public Utilities, have worked really well in recent years on several large-scale capital projects on the Cedar River, where it's a county-owned property, county project, but the city of Seattle has provided construction management services for the project itself.

It's been a great collaboration on that front.

And then there's also the nonprofits that come in and help the cities, in many cases, implement some of the smaller scale projects.

Typically, a lot of riparian revegetation or invasive species management on publicly owned properties happens by several of our nonprofit organizations in the river and stream systems.

And so it's a great integration of which entities are best able to provide the services that need to happen at that full watershed scale.

So that's happening throughout both watershed areas.

And the space that we have and the councils that we have just provide that great opportunity for those collaborations to happen.

Yeah, I want to add one project that we're actually working on right now with Midsound Fisheries, which is a local fisheries organization they work across in Puget Sound.

And one of the King County biologists was out surveying the Green River, looking to see where fish were, and they discovered a culvert that was blocked and failing.

But it happens to be on SPU property on one of our closed landfills in Kent.

It's kind of out of the city.

We don't have a project manager.

It's a very awkward fit for us to kind of fit into our work plan, but Seattle SPU is partnering with Midsound Fisheries and they wrote the grant and we helped them and they're gonna lead their very early design phases, recon to see how to safely remove this given the location where it is.

So we do partner with nonprofits.

We're trying to do that more and more.

Oh, excellent.

That is a great example.

I will say, being at those dinners, those award dinners and the like, I'm always chagrined that the projects are always upriver, further to the east, and there's nothing in the immediate Seattle area some in County, King County, but you know, um, but not in the Seattle area.

So we, we have to find those opportunities, uh, in Seattle.

We do have, we do have some in the, as you know, they're very expensive in the city.

They're hard.

They make a difference in the Duwamish.

We are working the new Duwamish waterway park expansion.

Um, there are a lot of opportunities there to incorporate habitat.

So we're starting to look, um, there.

And Seattle Parks and Recreation has a project also on the Duwamish at Herring's House Park, which was an early project done about 20 years ago, and we've learned a lot more on how to enhance that project.

So we're working on those.

Of course, you got me thinking of all the lower Duwamish projects like the SOTO wet weather treatment facility and the like, but we'll move on from that and won't go there.

And I could add, too, real quickly that we also have several Seattle projects in South Lake Washington area as well.

So not that far away and in your jurisdiction, Mapes Creek right by Beersheva Park and Rainier Beach is a great example of a shoreline project with a daylighted stream that Seattle Public Utilities has done and Seattle Parks has worked on.

And then there's been some great community collaboration down there with some of the community organizations that have supported it's kind of a multi-benefit project where they're supporting a lot of the recreation and park amenities, but they've also added on some of the salmon habitat shoreline benefits as part of that project.

And so it's been a great collaboration there.

And so again, another Seattle project that's not that far away, not way up in the county area.

And I'll just add that, you know, in the Duwamish and the shoreline of Ryanine, we would be very happy to take any council members who would be interested in a field trip

We love field trips.

Okay.

Council member Kettle.

I do too.

Finding time for him is the challenge.

So thank you chair.

Nothing further.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Council member Rivera.

I see your hand.

Thank you chair.

And Jason, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't, we do some work at the locks with, um, um, what do you call when, uh, the, they're the seals, the predators, um, uh, mitigation.

Yeah.

Um, the city of Seattle itself doesn't do that, but we as a watershed group, uh, do interact with the army Corps of engineers and department of fish and wildlife, um, on trying to manage or deal with some of the predation issues that are happening at the locks where seals and sea lions are, um, preying on the adult salmon that are returning and causing some challenges there for our salmon recovery interests.

So we're trying to figure out some solutions and strategies there to deal with that problem.

But City of Seattle is involved there with trying on the sockeye salmon in particular to help kind of collect some of the returning adults and bring them, working with Department of Fish and Wildlife from the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, to bring them back to the Landsberg Hatchery on the Cedar River as a way of trying to promote an increase in that sockeye population, which has dwindled significantly over the last decade and a half, and try to regain that population.

Getting them from, instead of having to go through the ship canal in Lake Washington where they're having a lot of issues, survival issues, trying to get them all the way out of that and just truck them up to the hatchery where they've survived much better.

And so the city's part of that effort down at the locks.

And the locks itself is a really key spot for us.

I was just there yesterday with MOA and the Army Corps, an important federal nexus there.

But King County and City of Seattle have a very strong interest in that space too.

It's one of the biggest tourist attractions.

People go there to see the salmon, a million visitors a year.

And so we have a really strong interest in making sure people can come back and continue to see those fish in the viewing window and they don't come back and see no fish in the viewing window.

So that's really what we're trying to do as well.

Thank you, Jason.

And that we continue that partnership with our tribal partners.

as they're working on salmon recovery.

So colleagues, this is something that really, you know, we don't, this is a feel good effort all the way around.

The partners that I sit on the council with, including the community partners, everyone is working really closely well together toward this common goal.

And of all the efforts or many efforts that we see, we don't always see such great collaboration regionally.

And this is one of those.

Everyone is so committed and it's really, like I said, I feel really proud to and lucky to be able to participate on this council in large part because everyone is working so well together and so committed toward the same and recovery efforts.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

And I'm assuming that's an old hand, Councilmember Kettle?

Yes.

All right.

Awesome.

And I feel comfortable voting on this today, but I want to check in with Councilmember Rivera and Councilmember Kettle if you all feel comfortable voting on this today to keep it moving.

Definitely, Chair.

Okay.

So I'm going to move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 121002. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and second to recommend the passage of the council bill.

If there's not any more comments, will you please call the roll?

Clerk.

Council member Kettle.

Aye.

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth.

Aye.

Yes.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Awesome.

The motion carries in the committee recommendation to pass the bill will be sent to Tuesday, July 1st, 2025. Awesome.

Thank you all.

I really appreciate your time and help with this and continue to protect our environment.

So thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

And with that, there are no more items on today's agenda.

And if there's no further business, the meeting will come to a close.

This concludes our June 26th meeting of parks, public utilities, and technology.

Our next committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, July 9th at 2 p.m.

Hearing no further business, it's 3.35 p.m.

This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.