Good morning, everyone.
Thank you so much for being here.
This is our Special Finance and Neighborhoods Committee.
It's December 5th.
It's 9.35 a.m.
I'm Sally Bagshaw, chair of this committee.
Thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez, for joining me.
I know everybody's trying to juggle so many things today, so I appreciate our being able to squeeze this in.
And Emily, thank you for helping step in and organize it.
So we have an agenda today with about 14 different items, I believe.
And so if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted without any, 12 items on this one.
Thank you very much.
So let me just do a quick chair's report about what is coming.
We have a briefing discussion and possible vote for several appointments and reappointments, including Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority, Pike Place Market Development Authority.
We're going to have the review of the Highland Apartments, adding that potentially to the table of historical landmarks.
We're going to have a similar briefing on landmarking the funeral home on Nickerson.
We'll have a panel and possible vote on the ordinance authorizing a sale of several small tracts of land.
And then lastly, we have the fourth quarter supplemental budget.
Feels like we just got out of budget two weeks ago.
We did.
But we still are going to be dealing with this fourth quarter, which specifically accepts a number of grants from non-city sources.
And that will update our capital improvement program and some other investments.
Has anybody signed up for public comment?
Okay, we have none, so we're going to move on to our first item of business.
And just scheduling-wise, we have one more finance committee meeting, is that correct, next week?
Is it our regular time?
2 p.m.
December 11th.
Thank you.
Right, and our regular meeting date.
So let's move on.
Our first item of business, and Emily, if you are ready to read in, we've got several appointments and I'd like to invite those of you who are going to be up here, let's just invite you to the table and we'll get organized.
Would you like to introduce yourselves and then I'll ask Emily to read this in.
Office of Intergovernmental Relations.
Nice to see you, Holla.
Stephanie Toothman.
Kai Kelly, Executive Director of Historic Seattle.
Thank you very much all of you for being here.
Okay, do you want to read in the first ones that are applicable for these appointments?
This is appointment 01506, appointment of Stephanie Smith-Toothman as a member, Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to November 30th, 2020.
So it's just essentially a one-year appointment?
Correct.
Okay.
Hannah, do you want to do your magic here?
Yes, so Historic Seattle is a PDA chartered in 1974 focusing on preserving Seattle's architectural heritage through advocacy and education.
And Ms. Stephanie Toothman is a mayoral appointee with over 40 years of experience in resource management and preservation partnerships.
And since I have her and Kai here, I'd love to have them talk a little bit about the work of the PDA.
Very good.
Thank you, Stephanie.
Thank you for coming and being willing to serve again.
And Kai, thank you for your work on this as well.
So would you like to just explain what it is that you are intending to do?
And I appreciate very much the fact that you'll be with us for at least a year.
Well, as mentioned, I've spent my entire career with the National Park Service in the Historic Preservation Programs, working with local, state, federal, and national partners.
I've lived and been based in Seattle since 1980, with the exception of seven years from 2010 to 2017, when I was Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, as well as Associate Director.
of the National Park Service.
And it was a very exciting and rewarding seven years in terms of initiatives that involved telling all-American stories, advocating for additional support for our many partners in the National Historic Preservation Program.
And one of my interests in coming back to Seattle following my retirement was to become more engaged in the local preservation programs again.
I have served on the Fork Culture Board in the past, and I'm interested in working with Historic Seattle.
because I've had a very good experience working with Historic Seattle on saving the Cadillac Hotel and creating the new visitor center for Klondike Seattle.
And I'm very interested in supporting the work of the PDA.
I think it's an exceptional institution that serves Seattle well.
Great, well thank you so much for doing that and for helping us save the Cadillac Hotel after the disaster of the earthquake.
We, in my office, have been working hard with Pioneer Square, but also helping to some of the buildings that are along the 2nd Avenue, known as 2nd Avenue Extension down there, to get the buildings improved, rebuilt.
We've got Colleen Echo-Hawk's work with the new Al-Al and across the street with the Metropole building and now the Cannery building down the street where really making some changes that we feel really good about and bringing the life back into Pioneer Square.
Anything else that you would like to add?
Kai, did you want to speak to this?
Yeah, I just appreciate having Dr. Tupin consider joining Historic Seattle.
We have, as Hannah alluded to, since 1974, saved meaningful places to foster lively communities.
It's sort of, you know, fundamentally what we do.
And we're only as good as our team.
And Dr. Toothman's presence on our team and active participation makes us stronger.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, what we do is find solutions, which should be refreshing, I think, in the city.
Right?
Yes, absolutely.
And, you know, we have many properties serving multiple community needs, including affordable housing.
And Dr. Toothman's presence as a valuable teammate just helps us provide a national perspective, quite honestly, to help solve local solutions.
That's great.
Anything else that you would like to add, Council Member Gonzalez?
No questions.
Okay, then anything else, Hannah, that you want to add?
I'm going to move the committee recommend the confirmation appointment of Dr. Smith-Toothman and that the appointment be sent to the December 9th council meeting.
Second.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
None opposed.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It'll be a privilege to serve.
And I'll look forward to hearing more about what the Preservation Authority does next year.
Thank you so much.
Okay, our next item, do you want to read that in, please?
And then I'm going, do we have our, is it Mindy Au?
Okay, is she here with us?
The rest are reappointments.
Okay.
Okay, so nobody's here.
Go ahead and please read them all in then.
Appointment 01401, reappointment of Mindy Au as member Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to December 31st, 2021. Continue.
Please.
Appointment 01402, reappointment of Eileen Balahadia as a member, Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to December 31st, 2021. Appointment 01403, reappointment of Mihei Moriguchi as a member, Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to December 31st, 2021. Appointment 01404, reappointment of Jennifer Reyes as member of Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for term to December 31st, 2021. appointment 01416, reappointment of Ray Ishii as a member, Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to June 30th, 2023. Very good.
Hannah, do you want to describe these?
We have the first four with the Chinatown International District PDA and then the last one with Pike Place Market.
Will we have a full complement of board members after we reappoint these individuals?
Yes.
We will be caught up heading into the end of the year.
So the four are mayoral appointees for SCIPTA, the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority, has been chartered since 1975 to rehabilitate and redevelop for the Chinatown International District.
It serves as the CID's housing developer and economic and retail management agency.
and these four members will be part of SCIPTA's 15-member governing council.
First is Mindy Au, who currently serves as a secretary and is a consultant at People Firm, which is a strategy and consulting firm.
She previously worked for the International District Housing Alliance during its merger with Interim Community Development Authority and worked for the International Community Health Services.
She's worked at many organizations in the CID, and some of which were SCIPTA tenants, so has that perspective.
and she has extensive experience with the immigrant community and this reappointment will be for her second term.
Eileen Bahaladia is the owner of Bahaladia Consulting.
Her area of expertise is needs assessments in communities of color and immigrant and refugee communities.
She was the director of the White Center Community Development Association, which is a grassroots community-based community development organization.
She was project manager at the Seattle Chinatown International Development District Preservation and Development Authority, managing a partnership between the community and law enforcement departments.
And her community development experience and work in public safety brings a unique perspective on the neighborhood.
This is also her second term.
Mie Moriguchi is a development manager at Wajimaya and is responsible for designing new stores and improving the existing stores.
Prior to working at Wajimaya, Mrs. Moriguchi was an associate at Mitham, involved in design, mixed-use development, the neighborhood master plan, and urban infill housing.
She represents the people of Skipta, is chartered to serve as a commercial stakeholder, and her family owns other businesses in the CID.
This is also her second term.
And Jennifer Reyes has over 20 years of experience in commercial real estate.
She's worked for Fidelity National Title, Stewart Title Guarantee, and LandAmerica.
And her diverse clientele includes lenders, brokers, attorneys, principals, and other commercial real estate professionals.
So she brings that experience.
SCIPTA currently has 17 development projects in the works, many of which are for development.
are with for-development developers, for-profit developers.
So her investment experience benefits the governing council in those projects.
And that is also her second term.
Great.
Thank you very much.
And I just want to acknowledge the work that Eileen was...
Is she with Mathune?
No, it's...
I apologize here.
My fourth one here.
Moriguchi, the work that she did with Methune Architects, and I appreciate the work that they're bringing forward in the Pioneer Square International District area.
One thing that came up yesterday, and I'd just like to draw to your attention, Hannah, as you're working in this particular geographic area, that during the 40s and 50s, Jackson Street was a real blues hub, nationally known for jazz and blues.
And as we are trying to redevelop economically the area, the music industry has brought up the fact that both historically there were some wonderful things that happened there, but whether or not we could restore just some of the clubs along the way.
And now that we've got the streetcar and we're doing so much work in the Pioneer Square, connected area, just love to know whether or not going forward it's an issue that could be brought back forward with the PDA and see if they're interested in working on that.
I'm happy to look into that.
Good.
Thank you so much.
So, is there anything else that you would like to say on these first four?
No, thank you.
Okay.
So, I think we're just ready to vote on items Appointment 1 4 0 1 1 4 1-0-2, 1-4-0-3, and 1-0-4, correct?
All right, any other questions?
All right, so I'd like to move that we recommend confirmation of these four appointments and that we send them forward to the December 9th full council meeting.
Second.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
None opposed?
Thank you.
Let's do the Pike Place Market one separately.
Great, so Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority was started in 1973 to preserve, rehabilitate, and protect the market's buildings.
It creates opportunities for farmers, food, and food incubates and supports small businesses and provides services for low-income residents.
Ray Ishii is the owner of Ishii and Associates, and is a CPA with over 30 years accounting and management experience.
He's an adjunct professor at CLU for over 15 years, teaching both undergraduate and graduate accounting courses, and has served on the board of several nonprofits, including Fair Start, the Urban League, and Wing Luke Museum.
This reappointment is from the PDA Governing Council itself, and represents his second term.
Very good.
Thank you.
Would you appropriately read this one in the record for me?
No.
Yes.
For the record, this is appointment 01416, reappointment of Ray Ishii as member of Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council for a term to June 30th, 2023. Very good.
Any further questions?
Good.
I'd like to move that we recommend confirmation of the reappointment of Mr. Ishii and that the appointment be sent to our December 9th council meeting.
Second.
Those in favor say aye.
Aye.
None opposed.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Hannah, good to see you.
Thanks for all your work on this.
All right, we'd like to read in item number eight for us, and I would love to invite those who are involved with the controls on the Highland Apartments to please join us.
Yeah, and please bring, and those representing the interest in the funeral home as well.
We're gonna be here.
For the record, the agenda is misnumbered, so we are moving on to number eight.
This is CB 119, there's no seven.
This is CB 119627, an ordinance relating to historic preservation, imposing controls on the Highland Apartments, a landmark designated by the Landmarks Preservation Board under Chapter 25.12 of the Seattle Municipal Code, and adding it to the table of historical landmarks contained in Chapter 21.32 of the Seattle Municipal Code.
code.
Very good.
Aaron, nice to see you.
And would you start introductions, please?
Jeremy Silvernail, Northwest Commercial Real Estate Investments.
Thank you.
We have two designating ordinances to discuss as you read into the record.
So the first property is Highland Apartments.
This is at 931 11th Avenue East.
This was designated by the Landmarks Board on August 15th, 2018 under standards D and E.
The controlled features identified for the board include the site and the exterior of the apartment building, so they specifically excluded the garage.
The Highland Apartments were designed by local architectural firms Stewart and Wheatley.
Built in 1924, the Tudor Revival style luxury apartments were sited one block south of Volunteer Park in Capitol Hill.
Highland is part of a unique cluster of apartment buildings there in the neighborhood, which is predominantly single family.
So you can kind of see just one to the south and two to the north of it.
They're kind of grouped together.
It's one of the last of the four that were built there that include Park Court, Fairmont, and Washington Arms.
and all built within 1919 and 1924. The Stewart and Wheatley partnership lasted from 1923 to 1930, and they designed numerous buildings in Seattle, including the Marlboro and Exeter House Apartments in First Hill, as well as the Bergonian Hotel that we know today as the Mayflower.
And the property owners are currently embarking on a major rehabilitation project there.
Nice.
Well, I'd love to hear from whoever is going to tell us more about that.
So what we're doing right now at the Highland Apartments is we're, it's an unreinforced masonry building, and so we're doing a seismic retrofit.
And this building in particular posed some challenges due to the makeup of the structural system, hollow clay tile.
And so we've, we had extensive back and forth with the landmarks board and our structural engineers and our contractors to make sure that we were addressing all the structural concerns as well as meeting the requirements of the landmarks board.
We anticipate finishing this up in the summer sometime.
We'll have a concrete shear wall on the west side of the building, which you can't see from the street.
And then we'll minimal tiebacks on the rest of the facades.
So substantially from the outside, from the street, it will look the same.
It's a beautiful building and you said it's primarily hollow clay.
Hollow clay tile.
And what do you have to do to stabilize it?
We had to go through an extensive kind of structural engineering analysis to figure out the best way to handle it and so you can see on the front of the building there's three what we call like boxcars that are sticking off the front.
So on that plane of the main building, we have concrete shear walls in the inside of the building to help support those, because that was probably the biggest kind of detail-oriented thing we had to do for the building that was of most concern.
But then we also have to do new footings throughout the entire building, new shear walls all the way up.
So essentially, we have a concrete shear wall on the west side, partial shear walls on the east side, and then east-west of the building, almost all of those east-west walls are plywood shear walls.
They're also doing through-wall ties to hold all of the walls together.
Well, thank you for taking care of this beautiful building.
I know it's beyond a labor of love and very expensive to do, but I appreciate it.
How many units, when you're done, will be available?
There will be 14 units when we're done.
There's currently 13. So we're converting an office kind of ancillary space downstairs, we're converting it into a unit.
And these are apartments, not condos?
These are apartments.
They're legally condos, but we are operating them as apartments, and we are going to continue operating them as apartments.
Great.
Any other comments?
Are there people currently living in the building?
No.
Okay.
The building's being gutted.
I'm sorry?
The building's being gutted to accomplish all the major structural and other tenant improvements.
So all of the units are currently vacant?
All the units are vacant, correct.
have people been there, moved out and are coming back or is it going to be?
So we bought the building in late 2017 and we went through the TRAO process in concert with our kind of our planning for the structural work.
And I believe the last residents moved out in August.
And so we substantially started this probably in September.
Started kind of going through the
How far into the process are you now?
We're almost finished with all of the demo.
We've got all the holes dug for the foundations and rebars going in for the foundations, and we should be pouring in the next couple weeks.
Good for you.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Very good.
Well, if there are no further questions, I move that this committee pass Council Bill 119-627.
Second.
Those in favor say aye.
Aye.
None opposed.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for coming.
So Aaron have one read in the
Item number nine, Council Bill 119630, an ordinance relating to historic preservation, imposing controls upon the Blitz Funeral Home, a landmark designated by the Landmarks Preservation Board under Chapter 25.12 of the Seattle Municipal Code and adding it to the table of historical landmarks contained in Chapter 25.32 of the Seattle Municipal Code.
Very good.
And just to confirm that the last motion passed and it will go forward on.
our next full council meeting on December 9th.
Good.
Thank you.
I turned it off.
I'm a snake somehow.
So this is the Blights Funeral Home at 316 Florentia Street.
This was just off Nickerson, and this was designated by the Landmarks Board on April 19th, 2017 under standards C, D, and F.
The board identified the features for control to be the site in the exterior of the building.
So the Blights Funeral Home is an architecturally eclectic building in a highly visible location, so just at the south end of the Fremont Bridge.
So many people know this as a visual landmark for them in the neighborhood.
The original proprietor, Jacob Blights, was trained in the Midwest before moving to Seattle in 1904 and establishing his first local business.
In 1906, he partnered with Edgar Butterworth in Fremont, providing their services under multiple names.
Mr. Blytz had other early partnerships before reestablishing his own company in the subject building in 1921. The Blytz family remained involved in the property until 1979. So for several decades, the Blytz Funeral Home was closely involved with the People's Memorial Benefit Association.
This is a local member-owned nonprofit entity that offers low-cost funeral services to its members.
And the company's sense of social responsibility continued even after its sale.
of the property by the Blights family.
So this is something the board found noteworthy.
One of the longtime employees came and spoke as part of public comment and talked about how the company embraced Seattle's gay community during the AIDS epidemic.
allowing services and memorials to be held there as families and friends had experienced discrimination in other establishments around the city.
So the board thought that that cultural history was as important, if not more so, than the architectural character of the building.
So the building no longer functions for this use, and the new owners are planning a complete rehabilitation of the project, as well as building a large new multi-story building directly to the west.
And you've already gotten started on that.
Yep.
Yep.
The board's approved all of the work they've proposed.
Okay.
Anything else?
Any other questions?
Any you're comfortable?
Jessie, you're here, so talk to us about it.
Well, nice to see you.
It's nice to see you.
I will say I have a very personal connection to this building, so it was actually exciting for me to work on it in my professional capacity.
My grandma was cremated here, and she, we didn't grow up with a lot of money, she She took advantage or our family took advantage of the lower cost cremation services.
And so, you know, you drive by and you always remember grandma a little bit.
So it's just very sweet.
Oh, it's nice.
Yeah.
No, I appreciate that very much.
Yeah.
And you are representing the owners, as you said?
Yes, we're representing the owners, and we were very happy to be working with the Landmarks Board on not only the designation and the controls, but then the addition.
So it's nice that we were able to take advantage of the additional parking lot so that we can get housing density on the site as well.
Great.
Yeah.
Very good.
Anything else?
No.
All right.
Well, I'm going to move the committee pass Council Bill 119630. Second.
Those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Okay.
So none opposed.
We're going to move forward with this.
The motion passes and it will also go to our full council on December 9th.
Thank you.
Thank you both.
Nice to see you.
Okay.
Next item.
Next item is Council Bill 119644, an ordinance relating to the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, declaring five-foot wide properties that lie between the northwesterly line of Clormar Crags, recorded volume 37, page 47 in King County, and the southeasterly line of Alki Beach, an unrecorded plot, being a portion of the undesignated tract of Platte of West Seattle Park, recorded volume 3, page 177 in King County, as surplus to the city's needs, authorizing the sale of said properties to the owners of the adjoining properties.
authorizing the Director of Finance and Administrative Services to execute all documents for the sale and transfer of the properties at fair market value and directing how proceeds from the sale shall be distributed.
Thank you very much.
Hillary, welcome to the table.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Hillary Hamilton with Finance and Administrative Services.
Thank you for scheduling this today.
I am here to talk about legislation that would authorize the sale of a series of very small properties that we call snippets.
in West Seattle.
Just a few slides, I'll be quick.
We define a snippet parcel as under 2,000 square feet.
They're generally not developable under current zoning and usually only have value to the abutting owner, whether it could be the city, and we always look at that, or another private owner.
There's a lot of information on this slide.
Again, we typically get contacted by an abutting owner.
On occasions, we will seek out the neighbors and ask if they would like to acquire the property.
if we can't use it for the city.
We have found over the years that it's at the time of transition that a property owner often expresses an interest in buying a snippet, and that led us to bring forward this legislation.
This particular situation is pretty unusual.
There was a platting error somewhere in the first half of the 20th century.
Two different plats were recorded.
And unfortunately, due to an error in a legal description, there was a five-foot gap between the parcels.
The county took the opportunity in 1960 to transfer that to the city, kind of get it off of their books.
If you look at the map, you can see a 600-foot long by 5-foot parcel.
and it bisects about 17 private properties.
So the properties along Alki Avenue go back, there's a five foot strip on to the city, and then they actually own the land on the other side.
So technically they don't really have consolidated ownership of their parcels.
The green land that you can see represents some parks ownership, but because of the steep slopes, As you can see from the contours, there's not a particular value.
The strip is not level.
It isn't suitable for a walking trail or virtually anything else other than allowing a private owner to consolidate their ownership.
Will they build back there?
I don't think that it's going to be suitable for virtually any of these to be built on specifically, but the consolidated ownership allows some flexibility under development rules when the owner has it consolidated.
That's really the benefit.
On the main parcel?
On the main parcel, yes.
And the back space isn't big enough for an ADU or...
I mean, I think what I'm hearing from Hillary is that that could open up an opportunity to do ADU, DADUs, but not specifically on this 2,000 square foot or smaller snippet.
Yeah, each one of these is actually about 200 square feet.
200, so it's only 200 square feet.
They're about, I think, yeah, the five feet by, 50 or 25, they vary a little bit.
So it expands the footprint of the existing owner's parcel that then can put them into a different kind of category for purposes of development of their parcel.
even if they can't obtain an extra housing unit just by virtue of the consolidation, there's greater flexibility for how you measure where open space is treated and different development requirements.
We have done a couple of these in the past as one-offs.
And looking at the situation this time, we came up with a different approach.
We are asking for permission to sell all 17 of the parcels as time permits.
So one owner actually owns three of the parcels and intends to move forward.
We have another potential interest.
But with the authorization specifically in the ordinance laying out each of the small segments, we are asking for the go-ahead to dispose of all of them over time.
We'll establish market value for the date in question, but we won't need to come back to you and tie up your agendas for individual
several hundred feet.
I appreciate that very much.
And so you will negotiate individually or maybe three or four at a time, depending upon what the neighbors are looking for.
Yeah, actually, one of the biggest disincentives that we have found over time is when we say, yeah, you know, we are happy to sell you this small 2,000 square feet or less piece of land, but it's going to take us a number of months to get through the legislative process and notify the neighbors and so on.
When that legislation has passed already and there is the authorization, it can move forward.
Sometimes people are a little more disposed to take advantage of something that they don't want to be bothered with otherwise.
Right.
I appreciate that.
Not to say that we encumber things unnecessarily, but I know that we don't help the speed of a process like that, so...
Council's very busy.
Very good.
Anything else you'd like to add?
No.
Good.
Any questions?
No.
Okay.
Well, I would like to move that we pass Council Bill 119644. Second.
Those in favor, say aye.
Aye.
None opposed.
So the motion passes.
The committee will recommend it go forward on Monday, December 9th.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Hillary.
Thanks for coming.
Very good.
Okay.
Well, our last item of business, we've got Council Central staff to come talk to us about our fourth quarter budget supplemental legislation.
for central staff's request.
Can I read 11 and 12 into the record at the same time?
And is it, is there a short title that you can?
No, we love your dulcet tones.
Read the whole thing.
Council Bill 119721, an ordinance authorizing in 2019, except of funding from non-city sources, authorizing the heads of the executive department, law department, Seattle Fire Department, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Public Library, Department of Parks and Recreation, and Seattle Public Utilities to accept specified grants, private funding, and subsidized loans, and to execute, deliver, and perform corresponding agreements and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts, as well as number 12, Council Bill 119720, an ordinance amending Ordinance 125724, which adopted the 2019 budget, including the 2019 through 2024 Capital Improvement Program, changing appropriations, to various departments and budget control levels and from various funds in the budget, adding new CIP projects, revising project allocations for certain projects in the 2019 through 2024 CIP, abrogating positions, modifying positions, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts, all by a three-quarter vote of the city council.
Very nice.
Thank you so much.
Lisa Kay and Brian, good night.
Thank you for joining us here.
And Lisa, I want to say special thanks for your December 5th memo.
I appreciate the work that you've done putting all that together.
And I'm just going to turn it over to you.
My pleasure, thank you.
I'm Lisa Kay, Council Central staff, and as you said, Brian Goodnight is sitting next to me here for one of the items that will come up.
So for the viewing audience who's wondering why you are looking at a fourth quarter supplemental after you just adopted a third quarter supplemental, I have a brief explanation of the theory behind the process.
This is just theory, but the intent of why these are done this way is that the third quarter supplemental budget is supposed to be more forward-looking, so it's really making actions that would need to happen in order for the proposed 2020 budget to be able to be adopted.
So a lot of times there would be funds abandoned and reprogrammed that would set the stage for the 2020 budget.
This fourth quarter supplemental always comes as really kind of a cleanup document.
So trying to do some year-end housekeeping, making sure that we're avoiding any budget exceptions so that money that was supposed to have been transferred and accidentally didn't get transferred is taken care of now.
that we accept any late-breaking grants and make some other end-of-the-year technical adjustments.
So that's the theory of how it's supposed to work, and mostly it does that.
Sometimes it goes a little bit beyond.
So this year the package includes two ordinances, a grant acceptance ordinance and a supplemental budget ordinance.
The committee will discuss these today.
My understanding is you'll have a second hearing and vote at your December 11th meeting.
So I'll start with talking about the grant acceptance ordinance, which is Council Bill 119721. I start this way because enactment of the Supplemental Budget Ordinance requires these grants to have been accepted.
It's contention upon those.
Great and I just want to make sure that that's very clear as we have to accept the grant so we have the money before we can spend it so that's the order in which we do this.
Yes and if there are any changes to the grant ordinance then we would make amendments then to the supplemental ordinance to reflect those.
Good thank you.
Okay so I'll start with table one on page one of my staff memo and that shows that approximately 38.4 million dollars in grant appropriation increases are included in council bill 119721. Of this, about $8.6 million will be general fund revenue and about $29.8 million will go to other funds.
The $38.4 million total consists of 33 grants worth approximately $28.3 million plus a $90,000 donation from Seattle Parks Foundation to Seattle Parks and Recreation and a $10 million loan for Seattle Public Utilities, Pearl Street Combined Sewer Project.
You said it's a $10 million loan.
Do you want to explain that?
I'm going to ask Brian if he has an explanation for that.
I'm sorry, I don't have the time, but I'd be happy to get back to you.
I mean, I can, so let me, I might be able to save some time here.
Mid-week, if you could just give us an update on that, and then since we're going to have another opportunity to go through some of this next week, just as long as we've got the information.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So you'll see table two on pages two and three of the staff memo list the grants that are over $100,000 in the proposed ordinance.
Many of the grants can be considered renewals as they've been awarded in previous years.
Okay.
I think it was, thank you for the briefing that you gave me the other day.
I just wanted to point out, like you said, that many of these are ongoing, that these aren't new, but that we've, we're either having them for a second or sometimes multiple years.
Yes, yes, exactly.
You'll see a complete list of all the grants with your agenda materials in the document that's called the Summary Attachment A to Council Bill 119721 Summary and Fiscal Note.
So this table here just shows the grants over $100,000.
I would just highlight a few of those.
So there's a renewed grant of about $167,000 to support a traffic safety resource prosecutor in the city attorney's office.
That's item 1.1 on that table.
Item 1.2 on that table is a $262,500 grant to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs from the State Department of Social and Health Services to support the New Citizen Program.
Then you'll see a number of what I described as renewed federal grants to Seattle Fire and Police.
So these are grants that the agencies have received in past years also.
This includes two FEMA grants to the Seattle Fire Department totaling about $1.6 million, one for port security and another for the Urban Area Security Initiative known as UASI.
The UASI grant will be used to train for structural collapse response.
Those are items 1.7 and 1.9.
You'll see six federal grants to the Seattle Police Department totaling about $4.9 million, including a $2.2 million UASI grant, that's item 1.21.
The UASI grant supports vulnerable population planning, citizen preparedness and outreach, fusion center intelligent analysts, a regional homeland security program manager, purchase of bomb suits and night vision goggles and training.
Those are items 1.16, 1.18, 1.19, 1.20, 1.21, and 1.22.
Last year, Council Member Gonzalez had brought up concerns that any of this money was either going to ICE or being supporting ICE, and I believe that
We were able to go through these in advance and also ask our Office of Inspector General to help us take a look at some of these.
Can you give me an update on that?
I think that review is ongoing, so I think we need to get you some more information within a week.
The specific reimbursement that had to do with ICE involvement last year was not accepted by SPD this year, but the more granular look to make sure that none of these task forces or grants involve ICE is something that we would need a couple more days to do.
Great, and so if you could get back to us midweek again on that question.
So I have I have I would like more information on 1.18, 1.19, 1.20, 1.21, and 1.22, each of these grants.
purport to accept a pretty significant amount of money from Homeland Security.
That's the overarching department in which ICE and other types of immigration enforcement occurs.
So, you know, it's no secret that I am not fond of the Department of Homeland Security in that context and would like to get additional information about each one of those items before I would feel comfortable voting in favor of those particular items.
And with regard to 1.21 in particular, I noticed that there is a proposed acceptance of grant for the Fusion Center Intelligence Analyst, and that is of particular concern to me, including the regional And in addition to that, the Regional Homeland Security Program Manager.
I think we need to get a little bit more information about the body of work that is proposed to be completed by those two positions in particular as a result of accepting this grant.
Particularly in the Fusion Center context, that is a federal surveillance center that is located right smack in the middle of downtown.
So I'd like to get some more information about that.
And in particular, again, to add another layer to that, I want to make sure that this is complying with our Surveillance Technology Ordinance.
Definitely.
Good.
Thank you.
We'll look at that.
I would just note that the two justice assistant grants that you'll see on there had been on hold due to, I think the federal government wanted to withhold grants to sanctuary cities, but the U.S.
District Court has ruled in the city's favor so the city can now accept those two particular grants.
And these were something we applied for a year ago, right?
Those are ongoing grants.
We basically administer those and the city passes through a lot of the money to other cities and keeps about $260,000 from each grant cycle to pay for three crime prevention coordinators.
Those individuals work with neighborhoods to help enhance crime prevention techniques.
Right.
So I think Council Member Gonzalez has asked for some specifics and you and I had talked about this and asking our Inspector General to even if the report isn't concluded, if they could give us some briefing in the next few days, that'd be great.
We'll do that.
Thank you.
Okay.
The grant ordinance also includes four grants to Seattle Parks and Recreation from the Washington State Recreation Conservation Office.
You'll see those.
Those are items 1.25 and then 1.27 to 1.29.
That's for Loman Beach, Kubota Gardens, the Green Lake Smalls Craft Center, and synthetic turf replacement at the Lower Woodland Park Playfield.
Great.
And finally, the last four on this table are four grants from the King County Flood Control District that include a $13.1 million grant that's retroactive to 2016 for South Park drainage conveyance.
And you had asked for some additional information on that, and we're going to get that to you in a minute.
I think I was interested in how the retroactive piece works and what we spend and how we spend it.
And I can provide you a little bit of additional information right now.
It's not necessarily that the $13.1 million is retroactive to 2016. It's that the city first received a grant from the Flood Control District in 2016 for about $4.1 million or $4 million.
And so this is an amendment to that grant agreement.
with an additional $13.1 million for more conveyance work in the project area.
So it's not that the funds are retroactive, it's just that the agreement that we're amending stems from 2016. Thank you.
That would complete my briefing on the grant ordinance, unless you have any questions at that.
No, good.
Okay, we'll turn now to Council Bill 119720, which is the Supplemental Budget Ordinance.
Again, if you look at Table 1 on page 1 of the staff memo, you'll see that this ordinance, including the grants and transfers that we just discussed, would appropriate funds for operations that total about $101.6 million, about 16.4% or $16.7 million of that draws from general fund.
It also would increase capital appropriations by about $31.1 million.
If you're looking at Table 1, you'll see a line that shows $51.8 million as increases not backed by specific new revenue source.
So what that means in English is that the appropriations would draw on existing fund balance.
And that there's money there.
There is money there.
That's one of the things that we emphasize.
There's money in the fund balance.
Thank you.
These projects are shown on Table 3 on pages 4 and 5 of the staff memo.
I would note that most of that $51.8 million draws from low-income housing fund balance and the city light fund balance.
Only 8.6% of the total, or $4.4 million, is from general fund.
So, as I said, about 90%, over 90% of the $51.8 million comes from for appropriations.
There's $28 million to the Office of Housing for short-term loans for site acquisition.
This is tied to a program that the council approved last spring.
$15 million in city light expenditures on short-term power purchases.
These are purchases that they need to make if they have unexpected demand, which in this year happened because there was less precipitation and colder winters.
There's $5 million in emergency response and services.
This is basically the snow storm and some other costs.
So about $4 million of that will come from the transportation fund balance with another $1 million coming out of planning reserves.
And then you'll see there's $2.6 million for Seattle storm relocation costs that had been held in planning reserves.
So that, as I said, those four appropriations account for 91.4% of this particular category.
So then if we turn back to Table 1 on Page 1 of the staff memo, you'll see a line that shows $11.5 million in appropriations that is, quote, backed by miscellaneous revenue.
So unpacking that, what that means is basically the items that are listed on Table 4 on Pages 5 and 6 of your memo are backed by offsetting revenue.
This can include interdepartmental and interagency reimbursements, grant increases, and self-balancing technical adjustments.
So some of the larger appropriations within this $11.5 million are two technical adjustments to align accounting for streetcar operations.
And I asked what the heck that meant, and it basically meant our FAS department wants to be able to show the ORCA revenue separate from money that we get directly from King County funding.
So it's a way to track what the full costs are and what the city is paying towards the streetcar money.
It's an accounting exercise.
Okay, so ORCA.
revenue and you said King County Metro right and I Thought Orca was all channeled through King County Metro it is but and so the county hadn't been Separate making it clear to us which revenue was coming from which source and so now it's going to be okay to match what we asked them to do There's a one and a half million dollar reimbursement from finance and administration services to IT for the transit regulation improvement project that's developing a mobile application for taxis and TNC enforcement.
And there's about $780,000 reimbursed to Seattle Police from the 9-1-1 tax levy to support the city's dispatch centers.
Moving now then to the capital appropriations, you'll see that the fourth quarter supplemental creates three new CIP projects.
Those are listed on page seven of the staff memo.
And it also adds $31.1 million in net capital appropriations.
The new CIP projects are a conservation program at Skagit facilities for Seattle City Light, the transportation electrification project at Seattle City Light, and Battery Street Portal Park development for a new 1.3 acre park near the Battery Street Portal.
Very good.
Table 5 on page 7 of the staff memo lists those capital appropriations that are over half a million dollars in the proposed ordinance.
It includes eight and a half million dollars in tenant improvement services for non-city owned facilities and six And $5 million in tenant improvements for non-city-owned facilities.
Sorry, the $8.5 million was for FAS-owned, $5 million for non-city-owned.
These costs are reimbursed by the departments that have requested the tenant improvements.
Would you tell us what page number you were looking at there?
So that should be on page 7 of the staff memo.
And these are items 9.1 and 9.2.
Okay, very good.
Thank you.
And I do want to just extend my thanks on especially to the Office of Waterfront, Marshall Foster and others that are working on the Battery Street Portal Park development that they've been able to tie that in with ongoing work on the Bell Street Parkway.
So thank you for making sure that that was highlighted.
There are also 11 net zero transfers of expenditure authority.
These are basically funds transferred within the same fund to higher priority items to the extent that any of the 11 net zero transfers in City Light would have rate implications.
That would be something discussed in the spring and within the context of the new strategic plan that the council will be looking at next year for City Light.
Finally, the supplemental budget ordinance would increase four positions from part-time to full-time status and would abrogate three positions.
The four positions that are going to full-time are three police special recruit positions and an administrative staff assistant.
and the abrogated positions are two vacant identification tech positions in Seattle Police and position authority at Seattle Fire for one counselor position that is funded through Human Services.
So are any of these position changes things that we had discussed during our general budget?
Or is this, are these new?
I would need to get back to you on some additional information.
Because we had, you know, many conversations about what positions were going to be even reduced for the first quarter in order for us to have some additional budget money to do some other things.
And so I'd like to just have a better understanding about these Full-time positions are these monies that were there in the budget all along that we didn't know about or so if you could give me a little bit more on that be helpful, okay
So staff have identified one policy issue with this proposed ordinance, which is why Brian is here.
This is respect to using funds from the family's education preschool and promise levy to develop a new firefighter training associate of arts program.
Okay, I think we'll hear from you and I'm hearing from her as well.
Go ahead.
Okay, thank you.
So this is discussed on page nine of the memo, and it relates to item 2.2, which, as Lisa said, would provide the Department of Education and Early Learning, or DEEL, with $55,000 of general fund appropriation authority to develop a new firefighter training associative arts degree pathway with Seattle Colleges.
The pathway program would be designed in partnership with the colleges and also with the Seattle Fire Department, with the intent of preparing local students for careers in fire service.
According to Deal, however, the program would cost about $70,000 for the total cost, and they've proposed to supplement this $55,000 of general fund appropriation with $15,000 from the Families Education Preschool and Promise, or FEPP, levy.
Specifically, they've stated that the funding would come from the Seattle Promise Investment Area.
And it's unclear if this would be an eligible use of levy funds.
The levy's implementation and evaluation plan, which was approved by council earlier this spring, specifies three strategies in the Seattle Promise investment area.
And those are tuition for students and equity scholarship, and then also college preparation and persistent support.
So that's like the readiness academies and career planning and course planning, that sort of thing.
The plan doesn't address anything in Seattle Promise.
Funds being utilized to support the development of degree pathway programs.
And so it's unclear.
So there's essentially three ways that the council could deal with this.
The first would be to just go ahead and approve it as is.
That's kind of always the first option.
The second would be to increase the general fund contribution, so to amend the supplemental budget to increase from $55,000 up to $70,000 of general fund.
And then this would allow DEEL to still pursue the program and develop it as planned, but without using any of the FEPP levy funds.
And then the third option would be to just remove the appropriation authority entirely and ask that the executive come back for funding at a later date once they've identified appropriate revenue sources.
In terms of process, if the committee would like to make changes, because you're not voting on this today, if you just provide direction to us, then we can go back and make whatever changes are necessary in preparation for next week's meeting.
Great.
Council Member Gonzalez, do you want to speak to this?
Yeah, so on the FEPP levy, on the proposal as it is proposed by the mayor's office and deal, I would I strongly oppose it.
And part of that is because I don't believe that it is an appropriate use of FEPP levy dollars.
And setting aside the revenue source, which is of significant concern to me, The other issue is that this appears to be a bit of a program addition to what the vision was and what was described to be the vision for Seattle Promise.
And so to the extent that it is a programmatic shift, I believe that's a policy question that should be discussed and debated both by the FEPP Levy Oversight Committee and then also by the Seattle City Council in order to approve that type of shift in the implementation plan of the Seattle Promise portion of the FEPP levy.
So these are all things that are not just, you know, sort of willy-nilly, I thought of a good idea, now I'm gonna do it.
They do have to comply with the underlying ordinance, which was subject to a vote and approval by the city council, but also a vote of the people of the city of Seattle who've agreed to tax themselves for purposes of funding programmatic areas as described in the ordinance and as articulated in the implementation and evaluation plan that we spent the better half of this year debating and voting on.
So I have concerns about the proposed revenue source and I also have concerns about the proposed way of So, I think that's one of the things that we need to be thinking about.
Modifying potentially from a policy perspective, the programmatic focus of what Seattle promise was intended to do.
So, I think because of those two concerns, I can't support using FEPP levy dollars.
Now, if there is an opportunity to look at general fund dollars that apparently are suddenly falling out of the It's only, you know, it's $70,000.
It's not a significant amount of money, but that sort of raises other concerns in my mind in terms of why didn't we know that the $70,000 existed during our budget process that literally just concluded a couple weeks ago.
I think the prudent approach here would be to ask the executive to come back next year to tell us a little bit more about the program idea and concept, particularly in the light of the fact that we, in this budget, thanks to Council Member Herbold and you, Chair Bagshaw, we were able to add an additional class to the Seattle Fire Department.
And so to me, I just have some questions about what the nexus is there.
what the real goal is here in terms of this proposed programmatic effort.
You've raised some very good points.
A couple of things here.
Has anybody indicated a need for speed?
Can we take this out and do just as Council Member Gonzalez recommended, have both the fire department and deal talk to us about the intentions and the goals of it.
But if it doesn't need to be done now, let's put it over to January and have that discussion.
And I'll just add that I'm not even sure I haven't even heard from the fire department on this and they they report to my committee currently, I don't even know if they've been engaged in this conversation.
Yeah, I did not speak with the executive side about the timing of the issue.
I was addressing it mostly from a budgetary perspective.
Of course, I think it's completely reasonable for the council to pull this out of here and have a discussion of it, but I could certainly follow up with them and find out if there's some pressing concern about why it's in the fourth quarter supplemental.
Right.
I think those are all good questions to ask.
And your policy issue is the one that, you know, I'm specifically concerned about.
This sounds great in a vacuum, but if it's inconsistent with what the direction of the underlying vote was, we've got to get that right.
So, three things.
One, if you can just come back and tell us a little bit more about who's been involved in this recommendation so we've got that.
Is there some need that we address this next week or can we put it off a month?
I think that would be, those are worthy questions to ask.
And then the general fund question is a good one, which is there's now $70,000 that we didn't know about three weeks ago.
Yeah, in terms of the fire department involvement, the only kind of response that I did explore or get back from them was that they would assist with the recruitment of a subject matter expert to help with the development of the curriculum, but they weren't going to be providing separate funds other than the what they have identified as a $70,000 cost.
But I can ask about other involvement.
Good.
I appreciate that.
We'll catch up.
Anything else that you would like to add from your report?
I think that's it for me.
Anything else?
Can I just say that on the $15,000, I think unfortunately the department is being creative, shall we say, in saying that the money is gonna come specifically from the Seattle Promise Program and not from other buckets.
And I think the reason that that is being articulated in that fashion is because the ordinance is pretty crystal clear that any underspend related to the Families in Education Preschool and Promise Levy is must, it shall go to early learning programs.
And so if it is coming from Seattle Promise, then what is being cut in Seattle Promise in order to facilitate a $15,000 capture from that bucket in order to fund or supplement the funding for this new idea.
So again, that's a revenue source question, but it doesn't resolve the problem.
underlying policy issues that I have articulated concerns with, which is this is a very degree-specific certification now being proposed through the Seattle Promise Program, which was not the original articulated vision for that program, nor was it the design and to the extent that that is a shift, then I believe it is also appropriate and legally required to have the Levy Oversight Committee members review that proposal and provide the City Council a recommendation as to whether or not it should be approved.
I sit on the FEPP Levy Oversight Committee.
That has not been completed to the best of my knowledge.
When's the next meeting?
We just had our December meeting a week ago, and so I think we won't be meeting again until January.
I think it's very worthwhile taking a look at the schedule and the timing on that.
I don't anticipate, Council Member Baggio, in response to your question about What's the urgency here?
I don't think there is an urgency here.
This is a new program.
It hasn't been instituted.
It hasn't been implemented.
Seattle Promise is floating along just fine without this $70,000 program.
So I would be shocked and surprised to hear that somehow this is an urgent need because there are people who are already in the program.
And if we don't fund it, they lose their funding.
I just don't think that that's a...
That's a scenario that is rooted in fact.
Well, we've got lots of questions to answer.
Thank you for that.
Anything else you'd like to add for the good of the order today?
Emily, thank you for organizing this.
Anything else?
Brian, Lisa, thank you so much.
You can talk to us midweek before our next and final Finance Committee meeting, which will be next week, December 11th at 2 p.m.
So thank you so much, all of you, for being here, and the meeting is adjourned.