Parks and City Light Committee 6/17/2026

Good afternoon, everybody.

Glad everybody's here.

We took roll before we started the cameras.

Welcome.

Today is June 17th.

This is the meeting of Parks and Seattle City Light.

This committee will come to order.

I'm Deborah Juarez.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Here.

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Council Member Rivera?

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Chair Juarez?

Thank you.

And I should note for the record that Council Member Rivera is excused for today.

All right, let's go on to approval of the agenda.

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

Hearing or seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

I'm gonna have a rather lengthy chair's report because we have 10 items and I wanna set for the viewing public and for my colleagues, kind of an overview of where we're headed today.

There will be a regular public comment period before items on the agenda and one public hearing regarding Resolution 32206, the Seattle City Light Integrated Resource Plan, the IRP, which is item number one.

Comments should be related to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee during public comment and be related to the first item during the public hearing.

There are two resolutions, four appointments, and four ordinances on the agenda today.

The first item on the agenda is a resolution that approves Seattle City Light 2026 integrated resource plan, which we affectionately call the IRP, the IRP.

This is the second time you'll be hearing about the IRP and the Seattle City Light strategy over the next 20 years.

The IRP is republished every four years with progress reports due every two years after each full IRP.

This IRP is focused on addressing changes in customer needs, existing power supply, and assumptions on new energy resources, technologies, and costs.

This presentation is seven slides and will be presented by Mr. Rob Stantoff, interim GM, Siobhan Dougherty, Katie Ewing, Vereen Martin, Rebecca Klein, Natalie Randall from Seattle City Light, and of course Eric McConaughey from our own central staff.

If those presenters change, you guys can introduce yourselves when you get up here.

The second item on the agenda is an ordinance, Council Bill 121228. from Seattle City Light authorizing a five-year memorandum of agreement, an MOA, with Washington State Ferries for system improvements on Pier 48 and the Seattle Terminal Electrification Project.

Seattle Terminal, that includes Coleman Dock and Pier 52. This is a timely issue as the agreement is to be signed on July 1st, so we will be taking a vote on that today.

Their slide deck has, or their presentation is nine slides.

Item number three through six on the agenda are four appointments to the Board of Parks and Recreation Commission for three terms through your terms We will hear from a representative from each of the appointees.

My understanding is appointment one will be through a mayoral appointment, Bradley Kahn, number two, Phil Ming coming out of D7, a council appointee, Rebecca Rash out of D1, council appointee, and James Williams out of D6, a council appointee.

This presentation will be presented by Michelle Finnegan, who is the Interim Superintendent Salem Park Recreation Director.

The seventh item on the agenda is an ordinance, Council Bill 121229, authoring the entry into Amendment 6, I think we wrote that wrong, the entry.

We're amending Amendment 6 to the Conservation Futures Interlocal Cooperation Agreement between King County and the City of Seattle for Open Space Acquisition Projects.

and most notably D2, D1 will be highlighted in there.

And also, thank you very much for putting in a nice district map.

This legislation allows the city to accept money from King County to pay for properties that have already been purchased or will be purchased soon.

Their presentation consists of eight slides.

And again, they will be presented by Michelle Finnegan, Lisa Ward from Seattle Parks and Rec, and our own Tracy Radcliffe from Council Central Staff.

The eighth item on the agenda is an ordinance, Council Bill 121230, that would establish authority for Seattle Parks and Rec to acquire parcels of Delridge native forests at fair market value.

Yeah, Delridge is in items number seven and eight, and we'll have the same folks from parks that I just rattled off earlier, Michelle Finnegan and Gang.

So items 9 and 10 we are not voting on but I want to say it very briefly and we'll have the presenters go into more detail.

Item 9 is Resolution 32210 and item 10 is Council Bill 121231 regarding the new retail rate.

These are City Lights 2027-2032 Strategic Plan Resolution and New Retail Rates Ordinance.

These items will be presented together as the resolution informs the ordinance.

The rate ordinance establish new retail rate schedules, establishes a new customer class, and conditions for data centers that demand large electrical loads, modifies eligibility for residential rate assistance, and expands the rate stabilization account mechanism.

and again that's Council Bill 121231. We'll be hearing from these two pieces of legislation across three council meetings due to the size of this legislation.

The resolution will be heard today and voted on July 1st.

The rates ordinance will be heard today, July, today, Let's see, the rates ordinance will be heard today, July 1st, and voted on July 15th, my apologies.

We went, did we also, I have June, okay, so June 17th is today, rate ordinance, July 1st, be in committee again, and then we will vote again in committee July 15th, and then it will go to full council, hopefully, July, is it my birthday, the 22nd?

Full Council after the 15th.

It is July 21st, not my birthday.

Okay, July 21st.

Today will be a high-level presentation and I ask my colleagues, please, if you would please reserve your questions to let them get through the high-level PowerPoint.

And we will be submitting written questions to Seattle City Light due by June 24th for a detailed memo response along with an in-depth presentation on July 1st where members will be able to ask additional questions.

This presentation is 23 slides and will be presented by, again, Rob Sanoff, Angela Betran, Christy Gringer, I'm sorry if I got that wrong, Leo Lamb, and of course Eric Mahanake.

I expect a vote on items one to eight.

With that, did I miss anything, Mr. Clerk?

We good?

All right.

So we will now move on to public comment and we'll open the hybrid period so we have people in chambers, we have people online.

So let's start with why don't you tell me how many people we have and tell me who's online and who's on chambers.

We have two public speakers signed up in person and three online.

Okay, so we have a total of five?

Okay, so let's give, let's start with the folks that are here, two minutes each, and Paul, do you want me to read this, or do you want to read it?

Two minutes, come up here, cue up, and you can go ahead, Paul, call the names.

You want to start with in-person?

Yeah, in-person first, two people.

The first in-person speaker is gonna be Anders, followed by Jamie.

Good afternoon.

I'll actually cover for both of us.

Jaime Saez is my colleague.

My name's Anders Hammersberg.

I'm with Washington State Ferries.

On behalf of our Assistant Secretary, Steve Nevy, and Deputy John Vazina, and our Program Director, David Sowers, we're here in support of the MOA with Seattle City Light and Washington State Ferries to provide power for our electrification project at Coleman Dock down the hill here.

This is a project that's been in the works for about three years of planning, partnering with Seattle City Light.

It's our busiest terminal.

Almost half of our total ridership goes through Coleman Dock each year.

And it's part of a larger program to build new ferries to recapitalize our aging fleet.

They're going to be hybrid electric, which means we're going to have to plug in to charge the batteries here at the pier.

So that's the project.

We've appreciated the partnership with Seattle City Light to get to this point, and we look forward to moving into the execution phase of this ambitious project.

We're going to be releasing an RFP in July to do the design build for the project down at Coleman Dock.

So we appreciate everyone's support.

Regarding the last item on the agenda, the large load user proposal, Our program director had sent a letter of concern to Seattle City Light earlier this year when we had concerns that we would be grouped together with other private large load users like data centers, whereas we're a public entity providing a public service in a fixed location, obviously, and so we were happy to hear the recent update to that proposal made the distinction between the two, and I believe now The current proposal is focused more on a data center type of large load user, so we appreciate their partnership in that regard as well.

What's your name again?

Anders Hammersberg.

Okay, you're from Washington State Ferries?

Yes.

Okay, that's item number two, and they have a great PowerPoint, so thank you.

All right, thanks.

And you said Jamie, you spoke for both of you?

Yes.

Okay, perfect.

Oh.

You're good?

Was he the second guy?

He was the second guy.

Okay, so the second guy is good.

Oh, no, he's getting up.

No, we have three remote speakers.

So the Washington State Ferries are well represented today.

Good job, guys.

Remote speakers.

First, we'll have Yvonne followed by Caroline and David.

When you hear that you've been unmuted, please press star six.

Thank you.

Yvonne, if you can press star six.

Hello, this is, can you hear me?

Oh, thank you, thank you very much.

Good afternoon, I'm Yvonne Griffin, and I'm participating in this meeting to comment on Council Bill 121230, Delridge Native Forest Blanket Authority.

I'm here today to express serious concerns, not because of the bill's stated goals, because of how it's structured and what it allows.

At its core, this legislation grants broad authority for land and acquisitions without sufficient guardrails.

It asks the public and this council to support future decisions without clearly defining the scope, cost, or long-term implications of this decision.

That raises a fundamental government issue.

As written, the bill does not require adequate transparency around what properties may be acquired, how those acquisitions will be prioritized, or how public funds will ultimately be allocated.

It removes the opportunity for case-by-case review, limiting meaningful oversight, and reducing the ability for the community input at critical decision points.

In effect, it centralizes decision-making authority-wise, simultaneously reducing accountability.

We all share the same goal of protecting nature's spaces and supporting environmental stewardship.

Those are values that the community strongly supports, but good opportunity, I'm sorry, but good policy requires more than good intention.

It requires clarity, transparency, and accountability.

Without those elements, we risk setting a precedent where significant public decisions are made without sufficient scrutiny or public engagement.

Equally important, this bill does not fully address the broader impact of the land acquisition surrounding communities, particularly when it comes to equity, access, and long-term use.

These are not secondary considerations.

They are central to the responsibility of policymakers.

This is not a question of whether we protect our environment, it's a question of how we do so thoughtfully.

Thank you, Yvonne.

Our next remote speaker will be Caroline, followed by David.

Please press star six when you hear you're unmuted.

What's her name?

Hi, my name, yes, can you hear me?

Perfect.

Yeah, my name is Caroline Borsnick and I am the Environmental Programs Director with the Bell Ridge Neighborhood Development Association and I'm commenting in support of Council Bill 121230. So for more than a decade, we've been restoring park spaces throughout the Bell Ridge corridor while creating opportunities for community members to connect with their local environment.

Over the past several years, we've partnered with SDOT on the Del Ridge Native Forest Project, hosting restoration volunteer events and guided walks on site that help connect people with the land and foster stewardship.

The transformation of this area has been really remarkable, like the new walking paths throughout the site.

These have created a welcoming space where neighbors can experience Native plants and wildlife right in their own community.

Its location also creates potential for offering local students hands-on opportunities to learn about urban forests and the Longfellow Creek Watershed.

We are in support of the proposed acquisition request to expand and preserve the Delridge native forest and its benefits for the community.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Carol.

Our next speaker will be David followed by Lauren.

David, if you press star six.

All right, thank you, David Haynes.

I just want to point out that, like, you guys got a lot of electricity, and when it comes from the dams and it finally makes it to Seattle, there's a loss of some of that electricity, and then you apply the rundown real estate that the electricity gets pumped into, a lot of it gets wasted, whether it's because of the salum-like dilapidated conditions of the buildings that need a 21st century housing build-out or whatnot.

But the thing is, is, like, the cruise boats, they consume 7 to 10 megawatts.

and I don't know, it's like 3,000 homes, the equivalent of an electricity, and yet they're still allowed to emit toxic emissions to keep their gas boilers going.

So you smell that stuff like in the waterfront of Seattle.

But we have the port virtue signaling about all this electricity, yet, you know, we have this really bad deal where the cruise boats are charged between $7 and $7.50 per passenger.

And that's about the extent of their payments towards the infrastructure that they use and abuse where we have to raid the property taxes to cover the bond payments for all the hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that the port has created while they treasonously turn against the community who wants a stadium that gets a reprieve from the road rage coming from the port to the highway.

But, you know, there's a consumption malfunction within some electricity and it's curious that the port gets to pass through all the electricity sent into the cruise boats But, you know, are they allowed to, like, seemingly, like, control the benefit of getting access to that to the point where they're, like, dumping the debt onto the local community and shortchanging?

And it just seems to be, like, somewhat unfair.

And, like, the Delridge slush fund to pay more people to expand the park, you know, that's real suspect to me.

And, you know, there's a lot of stuff on this...

committee meeting because the council has counseled so many others and now you thrust all this and fairly give us two minutes before you start in.

Our next public speaker is Lauren Redfield.

Lauren is not present currently.

I don't see her tile up here.

Is it up there?

Lauren?

Nope.

Did she leave?

She's not present.

Oh, she's gone?

Yeah.

And that was our last public speaker.

All right.

All right.

Sorry about that, Lauren.

All right.

Maybe she'll come back.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Kerr.

So that was our last speaker.

Public comment is now closed.

We'll proceed to our items of business.

In items of business, Mr. Clerk, Paul, will you please read item number one into the record?

Agenda Item 1, Resolution 32206, a resolution relating to the City Light Department acknowledging and approving the 2026 Integrated Resource Plan.

There will be a briefing discussion and vote.

Thank you.

As a presiding officer, I'm now opening the public hearing on resolution 32206. Clerk, do we have any speakers signed up?

We actually met on this at the last committee hearing, so we're doing our second one.

Do we have anyone here to speak to public comment on resolution 32206?

Okay, let's hear from our one remote speaker.

David, you'll have two minutes if you can press star six.

David.

Is it Mr. Haynes?

Okay, Mr. Haynes.

All right, does this have to do with the integrated resource?

Yes.

Yeah, you know, there really is a need to address the consumption malfunction within, like, weak transfer lines that requires purchasing more electricity.

But when you allow, like, other people to plug in and then dump the debt onto the taxpayers, there's a short change that takes place within people who are using the electricity, like the cruise boat.

and it's still suspect how seaworthy, reliable an electric, like, heavy-duty car-carrying ferry is.

You know, there's like a greedy side to City Light that gave away a bunch of money for trucking salmon, but now they all want to inflate the rate to cover the cost, but yet we still have a consumption malfunction of electricity.

Anyway, I don't really have a prepared comment about this.

I didn't really have a chance to peruse the full amount of the presentations that were being offered today.

But it just seems that when you purchase from Bonneville, you have to get more electricity because you run out of the electricity that you're trying to generate from the dams.

And you've got to go to a different marketing agency, which sounds like a padded cost of extra amounts of money.

And there's no clarification on that.

But y'all just want to sugarcoat it with another increase.

and it's just unfair that in Seattle and around King County, we have all these rundown pieces of real estate that have these low quality transfer lines.

And so we get charged with electricity, but we don't get the full benefit.

And it's the same with the high wires that are still higher than your buildings, windows, distracting your view because we have these landlords on city council that put all these restrictions on the comprehensive plan.

You know, we have transfer lines in Fremont that explode because they build up too much electricity and they need to be used in a sustainable manner.

But when they don't, they get this build up pressure and they explode.

And it's like, it's a perfect place to block off the road and have green...

We have no more public speakers sign up.

Pardon me, are we done?

All right, thank you Mr. Haynes.

All right, that was our last speaker to speak on the resolution 32206. Now public hearing is now closed on that matter.

I see our presenters are already at the table.

So with that, I'm gonna let you guys introduce yourselves for the record and then you can begin your presentation.

I understand it's only seven pages long.

So if we can have you get through your presentation and then I'll open it up to my colleagues.

Rob Santoff, Intern General Manager and CEO at City Light Bridget Molina, Council Legislation Coordinator for Seattle City Light Katie Ewing, Resource Planning and Analysis for City Light Rebecca Klein, Resource Planning and Analysis for City Light Barine Martin, Resource Planning and Analysis for City Light Siobhan Doherty, Power Supply Officer for Seattle City Light

Good afternoon, Chair Boras and committee members.

Thank you for being here today as we complete our presentation and your review for the Integrated Resources Plan, or IRP.

My name is Rob Santoff, as I stated, intern general manager and CEO at Seattle City Light, joined today by our power supply and resource team.

We're here today to answer additional questions on our City Lights long-term planning document, looking ahead 20 years to ensure that we meet the future electricity needs safely, reliably, affordably, and sustainably.

And with that, I'll pass it over to Katie to run through a brief slide deck.

Thanks, Rob.

So we truncated the slides that we presented at the last meeting, and so we'll move quickly through and try to get to questions as quickly as we can.

I have Rebecca and Vereen here, as well as Siobhan, and we're ready for your questions.

So we'll just kick it off with the...

Rebecca's gonna kick it off and talk about the new resource needs first.

Yeah, so our 2026 integrated resource plan shows a need for new generating resources.

Our key model study years are on the horizontal axis and along the vertical axis is the annual average generation in average megawatts of the portfolio created by our IRP model shown as the stacked bars.

On top of that is our forecasted annual average load in average megawatts shown as the solid black line and forecasted peak load in megawatts shown as the dashed black line.

You can see that the average annual generation is far greater than the average annual load, but below our projected peak load.

This is because the generation resources need to be able to reliably meet peak load on an hourly basis, even during extreme events.

And that means during non-extreme weather, which is most of the time, there's an extra generation after we've met our own load.

That extra generation is usually sold in the wholesale energy market.

This portfolio can meet peaks through flexing our on demand resources, such as our own hydro plants and demand response programs, as well as some limited access to the market.

Our need for new resources, especially firm energy, is heavily driven by sustained peaks.

For the primary IRP analysis, we limited supply resources to wind, solar and short duration batteries.

These types of resources are weather dependent and there is a risk of these resources not being available when we need them and impacting our ability to reliably meet customer needs.

Generic firm energy was layered on top to make sure our portfolio can reliably meet our loads.

In a separate analysis, we evaluated firm clean resources such as enhanced geothermal and small modular reactor technology more in depth, as well as on demand resources, specifically long duration storage and renewable peakers.

These resources show significant value and will help meet our future long duration events that are becoming more frequent.

So here's a different view of what Rebecca just went over.

It shows the total resource need in 10-year segments.

So the first 10 years, the total supply-side resource need is about 1,700 megawatts, with the second 10 years being about 1,900 megawatts.

You can see it's split between battery, solar, wind, and that firm energy that Rebecca cited.

So the total for the whole study of supply-side resource needs is about 3,600 megawatts.

And we have another view on the next slide.

This combines the supply-side that was detailed in the first two slides with our demand-side resource needs that were presented, I guess, last year in the demand-side management potential assessment.

So that is in the top box there with 107 megawatts needed in the first 10 years and 48 in the second 10 years for a total of 155 over the course of the 20-year period.

and then at the bottom it totals the supply side with the customer side and then at the very bottom this was the first time that we evaluated transmission need as part of the integrated resource plan so you can see in the first 10 years the model called for about 300 megawatts of additional transmission and the second 10 years an additional 200 megawatts for a total of 500 megawatts So the key takeaways from the study are, in recent years, we've had increased electrification from both building and transportation.

This contributes to load growth.

That sustained load growth with winter peaks and increased weather volatility requires increased resource need, including transmission, to bring power from where it is generated to Seattle.

The resources that are non-emitting and readily available are intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.

These types of resources are weather dependent, which has made us increasingly interested in clean, firm technology, energy solutions like enhanced geothermal energy, and that will be a critical part of City Light's future resource portfolio.

Next slide.

So getting back to why we are here today, Washington State has a requirement for utilities to create integrated resource plans, and it also requires the approval of the utilities governing bodies, so City Council.

We request the approval of the proposed resolution that approves the 2026 integrated resource plan.

And again, the IRP report and its appendices are included as part of the legislative packet.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So that concludes your presentation, correct?

Yes.

Okay, are there any questions from my colleagues?

Okay, I do not see any.

So what I need to do here, if there are no objections, oh good, you're back, Council Member Strauss.

The council rules will be suspended to allow the committee to vote on the resolution on the same day the public hearing was held, though this was in committee two weeks ago.

So, I don't see any objection, I don't hear one, okay.

Hearing no objection, the council rule is suspended and the committee will proceed with voting on resolution 3220. 6. I move that the committee recommend passage of resolution 32206. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Chair?

Yes.

I did have a question.

I just didn't raise my hand well enough.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Could we go to slide 2?

And I appreciate that this is the second time in committee that we've had this information because it allowed me to prepare my questions correctly.

talking about averages and peaks, storage, and how do we expand our capacity without necessarily expanding generation so that we can smooth those bell curves.

What do you all call them?

Peak curves?

Do you have a...

Smoothing the peaks.

There we go.

Okay, thank you.

This demonstrates that we have more than enough power on our average consumption days, and as we continue to have more and more peak days, both in winter and in summer, as well as having a couple more peaks during the day as well, this is gonna become more and more of a problem.

with the ability to store energy, we can potentially smooth these peaks in different ways.

And I know that I have knocked on your door a number of times about a pet project that I would really love to see us use, which is home battery storage.

And so can you talk to us about what work City Light has done to date and what still needs to be done?

And for the general public who is just hearing this from me for the first time, the idea is that City Light would either pay for entirely or assist in payment for a battery to be at your home that you can personally help smooth those peaks and in the moments when City Light needs to draw the power out of your battery for the general good of the utility they would be allowed to do that as well as we last statement and then I'll turn it back to you for your response, is as we move into, right now we have time of day pricing on a voluntary basis.

I believe that at some point we will have that on an involuntary basis.

And so there's a lot of real good public benefits even if it's a private utilization for some of the time.

So with all of that preface, can you talk to us about what the potentiality for City Light to support a home battery project?

Yeah, so thank you for talking to us a little bit about this before, because we were able to prepare remarks with the help of Joe Fernandie, who's in the audience from Customer Energy Solutions at City Light.

So City Light does see a strong long-term value in residential batteries for resiliency and peak management, just like you were talking about, Council Member Strauss.

We explored this concept last year in our battery opportunity study.

What we found is that we currently lack the foundational tools to run a program safely and effectively.

Specifically, we need a way to know where the batteries are located, a policy to allow export back to the grid, and we need distributed energy resource management system.

You'll hear those referred to as DERMs.

DERMs system is a technology system to help coordinate battery dispatch.

We are actively building these capabilities now with DERMs procurement plan, planned for 2027. And once in place, we expect to start with a bring your own battery pilot focused on customers who already have batteries.

Wonderful.

And so we have to take care of some initial policies first and foremost.

I would assume that from there then we would need to engage in capital cost estimations.

We would have to create these policies about how we are allowing a private household to use this public good that we would be purchasing and all of those requirements.

How best can I work with you to keep this process moving?

Yeah, this lives in our customer energy solutions team, so I think working directly with that customer team is going to be the right way.

Fantastic.

I look forward to the continued conversations.

That's all I got, Chair.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

So I'm going to go back and do a do-over here.

I'm going to go ahead and move it again.

I move that the committee recommends passage of Resolution 32206. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

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

Any further comments?

Not seeing any from my colleagues.

Would the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Vice Chair Kettle?

Aye.

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor and zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

Resolution 3203-2206 will be sent to the June 23rd full city council meeting.

All right.

Mr. Clerk, will you please read item two into the record?

Agenda Item 2, Council Bill 121228, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department authorizing the execution of a five-year agreement with Washington State Ferries for the construction of system improvements associated with Pier 48 and the Seattle Terminal Electrification Project.

There will be a briefing, discussion, and vote.

Great, so I'm going to invite our folks, our presenters, our Seattle City Light presenters at the table.

My understanding is this is a nine-page PowerPoint regarding a five-year MOA to the tune of 3.2 million.

What else we got here?

I think that's all I got.

So with that, go ahead and introduce yourself again for the record and you can begin your presentation.

Rob Santoff, intern, general manager and CEO of Seattle City Light.

Bridget Molina, Council Legislation Coordinator for Seattle City Light Lizzie Kaye, Senior Project Manager with Seattle City Light Phil Ambrose, Program Manager, Maritime Transportation Electrification Program Tamara Jenkins, Project Delivery Director, Seattle City Light I'm Eric McConaughey of the Council of Central Staff

Great.

So we got the PowerPoint in front of us, we have the ordinance, and we got the summary and fiscal note.

So I'll let you go ahead.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Juarez and Council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

I'm Rob Zantoff, intern general manager and CEO at Seattle City Light.

I appreciate your time as we present the proposed memorandum of agreement with Washington State Ferries.

Today's item supports a major regional priority, the electrification of Washington State Ferry System, which plans to transition the fleet to hybrid electric power by 2040 and to emissions-free by 2050. This work includes installation of 16 vessel charging systems statewide, including electrification of two slips at Coleman Dock and requiring 15 megawatts of capacity.

Seattle City Lights' role is essential.

We'll be extending two new power services from Pier 48 to Coleman Dock using Washington State Ferry-owned submarine cables, advancing a major component of City Lights' Maritime Transportation Electrification Program and Transportation Electrification Investment Plan.

This project not only supports clean transportation, but contributes to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, a 70% reduction by 2040 and a 95% reduction by 2050, and it lowers underwater noise impacts to marine life, creating broad environmental benefits.

The associated ordinance authorizes City Light to execute a five-year MOA and a long-term operations agreement.

enabling this essential project to stay on schedule with the first slip entering service May of 2029 and the second in April of 2030. I will now turn it over to City Lights project team lead, Lizzie Kaye, to run us through their presentation.

Hey, Lizzie, before you begin, I just wanna thank you.

You did a really good job on the summary and fiscal note.

Oh, great, thank you.

We actually read this stuff, so...

I know you think we don't, but we do.

And I like a good writer, so thank you.

So today we're gonna start with just an overview of the program a little bit, and then we'll get a little more specific about the Seattle Terminal Coleman Dock project, and then we'll go into detail about the MOA and the purpose of the ordinance.

So the ferry electrification program with Washington State Ferries, they plan to transition their fleet to hybrid electric vessels, and the goal is to transition the fleet by 2040 with being emissions-free by 2050. They plan to install 16 charging systems for their vessels, and they're going to have 16 new hybrid electric, and they're going to retrofit six existing ferries.

So one of the main drivers of the program is to reduce the environmental impact of ferries.

So a large part of that is reducing the carbon dioxide equivalent.

The goals are 70% reduction by 2040, 95% by 2050. But then there's also the potential to reduce underwater radiated noise.

So I think most people have heard the difference between an electric vehicle and an internal combustion engine vehicle.

Electric vehicles are much quieter.

So there's a hope that the reduction in sound waves will reduce harm to marine life as well.

I'm going to break my own rule real fast so I can do that on the chair.

So the harmful to marine life, is that for the whales?

I believe so.

I don't know the science behind it, but I believe that when you say harmful to marine life.

Okay.

These guys are saying yes.

Yes, including other marine life.

Okay.

Let me just check in.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Lizzie.

So for this project specifically, the Seattle Terminal, also known as Coleman Dock, also known as Pier 52, all three of those were referring to the same area.

There's going to be two slips that will be 15 megawatts each, so it'll be 30 megawatts total.

And the graphic here shows the area that we're talking about.

We have Coleman Dock up at the far north of the graphic.

And you can see slips three and slip one.

Those are the two slips that are going to be electrified first.

The service will be extended from just south of Pier 48 there, and it will be extended using a submarine cable that will be owned and operated by Washington State Ferries.

And then our equipment and Seattle City Lights meter will actually be on Coleman Dock.

This project is a part of our maritime electrification transportation program.

So that program was established in 2021, and it was to help our marine sector customers with their non-standard service upgrades, specifically targeting electrification, but it's also to help us coordinate across customers.

So these are large projects, large service upgrades happening on the waterfront, which is a very busy area with a high demand.

And so where we can coordinate across customers, we want to try to do so.

And I'll go into greater detail on that.

So this is the project timeline.

Washington State Ferries hopes to issue their notice to proceed with their design builder in March of next year.

And then the goal is to have slip three electrified fully in service May 2029 and slip one in April 2030. This graphic is the same orientation as the previous one.

facing north, north is at the top there.

And what this shows is we have our city light feeders coming from the south in our transition vaults.

From there, the two submarine cables will leave the vaults and go to Coleman Dock.

Something to note here is that the City Light Feeder, one of which, one of those was installed with a previous project.

That's our first example of being able to coordinate across customers with the Maritime Electrification Program.

And so with the port and the Pier 66 project, we were able to extend that feeder to where Washington State Ferries will intercept that feeder and use it for their service.

If you've worked in construction, you know that a lot of the cost comes from basically just mobilizing, just getting out there and breaking ground.

So anywhere where we can kind of combine projects and get infrastructure in while the ground is already broken can save our customers a lot of time and money.

And so this is the first example of that.

So the memorandum of agreement, it's gonna be $3.2 million total.

Washington State Ferry costs is 2.7 million of that.

That includes the estimated costs for the service upgrade with a 20% contingency to cover any sort of unforeseen conditions, cost escalation, those types of things.

And then it's also the actual cost to extend the feeder through that previous project that we had with the port.

So City Light paid the part for that work, and now with this memorandum of agreement, Washington State Ferries will reimburse us for that work.

and then it also includes for Seattle City Light cost share, it would be a not to exceed amount of $500,000.

This is for potential betterments that are identified during design and construction, betterments meaning additional infrastructure that we want to include in the construction while while we're there, while the ground has been broken, basically.

And that would be anything that doesn't have to do with Washington State Ferry's service project.

Basically, it would be anything for City Light or for another customer.

And that will be five years.

The reason why the MOA is five years is it's meant to carry us through construction, designing construction.

It's really focused on the roles and responsibilities of designing construction.

So then the ordinance itself is that memorandum of agreement, that five-year MOA, and then also we plan to negotiate and execute a 30-year operations agreement in the future.

The reason why we need to do that is because this is a non-standard service.

City Lights Meter is going to be behind a Washington State Fairied ferries-owned submarine cables, and so that's not typical for us.

So we'll need to have the operations agreement for maintenance, ongoing access, things of that nature.

Thank you, Lizzie.

So with that, I'm going to open the floor to my colleagues to see if anyone has any questions regarding the Washington State Ferries MOA for Coleman Dock Terminal Electrification Ordinance.

Sure.

Chair?

Thank you.

Just following along for many years on this project, if you could speak a little bit to how the substation that you're utilizing, what it's been used for in the past, I guess the spoiler alert here is, I believe it was used to support the Bertha tunnel boring machine, and as that project wound down maybe a decade ago, less than that, we started transitioning maybe a decade ago to looking towards this use.

Can you give us a little bit of history on how all of those different infrastructure projects are playing into each other?

Yeah, absolutely.

The board tunnel machine for the Alaskan Wave Viaduct program, SR-99, we affectionately refer to it with the WSDOT project, had its own temporary substation that helped power the machine.

So we're able to utilize the infrastructure that was put in place, to Lizzie's point, which helps with the cost of even standing up this project to connect submarine cable.

So it gets into reliability and sustainability, keeping track of the projects we're doing, and being good stewards of the funds that we have to produce those projects, working in partnership.

That's great.

So we are able to utilize infrastructure for past megaprojects for this new one.

Absolutely.

You're absolutely correct.

And can you remind me, we are doing the deep energizing of the batteries over in Bremerton and just fast charging here.

Can you help me understand how the whole program works?

Are we just doing fast charging on our side or how's that all working?

My understanding of it.

But yeah, the charging on both sides is going to have to both be fast charging, essentially, because of both the side of the battery and the ferry schedule.

You know, they need to be able to plug in, get a charge and keep moving.

And so they will be the basically fast charging, large size chargers on both sides.

Yeah.

Council member, To answer your question, in our early coordination with Washington State ferries, they intend to maintain the same frequency of service or planned frequency of service with their ferries docking and within roughly 25 minutes or so disembarking from there.

So within that 25 minute period ramping up charging their onboard vessel batteries.

ramping down and then disembarking.

And that's gonna be both, unless something has changed, both at Bremerton and on the other side from Coleman Dock, so Bremerton and Bainbridge terminals.

Fantastic.

Well, I appreciate all of your work.

You know, I know that in Norway we have all-electric ferries and they move a lot faster.

They're smaller boats that come more frequently and their fast-charging equipment is amazing.

I know that you're working with many of the same partners who do the battery technology, the energy store.

Corvus in particular is a Bergen company, it's a Norwegian company that is producing the energy storage solutions for our Washington State Ferries.

I'm just very excited about all of this.

And to answer your question, yes, the diesel engines do reduce the noise impacts on all marine life, including whales, but what it doesn't take care of is the prop wash that still causes noise issues for marine wildlife.

If you don't know, now we know.

Over to you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, go Norway.

All right, my Vice Chair, Council Member Kettle.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

Did you say go England?

No, I did not.

Oh, okay.

I did not say that because I don't think that's really a sport, but what do I know?

Thank you, Chair.

And to bounce off what Council Member Strauss said, you know, the Norway piece, you know, Engaging on the maritime piece is really important.

We've been doing it with Bergen, Norway.

In March, I had a visit to Ireland with Galway, Dublin, and Fingal in terms of their maritime pieces, and then obviously what we're doing here.

Really interesting, and Chair, I missed last meeting's presentation because I was in D.C.

with the Port of Seattle's commission president and CEO in a joint port of Seattle, city of Seattle visit because of what meeting with the congressional delegation and others regarding what the federal government is investing into the maritime space around the country.

And the point was to really highlight the Pacific Northwest and particularly Puget Sound and in terms of our maritime architecture, infrastructure, capacity.

And one of the things that, you know, came up was like for the cruise lines, you know, having the electrified, you know, slips for them, the piers, you know, having that hookup.

So then doing this for Washington State Ferries is just another example where we're investing in our maritime space and showing that the Pacific Northwest and Puget Sound generally is, you know, very strong.

and when you throw in the different pieces in terms of dry docks, I mean across the board, the technology pieces, but clearly Seattle City Light is a really important partner in this process, so I really appreciate the presentation.

And by the way, if we continue to do this work, ferries in the future will be produced here in Puget Sound.

Side note.

So I just wanted to highlight that piece, you know, in terms of building this capacity and building, you know, what we have here in the Puget Sound region.

And I echo the point on sustainability, the environmental pieces.

That shows that we're being responsible stewards for the waters.

My question is, you know, in terms of the bigger picture, you know, the challenges of meeting this requirement.

And tied to that, by the way, not to go into another area, My understanding for large customers was City Light was selling in blocks of six megawatts.

You know, 612, 1824. These are 215 each.

Can you explain that in terms of standard practice for large customers, like what City Light does, and is this different because of the uniqueness of the maritime cables and the like?

We're going to have to get back to you with that answer.

The folks that kind of handle those contracts and how we do the power are not sitting right here right now.

Okay.

I noticed that, you know, the landward, you know, the hookups, you know, so the 15-15, I guess if you go to, you know, 30, that is a multiple of six.

So maybe that's your answer.

I don't know.

and yes, that kind of ties into the question of data centers.

But it'd be really interesting to understand that and how we develop that over time and to meet these elements.

So if there's anything further on that, anybody else in terms of that?

I think that the six megawatt comes from our network system versus our loop radial system.

And my understanding is that with the network system, we're a little more, constrained on the size of services for our customers, this is going to be fed from our south substation.

And so it's our loop radial system, and so it's a different system.

But I'm not an engineer, so I can't speak to much more than that.

That sounds like a good answer for a layman.

My experience, though, is only from the US Navy, so I won't go into that.

That is it, Chair.

Again, I really appreciate this.

I just love the fact that we're investing.

Obviously, there's the environmental pieces and so forth, but we're investing in our technology, investing in our capacity across the board maritime, because it will, in the turn, produce results for us, and given that we're talking about Washington State ferries, to develop the capacity so that Washington State ferries are built in Washington State.

So, thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commander Kettle.

Councilor Asaka.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll be brief.

First off, just want to thank City Light Team for being here today, starting first with Interim GM and CEO Santoff.

Really appreciate you and the entire team for carving out the time.

I love this presentation.

We know that transportation The transportation sector more broadly accounts for roughly 40% of greenhouse gas emissions and total climate pollution here in Washington State.

And that's why we have a very focused and intentional plan and strategy to better address those challenges.

And this is part of that right here.

And as the council chair that oversees Transportation policy in our city, I'm really, really excited about this effort to help electrify our ferry terminal, one key ferry terminal in our city, and excited what this means for the environment, transit, the investments in our ports, our broader economy, this unlocks so many terrific things, so excited to be able to support it today.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Osaka.

Okay, do I see any other hands?

I do not.

Okay, listen up, folks.

First of all, take back the soccer comment, because I know I'm gonna get hate mail.

It's a wonderful sport.

What team are we cheering for?

England?

England.

Norway won.

So we're all happy now.

All right, so since we are done with questions, I'm going to move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 121228. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

I had a second.

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

Will the clerk please call roll on the recommendation of passage of the bill.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Vice Chair Kettle?

Aye.

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor and zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

Council Bill 121228 will be sent to the June 23rd full city council meeting.

All right.

We're going to get to the fun part here.

We're going to go through items 3 and 6. Mr. Clerk, will you please read items 3 to 6 into the record?

Items 3 through 6, appointments 03529 through 03532 as members of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners for a term to three years from Council confirmation.

Appointments of H.

Bradley Kahn, commission seat Philip Meng for District 7, Rebecca Roche for District 1, and James Williams for District 6. There will be a briefing discussion and vote.

Great, thank you.

So we have in front of us, and who's coming up?

Oh, there we are at the table.

Thank you.

And let me just say a few words before I give you an opportunity to move right on in here.

Is it just going to be you, Michelle, or Director, Intern Director Finnegan?

Yes, my understanding is most of our Nominees are online if you would like to speak to them.

One is on vacation, but at the table is just me.

I don't see them.

Currently there's no one remote unless they Yeah.

They might be just watching on Seattle Channel.

It may just be watching.

Okay.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to let you...

I'm used to calling you Michelle.

Can I just call you Michelle?

Yes, please.

Okay.

Michelle, I'm going to let you do your presentation.

I'm going to make a few comments and then I'm going to open it up to my colleagues.

So you can go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just wanted to give some context to our board of park and recreation commissioners.

It is a 15 member community advisory board.

The composition is made up of eight members appointed by the mayor confirmed by the city council, which includes eight at large members and three members from city boards and commissions and one member specific to the get engaged program.

The remaining seven members live in each of the Seattle City Council districts and are appointed by the City Council.

Except for the get engaged position, Park Board members may serve up to two three-year terms in their position per our operating protocols.

We work to recruit a diverse and representative group of board members whose lived and professional experiences reflect communities we serve.

We work with the city's boards and commission staff to identify candidates and manage the application process.

This intentional approach strengthens our SPR decision-making, deepens community trust, and ensures that a broad range of perspectives are informing our work.

As such, we are excited about the slate of candidates before you today to fill the current vacancies on the board.

We believe their backgrounds are putting us in a good position and will benefit the board overall and Seattle Parks and Recreation and the communities we serve.

Do you want me to talk about each of them in one fell swoop?

If you wouldn't mind, and I have some brief comments on all four in the packets that we received, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to.

Okay, so our first candidate is Philip Meng, and Philip actually began with the board through the Get Engaged process, and he has continued in the boards and commissions position, having previously served on the city's Community Technology Advisory Board.

He's been a dedicated and active member, and has served on the Performance Oversight Subcommittee.

We regularly benefit from his participation, with his continuous advocacy for data informed decision making.

We look forward to being able to continue to work with him in a District 7 position.

Brad Kahn is the next nominee.

He leads communication strategy professionally with a focus on forestry and climate advocacy.

He's also served more than 15 years on nonprofit boards, including the Forest Stewardship Council, the Parks Foundation, Green Seattle Partnership, and David and Lucille Packard Foundation.

This coupled with his deeply ingrained sense of social justice and compassion and his long history of involvement with various aspects of the park system make him a wonderful candidate to the board and we are excited to nominate him for the open boards and commissions position.

James Williams is a former army captain.

He earned a bronze star for his combat service and was consistently recognized by commanders for his leadership.

He's the father of two young children and regularly spends time at Discovery Park.

He values the role SPR programs and outdoors opportunities in Seattle and wanting to make accessible, affordable ways for residents to connect and build relationships.

With this appointment, he would fill the Open District 6 position.

Rebecca Rausch has spent over 15 years advancing climate mitigation, climate adaptation, conservation, renewable energy, and environmental justice across NGOs, federal agencies, and philanthropic partnerships.

She's worked for the USDA Forest Service, Amazon, Aspen Global Change Institute, and works as a social scientist at the DOI Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

She has expertise in strategy development, program design, monitoring and evaluation, as well as organizational development.

She lives in the Hiawatha neighborhood with her family and her two young children attend Lafayette Elementary School.

With this appointment, she would serve in the District 1 position.

Thank you.

I'm going to make a few comments and I'm going to open the floor up to my colleagues.

First, we had an opportunity to read, to look at each appointment packet, and I understand that Mr. Kahn, Bradley Kahn, was a mayoral appointment, and that Philip Mang, representing D7, was a council appointment.

Rebecca Rash out of D1 is a council appointee, and Mr. James Williams out of D6 is also a city council appointee.

So we have three city appointees from myself and the committee, and working with parks, and then one from the mayoral.

So we had a chance to go through the appointment packets, and I just wanna share that, kind of what you've already said, but the notes that I went through is the experience with parks and recreation, climate advocacy, forestry, the Get Engaged program, the climate mitigation, and conservation.

Of course, it was very impressive at the Department of Interior.

Was that Rebecca?

Yes.

With Interior?

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

I was looking at her resume.

And then, of course, we have Mr. Williams.

Is it James Williams?

yeah who thank him for his service and I'm also representing D6 I believe yep D6 so I'm happy with these nominees I hope my colleagues are so with that I'm going to open the floor for questions from my colleagues about the four appointees that I'd like to move in one slate do I have any

Thank you, Chair.

I'm very excited about the folks that you've put forward, especially stemming from my district.

I do have some challenges with the process in which we've engaged in.

For those that don't know, I meet with the Parks Department a week before we come to committee every time so that we can hash out the questions.

It answered a lot of questions for the other legislation that we have today.

Is there a reason that we didn't discuss this last week?

must have been an oversight.

So no, there was not an intentional reason.

Okay.

The issue that I'm having is that the Parks Department has not afforded me enough time to be able to even have a call with my wonderful D6 residents that you're putting forward.

And while you're stating that these are council appointees, I don't think that the Parks Department has done, and this has been a challenge for many different departments, that we've moved to district electeds.

where if you are asking me to have, you're asking us to work with our district appointed board members, yet the process today has not afforded me an opportunity to get engaged with them.

And that's what I'm challenged by today.

And so I just have to say that the candidates that you have putting forward, I came in here expecting to vote no based on process because I'm, I'm not in a good place with the Parks Department on the process today.

But the quality of these candidates, I'm gonna vote yes.

And that was a product of how stunning they are.

But I'm here just putting on the record that It's really important that we use the process that we've set up to avoid these unnecessary points of conflict and my ask is that we do a better job of connecting the board commissioners who are district representatives to having a relationship with the council members that they are overlapping with because I want to make sure the commissioners have as much knowledge and access to me as possible so that they can be successful because I know that the Parks Department has three sets of oversight, the Mayor's Office, the Commission, and the City Council.

And I have been challenged when there has not been good connection between the Commission and the Council.

and I've found a lot of really great benefit when there has been that connection.

So I'm putting on the record today, I'm challenged by the process in which we've engaged in and the quality of the candidates have moved me from a no to a yes just in about 15 minutes.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I do want to echo the sentiment of Councilmember Strauss.

My office wasn't engaged in, you know, there's a purported D1 nominee, and purportedly by City Council, my office wasn't engaged in this whole process.

So just a call to action and stronger collaboration and request for, you know, stronger collaboration up front.

That said, and this isn't about any one person or individual, but we do live in a district-based system, and every time you and I think regularly, Superintendent, you know I care deeply about the needs and projects and programs in District 1. So that said, we'd really encourage you know, a better, more introspective look at how we approach these kind of on a going forward basis from a process standpoint.

But I think the slate overall is very well qualified.

And so I'm gonna be supporting the slate, thought about abstaining, but I'm gonna support this slate and just asking for tighter coordination on a going forward basis.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Osaka.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Finnegan, thank you for being here.

I've reviewed the resumes, the packages myself, and I'm happy, there's a D7 aspect to these, I don't know, but first, Mr. Williams with his Army service and then coming in, and then also with Dr. Rausch, and one of the things I wanted to highlight is because there's this narrative out there related to tech and our business community and the engagement of Amazon.

I had Amazon in my office talking about their energy person, AWS's energy person, so like number one person to follow up on our City Light conversation, which I really appreciate in addition to their support.

But I really, I've done volunteer efforts at Amazon and I'm really impressed with the workforce at Amazon willing to and volunteer and engage.

And I'm counting them all as D7 since Amazon's headquartered in my district.

So I really appreciate, and knowing Amazon the way I do, what it takes to get to these different positions.

And so, you know, a strong set, and so I appreciate them coming forward to the council.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so if I can just respond I want to note for the record that we did put out these packets on Friday June 12th and as far as the process and procedure I want to take some responsibility here since I was the one that looked at and for three of them and making sure that we had district representation as someone who has fought for and was the first elected class of district representation.

I've always fought for district parity, district representation, and I'm actually the council member that had these forms changed so they would list the district that these folks come from because what we learned is throughout, not just you, every committee, every commission, they never would, we went to a district system and even after that, they would never list what district they came from.

So we were missing big chunks of the city.

And so I thought, well, you know, if we're gonna work with the city departments and we're gonna do appointments to commissions or committees, then we have to start listing what district they come from so we do have that parity.

And we do the same thing in budget as well.

We do it with every commission, like, you know, sometimes we shift things around, sometimes we're like, okay, we can understand why that's in the south end or we can understand why you want more folks up on the north end or why we need more people out of D6 or more people out of D1, as Council Member Sacco was saying for West Seattle.

So with that, I would take some responsibility because I was the one that was happy with these, appoint with these recommendations.

So thank you for that.

So that being said, I want to go ahead and move forward.

Are we good guys?

Okay.

With that, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments three to six listed on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Are there any other further comments?

Not seeing anyone.

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Strauss?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Vice Chair Kettle?

Aye.

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor.

Great.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council confirm the appointments be sent to the June 23rd full council meeting.

All right.

Congratulations to those folks that got appointed and thank you, Michelle, for presenting.

Let's move on to item number seven.

Mr. Clerk, can you please read that into the record?

Agenda Item 7, Council Bill 121229, an ordinance authorizing the entry into Amendment 6 of the Conservation Futures Interlocal Cooperation Agreement between King County and the City of Seattle for Open Space Acquisition Projects.

There will be a briefing discussion and vote.

So before we begin, I just want to say something here.

This thing has changed so many times for King County Conservation Futures Levy Program because sometimes it's called the tax, sometimes it's called the levy.

Okay, so we'll just make sure we're clear on all the acronyms here.

With that, I'm going to let you go ahead and introduce your team and then we can move through your, let's see what you got here, eight page PowerPoint.

Thank you, Chair Juarez.

I am still Michelle Finnegan, Interim Superintendent, Seattle Parks and Recreation, joined by...

Oh, Lee Sward, Property Management Interagency Advisor.

And Tracy Ratzliff, Council Central Staff.

So we're here today to present two pieces of legislation related to our acquisition program.

I'd like to provide a little bit of background and then we'll turn the presentation over to Lise to walk you through this particular legislation.

As you know, Seattle Parks and Recreation has a long history of acquiring land and property for parks, open space, and recreational facilities through historic programs like the 1968 Forward Thrust bond initiative and the City's 2008 Parks Levy, as well as through this funding source that we're talking about today, the King County Conservation Futures Levy Program, strangely known as CFT because of the Conservation Futures Tax, so we will probably be using CFT as our acronym today.

Yeah, it switches between levy fund and tax.

I know.

All three of them.

It drives me crazy, but go ahead.

CFT.

I got it.

Okay.

So the Conservation Futures levy is a county-wide property tax starting in 1989 and is used to match city funding for acquisitions of parks and open space.

One of the priorities for current CFT program funding is open space in underserved communities, and therefore they have a match waiver process to encourage such acquisitions.

The SPR team has been successful in leveraging these funds to address gaps identified in our parks and open space plan for high-density, low-income communities experiencing equity and health issues.

We certainly do lean into the CFT to acquire open space natural areas, urban green spaces and trails as one of our many approaches that we use to acquire property.

It is not, however, the only one.

So I just wanted to give a little bit of context that we also acquire a lot of land through donations, through transfers of jurisdictions with other city departments and partnerships, interagency, There's a big project at the Arboretum with WSDOT.

There's smaller efforts with the King County Foreclosure Program.

They'll have an ordinance coming in in a few months for you all to consider from that.

So this is one of many ways that we acquire or recommend to you to acquire land.

So with all that, I will turn it over to Lise to share details of our current partnership with King County and the projects that they have recently approved.

Haley, did you present on this back in 2022?

It's an annual process.

Yeah, because this was all coming back to me when I chaired this before today.

I was like, this is all...

But I'm seeing a lot of love for D1 and D2 here, so that's nice.

So this legislation authorizes the mayor to amend an existing interlocal agreement between King County and City of Seattle for Open Space Acquisition Fund.

projects funded by the Conservation Futures Levy authorizes the acceptance of up to $7,248,000 from the King County Conservation Futures Levy, or we affectionately call it CFT, for the purchase of open spaces in Seattle.

So the rest of this slideshow will address purpose and goals, background on CFT funding, and the amendment funding summary show map of proposed project locations.

So our goal here is to leverage funding, precious funding, to support park acquisitions.

And this amendment is broken down into two components, existing projects and new projects.

Existing projects are eligible to receive additional funding through a reallocation process.

And in this particular amendment, we were successful in getting reallocations towards properties in North Beacon Hill, Westwood Highland Park, Residential Urban Village, and Longfellow Creek that have already been purchased.

And the remainder of the amendment addresses acceptance of close to $7 million for potential acquisitions in Belltown, Delridge, Native Forest, and Lakeridge Park addition, excuse me.

A little bit of background for new council members.

The conservation futures levies a county-wide property tax that was enabled by a state statute to protect forest farms' passive outdoor recreation areas and open space.

As such, the funding restricts certain park uses to properties acquired with this money.

No active recreation such as off-leash areas in sports fields or courts and impervious surface is limited in park development to 15% of the entire site.

Since 1989, Conservation Futures has leveraged our acquisition programs by over $117 million, 200-plus acquisitions, which have added approximately 151 acres to the system.

And a little more background.

This gets into a little more specificity.

So back in 2021, The council approved the latest version of the interlocal agreement.

It was signed by county and city in 2022. And in subsequent years, for subsequent rounds of funding, an amendment is approved by council for amendments to this interlocal agreement.

So we're up to Amendment 6 now.

That's what I figured.

I've been here too long.

So in this particular amendment, as I said, there's two segments, reallocation to prior acquisitions and new projects.

There are some categories I'd like to define.

Site stabilization cost is a new category that the county's funding, which includes demolition signage and fencing.

It sort of helps the jurisdiction to sort of set up the property immediately after acquisition.

And the ACQ in this table just reflects increased costs that went above budget that the county can actually cover.

It could be a higher appraisal than expected.

It could be added administration costs.

and closing costs were higher than expected, et cetera, and the county has the ability to fund those if requested.

So those are those two categories.

So in this particular case, Longfellow Creek, we had a couple of demolitions there.

So the county helped with some funding.

Our newest neighborhood park site, North Beacon Hill, Mount Baker, Urban Village at 17th and Walker, is getting funds both to complete or to be reimbursed for acquisition costs and to help with the pending demolition.

And Westwood Highland Park also is receiving $50,000 for unanticipated acquisition costs.

And we'll be in, actually, on that one, we'll be in a position to go in again for some site stabilization costs to help with that site.

The new acquisitions are potential acquisitions in Belltown, Lake Ridge Park, and Delridge Native Forest in West Seattle.

So these are kind of starter amounts for these projects.

Delridge Native Forest is a little further along in acquisitions, so the amount is higher.

and once these projects are created within the system, we'll proceed with the acquisitions, come back to you for acquisition authorization if they aren't included in our existing green space authorization and close them out eventually and start the whole process all over again.

Thank you.

Hey, Lise, thank you for putting the council districts in there too.

Yes.

Because last time we were handwriting them in there, so thank you.

And this is just a visual.

So we have the council map.

My favorite slide.

I had it printed in color.

I should have used yellow around the parcels.

They're a little bit hard to see in red.

But the left-hand side of the slide shows the council districts.

The blue square-like things represent where the allocations are going, where we've already purchased property.

and the red stars are pending acquisitions or potential acquisitions.

So the top line there shows the areas of the 2025 reallocations.

So that shows Longfellow Creek there, a couple of houses.

We're working with SPU on those acquisitions.

North Beacon Hill is our most recent neighborhood park acquisition.

And then Westwood Highland Park is also very recent.

The lower row shows potential acquisitions in Belltown in the area that is being referred to as the portal, Lake Ridge Park addition south end of the park to create trail access, and the Delridge Native Forest, which we'll speak about in more detail when we discuss the next ordinance.

And that concludes the slideshow.

Thank you, Elise.

I know you're excited.

Your questions are welcome.

There will be in a minute.

So I just want you to know that we have and everyone has received not just your PowerPoint, but also the actual amendment to the Conservation Futures Interlocal Cooperation Agreement between King County and the City of Seattle for open space acquisition projects.

So we went through that.

It's like five pages long.

It's pretty straightforward.

I know that we're really concentrating in those particular neighborhoods because they were the ones that got, well, they're lacking a lot of green space, more than they are probably up north.

That's probably a fair statement, correct?

They're gap areas and they qualify for the match waiver.

So it requires less city funds.

Right.

We're always happy to have money from the county.

Okay.

So with that, I'm going to open up the floor to my colleagues and I see that Councilmember Kettle has his hand up.

Yes.

He's right next to me.

He's on the computer too.

Yes, thank you, Chair, and thank you, everyone, for being here.

I just wanted to foot-stomp the importance of the Belltown Bellwether parcel.

That's key in terms of our development of what we're calling basically Portal Park at this moment.

At some point, I'm sure we'll have a different name.

but this is really important in addition to the work that we're doing with City Light and SDOT to really firm up this piece because Belltown has basically no green space itself and so this is really important to the community.

It's just a fantastic location.

It's really part of the east-west connection too between the waterfront and then heading in towards the Mohai Seattle Center and the like.

So thank you for having me here.

Definitely support this.

In fact, I'm encouraging it, foot stomping it, all the above to make this happen because it is very important to the overall project.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Kettle.

Anything else for my colleagues?

Okay, looks good.

And again, thank you for the colored map.

I like the stars.

I like how you put the pictures up there and listed the districts.

So it's, I'm a visual learner.

So I kind of, if I can see it, then it makes more sense to me.

And I understand now that, yeah, I remember this from 2021 and 2022. So anyway.

All right, I'm not seeing any questions or hands up from my colleagues, so I'm gonna go ahead and move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 121229. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

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

Any other further comments?

Not seeing any.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Vice Chair Kettle?

Aye.

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Chair, therefore, votes in favor?

Thank you, the motion carries.

Council Bill 121229 will be sent to the full City Council meeting on June 23rd.

All right, let's move on to item number eight.

Will the clerk please read item eight into the record?

Agenda item eight, Council Bill 121230, an ordinance establishing blanket authority for SPR to acquire parcels of Dell Ridge native forest at fair market value.

There will be briefing discussion and vote.

So this is exciting.

This is your Delridge one.

You have your PowerPoint up.

Well, I print things because I believe in paper.

Chair?

Yes.

I keep calling you Council President.

I can't get it out of my mouth.

I'll just take this moment to say, for the last bill in this bill, compliments to the Parks Department for meeting with me. last week to brief me because I had some really serious questions that I went pretty far off script and Tracy Ratzliff and the team used that time between our pre-meeting and today to answer my questions so I have nothing further to say and I'll be voting yes.

Thank you.

Well, I just want to say that I'm really excited about this because this is like maybe I can count on one hand where we actually have a city department.

Well, I actually shouldn't say that.

Let me rephrase that.

Where we had tribal consultation with the Muckleshoot Nation.

And that was exciting to see.

So I'm going to let you go ahead with your presentation.

I see you got the same folks here.

Lise looks still excited to move forward, Lise.

Go ahead.

and I realize I didn't blow up my tech, so I'm gonna use my glasses here.

So this is our second piece of legislation related to our acquisition program.

As you heard in our last presentation, the King County Conservation Futures Levy awarded the city a grant for the purchase of properties in the Delridge native forest, which is part of the Longfellow Creek Watershed and has a match waiver of eligibility in the King County CFT criteria.

We are making progress and negotiating with the current owners of these parcels, but rather than bringing you legislation authorizing these specific purchases, we are asking for blanket authority to acquire up to four acres, these properties and others that may become available in this green space known as the Del Ridge native forest.

We'd like to acknowledge the contributions of our partners involved in this green space restoration, including Muckleshoot Tribe, Delridge Native Development Association, and the Washington Native Plant Society, as well as SDOT, who really kicked off this restoration with a grant to the federal government.

and our Green Seattle partnership has leaned in as we currently have property adjacent.

So to date, the Delridge native forest garden restoration project has resulted in approximately three and a half acres of weed control, debris removal, the planting of 370 new trees and 423 native shrubs.

A tree walk event was held in May to introduce the broader community to the project.

The event was organized by the Del Ridge Native Development Association and Warren King George of the Muckleshoot Indian tribe was attending with also, as I mentioned, representation from our GSP partnership.

Before turning this over to Lise, I would like to note that there could be some nexus between our acquisition goals here and Sound Transit.

We are flagging this here to be clear and transparent.

However, any such transaction would not be covered by this blanket authority.

We would return to council if there was a proposal to use any of these properties as replacement property, according to Sound Transit.

And we would show all of our work.

I know you would.

I don't want you to go there.

So let's stay in the here and now with what we have in front of us.

Yes.

So with that, I will get this, please.

Okay, this legislation would authorize the Superintendent of Parks and Recreation to identify and negotiate, acquire real property in the Delridge neighborhood of West Seattle to preserve the Delridge native forest.

established blanket authority for future acquisitions in the Del Ridge native forest within a series of geographic boundaries and authorize the execution of purchase and sale agreements, escrow instruments related documents for acquisitions.

The remainder of the slideshow will discuss purpose and goals, history and background of the Green Space Authorization Acquisition Authority, Delvidge Native Forest Project, and have a map of the proposed Blanket Purchase Authority area.

This is just for the four acres, correct?

I didn't catch you.

This is just for the four acres.

This is just for the four acres.

Okay, I just don't want everyone thinking we have this sweeping mandate that you can go out and just four acres.

Okay.

Just four acres.

Thank you.

The map will...picture's worth a thousand words.

So, yes, we're seeking authority for blanket acquisition to acquire up to four acres within the limited boundaries of the Delridge native forest.

Just so you know, I've spoken to all property owners involved, and they are all willing sellers, provided the price and the terms are right.

So we've done that.

Our goal here is to preserve and expand the existing Delridge native forest to green space in West Seattle surrounded by increasing property development and support reforestation efforts initiated by Department of Transportation with its various partnerships to both remove non-native plantings and replace with native plantings.

Green Space Acquisition Authority is not a new thing.

It's been the backbone of our Green Space Acquisition Program for many years, starting with the 1989 Open Space Trails Bond Program, as well as two levees.

and our current authority for Park District funds comes from 2018 Ordinance 125644, which authorizes us to acquire green spaces within those identified in 1993 resolution.

And Delridge Native Forest is not included in that 1993 ordinance, which is why we're here before you today.

Oh, that's why.

Did not know that.

So the benefits of having this green space authority, which we do not take lightly, supports filling privately owned parcels within existing green spaces.

addresses development pressures of those parcels, and it allows us to manage the green space as a unit planned for restoration projects, and it permanently preserves the green space in perpetuity.

So this particular legislation would authorize acquisitions next to the areas that have already been restored by the Delridge Native Forest Garden project.

I'm sorry, there's so many names floating around here.

This green space is included in the Longfellow Creek watershed, which happens to be across the street, across Delridge, the Longfellow Creek itself.

So it's kind of all connected, even though there's the interruption of Del or Joy Southwest.

And we've been able to expand collaborative stewardship with the regional tribes.

There's a little footnote here.

Michelle's already talked about it, about a potential nexus for sound transit replacement property, but we'll come back to you separately for that.

Just a little description of the project.

Again, this was initiated by SDOT to restore four acres over which SDOT has jurisdiction in this forest.

in cooperation with the Green Seattle Partnership, Muckleshoot Tribe, and community groups, including Delridge Neighborhood Development Association.

I heard that one of their representatives spoke at the two minute public comment period right before this meeting.

The Muckleshoot Tribe advised the group on stewardship activities and engagement.

University of Washington got involved, and so the proposed acquisition authority that we're seeking, you'll see on the map, connects existing publicly owned property by allowing us to acquire the intervening private property to protect the entire swath of the Green Belt.

And if we can do that, SDOT will attempt to expand the scope and the funding for the project that it's already started.

So the geographic boundaries south of Southwest Myrtle Street, I don't know if you can see my arrow, which is at the top So the yellow represents the area for which we're seeking acquisition authority.

So Southwest Myrtle Street is at the north.

The east boundary here is the 19th Avenue Southwest Stairs.

We're approximately north of Silver and Way Southwest at the intersection of Delridge, and we're east of Delridge.

So those are the boundaries of the yellow there.

and you can see the SDOT ownership represented by the white boxes and park zones, three acres at the north end.

So if we can acquire these areas in yellow, it already exists.

There's a contiguous 11 acres of trees, but we'll be able to permanently protect 11 acres of forest here.

and oh, the areas in red are being actively negotiated and so the funding in the previous ordinance for the CFT interlocal amendment would allow us to continue negotiations with these owners and proceed to closing.

Thank you, Lise.

Are there any questions?

And with that, I conclude.

I apologize.

Are you good?

Okay.

Lise, you good?

You done?

You can breathe now?

I know, I can tell you.

Just take a breath.

We're good.

We're moving along.

It's okay.

Do any of my colleagues have any questions?

Everyone's good?

Oh, God, for once.

Oh, wait.

Council Member Saka.

Sorry about that, buddy.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So thank you to our presenters for being here today.

The Delridge Native Forest Garden Project would support restoration efforts in partnership with SDOT, the Green Seattle Partnership, the federally recognized Muckleshoot Indian tribe and local community groups.

Together this effort helps create a native forest garden that provides easier access to green spaces, improves the tree canopy, and supports Longfellow Creek's health.

All worthy goals and great things we need in West Seattle in particular.

Volunteers have removed unwanted plants like English ivy and Himalayan blackberry and replace them with trees and plants important to native and indigenous peoples, including the western red cedar and beaked hazelnut.

A new footpath would make it easier for everyone to enjoy the forest garden.

Noted earlier was some of the verbal public comment.

I think we all received letters of support as well from the DNDA and the Muckleshoot Tribe.

That said, just curious about the broader community outreach and engagement process for this specific plan and proposal.

who was consulted at what time?

For example, was anyone from the Duwamish Tribal Services engaged on this effort?

And I note that Mr. Ken Workman from that organization is here in the audience and chambered today.

So just curious to better understand the community outreach and engagement process for this effort.

On the project itself or on the blanket authority?

This specific proposal that is before us.

So we did not do broader outreach on the blanket authority.

On the project, there was an event in May that I mentioned that was trying to get outreach to the broader community.

In addition, our Green Seattle partnership, it will be more involved if these if these properties are acquired within the parks and recreation system.

And they do a lot of outreach with the Duwamish and other community organizations to meet our restoration goals throughout the city.

So I think they're looking forward to building on that successful partnership, enrolling these acres if we could get them in our system.

Lise, do you want to add anything else about the project?

Yeah, I have a couple notes.

because I asked the Green Seattle Partnership this morning, you know, specifically how they interface with Duwamish Tribal Services.

So they support, i.e., they fund with funds and resources, community stewardship activities in the West Duwamish Green Belt led by Duwamish Tribal Services.

And they also, Duwamish Tribal Services, likewise, supports Green Seattle Partnership Action Planning.

They have a working circle, and this is not my world, so I'm not sure what that is exactly, as a committee member.

So there is some interface there, again, on the specific Del Ridge Native Forest Garden project.

that grant was initiated by SDOT and because it was federal money, the grant had a higher chance of being funded if it worked with a recognized tribe.

I just want to add what Councillor Sacco was saying, that that didn't go unnoticed by us as well.

So I think just to clarify, for the federal grant, we needed to have a federally recognized tribe, which is no disrespect to the Duwamish people.

but my understanding was is that this doesn't exclude going forward any inclusion and discussion and consultation with every community including the Duwamish folks.

That was my understanding and that was what I understood from central staff as well.

Absolutely, and we already have a good connection with the Duwamish community organizations through the Green Seattle partnership, and I think they look forward as we get more acreage in this area to expand that partnership.

Right, and I think what we're trying to be careful here is that the City of Seattle isn't trying to bestow on anyone any recognition or non-recognition.

This is purely the four acres and getting the money to protect this, and we will continue to work with, as we have with other groups, including the Duwamish folks, on this piece of property.

Yeah, and so sometimes it gets a little tricky there because Tribes have different opinions about things, and I just don't want to go on the record as thinking one is more important than the other.

It was just for this federal grant purposes, the federal recognition, which would require, under federal law, consultation.

And that was required of us by law.

So go ahead, Kaspar Sok.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Well put.

Well said.

Really appreciate the clarity.

from you, Madam Chair, and then the team here.

So because of the hook, the federal hook here, needing at least initial consultation with a federally-recognized tribe that doesn't preclude us, nor should it preclude us.

In fact, I would strongly encourage you all to engage with all community, including members of the Juwan West Tribal Services.

Please see them, check in on your way out, say hello, on a going forward basis as well.

For those reasons, I'll be supporting this today and looking forward to your strong, robust engagement with all communities and organizations.

Thank you, Councilman.

Oops, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Councilman Hussaka.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to first, again, thank you everyone for presenting.

I also wanted to thank Mr. Workman from Duwamish Tribal Services and the Duwamish Tribe for being here.

It's really important for your representation and to come into chamber where you're welcome.

and I also welcome this effort for the Delridge Native Force itself and the Blanket Authority piece here, so thank you for coming.

statement slash comment relates to, and I do appreciate, you know, Portal Park is like another example of an acquisition as we keep acquiring different lands.

And I know there's a few others out there as well that are being contemplated or in various levels of development, you know, the long-term ability to maintain.

I think about Elliott Bay connections.

I love the fact that Melinda French-Gates and Ms. Scott came in and did what they did.

That's absolutely unbelievable.

And there's an operating support system transition, not unlike, by the way, Memorial Stadium and the Memorial Wall in terms of one roof and that five-year transition, too.

But at some point, these come back to us to own and operate, basically.

and so we have to have that capacity, that's my favorite word of today, to take them on and we have to plan for that.

So my question, that's a bit of a statement, but a question at the end saying, are we in a good position as a Parks Department, Metropolitan Parks District to take on these, in the longer term, medium and longer term, to take on these acquisitions and maintain them and I say this partly because of my experience with the East and West Green Belts, which are very much a challenge.

So, Ms. Finnegan?

I think in this particular case, because there already is a community coalition that wants to be in the spaces, dedicate their time and energy to restoring this land, feel strongly that this is an area that we can bring under our existing systems, including the Green Seattle Partnership, and make successful.

Does that mean every day there won't be some issue that we have to deal with?

No, but we will work through that process.

I think it's a great point, though, as our acquisition program overall and as we think about what other places we're seeking acquisition to make sure that there's going to be active and robust use and that we can develop the parcels and all of those things that come with acquisition.

So, you know, we're just moving to some development of our other land bank sites.

We talked about yesterday with A.B.

Ernst, so I think as we continue to do this, it is something that we're mindful of and We're trying to have a systematic look at that with each cycle of the park district and what sites have we brought in, what do we need to do about them, how do we learn from what we're experiencing currently as stewards of a park system.

So I just want to wrap this up with, I think we can't, let's not see the forest through the trees here.

The goal here is for permanent preservation and expansion.

Nobody's giving away anything, no one's giving up anything, no one's saying one group is more important than the other.

its permanent preservation and expansion of the Dell Ridge native forest, continue to engage with community, be as inclusive as possible.

So that's what I wanted to end with and that is the actual text of the ordinance that's before us which is three pages long and it's pretty clear about that.

Okay, so are we ready to go?

Looks like we're good.

All right, so with that, first of all, thank you guys.

and let's go ahead with, let's see, no more questions.

Okay.

I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 121230. Second?

Can I get a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

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

Are there any further comments?

Not seeing any.

All right.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Vice Chair Kettle?

Aye.

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor.

Thank you.

The motion carries and Council Bill 121230 will be sent to the June 23rd full council meeting.

All right.

That being said, let's move on to our last two items and Clerk, will you please read items nine and 10 into the record?

Thank you, Seattle Parks.

Agenda items 9 and 10. Resolution 3-2-2-1-0 and Council Bill 1-2-1-2-3-1 relating to the City Light Department.

A resolution adopting a 2027 through 2032 strategic plan for City Light and endorsing the associated rate path.

and an ordinance establishing new retail rate schedules, establishing new retail rate schedules, customer class and conditions of service for data centers who electricity demand constitutes a new large load, modifying customer charges for service connections, modifying customer eligibility for residential rate assistance and augmenting the rate stabilization account mechanism.

There will be briefing.

Thank you, so let me make a few before you go back again and introduce everybody.

I see there's some new folks up here.

So you have a 23-page high-level presentation and after which I'm gonna ask my colleagues if they can just hold their questions to let them get through this because the committee members, you're gonna be allowed to submit written questions to our office and the deadline for that again is June 24th.

City Light will respond with a memo on June 30th and an in-depth presentation will be on July 1st where committee members will be able to ask follow-up questions.

Then we will have a third meeting about the rates ordinance on July 15th, and then we will have a vote then.

So this is three meetings to lead up to the vote on July 15th.

You'll have an opportunity, of course, to submit written questions and let Seattle City Light Respond not just to the strategic plan but to the retail rate ordinance and so we are not voting on this today We are going to just hear your presentation and again afterwards I'm guessing my colleagues are gonna have a lot of questions.

So with that I'll let you do your Introductions and walk us through your PowerPoint.

All right, thank you Rob Santoff intern general manager and CEO at Seattle City Light

Angela Bertrand, Manager of Strategic Planning and Organizational Performance.

Kirstie Granger, City Light Chief Financial Officer.

Leo Lam, City Light Review Panel Chair.

Eric McConaughey of the Council of Central Staff.

Okay, good afternoon.

Thank you for being here today, Chair Juarez and committee members.

Thank you for the opportunity to present Seattle City Lights 2027-2032 strategic plan and accompanying rate ordinance.

Today we'll provide a brief overview of the plan's goals, the investment priority it supports, and the customer electric utility rates necessary to keep the utility safe, reliable, affordable, and prepared for the future.

I also want to welcome Leo Lam, the Chair of City Lights Review Panel, who will be sharing an important perspective of the Review Panel, who worked hand in hand with the utility over the past two years and developed the 2027 to 2032 Strategic Plan and Rate Ordinance.

This six-year plan reflects extensive outreach, operational analysis, and financial planning.

It outlines the utility's roadmap for modernizing infrastructure, strengthening system resilience, improving the customer experience, and supporting the City Light's clean energy and electrification objectives.

In addition to the collaboration with the review panel, this plan reflects feedback from thousands of customers, community members, and employee stakeholders.

Their input shaped the priorities and identified where the utility can improve safety, reliability, equity, and operational transparency.

The rate ordinance supports the strategic plan by providing stable, predictable resources necessary to deliver these investments.

The proposal balances affordability with essential system upkeep and ensures the utility remains financially healthy while maintaining service expectations.

We understand the rate increases are difficult for our customers and we remain committed to reducing cost pressures wherever possible and strengthening assistance programs for income eligible customers.

We look forward to working collaboratively with the Council as you review the Strategic Plan and the rate ordinance.

Today's presentation is intended to support your deliberation and provide clarity on the utility's long-term direction and resource needs.

I will now hand it off to Angela Bertrand, Strategic Planning and Performance Manager, Kirstie Granger, Chief Financial Officer, and Leo Lamb, Review Panel Chair.

Thank you, Rob, and thank you, committee members.

I am excited to share our proposed 2027-2032 strategic plan as a result of more than two years of work with our leadership, teams, and community.

This is our eighth plan with our first being in 2013. On this slide you can see the years where we have presented full plans on the top with the updates on the bottom.

Full plans include extensive outreach and work with leadership to develop while updates track progress and share any pivots.

Both plans, full and updates, include a retail rate path and are developed in partnership with the review panel.

This is a full plan.

Throughout development, we worked closely with the review panel.

They are made up of nine members representing City Lights customers and partners.

Their role is to guide and provide input on strategic planning, financial planning, and rate proposals.

They also assess our strategic plan and provide an opinion before it goes to the mayor and council for approval.

Each panel member has a specific audience they represent.

Today we are happy to have the current chair, Leo Lamb, to share the review panel's support of the proposed 2027-2032 strategic plan and rate ordinance.

Leo?

Thank you for having me here.

I want to begin with the most important point.

The City Light Review Panel unanimously endorses the 2027-2032 strategic plan and the associated rate path.

Our full letter explains why.

This support comes after two years of monthly meeting, detailed analysis, and frank conversations with CD Light leadership.

I'm here representing this group and will highlight observations that led to this endorsement.

City Light is facing significant issues and industry disruptions.

The new load forecast shows City Light has a risk of being short on power supply.

The panel asks that new supply additions to be carefully planned and agrees that the financial and reliability risk of being short on power are way greater than the risk of having excess power.

Reliability is slipping in part due to direct buried underground cables and the cost of maintenance is increasing through inflation on key materials including steel, copper, concrete and wood poles.

Recognizing this necessary increase is a heavy lift for customers.

The panel recommended clearer communications about why rates are rising and when customers expect surface improvements.

We also support changes to the RSA structure and expansion of the utility discount program to better protect vulnerable households The proposed strategic plan and rate ordinance provide the necessary response to ensure reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity now and in the future the utility is playing catch-up on technology and distribution infrastructure.

This plan targets reliability through the replacement of failed assets and secures long-term cost-stable resources that ensure we have the power to meet growing demand.

City Light has begun offering a time of use rate option for customers, which you know, which encourages the shifting of energy-heavy tasks to off-peak hours to lower bills and prevent infrastructure strain.

We scrutinized these solutions carefully and asked very hard questions.

and while we would prefer a lower rate increase, we concluded that the proposed increases are necessary for the next two years.

It is also important to note that City Light's rate increase is less than peer utilities.

Based on our many hours of conversation at the review panel meetings, we trust that this proposed strategic plan will ensure customers have improved reliability through fewer outages and shorter duration.

stability in long-term power supply, and technology supporting more efficient internal processes as well as streamlined customer processes, like the one that Councilmember Strauss discussed earlier about batteries.

While this increase is materially higher than prior plans, it ensures our infrastructure continues to meet the city's needs into the future, reducing the risk of sudden price shocks.

On behalf of the review panel, I urge you to pass this strategic plan and rate ordinance out of committee.

These pieces of legislation are essential to ensuring safe, reliable, affordable and forward-looking electric services.

Thank you.

Thank you, Leo.

Our proposed plan represents a shift.

Rather than centering on individual initiatives, we're organizing around the results we know we must deliver.

This outcome-focused approach keeps us driving towards what matters most while allowing flexibility to adapt as conditions change.

Each of these focus areas includes midterm outcomes and a 10-year roadmap that helps us anticipate challenges and opportunities.

These six focus areas are reliability, customer experience, power supply, sustainability, and then workforce and technology, which are woven throughout.

These both drive and support progress in every area.

As a part of this shift, we're strengthening the connection between strategic planning and our core business processes.

We're integrating organizational performance reporting to ensure accountability on strategic work through executive outcome reports and leadership goals.

We're building ongoing work planning cycles to enable clarity and alignment across years, and we're coordinating with the budget process to ensure we fund our priorities.

To build this plan, we engaged with more than 2,650 people, representing a diverse cross-section of residential and business customers throughout our service area.

We also reviewed 10 recent engagement reports, including the Seattle Comprehensive Plan, to incorporate previous customer input into our strategic planning processes.

We attended 17 community events, reaching residents throughout our service area, including every council district.

We hosted 25 community and stakeholder conversations, including with the Indigenous Advisory Council, Northwest Energy Coalition, key customers, and our franchise cities.

We engaged with 20 language communities with the help of the Department of Neighborhoods community liaisons.

Through this engagement, we built a shared understanding of community priorities.

We discussed rising demand, changing weather patterns, aging infrastructures, and escalating costs while hearing directly from our customers about the challenges that they are facing.

We also incorporated insights from our residential customer satisfaction survey, customer participation insight study, and a three-day online focus group.

Three themes were consistent across engagement.

First, electricity is essential.

Our customers count on us to run their lives.

Then, reliability, affordability, and environmental responsibility must be balanced.

Finally, solutions must be co-designed with those most impacted.

We also heard the importance of connecting our work to the values we share with community.

These include public health, safety in the environment, and support so everyone benefits from the region's energy transition.

As we do this work, community members want us to take a systemic approach and engage with them to co-design solutions.

As we implement our strategic plan, they asked us to expand education and awareness through culturally relevant community engagement, connect with the youth and promote green jobs, and partner with community-based organizations.

Achieving these outcomes requires working across silos and improving coordination throughout the utility.

With this strategic foundation in place, I'll hand it over to our CFO, Kirsty Granger, to discuss our financial path forward.

Thank you.

All right, so the chart on this slide depicts City Light's rate path, the blue bars represent historical rate changes, and the gold ones are future increases.

City Light's strategic plan recommends a rate increase of 9.5% for 2027 and another 9.5% in 2028. It also projects increases in the 7 to 11% range for 2029 through 2032. and we know that this is going to be a significant ask of our customers and want to assure you we do not make it lightly.

We have been working on this proposal for two years.

It is based on extensive analysis, forecasting and planning and our goal here is full transparency.

The strategic plan includes an appendix that documents all the financial assumptions for this rate proposal.

It's a part of the legislation and we're going to walk you through drivers today and we anticipate that you will have questions and you should This rate increase represents a significant investment in Seattle's energy future, and we want every rate payer and every stakeholder to understand why now is the right and necessary time for this investment.

Next slide.

Karsten here?

Kirstie?

Did I get that wrong?

The person that wrote the summary and fiscal note?

Karsten Kroff?

Oh, Karsten.

He's our financial planning and rates manager.

He's offline today, but I think we're planning to bring him for the questions once, because he's the technical expert on our proposal.

Thank you.

I'll break my own rule again, because I got back just in time, because it was page 11 and page 13 that I had flagged, and then also the UDP, but we'll get to that in a minute.

Got it.

When I went through all of our documents here and the summary and fiscal note, I figure there's going to be a lot of questions about that.

Thank you.

Okay, so thank you.

All right, so this slide summarizes the five main driving factors for why a 9.5% rate increase is needed.

So first, the way that we use electricity is changing.

We've got more electric vehicles on the road every day.

This includes fleets, buses.

and we're also seeing more heat pumps in home and businesses.

And so this shift to powering our vehicles with electricity, heating and cooling spaces with electricity, this goes far beyond organic economic growth.

This is a sea change and it's working to shrink our carbon footprint, but at the same time, it's also stretching our power supply and electric grid.

So as you heard from our IRP presentation, we anticipate that we will need more power and we are anticipating higher cost for this power supply because City Light needs new clean resources and transmission.

We'll be competing with other utilities for those resources and the price tag will likely be higher than today's resources.

At the same time, the operating costs for our legacy hydropower resources are also going to grow.

We're projecting that the new operating license for the Skagit dams and for a new Bonneville power contract will also add to our power supply costs.

When is the new Bonneville power contract anticipated?

It goes into effect in, sorry, when does it start?

Because we just signed it.

It goes, oh, I think it's a fall of 2028. You can just come back to us.

I want to make sure.

Oh, the power supply people all left.

Yeah, we can get that for you.

So third is a need to make investments in our grid to both increase capacity to meet demand and also catching up on deferred maintenance.

We are seeing that our outage numbers are starting to reflect the impacts of an aging grid and we know that, and you've probably heard from some of your constituents, that customers in certain neighborhoods are starting to experience really bad power outages.

Last year, Andy Strong, who's City Lights officer in charge of engineering and capital infrastructure, he was here at council talking about the state of our grid and the critical need to start investing more in its upkeep.

That would be Pinehurst and Queen Anne.

Yes.

For sure.

And others.

Yeah, but I'm just, that's who we hear a lot from, so.

Yes.

Okay.

Technology is another area where City Light needs to invest.

With growing demand and limited generation and transmission, we need to invest in foundational technology so that we can prepare for a more dynamic and flexible energy future.

So this is shaving down peak use, investing in rooftop solar batteries.

These are all effective strategies for avoiding costly grid capacity expansions and, you know, peak market prices.

And so we're looking to a future where we want to have a grid where power flows two ways.

And this is going to require tools like DERMs, as we mentioned during the IRP presentation.

There's all of these time of use rates, all of these strategies for shaving peaks rely on technology.

We also want to use technology to deal with outages better.

So this might look like having sensors and switches on our lines so that we can find and fix outages faster.

And if we do have an outage, we would love to be able to text a customer and say, hey, we know your power's out, and here's an estimate for when you can expect it to come back on.

So this is technology that we want to invest in.

And then finally, fifth, and this is listed last, but it is a large factor, we are seeing big impacts from inflation.

Costs are rising, and frankly, our rates haven't kept pace.

Over the last five years, prices for electric parts and materials increased by nearly 40%, and this reflects a super tight supply chain, tariffs, prices for raw materials like copper and wood are skyrocketing.

and also we are looking to keep pace with wages.

This is a factor in recruitment.

We need to maintain competitive in recruiting, especially for the skilled trades and the people who are doing work out in the field every day.

All right.

Here's the fun part.

So that summarizes the resolution.

And then moving on to the rate ordinance.

So the rate ordinance has four main components.

First, it implements in our rate schedules the 9.5% rate increase called for by the strategic plan.

And then there's also three important policy changes in this ordinance.

First, there's a new rate that would apply to data centers.

We're proposing to expand the rate stabilization account and also broaden utility discount program eligibility.

I want to start with talking a little bit about how a residential customer might see what a 9.5% rate increase would look like on their bills.

So this slide summarizes the rates as they would appear on a customer's bill for if you are in the city of Seattle.

And then there's a table summarizing bill impacts at the bottom.

So depending on consumption, a customer would expect to see their bill increase in 2027 between $6 and $14 per month.

and we recognize that we've got very diverse use of electricity, so we have a table here that summarizes different impacts.

All right, moving on.

So taking a step back, this table summarizes the rate impact for all customer classes, including all of our commercial customer classes.

And the bottom line here is that not all customers will see their bill increase by exactly 9.5%.

The rate ordinance incorporates adjustments to cost of service and rate design, and these are all aimed at ensuring that customers are paying their fair share of costs.

So this table summarizes average increases by different size business and customer classes.

The general service are close to 9.5%.

The network are going to see lower than average increases, and this is due to Flatter cost growth in the downtown network compared to the rest of our grid.

But I want to note that the rates in the downtown network are still much higher than for other customers because the downtown network reflects a premium service.

And then finally, streetlights.

And this is something that will impact the city's general fund.

Streetlight rates are expected to increase, are projected to need to increase significantly.

And this reflects steep costs in maintaining streetlights.

This is both related to installing new lights in neighborhoods to support public safety, but also maintenance challenges related to copper theft and vandalism.

and we're happy to dive into any details on that at the next meeting if you have questions.

So this is a quick slide that summarizes some rate increases at neighboring utilities and comparing them to City Light.

Over the last four years, City Light rates have increased by 4.5% on average.

This is lower than many neighboring utilities and also lower than our operating costs have risen.

Also, at the same time, we are seeing other utilities, including PSE, who serves the east side and some greater Seattle area, as well as Avista that serves Spokane, have announced that they are proposing significant increases for their customers.

Okay, so in addition to implementing the rate increase, there are three rate-related policy changes in this rate ordinance.

And the first is a policy that would create a new rate class that would apply to data centers that have new or expanded service of more than 10 MVA.

And so the reason for this is that after a decade or more of stable customer base and no new large loads, we are starting to receive inquiries for new and expanded loads.

We've had over a dozen inquiries since 2024, and some but not all of these are for data centers.

So given that Seattle City Light doesn't have surplus electricity or excess grid capacity, serving any new large load will be costly.

And so as businesses are making requests to add amounts of electricity equivalent to thousands of homes, this raises the question, can City Light and should we do what we can to protect residents and other businesses from the higher rates and financial risk from these new large loads, particularly data centers.

So the new rate class we're proposing would apply to any data center with newer expanded service greater than 10 MVA and that's equivalent to about 2000 homes.

And under this policy, the customer would pay upfront for any needed grid investments up into and including a substation We would not serve them with City Lights Legacy Hydro or other resources.

Instead, we would procure different resources to serve them and transmission, and their rates would reflect that cost.

To contain the risk, we would require these customers to sign a contract upfront where they would pay for a certain amount of capacity with steep penalties for overruns.

They would agree to curtail their use during extreme peaking conditions, and they'd be required to invest in conservation and efficiency measures.

So all of this to say, the point of this policy is that if City Light is going to serve a new data center, and I'm aware that there's other discussion going on about that, then we would want to do this in a way where we are ensuring that all of our other customers are not having to pay for this.

And finally, we'd like to note that this policy is designed based on other policies already in place at other electric utilities.

So these new large load policies are becoming industry standard.

Angela?

It's Angela, right?

Or is it Christy?

This is Angela.

I'm Christy.

I'm sorry.

I was trying to remember.

Just quickly, I know that we're going to ask some more intense questions, but one of the things that I'm hoping will be on your PowerPoint if we update or we have some more questions is that we also tackle the issue of not having any NDAs.

non-disclosure agreements.

That's been a big issue with the data centers and NDAs and private companies.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, so that's the data center rate.

The next policy change is expanding the rate stabilization counter RSA.

The RSA has been around since 2010, and what it is is it's a restricted cash reserve that exists to absorb fluctuations in the net costs of our power supply.

The RSA has proven to be a really effective tool in managing this unavoidable financial risk and limiting its impact on our customers' bills.

We're proposing to expand the RSA to manage not just fluctuations in wholesale market costs, but also power purchase agreements, so that would be like our Bonneville contract, as well as variation in retail load.

So the expanded RSA would buffer more risks, and we would also increase the size of the cash reserves.

it would go from 100 million to 150 million and then the ceiling would be 200 million.

The RSA has automatic rate surcharges that would trigger to replenish the cash reserve if it becomes depleted.

We just had a RSA surcharge roll off earlier this year, which was a net decrease to rates.

And under this new proposal, we would shift the thresholds for the surcharges to be 2% at 120 million and 5% at 80 million.

And another key change is that these surcharges going forward would be applied only to energy consumption rates, the per kilowatt rates.

And what this would do is it would shift some of the financial burden from smaller customers, or in other words, residents, to larger consumers, which would be like big businesses, because businesses are really the ones who are consuming the majority of our power supply.

So if we have additional costs for power supply, we want to assign that cost fairly to the high users.

Important thing we want everybody to know is that this RxA expansion will not require a special surcharge and it will not have an impact on rates.

This is something that we can do without doing that.

All right.

Finally, the third thing is that this ordinance changes the eligibility threshold for the Utility Discount Program.

The Utility Discount Program, or UDP, it provides a 60% discount on City Light bills, and for customers who are SPU, there's also a discount 50% on those bills.

Seattle has one of the best utility discount programs in the country, and changing the eligibility threshold from 70% of state median income to 60% of area median income, which is higher than the state, we estimate that this will mean that 31,000 more families will be able to enroll in the UDP.

I just want to note for the record and thank Council Member Strauss and Council President for moving this forward.

I understand that it was in our committee on June 11th and it'll be in committee again on July 9th.

And I think we're going to have a final vote on July 14th.

So yeah, that was in Council President's committee that Council Member Strauss brought this.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

So to close, so City Light is proposing to raise rates because we need to.

Our costs to serve are increasing, and critical investment is needed.

But we understand that everyone is experiencing rising costs, and City Light, we are a not-for-profit, publicly-owned electric utility.

We exist to serve this community, and we want everyone to be able to afford the vital service we provide.

So this is going out to anyone who's listening to this on the internet or anywhere.

If you or someone you know is struggling with their electric bill, we are here to help.

You may qualify for one of our discount programs.

As we just mentioned, we are expanding our eligibility, so it is worth checking online if you qualify.

We also have programs to help you get caught up on your utility bills if you are behind, and we can help you also access state and federal funds.

And then for anyone, we also have a budget billing program that anyone can sign up for this.

It's not income qualified.

And what this does is it takes some of the stress out of not knowing what your electric bill is going to be.

And we also have payment plans available for anyone who's behind on their bills.

All right, so this is the conclusion.

There's these two pieces of legislation, the resolution that adopts the strategic plan and endorses the 9.5% rate increase, and then the ordinance.

And this would implement the rate increase and set rate schedules for 2027 and 2028. It establishes the new data center rate, which would be effective immediately.

It would expand the RSA and broaden eligibility for the Utility Discount Program.

So we welcome your questions and we look forward to coming back here in two weeks and discussing this more.

I bet you do, Christy.

You look very excited about this.

Council Member Kittle.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you Interim GM SANTOF and team, including our essential staff support as well.

The word that comes to mind first is affordability.

and I think of affordability for our residents.

I also think of affordability for our businesses, the commercial piece, and there is the civic, the government affordability aspect to this.

I mean, there's some for ourselves, but the decisions that we make and its impact on affordability You know, one could be seen through this Seattle City Light, which is a government entity.

Seattle Public Utilities on the waterfront.

I served on the Regional Water Quality Committee.

And, you know, what's coming on that front, particularly with, you know, our consent decree on water, you know, clean water for the bay and so forth.

Puget Sound Energy, property tax.

sales tax, public safety sales tax, then we have transit-related sales tax.

The combination of city, county, and state that don't, by the way, seem to be coordinating any of this.

And all these actions have a huge cumulative effect, impact on affordability for our residents, for the people who live here, but also for the businesses.

which then really creates issues for us because that impact on businesses then could impact future revenues for the city.

I just wanted to highlight that because we have ownership.

We meaning the city, the county, and the state.

And I would add the federal government too.

I mean between the administration's tariff policies, the war with Iran, the impact on inflation has been incredible.

The impacts on our revenue has been incredible in terms of the port, import-export and the like.

So we should note that too.

So we need to think about that.

we should ask ourselves why we don't have better coordination between the city and the county and the state.

I mean, the county did its pieces.

And by the way, I usually find out about these things from reading articles in the Seattle Times, which is another issue.

But we do need to have this leadership, combined leadership, that is thoughtful about what each element of government is doing, but apparently does not really reflect in what's happening here.

but you know shifting to the strategic plan and more generally I want to thank everybody for the work and I appreciate by the way that what you're doing and what you're looking to do in terms of impacts.

I saw this on SPU side through the regional committee.

It is very difficult work although on that there was not some best practices at the county level that we had with SPU locally.

That's another point.

So best practices is key there.

But in terms of City Light, you know, the strategic enterprise here, I really appreciate it.

You know, we just earlier had the integrated resource plan.

You know, now we have strategic plan not too long ago with Skagit River Hydrologic Project.

That was huge.

You know, we even had the Washington State Ferries piece here, which, you know, when you think about these numbers, 1515, that's 30 megawatts.

That's big.

So in the issues that you're talking about, expansion.

I'm just reading an article about Harborview and its issues related to electric power.

Talk about another major, you know, in terms of the one slide that you had.

on page, on slide, and by the way, on behalf of the chair, I'd like to say thank you for having your slide numbers.

On slide 12, you talk about electric vehicles and heat pumps.

Well, you can throw in Washington State Ferries, Harborview, I mean, it's huge, and we should have that kind of mindset too, because it's easy to go to EV and heat pumps, but it's really even broader than that.

Climate change, obviously, is key.

Data centers, we talked about that.

Thank you for the work on direct buried cable.

This is something that should have been done 15 years ago, but we didn't.

Talk about, again, local government, you know, government impact.

Decisions made or not made is key.

and maintenance is key.

Redundancy and maintenance are two key elements in terms of how I look at issues, and they're so very important.

So I thank you for all the work that you've done into this effort here.

And then I'm just looking to kind of capture it in a broader framework.

And then, but the onus on the government side, in terms of what we are responsible for.

What's our piece of this?

And again, when I say we, city, county, state, we'll put the federal into a different category.

And so I just wanna say thank you to everyone.

These are challenging times.

This is a time of great change.

These are all massive pieces.

And so I want to thank interim GM Santoff.

We've had multiple conversations.

I want to thank you for your work, and I definitely support you and what you're doing here.

And I think you're doing a fantastic job.

But with that buildup, I want to also add that was it the wisest decision to let go a national leader, Don Lindell, leading our Seattle City Light?

who the laborer was saying is the best leader in 40 years.

So I'll be blunt.

I'll ask the mayor to reverse her ill-advised decision, and clearly a very extremely poorly timed decision, given all these things that we were just talking about and I was stating about.

All that on the plate.

Oh, let's get rid of a nationally recognized top GM.

Poorly timed and poorly advised decision.

Saving grace is the great work by our interim GM and the entire team to include the support, the advising elements that we have.

So thank you because it's needed and I really appreciate it.

No questions here.

I think I said enough.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle, and thank you for being so straightforward and candid.

I always appreciate it about you.

Is there any questions?

Council Member?

Thank you, Council President, and just to say, I think Bob likes Rob because you're from Western New York.

I know that there's many other reasons to like you as well, and the strength of this team through this unnecessary transition over the last six months demonstrates the strength of City Light and I really appreciate you while we watch PSC, Portland, Tacoma all raise their rates double digits over multiple years.

We have kept our rates in single digits and probably below what they should have been with, but it would not have been appropriate to raise them without the strategic plan.

I know that former CEO Don Lindell had a long PowerPoint presentation spanning many committees that we were excited to dig into.

and that unnecessary leadership transition is one of the things that was a loss.

We didn't get to have that public conversation about the hangers on the...

Well, we did talk about the hangers on the transmission lines, but we didn't talk about energy production, consumption, storage, what our local distribution lines need.

There were so many parts of the conversation that have been left out of the public because of the unnecessary leadership transition.

I am here to say just I'm grateful for you all.

I'm not gonna ask many more questions because I'm already late for my next meeting.

I will bring up the utility discount program and I just am so grateful for everyone at City Light, for everyone at SPU working on this.

We would not be in this place today if there was not this intense partnership and the importance of the utility discount program is more evident today than ever before with us going into a cycle of needing to increase rates.

We should also be looking to see what abilities we have for our owner-operated businesses.

These are our businesses with the smallest margins with usually less than 15 or 20 employees because they're not currently eligible, but I can tell you that they are the ones with all of these affordability issues stacking and compounding on them.

Just so grateful for your work with the utility discount program because the families that need it most need it most now because their rates are going up as well, even if they are eligible for the program.

So I've got a lot more questions for you.

We're going to dig into a lot of this over the course of many other committee meetings.

But as I'm late for my next one, I'm going to sign off, Chair, and just appreciate everyone and all your hard work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Stroudsson.

Again, thank you for the UDP and all the work that you did on that.

That was real crucial and very kind, and I'm glad you included all of us in the discussions.

Yep.

Couldn't have done it without you.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Councillor Roussaka.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the City Light team again for being here today.

This is an important topic.

I can't underscore enough the impact of what we're being asked to ultimately approve here on people's everyday lives, affordability.

Won't belabor the point on all the compounding effect of various sales taxes at various levels of government, compounding upon various levies, and it all adds up.

And here we are, yet again, with another increase and at least so it's attributed at least in part because of we kept the rate hikes artificially low in prior years and should have been a little more realistic in prior years about the true cost to maintain the levels of service that people expect and demand of a major public utility such as this, and also plan thoughtfully ahead for the future.

So this is a big deal.

And as we expand and increase the total cost to live in the city, whether now in this case, well, I'll speak now on this, through a significant 9.5% increase on bills, we need to in parallel expand discount programs.

So again, I'll echo, thank you to our colleague, Council Member Strauss and others who have led the work to do that.

but we need to greatly expand, significantly expand eligibility for those programs and making sure that and provide relief to our most vulnerable neighbors who are unable to keep up with the rapid pace of rising costs here.

So we know the sort of justification or rationale generally speaking for why it's needed.

Mr. Lam here from the citizen-led expert review panel, the City Light review panel, I think chair, you're chair of the organization as well.

So really appreciate your perspective.

So just one question.

So we know generally about why this is needed.

Can you help us better understand the cost and risk associated with declining to to adopt these rates.

And this is really for anyone, but especially curious to hear from our chair of the City Light review panel as well.

What if we don't do this?

What happens?

What's the risk?

The biggest risk that the review panel reviewed was the lack of...

We may run out of power, and if we run out of power, we get blackouts.

That's not going to help anybody with outages, etc. and also we are already lagging behind in maintenance and also infrastructure.

Without that, going forward, the future is not going to be great for Seattle.

I'm an electrical engineer.

I was a faculty at UW in electrical engineering and when I joined the review panel, I was actually surprised that Seattle City Light doesn't have a DERM system.

DERMs are absolutely required for a utility of the future.

Without doing that, we cannot have any distributed power plants.

We cannot have virtual power plants called VPPs.

We cannot have battery electric storage systems.

Without any of those, there is no future for this utility to supply reliable, affordable electricity to the customers here.

Thank you.

City Light.

Leo did a great job.

He summarized it very well.

I mean, we don't want to be catastrophic, but we are talking about keeping the lights on.

And we need the resources of tomorrow.

And as Leo rightly put, part of the resources are are not out there, they're here in Seattle.

This means that working with our customers to shave those peaks, if they are interested in it, as Council Member Strauss said, installing batteries or rooftop solar.

And to do all that, we need the technology to manage that.

So it's an investment we make now for the future.

Got it.

Thank you.

No further questions, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

I'm going to round this out and pull up, just very quickly.

First, let me do all the thank yous, because if I don't do all the thank yous, I'm just going to call you.

Thank you, Rob.

I'm just going to call you by your first names.

Thank you, Rob.

Thank you, Angela.

Thank you, Christy.

Thank you, Leo.

And I thank you, even though I have a favor to ask of you, and I thank you, Eric.

Eric's probably tired of me at this point.

You read your letter of support into the record, and I was hoping that you could provide that letter to all the council members.

Not just the committee, and if there's any other supporting documents of the position from you folks.

I wasn't completely aware of your background, though I knew that you came highly obviously, know what you're doing, and the other folks on the panel, or the group as well, on the City Light review panel.

and I think one of the things that I appreciate about being on this committee and now I've chaired it for many years and been on it is that we always have an incredible level of expertise of scientists and electrical engineers and all those folks that are way smarter than me that break it down for us.

And so when I was going through, again, I'll probably do it again, the 39-page ordinance, you know, you're talking to someone who has to go back and remember what a megawatt is and a MWA is and all that stuff.

I'm a lawyer, so I'm more obsessed with words and concepts.

Just for the record, because I think it's so important, even though you did talk about this in your PowerPoint and we've heard it more than once, but I just cannot stress more that the opening paragraph of the ordinance talks about, this is relating to Seattle City Light establishing, and these are the words that I circled for the five purposes, a new retail rate schedules.

Establishing a new customer class and conditions of service for data centers whose electricity demanded, constitutes a new large load to modify customer charges for service connections and to modifying customer eligibility for residential rate assistance, that's the UDP, and then augmenting the rate stabilization.

And so your PowerPoint, if I can give you some notes, if you want to update a little bit more when we start getting deeper into questions, if we're going to do another PowerPoint.

I would really focus on those five areas and what they mean for us plain-spoken people that are still, you know, also for the viewing public.

Because we have gotten a lot of letters and questions from folks on the rate hike.

And you're right, we, as Councilman Sacco was saying, they were, I guess, artificially low and we enjoy a lot of water.

we are moving to electrification.

So we knew that if we pulled it here, it was gonna come out over here.

We knew this back in 2016, 17, 18, 19. So I'm not surprised that this day has come, but if that reduces our carbon footprint, that was our goal when we passed the Green, I think when they passed the Green New Deal back in Washington DC and then the state and then the city followed suit.

So those are the kind of issues that are going to come up and the questions that are going to be asked.

So again, I want to thank all of you and Rob, you're doing a good job.

So if there isn't anything else, I'm going to wrap this up with some dates that I want to make sure that we're again clear on.

So again, committee members, and please send your written questions to Policy Paul, Clerk Paul, in our office by June 24th.

That's one week from today.

Seattle City Light will respond with a memo by June 30th.

So if you get your questions in, they will respond by June 30th.

And they will give a more in-depth presentation based on those questions on July 1st, followed by a final briefing and discussion and a vote on July 15th.

So we have June 24th, June 30th, July 1st, and July 15th to wrap all this up.

And I will be in contact with you folks too as some of the questions come in and we get some more finer points.

I really appreciate that you provided us with the summary and fiscal note.

That's all I was asking who wrote it.

And then going through the ordinance, going again through your PowerPoint, anticipating with the rate hike what kind of questions we were gonna get.

And also of course, the last thing I was gonna say is it might be I don't know if you want to do it offline or in your next presentation, but how is Seattle City Light going to work with Council Member Lynn's committee on the one-year moratorium on data centers and putting together their work group?

Because we've been working with some other groups within locally, nationally, people that are supportive of data centers, people who are not, tribes that have passed moratoriums, some groups that have fought them some people that have supported them and we've been looking at that legislation in those legal cases and looking at their toolkits and there's just so much there and I think my biggest fear because I'll be gone in five months is I don't know how Seattle City Light is going to manage this big thing called AI and data centers and not just the infrastructure but just the policies around it.

And I mean, maybe we need 10 more Leos.

No offense to the rest of you guys.

So that is something that's gonna be on my mind before I walk out the door to make sure working with Council Member Lynn's committee on that, on the moratorium.

So we kind of have a pause to look at those issues.

So we good everybody?

Okay.

So again, sorry to soccer fans out there if I offended them about the sport.

Okay.

Okay, so we've reached today's, the meeting, we've reached the end of today's meeting in the agenda.

All right.

We meet again on July 1st, correct, Paul?

July 1st is our next committee meeting?

All right.

Is there any other further business to come before council, before the committee?

If not, we are adjourned.

It is 443. Thank you again so much, CLC Delight and Parks.