SPEAKER_99

Well, good afternoon everybody.

Thank you very much for coming here today.

The August 8th

SPEAKER_13

Committee meeting of the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee will come to order.

It is 2-0-1.

We've got quorum, three people here, and I will announce the presence of others as they arrive.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_14

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Councilmember Saka?

SPEAKER_08

Here.

SPEAKER_14

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

SPEAKER_99

Here.

SPEAKER_14

Right on.

Councilmember Rivera?

Chair Nelson.

SPEAKER_13

Present.

SPEAKER_14

Five present, or four present, sorry, I can't do math, sorry, four present.

SPEAKER_13

All right, okay, so last week's agenda was pretty heavy on the public safety, drugs, addiction front with the presentation of that auditor's report.

And this week is 100% economic development.

And we have 10 things on our agenda, and they are, first, we'll have a combined presentation from the chair and vice chair of the Seattle Music Commission highlighting their recent work, current priorities and budget.

And Scott Puskwilek will be joining also, introducing the four reappointments and three, no, the four appointments and three reappointments to the Seattle Music Commission.

So that's eight items right there.

And then on the agenda is listed a briefing and discussion on Council Bill 120831, which would make changes to the boundaries of the West Seattle Junction Business Improvement Area.

And this legislation was previewed when we had a presentation from OED several Mondays ago.

And then finally, a briefing and discussion on Council Bill 120827, establishing a music venue parking permit program loading zone.

So, colleagues, if there's no objection, I would like to switch the order of Items 9 and 10 so that we can discuss the music loading zone while Scott and other members of OED and while Estat is in the room.

So, if there is no objection, the order of the items will be switched and Item 9 will be heard after Item 10. Is there an objection?

All right, hearing no objection, the agenda is reordered.

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

All right, thank you very much.

And Council Member Rivera has arrived.

Okay, moving on.

We will now move into the hybrid public comment period and we'll hear items that I just mentioned that are on the agenda.

We'll hear a comment on those items.

So could you please tell us how many people are signed up for public comment?

SPEAKER_14

Yes, we have.

SPEAKER_13

One, two, three, four, five, six.

SPEAKER_14

We have eight in-person public commenters and one virtual public commenter.

SPEAKER_13

Excellent.

We will take the people who are in-person first, and folks can have two minutes.

Roger that.

SPEAKER_14

All right.

Would you like me to read the rules?

SPEAKER_13

Pardon me?

SPEAKER_14

Public comment rules.

SPEAKER_13

Yeah, go ahead and read the people.

SPEAKER_14

Cool.

First up, we got Shannon Wells.

Following Shannon, we have Shana Foley.

And then next will be John Scholes.

SPEAKER_11

Hi there.

Yes, my name is Shannon Wells.

I am currently serving on the Music Commission, and I'm here in support of the Music Venue Parking and Loading Zone Permit Program.

This is an exciting day for the music community, so thank you to all of you for taking this up, and to SDOT and OED and my fellow music commissioners for working on this and engaging the music community.

This is a really important issue for us.

So I have worked in live music here in the city for 23 years.

I am the former AGM of both Showbox venues, and so I know intimately how challenging it is to move vehicles and park them for the daily occurrence to put on live music in this city.

So I thought I would just give you just a brief little window into what it's like for the employees and the artists who come to the venue and why this is so important for us.

Currently, we can only park.

So I'm speaking from my experience at the Showbox and Showbox Soto.

where we were constantly cycling vehicles where we would park briefly, try to unload, have to cycle them out to park somewhere else, we'd bring them back.

We had to have extra employees to create the permits, the way the current permitting system is going, where somebody would need to organize all of that, get the permits, print them out.

We have to put them on the signs.

The signs need to complete to cycle in and out.

We need to hire security to monitor the no parks in the street because people would still just park there.

So then our employees were getting in altercations with drivers who would still want to park there.

And so this was causing a lot of stress on our employees and also on the artists who didn't understand the complexities of what it is like to park downtown.

So they're coming into town and they're like, we don't understand.

Why we have to go park down there and now I can't get to my vehicle during the day and all of this.

So I just wanted to give you a little window into that to say why this permit program is so important.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

SPEAKER_13

When you hear that ding ding, that means you have 10 more seconds.

It's okay.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

Next we got Shana Foley followed by John Scholes.

SPEAKER_10

Hello, I am Shana Foley.

I'm commenting on behalf of the Crocodile Venues in Belltown area.

And I'm also an appointee to be on the commission today.

So I very much appreciate the council taking this under their consideration.

The Crocodile is a venue who's been in town for 33 years in Belltown.

We currently host over 800 arts and music events each year.

And that features both local and national artists.

And just to give you an idea, that brings about 270,000 attendees into our Belltown neighborhood every year.

And we owe that to the artists for attracting those customers into town.

Most of our significant challenges face the daily while welcoming artists.

is reliable and secure parking for our artists that are coming.

Designated parking helps us create a stress-free and safe load-in path for artists, their crews, and also our neighbors and pedestrians by reducing the travel distance of heavy cases and other gear from the curb to the venue.

Permitting these spaces is currently cost prohibitive for many of our neighboring venues and it can have a large impact on both the venue and the artist expenses.

And so we would love to help them increase our hospitality by providing that service to them stress-free and for free, no cost to them.

Arts and culture institutions play an essential role in bringing fans and revenue into our communities.

And we believe that Seattle is leading the nation in hospitality for artists.

Our communities appreciate the artists and their performances, and we can help them to get to the venue safely and loaded.

We've all heard about the joke, if there's no parking, I'm not going.

Let's not have our artists experience that in our city.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

Next, we've got John Scholes.

SPEAKER_23

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is John Scholes.

I'm the president CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association here speaking in support of the West Seattle BIA expansion.

I have absolutely nothing to do with West Seattle and have no West Seattle cred.

I know that they've got a great leader of their BIA in Chris, a great council member in council member Saka.

And I know that BIAs across our city and really across our world have been effective mechanisms to organize businesses and property owners to partner with city governments to make great things happen.

We've been doing that in downtown Seattle since 1999. The DSA manages the Metropolitan Improvement District.

It's been an incredible partnership with the city of Seattle in activating our parks and public spaces and bringing more artists and music downtown and employing people off the streets and out of the criminal justice system.

It's an incredible success story, and the success story is played out in other neighborhoods in our city from Ballard to Soto up on 15th.

in Capitol Hill and in West Seattle.

So I urge you to consider the expansion before you today and to support it.

And thanks for your support of our renewal and reauthorization in May of 2023. And thanks to Shannon for all the incredible shows she's booked at the show box that I've had the opportunity to go see.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you for showing some BIA solidarity there.

SPEAKER_14

All right, our next three in-person public commenters will be Mike Stewart.

Following Mike will be Becky Gilley, and then Keith Edwards.

Mike?

SPEAKER_06

Hey, good afternoon, Chair Nelson, members of the committee.

My name is Mike Seward.

I'm Executive Director of the Ballard Alliance BIA in Ballard here today, speaking in support of Council Bill 120831 that will modify the West Seattle Junction parking and business improvement area boundaries.

So the Ballard Alliance is the program manager for the Ballard improvement area, which has been working successfully to respond to the needs of property owners, business owners, residents, and visitors since 2017. Our mission is very clear to ensure that Ballard is a vital and unique and thriving district and the creation of our improvement area as well as last year's expansion and renewal has been really fundamental to our success.

The same applies to West Seattle Junction Association.

Chris and her team are have been working tirelessly to implement critical programs for West Seattle, including clean and safe programs, beautification initiatives, and a robust slate of events that are absolutely beloved by the West Seattle community.

The proposed expansion is modest in scope and will allow the organization to extend its services to an expanded geography that's really reflective of the development that has happened in the area.

And I'm here today to ask and encourage you to approve this proposal.

And by so doing, also help support the continued success of her organization and also the benefit of the broader West Seattle community as well.

So thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_13

Thanks for coming out.

SPEAKER_14

All right, Becky Gilley.

Following that will be Keith Edwards.

SPEAKER_01

Good afternoon, my name is Becky, and I'm the Outreach Supervisor with REACH and Evergreen Treatment Services for District 1. My team serves people experiencing homelessness in West Seattle.

I'm here to speak in support for expanding the boundaries of the Junction BIA.

Over the past few years, we've appreciated building up the relationship with the BIA, as well as Council Member Salka's office, as it has led to increased communication with retailers and neighbors.

The relationship has also increased opportunities to identify high-needs community members and make referrals for them into shelters, tiny homes, and housing.

We've appreciated the BIA's commitment to education and learning opportunities for local businesses, including training for de-escalation and administration of naloxone, a life-saving overdose reversal medication.

Expanding the BIA boundaries will create more opportunities for neighborhood communication and coordination with service providers.

We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Junction to build out support.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we got Keith Edwards.

SPEAKER_04

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm Keith Edwards.

I'm the owner of the Joint Chiropractic in the Junction.

And I'm a rate payer, and I support the Junction BIA.

For a business like ours to be successful, it's imperative that we maintain a vibrant and thriving community for all, one that is clean, beautiful, and safe.

West Seattle Junction BIA has been a tremendous leader in the work.

They also have worked hard to help us market our business through innovative campaigns, such as their Best Day Ever videos and supporting us in their e-news, which also helps us to connect with the community very successfully.

In my view, our community is strong and healthy because of the work of our BIA.

I appreciate that we have our own security and cleaning teams, If something happens, I know there's someone I can call.

That is why we support the West Seattle BIA expansion.

And I encourage you to do the same today through a positive vote supporting this legislation.

Seems like kind of a no-brainer.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

And the last three in-person public commenters will be Stephanie Seaton, Lauren Lundberg, and Alex Zimmerman.

SPEAKER_26

Hi there, so my name is Stephanie Seaton and I'm here on behalf of Equity Residential Properties and as a proud member of the West Seattle community.

I'm thrilled to support the proposed expansion of the business improvement area in the West Seattle Junction Association.

This expansion is an exciting opportunity to ensure our community continues to thrive and to meet evolving needs of our residents and businesses.

By expanding the BIA, we'll have more resources to uplift our local businesses, the true heart and soul of West Seattle.

With more beautification projects, enhanced street cleaning, and vibrant public art, our community will become even more inviting and inspiring.

We'll also see improvements in safety and accessibility, making the Junction a welcoming place for everyone.

This includes teaming up with local law enforcement and private securities to support our small businesses and keep our neighborhoods safe and secure.

This expansion isn't just about boosting the economy, it's about nurturing a community where residents, businesses, and visitors can thrive together.

I urge the City Council to support this legislation as it'll provide the necessary tools to ensure West Seattle's continued vitality and growth.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

SPEAKER_14

Next, we got Lauren Lundberg, and following Lauren will be Alex Zimmerman.

SPEAKER_00

Great, thank you.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Lauren Lundberg, and I am the deputy director at the Soto Business Improvement Area, and my comments today are in support of the expansion of the West Seattle Junction parking and business improvement area.

Business improvement areas are sustainable and equitable funding mechanisms creating opportunities for geographically-based communities to invest in the improvements they want to see.

Modifying and expanding the boundaries of the West Seattle Junction Association will allow for the BIA to do more to make the junction a safe, clean, inviting, and vibrant neighborhood.

Chris and her team have done incredible work through their fantastic events like Summerfest and Art Walk to their economic development support and advocating for the neighborhood in all realms.

With this expansion, they'll be able to do so much more.

Thank you for this consideration.

I do hope you all pass this bill for the West Seattle BIA expansion.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

And the last in-person public commenter will be Alex Zerman.

SPEAKER_13

You are engaging in abusive language, which is considered disruptive behavior, which is grounds for asking you to stop talking and take your seat.

SPEAKER_03

You want to talk to me, talk for yourself.

SPEAKER_13

Please have your seat.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, when you want to talk to me, talk.

Security, please.

Talk to your time, not to mine.

SPEAKER_13

I will let you continue.

SPEAKER_03

speaking on an item on the agenda, and if you engage in more...

Oh, I will speak, but I only want to explain to you.

You want talking to me?

Talk to your time.

Why are you talking to my time?

When you stop on this trick, one-minute trick not enough, so right now you make another trick?

What has happened?

I will come tomorrow and talk to you again, not matter what.

When you stop acting like a Nazi pig, when?

It will be.

Are you boring?

Like generic Nazi...

Stop.

SPEAKER_13

Please have your seat.

SPEAKER_03

You did this then, so you're a criminal.

You want change?

Talking, talk to your guy, not my guy.

SPEAKER_14

And that concludes in-person public comment.

SPEAKER_13

Please move on to the online.

SPEAKER_14

All righty.

Next, we'll have our one virtual public commenter, Chris Woodward.

Please press star six to unmute yourself.

Chris.

SPEAKER_18

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Chris Woodward.

I represent the Alliance for Pioneer Square.

We're in District 1. The Alliance is a 501c3 nonprofit that helps to work, helps to preserve what makes Pioneer Square the most engaging, authentic, and dynamic neighborhood in Seattle.

I, along with our other BIA colleagues today, are here to seek the support of a Council Bill 120831 regarding the West Seattle Junction BIA.

As other folks have stated, the BIAs across the city, such as the West Seattle Junction Association BIA, are critical to Seattle's economic vitality.

The West Seattle Junction Association BIA will positively, will continue to positively impact that district by supporting the neighborhood's maintenance, improvement, and promotion.

So in closing, I urge you to please support the boundary expansion for the West Seattle Junction BIA.

Thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_13

Okay, thank you very much.

This concludes our public comment period, and we'll move on to the next item on our agenda.

And, well, I'll wait until we can have our clerk read it into the record.

SPEAKER_14

Why don't you go ahead and read items two through eight, please.

Agenda item number one, introduction to the Seattle Music Commission, briefing and discussion.

Following that will be agenda items number two through eight, appointments 02932, 02932, nine three three zero two nine three four and zero two nine three five of Shana Foley, Christina Frappa, Olivia D. Hamilton and Jordan Leonard as members Seattle Music Commission for a term to August 31st, 2027 and reappointment zero two nine three six zero two nine three seven zero two nine three eight of Arda Didi Boo, Keola Kama and Bunny Marie Moore as members Seattle Music Commission for a term to August 31st, 2027 briefing discussion and possible vote.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you for that.

So colleagues, it's a real pleasure to welcome Jason Clackley, incoming chair, and Jessica Toon, vice chair of the Seattle Music Commission, and also Scott Puskwelik to our table from the Office of Economic Development, and he staffs the Music Commission for the city.

And this is the first time we'll have them in here this year.

And it's a pleasure and an honor because music is such a powerful part of Seattle's cultural and social and political DNA.

And it's...

So that, I think, is a given.

Plus, it's personally enriching and makes life more fun.

But also, let's never forget, music generates lots of jobs and revenue for the city.

And also...

economic activity, to say nothing for giving Seattle a lot of street cred.

So you're a very important part of our city, and the Music Commission serves as a liaison between state, local government, and the music scene, and you help inform policies that will help support musicians and, well, And everybody, not just musicians, let's think about everybody who is necessary to put on a show, run a venue, et cetera.

So thank you very much for being here.

I know that you all have day jobs, so I recognize that you took time out from that to be with us today.

So why don't you please go ahead and introduce yourselves, and then you can begin your presentation.

SPEAKER_15

Great.

Excuse me.

Thank you, Council President Nelson and members of the committee.

Good afternoon.

My name is Scott Plooskalek.

I am the nightlife business advocate for the Office of Economic Development, and I am also the administrative support for the Seattle Music Commission.

SPEAKER_17

Thank you.

I am Jason Clackley.

I am the chair of the Seattle Music Commission, also the artistic director of the Veer Project.

So music on music.

SPEAKER_21

Hi, thank you for seeing us today.

My name is Jessica Toon.

I'm the Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Recording Academy, otherwise known as the Grammy Awards.

I am a career-long arts and culture advocate, born and raised in Seattle, never left.

And I really appreciate being part of this commission and really, as you said, Chair Nelson, tying government with our music community and making this a friendly place for artists to live and work and for young people to enter.

SPEAKER_10

Hello, I'm Shana Foley.

I am currently the general manager and a general partner of the Crocodile Venues in Belltown.

I'm also a member of WANMA and the National Independent Venue Association.

SPEAKER_16

Hi there.

My name is Jordan Leonard and I'm the senior producer of artist development programs at the Museum of Pop Culture here in Seattle.

Thanks for being here and looking forward to all the work that the commission's doing.

SPEAKER_12

Hello, I'm Christina Frappia.

I am a production manager at Connors & Company Events here in Seattle and very excited to be joining this commission.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_15

So we're going to start real quick with a presentation from Jason and Jessica on an overview of the Music Commission.

We'll pause after that for any questions that might occur.

And then we'll go into the appointment and reappointment part.

So Jason, go.

SPEAKER_17

Well, thank you so much.

I want to apologize because we didn't bring all of our gear like the Junction folks did.

I will work on the screen printing.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you.

SPEAKER_17

I'll take one.

Something we do teach at the Vera Project.

I should have done it.

But thanks for having us today.

So I'm the incoming chair.

I was the vice chair under Kitty Wu.

And we've asked Jessica to jump in into my role.

So thank you for having us today.

And I'm going to see if I can make this work to the next page.

Anybody?

And I can't.

SPEAKER_13

While you're doing that, I do have to say thank you very much, Kitty Wu.

She really educated me when I came on board and even before I was elected.

She was a great ambassador of the music industry and a mentor.

SPEAKER_17

Yeah.

Oh, we'll do arrows.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Kitty.

I mean, years of service, vital community spaces that Kitty serves as well.

The history.

The history.

We were established in 2010, ratified by city ordinance in 2014, and we focus on industry-wide needs and city support of the music industry.

So the Seattle Music Commission is a group of industry and community volunteer stakeholders assembled to advise the Office of Economic Development and policy related to the city of Seattle support and growth of local music industry and community organizations.

strives to enhance the growth and development, which in Seattle's music sector convey that commitment into the industry.

So there's 21 seats that are represented in a broad range of folks that are coming from different backgrounds that kind of make this whole thing work.

Yeah.

And I'm going to go next slide.

I think I can do this.

Nope, the other way.

Nope, nope, nope.

Okay, here's a picture of a show that has happened at Westlake Park in conjunction with Downtown Association and the work that the DAP is striving to do to make more cool things happen again downtown post-COVID.

SPEAKER_21

So we just wanted to pull out for you a couple of highlights over, oops, we missed one.

SPEAKER_17

I think it was white, let's see.

SPEAKER_21

Well, we know what they are.

I wanted to just talk briefly about an accomplishment that the commission has worked on over the last many years for at least a decade, the City of Music Career Day.

which has really been a pipeline for young people who are interested in careers in music, whether that be from the performance side, the songwriting side, and on the production side.

In fact, it was so successful that the film industry career days shortly followed, adopting the same model, which has now morphed into the creative economy career day.

which really highlights all creative disciplines across our community and fosters industry collaboration and allows these young people to learn from experts as well as meet each other and work on projects together and sort of come up as a class in creative economy.

So it's really exciting to be working with the next generation of folks who are going to propel our ecosystem forward.

SPEAKER_17

Great, and just to speak to some of our current priorities in that way, speaking on that, the next generation of folks, workforce development, huge part of economic development's work is funding organizations like mine and Bubbershoot to really bring the next generation of folks in and give it a call to try making them more diverse and inclusive space for young folks to get into the industry.

These are jobs that pay well.

These are jobs that can keep people in the city.

These are jobs that give a sense of purpose and a sense of community.

And I really do appreciate that we continue that funding.

And this is one of our priorities as it is.

We want to make sure that something that you never think about when you go to a show is everybody that makes the show work.

We love the artist.

We love being at the show.

but we never think about the people that are pushing boxes and doing sound and taking tickets and all those things, just everybody in between.

And that has to be one of our priorities as the Music Commission and as an economic development driver.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_21

So when the Music Commission was formed in 2008, it was at a time when the Mayor's Office of Film and Music existed, and they created a plan called Seattle City of Music by 2020. That might sound familiar to some of you.

And the commission really spent the pandemic years in crisis mode and all of a sudden we realized it's 2023. What's going on with that 2020 vision?

And so we really spent a lot of intensive time once we were sort of out of crisis mode of the pandemic where we were supporting industry, connecting gig workers with resources and the broader ecosystem with information to make sure that they were I mean, our industry as many were decimated by the pandemic.

And so that time was really important, but we also found that it was important to begin again to look towards the future.

So what is the new vision for 2030?

We wanted to acknowledge in that process that the industry, the economy, technology, the world has changed in so many significant ways since 2008. And so we spent some time working with community.

We had a committee work together to sort of go through that original 2020 plan, see what we were able to accomplish, what's still pending, what external and environmental factors had changed to sort of give ourselves a progress report.

Unfortunately, a lot of the problems that existed then persist today, affordable housing, ability to make a living wage and things like that, that really impact our community, housing crisis.

But we, so through this process, we really wanted to make sure we were listening to the breadth and depth of folks in our community, and that what the priorities that we worked towards were fully reflective of the people that are actually living and working in this city.

So we conducted a survey, we held a town hall, we hosted an online community feedback forum, And really just a couple of our top line priorities that were identified by community and that I think we all also reinforce is by 2030, you know, making Seattle a highly desirable place for musicians to live, create, and perform.

Seattle, we vision Seattle as a hub for music innovation regarded internationally as a city where nonprofit and commercial business come together to ensure a thriving and well-resourced ecosystem.

a national leader in music education, professional development, and workforce development that young people can operate and move into creative careers, and it's actually a viable way to make a living.

And also make sure that we're paying attention to music tourism and music discovery.

So our final vision statement, if you don't mind, it's brief, I'll read it to you, Seattle will be known as a global music hub distinguished for its innovation, diversity, creativity, and care for its artists and their livelihood.

Seattle will be a city where artists, businesses, government, and communities work harmoniously to cultivate a vibrant and thriving music ecosystem.

So we acknowledge that's a really tall order, but you also have a 21 person committed commission who represent all parts of this ecosystem who are willing to put in the time and energy to help move these priorities forward.

Then secondarily to that, and I can talk a little bit more about this in our budget presentation, but community engagement is a huge priority for us moving forward.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that later.

SPEAKER_17

Awesome.

Thank you, Jessica.

And we want to talk a little bit about the priorities of the downtown activation plan.

I think it's a lot of people's priorities.

And I think that's amazing.

I, you know, I remember a time when Occidental before the pandemic was just amazing.

All walks of life were walking around having fun.

playing with the crazy giant chess pieces.

It was a really great time, so it would be great to see some of that activation come back.

The downtown activation plan, from our view, means more venues, means more teaching spaces.

It means that maybe there's a hybrid between teaching spaces that are venues at night and teaching spaces during the day with the work of Creative Advantage at Arts and Culture and Seattle Public Schools.

that would get us into the weeds if we got talking about that, and we don't have that much time, but just as an example, we wanna make sure that it is one of our utmost priorities that we're bringing downtown back to itself, but better and with more venues and more opportunities for people to work and for people to play and learn and build community.

These are all things that are a part of that, of what we feel like is a priority with the DAP, if you will, so yeah.

SPEAKER_21

And then one other key priority for us this year as well as next and the following is ensuring that we leverage the opportunity while Seattle is in the spotlight and on the world stage with FIFA 2026. So something that's really important to this commission specifically, but I think, you know, I hope Seattle city as a whole is that we ensure that the breadth and uniqueness of Seattle's music and arts community is on full display during that time.

Particularly with Seattle music, we often get pigeonholed into the Seattle of the 90s, and this commission feels really incentivized to try to showcase what's now, what's new, what's emerging, and what has happened.

The 90s was a long time ago.

I thrived here.

I grew up here.

But at the same time, I really recognize how much things have changed.

And so can a different song be played?

Can we show some different voices, some different perspectives, some different people when we have that spotlight on us?

And not just our local musicians.

I think this is important too.

So we have incredible musicians, incredible producers, but we have really talented craftspeople and laborers from crews to sound engineers to everything in between.

And so we want to ensure also that local talent is hired not just on the front of the stage and on the performance side, but also on the crew and behind the scenes because we have really incredible industry workers here.

And to that end, we have been talking with the sports commission as well as the local host committee to align on goals so that they hear us and understand what we're looking for.

And the good news is we seem to be really aligned.

We were really inspired by the local host committee's perspective on how they wanted Seattle to be showcased and what their plans were moving forward.

And so it feels like we can just sort of join forces there and help support them in the work that they're doing.

We're really looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_17

Thank you.

And then finally, you know, the parking zone legislation, which we'll talk a little bit more about.

But just speaking from personal as a person that's been living in the city for over 25 years, has been a musician touring and home hometown.

Parking has always been horrendous and it is an amazing thing to be able to have parking in front of the venue.

It's safety, it's safety for your gear, your car.

It's just, it's an amazing thing.

And if we do pass this, we will be the first in the country to pass something like this.

And we wanna be the first in the country to pass something like this because that's what we do.

Thank you.

Next arrow.

Okay.

the budget that we have available.

We have $10,000 available, and we thought $9,000 would go to candy.

And $1,000...

Printing out some flyers.

Okay, so $4,500, we wanted to do RFPs for processing and logo and brand identity development.

So that meaning that we need a facelift.

We've been 2010 City of Music for a while, Music Commission for a while.

We'd like to see something that's a little...

little hotter, a little 2024. $1,500 for those branding assets, meaning deliverables.

That means that everything we need from, you know, every file we need.

$2,000 for marketing, public relations, and community communications, which would happen with community engagement and awareness.

$1,000 for printing and $1,000 for contingency, which again could go to candy.

Thank you.

You want to speak a little bit more to that?

SPEAKER_21

Sure.

I'll just say, you know, this branding process, we were really excited by the film commission's process.

And, you know, we've been sort of limping along with some various hybrid logos, an old, outdated Seattle City of Music logo, a non-logo logo for the Seattle Music Commission.

And we found that as we were going through this community evaluation process in redefining our priorities, a lot of feedback we got was, oh, you guys are still around?

Oh, what do you guys do?

And that really sparked this important of getting a tight brand together, making the connection to OED clear, making sure that the community understands what the Music Commission stands for and what it does, and how we can have a two-way dialogue with the community.

We want to be hearing from them as often as we are able to communicate out to them.

which has also been hindered and limited by our ability to have access to any sort of communications channels.

So a lot of what we're excited to do with this budget, and thank you so much to Council for passing it this year, is to be able to codify that connection with our community and open up this two-way dialogue so that we make sure we're in constant connection with each other, we're reporting on the successes, And they are helping us redefine priorities as, you know, they continue to live and work every day, new things happen.

And so them having a vehicle to keep us aware is really important too.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_15

Awesome.

So we're going to pause there and see if there are any questions from council.

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_13

Are you going to try to get me to do that whole thing you do about letting your vice chair have the first...

SPEAKER_25

Well, yes.

SPEAKER_13

All right, go ahead, Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_25

First, I wanted, thank you, Chair Nelson.

First, thank you very much for coming.

Two, didn't come up, but we're well aware of, I'm looking right now, the highlights of previous achievements, the 2020 City of Music Vision, Music Career Days, Industry Events, Mixers, and Meet the Commissioners, Creative Advantage, Experience the City of Music at SeaTac Airport Program, Jackson Street Jazz, Heritage Trail, and Sign Rap, and Pianos in the Parks.

SPEAKER_17

Yes, thank you for listing those.

SPEAKER_25

So just to make sure that those were in.

Thank you.

Really enjoyed the presentation.

I came to the area in the early 90s, so Seattle of the 90s, you know, It's still live and kicking and, you know, really important.

And so don't let it go, you know.

And, oh, by the way, certain groups get a lot of attention, but there's others that don't get as much.

You know, those that started in the late 80s maybe didn't quite make it nationally and internationally, but kind of regionally or maybe a little bit nationally.

So we can feature them, I'm sure.

I love it every time as I'm driving up 05 and I crest a hill.

And if I have one of those bands on the radio, it's just like you see the skyline of the city.

It's just a great, great moment.

And so on that point, don't forget to thank you for all the work related to the FIFA World Cup.

It's going to be a big thing in D7.

My district is going to be having a lot to do in that area.

And as I've told Deputy Mayor Emery and Deputy Mayor Wong and others, being the son of English immigrants, football is big, and this is gonna be a big event for us.

So preparing for that is fantastic.

You know what I really like about this, and this has been coming up lately with me in terms of engagement in the community and the district, is different groups trying to build community.

It could be a church group.

It could be a scouts program.

It could be you have KXP on the slide, KXP, what they're doing with their gathering space.

And so I love having this aspect building community as well.

So thank you.

And that takes a lot of work.

So also thank you in terms of with all you that are volunteering for appointment or reappointment, as somebody who volunteered a lot previously to joining the council, that takes a lot of time and effort.

So thank you for Expending that time and effort a lot of times money as well I really appreciate it because that's what's important to have the volunteerism to have that kind of you know taking the extra step is so fantastic and And back to d7 as your district representative I'm quite aware of the parking challenges at the crocodile China and my team you probably know my district director Rebecca and Duran, so she's been working at it and she's been gaining great skills in terms of working with Estat, who's in the audience by the way, in terms of the signage because it's not just music venues that kind of have confusing signage sometimes, it's others as well.

So we're going to take that expertise and use it to ensure that this first in the nation ordinance really takes off and so so thank you and for d7 again i really appreciate having the crocodile there but big and small from climate pleasure arena to kxb's gathering space and everything in between it's important to support all of them to get the big mix and to create again that community from the seattle the 90s to seattle of today and um and definitely taking care of the nuts and bolts issues like parking, which we will, no doubt.

So thank you very much for coming.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

Thank you for those comments.

While I'm thinking about it, where can the public and my colleagues and anybody else access your new strategic plan and the vision statement that you read?

SPEAKER_15

It'll be on the OED website.

SPEAKER_13

Okay.

Maybe we'll be happy also maybe to...

Perhaps we could add a link in the presentation.

The more places it lives online, I hear, the better it is to find it.

So anyway, thank you very much.

It would be...

I look forward to looking at that.

Just a couple comments.

First of all, the...

I want you to know that you are heard by my office.

My chief of staff, Jeremy, went to some meeting.

You guys were talking about you've got the World Cup coming.

Really hope we get a piece of that pie.

And then Leo Flohr, who's now at the host committee, emailed me about something else.

We said, hey, you should really pay attention.

And he took the ball and rolled with it.

And you're in touch.

And so that's just one example of many that your time is not wasted.

I mean, I do really appreciate the insights and hearing what you need and trying to help.

What is Creative Advantage?

That's my last question.

That's on your highlights.

So what is that?

SPEAKER_17

Yeah, the Creative Advantage program was developed to kind of bridge a gap in arts education that was happening in our public schools.

So arts and culture, stakeholders from Seattle Music Commission and others got together and and talked about how we could provide teaching artists with opportunities to teach outside of school to make sure that there was actual arts education enrichment.

So when that happened, this breadth of program, this huge database of certified teaching artists, folks that have gone through the Office of Arts and Culture, folks that are working with Seattle Public Schools, were able to go out in the community and teach to youth in our communities.

For example, the Vera Project had, just as an example on my end, we worked with Center School, and we did a whole intensive about screen printing.

Screen printing is oftentimes not thought about, but it is a labor art that allows for folks to just get in the moment, be creative in whatever fashion that is, and to create art. that lives almost in sort of a STEAM STEM sort of format.

But this is just one example.

There's dance classes, there's opportunities for other types of fine arts, music.

And this program, which has been funded, has been a huge gap where we've unfortunately lost some of our arts education funding.

So it has been kind of a really amazing way for us to be able to make sure that there's still enrichment for our youth outside of some of the things that maybe sort of exist, but I think we all know that arts struggle sometimes and we need to make sure that we keep our eye on the prize and make sure that arts is still a part of the conversation at every turn, so.

That's Creative Advantage.

It's a really amazing program.

The funding moves around from different parts of the districts every three years, and it is and has been such a vital program, and especially for the teaching artists, working musicians, working artists, folks that are masters in their craft but are great mentors as well to teach youth.

SPEAKER_13

So that's school district funding?

SPEAKER_17

It is.

It's school district funded, yes.

SPEAKER_13

I knew we'd...

Yep.

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_07

The Seattle Office of Arts and Culture implements this program, and they provide the funding to Seattle Public Schools for this effort.

It is meant to support some of the district's arts programming because the district has had to cut, quite frankly, some of the arts programming in the school.

The neatest part, I think, about the program is that it aims to provide opportunities to artists and community to work with the public schools and the students and the teachers because in some instances they're working with the teachers and providing training to the teachers who can then provide the education to the students.

So it's really mainly that.

It's not paying for teachers at Seattle Public Schools to teach the students.

It's really more this collaboration with teachers and community organizations who are doing the actual, providing the arts opportunities to the students.

Does that help?

SPEAKER_17

It's been vital in a lot of our alternative schools, working with young folks in our community that are living within the margins and everything.

These are programs that see the cut first, especially as a person who lives in District 1. We have a lot of folks that have challenges in our neighborhoods, and these are the kind of programs that keep them off the street and keep them going, keep them having some self-worth.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you for that explanation.

It sounds like it has many benefits.

SPEAKER_07

It's been around for 10 years now.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07

In 89 schools.

Wow.

SPEAKER_99

Thank you.

SPEAKER_13

Any other colleagues?

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, thank you, Madam Council President, and thank you all for the work you all do every day and the significant, impactful contributions you make to our local music scene.

And then.

the impact that that therefore has on our broader arts and cultural space so really important work really appreciate you all sharing just a glimmer glimpse of that today and shout out as well to Jason nice to see you again you too community leader in Georgetown and as he alluded to a constituent of mine so nice to see you in this forum And thank you all again for sharing your priorities and kind of work planning stuff.

With respect to the World Cup, it's been raised and mentioned by, you know, my colleague, Councilmember Kettle.

But that is a priority of you all.

It's a priority of mine, Councilmember Kettle, a lot of people, probably every last one of us, to be honest.

And, you know, I know the mayor's office as well, having had some – Great conversations with them directly about this.

And so there's a lot of folks interested in the success.

Matter of fact, I met right before this, right before this meeting, I was meeting with leaders from the GSBA.

Like, lo and behold, this is one of their priorities as well.

And, you know, we have...

We're going to have anywhere from conservatively 750,000 people to up to 1.5 million net new visitors to the city.

And huge strain.

There's going to be some burdens, but huge opportunities.

And our city is going to be on parade.

Lots of eyeballs here from all over the world.

And then, of course, people are going to go.

Our visitors here, they're going to go and tell their friends and neighbors and coworkers, wherever they're from.

about the joy and beauty of the city of Seattle.

So anyways, there's a lot of people who share that priority and we are all in this together.

And then just as an aside, love the comment on candy.

Yes, approved.

All $10,000 for candy.

Thank you.

Yes, I have a sweet tooth myself.

If I recall correctly, Jason, one of the last times me and you spoke, I think you were a new father, and so you were probably eating a lot of candy like I was when I was a new dad, and I'm still doing it, but approved.

Good job.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_13

And that candy budget will renew every year because .

SPEAKER_17

I will follow up, but thank you.

SPEAKER_13

No, no, please.

Yes, go ahead.

SPEAKER_25

Chair, thank you.

Two points.

One, I mentioned about being district and working with the crocodile and so forth, but I'm also the chair of the Public Safety Committee.

And I just wanted to note that I am mindful of the challenges related to public safety and music, you know, in July.

you know, I received a note regarding a Seattle Music Teachers Association sponsored a Bach in the Subways event at two light railway stations, Roosevelt and Beacon Hill.

And unfortunately, an individual decided to throw a chair into the piano, which causes some damage and so forth.

And, you know, one of the things that the individuals were saying about this event were saying, I guess we're all used to this disorder and mayhem.

And one of the my goals, my mission on the public safety front is to create a safe base in our city.

But it's also to highlight the fact that we should not be resigned to these situations and accept them.

And so we as a community, and a council are really working these things.

And this really plays out in the music side, too, because people may or may not want to come downtown to the music venues.

And so we have to do this in point of place, but also in transit.

This was happening in a transit.

It was tied to the transit.

And so I just wanted to note that it is an issue, and we're working it, but it is an all-hands-on-deck kind of thing that we need the community too, the music community to be, you know, part of this too, in terms of identifying, reporting, bring it to our attention, obviously SBD and others as well, but to do that.

And so I just wanted to note that.

And the last thing is to my earlier point about Seattle in the nineties, I currently have Jet City Woman in my head.

And playing, it's in there with a certain silent lucidity.

And so I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_17

You know, Jeff Tejas lives out in Duval if you want to hang out with him.

SPEAKER_13

All right, Public Safety Chair, I wasn't going to go there, but it is in my notes, because we were going to talk about economic development, not public safety, but public safety is the foundation of a strong economy and a strong music industry, and I do have to say that on March, in March 2022, City Attorney Davison organized a meeting with John Richards of but also the owner of Life on Mars, and Steve Severin attended it, and Jason Lejeunesse of Numos, and a whole bunch of people in the Pike Pine Corridor nightlife scene.

And a line, I still remember it.

John said, you know, we lived through the pandemic, and...

all of the loss of revenue.

And I never imagined that I was more worried about repeated break-ins and crime than I was about how we're gonna get through having to be closed all the time.

And so perhaps as a follow-up conversation, I do wanna talk about how, not just how are you bouncing back from the pandemic on all fronts, but specifically on public safety, I do wanna recognize that, yes, that is an ongoing issue.

SPEAKER_17

for venues and for creatives as well so uh i live i live in uh i live with uh my partner is a urban planner for the city so that's a lot of fun i get to hear about a lot of this stuff but i do truly believe that with public safety though it is a very complicated thing one thing that we can do and i think that the pioneer square lines hit it on the nose going back to earlier it's like occidental park before the pandemic tons of people all walks of life folks i've worked in Pioneer Square in multiple types of jobs from working at a cafe, working for DESC, doing frontline work.

I think that visibility is the first and foremost important thing we can do.

And visibility is easy when you have musicians and you have things going on at all times.

You go to Manhattan, a lot of people are out.

People are not acting a fool as much.

But when it's quiet...

You know, I know they act a fool, don't worry.

I know it's New York, but it's like, but the point is visibility can be the first start of building a really holistic public safety plan, so.

SPEAKER_13

Bring those city workers back to work.

All right.

With that, thank you very, very much for this presentation.

You're welcome to stay at the table while we go into the appointments now.

SPEAKER_17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_13

If there are no other comments about this, go ahead.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_14

Okay, well, we seem to have lost our...

Would you like me to try it on my end?

SPEAKER_15

That would be great.

SPEAKER_14

Cool.

SPEAKER_15

I'll just go ahead while Taman is doing that.

I wanted to note that we do have four appointments today.

Unfortunately, one of our appointees is a working musician, and they were unable to get out of a previous commitment to be here today, so they sent their apologies and gave a little statement for me to read when we are doing their appointment.

as to their commitment to the Music Commission.

So I just wanted to let you know why that, we only have three folks here today.

Also, before we start, I just wanted to acknowledge our four departing commissioners.

We've already, thank you for acknowledging our outgoing chair, Kitty Wu.

We're also saying goodbye to our current advocacy committee chair, Nate Omdahl, our current youth and community chair, Paula Madrigal, and a longtime Seattle musician and event promoter, Terry Morgan.

All four served two full terms and were valuable contributors to the work of the commission.

So we say thank you to Kitty, Nate, Paula, and Terry for their time.

Thank you.

Oh, so here we are at the current roster.

Can you go to the, there should be an appointees one all the way through.

There we go, great.

And I also just want to point out on this slide for the council, we are a little heavy on mayoral appointments this round.

This is because the seats are staggered every three years.

The terms are three years, but they are staggered off.

And we just happen to have more mayoral appointees this year.

Next year when we're back in front of you again, we'll probably see the flips.

So just wanted to point out why that was.

All right, so we have four appointees today.

Our first one is Shana Foley.

This is a council appointment.

It is a three-year term expiring on 8-27.

And Shana.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you so much.

I'm so excited to be here and to be able to lend my perspective as an operator of a local independent music venue in the downtown area.

I live and work in the district, District 7. I live right across the street from Climate Pledge Arena, and you can imagine how infused my life is with music.

music and events and activities.

That has really been my career since it's been 20, 24-ish years now in the live music field.

And one of the things that really inspires me is the electricity of our fans connecting with musicians and being able to forget about their troubles for a moment to have...

entertainment and come together as a community.

Live music does not just magically happen.

It takes incredibly hard work by a lot of people, some of whom we've mentioned, the people pushing cases, the people twisting knobs.

And I do think that I will be able to help to lend their perspective to the conversations as well.

We have 200 employees and I have a lot of other friends and neighbors in music as well.

So I'm excited to bring their perspective into the conversation.

I think that a lot of people have such a great deal of nostalgia from the 90s music scene, not just because of how incredible the music was, but because of how powerful the community was.

You knew if you went to a show, you would probably run into a friend that you haven't seen for a while or the same guy that you see at every show standing really close to the speaker that you don't know their name, but you feel better that they're there and you just know that you've got a like-minded individual.

And I want to see our downtown and our Seattle community continue to thrive that way, even though...

it has become more and more challenging in this age where we're mostly linked with each other digitally.

So I'm very glad to be a part of this.

I will also strive to bring ideas forth As a member of NEVA, the National Independent Venue Association, we're very active in seeing what other cities across the nation are doing and how they are activating their populations.

So, yes, thank you so much for having me, and I look forward to providing anything I can.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_15

Our next appointment is Jordan Leonard.

This is a mayoral appointment.

This is for a full three-year term and expirings in 8 of 27. Jordan.

SPEAKER_16

All right, thank you for having me.

I also grew up here in Seattle, in South Seattle, so I know the importance of having viable music education available for young folks to engage.

A lot of my work throughout the years has been working with young people Right now I'm working at the Museum of Pop Culture.

And over there with the work that I do with programs like Sound Off, which is our 21 and under music showcase that we've been doing for 25 years now.

We're working with young artists as young as 13 all the way up to 21 and helping them get the type of resources that they need to enter the music scene.

also figuring out what lane of music scene that they would like to go into, then also giving them the opportunity to perform out and meet many of the folks that are actually on this council, get to chat with them and build community with them and really helping them become the next wave of industry professionals, musicians, and folks who are, you know, making our music scene viable, vibrant, and fresh and very fun.

So I look forward to bringing that perspective of working with young folks and bringing in their insight into the conversation as much as I can and really appreciate the work that this commission is doing and hope to continue to drive that forward.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you.

Our third appointment is Christina Frappia.

This is another mayoral appointment and for three years to August 27. Christina.

SPEAKER_12

Hello.

I am a transplant, not from Seattle, but I've been living here for the last 10 years, all in downtown Seattle, various neighborhoods, and have been involved in the local music scene for the past eight years.

I've started out as one of the young folks and the student that met a mentor at City of Music Career Day, and have since then worked in pretty much every venue in town, starting at the Crocodile and moving over to the Showboxes, working with AEG, and as a promoter in pretty much every venue in town and working with, worked with organizations like the Recording Academy and things like that.

So definitely have gotten a little taste of everything in the city.

And the biggest part was just appreciating any opportunity that was presented for youth, because there was not many, and getting people into the industry and making sure that that community is not only forward-facing to fans experiencing the show, but also amongst the folks working the shows and working the events, and having that community of supporting each other so that it then also translates back out to the fans and the artists as well.

something that's very important to me now and always has been.

I'm working in various events and festivals throughout the city through Connors & Co, who I'm currently employed with.

So it's definitely a wide breadth that it's interacts with every part of the city.

Great.

SPEAKER_15

And then our fourth appointment today is Olivia Hamilton.

As I said, Olivia was not able to be here.

I'll just give a brief background of her and then read her statement.

This is also a council appointment, terming in 827. Olivia is a Seattle-based bassist, vocalist, composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, and multimodal storyteller.

They play for theaters, are a studio musician, and perform with various orchestras, jazz ensembles, and house bands around the Seattle area.

Olivia is also an assistant organizer with Local 76493 of the American Federation of Musicians.

Olivia says, I would like to join the Music Commission to ensure that there is a labor representation from an active multimodal performing artists and artist and AFM member.

I hope that by my contributions, city leadership will be better able to understand the needs, struggles, and realities of working musicians.

And with that understanding, we may be able to actualize and support a vigorous and robust arts economy in Seattle.

Those are our four appointees.

Do you want me to go through the three appointees, or do you want to stop here?

SPEAKER_13

I would just like, since we have the live people that are new, I just, again, thank you very much.

I'm noticing on the roster that some commissions have position titles, that you have to occupy a certain position within the industry or the collective that you're representing.

The Music Commission does not.

However, I'm hearing that it's incredibly diverse.

We've got musicians, we've got event educators, actual musicians, event...

promoters, etc.

And so thank you very much for...

So that's one thing that strikes me, is that we do have a good cross-section of people who actually represent the industry as a whole.

Not just the rock star on the stage.

Anyway, so I just...

One thing that I wanted to know when we talk about venues, one, I am interested, and I've heard this from other people, is that it seems that there is a dearth of venues in the south, in south Seattle, southeast Seattle, and so one area of policy that I am really interested in is finding out how can we incentivize or help the development of performance spaces in that part of the city.

So if you all have anything to help me out with that, I am looking to get some information on that one.

And then finally, I just want to do what every other city does for music better.

And I can't necessarily solve housing prices and the things that really keep you up at night.

But when it comes to policy and cutting hassle and whatever else the city can do to, I don't know, cut red tape or just help, please just tell me.

And that's why commissions are important.

Industry specialists to tell us what to do.

Are there any questions or comments before we go?

Okay, why don't you go ahead and then talk about the reappointments and we'll vote for them.

SPEAKER_15

Great.

We have three reappointments.

All of these are three-year terms expiring August of 27. The first reappointment is Audra Boo.

This is a council appointment.

Audra is a Seattle-based singer, MC, and self-described auntie who features regularly with musicians like Eric Blood, Vox Mode, and Massey Ferguson.

She is currently a member of the New Wave Noir Band Hotels Association, and serves as the Director of the Rain City Rock Camp's Adult Rock Camp.

Our second reappointment is Keola Kama.

This is a mayoral appointment.

Keola is currently the Director of Label Relations and Licensing at Napster.

He was previously the Director of Commercial Global Partnerships at Universal Music and held positions at EMI and Capitol Records and is also a former radio host.

And our final reappointment is Bunny Moore.

This is another council appointment.

Bunny is professionally known as Bunny on the Board, is an audio engineer and teaching artist working primarily with women and artists of color, and is creative director of the record label Pacific Northwest Beats.

She also volunteers with Music Cares, Rain City Rock Camp, and The Vera Project.

So those are our three reappointments.

SPEAKER_13

Great, thank you.

Are there any comments or questions for my colleagues?

All right, well, first I will say thank you again very, very much.

I urge everybody here to read the resumes and you will be awestruck by the talent and background in history and expertise that we've got represented here, again, that you're donating to the city.

So I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 02932 through 02938. Is there a second?

SPEAKER_07

Second.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you very much.

It's moved and seconded to confirm the appointments 02932 through 02938. Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_14

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Rivera?

SPEAKER_07

Aye.

SPEAKER_14

Chair Nelson?

SPEAKER_13

Aye.

SPEAKER_14

Five in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you very much.

The appointments have been approved and I will sign the legislation later.

You are welcome to come or be in the audience or watch on the Seattle channel as you are officially welcomed with a vote in full council.

I was gonna say next Tuesday, but our appointments because what we do in this meeting are too late to get onto the next Tuesday agenda.

It will happen at the following council meeting.

But thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_16

Thank you.

SPEAKER_13

All right.

So we'll proceed to what was listed as item 10 but is now item 9 on our agenda.

Clerk, can you please read that item into the record?

SPEAKER_14

Council Bill 120827, an ordinance relating to music venue zones and their use, establishing rules for parking and loading at music venue zones, and adding new sections 11.14.376, 11.23.425, and 11.72.2552, and amending sections 11.23.120, 11.23.440, and 11.30.040, and 11.31.121 of the Seattle Municipal Code briefing and discussion.

SPEAKER_13

Okay, and Chris, in the audience, I see you.

I apologize for the change in the order of items.

I was hoping that you would get that word in advance, but I'm sorry.

Okay, folks, the proposed legislation would authorize SDOT to designate curbspace as a music venue zone and to issue permits to music venues defined as premises that host live music and charge a fee for admission on at least two days a week.

All right, this is the culmination of 10 years of a lot of work.

And I just wanna provide a brief history before the presentation.

So in 2014, as part of Seattle's City of Music Initiative to support Seattle's music economy and community, SDOT initiated a pilot program to provide music loading zones near five participating music venues.

And this pilot program relied on added signage at established loading zones to signal priority for musicians loading and unloading.

But because it was voluntary and advisory and didn't provide for any enforcement to prioritize musician loading, It had limited success.

And then in recent years, music venues have sought temporary no-parking permits, which a lot of construction companies access, to reserve parking spaces for musician loading.

But SDOT's TN...

program is intended to address, as I said, construction contractors' use of the right-of-way, and it relies on advanced deployment of no-parking easels.

We've always seen those providing 72 hours of notice.

And those are typically rented, and also the permit is let to...

The permit holder is the person that...

actually is the beneficiary of that signage.

It's considered unwieldy and as a means to address the regular ongoing need for musician parking and loading near music venues.

So that doesn't work either.

So in June of last year, I attended a Music Commission event at the Vera Project and several commissioners came up to me and talked about the ongoing need to get this problem solved and I'd heard about it at prior meetings as well.

And so, I don't know, I called up Bill Laborde, who is in the audience over there, and I said, can we just please get this done?

And over the past year, the SDOT has been working with the Music Commission.

I would love to think that it was my pushing that brought us here, but it doesn't really matter, because here we are, we finally have a solution before us.

And I just have to say that...

We heard from public comment that it is very much appreciated.

The legislation was transmitted on July 17th, and a press release was put out, a joint press release with the mayor and me.

And here is my quote.

I said...

Seattle artists need a break.

By making it easier to make music in our city, the Music Venue Zone program will support our local musicians, boost our music and nightlife scene, and help draw performers that may otherwise bypass Seattle venues because it's too difficult to find safe, convenient parking for their gear and crew, et cetera.

So with that, thank you very much for coming.

We've got SDOT and OED at the table here, and I will let you introduce yourselves and proceed with your presentation.

SPEAKER_24

Great, thank you for having us.

I'll start with introductions.

My name is Mike Esty.

I'm the manager of curbside management at Estat.

SPEAKER_22

Hi, I'm Virginia Ndimi.

I'm a strategic advisor on Estat's curbside management team.

SPEAKER_15

And hello again, Scott Pluskolek, nightlife business advocate in the Office of Economic Development.

SPEAKER_13

We also have council central staff here who would be present at the table.

Go ahead, Calvin.

Can you introduce yourself?

And he's been working this issue for us.

All right.

Welcome, everybody.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_24

I'll kick us off.

Thank you again for having us here.

Thank you for all your work and help and support on this, Council President Nelson.

It's a culmination of a lot of hard work by folks at this table who talked in the audience and probably represent a whole bunch of other people.

So it's great to be here.

Just a quick outline of what we're going to talk about today.

Most obviously, we're going to get to the legislation itself and let you know what it is that we're talking about and asking for approval here and describing.

I want to provide a little bit of a background at the front.

First, just about curbside management, something my team thinks about, just a couple slides, but then more specifically, Virginia is going to talk more directly about the proposed legislation itself.

So I haven't built candy in my remarks, but I can probably figure out some way to slip that in there, Council Member Kettle.

So SDOT's Curbside Management Team is a group of strategic advisors.

We're planners, we're engineers, we have field staff on our team.

We take what we think of as a soup to nuts approach to effectively managing our city's curb space.

We used to call ourselves the parking team.

We changed our name to curbside management a couple years ago because it really better reflects our broader role in what we do beyond just vehicle storage.

The curb or the curb space describes basically, this hopefully will sound familiar, the area along the street adjacent to the sidewalk.

It really provides an important space where transitions occur for things like loading for people, loading for goods for business, food pickup and drop-off, solid waste cart staging, and a wide variety of other access needs, one of which you'll hear about soon.

Seattle is seen as a national leader in municipal parking and curb management for taking what we think of as an outcome-based, data-driven approach to curb management.

The decisions we make about how we sign and manage the curb are tied to higher level policy guidance and objectives, such as our performance-based parking pricing program, where we use parking data that drives regular adjustments to parking rates consistent with guidance in the municipal code.

A little more specifically, the curb, it's a limited resource.

It's in high demand, especially in many of our retail and commercial areas.

We prioritize activities at the curb like loading, where there's a more frequent need and demand, where people need more reliable access closer to their destinations, and where there may not be similar off-street opportunities for folks.

And in commercial and retail areas, we also prioritize access for short-term parking for customers and visitors through things like you see here, like signs, and in some cases, on-street paid parking, again, to provide some reliable access for folks, the turnover and access that the businesses want.

We increasingly are describing these as critical building access needs.

It's a term you may hear more from us over time.

It's what we consider when we're making decisions about how to allocate the curb and prioritize the curb and manage access.

in business districts, areas with mixed uses.

We work with businesses and others on these blocks to better understand and address their critical building access needs and those of their customers.

So these can be for things like the ones I've described.

We do outreach to businesses on a lot of these blocks to better understand what their demands are and to provide sometimes context sensitive solutions to what they're requesting.

And that's some of what you're gonna see here today.

I'm gonna let Virginia do the rest of this presentation because she's been the staff person working really hard again over the past year with the Music Commission and others to make this happen.

SPEAKER_22

Thanks, Mike.

So for years, SDOT and OED have heard from venues, from the Seattle Music Commission, that parking and loading are really critical to venues' core business needs, and that our existing approaches do not meet their needs.

We have three main approaches today for artists parking and loading at venues.

The first is venues can apply for temporary no parking permits, or TNPs.

Secondly, many venues just reserve space on their own using temporary signs and sandwich boards.

The photo on the right is a sign that the Neptune Theater has created and just plastered on a bollard.

And then lastly, at several venues, artists are just left to search for loading and parking on their own.

So what that means is that artists are often arriving at a venue and looking for space to load.

They have very heavy, expensive equipment.

We're talking about cases full of amps, guitars, drum sets, keyboards, you name it.

It's heavy, expensive gear that they have to load into the venue.

After a show late at night, the artists are required to remove their equipment from the venue and put them back in their vehicles and leave.

What we've heard from venues is that the existing approaches don't work well for them.

A little bit more detail about temporary no parking permits.

You've probably seen these before on the street.

They are typically used for things like construction staging, moving vans, or special events like parades.

They're used to restrict paid and unpaid parking on an as-needs basis.

They were never intended for ongoing daily operational business needs.

And additionally, they cannot be used for parking purposes.

They can only be used for loading purposes.

What we've heard from venues is that applying for temporary no parking permits on an ongoing daily basis is really time intensive, it is a slow process, it's costly, and it's also incompatible with the unpredictable nature of the live music industry and last minute show bookings.

About 10 years ago, Esta and OED piloted Musician Priority Load Zones at five music venues.

At the time, this was seen as really innovative.

We were actually the first in the country to do something like this.

And what we've heard since then is that this was a great start, but it doesn't go far enough.

First, the musician loading and unloading priority signs are advisory.

They are not enforceable.

Anyone can use these spaces for loading, and parking in these spaces after loading has occurred is not allowed.

We've heard that parking musician vehicles after loading is also critical to their operations.

So over the past year and a half, SDOT and OED have been working really closely on this proposed legislation.

We've worked with the Seattle Music Commission, the Washington Nightlife Music Association, and also local venues and musicians to better understand the issue and come up with a solution.

What we've heard is that parking and loading have a very strong impact on artists' gigs and venues' operations.

We've heard that searching for parking and loading adds time and stress for artists, and that our existing approaches do not meet venues' daily needs for artists' parking and loading, and that parking and loading are critical to venues' core business functions.

This past fall, we put out a survey with OED.

We wanted to hear from more venues and more musicians to really understand the issue.

And that venue was highly successful, or that survey was highly successful.

We got over 300 responses to the survey from 266 performing musicians and 42 venues.

And these responses really highlighted how parking and loading uniquely affect venues and artists.

We got really great quotes like, I often worry about parking as much as the gig itself.

It's a huge stressor for me.

We need room to park semis, buses, trailers, vans.

This makes the music happen.

Taking that feedback, we have developed the proposed legislation before you for the music venue zones.

Our goals with this legislation are to support venues and musicians with easier parking and artist loading.

We want to create a simple process for venues to apply for permits, and we also want to address the unique curbside needs near music venues.

The proposed legislation would formally establish a new enforceable curbside designation in the Seattle Municipal Code.

That designation would be Music Venue Zone.

And it would also authorize SDOT to develop a new Music Venue Zone permit program.

So how would this roll out?

SDOT would issue permits to qualifying venues that apply for the permit, We believe that potentially up to 33 venues would be eligible for the permit program.

Our qualifying criteria includes a music venue must host live music performances and charge admission at least twice a week on a regular basis.

Each venue can apply for one permit maximum and each permit would allow three on-street spaces designated as music venue zones.

We're proposing a $250 annual fee per permit.

Again, each permit allows up to three music venue zones.

On the right is a little mock-up of what that would look like.

Parking and loading in these zones would be allowed 24 hours a day, seven days a week with a valid permit document displayed in their vehicles.

And vehicles in these zones without a valid permit displayed would be subject to citation and impound.

As for next steps, we're here before you seeking consideration and approval of the proposed legislation.

Once that happens, we can continue developing our publicly facing permit application.

And then after that, we can start issuing permits and install music venue zones.

We're here to answer any questions that you may have.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you very much for that synopsis.

You know, normally I don't like to be the first in the nation to do something because I always feel like, well, maybe there's a good reason why other cities haven't done something, and I get concerned about unintended consequences, etc.

That is often the result of lack of outreach to all stakeholders, and it's clear that you've done a lot of for a long time, so I do have to ask, who's gonna hate this, or is there any opposition?

Can you please explain what you think the lay of the land is on that front?

SPEAKER_24

Sure, I can start.

I don't think anybody's gonna hate this, hopefully.

tremendous opposition.

One of the things that we do with a lot of the ways that we manage the curb are work directly with others on a block who may be affected by changes in curb space that we're considering before we make the change itself.

So on blocks where you see a music venue and we start to move forward with the music venue zone, we'll go out and work on the block, talk to the other neighbors on the block of the music venue.

see what they need and try to think about how we best serve the full needs of the block within the space that we have while still accommodating that music venue zone and the need of that music venue at the same time.

So it's sort of a collaborative approach with the others on the block to sort of address any concerns that might come up in the way that you're sort of describing.

SPEAKER_13

Got it.

And I do note that Right.

You've identified 33 locations that would be eligible.

So we're not talking about these are going to pop up and become competition in every neighborhood constantly, et cetera.

So it's clear that this is a very limited application.

And I will say again, I've been a champion from the get-go.

And it really was driven home when somebody told me that there are You know, there are circuits that artists travel when they're doing multiple shows from out of town, artists from out of town.

And as one commenter said, if I can't park, I'm not going.

And when I learned that we are losing artists and performers because we don't make it easy to park nearby and safely.

So I really do appreciate you putting the work into this.

Do my colleagues have any questions or comments?

SPEAKER_07

I do actually, thank you, Chair.

I have a question about, so I'm wondering why, because these spaces would now become only eligible for use by a music venue, and so no one else can park there even when the music venue is not utilizing the space.

So why are we doing that?

as opposed to giving a permit that then for whatever duration that the music venue needs to use that space that day, for instance, can have access to that versus like the permanent for always.

And then because I do hear from constituents across the city that, you know, parking is at a premium in town and many constituents don't want to travel downtown because there's no parking.

And so I'm wondering why that decision versus a continuation of a temporary use that gives priority to the music venue.

Because I am compelled by the music venue having access as they're loading, unloading, and while they're, you know, for that particular event.

But then it creates the unintended consequence then is if there isn't a show in progress, then the space is not really needed.

SPEAKER_24

A couple quick thoughts about that.

I was, and it's maybe an outlier, but I was struck by the comments by Shana Foley with the Croc that they have, you know, on the order of 800 events a year, which is busy.

Everybody's not that busy.

but trying to manage that level of activity on a daily basis, a weekly basis with what is, as Virginia described, a pretty unwieldy process of ordering no parks, putting the no parks up 24 hours in advance as they're required to be and then taking them down might make sense for a construction project that's gonna be there for a week or two and for other things.

for these music venues, that process is just a little too much.

When we're trying to, again, encourage these venues to succeed, this gives them just the reliability that they have at that space.

And again, only at up to 33 locations around the city 90 spaces compared with all the spaces we have around.

And again, I think on those blocks where those venues exist, we're trying to better organize what is probably right now a little bit of a chaotic situation.

Those venues and their musicians are arriving there now in ways that are probably inconsistent and confusing for folks.

This organizes that parking and that loading in front of the venue where it provides the access that those musicians and the others need.

And again, as we work with others on that block with those businesses that might have some issues and concerns, with others who have demands for parking or loading or things like that.

We'll be looking to see how we can accommodate their needs as effectively as possible, as close to those other businesses and locations as possible at the same time.

SPEAKER_15

May I just add on to that?

I would say that in addition to that, just the vagaries of the music industry in itself is very unpredictable.

So the venue, the bands, the buses, the musicians, We don't know exactly, venues don't know exactly when they're going to show up.

There could be a 24-hour cycle in which they're waiting, they're anticipating a tour to arrive.

So it's not like a commercial load zone where you know when you're going to schedule your delivery and you know when that's going to be and you can have that exact time.

These musicians, these tours can show up at any time.

Sometimes they might be showing up at 8 o'clock in the morning.

If they don't get off until late at their previous gig, if they're playing until midnight and they load up until 2 a.m.

and then they have to drive and arrive, they could be arriving any time after 4 and before their performance is set to begin at the venue located here.

So it's just this would give them a little bit more stability in knowing that they'll have these spaces when the musicians arrive.

SPEAKER_07

Although when they're getting the temporary permitting, they could, I'm sure it's not, they can do for, if the event is that day, they're not having, I imagine, to lock into an hour per se.

SPEAKER_15

But they also need to be able to give the permit.

They need to know when someone's going to be there.

So this just gives a little bit more stability to them.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Scott.

My other question is because you said 33 locations have been identified.

So is there some certain limited number of permits that is part of this legislation or is it whoever applies for one would get one?

How does that work?

SPEAKER_22

That 33 number is based on our eligibility criteria.

So those are venues that we know today are putting on shows at least twice a week on a regular basis and requiring an admission, a fee for admission.

SPEAKER_07

So I guess to my earlier point, if they're just having two shows a week, but this is a permanent spot, I'm not understanding why you would need it every day if the shows are only occurring twice a week.

SPEAKER_22

That two show is a minimum.

So we decided on two as our minimum.

SPEAKER_07

Are most of the venues having more than two shows a week?

I mean, what's the actually happening?

SPEAKER_24

I think most of them probably do, and we can probably, you know, follow up and probably provide a little bit more of that kind of information.

As Virginia said, that's sort of the minimum to apply for a permit.

It's also up to three spaces, but it doesn't have to be three spaces.

And it, again, is kind of context sensitive about what the needs of the venue are, what the needs of the block are, how much space we have and driveways and all that kind of thing.

So we are trying to provide the solution, but sort of tailor it to what's going on on that block.

SPEAKER_07

But it wouldn't be limited to the 33. It would just be whoever applies for it.

If they qualify for the, if they have two shows, then they would qualify.

Right.

SPEAKER_24

In our work so far with OED and the commission, it's our sense that that is sort of the ballpark of what we're talking about.

It's possible that over time other applicants could, you know, enter in the city and qualify for something like that.

But that's sort of the scale of the number of applicants we're kind of looking at right now.

But it's not a maximum, but it's sort of...

It's a scale of what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

And I see we have our central staff analyst, Calvin Chow, who has his hand up.

So go ahead, Calvin.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate the point about certainty because I think any sort of other program that could allow other people to use the space, if someone is using that space and they have to be moved, then you are...

setting up a potential conflict that has to be resolved and requires some level of enforcement.

And I think that just makes that much more another layer of administration to the program.

So I think that is another reason to think about something that is more formal and defined and is clear for the public to understand as well.

SPEAKER_13

And just before moving on to Council Member Kettle, I will note that I love streeteries.

I think that we did a great job turning on a dime to help restaurants stay alive during the pandemic, but those structures are also in parking spaces 24-7 when the restaurant isn't open.

So from my perspective, doing a solid for the music industry makes sense in light of how we've tried to creatively accommodate other business uses of our right-of-way.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_05

I think Council Member Saad.

I didn't know who...

Zaka.

You can finish your train of thought, Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_07

Well, I just, I understand that too.

And I've heard from constituents about the streeteries too.

So that's why I'm asking all these questions.

Because when you are speaking to constituents about the policy choices that you make, you need to be able to fully understand to explain why these decisions are being made.

And so, you know, like I said, I always try to ask all the questions up front.

especially about unintended consequences, so that we are doing things that are very well-informed, the maximum we can.

Thank you, council members.

SPEAKER_13

I appreciate that, and I can always count on you to think things through thoroughly.

Thanks, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

All right, thank you, Madam Council President.

And thank you, SDOT, OED.

Really appreciate your time today, this presentation.

So Mike, Virginia, and Scott, thank you.

Great work.

Shout out, Council President, for your leadership on this and our colleagues at SDOT for bringing this to life and kind of teeing it up and tinkering around, figuring out what this could potentially look, something like this could potentially look like in the form of substantive policy and legislation.

And here we go.

Here we are today.

So thank you all.

So I also had some questions along the same lines.

It's like, well, one of my questions was, how could this potentially be abused?

I think between the last couple of questions, I feel like I have a good sense of that now.

But moving on, which leads into my next question, which was mentioned, started to address, but not directly.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

How is the city prepared to specifically enforce this new ordinance.

And what is the intended enforcement approach and enforcement strategy related to this?

SPEAKER_24

So we are in regular touch with our colleagues in Seattle Police Department Parking Enforcement Unit as we pull together legislation and work on policy issues on curbside management and things like this.

An approach like this is actually a little more straightforward in terms of enforcement from their perspective because you've got a vehicle that has a required permit that has to be displayed in the vehicle, which is a pretty quick clue for enforcement, whether that vehicle is supposed to be there or not.

The signs also provide a very clear opportunity for both the public to understand that there is a specific purpose for this part of the curb, as well as for enforcement to be pretty focused on, you know, who should be there and should not.

If there's a vehicle in there and it's got a permit, they're going to be good.

If that is not the case, then, again, the enforcement is pretty straightforward, and we've been working with them so that they're ready for this with the understanding if we come online that this is something that they'll have to add to their enforcement.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you.

And my next question pertains to the qualifying criteria.

And you mentioned it two times per week, two shows per week at a bare minimum.

That's the floor, sounds like.

And so is that a self-certification process by the applicant?

Like, is it a good faith declaration, basically?

Or is there someone that's like, oh, show me your tickets, show me your stubs.

I want to see the receipts here.

Is it really two times?

And like, yeah.

Can you explain a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_24

Sure, I can start in Virginia, feel free to fill in too.

We're still pulling together what an application and a permit would look like.

We've started some of that work, but we're waiting for the legislation to move forward before we got too deep in the weeds.

But thinking about things like that, we probably don't wanna be counting ticket stubs and things like that, but we wanna make sure that the application and the terms within the application are pretty clear about what is required.

so that we can follow up in a pretty straightforward way.

Again, I don't think we want to be out there auditing every night.

We may.

There may be some shows we have interest in doing that for.

But, you know, I think we want to make this straightforward for us, straightforward for the applicant, and make it real.

We don't want it abused, but an application that is clear, you know, and enforceable.

SPEAKER_99

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Well, I imagine, I'm not a music venue operator, but yeah, I imagine that, and if two per week is the minimum, I imagine that there are certain periods that are busier than others, and they might have ten, dozens potentially of shows, multiple a day, and then other periods, they might have one or none in certain instances, and so I'm sure you all will be accounting for that.

SPEAKER_15

Council member?

Yeah, go ahead.

We already, the city already currently has a system like this, which is the admissions tax, which this was kind of based off of where venues already report their calendaring to when they submit their admission tax.

This is on the admission tax exemption.

Thank you.

So we have a system in place already that this is happening.

So we're just modeling off of that.

Cool, thank you.

SPEAKER_24

And the only other thing I would add too, 33 are the ones that we've identified.

If there are circumstances where there are some venues that are in less busy places, they're only operating for a couple times a week, some of these venues may not apply for a permit.

They may be doing fine, but I think for those venues that are in places like downtown, we've heard about the Showbox and the Croc, where there's a lot of competition under the curb, this is something that I think would be valuable for them.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you.

Final comment, if you wouldn't mind turning to one of the last slides right before this one.

Any of them is fine.

Okay, here we go.

So, love the signs.

Shout out to these signs.

I visited the other day, earlier this week, visited the Sunny Gym, SDOT facility, where...

The city produces signs and signals and amongst other things, sets and executes our crosswalk and road marking strategy.

And so really cool facility, love the signs.

I just have a question, though, on this bottom one there, the musician parking and loading.

I know there are federal standards that all signs are very, very strict.

Is that compliant with the federal standards, or is that just a mock-up?

SPEAKER_24

Well, we will have both, and it's kind of what we've done with the signs that have been out there for 10 years.

So that top one is really the regulatory sign that folks are basing, and parking enforcement is basing a decision off of that's closer to what you would think of as a regulatory sign.

That's the official sign.

The one below is more of a branded, give folks a little extra sense for what's going on here, an advisory sign.

It's unenforceable.

It's really the top one is the one that, you know, is the one that we're thinking about as an enforceable sign.

And I agree that the sign shop folks down there are artists themselves.

And so they absolutely have an ability to make the sign both above and below.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

No further questions, comments, Madam Council President.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle, and then we'll wrap up to go to our last item.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Chair Nelson.

Really appreciate it.

I think to the questions, this line of discussion right now, You know, we talked about the, you know, the music community, but we also know that we have the Crocodile, like a Belltown community.

And I think it's really important for the venues to really engage with their neighbors, but also like in District 7, we have a very strong community council organization.

And we have the Belltown Community Council, Belltown United.

And I think if we do that, that will ameliorate a large portion of this.

And because it's a renewal kind of thing that, you know, there's always these look back opportunities to say, hey, do we need to adjust based on the interaction?

Because trust me, we've heard from neighbors and, you know, so we have to have this balance.

And so I think that's a fantastic opportunity to do so.

But I do realize, to Council President's point about the restaurants, you know, they're The restaurant industry, the music industry, there's a lot of headwinds.

And so much like our curbside, you know, oh, the name of those, the restaurants on the street.

You know, it's really important to, you know, gain, you know, some advantages given all the challenges that we're facing.

And so that's the point I would like to make on that.

And Scott, first I'd like to thank OED and SDOT and everybody to include Mr. Chow.

attending, but Scott, I just wanted to note quickly that last week I visited the Ship Canal Water Quality Project, which you may know of, and it's the tunneler, Mud Honey, that's so important in terms of stormwater and wastewater getting out to the West Point Treatment Plant right near the lighthouse, which one could call really a temple of the dog uh they're surrounded by uh screaming trees that really creates this kind of beautiful sound garden that some might some might describe there in discovery park as um nirvana nicely done wow well played well played

SPEAKER_13

The 90s are not dead in local government.

Late adopters.

Okay, folks, here's the time.

SPEAKER_07

Council President Soria, I have one more question, if I may.

So broadly, I just want to say I love live music.

So very supportive of our music venues in the city and our small businesses.

I've said it multiple times.

I do know though, that when SDOT is managing for curb, permitting, it is challenging.

And so I do want to ask in terms of we now have these streeteries that we did during COVID.

And I will note that there's some other cities who did streeteries during COVID that are now revamping their program and removing the streeteries and having a different application process because there was so much curb space taken for those streeteries and now they're kind of readjusting, if you will.

So I'm just wondering how as you're doing the streeteries and the load and unload for businesses, and now this music venue, how is everything, how are you looking at it holistically, so that you are making decisions, you know, because people will be impacted, and we want to make sure we support our small businesses, our music venues, and at the same time, residents as well, because we know that in Seattle, we don't have a robust, not yet, we're getting there, it's public transportation system so people still need to park.

So how are you managing for the intersection of all those things so that we're doing this in a very thoughtful way that meets everybody's needs but doesn't create situations And I will say in terms of enforcement, that's tricky too, because I know we don't have enough parking enforcers.

Like we are down police officers, we are parking enforcement.

And so how do we help once we do this for our businesses and music venues?

How do we help ensure that we can provide that enforcement?

Because...

You know, if folks are parking where they shouldn't, then our businesses and music venues can't avail themselves of this particular program.

So how's SDOT managing for all that?

SPEAKER_24

Sometimes it's hard.

You know, in areas where we have the highest demand and some are really more intense commercial and retail areas, There are eight spaces on a block, and you have to figure out how to allocate those.

We take policy guidance from the council, from the mayor's office, from the SDOT's past practices.

You heard me talk about critical building access needs.

When we think about that, it's really what is a building, what is a block, but the buildings on that block, what do they need?

to fulfill their basic functions.

And a lot of times for that, that means we prioritize loading.

So it's people, it's goods, it's the food takeout and things like that that are probably not going to happen somewhere else.

There are less opportunities.

Or if they do, they're probably going to happen somewhere that's not safe where they probably shouldn't.

So in all these cases, we're taking into account those various pieces of policy guidance.

And then we're also working with the businesses on those blocks, as I mentioned, to kind of confirm what their needs are.

We also collect a lot of data.

In the paid parking program, that is the case.

It's the data that drives our rates.

So all of those things go into how we eventually manage the curb.

And so in this case, we're saying the curb adjacent to those music venues is a priority.

And then for the rest of the block, we're following the priorities that we've sort of followed for a while and that have evolved over time.

And again, it's probably going to be loading, short-term visitors and things like that, where there are not as many options off street.

So those are, it's a variety of drivers.

And then again, it's sort of contextually, it's what's going on in that block, what's going on in the neighborhood that drives a lot of that consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

SPEAKER_13

Yeah, and I am sure that I will hear from small businesses that this is extremely burdensome, and so perhaps we can develop a way of getting some feedback from you on how this is going.

Okay, this was just our discussion.

We do have a special committee meeting scheduled for the 12th, I believe, next Monday.

So if there's, we can bring back other questions, but the plan is to hopefully vote it out of that committee.

So thank you very much for taking the time to be here and for advocating.

Everybody from the commission and other public commenters that couldn't stay, thank you very much for lending your voice to this mission.

Lacking a music pun, I will just end it there.

Thank you very much for coming.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay.

Could you please read the last item into the record?

SPEAKER_14

Council Bill 120831, an ordinance relating to the West Seattle Junction parking and business improvement area, modifying the boundaries, and amending Ordinance 113326, as previously amended by Ordinances 119539, 120570, 121758, 124528, and 125152, briefing and discussion.

SPEAKER_13

So if small businesses are the fabric of our neighborhoods, I would like to say that our BIAs are the superstructure or the foundation upon which placemaking and essential services and promotion of businesses is built.

And so my boilerplate language whenever I have a BA is, before us in committee is to say something along the lines of when a property owner, when property owners or in this case businesses come to the city to ask us for the ability to continue taxing themselves to provide services that benefit not only the businesses but the neighborhood as a whole, we should listen and say yes.

So this is not, this legislation is not a renewal of a BIA.

It's an amendment.

It expands the boundaries.

And so just a little bit of context for what we're doing here today.

And with that, I would like the presenters to introduce yourselves and then begin your presentation.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Hello.

How about this?

Hi.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Casey Rogers.

I'm the BIA Policy Advisor at the Office of Economic Development.

SPEAKER_20

Hello, Council.

My name is Chris McKay.

I'm the Executive Director of the West Seattle Junction Association.

SPEAKER_19

Liz Schwitzen, Council Central Staff.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02

All right.

So I'm going to start with a brief presentation to get this started, and then I'm going to pass it over to Chris McKay, the Executive Director of the Junction, and she'll get into more details on the work they do and the background on the proposal.

So thank you.

Thank you for having us this afternoon.

I'm going to do a quick overview of our...

Is this working?

SPEAKER_20

Can we do this one maybe?

SPEAKER_13

Nope.

Help.

Tiemann has a magic touch.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

All right, so a quick overview of our BIA program, just to ground us in some context.

BIA stands for Business Improvement Area.

They're also known as BIDs or Business Improvement Districts in other municipalities, just for your awareness.

We have 11 BIAs across the city of Seattle, generating 35 million in annual revenue.

And all of that money stays locally in the districts and provide enhanced services and programs.

BIAs are great tools that provide local, predictable, and sustainable funding.

And lastly, our Seattle BIA program is administered by OED and Office of Treasury Services.

So we're here today to discuss a proposal from the West Seattle Junction BIA, which is of course located in West Seattle, District 1, shout out Council Member Saka.

Chris will provide more background, but I did wanna point out that this BIA is business based, which means that the rate payers are business owners, different from other BIAs in the city that are property based, where the property owners are rate payers.

The West Seattle Junction BIA is currently seeking an amendment to expand their boundary to include 32 new ratepayers, which would result in an estimated 8.2% increase in their total assessments.

And before I pass it over to you, Chris, I just want to note that this amendment is allowed under the state RCW, which does allow for a BIA to expand their boundaries up to 10% through an amendment process.

So as Council President pointed out, this is not a new ordinance, simply an amendment.

And OED, the Office of Economic Development, has reviewed the proposal to ensure that it does meet all the requirements.

And again, just noting there is no formal petition process, though Chris has done outreach to all the prospective new rate payers.

And lastly, notification of this proposal will be sent out to rate payers in advance of the September 12th public hearing, so.

And I think if it's okay, we'll wait and do questions at the end after Chris's presentation?

SPEAKER_09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

See if I can, okay.

Thanks for your patience, everyone.

SPEAKER_20

Okay.

Same thing, same thing.

Just use this guy.

Okay, here we go.

Thanks, Council, for having us today.

I really appreciate the opportunity to get your support for our expansion.

So, okay.

Technical difficulties.

Rolling.

Oh, do I scroll?

Oh, do I use a scroller?

Got to be smarter than a mouse.

All right, West Seattle.

We are an extremely, extremely tight-knit community.

We actually have the director of the West Seattle Chamber here as well, and she can attest to that.

I mean, whenever we put on an event, people show up.

People love West Seattle, and I know Rav Saka can attest to that as well.

It's an amazing place.

Today, I just want to give you a quick overview of what we're doing.

We'll have an introduction, overview of existing BIA, what we do, and a little bit on the expansion itself.

So this is the map of the West Seattle Junction.

It looks like a robot dog.

That's what we like to consider it.

And all of the ratepayers are located within those boundaries.

Our ratepayers, as Casey noted, are businesses.

The expansion would be putting some ears on the dog and a thicker hind leg.

We are governed by a board of directors.

We have 12 people, nine of which are rate payers.

We perform a lot of the same programs and services that a lot of the other BIAs do, except for the parking.

That's a little unique.

We provide parking in West Seattle.

So for cleaning, it was just a year and a half ago when I hired our first cleaning crew.

We didn't have one before.

But I do take the time to meet with all our rate payers.

I talk to them and I ask them, what do you need?

What do you want?

And the last time I went through and did that in 2022, like really quickly, communicating with a lot of them, not 80%, not 90%, 100% said, we want it cleaner and we want it safer.

So we hired a cleaning crew, they come through four days a week.

And that's supplemented by a robust group of volunteers that come through a lot.

And in fact, I just met with two of my little volunteers today who came in to get some of their service hours done from West Seattle High School.

So we really rely on our volunteers.

If you don't know what the 300 is in that legend, that stands for feces, the favorite thing that they have to deal with, but really great work from Seattle Surface Cleaners.

The other thing, like I mentioned, that we didn't have before but that people are concerned about is safety.

So we hired a security team, they're called Praetorian, and they patrol West Seattle, our entire junction area, eight times over a 24-hour period, seven days a week.

We also have a 24-hour dispatch number that any one of our merchants or residents can call to get help.

And it really gives the merchants a sense of security.

We all know the police are overwhelmed, and they're not going to come for some of the smaller stuff, but our security shows up every single time.

And they're heavily, heavily trained in de-escalation.

So they also meet with Reach and Lead, who you guys are well familiar with, to talk about how they can help those people they find at 2 o'clock in the morning sleeping in front of a business, if you will, about getting them the services that they need.

So it's a great partnership there as well.

The Junction Association also manages a block watch and we communicate via Slack.

And so I manage that.

We also meet in person quarterly.

There's a safety committee.

And then we plan personal safety cleaning, or I'm sorry, personal safety classes quarterly with SPD.

So that's another important thing that we do.

We just did a Narcan training for our, you know, wassail community.

So it's all in an effort to make it safe and make it clean.

Like most of the BIAs, we have a pretty robust marketing strategy for our merchants, so we offer a variety of things, including allowing all of our merchants to be in our monthly e-newsletters, it's unlimited.

We do have 13 and a half thousand subscribers and a 51% opening rate.

We do daily social media, we have done promotional video campaigns, we do merchant marketing support, and digital and print collateral for our event promotions.

I think one of the things we're most famous for is our events.

The Junction puts on over 28 events a year.

We're very busy over there having fun with all of our community members.

We do like two wine walks.

We have our annual summer fest.

We have an annual glass float hunt.

In fact, this is what we just planted a hundred of over the last week and we'll be planting another hundred businesses can sponsor them.

So they're planted in businesses, but they're also planted all over our parks.

And Rachel, how many have we had found today?

Like 10?

people go berserk.

They're just running all over the place.

And what we're tracking is how much money they're spending while they're running around West Seattle.

So how many businesses did they visit that they'd never visited before?

How many e-newsletters did they sign up for?

And how much money did they spend?

And it's anywhere between 20 and I think the maximum I saw was 250. They must have been hanging out at Easy Street, I don't know, buying records.

But this is just one of the events that we've been doing that offer the community a chance to come together, have fun, create some economic vibrancy.

It's a lot of fun.

And this one is in partnership with the West Seattle Chamber.

So that's a lot of fun.

We have a lot of fun in Halloween.

We have thousands of kids come out.

We close the streets several times a year.

But for Halloween, it's a gas.

And thousands of kids are running up and down, trick-or-treating.

Their parents are visiting the businesses.

And it's just a lot, a lot of fun.

We also do two weeks of holiday events.

We do monthly art walks, monthly music events, and an annual peninsula-wide recycle event also in partnership with the West Seattle Chamber.

So we do events well.

Let's see, beautification.

I think it's a big part of what is such a draw for people to come to West Seattle.

We put up beautiful flower baskets, 93 of them, every single summer.

We light up the trees along the main corridor, California, that's 365 days a year.

We have street banners, Christmas tree lighting, holiday wreaths that are lit, garlands, flower planters.

We have 10 beautiful murals that we continually restore and protect.

We put up American flags and pride flags every year.

As I mentioned, one of the key differences between us and other BIAs is our parking.

We do maintain four affordably priced parking lots for our community members, providing quick, easy access to stores, restaurants, and services.

And like many of the BIAs, business advocacy is a big part of what we do.

We listen to our rate payers, and I act on their concerns.

Everything from safety to cleaning, incoming light rail, permitting, street signage, lighting, and upcoming legislation.

Which is interesting to hear about that parking, because I thought two nights a week, if the businesses around them will freak out.

If it's 24 seven, seven days a week, I can guarantee it.

My businesses would be all over me talking.

I love the idea and it's just something to consider.

So what are we doing for the expansion?

As we mentioned, we're going to be putting on ears on the dog and a thicker leg.

So the ears is one block north of our boundary from Genesee to Dakota.

And then the southeast corner is just on the other side of Fauntleroy.

This expansion just really represents the natural growth that's happening in West Seattle.

Some of this wasn't there when we originally put in our boundaries, it's there now, it makes sense to capture it.

It also represents some equity and I can show that in a picture in a minute.

We, as Casey mentioned, assess business owners and we do it via self-declared B&O.

Makes it very challenging for us because I never know what our budget will be, but I'm guessing we're gonna bring in about 450 grand this year.

So this expansion will bring us up to about 490. Oops, wrong way.

This kind of shows just two of the expansion areas.

So the photo on the left is Fauntleroy.

The building on the right, those buildings, it's residential on the top, businesses on the bottom.

And those are in the junction.

And those are rate payers.

And I love those guys.

On the left, it's the same thing.

Residential, businesses on the bottom.

They're not rate payers.

It's just across the street, but it didn't exist before, and that's why.

So the people on the left benefit from the flower baskets, the events, and everything else that we do to bring people into the junction and make it safe, but they're not paying into it, and the people on the right, of course, are.

The photo on the right is that area that would represent the ears on our little robot dog.

And this just shows you, it's just a series of really great shops and services.

It looks exactly like the block just south of the junction and really represents just a part of the junction.

It feels like a natural part of the junction.

I've also, as you can see from that quote from the owner of Cherry Consignment, who just had their 15 year anniversary today, When I went in to ask her if she would be interested, she was beyond interested, she was thrilled.

She said, I've been waiting for this for a long time.

There's just a lot of benefits in terms of marketing and events that they can be involved in.

What are we gonna do with the money in 2025?

This kind of represents it.

I will note that when you, obviously our biggest expenses is clean and safe.

I did note earlier in my talk that events are an enormous part of what we do, but you can see it's not much of a rate payer expense budget.

And the reason is, is our events bring in about a quarter of a million a year in ticketing, booth fees, sponsorships, grants, all that kind of stuff.

And they cost about that.

So a little bit of the money that comes in from BI assessments goes to events, but most of it we take care of.

Parking, that's a different story.

As I mentioned, we do take care of these parking spots and we have a 13-year lease on those.

Parking costs us about $315,000 a year, but it brings in about $200,000 in fees.

So it covers some of it, but not all of it.

Oops, keep going the wrong way there.

I just wanted to let you know what brought us here today.

So...

Initially, we were founded to manage the parking lots.

We were a PBIA.

The programming and services that we've offered over the last 40 years has changed and grown.

And so we were looking at a complete renewal and changing how we assess in 2024. But when I started really looking at it, I realized that we needed to pump the brakes on this for a minute.

The reason was I felt it was important that we do a strategic plan so that the new BIA was based on something really solid.

And we also feel like it was really critical that we understand better how we can deal with these parking lots because the lease that we have on the parking lots will not allow us to change who we assess.

So we're still stuck with business owners.

We can't move to property.

And so once we get our heads wrapped around the lease and the parking lots and make sure that parking is secure for the future for West Seattle, then we can look at those changes.

So eventually we would like to do a bigger and fuller renewal, but right now what we've opted for is just small, modest boundary extension, which we feel just really reflects the current usage by the businesses, and it'll also increase the revenue so that we can continue to afford the programming offer.

Any comments?

Any questions?

SPEAKER_13

Liz, do you have any questions?

I mean, do you have anything to add before we go to questions or comments?

SPEAKER_19

Just that this is the simplest kind of change that you can consider to a BIA.

And state law does require a public hearing, and that will be September 12th.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

When would you normally have to be renewed?

I mean, when...

SPEAKER_20

Oh, that's a good question.

Yeah, are you one of the forever BIAs?

We don't.

Okay, got it.

We were set up in perpetuity.

Okay.

But once we go for a renewal, then we'll be like everybody else.

Then we'd be coming up every seven or 10 years or whatever we determine that to be.

But I feel that that's really important because it gives all the rate payers a chance to really speak to the BIA itself.

We just keep moving along.

And if I didn't take the time to go meet with them and talk with them, they really wouldn't have much of a say.

And that's not fair.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you for acknowledging that.

Council members, do you have any questions or comments?

Go ahead.

Can I go first, Rob?

Oh, there is your hand.

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

So first off, thank you, Casey, Lish, and of course, Chris.

Really appreciate your leadership, not just for the junction, BIA, but on any number of issues impacting the entire peninsula of West Seattle.

So congratulations.

Yes.

Excited to learn more about this today.

And we have to go.

There's a process.

There's hearings and things like that.

But this is great.

And I appreciate the work you all do.

Your member organizations do every day to make sure we have a truly healthy and thriving community.

Not just in West Seattle, because our great small businesses in West Seattle aren't just for people that happen to live in West Seattle.

They're for people all over the city and all over the region.

We want more people coming in.

Also say, love the t-shirts.

Can I also say my FOMO is really acting up right now.

Really would love my own t-shirt, the Junction t-shirt.

But, you know, it sort of is what it is.

Love seeing the folks testify earlier today and show up and rally is a good way to show community and allyship, which is super important.

And shout out to Rachel Porter in the in the audience as well from the West Seattle Chamber.

Great to see the partnership there.

And also, just as an aside, really disappointed that there was no battle for West Seattle softball game between the West Seattle Chamber.

and the Junction BAA this year.

The inaugural was last year, and I went just as a fan.

I was hoping that it would be this year so that I can maybe throw out the ceremonial first pitch or maybe say a few quick words.

Heck, I'm a beast on the bag.

I could have played guest first baseman, something, sing the national anthem.

You don't want me singing the national anthem.

But maybe next year.

Maybe there's always next year.

But...

Love the Junction.

And more importantly, the individual businesses or rate payers of the Junction, including small businesses like the Reverie Room, Snippets, Rush Hour, the famed Husky Deli.

Come check out Husky Deli, folks.

Great sandwiches.

Ice cream.

Yeah.

Shout out to the horchata flavor.

Love it.

Easy Street Records, the jewelers there, everything about the small businesses there, Elliott Bay Brewery, Portage Bay Cafe, I believe, they're within the boundaries, right?

Oh, yeah.

On 42nd.

Yep, yep.

So, anyways, the work you all do not only benefits the rate payers, but, I mean, as you alluded to, it benefits...

everyone everyone wins and so this is exciting stuff um looking forward to going through the process and ultimately supporting this uh and i'm really looking forward to the next battle for west seattle softball game let's go we'll get it going i promise yeah i will add that all of the program we do it's done by a staff of two it's myself and one other so it's good bang for the buck Super person, super woman.

SPEAKER_20

I just hired my first full-timer this year.

SPEAKER_05

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_20

Council Member Kittle.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you, Chair.

First, thank you for being here.

Very important.

Obviously not in D1, but I'd go into the earlier point about building community.

It's so important to include within the business community.

So I think the BIAs are fantastic.

Obviously downtown we have the DSA, but there's others as well throughout the city.

And I really like the fact that you noted about the business watch or the block watch, which is, you know, also you can have business watches.

And so communities can be, for the business side of things, could be a BIA, but you can also be a business watch.

And that's really important for the business community to come together, see what's possible in terms of the businesses, at least, but also the property owners, because there's a lot of things that can be done to improve a public safety posture together.

A lot of low-hanging fruit, if you will, to really improve the posture.

So I thank you for highlighting that, because as the rest of the folks here know, I'm always trying to turn every committee meeting into a public safety committee meeting, so thank you.

But with the earlier music, though, bringing it back, I'm still saddened that Easy Street left District 7 because I used to go on a regular basis there and uptown Lower Queen Anne.

So please tell them to reopen where they used to be.

And continuing with the music piece, I really appreciate the little shout-out to the Bonafide band there.

So thank you for adding that in.

I already mentioned the band, so I'm not going to go, you know, that extra connection.

There's limits.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

I have to acknowledge, I didn't know that you just hired somebody, and you gave Taman and me a tour last year.

And when we walked into every single establishment, it was clear how...

how checked in you were with everything that was going on in the neighborhood and how well you understood their business, their needs, what was going on.

And it's clear that the BIA personified by you is a very, very strong and beloved presence in the neighborhood.

It's hard to think about the Junction without everything that you do, but I just wanted to say I appreciate you very much.

I appreciate the businesses that are paying into the collective pot to keep you hired and make the Junction, the city, a better place.

So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_13

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_07

Chair, thank you.

I echo the sentiments.

I, as a resident, love going to the junction, going to Easy Street and picking up records and going to Husky Deli since my kids were little and now one's off to college.

So we've loved the junction for many years.

But I have a story about the junction.

During COVID, I worked in the mayor's office.

And when we had to close the city down, I was there, and then I actually worked on reopening the very first thing that reopened, which were farmers' markets, because Washington state said they were food, and so they were allowed to reopen.

But public health placed a lot of restrictions on the farmers' markets, requiring them to enclose with, I mean, rope or tape.

And then when the small businesses were allowed to reopen, now there were these farmers markets enclosures blocking the front of the businesses.

And I worked with the junction and I have to say, They were invaluable to the work because they were that mediation point between the businesses and the farmers markets to make sure that the farmers markets could operate and the businesses could operate.

And it was hard.

And it was really great to have the BIA to do that.

to do that piece.

And it really would have made the work much more difficult had the BIA not been such a great partner between, like I said, the businesses and the farmers markets.

And that was ever, as the person who was in charge of reopening those farmers markets and then having to coalesce with the BIAs, I really, I am so appreciative, and I have a little bit of PTSD on that.

You worked with Laura Radford then, right?

But really, it was the partnership that made it work out, and there were some businesses that I know it was more difficult than others, but just in the work with the BIA team, everything worked out, businesses could reopen, the farmer's market would reopen.

We had no incidents of no outbreaks of COVID either in the businesses or the market and it all worked out.

And I really wanna underscore it really was because of the BIA.

So the BIA serves this important function in our city.

And so I am very grateful for the BIA and, you know, the work that you do with the businesses there and for the residents.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

I love the work.

SPEAKER_13

And I'll add to that.

I want your rate payers to know that they are getting their money's worth because we talk about the work that you do within the boundaries of the BIA and for the benefit of the business in the neighborhoods.

But you also have a really legitimate legal and frequent link to the city.

You advise on policy and you tell us when something is working and something isn't.

And I have always relied on the BIAs that I'm more familiar with.

to tell me what do small businesses need when I came, when I was elected, I first met with Mike Stewart and Erin Goodman.

So my point is that you are the bridge from the neighborhood to the city.

So that's another function that's very important.

And thank you very much for always, for being the shepherd of our BIA system.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Yeah, OED is invaluable to the BIA, it's invaluable.

I mean, it's just incredible, the support.

But he didn't wear a T-shirt, so I take that back.

SPEAKER_09

Everyone's got T-shirt FOMO.

SPEAKER_13

Okay, well, if there are no other questions or comments, this will be brought back to committee on September 12th.

There will be the public hearing at that point, so we will not be voting until then.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_13

Do you have any?

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

That date is also the day you'll be voting on it?

Yes.

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_13

Yep.

SPEAKER_02

All right.

SPEAKER_13

after the public hearing, of course.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Yep.

Thank you, everybody.

Go find one of these.

They're in the parks.

SPEAKER_13

Okay, so I am fascinated with those sorts of things.

They're beautiful.

SPEAKER_20

They've got a stamp on the bottom, and it says WS with a heart, you know, and it's just so great, yeah.

And they're one of a kind.

They're made by a local businesswoman, Avalon Glassworks, right in West Seattle.

SPEAKER_05

Awesome.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_13

All right.

I don't see anybody has their hand up.

So if there is no other business, we will adjourn.

It is 420. And this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you very much, everybody.