Seattle City Council Briefing 10/21/19

Good morning.

Thank you for being here for our council briefing on October 21st 2019 I'm joined by council members Bekshaw and council members Gonzalez And if there's no objection the minutes of the October 14th 2000 meeting will be approved In objection those minutes are approved we're gonna start off with a state legislative session update, but I will say before they as they enter that I want to describe the one item we had on a full council agenda because I may not be here at the table when we go around that piece I have a appointment I have to make and the one item we have for a vote this afternoon is the resolution 31913 which is a resolution concerning a referendum 88 which as you as many people know 88 confirms we want approved on that that confirms initiative 1000 and I think Many of you are up to speed on Initiative 1000. That was boldly passed by the legislature, which allows the cities and states and governments here in this state to consider historical discrimination when looking at hiring practices and educational policies.

And we're one of the few states that currently ban that.

I think one of six or eight states that ban this kind of treatment.

So we want to make sure we're aligned with good policy in the rest of the country on these issues of affirmative action.

We will do that this afternoon.

There's approved or disapproved and you want approved on 88. That is very confusing.

It's approved on 88 which actually confirms initiative 1000. Many speakers this afternoon to support this perhaps even oppose it.

I don't know I have elected gotten feedback on anyone opposing it, but We're always in anticipate something like that Okay, why don't we do introduction then dive into our state legislative update Lily Wilson Kodega office of intergovernmental relations Karen Cargill state relations

Cheryl Schwab, OIR.

Thank you for your testimony in Olympia and answering some tough questions from I believe it was Representative Klippert when you came down to help out on that issue.

So we are currently in the early stages of the legislative agenda development for 2020 which as you all know, is a short supplemental session, so things will move very quickly.

We have compiled feedback from you all after meeting individually as well as our departments into this initial draft.

I believe you'll take a second look at it in November before final passage in December.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Karen.

She's going to do a brief update on where we're at in the process and timeline and then give you an opportunity to review the agenda and give us feedback.

So yes, legislative session is just around the corner now.

It is scheduled to start on January 13th.

As Lily mentioned, this is a short session.

It will be 60 days, and it is supplemental, so the second year of the two-year budget cycle.

And why allowed to be 60 days is that the idea is that they are not writing an entire budget at that point.

A few things that we spoke on in our last presentation, but just wanted to highlight again, that we do have a new speaker-designate, Lori Jenkins.

She will be formally confirmed by the House in January when the full legislature is in session, which is required, but at this point she's acting as the speaker-designate.

The House did have committee days back in September, and then there will be a second set of committee days for the House in November, and the first set of committee days for the Senate also in November.

And the committee days are opportunities for the committees to convene in advance of the legislative session, kind of talk about some of the items that they may have been working on over the interim.

It's an opportunity for different work groups and task force to give their presentations and their materials, and it's kind of acts as a high-level overview of some some of the issues that we might anticipate seeing in the 2020 session.

I had a chance to be at an event with Lori Jenkins and Andy Billings last week, and I was really impressed with her.

I know that she's been around for a bit, but I've not had an opportunity to work with her, and I just like, you know, both her progressive values, but she was very thoughtful about solutions-oriented and incremental approaches to things.

I think she's going to be great.

We agree, and we're very excited to have Lori in this position.

So again, I know that these were items that we covered during our last presentation, but 2019 was a really big year for the legislature and for the city.

There were a lot of items that lots of folks had been working on for quite a while.

So for the housing and homeless space, we were able to pass the local option bond bill.

quite a bit, some tenant protections and eviction reform, and the housing trust fund was funded at $175 million, so up a significant amount from the last session.

Lots of improvements in the safety net and civil rights space with the creation of the LGBTQ Commission, Keep Washington Working Act, and as Council President Harrell mentioned earlier, I-1000.

For public safety, there was the funding of the rape kit testing that I know Council Member...

I'm so sorry.

That's okay.

Gonzalez had worked on quite a bit, some advancements in the ghost guns, just gun responsibility in general, and the missing and murdered indigenous women legislation that Councilmember Juarez was working on.

Education, there was a creation of the Washington College Grant, which was the entitlement of some of the community college and higher education opportunities.

We were able to get an expansion in the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship to offer a municipal match for the private dollars, along with the private dollars of the state currently already provided matches for, and just improvements in the early learning access.

In healthcare, there was significant improvements for the behavioral health space.

Tobacco 21 was passed.

There were some vaccination laws passed regarding the MMR requirements with the measles outbreak and the removal of the personal exemptions and the Affordable Care Act protections.

Great.

Quick question.

Thank you.

So I raised with both new speaker Jenkins and Andy Billings both, a couple of things.

One is I asked them about moving forward to remove the death penalty.

And I was quite surprised that Ms. Jenkins seemed to not really be tracking that and didn't seem to think that there had been the kind of momentum that we had all talked about last year.

So I'm going to ask you again to help me I will just note she has been all over the state hustling to

members of her caucus and develop those relationships.

The mayor met with her recently to talk through some of her policy priorities and I think she's in the stage at this point where she's really trying to learn from other people and aggregate those agendas before moving forward.

We are certainly prioritizing eliminating the death penalty in statute and will continue to do so.

Thank you for that.

And also, I brought up with Andy Billings the idea of what can we do to make our health care opportunities and health insurance more affordable and expanding it.

And he said, just what you were pointing to, that we made some good progress in affordable care last year.

But I'm just really concerned about with the federal government doing what it's doing, that we lose health care.

And health insurance for people who are just right on the edge, it only makes things so much worse for everybody.

And he told me something that I responded to the question, which I thought was terrific.

He said, I'm not just looking at health care, health insurance, I'm looking at health.

And bringing that model of health to, like, just a lens as we're looking through whether it's transportation funding to make sure we've got more pedestrian walkways.

or making sure that school kids have a healthier way to get to school.

I was surprised at the breadth of his response and I really thought that was something valuable.

Thank you.

So just kind of give a run through again about what our process is.

I know that you've all heard this, but just so everyone's on the same page.

So the document that you have on your desk in inclusion of the slides is the draft agenda that we've been working on.

This is the really large document that kind of sets the values and what some of our priorities will be in the upcoming session.

OIR is required to lobby within the scope of this, so very important that we feel that it encompasses all of the different priorities that all the different council members, the mayor and the departments may have.

So why it is so long and can be quite a bit dense.

Or comprehensive as we'd like to call it.

Yes, thank you.

So we did, we met with most of the council members as they were available to learn what their priorities were for the upcoming session.

We had sent out requests to the departments and met with them to learn what their priorities would be for the 2020 session.

And this has all been incorporated into the document that you have in front of you.

At the conclusion of this presentation, Yes, we have, but we are very happy to do so.

But we'll send this out electronically so you have the opportunity to review it.

I also have a markup if you're interested that kind of shows what the changes were from the last agenda, just so you guys can kind of see that because I know it's relatively dense.

So if you do have adjustments and changes that you would like to see, if you can send that to us, that would be really helpful.

And then we'll work to incorporate that.

We're asking for feedback to incorporate in this by November 13th, as the next presentation for the agenda itself is on November 18th.

Sorry, probably if I turned on my microphone, it would help.

Council President Harrell just handed me a note that one of the co-sponsors of the death bell elimination was then Representative Jenkins.

So it may have been, I think she might have, as you said, just been up to her eyeballs with things that she's working on right now.

But I just want to thank you and her and everybody for pushing it forward this year.

This has got to be the year.

We'll make sure to follow up with her on that specifically.

So I'm just going to kind of go over a few high level issues.

This document is, includes far more than what I'm going to cover in this.

So if you do have questions, if there is something in here that you may not see or I may not cover, please let me know and we can help you find the language that we have put in the agenda to incorporate the different concepts.

So the ones that I'm going to focus on are housing and homelessness, transportation, education, environment, and then the healthcare and human services.

So for housing and homelessness, we are continuing to support different affordable housing tools for local governments.

As I mentioned earlier, that the legislature was able to pass the local option bond bill, which was a huge success for us, but different cities and affordable housing advocates continue to look for different resources that the different local governments will be able to utilize.

I know that in the past we've brought forward the Councilmanic Sales Tax Authority.

We're still working and learning to hear if that's going to be something that will be moving forward and in what form.

We know that several council members had indicated that they had concerns about the regressive nature of a sales tax.

having that as being the affordable housing tool, so that is something that we're, a point that we're continuing to bring to the legislature to make them aware of that.

Other concepts that legislators are talking about right now are different types of REIT, whether that's an additional REIT, I know San Juan County currently has the authority to use, they have a three quarters REIT that they're using for affordable housing and we're exploring ideas around that, so.

Additional items are MFTE and just the extension of that from 12 years to a higher number.

We know that some of our partners in the labor community have also started talking about prevailing wage within the MFTE project, so we're tracking that and trying to learn more and see how we may be supportive in that space.

The Housing Trust Fund, I'm anticipating this to be a large issue for the City of Seattle in this next session.

So while the legislature did allocate a record number for the Housing Trust Fund, we are potentially having some issues with being able to access it for some of the permanent supportive housing projects that we utilize it so much of the Housing Trust Fund for.

So we're working with the Department of Commerce, which is the department that manages the fund, to make sure they kind of understand some of our challenges with repayments on permanent supportive housing projects like this.

Are you talking with Lisa Brown?

We are.

Continuation land use and density I know was a really big topic last year.

Representative Fitzgibbon's 1923, the minimum density, the SEPA bill was a really big bill.

There's been some discussion about potentially opening that one up again and making some of the suggestions a little bit more heavy handed.

We'll also continue to monitor any legislation regarding ADUs.

Again, knowing that last session that this, that was a really big topic and I don't, I don't know that I mentioned this earlier, but with this being the second year of the biennium, all the bills that didn't pass last session just carry over into next session.

So a lot of the same issues will continue to be alive.

And then tenant protections, we're continuing to monitor that.

So transportation, as you all know, one of our really big priorities last session was our automated enforcement block the box bill.

That bill will revert back to second reading or third reading in the House.

So we'll still need to pass out of there and then we'll go back, then we'll go to the Senate and we'll go through the process over there.

So we're working very hard on that and working with a lot of the other stakeholders and community that were engaged and supportive of the legislation to hopefully get it over the finish line this year.

And a topic that I just wanted to kind of highlight is just the transportation budget.

I know that I mentioned during some of our briefings during this session that there had been some conversations about a new revenue package.

And there are a lot of things going on that could impact the transportation budget, both at the city and at the state level this November.

So kind of whatever those impacts might be, we'll continue to monitor that and make sure that you all are in the loop about what's being discussed and any potential changes on the budget side.

Education, child care access continues to be a priority for us, both in the child care provider space, the wage space, facility space, so continuing to monitor that.

Basic education, while McCleary may technically be over, I think it's still a very big conversation point, especially in the space related to special education, so we're continuing to monitor that, and post-secondary learning.

Anticipate money in the child care access realm that could actually be available here in the city?

Potentially.

I mean, the short sessions don't typically come with large allotments of money or changes in that.

But we're happy to check into that and make sure that there's, if there is any movement in there, that there's help in the city.

Getting it moving for the next session.

Yes, absolutely.

I think a lot of these are things that may not happen this session.

We continue to kind of push and make sure that the state is aware of what we are prioritizing in that area.

environment so Representative Fitzgibbon has a low carbon fuel standard that's going to be a really really big bill again this year and that we'll be supportive of.

Senator Carlisle has also put forward that he's interested in he put his cap cap and trade concept forward so we're kind of seeing how those two might work together that we're supportive of both concepts and just trying to see how those two would potentially work together.

Product stewardship SPU has been Leaders in this space at the legislature, there's a lot in terms of like packaging and plastics, bags are still an issue.

So there's quite a bit that we're monitoring and that SP was very active on.

So we'll continue to keep you all engaged about that, all those different ideas.

A lot of what we're trying to preserve is our ability and the city's ability to put forward potentially more progressive policies in that area and just make sure that we're able to go as far as the city would like us to go.

Oil tanks, as you all probably recall, that the council and the mayor have passed legislation that will phase out the oil tanks over the next, I think it's 10-ish years.

So we're working with OSE on PLEA, which is the Pollution Liability Insurance Agency.

And that's the insurance programs that individuals are able to put on the oil tanks in their home.

But it is insurance, you have to opt in and sign up in advance.

So we're kind of, we're working with everyone to see what types of opportunities we have to kind of expand that, make sure people are aware of the program so that if any of these tanks are identified as having leaks that they have an insurance policy behind that that can help with the cleanup costs.

Health care and human services.

So again, as always, something that we're working on is just enhanced funding for public health, mental health, addiction services, as well as other important human services.

I know that a lot of, in our conversations with all of the council members, Medicaid reimbursement rates came up quite a bit.

So we're continuing to want to prioritize that.

Just health care access in general.

I think that's as you mentioned, Council Member Bagshaw, that there's with Speaker Judson Jenkins in that space, I think that we'll see some very interesting conversations in this next session.

So again, not comprehensive at all.

We know that there's lots of important language here for the labor community in our agenda.

We have a lot on civil rights, public safety.

We're continuing to prioritize gun responsibility and making progress on that.

And we're so thrilled to have Rebecca Johnson still on our team for the next session to kind of help us with that space.

So again, please take a look at the agenda.

I will send out the electronic version with a red line version so you can see what was added and removed from the last version of this.

And then send feedback that you have to us and we're happy to kind of work through any issues.

We are working to schedule a delegation meeting in December.

in advance of the legislative session to kind of give an opportunity for council members and the mayor to sit down, talk with the Seattle delegation so we can kind of discuss our shared priorities, where we can work together.

Legislators return to Olympia on January 13th, and we look forward to continuing to work with you to improve our agenda for next session.

Any questions?

Did you schedule some time for me to go to Olympia and meet with Senator King?

Or is that just...

I'm working with Emily on that.

Fine.

Thank you.

Thank you for your willingness to help us.

We are so grateful.

Very good.

Excellent presentation.

Any further questions from the team here as we develop our agenda?

We're all good?

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for the update.

We appreciate it.

Looking forward to working with you some more.

Okay, we have another briefing from the Green Seattle Partnership.

Our presenters are here, Restoring Neighborhoods, Forested Parks, and Natural Areas.

Council Member O'Brien, as our guests come forward, would you like to tee it up?

Yeah, I would.

Thank you, Council President.

The Green Seattle Partnership has been, from my perspective at least, an amazing partnership over the last number of years.

When we created the Parks District, we put significant investments into this partnership.

And what it's enabled folks to do is really leveraged a bunch of community resources, including, well, we'll probably hear, but thousands of volunteer hours in restoring some of the parkland we already own, but restoring it to a place where it can better serve both habitat and people by largely removing invasives and making it more accessible.

We often talk a lot about, as the city continues to grow, ensuring that everyone has access to open space, and sometimes that's about looking for additional, acquiring new open space, which is not a bad thing to do.

But one of the lowest hanging fruits is to look at the existing open space we have that's just being underutilized, in part because it's been neglected for so long.

and restoring it.

And so I've been, as I know some of the others here, been out there on various volunteer days working in the parks.

It's so amazing to see people of all ages and abilities out there doing work, often on rainy days, to restore a small chunk at a time and then you come back and look at over the course of a couple years how acreage can be restored and some of the most beautiful places in our park system in the city of Seattle are places that I know a decade ago were inaccessible completely because of the work that folks have done.

So I'm going to move to the other side so I can look at you all while you make this presentation.

I'll do introductions first and then dive right in.

Is this on?

The little green light pushed a gray button there and bring it a little closer.

Yeah, it was on.

My name is Joanna Nelson de Flores with Forterra.

And I'm Patty Bacher with Seattle Parks and Recreation.

And thank you very much for taking the time for this briefing.

I know it's a very, very busy season for you all.

It's also our busiest season with There were 20 events across Seattle last weekend alone and another 15 or 20 coming up in the next couple weeks.

So there's a lot of folks out there even in the pouring rain like last weekend.

So these are dedicated folks.

So today we want to make sure that we just want to cover some of the basics again.

What is the partnership?

Why is it important?

How does the partnership work in terms of goals?

Who's involved?

Where is the work happening?

Progress to date and of course also what's remaining.

The budget that's been put towards this over the course of the program.

How Seattle's serving as a model and a chance for y'all to, an invitation to see the partnership in action.

So that's what we're planning to cover in our briefing.

So to start off, just what is the Green Seattle Partnership?

So the Green Seattle Partnership is a community-based stewardship program desiccated to restoring all of Seattle's forested parks and natural areas by 2025. And that time is coming a lot sooner now that we're 15 years, 14 years into this program.

than I imagined.

And we've made really great progress.

It's a really amazing program.

And just to put a little context, prior to the formation of this program, yes, there were volunteers out there.

There were groups doing this work.

But it was largely uncoordinated.

The city as a whole didn't really understand what the state of the forest was, at what rate it was being restored, what the need was.

And so some great information came out around 2003 or 2004 really shed a light on what was happening in the forest.

These natural areas, as O'Brien was saying, sometimes people weren't really accessing because they were largely overgrown.

And a study came out that really showed that Seattle's forested parks, natural areas were in severe decline.

Massive amounts of English ivy, blackberry, and just old aging trees.

That's a lot of things that sometimes we forget.

These trees, deciduous trees that are losing their leaves right now that are beautiful, yellow and orange.

Those trees don't live forever, right?

They live 60, 80 years, and a lot of those trees right now are reaching the end of their lifespan.

So we could see that the forest in our parks was on a trajectory of loss and decline, and that if we wanted to maintain this asset that we already had as a city and have it better serve our communities, that we needed to take action.

So that's where the partnership came.

And FORTERRA was one of the founding partners, along with the three departments within the city.

So largely the Parks Department, but also Seattle Public Utilities and Office of Sustainability and the Environment.

Today, the program has grown to include probably a list of over 20, 30 different nonprofits and community groups that are working together under this common vision to restore all of Seattle's forested parks and natural areas.

So before we dive into that a little bit, I just wanted this picture sort of zooms out across part of Seattle and just put some of this work into context.

So the urban forest across our city is made up of all the trees in the city, right?

So trees in our backyards, trees along streets and school grounds, and of course, in our parks as well.

So the most recent update on our tree canopy was about 28%, and the goal for Seattle is about 30 canopy cover.

And within that 28% parks, natural areas, these areas that are being maintained and restored by Green Seattle Partnership carry about 14% of that tree canopy.

So it's a really significant piece.

So we also need to think about what would happen if we didn't do this work.

We would lose all of that canopy that's here.

So this is about maintaining and retaining our existing canopy through these programs.

And so you can see trees across our neighborhoods here.

This is in West Seattle.

And it's just a really great example of that big forested chunk, Lincoln Park, that is really just a powerhouse of benefits for the neighborhood there.

And we see this across our city in parks in every district.

So why is this work so important?

This is much more than a tree-hugging program.

These trees really serve us all, whether you visit the parks or not.

The benefits radiate well beyond the boundaries of the park.

And there's a lot of great research across the country and the world really demonstrating the benefits of having healthy trees, healthy forests within our city limits as far as quality of life.

And so everything from access, making sure that we have access to nature and the many benefits that that provides folks that can access the natural areas.

reduces stress, the work that the partnership is doing helps build social community cohesion, and of course air quality is a big one.

So the trees act as a natural filter to help take out particulates from the air and help improve our air quality.

Another Really important benefit is the cooling element.

As we're seeing hotter summers and warmer temperatures, the forests and trees in our neighborhoods help reduce those temperatures in where we live.

All in all, in climate change, as we're facing the The efforts of restoring these forests will help build a more resilient forest that withstand climate change, flooding, storms, hotter and colder temperatures overall.

So the list goes on.

We could have an hour presentation on all of these benefits, but I think you get the picture.

We can come back to it if you have any questions.

But where would the concept of a tree producing oxygen fall into one of those buckets?

Because that was always...

One of the highest benefits, I've always been told, would that be under the cool the cities or the reducing air pollution?

Well, that's a good observation.

It's not listed up there.

I think that while it's certain.

That's a biggie for me when I think of it.

Carbon sequestration as well.

Right.

So it helps take carbon out and replace it with the oxygen that we need.

I would say that.

I like this chart, by the way.

I like this chart.

I saw it before.

I read it and I was thinking.

I just like this schematic, but I was thinking where that oxygen piece.

And I think this is more in the context of our urban environment, whereas The amount of trees that we have, I mean, the big oxygen-producing forests in the country and around the world are allowing us to sustain life here on our planet.

And then when we hone in to some of the smaller fragmentation of trees, these are the benefits they provide directly to the city.

So while that is definitely something we need, I don't think that they're the biggest producers.

It's more the large Amazon forests and things across the world that are providing that for us.

But we could add another point or two for carbon sequestration and providing oxygen, which they do provide.

Yeah, I mean cheese in general definitely provide that.

We couldn't live here without them.

Okay, so as you can see from that bird's eye view of the city and all of those forested parklands, that Parks and Recreation plays a big role in caring for our urban forest.

And that fits right in with our mission to provide welcoming and safe opportunities to play, learn, contemplate, and build community, as well as to promote responsible stewardship of the land.

And it definitely fits in with our values of promoting healthy people, a healthy environment, and strong communities.

11% of the city is in parkland, so we manage more than 6,400 acres of public lands.

And the magenta and green shaded areas on this map show all of those parklands, with the magenta being the forested and natural areas.

So that totals more than 2,500 acres, and all of those are slated for restoration through the Green Seattle Partnership.

And again, as Joanna covered, the reason those areas are in need of restoration is because They'd been left alone for decades since they were natural areas considered not to need as regular maintenance.

And so they'd become greatly overrun with invasive weeds.

So in 2005, Seattle as a community, through the Green Seattle Partnership, committed to that 20-year plan of restoring and activating those forested park lands with these two important goals in mind.

First, just to do that restoration and maintenance of those lands.

And while doing so, to also expand and galvanize and informed involved and active community around that restoration and stewardship of those lands.

So now I'm going to explain more details of the partnership a little bit.

We often get asked questions like, so is Greensaddle Partnership a non-profit organization?

We do maintain a .org website, so it's not immediately obvious to those just coming to it.

But again, as Joanna mentioned, it's a public-private partnership made up of city agencies, nonprofit partners, companies, and community volunteers.

And that restoration work happens primarily on parklands.

So Parks and Recreation is the lead agency currently, along with our longtime and new partners that we're adding over time.

And the work is accomplished through effort on several fronts and involves both professional crews and volunteers.

From the beginning, volunteers have been critical to the effort, and today we log about 80,000 volunteer hours from every year.

And that comes, yeah, it's been growing and we've been steady at about 80,000 in the recent years.

And this comes from hours that are directed by our lead volunteers, our forest stewards.

and also from organizations that we work with to help us lead volunteer efforts, and that allows us to direct volunteer work to parts of the city and equity zones that aren't currently seeing a lot of volunteer effort.

But not all of the restoration areas are suitable for volunteers to work on, and so we do engage professional crews.

Some of those are park staff, and some of those are contract crews from local restoration companies.

So on that, that could be someone like Earth Corps with their AmeriCorps volunteers, but not the volunteer side of it?

Right.

And Earth Corps is a good point, and we're going to talk about them a little bit more.

But they do have two prongs that we work with.

They have the volunteer coordination side, but they also have professional crews.

And so they are one of our contractors for professional crew work.

And they're a non-profit, but do you also contract with for-profit landscape firms?

Right, because they have this great expertise of doing this restoration work.

Yeah.

Great.

And you also mentioned...

And I've been out with, I forget, I think it's the Heron Habitat Helpers, which is a very specific group about, you know, one little neighborhood.

And I'm assuming that was part of the Green Seattle Partnership when I was up there.

Yes, definitely.

They started in Aquinas Ravine, and then the Heron colony moved down to Commodore Fork.

So now they're active in both areas.

And so are there other groups that are much smaller on scale that are really neighborhood or park specific that are partnerships with GSD?

Yeah, we have lots of friends of groups throughout the city.

Friends of Lewis Park is one of them, and we have another slide that will focus on that as well.

But yeah, lots of individual forest stewards on up to, you know, Smaller, medium size, and the group at Discovery Park is much larger.

So yeah, there's kind of a whole spectrum of volunteer and group efforts.

And then all these different entities, the professional and the volunteers, often work together, so oftentimes we'll have parks that have a variety of these entities working together.

And so pictured here in this slide are some members of our Parks and Recreation's natural area crew working alongside a forest steward along the Burt Gilman Trail in the Thornton Creek area as just an example of the types of entities working together to accomplish this work.

And I just want to add, a forest steward, if they get a crew day, a crew comes out and maybe mows down a big area of Blackberry.

And then that is just the biggest reward for them, because they get so much help.

And then they can send volunteers out to dig out the roots.

And it's just a really great way to complement efforts.

OK, so now we want to share some stories that help explain the partnership as well.

Another aspect of that combination of work types that's increasingly important over the years is the work of those partner organizations that we engage who are involved in valuable efforts to direct the volunteer work, which helps us log more volunteer hours, of course.

But more importantly, they're doing it in ways that provide additional benefits.

providing green job training, and engaging with underserved communities, and so on.

This slide here highlights EarthCore, who again has been a longtime partner with the program.

And again, providing valuable restoration work on the ground, but also providing valuable green job training that then helps us grow and diversify the talent pool for these fields.

These folks pictured here are all Earth Corps alumni who are now engaged in important environmental work in the region, including Joanna and Nelson DeFlores here.

Yes, I owe it all to Earth Corps.

And we owe it to us.

Another example of this is the DIRT Corps, or the Duwamish Infrastructure Restoration Training Corps.

who is a relatively new partner to the program.

They also provide paid job training in the fields of green infrastructure, ecological restoration, and urban forestry.

And they do so using this vertical mentorship model in recruiting diverse individuals who are struggling with un- or underemployment and helping them to develop their leadership skills and economic resilience.

Their model addresses the uneven dynamics of inequity by addressing the real world burdens of income, child care, transportation, food, and housing that might otherwise prohibit individuals from exploring these two careers.

In this photo here is Veronica Villarreal with Little Brook Youth Corps is working on restoration in Little Brook Natural Area.

Veronica is a great example of what these paid training programs can do for our residents and our shared resources.

She began as a trainee in 2018 and now oversees some of DIRT Corps' GSB restoration work.

She's an urban ecology instructor for the Youth Corps.

That's shown here, what the cohort is working in Little Brook.

And also is a lead for our joint efforts at Northacres, helping to lead developmentally disabled adults in learning employable restoration skills.

She's also now a talented green stormwater infrastructure designer, builder, and has been co-designing the roof projects for the RainWise program.

So you can see that while we're getting the necessary restoration work done on the ground for our urban forest, the program leverages these resources expended to also achieve other benefits for the community and for the environment as well.

So now from stories of strengthening people to stories of healthier forests.

Because photos go a long way to illustrate what the program does, here's a before photo of a portion of Lewis Park on Beacon Hill.

This park is a great example of what we mean when we talk about unlocking these green spaces and strengthening neighborhood cohesion and creating a connection to the land.

The northeast part.

The northeast part of it that we call the triangle.

Who was there that took out some of these blackberries?

Were you there?

That was me.

Awesome.

Get rid of those blackberries.

That was mine right there.

Nice.

So as you can see and as you experienced, the park was largely overrun with blackberry for years, keeping residents from being able to enjoy the park and also inviting and allowing some much more negative uses.

Then forest stewards from the community started leading their neighbors in removing blackberry brambles.

And over the years, has transformed the park from that blackberry infested awful place to this wonderful future healthy forest, which as you can see.

It is great.

And like you said about the community, so many community folks were there.

I'm just really impressed at their dedication.

Yeah, we have a great team of lead forest stewards there, but also just many people from the community and the local school that they engage with regularly to come out and be part of this work.

And then the group was so excited about what they literally uncovered in removing all that ivy and blackberry that they pursued and received grant funds to install a trail system.

So that trail system has now been installed and just a few weeks ago they had this great opening ceremony or celebration for that trail system and lots of members of the community and they had artists out there and it was just a really, just to see the pride and the joy that they felt after all these years of work to not only have this park in this condition but also providing that trail system for the community to be able to enjoy it.

And the school is within walking distance and has played a big role, elementary school up there on Beacon Hill.

Periodically, they plan for six days worth of restoration work engaging with the local school there.

So it'll be like three days in one week and three days the following week.

And that's a regular basis.

It's been a great engagement there.

And that was just one example of that kind of transformation.

There are stories like that all over the city, in every district, and in every neighborhood.

I think Cheasty Green Street, Green Space is another one where neighbors have been working on that for well over a decade and some of these kids have grown up with that and just believe that what they've done for the south end of Beacon Hill is really extraordinary.

Thank you for all the work you guys have put in.

Thank you, appreciate that.

And now to address the story of the partnership over time.

14 years into the program now, we have seen great successes.

These are some of the statistics that we've achieved to date.

Almost 1,700 acres have been enrolled in restoration.

These acres are in various phases, and I'll provide more details on those phases and the status of those acres on the next slide.

We've planted more than one million plants.

Those are trees, shrubs, and ground covers.

And we've logged more than one million volunteer hours.

And those are from our forest stewards, some of whom are active several days a week all year long in their adopted forest sections.

But it also includes thousands of volunteers every year who engage with the program on a different level of frequency.

And again, we engage professional crews and have logged more than 400,000 hours of work from those crews.

And we like to include that number at the bottom, the survival rings, which means we've cut the climbing vines away from a tree trunk.

So you can think of that as the number of trees that have been saved from strangling invasive plants.

And those numbers in the middle, the acres mulched and weeded, indicate establishment work being done on those acres that are on their way from just being started toward that future healthy forest state.

And as far as overall progress, here's a breakdown of the acres.

Again, there's four phases to the work.

Phase one starts with removal of the invasive plants because, again, these areas were heavily infested with plants like English ivy and Himalayan blackberry that crowd out our native plants and form monocultures if they're not treated.

Then when sites are ready, phase two involves installing the native plants and providing their initial care.

Phase three is then an establishment period that is typically two to five years as we work to make sure that those native plants do get established and that we keep the weeds from returning.

And when we're successful in all of this, sites then reach what we call phase four, or that final healthy forest state that is hopefully sustainable and only requiring some monitoring and maintenance work into the future.

The chart there on the right illustrates the status of the acres involved in the program.

So 61% of the acres have been enrolled.

Again, those 1,691 acres that are initiated, and that's all those four green shades together on the chart.

Of those acres, 342, or 12%, have been verified as reaching phase 4. So we now focus on continued maintenance of those acres.

That's the dark green section up top there.

So that leaves 49%, or 1,349, of the enrolled acres that are then in phases 1 through 3, those other three green shades.

So they've been enrolled in restoration and need continued work to make sure that they're established sufficiently to reach phase four.

And this is an important time in the lifespan of doing restoration work because it's important to sustain our efforts in those phases.

So that we do keep advancing those acres and they don't revert back to weeds.

And then 39% have not been enrolled.

And much of what remains are some challenging acres.

We have a lot of steep slopes, for instance.

In the early years, the program worked first on the low-hanging fruit, those easier acres that volunteers could work on, while we were working to dial in the process of what it takes to do this urban restoration of these forests in an urban setting.

And speaking of what it takes to do the work, we wanted to show some of the resources required to complete it.

This chart is a snapshot of the funding that's been provided over the years from the start of the program in 2005 and through 2018. The green parts of the bars are funding provided by Parks and Recreation, and the purple shows the volunteer contribution in terms of dollar equivalents, so the value per hour of volunteer work each year.

You can see that both of those have increased over time.

And that's important because they're dependent on each other.

In order to leverage and maintain the strong volunteer commitment, it's necessary to maintain the contribution from the city through Parks and Recreation.

Since that volunteer support would decrease without the direct support provided in the form of tools, supplies, and staff support, as well as that indirect guidance and support from the other organizations that were able to engage with department funds.

Other important contributions shown here are annual funding the program receives from Seattle Public Utilities, who contributes to the program because of the value that we provide in terms of improved area waterways and water quality.

and also contributions from FORTERRA who provided key funding in the initial years while the program was ramping up and the team was figuring out exactly how to do this work and what it takes to make it possible.

Overall, you can see the trend of increasing resources needed to keep the program going as it's progressed and more acres have been enrolled because it's cumulative, right?

As we enrolled more acres, there was more work to do in all of those phases.

And there was a learning curve to dialing in exactly what it takes to make sure that each acre does progress to phase four.

And we're still learning that, especially as we're already experiencing effects of climate change in the form of longer, drier, summers and we're seeing this increased need to water plants that we've installed to make sure that they persist.

So is there any thinking about taking that into consideration are longer drier summers that require a little bit more watering for the resiliency of these plants, is there any thinking around maybe modifying the type of plants that we're actually planting and putting in our urban forests to require less water and to be more resilient on their own?

Yes, we have been strategizing how to manage for these effects of climate change.

in the years that we're facing now, but also thinking long term for the future.

So our plant ecologists have been evaluating what species, like looking at our plant list and also where we're sourcing those plants from to make sure that we're getting plants, species and sourcing that will be sustainable and persist for years into the future.

We're also looking at our practices, whereas we would expect to use a certain amount of mulching in earlier years.

Now that we're seeing these effects, maybe we plan to do more mulching to make sure that the water is retained in those areas.

So it's great to see this, the trend of investments and volunteers hours going up, and I appreciate the comment on how they go hand in hand, one leverages the other.

And looking at that previous chart with the pie breakdown, as we continue to do this work, I imagine there's a couple things going on.

We'll see more and more acreage into phase four, which will require kind of an ongoing maintenance level of investment.

more of the investment will need to shift to maintain it so we don't end up back where we started if we let go.

And at the same time, you also mentioned that some of the remaining acres that aren't enrolled are steep slopes or other things that are probably more difficult for the elementary school kids to be out there volunteering.

And I imagine those are probably more expensive.

places to maintain too.

So we have this, I don't know, the hardest acres to get to are maybe the ones that are left to happen in the next five years.

And this necessity to shift our existing funding to maintain this stuff that we've done good work on.

So what is the plan and the path to do that successfully?

We are still working on that.

Okay.

Yeah.

We did a plan update and kind of finished that process in 2017. And at the time we did some analyses to figure out how many acres we've enrolled and how many are left.

And came up with estimates of funding it would require to finish that.

But we've learned a lot since then also.

So we're finding that the The funding that we need to tackle those last challenging acres wasn't incorporated maybe as well in that update as it could have been.

So is the plan as we're going forward with the MPD analysis in the next year or so to make sure that there's additional monies going in your direction?

Are you involved in that?

Yes, we've been involved in them.

I mean, I'm asking if if Green Seattle Partnership through through for Terra is also engaged in helping us identify how much how many more acres how much more money and make sure that that's included in our next round of Metropolitan Park District priorities.

Yes, we've been, you know, we have been briefly and hope to be involved more in the planning process around what the next Metroparks District funding package will look like.

You may not remember, but Green Seattle Partnership was very important when we had our first round on this.

In fact, in 2014, I remember very clearly sitting here in these chambers when a number of your colleagues came in and said, if we don't have money for this, we're not going to support the MPD.

And I thought, all right, we're listening.

Ears wide open.

So it was, you've been.

And the Ivy Monster came out too, I think.

That's right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Also, while we're talking about partnerships, how much are you engaged with our Urban Forestry Commission?

Because a few months ago, we passed a resolution working toward this tree preservation citywide.

And we wanted to use a Portland model.

I know urban forestry is going to be taking the lead on this.

Mayor's office is supporting it.

But I want to make sure that you two, in particular, are connected with that as well.

Because expanding the tree canopy in the urban area we know is really important, but not just in parks, but across the city.

Yes.

I mean, I was on the Urban Forestry Commission for about five years and just ran up my position this year.

So I do follow what they're doing and as an organization.

And then, Patty, you're on an interdepartmental team, correct?

Yes.

So there are different levels of effort within the urban forestry work in the city.

There's the interdepartmental team and the core team and subcabinet and whatnot.

And so I've been involved with the ID team and the core team.

So I'm going to have to kind of move us along here because we've got other things and we hope to be just a few.

Just one quick comment on that.

The update to the parks district funding which will be happening next year from Mike as a council member for the next two months and never going into next year.

Mike is a resident of Seattle.

I think it's going to be really important to see a clear plan about or even options of what are the levels of investment we need to meet our original goals of 2025, which would be my hope, and if there's a reason why we need to look at something else, but a really intentional plan of what it will take to get the rest of the acres enrolled and continue to get through the process, and also the investment to maintain it.

And I imagine it's not gonna be an insignificant number, and I think that the alternative of letting it go or not making that investment is a huge loss, and it's probably the, It's still probably the least expensive way to essentially acquire additional green space that's accessible to people and creates habitat.

So that's why I think it's a smart investment to make.

Great.

Good.

Thank you.

I think we can skip through in the interest of time.

This is just recapping some of the benefits and impacts of doing this work that's really, really essential and I'd like to say non-negotiable for our quality of life here in Seattle.

So access to nature, community cohesion, climate resiliency, and, you know, having a healthy Puget Sound.

I won't go into this too much, but just a note that Green Seattle Partnership's really been a leader for the region, and we've been, for Terra as a nonprofit, have been replicating this model with all the cities you see on this map.

I'm now grown to 14 cities in Snohomish County that have adopted this model and are really looking towards Seattle as a leader in urban forest restoration.

The program's also gotten a lot of national attention, and this is just one recent example with the New York City Natural Areas Conservancy highlighting Green Seattle Partnership and doing a case study with us amongst some other urban forestry programs.

So highly regarded across the country as a leader and example for other cities.

And we do have Green Seattle Day coming up.

It's an annual tradition now here in Seattle.

And it's very exciting because we finally feel like it's a thing.

People know about Green Seattle Day.

And almost three, four weeks before the date, we had around 800, 900 people already signed up.

I think we're at 1,000, and we're a week away.

We know we're gonna get good attendance like spots are filling up like people are gonna have to go on a waiting list This is high demand.

Yeah, right, especially for the new shirts We don't have shirts this year, but we have really cool Stickers.

Yes.

Yeah But you can wear your old shirts, you know highlight years past.

Yep, Green Seattle Day 2007 How do you How are these locations picked?

Locations for Green Seattle Day?

Correct.

Well, there's a variety of criteria that we use.

We definitely like to have parks represented in each district.

And then it's a matter of where there are project sites that can handle enough people, and then where there's projects that are ready for planting, because the process is usually, you know, we do a year or two of invasive removal.

And then, so it's quite a process to lead up to planting.

And that there's, yeah, that it's active and that there's a group ready to support it.

We also try to shift over the years.

So that there's a variety of locations.

And then, I don't know, there's some other things that come into play.

Where some of the other partners have projects going that we'll be able to support.

Is there, on an earlier slide, there was a, slide four, there was a mapping of all of the forested or natural areas and it also mapped out the Seattle Parks and Recreation managed property and I think we knew do the, when you lay over that map with this map, it tells an unfortunate story.

And that's not, I'm not ascribing intent or anything to you all.

It's just the fact is that many of our communities who are economically distressed or who are in most need of tree canopy urban forestry are just unfortunately not represented on some of these maps.

Southeast Seattle has some pretty good representation, but southwest Seattle is I think still in need of a lot of attention as it relates to green space and open space and restoration work.

So just wondering if you all have put some thought into how to address the needs of Southwest Seattle in particular.

And we do that for the program overall, for our work planning each year.

For instance, our work with Dirk Corps in Westcrest Park was an intent to get more of that neighborhood involved because they hadn't been as much involved in that, you know, restoration efforts in that park.

But yeah, as Joanna said, there's all these other factors that come into deciding on sites for Green Seattle Day.

So we don't have as much in Southwest Seattle for Green Seattle Day sites, but that doesn't mean we're not engaging in that community.

We have- There's what?

That doesn't mean that we're not engaging in those communities.

We have, we work with DNDA, that's the Delbridge Neighborhoods Development Association, and EarthCore.

We work with them to decide on which sites in the area they're going to work on each year, you know, as we contract with them specifically to make sure that we get more engagement in some of these areas.

Does that make sense?

It does.

I appreciate it.

I just was wondering, I mean, Green Seattle Day seems to be sort of a banner event for you all.

And I think there's an opportunity to sort of highlight some of the equity issues related to our green space and open spaces when we're talking about tree canopy and urban forestry issues in general.

So I think I think, I'm assuming that given the fact that you all rotate around, that this map doesn't always look like this, but I certainly, as a citywide representative, appreciate that this is, there are certain clear pockets of lack of equity in terms of attention to green spaces and open spaces and restoration work that happens across the city that has really disproportionate health impacts and social cohesion impacts on economically distressed neighborhoods throughout our city and just want to make sure that you all, as you're doing your work and selecting sites to do the Green Seattle Day work, that you're putting that at the front in terms of a filter for how these locations are chosen.

Okay, go ahead, Tegan.

And I've been to a couple events at the parkland adjacent to South Seattle Community College.

Yeah, obviously there's a lot of acreage there and I think one was probably 10 years ago and one was a few years ago.

But there's obviously a lot of great restoration work going there.

And that, of course, is not an industrial area.

So I'm a little bit more focused around the Myers Way space or, you know, down in South Park and Georgetown, which, you know, there is a really important effort to sort of clarify who owns that one limited park space that's down in South Park right on the Duwamish.

And so I think There's going to be opportunity to do some additional work there now that those ownership questions have been clarified, and the city of Seattle will be taking that entire park space.

And I think there's going to be a really cool opportunity to continue to invest in that space and to get a broader degree of community support to work on restoring and really activating that limited green space in that neighborhood.

Definitely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So anything else?

Are you saying that your spots have filled up for Saturday, November 2nd across the city or just certain parks?

There are still some spots in certain parks.

We would definitely make room for any of you.

Oh, thank you.

If you plan to.

Thank you very much.

Well, I mean, we wouldn't want to miss Council Member Begichau's blackberry pulling prowess, although it's mostly a planting event on the second, right?

No kidding.

And what I have learned is that you buy welding gloves when you're doing blackberries.

Absolutely.

It took me only about 60 years to figure that out.

But welding gloves deal with the blackberries very nicely.

OK, well, I will see you on November 2nd.

Thank you very much for coming.

Appreciate that.

Thank you for having us.

Councilmember Baker, can I just say one last thing?

Sure, of course.

Along the lines of my earlier comment about a plan going forward, I'm considering doing a statement of legislative intent to ask that Parks, and I'd love to work with you on this, to report back sometime early next year on, you know, where we are in that planning process to hopefully get the council and public to kind of weigh in on that as we're building towards that.

update of the parks district.

Great, that's really good.

And then we can keep it parallel too with this canopy effort that we're doing.

I really appreciate that.

Okay, thanks for coming.

Really appreciate both of you.

Extend our thanks to all of your colleagues that are working on this as well.

So, Council President Harreld just stepped out for a moment and asked me to say this afternoon that there's only one item of business on the Seattle Council.

It's Resolution 31913. And that is a resolution concerning Washington referendum.

measure number 88, and this is proposing voter approval of initiative measure number 1,000, and urging Seattle voters to vote approved on this matter.

So that's in the council this afternoon.

And let's just go around the table and talk about issues.

I will end with both mine and Council Member Juarez's.

So how about if we start down in the, we'll do a bishop's move at this moment, and Council Member Gonzalez, what do you have for this afternoon?

I have nothing on this afternoon's agenda from my committee.

Obviously, given the budget deliberations and committee hearings, there are no regularly scheduled committee hearings that I am responsible for.

I do have a regional committee to attend on Thursday, October 24th.

I will be calling into the Puget Sound Regional Council Operations Committee to represent the City of Seattle, and that's at 9 a.m.

excited about that and I will also be attending Thursday 24th as a representative of the Seattle City Council the levy oversight committee meeting for the families education preschool and promise levy that is an open meeting that occurs in the Seattle Municipal Tower on the 40th floor I believe and that is all I have to report.

Great well thank you for doing that I know these extra committees are They just don't end.

And they stretch, you know, they seem to go on and I appreciate your taking this on.

Councilmember O'Brien, what you got?

For the Sustainability and Transportation Committee, there's nothing on the agenda nor do we meet.

I will mention on behalf of Councilmember Herbold that I'm passing around a proclamation for World Toilet Day.

And it does bring up a smile and a laugh.

No, only because it's, you know, we don't think about it worldwide, but you and I, in particular, Council Member O'Brien, have been fighting to get toilets in the city of Seattle for 10 years.

So what will World Toilet Day proclamation do for us in the city of Seattle?

So the World Toilet Day highlights the fact that we all need access to safe and clean places.

I think they wrote a book on this.

It's called Everyone Poos.

It's a great book.

It was in our repertoire with our little ones.

I'm happy to pass that along.

I do not have it as part of my library yet, so I'm happy to take it.

It will be there.

But it does highlight, Council Member Begichau, the point that you were making that multiple times a day people need access to toilets.

And for many of us that's relatively easy to do because of where we live and where we work, but for a lot of folks it's not.

And so Council Member Herbold wanted me to mention obviously this will be a proclamation.

World Toilet Day is officially November 19th, so we're a little bit in advance of that.

And then Councilmember Herbold is also sponsoring a number of budget items related to the what can we do in Seattle to make sure that everyone in our city has appropriate access to toilet facilities.

So I appreciate Council Member Herbold's leadership on that.

Yeah, I do too.

And it's been amazing to me how hard it has been for us to get some toilets in areas where people need them.

And I know that we get calls from the business community saying, hey, somebody's got to clean this up.

It's right in front of my business.

I'm trying to open again.

Yet at the same time, it seems to me that others are unwilling to try Portland loos or some of these managed toilets like what we've seen in San Francisco.

So I'm hopeful that maybe this will keep the conversation going when you and I are not here to push it.

Very good.

Thank you.

Council Member Pacheco.

Good morning.

So there are no plus related items on the full council agenda today.

And the events for this week, my office will be co-hosting a trivia night in partnership with the Seattle Municipal Archives as part of our 150 year celebrations.

So it's going to be this Thursday, October 24th at 7.30 p.m.

at the Fremont Dock Bar and Grill.

And the event is open to anyone 21 and over.

So I hope to see everybody there.

Everyone's invited.

And I understand that you've got a tough team going.

Yeah, each of your respective offices have been invited, and there is a challenge out there to see who can get the top prize.

Nice.

And on Friday, I have the Roots Dinner at Graduate Seattle in support of the Roots organization in the U District.

Very good.

Well, thank you for that.

So, Deborah Juarez will be with us this afternoon, but this morning she asked me to let us know that her staff attended the press conference about Fire Station 31, and that is the fire station People have been concerned about the additional cancer results from it.

And Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins, Calvin Potter from, and I think that's Chris Potter, from FAS, and Lieutenant Kenny Stewart from Local 27 were all there.

And Debra Juarez is pleased to announce a plan for Fire Station 31 that will provide a site for an interim station and then formalizing the process to plan and build a new state-of-the-art fire station in District 5. So I want to acknowledge the good work she has done, and she also extends her thanks to Mayor Durkan and Calvin Goings and Chief Scoggins and the Firefighters Union for their leadership to ensure that all of our firefighters are healthy and safe.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez, for doing that.

From our budget this afternoon, I just want to remind everybody that we are going to have at 2 o'clock after this council meeting, our full council, which will probably last about 20 minutes, that we dive back into budget.

Today, we're going to have issue identification related to criminal justice, LEAD, and Seattle Police Department.

So thank you for buckling your seat belts on that one this afternoon.

Tomorrow, we will have our last ID meeting, which covers miscellaneous topics.

And that will start in the morning at 930. I'm not sure how long that's going to go, so I just ask for your flexibility that maybe we go on as late as 1 o'clock.

I'd rather get it done in the morning than recessing at noon and coming back at 2, because we do get started with the big public hearing tomorrow night at 530. I expect that one to be long.

I expect that all the issues that we've been talking about, that the chambers will be full.

I've promised everybody I will stay till the end, two minutes of public comment apiece.

Groups will get five minutes.

Thank you all for coming, staying as long as you can tomorrow.

And I know that there are other requirements that you have in your schedule, but doors will sign up starts at 430 for anybody who's interested in that.

And just a reminder.

The Form B's, that's the next step after obviously Form A's, are due this Wednesday at 2 p.m.

So anything that you want to adjust from your Form A's or if you want to consolidate, that's due at 2 o'clock this Wednesday.

And I want to acknowledge already Council Central staff, Allison McClain in my office, you all have been doing a phenomenal job of trying to keep things on an even keel and to make it as clear as possible.

So again, Council Central staff really gets to work after, you know, the Form A's come in, then the Form B's they redo, and we've got quite a schedule in the next couple of weeks.

So thank you all, too, for the good work you're doing.

So, that is all for me.

Oh, I know one thing I was going to say about tomorrow night.

The Vietnamese translation will be there.

Vietnamese is the only language that has been requested.

So, if you know of any others, please make sure that we get that done.

Council Member Benshaw, for Tuesday morning session, do you have a sense of what the miscellaneous items will be or are you still working to finalize those?

Well, I think this is where central staff comes in and talks about issues that may be smaller that we haven't heard.

Maybe it's Office of Economic Development or things that haven't come forward at this point.

And it also depends upon what people, what council members on form A's brought forward.

So I don't have anything.

I don't have a complete list this morning, but we can get you that if you'd like it by the end.

Yeah, I mean, I'm aware of sort of conceptually what falls into the miscellaneous bucket, but I was just wondering if you had the list of things so that we as council members can begin the process of preparing for those discussions and be efficient in our discussions.

Love that about you.

I'll tell you what, I will check in with central staff and Allison after this meeting and see what they have.

I want to say thank you to the three of you who are here.

Just what a great job.

I felt we did last week.

You were engaged and involved and asking great questions and making good points.

It has made this phase so easy for me to be able to know what your issues are going forward.

Thank you for that.

Okay.

You're doing a great job, Council Member Bagshaw.

Thank you for being an excellent chair.

Thank you, appreciate that.

Okay, anything else for the good of the order?

Ditto.

Oh, very sweet.

Thank you.

Okay, so we will conclude this meeting this morning.

I'll see you at two o'clock and Council President Harrell will be back leading the charge and then we'll dive right into budget.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.