Parks, Public Utilities and Technology Committee 72424

It's almost .

It's easy to get flat on the top.

Hey, Council Member Kettle.

Sorry.

You're fine.

Hey, good afternoon.

We will call to order.

It is July 24th, 2024, Meeting of Parks, Public Utilities, Technology, but my favorite committee will come to order.

It is 2.02 p.m.

I'm Joy Hollingsworth, Chair of the Committee.

Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Three council members are present.

And I am here.

Thank you.

We have four items on the agenda today.

First will be a discussion and vote on resolution 32140, which will allow Parks and Recreation to apply for grants on behalf of the city at the state of Washington and Conservation Office.

Following, we will have a discussion and vote on Council Bill 120810, which will authorize SPU to ask EPA to extend the combined sewer overflow consent decree to 2037. And last but not least, Items 3 and 4, we will have one of our first two briefings of the drainage and wastewater rate adjustments from Seattle Public Utilities.

which are council bills 120819 and 120820 respectively.

If there are no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

I can't speak today.

Seeing no objections, the agenda is adopted.

With that, we'll move into public comment, hybrid public comment.

Public comment should be related to items on the agenda today and written within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up?

Currently, we have one in-person speaker signed up and there are no remote speakers.

Awesome.

Mr. Zimmerman, you get two minutes today.

Clerk, can you please read instructions for the public comment?

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

I will call on speakers by name in the order in which they registered, both on the council's website or from the sign-up sheet available here in council chambers.

We will start with the in-person speaker.

If you have not registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period.

Just go to the council's website or by signing up on the sign-up sheet near the public comment microphone.

The online link is listed on today's agenda.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

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

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

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first and only speaker for in-person public comment today is Alex Zimmerman.

And before we start, I want to, for the record, reflect that Councilmember Rivera, we're joined by Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you.

Mr. Zimmerman, your time starts now.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

I thank you because I'm alone today.

You know what it means?

Yeah, I'm always alone.

It's not a point.

I'm supposed to be giving you a bonus, like a three-minute total.

You know what it means?

That's exactly what it is.

I speak from Tacoma to Everett for...

4,500 times right now, yeah.

Three minute is a normal for business mind, you know what is being explained.

One minute is a BS, two minute is not enough, three minute is good.

Yeah, thank you very much, yeah.

Ze Heil, my dirty damn Nazi fascist junta, bandita and killer.

My name Alex Zimmerman, I'm president of Stand Up America.

I want to speak about these guys, you know what is mean, yeah.

What is name?

About this business, I forgot.

Oh, something with water, something with another problem, and another problem.

And before in this meeting, many time, two question what is I have.

Question number one, why price go every year up?

I don't understand this because I present in sales is absolutely BS.

In second, what is critical?

We have how many?

300 million debt.

Why you don't cut this department by Tory percentage?

You not understand simple point like business consultant, they doing job every year same.

Yeah.

First year, 10 cent change.

Yes, a big change.

Second year, 12 cents.

It's a big change.

Third year, 40 cents.

It's everything.

Why you need keep these people here?

You understand?

When I be a boss and this will be my department, three people I'll be hire.

That's it.

Because every year come same again and again and again and again.

We don't have money.

We have a ton of money in system.

I talking about this many years.

What is you need?

Thank you.

Your time has expired.

All right, let's move to agenda item number one.

we move to the agenda, I want to send a special happy birthday to our clerk.

Alex Altshuler is from Southern California.

She went to USC and we can all boo her for that, but she did make it up.

She went to University of Washington for grad school.

So we're really happy about that.

And I'm not going to say her age, but she is a Gen Z. She holds our office down and really appreciate all the work.

And I'm going to embarrass you.

So thank you and happy birthday and for working on your birthday.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

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

Yes, thank you, Chair.

Agenda item number one is Resolution 32140, a resolution relating to Seattle Parks and Recreation, authorizing the superintendent of Parks and Recreation to act as the authorized representative and agent on behalf of the City of Seattle and to legally bind the City of Seattle with respect to certain projects for which the city seeks grant funding assistance managed through the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office, This is for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Presenting are Moshe Hecht and Christopher Williams from Seattle Parks and Rec.

Awesome.

We have Moshe Hecht and Mr. Christopher Williams.

Thank you both for being here.

Please introduce yourself for the record and you can go ahead and jump into the presentation.

Great.

Christopher Williams, Seattle Parks, Chief of Staff.

Moshe Hecht, I'm the Grant Manager.

All right, so maybe I'll kick us off here, and happy birthday, Alex, by the way.

Thank you.

She's embarrassed, but it's okay.

Thank you for getting us on the agenda today.

We appreciate the time with you today to put forth legislation.

We're required to...

receive authority in the form of legislation from the city council as part of the application process through the Washington State Recreation Conservation Office, otherwise known as RCO.

This legislation today will require a vote.

So this grants us legal authority, and it gives us the authority to apply for the grant.

There is no guarantee, however, that we will get the grant.

We are just seeking the authority to apply for the grant.

This funding is critical to our asset management program.

We depend on outside sources.

rather outside funding sources to help us meet our asset lifecycle replacement program cost and to keep our replacements close to industry standards as much as possible.

Without it, repairing and replacing our assets would be much more difficult.

There are three main reasons we seek grant funding.

Grant funding helps us to close the gap between what we expect the project cost to be and the actual cost of construction due to excessive inflation and construction costs.

The second reason we seek grants is grant funding helps us include elements in projects the community would like that were not originally budget.

Things like security lighting, circulation paths, and picnic shelters.

Well, most of the projects we are presenting to you today will happen at a scope down level without the grant funding.

This grant funding also helps us build projects that are unfunded or severely underfunded.

These are projects that often come from communities and neighborhoods like the Lake City Floodplain Project.

or Dr. Jose Rizal Park, which greatly depend on the funding from this grant source.

The SPR team has worked really hard to identify projects that not only have a need for additional funding, but are competitive in one or more of RCO's grant programs.

I would also like to mention that the funding requires us to maintain these parks in perpetuity for the purpose for which the grant funding is awarded.

So at this time, I would like to introduce my counterpart, Moshe Hecht.

And I'd like to say a few words about Moshe.

Moshe is probably one of the best public park and recreation grant writers in the United States.

He has been very successful acquiring grants for the department in numerous categories, and we're just really fortunate to have Moshe in our department.

Thank you very much, Christopher.

I'm humbled, honestly.

I appreciate that.

So my name is Moshe Hecht.

I'm the grant manager for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

First, a little bit about RCO.

So RCO is a longtime partner of the City of Seattle.

They were started in 1964, and they've invested over $2.6 billion in parks across the state.

Typically, they award about 270 competitive grants, and it's about $78 million on a biennium cycle.

You know, each of the projects that they invest in, as Christopher said, must be maintained in perpetuity for the purposes for which funding is sought.

And as part of the application process, we are required to get the adopted resolution authorizing us to apply for the funding.

And this is not the only time that we apply for funding.

We apply year-round.

It is because RCO requires this that...

President Biden will be returned to RCO by September 6, 2024. Actually, I should probably advance the slides here a little bit.

There we go.

So in the last biennium cycle, we submitted 13 applications and received a total of $7,620,000 in funding.

I'm very proud to say that in the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program category, Rainier Beach Skate Park application was selected as the best project to invest in out of 59 projects for funding.

Soundview Playfield similarly was selected as the best project in the Youth Athletic Facilities Program, and Stan Sears was also selected as the best project in the Boating Facilities Program.

This cycle of funding is focused on what I would call our typical park development projects.

We are preparing 10 applications, three in the Land, Water Conservation Fund Program, three in the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program, three in the Youth Amateur Sports Program, and one in the Community Outdoor Athletic Facilities Program.

When determining which projects to apply for funding for, we look very carefully at the scoring criteria of each program.

And the timing is critical, i.e., the project start date really needs to line up with when the funding is gonna be available from the state.

RCO's primary criteria include need, local priorities, i.e., how is the need known and why are the existing amenities in a park not actually satisfying that local need?

The project scope.

project design, project engagement, sustainability, which includes ecological, social, and economic factors, cost efficiencies, which primarily focuses on volunteer groups donating their time or other non-governmental investments in the park program.

And then there's a variety of need and statewide priorities that are scored automatically using GIS data by the state.

So our first project is Smith Cove.

It is located at the base of Magnolia, very close to the cruise ship terminal.

It is a grass field that gets very muddy.

It does not serve the Magnolia, Inner Bay, and Queen Anne communities very well because of the poor drainage.

This project regrettably got stalled out because of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we're very excited to restart this project.

We will improve drainage, making it playable year-round, We're gonna improve ADA accessibility improvements and greatly improve access to the field and restrooms from adjacent parking.

The actual budget and cost for phase one of the project is 7.5 million, which will include park improvements outside the scope of the grant funding.

The grant funding will allow us to expand the scope of the project, enlarging the field to the west side, creating a practice area and possibly a diamond field, and to enhance the picnic area and improve accessibility.

We are leveraging roughly 1.2 million of the 7.5 million available as a local match for $634 grant request.

Walt Hudley Playfield is located in the High Point neighborhood of West Seattle.

It is an 11-acre park and functions as a recreational hub for recreational and competitive athletics.

The field hosts practices and games for organizations such as Highline Premier Football Club, West Seattle Soccer Club, and Seattle Youth Soccer Association.

It is striped for 7v7, 8v8, and 11v11, and this is very unique in our park system to have fields striped for that age group.

The centerpiece of the park is a lighted synthetic turf field, which is way past its useful life.

Its playability has greatly deteriorated.

The goal of this request is to ensure that the facility can continue to support high levels of recreational and competitive youth athletics, increase accessibility throughout the park, and renovate the public restrooms.

This funding will help SPR do more than just the bare minimum renovations.

We will be able to do a better job on accessible pathways, install soccer nets to keep kids from kicking balls into the street and chasing them, and to really just make this a wonderful park again.

We're leveraging $1.4 million for a $1.4 million request.

Dr. Jose Rizal Park is located on the west side of Beacon Hill.

It is right at the corner of I-90 and I-5.

The renovations will align with the opening of 270 affordable multi-family housing unit building that are currently under construction across the street.

That it's gonna increase the need for a space where children, families, older adults can gather, engage in recreational activities.

This is the first project under Seattle Parks and Recreation's Elevate Initiative.

Elevate is an initiative to elevate, diversify, and widen the platform of opportunity for everyone.

It aims to strengthen the connection between design and community it serves by rewarding vision and purpose and by providing support throughout the creation of a new Vital Parks design.

Through Elevate, a community member was selected by the community to steward the design process alongside our staff.

The renovation will meet the growing needs of the local community and set a precedent for future projects under Elevate, fostering community engagement at its core.

This project will transform the park into a safe, accessible destination with magnificent views, a place for children to play, and a space for social interaction and events.

We are leveraging 1.375 million dedicated to the restroom renovation as a match for funding request in the WWRP and LWCF grant programs.

If successful, this funding will allow us to renovate this park and much better meet community needs.

Hutchinson Park is located in the south end of the Rainier Beach neighborhood.

It is a much needed complete park renovation.

This project includes a play area for ages two and up, resurfaced sports courts, basketball court reconstruction, play field repair, enhanced natural areas, accessible pathways, new entrances, and other related improvements to meet accessibility standards and improve safety.

The renovation of the fields will repair the soil conditions, drainage, and convert one of the softball fields into a U-10 soccer field.

The other softball field will be repaired and upgraded to meet accessibility requirements and improve soil and drainage conditions so it is playable throughout the year.

The two goals of this project are to rebuild the park so that it is welcoming and supports the outdoor recreation needs of the community and to reduce crime in and around the park by activating it with fun pro-social activities such as organized sports and drop-in recreation and more.

Funding will allow us to do so much more in this park, things like completing the accessible loop pathway, security lighting, install more efficient drainage systems, and upgrade plumbing and irrigation systems.

Here, we are able to leverage just $230,000 as a match for all of the grant requests.

We are able to do this because some of the grant programs can be used as a match for other grant programs.

Lake City Floodplain Park is located a couple blocks west of the Lake City Hub Urban Village.

We are partnering with Seattle Public Utilities and the nonprofit Midsound Fisheries Enhancement Group to create an accessible natural area for passive recreation in the Lake City community and to address the need for a public green space.

This supports the Recreation and Conservation Office's goal to improve opportunities for outdoor recreation and physical activity in communities that have less access to parks and open space.

The core element of this park is a pathway through the floodplain and creek consisting of a combination of on-grade gravel and concrete pathways, boardwalks, and bridges.

As visitors meander through the park, there will be various viewpoints and seating areas for picnicking and socializing.

Not included in this application request is a floodplain reconnection project by SPU and Midtown Fisheries Group to benefit water quality, create healthy in-stream and riparian habitat, and manage on-site stormwater.

This project is dependent on grant funding.

SPR only has $600,000 dedicated to the project, which we are leveraging as a match for a $500,000 request in the WWRP program and a $1.1 million request in the LWCF program.

Here you can see a summary of the dollar value we are applying for in each project, or for each project.

And here's a summary by grant program.

And then here's just a brief timeline of what to expect.

So these again are due September 6th and the RCO boards, the various boards will approve or the ranked lists in October.

And those then go to the state legislature, which then approves the grant funding in each of the programs.

And then our contracts are expected to be issued quarter four of 2025. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Moshe.

That was great.

And I would love to see colleagues have questions, so I'm going to open it up to them to ask some questions.

First, Councilmember Kettle, and then we'll go to Councilmember Strauss.

Kettle, you're recognized.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for including Queen Anne on the Smithco Park because it's definitely a Queen Anne asset as well.

I just wanted to highlight, they're all great options, great parks, and great projects.

I wanted to highlight three.

Smith Cove, very important, and it goes to the synthetic fields, another thing that allows us for the year-round.

And I really like the bioretention basin, really nice.

And as you know, the clamoring in upper northern D7 for an off-leash area is over the top.

And so thank you for including that.

And I think it's a fantastic program.

And I'm sure that my D6 colleagues, since we share Magnolia, would be in support of that, not speaking for him, of course.

The other ones, too, that I wanted to highlight, you know, in terms of was the one down south as the Hutchinson Park.

I think it's a fantastic reflection of getting the community involved and speaking up and basically advocating for themselves.

And I think this is something that should be really highlighted as we go through.

As you know, different neighborhoods are better organized to speak up.

And for this one, which is...

think noted you know further south you can go practically and that's an area that hasn't necessarily been able to speak for itself so for them to do so and this lead by example could be a something that in enables other neighborhoods to speak for themselves too so that's a fantastic example to have and something to promote.

And then the last one is the floodplain park at Lake City.

You know, we do need to, you know, green our city.

You know, we keep talking about canopy.

And so we need this kind of project.

And so my hope is that, you know, you're successful in the match process.

And as I noted, you know, in different fora, like take our waterfront park.

You know, what makes Seattle unique?

You know, it's the two mountain ranges.

It's the sea.

But the other thing is, you know, our native community, which is, you know, for somebody who grew up on the East Coast, very different experience here on the West Coast than the East Coast on that.

And we should be highlighting that.

It's unique.

It's part of our history.

And also, it's attractive for, you know, people who come to Seattle and say, hey, this is different.

This is interesting.

And going back to the floodplain park is interesting.

You know, having that canopy and really promoting the evergreens.

I think we've gotten in the habit of moving away from the evergreen trees and going to deciduous trees.

We need to ensure that we're an evergreen city.

And that is another thing that's unique that really draws people to Seattle.

And so, you know, economic development should be thinking parks.

I mean, every department needs to have this kind of intersections and, you know, how they come together and support each other.

And this is an area with this one in terms of supporting this idea of an evergreen city.

And really should push off for that.

And last thing is, if you are successful on this, you will win your bet.

And so that's your challenge.

Thank you.

Because I have challenged parks to match OEM.

Because OEM is the grand king and queens of city government.

For their small budget, OEM emergency management brings in so much, granted usually from FEMA, but so much in grants.

So my challenge to parks is to match OEM.

And if you do, you'll win, and you know what, you'll win.

I look forward to it.

Thank you.

Accept that challenge.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Just real briefly, thank you for all the work that you do.

Tying this into the last presentation that you were here for, the second largest, longest committee meeting in this year's history about synthetic fuels and turf, all the rest, noting that you are speaking, your actions are following your words here, going after RCO grants so that we can, when I asked you directly, what's the barrier, and the barrier is funding, and here you are coming through searching for that funding.

So just wanted to say thank you.

And if I'm going to hold you to the 2026 start date at Smith go park here on the record, but really, you know, anything that we can do to get that, that finished, I'm not going to spend time going through each of these parks because we've got a long agenda.

Just want to say thank you.

Oh, you bet.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

Council member South.

I'll join them in that too, by the way.

Council President Nelson.

Thank you very much.

So I had a question about the Dr. Jose Rizal Park project.

Point of, can you use the microphone?

Oh, sorry.

Thank you very much.

By the way, I should just, I should say first that I apologize for being late, but I did catch the whole presentation, so apologies.

All right, so the project at Jose Rizal Park, you happened to mention that the local match is coming from restroom repair.

Is that restroom repair at Jose Rizal Park?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, so the funding we have is to renovate the existing restroom facility there, and then we're leveraging that to get additional funding to try to...

really install a good playground that actually meets children's needs, upgrade the stage area and the picnic area, and then hopefully, if we have enough funding, to really improve that viewpoint so that folks can really enjoy the view from up there.

I don't know if you've been up there, but it's fantastic.

I just had to ask because that was a big item in the spending plan update a couple years ago, so I just wanted to be clear where that money was coming from.

Thank you.

And basically also shout out to Senator Cantwell for securing the permanent reauthorization of the Land Water Conservation Fund in 2019.

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you both for being here and for the presentation.

I noticed here in 2020, the 2022-23 grants and then the 24 ones that we're talking about today has not included anything in Magnuson Park, for instance, or Green Lake.

And we've had these conversations about fields And I know Magnuson Park is in need of some field repair and additional fields and and it's been in the works for some time in terms of the parks plan um and so i'm wondering if it's not included here if then maybe next year's or subsequent um uh funding opportunities would include those parks on the north end of town so we actually have uh funding for the additional field at magnuson park so that is in our

We can always expand the scope of that with additional funding, but I wanted to give you the reassurance that we have some baseline level of funding that could supply a match to that.

So that's something we ought to be looking at.

Okay, terrific.

That sounds great.

Thank you, Christopher.

And also, you know, I want to underscore the softball fields.

Again, getting back to the gender equity and the girls playing softball, making sure that that's at the forefront.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Yeah, that's on my radar, by the way.

Thank you so much.

We know Moshe's going to write them grants.

Let's go.

Colleagues, is there any other questions at all?

Seeing none.

Well, thank you, Moshe and Christopher, for the presentation.

all your hard work.

We know that Moshe being the best grant writer in the United States, that's pretty impressive.

Are we allowed to pay him a percentage of what he brings in, or is that just non-profits?

You can't do that, Siddy.

Okay.

Anyways, so thank you.

Appreciate you.

We will now move to vote on the resolution.

And I move the committee recommend the adoption of resolution 321-140.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded.

Second, I cannot read today, to recommend adoption of the resolution.

Are there any final comments?

Seeing none, clerk, the happy birthday clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, birthday clerk.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the resolution be adopted will be sent to July 30th council meeting.

If there's no further questions, we will move on to agenda item number two.

Thank you, Christopher.

Thank you, Moshe.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Awesome, I'm gonna embarrass the person who works in my office with calling her the birthday clerk, because she didn't want anyone to know it was her birthday, but happy birthday.

Okay, clerk, please read agenda item number two into the record.

Agenda item number two is Council Bill 120810, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities, authorizing the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of Seattle Public Utilities to submit for approval to the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, a first material modification of the 2013 consent decree entered into by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the State of Washington Department of Ecology, and the City of Seattle in Civil Action Number 2-13-CV-00678, and to fulfill the obligations set forth therein.

This is for briefing, discussion, and a possible vote.

Presenting today are Leslie Webster and Melissa Ivanovic from Seattle Public Utilities.

Awesome.

Thank you both for being here.

We're looking forward to the presentation.

And please go ahead and introduce yourself for the record, and you can just jump right in.

All right.

My name is Leslie Webster.

I'm the planning manager for drainage and wastewater at Seattle Public Utilities.

Hi, I'm Melissa Ivancevich.

I manage our wastewater regulatory compliance at Seattle Public Utilities.

Thank you.

I'm not sure how to get this to show up.

Thank you.

Yeah, we'll get it.

Happy birthday.

May I, for the presenters at the table, the microphone has to be pointed directly at you.

It seems to, you can bend it around and I'm sorry.

Apparently I'm the microphone person today.

You're good.

No worries.

We need all the help we can get.

It's good.

Everybody has their role.

Thank you.

All right.

So thank you, Chair Hollingsworth and committee members for your time today.

Andrew Lee had planned to be here for this presentation, but is unexpectedly out of the country because of the death of a family member.

So you have Melissa and I here with you today.

We're here to give you the background on the CSO consent decree modification that's been transmitted for approval.

So in 2013, the city of Seattle entered into a consent decree with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology to control combined sewer overflows in the city.

We also call those CSOs, you'll hear that acronym a bunch.

In 2019, we notified EPA and Ecology that we wanted to change the terms of that consent decree.

And since that time, we've been working closely with our regulators.

and now have reached an agreement on the terms of a modification which was attached to the legislation.

In a nutshell, the modification allows the city to have more time to meet our CSO control requirements.

The end date of the 2013 consent decree is 2030. The modification extends that date seven years to 2037. The modification also includes a time extension for the Ship Canal water quality project.

The added time in this modification allows for a more sustainable and affordable rate path for SPU's customers.

We're here today to ask the committee to authorize SPU's general manager to submit this modification to the 2013 consent decree to the U.S.

District Court for the Western District of Washington.

That was a mouthful, excuse me.

In the presentation, my colleague Melissa is gonna provide an overview of what the consent decree regulates, the progress the city has made since the consent decree was entered in 2013, and why the city wanted to change the terms of the consent decree, as well as a little more detail on what's changing.

Before Melissa gets started, Is it possible that the presentation's blank from here on out?

Sorry.

We apologize.

No worries at all.

We're just having a little.

We'll just keep going.

Yeah, no worries.

You're all good.

The slides that we had next are slides that you have seen before.

Chair, clerk, I've got the presentation if you want me to run it.

Council Member Strauss would be amazing.

Yes, we'd love, we have Council Member Strauss who's gonna help us out here.

In addition to microphone support, you'll be our slide.

New IT.

He always saves the day and I appreciate that.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Here we are.

Beautiful, look at that.

Thank you.

So if you could go up to the third slide, that would be perfect.

Let's see, yep.

There it is.

Here we are.

Yep, perfect, thank you.

Seattle sewer system.

So I think you've seen these slides before, so this should be a reminder, but we have three types of systems that serve our city, a separate system, a combined system, and a partially separate system.

And on the map on the right, you're seeing that our systems have sort of a patchwork nature in the city.

The areas in purple are fully separated areas of the city.

In these areas, wastewater or sewage and stormwater also think of it as rain travel in a separate set of pipes.

And the wastewater and stormwater stay separate all the way to either a treatment plant or receiving water body.

The areas in yellow on the map are fully combined, and the areas in green are partially separated.

And I have diagrams on the next slide that show those system types.

But what you want to know for that map is that those areas, the green and yellow areas, are the areas that contribute to combined sewer overflows.

They cover about two thirds of our city and they are the areas where our pipes are the oldest.

Most of the sewer pipes in those areas were built before 1950 and some of them are as old as 1890. So this is an old system.

It's a patchwork system and it's an issue that we've been dealing with for a long time.

So if you could go to the next one, thank you.

So in combined areas, all the wastewater and stormwater travel in the same set of pipes, and in the partially separated areas, wastewater from homes and businesses and stormwater from roofs travel in one set of pipes, and the stormwater from the street only travels in a separate set of pipes.

In both of these systems, when it rains hard, they can be overloaded, And when that happens, they release a mixture of stormwater and sewage at specific points called outfalls, CSO outfalls.

SPU does a ton of work to reduce CSOs to help keep our waters safe for people to enjoy, and also to help protect the plants and animals that live in those waters.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Melissa.

All right.

Thank you, Leslie.

We can go ahead and go to the next slide.

So I'm going to start here with a background on our current combined sewer overflow consent decree before I jump into what we've accomplished and what we're seeing in the way of changes via the modification.

So before 2008, the city had not built a substantive CSO control project since the 1990s.

And at that time, EPA was monitoring CSO communities across the nation and negotiating consent decrees with them to establish enforceable deadlines for CSO control.

So early in 2013, as we were negotiating our current consent decree, we committed to direct implementation of several high priority projects.

Those are known as early action projects, and they were focused on basically along Lake Washington building storage facilities there.

We entered into our current combined sewer overflow or CSO consent decree on July 3rd, 2013, so just a little over 11 years ago.

And it sets the performance expectation for different types of sewer overflows across our system in order to reduce our CSOs to one overflow per outfall per year.

And we have 82 outfalls.

They're the red dots on the map there.

In addition to the early action projects along Lake Washington, we also had to develop a long-term control plan that was a 20-year plan to control all remaining uncontrolled CSO outfalls.

And then we also developed a joint operations plan with King County to improve our coordination with the county.

King County negotiated a consent decree at the same time because they also have outfalls in the city.

We then developed an integrated plan in 2015 that met the objective of our long-term control plan, and that included higher-value stormwater improvement projects and programs so that way we could defer some of our lower-value CSO reduction projects to 2030, to that deadline of 2030. So next slide, please.

And since negotiating that 2013 consent decree, we've invested almost a billion dollars in reducing CSOs in our city.

Once the ship canal water quality project is complete, we will have eliminated almost or about 175 CSOs per year towards our target of 183 that we identified in our original 2013 consent decree.

The result is therefore an overall reduction in CSO volumes of more than 50%.

So that means your pollutants are entering our local streams, lakes, and Puget Sound, and that leads to water quality improvements for people, fish, habitat in our region.

Next slide, please.

Too many slides.

Yeah, there we go.

So how have we accomplished this work?

We've been investing in infrastructure and programs that reduce CSOs, including the four large storage tanks built along Lake Washington.

Those keep about 5 million gallons of combined sewage per storm from overflowing to Lake Washington.

We've constructed over 50 sewer system improvement projects across our system.

That includes system retrofits and pump station improvements.

And we've also built green stormwater projects.

They manage and treat nearly 13 acres of impervious areas, largely roadways.

And in combined sewer areas, these help reduce the amount of stormwater that enters the system that may otherwise cause an overflow, as well as remove pollutants.

and add native vegetation and plants to the urban landscape.

Next slide, please.

Some of the higher value stormwater improvement projects and programs in our consent decree include our street sweeping for water quality program and our rainwise program.

Each year, our street sweeping program removes over 100 dry tons of pollutants and debris from our busy arterials, which help to capture toxins before they enter our local waterways.

And our Rainwise program offers rebates for rain gardens and cisterns to private property owners in the combined sewer areas of Seattle.

Since 2010, almost 1,300 installations have been rebated in the combined sewer basins managed by SPU, removing an estimated 19.4 million gallons of stormwater per year from the combined sewer system.

Next slide, please.

So the map on the right, you can see the distribution of the stormwater, or sorry, the infrastructure investments that we've made across the city.

The orange areas are our CSO basins, and then the various dots show you where the projects have taken place.

As you are probably aware, our largest investment in CSO reduction is our ship canal water quality project.

And next slide, I'll go a little bit more into that one.

So as you've heard in earlier presentations on the Ship Canal Water Quality Project, it's our largest capital project ever at 2.7 miles long and almost 19 feet in diameter.

When it rains, the underground storage tunnel will be able to capture and temporarily store more than 29 million gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater until King County's West Point Treatment Plant is ready to receive it.

This will help improve the water quality regionally by keeping more than 75 million gallons of combined sewer overflow on average each year from entering the Lake Washington Ship Canal, Salmon Bay and Lake Union.

So with all of that said, why a modification?

when we're already committed to protecting public health and reducing pollution in our local waters.

We have, as you have heard, have been investing in reducing CSOs for more than a decade, but at that same time, the context has shifted.

Climate change has changed the intensity and frequency of storms in our region, which has complicated planning efforts and project compliance.

At the same time, the cost of building projects to address CSOs has increased significantly.

So the city pursued this modification to increase our ability to manage and adjust projects and programs when conditions like costs and climate change change, as well as align with the King County led projects in their basins that they manage in order to reduce costs and create a more affordable rate path.

Additionally, we wanted to prioritize high environmental benefit projects in historically underserved areas of the city.

So as a result of this modification, in particular, King County is accelerating their work in the Duwamish, a low-income community that contains some of the county's largest overflow volumes.

And the city is working with the county to incorporate some of our own Duwamish outfalls, which have some small volumes left to control, into the county's larger project.

Next slide.

Through our CSO work to date and other SBU long-term planning projects, we've learned a lot about climate change, our system needs, and community-centered and equitable infrastructure.

So this modification allows us to incorporate what we've learned into our planning and investments for the next phase of the program.

Specifically, as part of this modification, we're working on a community centered update to our long term control plan that I mentioned previously, this draft, the draft of this long term control plan update is due in 2026. And it will include details of how of how we will control overflows and 14 additional basins by 2037. A few of these basins will require some larger infrastructure projects like tanks, but most of the basins have smaller problems and we're trying to prioritize programmatic work like side sewer repairs or green stormwater infrastructure that will solve the problem and provide a greater community value.

And then as previously mentioned, we're collaborating with King County on a near-term project in the Duwamish addressing combined sewer overflows as well as potentially stormwater.

And some of the other King County-coordinated project areas include the University area, which contains three of our outfalls, and the Montlake area, which contains eight of our outfalls.

Ratepayers get the most benefit when we're able to work together and align these projects and meet each other's objectives in a collaborative way and is also less disruptive to the community when we can work together.

So we're excited to be able to continue to do that work.

As you know, we'll also complete the Ship Canal Water Quality Project, which is also in partnership with King County, and we'll continue to implement the stormwater programs like the street sweeping for water quality and our green stormwater infrastructure programs like our natural drainage system partnering program and RainWise.

All right, last slide.

So this modification therefore ensures that the city's continued sewer infrastructure investments will increase community benefits, support climate change adaptation, align with an affordable and sustainable rate path, encourage interagency coordination and prioritize investments in historically underserved parts of our city.

And we ask that you support this legislation.

Thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

I had a chance today to go visit some seventh graders at a summer camp.

And the amount of information they knew about wastewater and where it goes and how it gets there.

And it was pretty impressive because I don't remember at seventh grade talking about that.

So I think we're on the right path with our generation about understanding environment.

So I'd like to pause there and I see that we have a question from Council Member Kettle and you were recognized.

First, thank you very much for the presentation.

I'm well aware of consent decrees.

Usually it's public safety, so glad we're not alone.

I appreciate the work that we're doing, and I'm going to be visiting the Ship Canal, I think, tomorrow or next day, which will be great.

And I've been to the West Treatment Plant with Chair Hollingsworth, another great tour.

For D7, obviously downtown, not a lot of green, a lot of pavement, a lot of hard sidewalks and so forth.

So I see that.

But looking at the rest of District 7, I see West Queen Anne as like an area with a partially separated system.

And it wasn't spoken to, I mean, the big project with the ship canal, obviously, but You know, Queen Anne is really an old part of the city, and the infrastructure in Queen Anne is old, which has some major emergency preparedness items.

Just to turn this into a public safety committee meeting for two seconds.

But also, it's failing.

And I've seen this again and again on the Hill.

If a street has a major water break problem and they're in there, is there possibilities like, I think it was West Ray Street between like 9th and 10th.

I mean, they just redid the entire street with the whole kind of complete street road projects.

Are they going in and trying to reduce the amount of partially separated?

Do you take advantage of those opportunities to limit, kind of shrink that little green area in D7?

I know that we are working to coordinate and collaborate with SDOT as much as possible when they are going in and doing their big roadway projects to be able to address any infrastructure issues so that way there is less impact to the community and we can just go in once and it's not as disruptive.

So I know that we are, we have someone at SBU that works, that's her job is just coordinating on the SDOT projects to make sure we're getting in there just the one time to be able to address as many of those issues at once.

I don't know, Leslie, if you...

That program is both for drainage and wastewater and for water.

So we do the same thing with our water pipes.

Like if we're going in to fix our water pipes and there's a drainage and wastewater issue there as well, we do do those things in combination because it does have such a...

It saves the...

the trouble for the community and it's a great opportunity to get in there and fix stuff.

We didn't focus on that type of work in this presentation because it's outside of our combined sewer overflow reduction program, but SPU has a number of programs that deal with older infrastructure from pipe rehab to capacity problems and we'd be happy to come back at any point and share more information about those with you.

Okay, yes, if you have it, I would take it because it's very interesting.

And the idea is to shrink that partially separated area.

I would imagine throughout the city, but I'm just looking respect to District 7.

Yeah, and the partially separated areas, what we're trying to do with those is as development happens over time, it triggers the individual parcels to connect to the storm drain system.

And so they separate over time as the city is developing.

And that's one of the ways that we're pulling more stormwater off of our combined systems in those other areas.

Excellent.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

And I also want to thank Councilmember Strauss for being the traffic controller for the slides.

Appreciate you.

You stepped in.

Delta could need you right now to help with logistics.

That's why we fly Alaska.

Yeah, of course.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for being here.

I just want to say that I had the opportunity to have a briefing earlier in the week.

Thank you for that and get my questions answered.

I do want to express gratitude to SPU for their of being proactive in terms of seeking these modifications to deal with the impacts of climate change that has really changed this environment since 2013 when this consent decree was issued.

So really do appreciate being proactive in responding to these impacts.

So thank you.

And quick question, and I don't know if this pertains to the drain water, but I recently had a visit to the Arboretum and saw how much water runoff comes off just on a regular day, not even raining, and then they showed me a video of it flooding.

Would this have any impact on the improvements that we're making for them?

I know that they're doing a study or not a study they're doing.

They're going to have some investments there to return some of that water back to Lake Washington.

Would this have any impact relief on that?

this modification would not impact that.

Understood.

Yeah, thank you though.

Yeah, no, that's good to know.

I know it was wild for me to see all the runoff from Capitol Hill and it was just, I had no clue.

Someone's backyard looked like a river.

It's pretty interesting if anyone wants to go with me, but anyways.

Okay, any other questions?

Council President?

Thank you.

So in the beginning of your presentation, you said that you need our authorization to then present this request to the courts.

And then what's the chance that we get it?

Yes, so we've, very high.

So we've already, we just finished up about two years of negotiations with the US EPA, Washington State Department of Ecology and the US Department of Justice.

So the US Department of Justice has already routed the modification for pre-approval on their end.

And so then the process steps are, we get approval from city council, King County just got, they went through the same process.

We were all negotiating in the same room for theirs as well.

Their council just approved theirs yesterday.

And so then we would send it back to the Department of Justice.

They would lodge it in court and the judge would approve.

theoretically approve it.

This was the process we went through when we first entered into our current consent decree and there were no no issue.

So I can't imagine a judge would decide otherwise.

What will happen though is once they lodge it in court, then that triggers the 30 day public comment period on the federal side.

So there could potentially be comments from either tribes or other stakeholders But I know that EPA and Ecology have done tribal outreach to try to engage with them and have conversations about the modification.

And hopefully OIR has as well.

Yes, yeah, we have as well.

So we let EPA and Ecology take the lead and then we followed up as well.

So we've also reached out to tribal, the tribes, as well as environmental stakeholders.

Thanks.

Awesome, is there any other questions?

Okay, we will now move to vote on bill and I move to vote.

I move that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120, 8-1-0, is there a second?

Second.

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

If there's no final comments, clerk, will you please call the roll for the committee to recommend the passing of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the recommendation that the bill passes will be sent to July 30th, 2024 city council meeting.

Thank you both again.

Really appreciate your time.

Now, if there's no further questions, we're going to move on to agenda item number three and four.

Will the clerk please read item three and four into the record.

Agenda item number three is Council Bill 120819, an ordinance relating to drainage services of Seattle Public Utilities, adjusting drainage rates and amending sections 21.33.010 21.33.030, 21.33.040, 21.33.050, and 21.33090 of the Seattle Municipal Code to reflect adjusted rates.

This is for briefing and discussion along with agenda item number four, which is Council Bill 120820, an ordinance relating to the wastewater services of Seattle Public Utilities, adjusting wastewater rates and amending section 21.28.040 of the Seattle Municipal Code to reflect adjusted rates.

This is for briefing discussion as well and presenting today are Paula Laschaber and Carl Stickle from Seattle Public Utilities.

Awesome.

Thank you both for being here.

Please introduce yourself.

And I also like to note colleagues, um, they're going to be one presentation today on both subjects, right?

Correct.

The drainage and wastewater, but they will eventually be voted on as separate, but it is one presentation.

So just wanted to clarify that you may.

Oh, and we're going to have help.

No worries.

You're all good.

We'll try to save him from traffic control today.

This is also blank.

And if that, I'm more than happy.

I can go ahead and share my, well, I'd have to pull it up, but we'll wait for that.

And looking forward to the presentation of the drain water, wastewater and drainage.

We know it's incredibly important in Seattle.

I went to school in Tucson and their drainage system is really, really bad.

And there would be these really big curves in the road where you would drive through and you'd see cars underwater because of their drain system with the monsoons.

So looking forward to it.

Please introduce yourself and jump right in.

Sure.

I'm Carl Stickle.

I'm the finance director for Seattle Public Utilities.

And I'm Paula Lashover, the Chief Financial Officer of Seattle Public Utilities.

And as announced, we're gonna cover the two council bills regarding drainage and wastewater rates.

These rates align with the objective of SPU's 2025-2030 strategic business plan.

They include fulfilling the regulatory requirements and satisfying the financial policy targets established by the council.

So now I'll turn it over to Carl for the details.

Great.

Thank you.

First and foremost, happy birthday, Alex.

And thanks to my colleagues for giving you a little bit of a primer on drainage and wastewater systems and infrastructure, because that's what we're going to be talking about today.

So I'm going to walk you through the drainage and wastewater rates proposal.

These are three-year rates starting in 2025 and going through 2027. I'll start with a brief background on drainage and wastewater, and then I'll show you the rate path proposed, show you the impact of the rates on bills, let you know what assumptions we've built into these rates, and then talk about next steps.

So next slide, please.

Thank you.

So for wastewater rates, it's a relatively simple process.

It's based on water consumption use.

The more water you use, the more wastewater is assumed.

So pretty straightforward.

And for what it's worth, CCF is cubic feet of water.

One CCF is about 748 gallons.

The next slide, please.

So drainage, it's a bit more complex.

It's based on two factors.

It's based on parcel size and runoff contribution.

So obviously it's a little different for residential that typically has a natural ground cover like trees and grass than it is for a commercial property that is almost entirely concrete.

The more impervious the ground is like concrete, the more runoff there is that uses the drainage system and therefore more charges.

While parcel size is pretty straightforward, the runoff contribution uses an algorithm to determine the approximate charge.

So we recently updated the data using new technology that better shows sort of a tree canopy and impervious surfaces.

It's been about a decade since we've last updated that data.

There's been a lot of development since that time.

So the proposed rates include this new data.

So here's the proposed rate path for all of our lines of business, including drainage and wastewater.

It's the same as what we proposed earlier as part of the strategic business plan.

There's been no changes.

So as Paula noted, if you look at the drainage and wastewater rates in the middle there, you'll see that we've been able to keep the rate path relatively smooth for three years of the rate study from 25 to 27 in sort of the light blue section.

But the rate forecast for the out years is more of an estimation of where we think it'll land.

And we're not asking for your approval on that forecast with this proposal.

The rate path years in blue are pretty consistent because we are able to use cash to not only smooth the rates, sort of avoiding those rate spikes, but also keeping them lower by buying down the rate.

We don't have the same assumption for cash in the out years, the 28 through 30 in the green, but we're hopeful that for the next rate study, we'll be able to accomplish that same rate smoothing.

The wastewater rate also includes the King County treatment rate increases.

So here's a bit of good news.

You can see on the top table what was originally adopted for wastewater and drainage as part of the rate path for 25 and 26. And then the lower table shows our revised proposed rates for drainage and wastewater, and overall, they are lower.

And you may ask why, which is, I think, the next slide.

I think I've mentioned this, but I briefly mentioned that the reason it's lower than the adopted rates is that we used existing cash on hand to buy down the rate somewhat and to make it a lot less volatile.

So it's a smooth and predictable rate path.

We don't like holding on to...

to ratepayer cash any longer than necessary.

And while we're proposing three-year rates today for your review and approval, we'll also endeavor to keep these rates as low as possible for the next rate proposal in three years using whatever cash we have on hand when we come to that, when we come back to you.

Can I have the Councilmember Strauss, did you have a question?

I did, but yeah, I guess I'll just take it from here.

Carl, thank you for this slide.

I believe it's slide 16 with the comparisons.

Just teasing this out a little bit more.

So in the strategic business plan that was authorized previously, That is what allowed you to bring us rates that could have been as high as 7.8% for 2025.

Right.

If you go to one more slide ahead.

Yeah, that one.

Correct.

So what council had approved or endorsed was those top rates, and those were much higher at the time.

We've been able to come in much lower now.

based on what we can do and a lot of savings that we've been able to accomplish and cash that we've had on hand to pay down the rates.

And that's our goal is to make the rates as low as possible for our rate payers.

And, Chair, I'll just kind of note here that it might be helpful for us to have a brief refresher on the last strategic plan that led us to this rate path.

because there were some choices made during the pandemic where we kept rates low, pushed those costs, those higher rates to the out years, which would have been this year.

And then SPU came in and saved the day and brought us lower rates than what we had assumed at that time.

And so I think at least in the last couple of presentations, I wasn't tracking down to this level until we got into hashing out our briefing and And it's unique.

I don't see this often where a utility is authorized to go to a higher rate path and comes in below what we've authorized.

So I just wanted to take that moment to pause and realize that Carl, both of you are very good at what you're doing.

I just realized it might be helpful for us to step back and understand how did we get here today from that last strategic business plan.

Yeah, great, great, great suggestion.

We'd be happy to come back with that.

Thank you.

You can go to the air right there.

So you may remember this slide from when we discussed the strategic business plan, but we thought it was worth emphasizing.

We have several drivers impacting rates, namely inflation, higher interest rates, which affects bonds.

Regulatory pressures and aging infrastructure that affects our capital program and the King County treatment contract rates.

All these factors impact our analysis and rates sort of throughout the years.

One of the biggest factors we're having to consider is inflation when it reached nearly 8% a couple years ago.

Fuel costs went up for us, construction materials and supply chain costs also skyrocketed, and labor and healthcare costs have also increased since that time.

But instead of requesting a rate increase to cover those inflation costs at the time, we absorbed it within our existing budget.

Over the past few years, inflation has remained relatively high, and we're just having to catch up now.

So we have built those costs into our rate forecast going forward.

We work closely with the Budget Office on inflation assumptions, which include the recent labor union agreement.

In terms of capital expenses, oh, yeah, sorry.

In terms of capital expenses, we have several state and federal mandated projects, and we're constantly having to maintain our infrastructure.

Also, interest rates are super high, as you're probably aware.

Back in 2021, we were fortunate to refinance many of our outstanding capital bonds to lower interest rates, saving us tens and the ratepayers tens of millions of dollars.

Today, rates are just simply too high to take advantage of those kinds of opportunities.

So we're seeing much higher interest rates on our bond financing these days.

And you'll see those assumptions in our bond interest rates in an upcoming slide.

Then there's the King County contract for our sewer treatment.

As you know, King County treats our wastewater and we collect rates on their behalf.

Every year, King County increases their rate projections and they're currently projected to increase to eight and a quarter over the next several years.

All this to say, just like the rest of the city, the utility is having to bear the brunt of a lot of economic issues and we're having to propose rates that include this new reality.

So the wastewater rate is comprised of actually two rates.

There's a system rate and a treatment rate.

The system rate shows the cost of maintaining our infrastructure.

And the treatment rate, of course, is the county's cost.

So they treat our wastewater.

At the bottom of the table shows the average bills for a sample of customers with the single family residents paying about $79 now for wastewater costs, having an increase $4 next year to $83.

That's the 5% increase.

For drainage, it's a bit more complex.

Of course, it's based on two factors, parcel size and runoff contribution.

Obviously, it's different for residential than it is for commercial.

The more impervious the ground is, like concrete, the more runoff into the drainage system and therefore more charges.

And there's a whole algorithm for sort of determining the runoff contribution, and below is...

A SAMPLE OF CUSTOMER IMPACTS AS WELL.

SO FOR INSTANCE, THE MULTI-FAMILY BILL IS CURRENTLY $11 ON AVERAGE AND WILL INCREASE TO $12 STARTING IN 2025. I SHOULD MENTION THAT THE DRAINAGE BILL COMES THROUGH THE PROPERTY TAX BILL FROM THE COUNTY.

IT'S NOT PART OF OUR UTILITIES BILLING.

SO YOU MAY ALREADY BE AWARE OF THAT.

There was interest in showing the annual bill as it relates to the actual parcel size for small residential properties.

These are rates paid by homeowners with parcels under 10,000 square feet.

So for instance, townhomes, which are referred to as middle housing, make up almost all of tier S1, that first one there.

Within each of those tiers, the amount of hard service is about the same.

So these are average annual bills, which would be broken up twice a year and would come in the county's property tax bill.

IN TERMS OF ASSUMPTIONS THAT WE'VE USED IN THESE PROPOSED RATES, WE'RE ASSUMING INTEREST RATES FOR BONDS AT 5%.

WE JUST SOLD WATER BONDS ABOUT A MONTH AGO, AND IT WAS AT 4.2%, BUT THE WATER BOND, THE WATER FUND HAS A AAA RATING.

THE DRAINAGE AND WASTE WATER FUND IS A LITTLE LESS THAN THAT, SO WE'RE ASSUMING 5% RIGHT NOW.

I FEEL THAT'S A GOOD PLANNING NUMBER.

Our CIP accomplishment rate is assumed at 80%.

O&M inflation, we're assuming at 4%.

There are certain things that we plan for separately in O&M, like vendor contract costs and healthcare and labor costs.

For instance, we assumed the recent labor union contract with these rates, which was a little higher than 4%.

We've also included the King County treatment rates as provided by the county.

No changes to tax rates.

And we're not assuming right now any debt refinancing or alternative funding like federal loans, but we'll definitely be seeking out those kinds of opportunities every year if just to take advantage of potentially better rates in order to lower our costs to rate payers.

And then finally, we've been asked about middle housing, which could include duplexes and townhomes.

And we consider those under the small residential drainage bill.

Middle housing tends to be lot sizes smaller than 10,000 square feet.

So in the prior slide, I noted how townhomes make up almost all of tier one as they have a smaller lot size.

In terms of next steps, I believe we have another committee meeting set for mid-August.

And then assuming you recommend the rates, we'd look to a full council vote in September before the budget.

Probably the main takeaway here is that these are the same rates you've already seen as part of the SPU's strategic business plan.

And then, of course, one silver lining here is that the proposed rates are actually lower than what was previously adopted in the current strategic business plan.

So I'm happy to take any questions.

Yes.

Thank you so much, colleagues.

I will pause here to see if anyone has any questions before I kind of ask mine.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you.

I just also want to Highlight what you shared is that you have passed through rates that you can't control.

I also want to highlight for the viewing public, everyone watching on Seattle Channel right now, that something Carl said very quickly also is that a number of the drainage rates, is that correct, go through your property tax?

The drainage rates are part of the property tax bill.

So we don't see those on our every other month bill.

Right.

twice a year rather than your impact.

And for people still with mortgages, it is held within escrow, et cetera, as compared to some of these other rates that we would feel in our every other month bill.

That's right.

I've got my City Light version in my bag right now, right?

You know, it's something that you start feeling in your pocketbook.

Understanding that King County is very inflexible in their rates, I really want to compliment you on doing a good job to keep them as low as possible for Seattleites.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there other questions?

I know that I've said this before in meetings, there's a lot of, I know we're keeping rates as low as possible for our community, and there's a lot of people that don't, qualify for a certain um you know discounts they're just like they fall right above that line it's kind of like the same there's some people that don't qualify for affordable housing but they're just right above the line and thinking of ways in which we can give relief to some of those folks who don't qualify for discount programs that are like right in the middle that are middle-class working families and just you know um people just trying to get by um with with relief and i know there's certain things that we can and can't do but um i'm open to whatever creative ideas that spu has and um for us to just you know be able to continue to keep the the costs for people as affordable as possible so um and i don't know if there's any other there's their comment uh council member kettle

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

And thank you very much for your briefing.

And we, Chair Hollingsworth and I, are on the regional water quality.

So we see the King County side, if you will.

And there's definitely some demand pressure, I mean, some pressures, rate pressures that are driving some of those numbers.

And two things.

One is I haven't always been aware of inflation.

I'm old enough to remember the earlier high bouts of inflation from a previous era, but it has major impacts.

And I have a great, you know, better understanding and appreciation of what the Federal Reserve Chairman is trying to do related to inflation because it wrecks so many different things from a budgetary and everything else perspective.

And so hopefully the assumptions hold and Right now, they're trending in the right direction, so let's keep that up, Fed Chairman.

But the other thing I wanted to say, too, and ties to a third point, is we can't, when we think about these rates and so forth, we can't look at them in isolation because this is just one.

You know, then we have others for Puget Sound Energy, or we have all these different pieces coming together.

And so we need to be mindful of the combined effect, the combined impact.

And this will show up in different ways.

It could show up in terms of levies, like what goes ahead of the voters.

I mean, these things all add up, and we need to be mindful of that and be really looking to minimize the impact as much as possible by smart budgeting with my Chair Strauss from the budget side of things and to make sure that we do that.

And otherwise, we could create problems.

And we have to be also mindful of programs that we do that can be inflationary.

One thing I've noticed over the years is that city council doesn't necessarily think about the inflationary impacts of whatever decision they're making.

You know, if it's a hot topic, you know, hot sector, uh, like sidewalks, you know, and we throw a lot of money on it.

We need to be smart about how we do that because it can create inflationary impacts.

Um, and, uh, and I think that's something overall from our work here on the council, we need to be mindful and cause it comes down to these assumptions on this, slide eight, the interest rate, the O&M inflation, and the like.

And so thank you for your work on that and being a good steward of the money and then bringing that back to level things out, which really help the residents of our city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

If there's no more further...

Oh, gosh.

Councilmember Kettle, I'm sorry.

I was looking at you.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

Councilmember Kettle, thank you.

I know.

I apologize.

I know.

I'm sorry.

Thank you both.

Really appreciate it.

I think my last comment is that's also great to know.

And I think Council Member Strauss has said it.

A lot of what we do is paired to King County and what their rates are setting for the wastewater and all these different things.

And I know we sit on the Regional Water Committee.

So that's, people need to know that, that, you know, there's a lot of factors that come into that.

So thank you.

Thank you all.

So with that, thank you everyone.

If there's no further items of business, this meeting will come to a close.

Do any of my colleagues have any more items of business for the committee?

Seeing none, I won't tell you all to sing happy birthday to Alex, but I will sing her the Stevie Wonder happy birthday version in my office coming after the meeting.

This concludes July 24th, 2024, meeting of the Parks, Public Utility, and Technology Committee.

Our next committee meeting is Wednesday, August 14th, 2 p.m.

No further business.

The meeting will adjourn.

Hearing none, it is 321 p.m.

Thank you.