Seattle City Council Parks, Public Utilities and Technology Committee 12/11/24

Hey, good afternoon.

The December 11th, 2024 meeting of Parks Public Utilities Technology will come to order.

It is 2.04 p.m.

I'm Joy Hollingsworth.

I am the chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council President Nelson?

Present.

Four council members are present.

THANK YOU, CLERK.

PLEASE NOTE COUNCILMEMBER STRAUSS IS EXCUSED FOR TODAY.

WE HAVE FIVE ITEMS ON THE AGENDA.

THIS IS LAST MINUTE, NOT LAST MINUTE BUT END OF THE YEAR STUFF WE HAVE TO ADDRESS.

FIRST WE HAVE AN INTRODUCTION TO MOSS ADAMS' 2024 AUDIT OF SEATTLE PUBLIC UTILITIES.

SECOND, WE WILL DISCUSS AND VOTE ON THE EXECUTION OF A WIRELESS NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE AGREEMENT WITH VERIZON WIRELESS.

on the Seattle Center Campus.

Third, following, we will vote on the renewal of the Chihuly Garden and Glass Exhibit at the Seattle Center.

After that, we will vote on the acquisition of two parcels of future park land on Beacon Hill to meet the green space requirements for urban villages.

Last but not least, we will look to amend the conservation futures legislations to purchase Beacon Hill acquisition and reimburse A recent acquisition.

That was a lot of acquisition words.

We will now consider the agenda.

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

Seeing and hearing none.

There's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Now we get to move into my favorite part, public comment.

We're gonna open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on the agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have three in-person speakers signed up and there are three remote speakers.

Just to clarify, you said three?

Three in person, three remote, six total.

That's the 30, I was like, whoa.

Okay, three in person and three remote.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

Clerk, please read the 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 in-person speakers first.

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 and 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, who is Christian Gruy.

Hi Christian, good to see you again.

It's a little shorter.

Yeah, you can go either one.

You can go that one and pull it down or that one as well.

It's OK.

I'm happy right here.

All right, awesome.

My name is Christian Grier, and I'm the executive director of the Motor Vessel Lotus Foundation at the Seattle South Lake Union Park Historic Ships Wharf.

And I would like to provide comment on a current issue at the Historic Ships Wharf there at Lake Union Park.

It is a wonderful attraction that is the only living museum to Seattle's maritime history.

We are six ships, all Washington State nonprofits.

Our nonprofit foundation, as I might have already said, it operates the beautiful 1909 Craftsman Stiles, built in Seattle, 93-foot yacht named Lotus.

And we've been moored in that slip for the past 13 years.

During the past months, few months anyway, all of the historic ships have had a brief discussion.

Some have had actual meetings on site and other ships have only been able to exchange emails with the Seattle Park and Recreation folks and or Center for Wooden Boats.

And that was to verify our necessary state and local credentials and insurance.

And with no further explanation, we have been informed by email that we must vacate the historic ship's wharf as of January 2, 2025. All the ships got that notice.

Joy Hollingsworth visited with some of the ship's crew last week, and we would so welcome your visit, Mr. Kettle, to those ships, and especially to Lotus.

We have recently learned that the reason for concerns being raised actually may lie with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

You were perhaps already aware of this, but in case you weren't, we want to clarify this point.

We are advocating for further discussion and clarification on this issue with Seattle Parks and Recreation and DNR.

All of the six ships on the Historic Ships Wharf are part of the new Maritime Washington National Heritage Area, and I believe .

Time's up, no worries, you can always send us your, you can write us the council as well.

You can write to the council.

You can write in your comments to the council for your full comments so we all have them.

It is, yeah, time is up.

No worries.

And I did visit and you all served the best tea on South Lake Union.

Yes.

Next is Alex Zimmerman followed by Andrew Aubion.

And Mr. Zimmerman, before you start, and please listen carefully, can you refrain from not calling anyone names or just inappropriate language just so we can just keep it clean today, please?

It's my last meeting.

You're absolutely right.

It's my last meeting of the year.

Can you help me out for Christmas?

Forgive me because I read this animal farm from American writer.

Understood.

Okay.

We're going to start the public comment.

We're going to start the timer, okay?

So I just want to make sure you know I've just asked very nicely.

You can do what you want to do.

Two minutes.

Go ahead.

Because I read that very popular American writer book, Animal Farm, for 50 years.

When 50 year ago, you're like a six-year-old or seven-year-old, you know what I mean?

So this come to my brain, when come to children brain, it's very hard move out.

So forgive me, you know, I'm old, stupid man.

Yeah, forgive me.

Yeah, but I'm always nice.

Yeah, always nice.

Yeah, I'm always nice.

Yeah, I'm always nice.

I try to be nice.

I will be nice when you stop interrupting me.

Thank you very much.

My lovely Seattle cockroaches.

My name, Alex Zimmerman.

I'm president of America in MAGA member.

Yep.

I like park for me.

Seattle is look like a big, nice, beautiful park.

Yeah, maybe similar, but the Seattle Zoo or something like this, you know what it means?

So inside this park, I see too many animals.

What does make life miserable?

You know what it means for ordinary people?

Yeah, maybe for Amazon bosses or Microsoft bosses is different.

For ordinary people, I see too many cockroaches around.

What does make us life miserable?

My proposition, how we can clean this park, and make less cockroaches inside.

You know what it means?

Because they're very dangerous.

In my proposition, very simple, you know what it means, because we need something doing about this.

And I think freedom of speech is very important, you know what it means, because when you can communicate, maybe different opinion have, like example, Morales have different opinion, other government have different opinion.

Maybe it's time for open better room in city hall, so people with different opinion can come and talk.

Viva Trump!

Yeah, Trump idiot.

Next speaker.

Next public commenter is Andrew Aubion.

Hi, Andrew.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Hi.

So, yeah, my name is Andrew Abian.

I live out in North Beacon Hill, and I'm here to express my strong support on behalf of many of my neighbors for the item CB 120922 relating to the acquisition of the property of 17th Avenue South and South Walker Street.

And I'm really pleased to see this on the agenda.

We've worked really hard over the About 15 years now to get that lot plot of land Preserved and and made accessible as a park for the benefit of the residents and also of the city of Seattle The area that we're in is very underserved by parks It's very it's there There's a lack of accessible parks, and this really affects people with small children and with mobility issues.

And we're getting a lot of, in the meantime, so it's always been an issue in terms of having accessibility to parks.

In the meantime, we've had rapid densification of the neighborhood.

And just my block alone went from having about six houses or eight houses to 19 just in the past few years.

Density is great.

It's fantastic.

I think we really need it for this city, but we also need parks for our growing population.

So I have really strong energy to vote in favor of this acquisition, and I appreciate the time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew, thank you for all your work during this process as well.

15 years is a long time, so thank you.

All right, we'll go to online.

Yep, we will now move to the remote public comment.

Once I call a remote speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak.

Then the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Our first remote speaker is Simon novice apologies on the last name.

hello, thank you for.

Including us remotely today I am also i'm sorry, my name is Simon cannabis he him pronouns and.

I serve on the Beacon Hill Council Board of Directors, and I'm a neighbor of the 17th and Walker property that Andrew just spoke about.

And I would like to second his remarks.

I'm also calling in support of CB120922.

We really are in a park desert over here in this corner of Beacon Hill, partially because we're on such steep slopes.

So even if you're looking at an aerial map It looks like we're closer to parks than we functionally are because of the steep hills going upstairs.

And that's especially difficult with strollers and bikes and that sort of thing.

So having a park here in our corner of the universe would really make a big difference for a lot of neighbors.

This property is very unique.

There's a house, a garage, an outbuilding with a grassy yard area, but the majority of the property is full of mature trees and hasn't been developed.

So it's a whole city block with only one house on it, basically.

So there's this wonderful biodiversity that's there, including a lot of native species that we don't see much of in our neighborhood, including Madronas.

We see birds of prey coming and going from the property area.

And there are three schools in our immediate area, plus the El Centro de la Raza's child care program.

So in the neighborhood, a lot of kids will be able to come as part of their school programs to learn about the plants of the Pacific Northwest or to have recreation there.

And it's also on a neighborhood greenway.

So a lot of bikers come by, too.

Thank you very much.

Please vote in support of the acquisition and the related item around funding.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Simon.

Our next speaker is David Haynes.

Hey, Mr. Haynes.

Your time starts when you can talk.

Hi.

Thank you.

David Haynes.

I would like counsel to address that.

the public utilities regarding the dumpster pickups leads to not negatively impact so much as it is because there's too many days and too many different discombobulated hours, early mornings, kind of like unsuspecting in the afternoons where there's trash pickup and some of the disgruntled employees are like revving the engines too much.

And then they're shifting the shakes and banging and clanging of the dumpsters way too many times and it's like right outside like residential units it's like echoing across you know the neighborhood and startlingly waking people up too early and it's a reminder that we have like sometimes like 20th century watered down integrity of the building codes that make us have to hear that but also we have a bad infrastructural design and interpretation of what constitutes the residential neighborhood which versus the government telling you that you have to have a service road running in between every building, justifying going higher in the levels to make it more livable within the, like, area that you're living in that has, like, you know, a reprieve from cutting down any more trees because you can go higher to get away from it.

But without the dumpster being right next to the wrong area where, like, The trash gets picked up on Monday.

The recycling gets picked up on Tuesday.

And then on Wednesday, the commercial mixed-use side of it gets picked up only on the recycling.

Then on Thursday, the commercial side of the trash gets picked up.

And then Friday, you've got to start back over with the residential trash pickup.

And it's like a five-day-a-week impact.

That seems to be the dominant reminder of the binder of having to work from home and enjoying the day off.

and to see the reprieve from the five-day workweek negative impact of the public utilities, dumpsters, violations of the noise ordinances.

Awesome.

Final speaker.

Our last speaker is Denise Pai.

Is Denise present?

Looks like Denise is not present, and that was our last speaker.

All right, that will end.

Now the public comment period is closed, and we are going to jump into our items of business.

Will the clerk please read agenda item number one to the table, and the presenters please make your way to the table.

Agenda item one is a Moss-Adams audit introduction for briefing and discussion.

Presenting today are Lori Tisch and Cassidy McCrab from Moss-Adams.

Hi, Lori and Cassidy.

Thank you all for coming.

Really appreciate you all.

We're looking forward to your presentation today.

And we will get you all set up with the presentation.

And please go ahead and introduce yourself for the record.

And then you can jump in whenever you're ready.

Also take a quick moment to thank everyone who came for public comment today regarding parks and the Lotus and everyone who came to speak about issues with our committee.

Okay, good afternoon.

So we are here as the external financial statement auditors for Seattle Public Utilities.

And in case some of you are not familiar with that, we work very closely with the state auditor.

The state auditor is the auditor for the city financial statements as a whole.

Seattle Public Utilities financial statements roll up into those financial statements as component units, but they do receive their own separate audits.

One of the reasons that an external CPA firm is engaged to perform that audit is that our report is included in the bond issuances for the utilities.

So we are able to get in and conduct our audit and issue our reports before the state audit does finish their own citywide financial statements.

But I did want to assure you there's no duplication of efforts.

We work very closely with them and share our work papers and actually we rely on them to audit the cash balances and then we get information from them.

So it is a very symbiotic relationship.

So we are here today to present the audit plan and to learn if any of you have areas of concern or anything that you wanted to comment on regarding the audit plan, because you are the group charged with governance over the Seattle Public Utilities Management.

So we do have a duty as auditors to report to you.

So again, my name is Lori Tisch.

I'm a partner for the engagement.

To my right is Cassidy McCrab.

She is in charge of running the field work when we're conducting our audit, as well as supervising our staff.

So I will start by explaining our scope of services.

We will be issuing separate audit reports on the water fund, the drainage and wastewater fund, and the solid waste fund.

And those reports will indicate that the financial statements are presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

Now, because we also perform the audit in accordance with government auditing standards, you will get an additional report on the internal controls.

So that does require us to do additional procedures looking at the internal control systems governing each of the utilities.

So we'll be looking at compliance and controls related to the financial statements.

And then the last item, we're going to come back to you in late April, early May, after our reports have been issued, and we will report out to you the results of our audit and any findings that we may have.

One thing I'm required to explain is what an audit is and what it is not.

We will be forming and expressing an opinion on whether the financial statements, again, as I mentioned, are prepared and reported in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles.

And again, as I mentioned, we'll be coming back to you to communicate that.

An audit is designed, again, solely to present on the fairness of presentation of financial statements, so we're not in there doing a forensic audit, we're not in there actually testing and opining on internal controls, but rather that focus on the fairness of presentations of the financial statements themselves.

I'm going to turn it over to Cassidy now.

She is going to explain the audit timeline, some of the areas we spend the most time on in the audit, and then we'll get back to some of the communications.

Awesome, thank you Lori.

So here we have a high level timeline of our audit starting from October where we do our audit planning all the way up until our end of our audit reports and our exit meetings.

Prior to this point, so we're in December obviously doing our entrance conference, but prior to this point we've conducted our audit planning which consists of setting materiality, performing risk assessment over major accounts, And then we also partner with our IT team.

They perform testing over SPU's systems, general computer controls, and then our team specifically goes in and walk through tests of controls with SPU personnel and complete testing over the operating effectiveness of those controls.

And after this point, we'll come back in March and April.

We'll perform our final fieldwork procedures.

This is where we'll perform our substantive procedures, including test of details, more analytical review.

We'll obtain the financials, perform our review over those, and then issue by April 30th.

And then we will see you back in May as we explain our closing comments and any audit findings.

All right, and bringing it back to our audit planning.

So we're required to perform risk assessment over audit accounts.

And these are a list of several areas where we've deemed them to be significant risks.

These are where we'll be focusing a majority of our time and placing a lot of emphasis.

So just to name a few.

First is utility plant and construction in progress.

The utility has very significant construction projects ongoing over multiple years.

A lot of costs roll up into those.

So we perform testing directly over those costs, as well as meeting with the project managers directly to ensure that, you know, what's going on in their project accurately is reflected in the accounting books.

If there has been a project completed, making sure that's no longer sitting in construction work in progress.

So multiple procedures performed there to ensure that balance is accurate.

The utility also has bonds, as Lori mentioned, so we perform procedures to ensure that the bond balance is accurately stated.

If there are any new issuances or payoffs, we analyze those, make sure SPU has performed their calculations correctly.

The utility is also party to several environmental remediation sites.

So we meet with the city attorney, we review any new findings or new circumstances during the year, review EPA estimates to kind of come to a conclusion that the liabilities are reasonably stated.

We also perform procedures over regulatory accounts, so this is kind of a deferral of income or expense to a future period, capitalized interest on bonds, bond fees that the utility has chosen to amortize, so we look at the new activity of those.

And then we also look at operating revenues, several types of expenses, and then, to reiterate, our IT team does come in and perform procedures over general computer controls.

All that to say, our audit plan is very fluid, definitely depends on the results of these procedures, but these are what we've deemed as significant right now.

And then to bring it back to our auditor responsibility, we are providing reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or error.

So the key here is reasonable.

We're not giving absolute assurance.

As Laurie said, this is not a forensic, excuse me, not a forensic audit, but we do design procedures to at least consider fraud.

We perform engagement team discussions to make sure our approach is risk-based.

Just to name a few common procedures, we perform journal entry scans, look for anything unusual, any major manual entries that management has recorded.

But at the end of the day, there are inherent limitations as we are not looking at every single transaction.

So there is a risk that some material misstatements may not be detected, but we do design our audit approach to at least consider the risk of fraud.

Cassidy mentioned materiality a few times when she was speaking, and I wanted to explain a little bit what that means.

It means we're not doing 100% testing of every transaction that's occurred during the year.

We do focus, as Cassidy mentioned, on risk and the accounts that seem to possess the most risk.

We also set dollar amount thresholds where we will look into certain items if they exceed that dollar amount.

But what I like to explain to my public sector clients is, especially for you, it's not just a question of what is that dollar threshold that you could absorb a journal entry that could maybe be posted next year instead of this year.

But we also look at qualitative factors, because as a public utility, your ratepayers, the citizens of Seattle, are very important, and they may hold different views on what's important that has nothing to do with the dollar amount.

So we do make sure we're really looking at the accounts from a qualitative aspect as well.

What would be important to a ratepayer?

What would be important to a taxpayer?

What's important to the bondholders?

So the utilities have a lot of different stakeholders, and we really spend quite a lot of time looking at each account saying, all right, the bond accounts are going to be very important to those bond stakeholders.

Certain of the revenue and expense accounts are going to be important to the rate payers.

So we do take some time to really look at what is important from a qualitative standpoint your bond covenants, your expectation of your stakeholders, and just other industry factors that we take into account in the utility industry.

So I did just want to assure you it's not a magic number that's applied.

It's really a combination of qualitative and quantitative factors.

Another area that we wanted to address is if there are other documents that contain our audit report, we do request and it is required under auditing standards that we have a chance to read that document to make sure that the opinion that we have given is appropriate to be included in that document.

And I can give you the main example that we run across this at Seattle Public Utilities, and that is the bond issuances.

So when there is a new bond, typically our opinion on the financial statements included with that bond are in the appendix.

So we do get an advance copy of that bond official statement.

We do read it to make sure there's nothing that would be contrary to what had been in our opinion, typically that would have been issued months before.

So we do check on that before that bond issuance goes out with our opinion included.

That's the main example.

Sometimes entities have annual reports or other types of popular reports that they issue that would contain that.

But I would say in recent years, it's truly just been the bond issuances where we see this situation where our audit opinion is included.

And we're going to conclude just by, I know you probably don't care, but we're going to conclude by talking about the recent accounting pronouncements that have been issued, just so you're well versed on that.

There are only two that are effective for the current year that we are in, that we are auditing.

And the first one likely will have no impact because it really just addresses if you have an accounting change or a correction of a prior period statement.

So we're not expecting to see this one.

The second one, GASB 101, and GASB is the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

They're the entity that sets the accounting principles for the City of Seattle.

There's a new one called compensated absences.

I don't think it's going to have a big impact because the city and the utilities have been accruing for the compensated absences in their financial statements and having Note disclosure, but this standard kind of has a few tweaks to how the calculation is made.

So I know that SPU management is working with the citywide accounting department to ensure that those tweaks have been incorporated into the overall SPU draw their dollar amount from.

So I think they're well on their way to getting this implemented.

We'll be checking it probably even before we come back in March.

But I don't anticipate there will be much change dollar-wise or even disclosure-wise on this one.

Then in the next few years, there are a few more.

I won't go through them in detail.

They really, all three of them, relate to clarifying existing standards.

In some cases, adding some more tweaks to the footnote disclosures.

We're hoping that the 103 there in the middle is actually going to reduce some of the requirements in the management discussion and analysis that's just grown into something very large and hopefully become more more clarity and more concise.

And then the last one, capital assets, the same thing, just some tweaks on how the disclosures around those capital assets are listed in the footnotes.

So I don't anticipate there's gonna be major changes even going into 25 and 26 for this, but there will be some tweaks to the notes, to the financials, and to the management discussion that precedes the financial statements.

So now we just wanted to open up for questions and also to get any comments that you may have.

You can see a couple of questions here for you as far as do you have any items of concern that you would like us to bake into our audit approach?

Do you have any different views or objectives or areas that you would like to have us be aware of related to the internal control structure or to the risk that we assess during our audit procedures?

Thank you, Lori and Cassidy.

Really appreciate the presentation.

Super helpful.

I know we had received, when you all presented about the 2023, was it 2023 audit?

Yes.

Yes, okay.

And it was really great.

I will pause here and ask my colleagues if they have any questions.

And you can either give me a nod or throw your yellow hand up on the Zoom.

Whatever's best.

Yeah, okay, awesome.

Council President Nelson.

I used to chair City Light and I asked this question following the fires on Maui because there had been comments or there had been concern that that public utility, I don't know if it was public, but the utility's focus on climate change resilience was coming at the expense of basic infrastructure maintenance and that could have contributed to the rapidity of that fire spreading, et cetera.

So what I wanted to know is that do you regularly Does your audit look at how resources shift from one line of business to another?

And do you ever notice trends, not just with this utility, but with others?

Because it seems like everything is urgent, and yet there's the day-to-day running of a utility in the market.

the basics that have to get done all the time as well.

Thank you for the question.

I'll take it from the viewpoint of those are really operational and management matters, but we do take the time to understand those operational matters and those risks that are behind the financial statements, so really understanding the industry.

We do staff our engagement with individuals that serve other utilities, for example, that serve other governmental entities so that we've got that industry expertise.

And a lot of what you were speaking of does roll up into the financial statements in the form of, as Cassidy mentioned, the environmental liabilities section or just projects that they have that will be coming in the future.

So those are often capitalized even before they become projects as they do the planning for those.

So we do take the time to understand what the management position is, what the operations are, but we're really looking at it from, is everything accounted for properly?

So we're certainly not going to be judgmental or be able to evaluate if it's appropriate for the utility to do that or not, but we will ensure an audit that those costs are being accumulated in the appropriate bucket.

They're being labeled appropriately in the financials and, as necessary, disclosed in the notes so that the reader can see what those accounts are comprised of.

Okay, thank you.

And I should note, for the public in the record that I was satisfied with the answers that I received from City Light on that question.

So I don't think it applies to our public utility.

Thank you very much for answering my question.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

I don't have any questions, but I know if I do, I can follow up with you all directly if any concerns, but just really appreciate your thoroughness and keeping us abreast of what we have to look forward to for 2025. Okay.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate the time today.

Thank you so much.

Will the clerk please read agenda item number two into the record?

Agenda item number two is Council Bill 120917, an ordinance relating to the Seattle Center Department authorizing the execution of a wireless network infrastructure provider license agreement with Verizon Wireless to design, install, operate, maintain, and upgrade a wireless communication system at Seattle Center.

This is for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Presenting today are Director Marshall Foster and Mark Jones from Seattle Center, and at the table we also have Eric McConaghy from Council Central Staff.

Awesome, thank you, Director Foster and Mark, and then our phenomenal central staff, one of my favorites, Eric.

I said one, so I wouldn't make anyone mad.

Looking forward to Verizon, and looking forward to hearing about the, of course, looking forward to, would you all state your name for the record and just jump right into the presentation?

Thank you.

Marshall Foster, Director, Seattle Center.

Mark Jones, Director of Marketing Strategic Partnerships with Seattle Center.

Eric McConaughey and the Council Central staff, and for the record, the chair's favorite.

Pretty sure we're the favorite department, maybe.

I don't know if that's...

Parks is right behind us.

Parks here.

Well, good afternoon, Council Members, Chair Hollingsworth.

It's great to be back with you.

We have two pieces of important business for Seattle Center today, both of which have been years in the making, and we're excited to have them in front of you.

The first item is a very important awareness network.

This will, in a nutshell, allow us to extend a 5G wireless connectivity to our entire 74-acre campus, which will be a tremendous improvement in wireless access for the public and for our patrons and all of the great campus organizations that we serve.

Mark Jones, our Director of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, is going to take you through a summary of this agreement.

Well, thank you for having us here today.

We're excited to kind of jump in and run through some of the high points of the proposed legislation.

So Marshall already set up some of the areas.

Obviously, the biggest is just improving the visitor experience at Seattle Center.

We want to make sure when people are visiting the campus, they're able to get online, share their images and fun activities, upload their videos when they're there.

We also want to make sure we enhance the center's infrastructure from a technology standpoint.

So not only 5G, but what's the future opportunities from wireless connectivity on campus?

So this will also set us up for kind of future-proofing some of those needs for our big events that are coming, getting prepared, of course, for things like the FIFA fan celebration, which is coming in 2026. So we're very excited to move this forward.

step to the next piece so some of the key terms of the agreement so the reason we need to come to you today the director only has authority for five-year agreements this actually needs to be a little bit longer so we get the return on investment that Verizon's making into the campus so we'll have an initial 12 years terms and I'll be walking through some of the benefits of that and there's additional two four-year options for renewal So other key elements, Verizon is actually covering all of the costs to design and maintain the system.

It's also going to be a carrier neutral environment.

So Verizon is taking the lead to build out this system.

But both AT&T, T-Mobile will be able to join through a partnership and arrangements they have and negotiations that they'll be entering on our behalf.

So going through, obviously one of the big benefits of Seattle Center, we have an opportunity with the value of the 12 million visitors that come every year.

So it does increase the value of having a system like this on campus.

So we're able to charge land rent throughout kind of the term of the agreement, which is a substantial amount that comes back to Seattle Center of about 6 million over the first 12 year term.

General benefits, obviously the enhanced connectivity that we're talking about to build out that infrastructure and the antennas needed to serve the 5G and the future needs of the wireless.

Also just other just operational efficiencies that come with Verizon taking the lead.

Right now we have separate agreements with all the carriers, so we're not necessarily the experts in this field, and this will also help our staff and create those efficiencies.

And I already talked about REVENUE GENERATION, BUT ALSO THERE'S A SUBSTANTIAL INVESTMENT FROM VERIZON TO BUILD OUT THE SYSTEM ON THE CAMPUS THAT'S AT THEIR COST ALSO.

SO JUMPING KIND OF INTO WHAT IS THIS GOING TO LOOK LIKE, THESE ANTENNAS ON HERE, THIS SLIDE IS ACTUALLY KIND OF DIFFICULT TO SEE.

the antenna in here and that's a good thing.

We want to have these antennas really obscured and just part of a network of systems that you just kind of don't really notice.

So this is an example of a light pole that we're going to reconfigure to have the antenna on basically the top portion and the whole pole will house what's needed to deliver the signal on campus.

So this is one example of what we're going to be doing on the campus.

And then overall, once we hopefully get your support to move this forward and get the legislation approved, we'd enter into this agreement, which is included in the package.

But Verizon will be able to move forward.

Obviously, they're going to be following all the local state laws, all the environmental impact issues.

As I mentioned, not only are they going to develop and build the system, they're going to be required to maintain and upgrade it.

And then again, the engagement required with other carriers was important to us to making sure all of our visitors have access to a good, strong wireless network.

So once the once we're able to execute the agreement will go quickly into the design process permitting installation and then there'll be ongoing coordination with Verizon on the maintenance of the network and reporting back about the performance so there's a little urgency here as I mentioned to with FIFA coming up so our plan is to hit the road.

immediately on finalizing design and start the construction and have it hopefully complete well no we will have it complete by the end of the year in time for the big fan celebrations so in conclusion we're just here to ask for your support to give give us the authority to enter into this agreement so we can accomplish the enhancements of the visitor experience and this unique partnership

I'll just offer one or two quick comments on this.

Thank you, Mark.

Years in the making, this is a very exciting infrastructure upgrade for us for a bunch of reasons.

We have about 12 million annual visitors now to Seattle Center.

It's one of the biggest destinations in the city and the state as a whole.

And as you know, this type of connectivity is increasingly a baseline standard for the public experience.

We have a lot of event producers.

who use Seattle Center, whether it's Folklife or Bumbershoot or one of our commercial partners, and they're often bringing in additional Wi-Fi infrastructure, wireless infrastructure, to meet the expectations of everyone, you know, streaming live video, live, you know, posting live video to these platforms.

So this is very much about serving the public.

It is about enhancing and maintaining our competitiveness as an event destination.

And then third, which I really thank Mark for his negotiating over several years with our partner, is a great revenue enhancement for Seattle Center.

As you know, we're about 70% self-funded through earned revenue that we bring in from the campus, which keeps pressure off the city's general fund.

And we need to be able to leverage partnerships like this to keep that revenue in the picture.

So thank you very much, Mark, and we look forward to any questions.

And one other, I just wanted to shout out to our friends at Verizon that are in the audience here that we've been working with along this, and just thank all the city staff that worked on this, attorneys and all of our internal team.

It was a lot of work to get this in place, so I just wanted to thank them.

Awesome.

Thank you, Verizon, for being here.

I got to talk to you all about my cell service after the meeting.

I'm messing with y'all.

Eric from Central Staff, my favorite, would you like to give us your comments?

I don't have any other comments other than just to observe what has already been noted, that this is before you because the center...

Marshall knows they have the authority to do this for five years or this is a 12-year agreement so and that that pattern or that sort of structure in in the city's code is pretty common for department heads to be able to do five-year agreements of leases but need permission for longer leases so that that Having flagged that I'll leave it to you all to ask questions happy I'm happy to work with you all to follow up the department There's anything like that that I can help with but otherwise, that's that's why I have to add Thank you

Well, I appreciate this.

I know I had gotten a briefing about this before the meeting, so I really appreciate that and kind of did my due diligence and research and ask questions, but it was pretty straightforward to me.

I'm going to pause here and see if my colleagues have any questions.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

I, like Chair, got the pre-brief.

Thank you to the both of you for the briefing and the I think it's great to increase the capacity and the capabilities of Seattle Center.

I was curious, and by the way, and I do appreciate the care neutrality, but I think that's important too.

So I appreciate Verizon, in terms of the key terms of the agreement slide, for example, those pieces, it's really important.

So thank you for your investment in the Seattle Center.

I was curious in terms of, you know, and it's a longer term, and I recognize the timelines are still such for like ST3, you know, when doing this, is there any consideration related to ST3, Sound Transit 3, for those that don't know, and, you know, does that play into planning considerations at all, or is it kind of independent?

It's this project is not dependent on that and it we're setting up in a way so it will not hopefully interfere with that but there are if we do have to make a relocation of an antenna that's all built into the agreement and we have an understanding going in if there's going to be some sort of future construction, but we're going through the design process at the beginning of it to locate the poles right now and the antennas and we're trying to keep them out of the pathway for example memorial stadium construction is coming up so we're trying to also make sure that doesn't isn't impeded by any of the site locations you beat me to my second question i was going to ask about the memorial stadium and as marshall's mr foster's well word i always say and memorial wall

Um, so, uh, so I appreciate that.

And, um, and, and, and the last one too is, and because of the great work Seattle center has done related to public safety, um, and that when you think of Seattle center, you don't necessarily think of like the current Memorial stadium and, and you also necessarily don't think of Mercer, but this capacity is, It's not geofenced in such a way that, I mean, it's supportive of the broader Seattle Center envelope, basically, is that correct?

Yeah, I mean, the goal is to hit the public outdoor spaces of the 74-acre campus, so basically where we see the big peaks for festivals and such, but also we're going to be taking advantage of some of the open public spaces like the Armory, the Food and Event Hall.

There are going to be some improvements there, Fisher Pavilion, the Exhibition Hall.

So anywhere where the public gathers, even some of the entrances to our parking garages for future proofing system needs we may have in there and technology for the future.

So that's kind of the main core of it.

You know, the Climate Pledge Arena also has a Verizon-led system in it that was done as part of the arena project.

So we have a lot of experience working with them already through that partnership and the great, great word we said of how successful they were there.

Go ahead.

Just one other thing I was going to add.

Seattle Center, in the event of a major disaster or event, whether it's extreme heat, extreme cool, we provide a sheltering location, one of the city's primary sheltering locations.

In the event of an earthquake, a much larger scale triage and response.

Having this type of wireless infrastructure reliable built-in state-of-the-art really supports our emergency response you know all of these systems that we use that the public's using to report information to find loved ones in emergency are all reliant on that wireless network and so this allows us to have a state-of-the-art system to support those moments as well as the fun moments on our campus.

Exactly.

Now I have the Office of Emergency Management in my mind.

And Seattle Channel being a leader within the city government, plug for Seattle Channel, Mr. Mayor, and it begs the question, where else can we look to replicate this capacity in other parts of the city?

And I'm not sure if there's any version of that already like an earlier generation or anything like that but uh...

it seems like this begs the question waterfront uh...

So we did actually implement this on the waterfront.

You may have noticed a whole array of new poles on the waterfront.

I will say there, because it's in the right-of-way, this gets kind of complex, but we have the benefit at Seattle Center that we're able to integrate them all into one system under Verizon with the carrier neutrality.

Other places were required by federal law to essentially accommodate each carrier separately.

which takes up a lot more space and a lot more infrastructure.

So I think with Seattle Center, we're getting a sort of a streamlined infrastructure where it's not going to be too much clutter.

It's not going to be too visually apparent.

And we're able to get all the carriers covered under this partnership with Verizon.

So whether you're using T-Mobile or whichever carrier, you will have the benefit of the five.

You can only mention local ones.

Don't mention them.

Yeah, I was going to say, I'm not going to go down trying to name them all.

All right.

Well, thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

I see Council Member Rivera.

My turn?

Yep, Council Member.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you for being here, Seattle Center.

And I'm sorry, I had to miss the first part.

Apologies if you address this, but I missed it if so, so I'm going to ask it again.

Is...

So how did you, I guess I have two questions.

One is what does Verizon get for this arrangement?

And then why Verizon versus a different carrier?

And then Eric, I don't know if you remember, but pre-COVID, I know there had been a conversation with one of the carriers about providing service at the Seattle Center and there was some back and forth thing.

And I don't know if you remember that.

And if you don't, we can take that part offline, but I feel like it is part of this conversation.

And so I want to make sure that we address, because I know that there were some considerations at the time.

And I want to make sure whether those have gotten addressed and is this different from that or the same or we were able to work out whatever the issues were at the time.

I think for this specific experience we did, we actually, a little more background, we actually did a competitive RFP process to select.

Verizon was the winner of the RFP, but it was an open competitive process where we had multiple bids.

So it was an extensive process to make sure we were finding the best partner to be that neutral partner moving forward.

And it's not unique for the carriers to go into these different agreements.

Sometimes AT&T leads, sometimes T-Mobile does, sometimes Verizon does, like I said about the arena project.

So we did go through that process to make sure it was fair and equitable.

And we were actually making sure what was fair for us at Seattle Center and fair for the citizens watching out for them.

So it was a really mutually beneficial kind of process that led to the eventual negotiations and the agreement.

So I don't know if that answered your question exactly.

I'll just add to that.

I think, I mean, fundamentally, the things we're looking at are how impactful would it be to the campus?

So they were competing on that piece.

The level of service, carrier neutrality was very important in terms of making sure that any of those different platforms would be served by this 5G.

And then ultimately, and this is important, is the revenue proposal.

And Verizon had the most Appealing revenue package to Seattle center I think you saw those numbers earlier in terms of the revenue that it brings and your other question in terms of what's the value to them so I think it's you know couple things first off this level of service for their customers is very attractive and increasingly like I was saying.

This is what people expect in terms of the level of speed with which they can use their devices.

Second, it is a revenue stream to them from the other carriers.

So the other carriers will pay Verizon for access to this higher level 5G service.

So there is a revenue center for them with that.

Thank you, Marshall.

And what is the revenue stream that they get versus what we're getting?

I see we are getting $5 million, it looks like, a year.

Is that right?

No, total.

$5.9 million between 24 and 35. What are they getting?

So the two parts, one is what Marshall explained about there to get onto the system.

Verizon is making a multimillion dollar investment to build out the system.

So they need a longer term.

They need the rent also to charge through to the other carriers.

So they're getting that.

Plus, again, they're getting the service level, which we're all paying for independently through the different carriers.

So they're getting the customers, you know, charge, pay to use the service.

So that's what they're getting about it.

expectation is to have that like Marshall said that level of service that we're paying for so I have AT&T you know I pay my annual thing I have an expectation when I go to Seattle Center it's going to work so this system will benefit you know all of the carriers from that standpoint to provide service but also to get the revenue from them as customers.

Are the carriers paying them for this additional service?

Yes.

Eric, do you?

Sorry.

I was just going to add that my recollection having reviewed the agreement that it does not encompass the fees paid from other carriers to Verizon.

Yeah, we do not.

That's proprietary between those companies.

We don't have access to what their business relationships are.

So we don't know how much they're getting versus what we're going to get.

Correct.

It's not.

Thank you.

I'll follow up.

I have more questions, Eric, but I'll follow up with you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I don't have the pre-COVID sort of history information handy, but we can talk for sure.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member.

Council President Nelson.

So from my briefing earlier this week or last week, I can't remember, but one of the impressions that I came away with is that this agreement is unique because the design and the construction and the installation of these towers is being paid by the carrier and not the city.

Whereas when the wireless infrastructure is in the public realm.

It's often on light poles and other things that the city already owns and maintains and puts in and switches out and all of that stuff.

Is that the case?

Yeah, that's correct.

And actually, it's a lot cheaper for the carriers to access those poles due to them being in the right way and the federal kind of rules around that use.

Right, so that is...

This is much more, you know, lucrative to Seattle Center.

Right.

And because you also explained that the shorter polls provide better service and so therefore there might need to be more and so they are, that is a cost and also they have to be Superior looking, because there would be many, et cetera.

Exactly.

I think the uniqueness of trying to create an antenna that can house all of the carriers into one versus everybody having their own.

So that could create a proliferation of antennas and poles, which we're trying to avoid.

Right.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

Awesome.

I don't see any more.

I really appreciate you all putting time and attention and detail into this.

I know it was hard.

And just to clarify, it was an RFP RFP process with all, you know, whoever could provide the service and the best possible.

Was chosen, well company, sorry.

Best company was chosen and for the package.

So really appreciate the attention to detail.

Looking forward to providing this service to people.

I think one thing I wanted to highlight too is that the Seattle Center is the county clinic.

And I saw during that time a lot of people, a lot of wireless service needed during the medical exams or doctors uploading information or People were making, they could make a crown right then and there, and they needed wireless service to have that.

It was the craziest, coolest thing I've obviously ever seen.

But just to see how much technology is needed for these massive, big events, and how many it brings to the Seattle Center, I could totally see why obviously upgrading our wireless network in Seattle is needed.

Us being the technology hub, it'd be a shame if we were It was tragic.

So anyways, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Council Member Rivera.

Just as a follow up, I think access to the service is important and folks being at the center and being able to access the internet is really critical.

At the same time, we want to make sure that what the city's getting in consideration is given the advantage that a cellular company will get by being at the center.

it's a mutually beneficial to us in a robust way, obviously.

So that's, yeah.

Yep, absolutely, fully, fully agree.

Okay, I now move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120917. Do we have a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Thank you, Council President, to recommend the passage of the bill.

Are there any comments, further comments?

Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage that the committee recommend, Council Bill 120917.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed, none abstained.

Motion carries.

Committee will recommend the bill pass be sent to December 17th, 2024 council meeting.

If there's no further questions, we're going to move to agenda item number three.

Please read the short title for agenda item number three into the record.

Clerk.

Agenda item number three is Council Bill 120918, an ordinance relating to the Seattle Center Glass and Gardens exhibition lease authorizing the Seattle Center Director to execute an amendment to the lease agreement between Center Art LLC and the City of Seattle to provide the tenant additional options to extend the lease term and adjusting rent and other lease provisions.

This is for briefing discussion and possible vote.

And still at the table, we have Director Marshall Foster and Mark Jones from Seattle Center, as well as Eric McConaughey from Council Central Staff.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I realize there was no short title to that, so I appreciate it.

Okay.

Welcome back.

Just state your name for the record and jump right in.

All right.

We sure will.

Marshall Foster, Director, Seattle Center.

Mark Jones, Director of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, Seattle Center.

Eric McConaughey, Council Central Staff.

All right.

Thank you so much for having us today.

Our second item, an amendment to our existing lease for the Seattle Glass, Seattle Center Chihuly Glass and Gardens exhibit.

We're very excited to be able to bring this proposal to you.

This would extend the terms of the existing exhibit.

I want to emphasize this does not change anything about the Chihuly Gardens and Glass.

What it does is deepen our partnership and extend what's been a very successful partnership both to Seattle Center in terms of the public's enjoyment and use, the revenue that it generates for Seattle Center, the economic development value, frankly, that the Chihuly name brings to the city of Seattle and allows us to extend that agreement from 2042 to 2072 and Part of why we're doing that is to provide clarity that the Chihuly collection.

This is a very valuable collection of glass at the exhibit will have a very long-term, I'm bordering on calling it permanent home, at Seattle Center as part of these amendments.

So it provides certainty to all parties that Chihuly will remain a much-loved part of Seattle Center.

And I will turn it over to Mark.

Great.

Thank you.

And just want to jump in a little bit, summary background.

So Chihuly Garden and Glass, we executed the lease in 2011, but opened soon after in 2012. So we've had really that significant cultural attraction, bringing hundreds of thousands of people annually.

They've been an amazing partner in just the unique partnerships that they bring to the community, the community outreach, and all of that.

So as Marshall said, all of that, we would want to continue all of those requirements in the current lease.

The other big piece is really just extending the terms and adjusting some of the financial terms to benefit Seattle Center, but also the capital investment back into the operation and the facility and the Seattle Center grounds.

So just jumping right into that, obviously there's a theme with us today, but one of the big pieces here is the increased revenue from rent.

I also mentioned the capital improvements that we'll go through a little bit of a breakdown on.

And then in general, it's just the goal, as Marshall said, is to retain the garden glass exhibit for a long time to come.

So some of the key provisions.

So there are options for three successive 10-year extensions beyond the initial term.

We're also looking at each of those 10-year terms to do a fair market valuation of the lease to make sure that we're getting the substantial value or the the market fair market value of that we're also looking at making some adjustments to the cpi caps throughout the term so there's some increases there and then we're looking at some additional rent starting in 2025 so another reason why we're happy you invited us today to this last meeting of the year because this is a budget dependent item for us in the 25 26 budget and beyond and then finally we'll get into a little more detail but there's some immediate capital reinvestment that happens So Center Art LLC was working with us to not only have some dedicated funding, you know, this is assuming that all the extensions happen, but over $21 million in capital that can be used back for the exhibit itself, but also directed by the Seattle Center to the Seattle Center grounds.

So big numbers here, and you can see the breakdown between the capital on that piece.

And then additional rent, this is also a total that assumes that all the options extend throughout the term.

So we're looking at about 18 plus million of additional rent through the two improvements or three different improvements I talked about in those adjustments.

And then again, the cultural impact, I think it's one of the top attractions in the city.

The economic benefits that we've just kind of outlined, but also just back to the admission tax and other benefits to the city, maintaining the attractiveness of the facility itself.

This will help us to maintain that and help them maintain through the commitments that they're making in the facility and the grounds around Seattle Center.

And then again, the community engagement that they do so well and the partnership that they bring to the campus with all the resident orgs and the community that they bring.

including their dedication to bringing a bunch of middle schoolers every year, for example, down to the exhibit.

So also just kind of next step.

So again, this is something we'll need authority because it goes beyond the director's authority.

as we discussed earlier with the previous agreement we discussed.

We have a whole process for, you know, the notification of the extensions, which we expect would continue and happen.

We also are working on the kind of just the planning to look at the five-year kind of capital investments.

And then there'll be ongoing kind of financial reporting about the ticket sales from which benefit the city.

So in conclusion, we're bringing this proposed amendment to secure this exhibit and the legacy that's here, which has been an important asset to Seattle Center and all the other great benefits for the city.

And I can't resist just adding a couple of exclamation points, I guess, on a few things.

So, you know, this set of, this amendment, in terms of the value for Seattle Center, we have an asset here which has been extremely high performing already, in terms of the public's enjoyment, the public benefit, in terms of free access to the exhibit that it provides.

Chihuly Gardens and Glass is already responsible for all the maintenance and capital reinvestment in the museum buildings itself.

They've been a great tenant to the department.

With this amendment, we're adding a $21 million capital fund that will support the department and the museum 50-50, which does not exist today.

They continue to pay the existing terms of the lease.

And then $18 million in additional rent that they will pay, which will start now.

So we're not waiting for the first extension in 2042. That would start now.

In addition, we will have the ability with those amendments to do a fair market value adjustment.

If the value of the museum has increased significantly, Seattle Center will have an opportunity then to participate in that.

This is the kind of entrepreneurial approach to leveraging these partnerships that helps us fund our public programming, that helps us keep the campus grounds immaculate, that helps us support public safety at Seattle Center and the waterfront.

So this is just one of the moves we're making to try to help feed that whole cycle of how we do what we do.

And we're very excited about it because it's going to bring significant new revenue to the center.

Eric, do you have any central staff?

I don't have anything to add.

I mean, it is interesting to note that there, for example, and there are different arrangements with different histories, but with the sandal rep, there's a similar agreement between the center and rep to contribute to the capital facility.

So there are some parallels on campus with other longstanding, you know, tenants to do that sort of thing.

So I'm just recognizing that there's sort of a parallel structure there.

It's of interest, yeah.

Nice, awesome.

Thank you.

Now, again, I had gotten this briefing and really appreciate the attention to detail and then also more revenue for our city and I also want to recognize I do appreciate my colleague councilman Rivera because of You know the point of wanting to make sure that we are always You know having the best contract for the city and you are doing our due diligence to make sure that we have the best benefit For the city and that accountability and that good governance.

Okay, I just wanted to throw that out there and But anyways, I will pause here.

I see Council Member Rivera has a question and whatever colleagues, go ahead, jump in.

Thank you, Chair.

Along the lines of what you just said and Erica, you...

alluded to this but just want to make sure that you know of the other tenants on the campus that there won't be this is a similar arrangement or that there won't folks won't feel like somehow I am supportive of this generally but just making sure folks aren't feeling like somehow Chihuly Museum is getting something I'm just mindful there are a lot of tenants on your campus and I

That's a great point.

We have 33 resident organizations on our campus.

Our relationships with all of them are very different.

This one is unique in that this is one of our commercial partners.

And so some of the focus you are hearing from us on revenue uh is unique we don't approach our non-profit performing arts tenants in the same way but we're really looking at again leveraging you know we can leverage this partnership and i will say i want to give um chihuly gardens and glass and their leadership um some some kudos they have been willing partners this has not been an easy negotiation i think we've all stretched a little out of our comfort zone but they believe in seattle center and they they part of how they got um supportive of some of these numbers was knowing that they were reinvesting in all those other organizations.

But just to your point, we do not have these kinds of revenue expectations of all of our partners.

This is unique because it's a commercial enterprise.

So very different for the Seattle Rep or the Seattle Opera or Skate Like a Girl or Theater Puget Sound.

That's part of what's so great about Seattle Center is all the different ways people support the place.

Support each other.

Exactly, and support each other.

and Chihuly's local, so that's nice too.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Colleagues, I'm gonna look to my right if there are any questions.

No?

Awesome.

Okay, well, thank you for keeping this iconic attraction.

Obviously, at the Seattle Center, we believe in the Seattle Center, we think it's great, and we're just glad that we can kind of continue these partnerships, especially when they're local partnerships, and investing in our community is phenomenal.

So I'm gonna now move.

that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120918. Do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

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

Are there any final comments?

Seeing none, Clerk, will you please call the roll to the passage of Council Bill 120918?

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member McAdill?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed, no abstentions.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

The committee recommend the bill passes be sent to December 17th City Council meeting.

If there's no further questions, we're going to move to agenda item number four and five.

Thank you all.

Really appreciate you.

I want to thank Parks for waiting for so long.

We really appreciate you.

Please read both agenda items number four and five into the record, and we will be voting on each bill separately.

Agenda item number four is Council Bill 120922, an ordinance relating to the Department of Parks and Recreation authorizing the acquisition of real property commonly known as 17th Ave South and South Walker Street, Seattle, Washington, authorizing acceptance of a recording of the deed for open space park and recreation purposes and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Agenda item number five is Council Bill 120921, an ordinance relating to King County Conservation Futures levy proceeds authorizing the mayor or designee to enter into Amendment 5 to the Conservation Futures interlocal cooperation agreement between King County and the City of Seattle for open space acquisition projects.

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

Presenting today are Christopher Williams and Lee Sward from Seattle Parks and Recreation, as well as Brian Goodnight from Council Central Staff.

Okay, they have left.

So my favorite city department and my favorite central staff person.

Good night.

All right, anyways, go ahead and state your name for the records and you can go ahead and start.

Thank you, Christopher.

I think your microphone needs to be on, Christopher.

Okay.

There we go.

Christopher Williams, Chief of Staff, Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Lee Sward, Property Management Acquisitions Interagency Advisor, Seattle Parks.

And Brian, good night with council central staff.

And I'm pinch hitting today for my colleague, Tracy Ratzliff.

Chair, quick question.

Yes, absolutely.

Chair, who's your favorite legislative liaison from one of the departments?

No comment.

Thank you.

Obviously, I'm just playing.

Obviously, Jacob is.

He came in a suit today looking dapper.

Thank you, my friend.

So Jacob is.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for taking the time today to stick with us.

We're here to propose two pieces of legislation which are actually intertwined.

One aids and abets the other.

The first part of the legislation is to get authorization to acquire the 17th and Walker property.

You've heard from the public testimony just about the acute need for public open space in the Beacon Hill neighborhood.

This is such a unique opportunity that once you hear from lease, after you get a briefing on the grant, you'll understand that we're essentially getting 10 parcels of property for free.

just washing out the King County Conservation Futures Grant.

The other part of the legislation today is to authorize us to accept the King County Futures Taxes Grant to actually pay for this transaction.

So Lisa's gonna walk us through it, and we can probably do it in less than the 15 minutes we allocated for each piece of legislation.

Good afternoon, council members.

I want to start out by saying what I'm presenting is a result of a lot of staff effort, not just me.

There's a whole property team back in the office probably watching this presentation right now, so I'd like to send a shout out to them and thank them for all their help.

It's been a long odyssey, and we're happy to be here bringing this to you today.

There are two pieces of legislation.

So the overview here is the objective is to complete a land acquisition, hopefully in early 2025, for a huge park at 17th Avenue South and South Walker Street.

Christopher mentioned 10 parcels.

Our typical minimum park size is 10,000 square feet.

This is an entire block totaling 1.3 acres and plus or minus 60,000 square feet.

It's six times the typical size and we're really happy to have the opportunity to acquire it.

In order to complete this acquisition, we've got two pieces of legislation before you.

The ordinance authorizing the acquisition and an ordinance amending our King County Conservation Futures Tax interlocal agreement with Amendment 5, which would provide funds for this acquisition.

If the CFT ordinance language sounds familiar, it's because we were here in September for Amendments 2, 3, and 4, and now we're coming before you with Amendment 5 to the interlocal.

Purchasing this property would address huge gaps in the Beacon Hill, North Rainier area, and I like to say we're getting a big bang for the buck here.

One park site will fill significant service gaps in two adjoining urban villages, North Beacon Hill and North Rainier.

So in speaking about the acquisition ordinance, again, this is a 1.38 acre property, an entire block at the junction of adjoining urban villages.

If you look at the top map there, the red star designates the approximate location You can see Seward Park, the green finger sticking out at the bottom there, and this is a little bit north of that.

Again, in the Beacon Hill, North Rainier area.

The map below shows, is from our 2024 Park and Open Space Plan Gap Map.

And you can see the purple outlines of the two joining urban villages.

The yellow circle is the approximate area of the site.

The larger red circle is the approximate boundary of the five-minute walking distance.

Within urban villages, our service is someone should be able to walk to a park within five minutes inside an urban village.

So the orange represents the service gap areas.

And so this acquisition would go far in getting rid of the orange there on that map.

Both urban villages are second highest priority for health and equity goals, and first priority for population density.

I'll talk about this later, but because of these demographics, we were able to successfully apply for conservation futures funding with a match waiver, meaning there's no match required, and that's why we're essentially getting a free park here.

So the picture will come later because I couldn't fit it all in one slide.

The block is comprised of 10 platted lots bifurcated by a 16-foot alley.

Seven of the lots are vacant with canopy cover.

There's one single-family home on the site on the three floors.

additional lots.

It's one single family home with some outbuildings.

The site had been purchased several years ago by a developer who sought permits for 44 units.

And the story is the community actually brought this site to our attention.

And the first time we approached this seller, there was not a willingness to sell.

And we thought, oh, darn.

And then later on, the economic climate changed in 2023, and the seller suddenly became willing to sell.

So we were able to start our acquisition process and get to this point today.

The purchase price is 5.5 million, which is a slight variation of the appraised value of 5.38 million.

However, it's within acquisition guidelines.

We've started due diligence.

We have a signed letter of intent.

We're almost finished with the purchase and sale agreement and hope to finalize this acquisition in early 2025. So these are pictures of the site.

So you can see the entire block there with the 10 parcels.

The west half is virtually vacant with significant tree cover.

And then you can see the single family house in the southeast corner with the outbuildings and the other two lots on top of that.

close up of the house and the grounds.

Our plan would be to get the house removed as soon as possible after closing to reduce the likelihood of an attractive nuisance.

It's currently vacant.

and not really in a position to be rented at this time.

So we're just gonna go ahead and remove it to provide a blank canvas to the planning and development folks so they can eventually start a planning development process for the park.

The community that generated this proposal is significant.

Beacon Hill Council, Accenture de la Raza, you heard from Andrew earlier, from Neighborhood, Mount Baker Hub Alliance, Beacon Ridge Improvement Community, Beacon Hill Business Alliance, and the 17th and Walker neighbors.

They helped us with the grant application to the county.

The organization submitted letters.

The community's been very interested and participatory in the acquisition process.

In terms of park development, the current canopy coverage provides an opportunity for forest restoration.

There's kind of a sea of houses around this site, so it could provide a lot of respite and quiet space.

So it's a good site to land bank while we're pursuing development funds.

Community wants to collaborate on pedestrian and bike connections, wayfinding to the Beacon Hill light rail station, etc.

It's slightly upslope of the protected bike lanes on 15th Avenue South.

The second item before you is the CFT amendment to the interlocal ordinance that will fund this acquisition.

It actually contains funding for two sites.

One we purchased in September of 2023. I'm sorry, the wrong year appeared there.

In West Seattle, just north of Roxbury, it's in the Westwood Highland Park residential urban village.

And that reimbursement amount is 3.25 million.

And again, the grant amount for the 17th and Walker acquisition is 5.5 million.

So this is the chart from the interlocal agreement ordinance.

It looks a little bit funny due to King County separating out bonded funds versus non-bonded funds.

but it totals $8,750,000 for two park sites that each received match waivers.

So we essentially got two free parks, thanks to successful applications to King County for Conservation Futures funding.

Questions?

Brian, good night.

Central staff.

Oh, before, thank you for the presentation.

Sorry, I don't want to just jump in.

Mr. Good night.

Thank you.

I don't have any super substantive comments.

I just note that I believe we were informed earlier this week that King County did approve the ordinance.

So the slide mentions that they would be considering it and that approval did occur.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And I'm going to pause because I know I had been given this presentation ahead of time.

So I want to pause to my colleagues to see if they had any questions about the acquisition.

I will say that I love the community support behind the acquisitions.

One of the questions I know that it's super helpful because we're adding more parks and sometimes maintenance.

Like I know that's like some of the the baseline things for folks.

I love when we have friends of blank park, you know, because they always do a great job of maintaining the parks and stuff.

Would this park potentially, some of the community advocacy be able, would, would parks be able to help form some type of friends of whatever this park name is gonna be to help just steward the park?

I think stewarding the park is some of the best ways for us to start taking care of our parks and our community.

So anyways, I just wanted to throw that out there.

It has a lot of community support and I think it'd be great.

Oh, I think we've got a great base of community activists that have helped shepherd this acquisition along.

I'm assuming they're going to be here for a while and see through to the actual construction of the park and beyond.

The neighborhood gets a lot of traffic, and I'm confident there'll be a lot of eyes on the site.

Oh, absolutely.

It'll become a community treasure.

It will, and I know that there's a lot of...

construction going on in that area and a lot of apartments coming up.

And so it's just great to have more green spaces for people to be able to play.

I will pause here and stop talking.

Sun is coming in.

At the sunset, I will pause to see if any of my colleagues have any questions.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Not a question, but just we have heard all year, really throughout the year, the importance of more green spaces on the south end of the city.

And definitely we are lacking tree canopy all across the city, but especially on the south end.

And we've heard about that.

So this is such a great way to address that.

And so I, you know, in full support, I'm glad that I'm not surprised community is supportive of it, but so happy to be able to deliver this to community.

So thank you for all the great work at Parks that has gone on.

in this acquisition and to everyone involved, to the park staff who are watching at the Seattle Channel, thank you for all your hard work, really, and for the community partners who are supportive of this effort, because it does take a village to do something like this, but the intention and the prioritization of this is really critical, and so I really am grateful to our park staff and to our community members for working together to make this a reality.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council President Nelson.

From the public comment, it was clear that this has been in the making for a long time.

And so it's wonderful to see this come to fruition.

I also realize that sometimes there are opportunities that happen all of a sudden, that there is land that...

would make sense to acquire for various reasons by parks.

And I'm wondering, was there, and you can answer this offline, but I seem to remember that there was an amendment or an action by council that, and perhaps it was a different department, but that reallocated funding for the acquisition of new space.

Am I remembering correctly?

That was last September in the CFT amendments 2, 3, and 4. I forgot if it was 2, 3, or 4. But typically in the annual King County application process, prior projects are reviewed.

And for various reasons, the money's not used.

Either the appraisal came in low or the deal died or something happened.

and the King County Council has created a, well, the CFT Committee under the auspices of the King County Council have created a process for reallocating funds to other established projects within the grant pool.

So if somebody's appraisal came in low, another jurisdiction's appraisal came in high, there's a little bit of shuffling there so that King County ultimately can be successful in seeing that the grants that it has approved come to fruition in the form of property acquisition.

I would also add to that that we generally take an opportunistic approach to land and property acquisition while we have a focus on closing the walkability gap and access to parks and focus on urban villages, we will not rule out an opportunity that lands in our lap.

Right.

Thank you.

There are several.

In fact, in Amendment 5, the other parcel in Amendment 5 was that opportunity.

Because of the 20, the acquisition was in 2023 when the economic climate changed.

And I believe this is, that was one of our quickest acquisitions ever.

Space of just a few short months.

And we thank you for the authority that we were given to be able to go ahead and get that property.

And we feel fortunate that we were able to backfill that with a CFT grant.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Well, thank you, Parks.

Thank you to all the Parks Department folks who might be watching from acquisitions and land.

Thank you, Lise.

Thank you, Christopher Williams.

Always a pleasure to see you.

Thank you to my favorite central staff person at 332. And thank you to my favorite council liaison, Jacob Thorpe, in the fresh suit today.

Thank you.

So without further ado.

I'm gonna move, sorry, I lost my place.

I now move that the committee recommends passage number Council Bill 120922. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any further comments?

Thank you.

Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the roll for recommendation of Council Bill 120922.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed, no abstentions.

Motion carries.

Committee recommendation for Council Bill 120922 that it will pass will be sent to December 17, 2024 Council meeting.

Also, or excuse me, 20, yeah, I said that right.

I also move that the council committee recommend passage of council bill 120291. Nope, 120921. Second.

Second.

Thank you.

I apologize.

I kind of got my numbers mixed up.

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

Are there any further comments?

Seeing none, clerk, would you please call the roll for the recommendation that the city council pass 120921. Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Aye.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed, no abstentions.

Motion carries, the committee recommendation, Council Bill 120921 will be sent to December 17th, 2024. Before we adjourn, I also want to give Parks a shout out.

I went to the Parks Community Fund event.

I missed the late night awards event, and I apologize, but the Community Fund event to see the 15 projects, phenomenal, and looking forward to seeing those projects come to fruition.

So I just wanted to throw that out there that there was a lot of excited people.

Thank you, everyone.

With that, there are no further items on the agenda today.

If there's no further business, the meeting will adjourn.

And that concludes our December 11th meeting, Parks, Public Utilities, and Technology, which is 3.34.

Well, let me finish.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, January 8th.

At 2 p.m., I want to make sure everyone has a great holiday season.

I really appreciate the work that our committee has done this year.

And for my colleagues, for your questions, for your engagement, your connection to making sure that our committee is running smoothly.

I really appreciate it.

And to all the city departments, parks, utility, and technology, really thank you all for being great stewards of our community and our services.

So I just wanted to give a shout out and always, hi mom, you're the person that watches that Seattle channel.

All right.

So that concludes our meeting.

It is 3.35 PM.

Meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.