Mayor Bruce Harrell announces Seattle Park District budget proposal

Well, thank you for being here this morning on a beautiful,

August Sunday, Sunday morning.

I was going to say Sunday morning, we're at church.

What is it?

Thursday morning, my days seem to run into each other.

We're really excited.

Wednesday morning, as I was saying, my days run into one another.

So pretty excited to make some announcements we're going to ascribe to you this morning.

First, a logistical check.

You're going to hear some remarks from me that I'll give an overview of our investment strategy for the Parks District.

You'll hear from Council Member Lewis, the president of the board.

You'll then hear from Christopher Lewis, our superintendent.

You'll hear from a co-chair of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners, Marlon Herrera.

And then you hear from a youth intern, Jenea Bradford, who we love hearing from the voice of youth.

And thank you for joining us, Jenea.

So today I'm excited about sharing our parks district budget proposal.

We tried to build this around five pillars and we tried to make it easy for you to at least to see visually.

The first pillar is what I'll sort of call the basics, which is keep our parks clean, accessible and open to the public.

That's the first pillar, and building upon that first pillar, we're using these great assets in our parks portfolio to make sure we address safety issues.

Secondly, our climate work that we'll be doing, and this will be in partnership with our Green New Deal strategies that you'll see presented in our overall budget in a few weeks.

Fourthly, youth opportunities.

And you've heard us talk about this for the last eight months, about what we're trying to do with our future leaders and our future activists and teachers and lawyers and journalists.

And we love our youth, and that's why we thought it appropriate to have Janaya say a few words.

And last, but equally important to the other pillars, equity.

Looking at underrepresented communities, looking at opportunities to self-optimize.

How do we address equity through an investment strategy?

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about those pillars.

We have to recognize in our investment strategy the influence that parks have on our communities.

It certainly goes way beyond sports fields and playgrounds and recreational activities.

These are truly equity drivers.

They're safe havens if we do this right.

They could be outdoor study halls for our youth and our students.

They could be strongholds and assets and tools in our fight against climate change.

We thought appropriate to have this conference here in this play field.

I was reminding my wife who's joined me that on this park as a child, I hit a few home runs on that park, believe it or not.

I also struck out a bunch of times too, but as memory would serve it, I only remember the good hits that I got, not the strikeouts.

But in all seriousness, I grew up on a youth here, as did many people in Seattle who went on to play professional sports and become high school stars.

My children played sports here, here and in the basketball gym.

I coached out here, watching youth, spending time with youth.

Our daughter and our sons would play in late night basketball, a great program.

My mother, who's no longer with us, would pick up our children on many occasions and join in some of the activities for seniors.

This is a multi-generational asset in our park system, and we have to look at it as such.

In back of you, you see the youth playing.

they will maybe be behind this podium someday and if we treat our assets the right way and we invest with the right strategies and programs and policies and keep them safe, we're now optimizing the opportunities for all.

I believe in my heart of hearts that Seattle communities deserves a world-class park system.

I've made this very clear and unambiguously during the campaign trail and as mayor and as a city council member.

So this comprehensive package is what we believe is needed to restore, renovate, maintain, and enhance that system.

This plan will invest nearly $115 million per year.

ensuring that nearly our, that our 500 parks, play fields and community centers remain welcoming.

I'm going to not to steal our superintendent's thunder a little bit, but I'm going to just describe a few of these investments because we are very pleased to present these to the parks board.

First of all, we're going to take in one of our clean, open, and accessible parks pillars.

We want to make all 129 public restrooms available for year-round use through winterization efforts.

And make sure again, once again, that the effects we had during the pandemic, the effects we've had in recent years, that we're making our public restrooms available and clean and maintained.

We're putting in about 2.4 million to expand community center hours to evenings and weekends for a total increase of operating hours up to 8%.

So we want to really make sure that we're restoring the hours that we think our city needs.

We're going to take about $1.2 million of an investment strategy and add what we're calling a second shift on weekend grounds maintenance year-round to increase daily maintenance, especially of the restrooms.

And I know this sounds a little granular in our approach, but I'm just that kind of mayor, that I'm a frequent user of parks, and I want our restrooms clean and accessible and maintained.

I want to see lawns or grass cut.

I want to see parks clean.

So in our clean, open, and accessible parks, you'll see what I'll just call the basics.

But the basics we all can be proud of when we use our parks.

In terms of safety, if we do this investment strategy right, I'm standing with Jordan and Sandra, two park rangers, and I'm proud to stand with our park rangers because of the work that they do and the commitment they've shown.

So we think that this is a wise investment to expand that kind of work.

So we're taking $3.6 million to reestablish the park ranger program and add 26 park rangers.

Jordan Sandra sort of said to me a little bit that that's a welcome addition.

So we hope to give them some bench strength.

And Jordan and Sandra, thank you for joining us.

We're going to add $600,000 to staff a team to quickly respond to graffiti and vandalism.

And during my budget presentation, you're going to hear more about our very clear graffiti strategy that we've been developing for the last couple of months.

This new team will be able to respond quickly to graffiti and vandalism, and we know that's an important investment.

We're going to take $450,000 to expand the enforcement or increase enforcement of leash and scoop laws to seven-day coverage.

I'm not going to say a lot about that, but we take this, the lease and scoop laws, seriously.

We want to make sure we enforce them fairly, constitutionally, with equity, but we want to make sure that laws are enforced.

With respect to climate, We're going to decarbonize an additional six community centers and parks facilities and develop a one Seattle resilience hub strategy to combat growth, growing impacts of climate change.

We're taking close to a million dollars, $970,000 to strengthen our green Seattle partnership funding, which I think many of you have followed this work as an innovative approach to restoring urban natural areas.

And we think this is going to be an awesome investment.

In addition, we're going to be planting more trees.

We put in $400,000 to plant and maintain 100 additional trees, which is a total of 600, to increase our urban canopy and mitigate what are known now as heat islands.

I can't say enough about equity.

We're investing, we're doubling our equity grant from $1 million to $2 million to support community-driven park improvement projects in under-resourced neighborhoods.

Last week, my wife and I attended an event in South Park.

It was a backpack giveaway, and we had police officers there, and some of the youth attending high schools and middle schools had the badge program.

And this kind of activation will listen to communities like those in South Park and ask communities, what kind of investments do you wanna see in your neighborhood, in your park, and so this is going to be a partnering effort, and that's why we doubled the equity grant from one million to two million.

You might have read this morning, I think it was a newspaper, about the Seattle Conservation Corps, which is a job training program for adults experiencing homelessness.

So we're going to almost increase that investment to a little under a million dollars, $900,000 to increase our efforts in the Seattle Conservation Corps.

And we again think this could be a game changer in restoring lives and also getting people into the pipeline of employment and back to self-sufficiency.

Youth Mentorship Opportunities is another investment.

We're going to invest about $820,000 to add 20,000 hours of youth employment opportunities that will serve approximately eight youth.

Now, when you look at our cycle one services, which is when we started the district, and you look at what we're trying to, how we're trying to parlay that, you'll see about $24 million in major and regular maintenance, cleaning and other services.

And again, that goes into our pillar of what I'll call the basics, making sure our parks are clean and accessible and user-friendly.

Again, we're going to have about $5 million in regular tree planting and maintenance work.

And I want to talk a little bit about the Community Center Operations Programs, 4.4 million and 4.3 in our program for teens, older adults and people with disabilities.

So we realize, as I talked about earlier, these are multi-generational parks.

We look at the youth, we look at People in their 20s and 30s, 40s, we look at people much older than that.

And we want to make sure that is accessible to everyone and we pass on the learning from one generation to another.

The multi-generational teachings from a grandmother to a grandson.

we talk about the village strategy.

So we are trying to make sure we transform these assets in this kind of multi-generational approach.

And that's why we used our five pillars.

And that's why you see sort of a balanced approach to making sure we have these multi-generational policies and programs and effort.

Now, in my first eight months of being mayor, I've reiterated time and time again our administration's commitment to parks.

Quite candidly, I spent so many hours down here coaching and talking to youth, sometimes getting yelled at by parents because I wasn't playing their child enough.

But in all seriousness, working with mothers and fathers and some coming from, some of these children are coming from some challenges in their homes, picking them up because they didn't have a ride to practice.

I had one child that had to catch a bus with his full uniform and helmet, catching the bus to practice.

And so we all, as a village, we made sure that we can get this type of person to practice on time.

He was coming late and sometimes he'd get caught up in the buses.

These are personal stories for me at least that have served as my values on why we want to do this kind of work.

Now when the pandemic uprooted our lives and our jobs and our relationships and these parks then became an outlet for so many people to escape.

Many people do not have yards.

They do not have areas close to them where they can simply, you know, have a barbecue or talk to friends and just relax and enjoy the shade.

That's why these assets, we drive with equity in these assets, and this reminds us why these special places are so integral for our healthy communities and strong neighborhoods.

I'm gonna close before Council Member Lewis speaks by saying, in mid-2021, I think this is important to note, that nearly 100 of the parks and natural areas managed by the Parks and Recreation Portfolio, nearly 100 were closed or impacted by unauthorized encampments.

We put the data out there.

Now, approximately 93%, that's 450 parks, are fully open and accessible to the public for their intended use.

And that is because of the work of our unified care team.

We did not do this work alone.

We have many advocacy organizations, many nonprofit organizations, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, they've done, for example, in Woodland Park area, an unprecedented number of referrals to shelter and housing.

That's how we help people.

We house them, we treat them.

So if we use this asset portfolio the right way, these are win-win scenarios and that's what our administration is all about.

Parks are a lot of things for a lot of people.

But the common theme in this will be our five pillars, safe, our youth, climate change, equity, these types of pillars.

We want everyone to see and feel the effects of this investment strategy.

So I want to thank you for being here.

And I really look forward to the council's engagement on this issue.

I'm very excited to introduce Council Member Andrew Lewis, who is president of the Seattle Parks District Board and has just been a phenomenal partner in the work that we're doing.

He's been engaged all along the way.

I expect the council or the commissioners to have a great and rich conversation on our proposal.

And I look forward to Council Member Lewis's leadership.

I would like to introduce Council Member Andrew Lewis.

Thanks so much, Mayor.

And you know, on that note that you just closed with, I do want to emphasize the closeness of process over the last six months of building toward this proposal for the next cycle of investments in the Metropolitan Park District.

It's not a level of collaboration we've always been used to on the council from an executive.

And it is greatly appreciated, and it's made possible not just by Mayor Harrell's leadership, but I do want to recognize Dan, Krista, the work that you've done in putting this package together, Chief Equity Officer Emery, Superintendent Williams, everyone has been great at the Parks Department and the Mayor's Office in helping the Council navigate this renewal.

And that is reflected in the package that Mayor Harrell has put forward today for our consideration.

At the beginning of this process, similar to Mayor Harrell's areas of interest, the council identified wanting to make our open spaces in our parks clean, safe, and open.

That's what's expected from the public.

That's what we expect as a parks board to deliver with this next round of investments.

This six-year renewal of the Metropolitan Park District restores and rebuilds community centers across the city.

It makes new investments in a renewed and strengthened park ranger program.

It definitely expanding beyond the 100% of the ranger workforce you see before you today at this more robust and supported program.

Salt Lake City has 16 park rangers.

San Francisco, California has near 40. We currently only have two, and they do an excellent job.

I had the great privilege of going on a ride along with Sandy a couple of weeks ago to see what she does up close, and it's what the patrons of our parks expect.

Somebody that can be a diplomatic presence in a park, that can provide information on park rules, that can provide assistance if necessary, that can deliver Narcan to save a life.

Our park rangers are a valuable asset to our open and public spaces in the city of Seattle and we are going to give you the help you need to have a robust workforce and a robust contingent of park rangers activating our public spaces and providing that level of activation that we expect as the people of the city of Seattle.

We are going to build on the great work that we've done with the Conservation Corps that was written about very eloquently in today's Seattle Times, a program modeled on the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, which through public works and through outreach, helps not only restore our public spaces, but provide opportunity, provide sobriety, provide a place to live for some of the most vulnerable people who are in our community.

We're going to build on that work.

We're going to expand that work.

That is what we're doing through this renewal of the Metropolitan Park District.

we are going to make sure that with confidence an asset that we took for granted that we lost through much of the pandemic having clean safe and open restrooms reliably at a time when we needed open public restrooms in our parks more than ever during the global pandemic and could not reliably find that service when we were coming to the park to the playground when we were socially distancing we're going to make sure there's investment so that our parks department has the resources it needs to make sure that our comfort stations can be clean, safe, and open in Seattle parks.

This is a really great foundation for the Seattle City Council to begin our deliberations.

We appreciate Mayor Harrell's leadership in including us in the process of shaping it.

We appreciate the incorporation and the patient listening in the Harrell administration to many council priorities that are within the four corners of this proposal that we are seeing today.

And we look forward to continuing that collaboration as we go into September and leading into our budget, confirm a next six-year cycle of investments for the Metropolitan Park District.

So, thank you so much.

Thank you, Andrew Lewis, in your capacity as President of the Board.

Thank you very much and we look forward to watching and seeing and being able, being ready to answer questions as the Council or the Board deliberates.

I now want to introduce, to say just a few words, our Superintendent Christopher Williams and before Christopher takes the mic, I do want to say that There are some wonderful park advocates that helped us put this program together.

You'll hear from one after Christopher Williams, but there are employees and colleagues and friends that are here with us.

I want to thank all of you for being here.

This budget that we proposed is a result of that community outreach and advocacy by many.

So we're very proud of the staff and the board of the Parks and Recreation Commissioners and community members, and we think this package addresses the concerns and the drivers that they wanted to see.

So now we'll hear from Superintendent Christopher Williams.

I think many of you are aware of his fine work.

Christopher Williams, please.

Thank you, Mayor.

So this is a significant investment in our local park and recreation system.

It's roughly $115 million worth of investments total.

About $57 million of that is you might consider new investment into the system.

This is a big lift.

You know, the thing I want to acknowledge is the mayor's the mayor had just taken office when we went to the mayor's team and said hey we need to work on this uh next tranche of park district funding and uh we got a lot of support uh in the beginning from uh deputy mayor audium emory and dan eater and krista vaez lots of support from the mayor's office the mayor also mentioned sort of this community of volunteers.

We have a robust army of constituent advocates out here, members of the Park Board, members of the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners, lots of constituents who showed up to testify, to advocate for lots of stuff in the Park District that you've heard about today.

We really appreciate the park board's dedication to listening to the community.

We have felt that through their listening, they've had a huge impact on the creation of the slate of recommendations that the mayor just talked about.

We know that these investments will support the city through a process of recovery.

We're already seeing that in our park system right now.

The park staff, many of whom who are behind me here, also put in a lot of effort and a lot of work to get us to this place today.

So just lots of people to thank and recognize.

The focus here is a wide ranging focus on addressing everything from climate change to meeting the needs of BIPOC community.

These recommendations are very equity centered in order to serve the needs of the community.

We want to support young people while they're in the hope stages of their development, and we are making a huge investment in what we're calling a Youth Opportunity Fund.

So this is an opportunity to recognize that there are lots of partners out there that we should be partnering with to strengthen our commitment to youth.

We're also addressing safety needs as the mayor mentioned and talked about Park Rangers.

We are going to significantly expand that program across the system and we want to seize opportunities to expand the use of our community centers.

The mayor eloquently described community centers as multi-generational facilities.

They are flagship capital investments that the city makes on behalf of the community in roughly 26 neighborhoods across the city, so maximizing their use is really important.

And we're also looking at electrification and decarbonization of community centers.

And you've heard about investments in the Seattle Conservation Corps.

There is something for everyone and every interest in this slate of investments.

And we're just really glad to be with the mayor making this presentation at this time.

And just want to give a big shout out to our partners here and the staff and certainly the mayor's staff.

So thank you, mayor.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you very much, Chris.

Next we're going to hear from our Board of Parks Recreation Commissioner co-chair Marlon Herrera.

Just a little background on Marlon Herrera.

He is a construction manager at Sound Transit with experience delivering complex infrastructure projects at multiple local agencies and many of you know the challenges in front of Sound Transit and the great opportunities in front of us.

Marlon attended the University of Washington, where he earned his Master of Public Administration and Master of Urban Planning, and he has guaranteed a victory this Saturday against Kent State, I understand, as a double Husky there.

However, he did go to Seattle University for his Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies, and he's a member of the Woodland Park Zoo Board of Directors and a community organizer in the Chinatown International District.

So Marlon has just been a steadfast leader in many communities and certainly a strong advocate for our parks system.

Marlon Herrera.

Thank you so much, Mayor Harrell, and thank you everyone for being here today on this gorgeous morning.

I know there's probably a lot of things you'd rather be doing here at Rainier Playfield, so I really appreciate everyone behind me and everyone here.

And let me tell you, there's one thing I love more than parks, and that'll be recreation.

That's why I'm super excited to support Mayor Harrell's plan for the next round of park district investments.

You know, we've been through a whole lot these last few years, a pandemic, a racial reckoning, all these climate events, and a housing crisis, just to name a few.

As you all know, our parks and recreation system has been at the forefront of fighting every single one of these issues the last few years, and we are committed to fighting these issues, and whatever may come our way, the next few.

Towards the future, we are dedicated to driving public health outcomes, pushing for environmental sustainability, and obviously developing our communities to be strong, and our future leaders to be right here today.

From our egalitarian roots and the Olmstead legacy in 1891 to our current fight to advance racial equity, we have always met the demands of a changing environment and a growing city.

And I'm sure you know, as Councilmember Lewis, Mayor Harrell, and Superintendent Williams said before me, we do so much more than just benches and basketballs.

We are the city's largest childcare provider in partnership with the Associated Recreation Council, which is standing behind me today.

We deliver programming to diverse cultures, folks with disabilities, youth, elders, and so much more.

You heard, we provide critical human services to people facing houselessness, including pathways to housing and employment.

We are a large employer of union family wage jobs.

We nurture the land for future generations and inspire everyone who steps foot into this beautiful corner of our country.

We supply critical infrastructure that brings our communities together.

These places, like right here in Reindeer Playfield, are where people, their parents, brothers, sisters, watch little kids play basketball or baseball for the very first time.

This is where we create priceless moments with the people we love, where we go to find solitude or perhaps find new friends.

where we innovate to find new solutions for recreation, climate change, land management, and so much more.

As such, you all know, Parks and Recreation is central to our very identity as Seattleites.

With our Parks and Recreation use swelling throughout the pandemic, we owe it to our neighbors to meet their needs and expectations through a voter-approved park district.

I helped put this proposal together to transmit to the Mayor and the Council by listening to 10,000 Seattleites since 2017 in developing a strategic plan, along with my other members of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners.

In addition to all that public input, we had multiple listening sessions and putting together a park district proposal, and I'm excited to continue working with the Parks and Recreation staff, the mayor, and the council, and all of our partners in the ecosystem to help implement the next round of park district investments.

I'm confident that all the public servants at Parks and Recreation will rise to the moment.

Thank you very much.

I think what Marlon demonstrates is passion, a commitment to excellence, integrity, and love for this city.

Thank you, Marlon.

There's absolutely no rumor that he's leaving Sound Transit to work for the city of Seattle, by the way.

They would kill me.

So our last speaker will be Jenea Bradford, who interned with us.

And it's very important to understand why we try to have these kind of partnerships.

Number one, we want to, and these are paid internships, we want to match a person's interest and their skills together with what we're trying to do in the city so we can develop these relationships.

So this is pre-employment training as young people start thinking about what their careers could be.

We also want to pair them with mentors, Who perhaps can help this person make career decisions and academic decisions in their life and quite candidly a practical experiences We want their resume to be stronger to show that they are committing themselves to public service and while I don't know Jenea very well personally I know of her because I said find us a superstar and Jenea your name came up.

So I present to you our superstar Jenea Bradford

Hi, I'm Janae.

I was with the Urban League program under the City of Seattle and I thank them a lot for letting me be in the program because first it was paid.

That's first.

Second, because it helped me with a lot.

It helped me personally.

learn how to have patience with kids, my personal, and then they also taught me how to do a resume, and it was my first job ever, so I learned a lot during that first job, the first two months or a month and a half, and it was really helpful to me, and it took a lot of free time off of my hands, like, because I had a lot of free time during the summer, but with this program, it took that off my hands, and It's a pretty long shift.

I have fun, but I do think the city of Seattle, especially the first two weeks, the first two weeks were like a lot to do.

And then I just learned a lot.

That's a lot of what I have to say is that I learned a lot.

And under the city of Seattle and the Urban League, they're opening up a bigger community, I guess, gap for other people.

lots of races and not just for random people but for everybody like up to like I think 21 I believe and they do they have different types of programs to where you can work at community centers or you can do construction or you can work with in the office department so there's lots of opportunities and you can literally talk to them and say which one that you like to work under and they could try to make it happen for you and and they reach out to a lot of upper higher people like last Friday we met a judge and a bailiff and it was pretty nice especially because she was black and I learned a lot from her so during that time of when I met her on Friday for our last day she taught us a lot she taught us and she taught to us about things that she went through for her to even get there.

And then also met the mayor, like the first week of us even being in the program.

We met a football player, we met cermits a lot, and we met a lot of people that they have connections with.

And I like that they reached out to those people just for us to understand and know where we can get with this program.

And I'm pretty sure I'm going to be joining back next summer.

And it's every summer.

But I do thank them a lot.

And thank you.

You did very well.

Can you imagine the poise you have to have in order to have a press conference like this?

Heck, I'm nervous.

So you did an outstanding job.

Now, I'm going to ask my comms director to help me a little bit.

We'll take some Q&A.

And again, I want to thank you for your attention to this matter, and I want to thank the speakers for um, speaking so eloquently on the issues.

I'm very proud to have a team and as was said, this work was a work of a lot of work and Marlon gave you a good example of that.

So we, we appreciate the community work in this regard.

So any questions?

Thanks for everyone.

Have a great day.

I'll let Jamie call it.

Let's raise our hands.

Given your reported comments to police officers, when you speak publicly about One Seattle and unity, should we doubt your sincerity?

No is the short answer.

And I was hoping to get some questions about this.

Now, I don't know what was reported per se about what I said, but I'll tell you how I've responded to people ask me.

I asked a question, I said, well, did I use any profanity?

Did I cuss anyone out?

They said, no.

I said, did I say anything bad about any individual, any person?

They said, no.

And I said, well, I give probably on average five or six speeches a week, so I can't keep track of everything that I said, but I will tell you what I'm intolerant about, and I will remain my right to criticize what I see.

I'm not happy when I look at the number of murders and deaths we've had in the city.

I'm not happy when I see people who are not housed in tents.

They're living in tents on streets and they're not getting the services they need.

I'm not happy when I see the fentanyl issues that are killing communities, literally.

People elected a mayor to be decisive, to make decisions, to be strong.

And so whatever I'm quoted in my One Seattle approach is that these kids matter.

And we will not be stagnant or complacent in this city under my leadership.

So One Seattle does not mean we don't call things what they are.

I'm committed to transparency.

And so when I am at a three o'clock roll call, as I have been five times, when I'm at Madrona Park at 5 a.m.

as I was last weekend in a West African tradition of healing.

It's going to take that kind of effort to wake up our city, to build the kind of city we could be.

That is one Seattle.

So whatever people said I said, I will own it because I believe in these people here.

I believe in the leadership.

I believe in our people here in Seattle.

And I've been in this city my entire life.

And if there's one thing about me is I am authentic.

When you go to kindergarten in the same school, you became mayor.

And you say the same things.

And when you've been with my best friend and wife for close to, we've known each other over four decades, she's seen me.

I'm not afraid of you.

I'm afraid of her criticism, by the way.

She's a tough critic.

But she's seen me say the same things over and over and over again.

So Seattle, stop playing small ball.

Let's play big ball.

Let's attack racism.

Let's attack police reform.

Let's revitalize our downtown.

That's big ball.

So I'll answer some more questions, but that's what I'm going to say, and I appreciate your question.

You told police that no one has a right to sleep outdoors.

How does this influence your policy going forward?

Are those comments going to change anything?

No, and this is nothing new.

I said this when I was on the council.

I said this as a candidate for mayor, and I say this as a mayor.

That if you look at the Martin vs. Boise decision as an example, and for those that don't know, that was a 2018 decision.

It was a review of a 9th Circuit decision.

The lawsuit started in 2009. And what the law made it crystal clear is, you can't criminalize homelessness.

That if a person has nowhere to sleep, You can't put a person in jail because that's their only means, but you can put regional restrictions in the parks to make sure you don't have syringes in the parks.

You see all of these children right now, they don't know what a syringe is.

It's our obligation to make sure through this strategy, to make sure our parks are safe for everyone and it should not be a de facto housing where people do not have water, they do not have heat.

And so our strategy addresses through our equity lens the kind of work we want to do.

And so it's consistent with Martin versus Boise, the Supreme Court ruling, and it's consistent with our unquestionable commitment to equity.

Same point.

You mentioned that the King County Homelessness Authority is working against your interests.

Are you going to be proposing in a couple weeks a budget reduction for them?

Yes.

And again, I'm sure everyone knows, but it bears repeating that people ask me about my remarks and my attitude toward the Regional Homelessness Authority.

So you will see, I don't, we'll present our budget in a few weeks, but you will see our clear recognition of a lot of the great work they are doing.

And that is why it's very intentional in my remarks to talk about Woodland Park Zoo, Woodland Park, the work they were doing.

But let me say this, that is one tool of many.

LEED is one tool of many.

Social workers and mental health counselors and our police officers are one tool of many.

Community passageways is one tool of many.

And you put all those tools together and I'm still not happy with what I'm seeing.

And you do not want a mayor that's complacent.

You do not want a mayor that's satisfied with too little in this city.

That crow even agrees with me.

As it relates to RHA, you will see continued support.

What I owe to the leaders at RHA, what I owe to them is my expectation.

And I think they share too my concern that we have to get this work done.

Now that's a startup organization.

It's a startup organization.

They are owed the opportunity to succeed, to have measurable outcomes.

But the conversations I said publicly, privately, I met with Mark Jones, King County Executive Dow Constantine and myself met with Mark and a few other people in the room to talk about our expectations.

So I'm still very optimistic.

I'm very optimistic.

But I'm not gonna look at any of the work we're doing in the city through rose colored glasses.

I will not do that.

What I said was just very make it very clear what I've been told I've said because and this is not new.

The fact of the matter is, is the council, there are five council members, they're on their first term.

I was in that situation as well.

And by the time I'd finished after 12 years, I was much more seasoned.

My resume as a mayor is very thin.

I got eight months in seniority when I'm talking to a lot of the officers.

A lot of them had only been in the job for weeks.

In fact, I think one had been in the job for less than a week.

That does not mean they can't do the work and get the work done.

But we have to acknowledge experience and lack thereof.

When I hire people, I factor in experience, but what I factor in more than that is a pattern of excellence I've seen outside of the job they're hiring for.

So I'm not, people are approaching me because there's gonna be some people that may not run, we don't know who's running.

So what I was letting people know that there seems to be a renewed interest of people getting involved in civic politics.

What I've said repeatedly, You know, the buck stops with me in this city.

I'm the CEO of this city.

But I get a lot of criticism, as any mayor does in his or her job, when I tell people, what are you willing to do to help with the problem?

Do you have any skin in the game?

So I've said this repeatedly, and people have said, you know, I may run for city council.

And that's a good conversation.

I'll also talk to the existing city council members and sit down with them and say, what are you trying to accomplish?

We're doing that, that's how our budget was put together.

I'm going down to the second floor and meeting with the council.

They don't have to come up to the seventh floor.

So again, in the context of many conversations that I have, it's very intentional we have Council Member Lewis here.

I've known Council Member Lewis way before he was elected.

I've watched his passion.

I'm going to call you out a little bit.

I'm going to say this.

I'm going to say this.

It's going to embarrass me, not you.

I've seen his passion for politics since he was in high school and then as a lawyer and now as a staffer and now as a council member.

So I'm optimistic about the partnership.

And that's as simple as that.

But for people who are running for city council, people have approached me and I've had conversations with them.

And I think that, quite honestly, a lot of the people I've talked to, a few of them, they're saying, I'm not going to sign up for it.

Too much work.

Because I said, be prepared to work seven days a week.

Be prepared to have your judgment questioned sometimes.

Be prepared to have your integrity attacked.

But you do the work anyway.

So I'm pretty confident we have strong relations with the council.

That's what we're trying to build and nothing I said publicly or privately will detract from that.

That will be my position to the federal court that

We will have compliance with the consent decree, that we will have systems in place to change the culture and change how we use force.

So I will argue that.

Now, it's not my decision.

It's going to be the federal court's decision.

But I believe in my city employees.

I believe in my police department, my fire department, my SDOT employees.

I believe in my employees.

So I will argue that we could be released from it and hopefully we'll be successful.

But what's most important, and this is why I passed the bias-free policing law, I looked at what was in the consent decree and what we need to institutionalize, such as tracking racial profiling as an example.

So we will continue to do the work because under our administration, under my leadership, when I look at the officers in the eyes, I let them know what kind of officer I expect them to be.

It's as simple as that.

And I said, and I'll say it here, I don't beg anyone to do their job.

Do it because you believe in yourself and believe in your commitment to the city.

And I've said that to city employees.

Public service is not to be taken lightly.

Do it and do it well.

So you mentioned Martin V. Boise.

When you argue maybe sweeps are effectively criminalizing homelessness, especially when hundreds and hundreds of community members have no resources, little to no possessions, maybe a tent, they have nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep.

Isn't the sweeps policy just effectively criminalizing their very existence?

No.

We don't sweep.

We offer housing.

We offer treatment.

We lead with compassion.

My budget reflects this, my desire to have our parks, our rangers help people is consistent with that.

And quite candidly, again, I've been in this city a long time.

I've coached kids down here.

My wife and I have been involved in many efforts to help people.

We're helpers.

So when I look at people who are experiencing homelessness, what I see is someone that was once a child here.

I said the other day that they were once in the third grade.

If you know kids in the third grade, they're all going like this.

They want to talk.

They want to be seen.

They want to be part of a family, of a community.

That's what I see out there.

So we will continue to comply with Martin versus Boise.

But most importantly, we will continue to lead with the values that we have and that my administration has.

The firefighters union is reporting at least 40 attacks on their firefighters when they respond to calls.

What is the city doing to prevent further attacks on firefighters when they respond to calls, especially in encampments?

Yeah, and I want to, I'm glad you raised that issue because our firefighters and our police officers, they're they're facing some very critical situations where their own safety is constantly put at risk.

And so through working with the labor group, the union, working with Harold Scoggins, the chief, listening to the officers, figuring out how we can help them do their jobs.

They do phenomenal work.

Our budget will reflect their safety needs as well.

We're also trying to figure out when someone is in a crisis, what kind of skill set should be in front of this person as well.

So our budget will reflect this acknowledgement that many of our officers and our firefighters are putting themselves in harm's way.

And again, I don't know if any of you have researched the level of fentanyl pouring into our communities.

This is not insignificant.

This is real stuff.

And so our strategies in our budget that we'll present will also address that as well.

We've got time for like two more questions.

I want to see if Erica or Ryan has a question.

Good?

Okay.

Erica?

Is there going to be a question on our park district strategy sooner or later?

I know everybody's really excited about the park.

Going back to the consent decree.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

Mentioning sort of the expanded parks, new parks, just kind of a little bit downplayed?

Now there's a question that I, that's a lob.

So, and I may call on Chris, I didn't talk about pickleball courts as an example.

So, which is a, which is a craze in this country.

And so we have, I want to give you the specific numbers.

I want to say, just one second here.

It's right here.

Six to eight outdoor parks, and I think everyone knows the pickleball.

This is so fun, because again, it's multi-generational.

And I believe six additional play area renovations, six to eight parks.

And again, to your question is, when we looked at the portfolio in full transparency, as we do in the Harrell administration, the first thing I said is, before we go big and go new, What about our existing asset portfolio?

So we started from that approach, and that's probably why, subconsciously, I didn't even talk about the exciting new stuff we're going to do.

But we have some new parks, some new sports we're going to do, some new renovations at Lake City, Green Lake Evans, and Evans Pole.

We have some renovations going on right here, I understand, as well.

So you're going to see new renovations, new parks, new pickleball courts, new programs.

So thank you for the question.

Christopher, is there anything you want to add on that one?

Sure.

I can talk briefly about specifically.

So we're going to invest $25 million bringing 12 new parks online.

That will create roughly 10 acres of parkland across the city.

We've got some parks that we consider land bank sites that we're in the first cycle of funding.

Examples of those include West Seattle Junction Park, A.B. Ernst Park.

We've got six new parks that will be developed in this next cycle of funding, including the Bitter Lake Reservoir Phase 1. We've got Caton Corner Park, Duwamish Waterway Park in South Park, Gateway Park.

We've got Lake City Floodplain Park, Terry Pettus Park, and the Bullitt property, so lots of investment happening over the next six-year cycle, and those are a few examples of what we plan to invest in.

And I think Erica had the last question.

Going back to the consent decree, can you talk about what Andrew Meyerberg's new role is going to be, and if you're looking to fill that position of public safety advisor, and what qualifications you're looking for in the new person?

Thank you, Erica, for that question.

uh...

uh...

andrew myers myer berg who for those who don't know was our his title was director of public safety and he was a former opiate director and now he's uh...

a director of strategic initiatives and we thought andrews very talented director special projects thank you director special projects we wanted to do is take advantage of andrews experience both public safety and other he's an attorney by profession well other types of projects were working on I'm not at liberty to talk about some of those projects because we're white papering right now and they're going to be presented in the budget.

So he's still part of our, a strong part of our administration and literally sits 40 feet from my desk and we're looking forward to that, to our continuing partnership.

And yes, we are looking at his former role.

And as you well know, next month we'll be announcing the results of the chief selection and that role under senior deputy mayor Harrell, we're looking at how we feel that role.

So we will be looking at that role as well.

So did I answer your question?

Any qualifications in particular you're looking for that maybe Andrew didn't have or that you'd like to see more of?

No, it's not a question of qualifications.

We want a person who understands constitutional policing, seven minute response times, are willing to do the hard research on what's working in other cities, issues dealing with gun regulations, just a good director of public safety.

Andrew is very talented and so we will continue to have him as an asset as we look at, let me back up.

So when I told all of my people in my administration that after six months, we're going to do an internal look.

So I not only get vocal about things, I get vocal about being introspective.

We do a self-evaluation.

What can we do better?

And in that process, we started looking at our assets and who has some energy around a certain area.

And we started moving people around.

And we'll continue to do that.

I believe in a learning organization, you do self-assessment.

So that's what we'll do.

So since this is the last question, I want to address the issue yesterday that we talked about, about the statements I've made.

At the end of the day, I think people are going to want a mayor to make decisions, to not be afraid to make the tough decisions, to try to uplift people.

But still, I have to maintain a certain level of being objective, critical thought, critical thinking.

That's going to make us all better.

I try to do it in a way that I'm not offending anyone personally.

I love this city.

And when people give their heart and their talent to public service, that means a lot to me.

So what I did yesterday when people started saying, well, you said something and do you apologize?

I said, well, what did I say?

I went through this litany.

Did I cuss anyone out?

I said, no, no, no, nothing like that.

So I just started making calls to anyone that might have been affected and had great conversations.

Because these are my friends.

With respect to the regional homelessness authority, when I was on the council, we looked at the construct.

Now that it is in reality, but when I walk the streets of Seattle, we have so much work to do.

And I'm not going to walk these streets with rose-colored glasses and say, everything is perfect.

Let's take a victory lap.

That is not what we're going to do.

We work seven days a week.

We have to do a course correct in this city.

And that's what our administration is about.

And that's what One Seattle is about.

Thank you very much.