Public Assets and Native Communities Committee 9/10/21

Thank you.

Welcome, everybody.

So good afternoon.

This is a meeting of the Public Assets and Native Committees Committee.

The date is September 10th, and the time is 2.01.

I'm Council Member Juarez, chair of the committee, and I want to welcome my colleagues.

And will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda is excused.

Council Member Peterson?

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

And Chair Juarez.

Here.

There are four in attendance.

Thank you.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

I will begin with the Chair's report.

Today's public comment will occur first for folks who wish to speak to the items on the agenda, except for agenda item number four.

If you wish to provide a comment on agenda item four, which is the draft zoo agreement renewal, please ensure you have signed up online for the public hearing, which is the reserve portion at the end of this meeting for that specific item.

There are four items on today's agenda, items one and two.

of both reappointments to the Seattle Indian Service Commission, beginning with Iris Friday, and second of all, Ms. Colleen EchoHawk.

Item three is a piece of legislation that would designate portions of the right of Alaskan Way, Elliott Way, Railroad Way, and Union Street as park boulevards along the Central Waterfront.

We will be joined by the Office of Waterfront to walk us through the details.

So we basically have a transaction, not a transaction, Department of SDOT is going to hand off jurisdiction and land portions of it to the waterfront to Seattle Parks and Rec.

Agenda item four is legislation that would renew the operations and management agreement between the City of Seattle and the Woodland Park Zoo Society.

The current 20 year contract remains active until February, 2022. So for this year, both parties, and I'm just gonna go with, I'm just gonna say Woodland Park Zoo, and the city have negotiated an agreement to renew and update policies related to the zoo operations.

So it's zoo operations, services, and particular attention to public benefits.

including equity and inclusion, labor harmony, community workforce agreement, prevailing wages, and opportunities for women of color, women in BIPOC community and training.

And also a particular section, and I'll have more to say that when we actually get to the agreement, but I'm just highlighting some of this now.

The public benefits piece is in section 11. And then of course, in section 12, page 30, has to do with the zoo animals.

And we will address more of the constituent concerns and letters that we got, and I'm sure we'll hear some more in public comment.

So what we have before us today is a draft agreement between both the Woodland Park Zoo and the society, which is a nonprofit, and the city of Seattle.

We will have a public hearing, so we may hear from the public on their vision, values, and concerns for this contract renewal.

Then we'll hear from both parties, that is the Woodland Park Zoo Society and the City of Seattle Parks, regarding their vision values and draft terms for the new contract.

Due to the fall budget calendar, the committee vote for this draft legislation is scheduled for Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 at two o'clock, followed by a full council vote on Monday, December 13th at two o'clock.

So we have plenty of time to review the legislation and the contract and hear from our constituents.

I encourage my colleagues who wish to propose amendments to the current draft to do so.

You certainly have a lot of time.

Amendments are due to our office Tuesday, November 30th, to allow the zoo, parks, and the legal department to review and agree and comment on proposed changes before the committee hearing on December 7th.

I have reviewed the contract, the operation and management contract, as well as the legislation in the fiscal note, and I'll speak more to the substance of that and the legislation when we arrive at that on the agenda item.

So at this time, we will move to public comment.

And we will open the remote public comment period.

This is different and separate from the scheduled public hearing on the zoo agreement renewal, which will occur later during agenda item number four.

Please hold your comments regarding the zoo until the reserve public hearing portion of the agenda.

Now I'm going to read a quick script here about what we always do to remind the public when we do public comment, then I'm going to hand it over to our amazing clerk, Nagin.

It remains the strong intent of the Seattle City Council to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, we reserve the right to end or eliminate this public comment period at any point if we deem that this system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we're able to conduct our necessary business.

I will moderate this general public comment period in the following manner.

The public comment period for this meeting is up to eight minutes.

It could be more.

Nagin, how many speakers do we have signed up for today?

We have two people signed up.

OK, so we have two people signed up.

Each speaker is given two minutes.

And again, our committee clerk, Nagin, will lead with the public comment instructions.

And then after Nagin is done giving the instructions, you'll hear from me again.

And we will begin the public comment period.

Go ahead, Nikki.

Great, thank you, Chair Juarez.

So I'll call on two speakers at a time and in the order in which registered on the online sign up list.

If you have not yet registered to speak, but would like to, you can sign up for the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at Seattle.gov slash council.

The public comment link is also listed on today's committee agenda.

Once the speaker's name is called I will unmute the or 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.

The speaker must also touch star-6 on their phone to unmute themselves after their name is called.

Please begin by speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you are addressing on today's agenda.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

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

Once you have completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

Chair Juarez, we are ready to open when you are.

Thank you.

So the public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first two speakers on the list.

Again, will you go ahead and call out our speakers?

Our first speaker is Aline Fortgang, followed by Sandy Labowitz.

And my apologies if I mispronounce your names.

I'm replying about the zoo agreement.

Is this Aline?

Yes should it not be when you reach number four.

That is that is correct.

We've got that reserved time under the public hearing.

And so we'll go ahead and make a note and we'll hear from you in a bit.

Okay.

No problem.

All right.

So next we have public comment.

Oh Marla Katz.

Are you on the line.

Hello.

Hi, Marla.

Hello.

Hi there, go ahead.

Okay, good afternoon committee members.

In a city with so many serious issues, why give this privately run through a quarter billion taxpayer dollars?

Hi Marla, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but we are in the middle of the general public comment period, but I'm happy to make sure that you are part of the public hearing speaking list.

Okay.

I'm sorry about that, but you are listed under public hearing.

Is there anything?

No problem.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So, Chair Juarez, we are done with the list for the general public comment period.

Thank you.

And Alina, Marla, we will get back to you.

So, let's finish with the general public and close it.

So, the public comment, general comment period is now closed.

We will move to items of business.

Number one, we have the reappointment of Ms. Iris Friday to the Seattle Indian Service Commission.

Nageen, can you please read that into the record?

Agenda item one, appointment 02024, reappointment of N.

Iris Friday as member Seattle Indian Services Commission for term to October 31st, 2022. Briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

It's my honor to both applicants, both reappointments, particularly for Iris and my both my friends, Iris and Colleen, but Iris Friday to this is a Seattle City Council reappointment.

And Iris is a member.

I'm going to read her background.

I understand that neither could attend today, but we have their appointment packets as well as my colleagues have them in front of them.

Iris is a member of the Tlingit tribe, and she currently works for the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, that is HUD, the Northwest Office of Native American Programs.

Iris, which she is just a phenomenal person in the community, and I've known her for over 20 years, she's a founding member of the Native Action Network group, a grassroots organization dedicated to put political empowerment through increased civic participation.

This group has been around for over 20 years and my daughters were one of the first classes and now they're 27 and 30. So I don't know if you all don't know Iris, but she is involved in everything in Indian country women empowerment volunteer work.

and had a phenomenal career back in Washington, D.C., starting back in 1994 as a White House intern under the office of the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and also was a finalist for a fellowship in New Zealand.

She's been at HUD.

She was an ambassador for the Indian Opportunity Ambassador Leadership Program, which is a very highly regarded program within Indian country.

And I can't go on and on about, I could go on and on about her and the work that she's done for not only Native Americans, but all communities regarding housing and urban development.

And so with that, and let's see, Iris is, that's what I have for Iris.

I could go on, but she probably wouldn't want me to share much more.

So is there any of my colleagues want to add anything for Ms. Iris Friday regarding her reappointment to the Seattle Indian Service Commission?

Okay.

Hearing none, then I'm going to go forward.

And Iris is not with us.

Iris Friday is not with us today.

I move the committee recommend council affirm appointment 02024. Second.

Thank you.

Motion is moved and seconded.

Are there any comments?

We've already asked that.

Okay, so will the clerk please call the roll to recommend city council confirm appointment 02024. Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

That's four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion passes and the committee will recommend the City Council confirm appointment 02024 for Miss Iris Friday.

Nagin, can you please read item two to the record?

Agenda item 2, appointment 02025, reappointment of Colleen Okoha Kayashi as member Seattle Indian Services Commission for a term to December 31st, 2024. Briefing discussion and possible vote.

My understanding is Ms. Colleen Okoha Kayashi could not make it here today, but this again is a reappointment.

back to the Seattle Indian Service Commission by the Seattle City Council.

I'm just going to read a little bit, but I think a lot of us know who Colleen is and what she's done.

Colleen is a member of the Pawnee Nation.

And she was the former executive director of the Chief Seattle Club.

And currently, I understand that she is the, she's working for Headwater People's, I'm sorry, the Headwaters Consulting Group.

And she founded the Headwater People Consulting, in 2013. It's a consulting firm focusing on leadership development, organizational design, and facilitation.

And I've known Colleen Echo Hawk and her wonderful family and sisters for quite a while, and they are like Iris.

We've all been around in the work, in the development, in the betterment, not only of Native American people and family and women, but for all communities.

And Colleen, particularly for housing, low-income housing, as you know, Colleen, when she was at the Chief Seattle Club, we worked on many housing developments.

And she was one of the people that made sure that we're working with North Seattle College to get 200 units of low-income housing built on the campus with the Longhouse.

So with that, I want to move that the committee recommend or confirm appointment 02025, Colleen Alcohoc-Hayashi.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Are there any comments or anything my colleagues would like to add to the reappointment of Colleen EchoHawk Hayashi?

Okay, hearing none, then I will go forward.

There's no further discussion.

Will the clerk please call the roll to recommend City Council confirm appointment 02025 Colleen EchoHawk Hayashi.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

All in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion passes and the committee will recommend the City Council confirm appointment 02025 for Colleen Ekoha-Kayashi.

And for both items or both appointments for Colleen and Iris, they will be in front of the Seattle City Council Monday, September 20th.

Thank you.

So if moving on to item number three, Park Boulevard designation, Degeen, can you read that into the record?

Agenda item three, Council Bill 120163, an ordinance relating to City of Seattle right-of-way along the central waterfront, designating portions of Alaskan Way, Elliott Way, Railroad Way, and Union Street as park boulevards.

Repealing ordinance 102696, authorizing the transfer of jurisdiction over portions of those right-of-way the Seattle Department of Transportation to the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, and amending Appendices 1 and 2 to Ordinance 117569 and Title 15 of the Seattle Municipal Code and Section 11.16.125 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

This item is up for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

If we can have the presenters introduce themselves, I have a few things to say and then I will let you get Right to, is it, I think you have a nine page PowerPoint for us.

So you want to go ahead and introduce yourself, Park folks, who's all here.

Great.

Hi, I'm Dory.

Excuse me.

Sorry, Marshall Foster, Director of the Waterfront Office.

Dory Costa, the Manager of Finance for Office of the Waterfront.

Tiffany Malacke, I'm the Operations and Management Advisor for the Office of the Waterfront.

Hi, I'm Eric McConnachie.

I'm on the council central staff.

So I stumbled a little bit in the beginning, but what I was trying to get out of the very beginning, Marsha, before I saw your tile, I know Dory got here before you.

So we've done these before.

We're our standard transfer of lander jurisdiction from SDOT to SPR, because it's the central waterfront.

It's part of this whole bigger picture of the park and the boulevard and what you guys have done, what we've done as a city.

to create the additional park front.

The only question I have before you begin, and I just want to just get it out there now, and I think my staff may have followed up, and I'll let you go through your presentation, is approximately how much land are we talking about?

Or is there a specific number?

Sure, Dory, do you want to answer that?

I know you just shot an email about that.

Yeah.

So we don't have the exact land area.

We will get that and get back to you.

It's about one mile of right-of-way, the length along the waterfront.

It's about 17 blocks from down by the stadiums to just north of where the Overlook Walk and Aquarium will be.

And I'll show that on the map in a moment.

That's all I need to know.

I'll let you guys go ahead and take it away.

Thank you.

So thanks, Chair Juarez and committee members.

It's great to be back.

We're going to do a brief presentation.

And just by way of introduction, the Waterfront Program has been building up to this for a number of years.

We actually have some legislation that has prepared for this.

The fundamental thing that the Park Boulevard helps us do is establish our city maintenance lead with the Parks Department over not only the park's own properties today, but also some of the SDOT rights-of-way, which will be ultimately managed as public park spaces.

And as part of that, enable us to use Metropolitan Park District funding, which has been dedicated for the waterfront.

The other thing that it supports is our ongoing partnership with Friends of Waterfront Seattle for programming and activation, which was part of, you may recall back in 2019, we did legislation which kind of formalized that partnership.

So this was all kind of anticipated, and we're very happy to be here today to actually be able to talk to you about the ordinance itself.

All right, and with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Dory and Tiffany.

Hi, council members.

So you can kind of see the yeah.

So here is the legislative history.

And, you know, that's key here.

We've been talking about operating the waterfront as a park since 2010 to 2011. When we developed our, our Central Waterfront Committee, and we developed our framework plan and concept design, and we talked about having a strong public-private partnership and establishing a foundation for a lasting civic partnership.

In 2012, the city supported the creation of Friends of Waterfront Seattle and for them to be a partner to help operate and manage our new parks and public spaces.

In 2017, we stated our intent to enter into an agreement to provide the high quality level of operation and management that we were seeking for the waterfront.

And then in 2019, when we did a package of legislation to form the local improvement district, we also included in that package two ordinances, one which authorized a pilot agreement with Friends of the Waterfront, anticipating that we would be Enter into a long term management agreement for the entire completed waterfront.

And then also we entered into a what's called a protest waiver agreement.

That's the last ordinance shown that approved us entering into agreements with property owners.

within downtown who were paying into the waterfront LID.

And one of the terms in that agreement was that we designate the right-of-way as a park boulevard.

That was one of the things property owners thought was very important to ensure long-term management of the right-of-way.

Next slide, please.

So what are we proposing?

This legislation is, as Marshall said, intended to make sure we have high quality consistent operation and management for the public spaces that we're building along the central waterfront.

We can look at those in a moment.

We're going to designate portions of the right-of-way as park boulevards.

This is something that there's a number of park boulevards within the city with different levels of commitment between the two departments, Parks and SDOT.

and Lake Washington Boulevard is a park boulevard.

Actually, Alaskan Way was the first park boulevard in the city, a piece of Alaskan Way in front of what is now Pier 62-63 and Waterfront Park at Pier 58. The legislation would also authorize SDOT to transfer jurisdiction of portions of the park boulevards to SPR, and it would allow parks to, you know, manage the public spaces and establish park hours similar to other parks in the city.

Next slide.

So the right-of-way that we're looking at designating, as you can see, extends from the stadiums at Occidental and Railroad Way, and the little east-west street there is Charles Street, north along Railroad Way to King Street and Alaskan Way, and then north along Alaskan Way from King Street around the curve at Yesler and all the way up to where the new Overlook Walk will be built at around the equivalent of Pine Street, and then it extends a little ways up the the two ends of Elliott Way and Alaskan Way to encompass a few improvements.

You can see slightly in the north end of the Elliott Way right-of-way, there's the bluff walk that is part of Overlook Walk that connects to the Pike Place Market front development that extends a little bit up the Elliott Way right-of-way, and then some improvements in front of Pier 62. along Alaskan Way.

It also includes a small piece of the Union Street right-of-way that, where we're building the Union Street pedestrian bridge, that construction's underway now.

And as I mentioned earlier, that's about 17 blocks of right-of-way, depending on whether you count the little piece north of the Overlook Walk twice.

And then we'll move to the next slide.

Within the Park Boulevard, we kind of have two zones.

The areas in green are intended to be where parks and, you know, Seattle Parks and Recreation would have jurisdiction.

They are areas that would be, you know, have their daily maintenance, cleaning, you know, care of the trees and landscaping.

garbage pickup, watering of plants, things like that would be managed by parks with friends assisting if there's a special level of maintenance we want to add on top, or also in helping to program those areas to make sure they're active and fun for users.

The area in red would remain in the Department of Transportation's jurisdiction.

This is the area that has the protected bike lane or cycle track.

It has the sidewalk that is right next to the street.

It has the parking and loading zones and it has the transit lanes and the the roadway lanes and the traffic signals and things like that, and those would remain in SDOT's jurisdiction, and they would be responsible for the day-to-day maintenance and long-term maintenance of those facilities.

In the green area, Estat would still be responsible for long-term major maintenance of facilities if things needed to be replaced.

And we would have maintenance agreements between parks and transportation about the details of who would would take care of certain things if certain things happen, like say a car ran into a tree or stuff like that.

The next slide, please.

So why are we doing this?

Marshall's already covered some of this.

One is to allow us to establish clear roles and responsibilities for operation and maintenance of the public spaces.

If council members have been out to the waterfront while we're in construction, you can see that the public spaces along the waterfront are going to be very wide and very park-like.

And so we want to make sure that we are doing really good operations and maintenance of that.

We want to be able to ensure that the city can use the Metropolitan Park District resources to support the park maintenance.

And then finally, we want to fulfill the commitments that we've established in previous city legislation.

And then next slide, please.

One of the questions we've been asked is why now?

Why are we requesting this now rather than when the construction is all complete?

And one of the big reasons is because we have portions of the reconfigured waterfront that are already open.

For instance, if you have been down to the waterfront north of Columbia, we've already opened the east side of the street along Pioneer Square.

We anticipate late this year or early next year to be able to open the west side of Alaskan Way, south of Yesler and the ferry terminal.

And so this would allow us and authorize us to begin phase transfer of jurisdiction as more portions of the waterfront are completed over the next two years.

You know, the Park Boulevard is essential to complete the long-term agreement with Friends, you know, by the fall of 2022, which is when the city, you know, committed to enter into that agreement, and it's also when the pilot agreement ends.

And then finally, to really allow us to build on the partnership between Parks and Friends at Pier 62. Next slide.

I can't remember if there is a next slide.

There it is.

That's it.

So the next steps, going along with the why now, as you can see what I've already mentioned, the stretch in blue at the south end of Alaskan Way between Columbia and King is already open.

to pedestrians and to traffic.

We've installed our trees and our ground plantings.

The areas in green are the next phase.

Oh, and sorry, in blue is also the Pier 6263, which is already open.

The areas in green are the next areas that we anticipate to be open.

Then moving on to the area that's sort of in a yellow color north of Columbia on the west side of the street, that's really when the main part of the promenade will start opening to the public as construction is complete in two block segments, we believe.

The red area that is supposed to open in October 22 is the Union Street Pedestrian Bridge.

And then in mid-2023, we anticipate the restroom that will be within the promenade, the railroad area, and the stretch of Alaskan Way near Pier 62 to open.

And then finally, we expect the last pieces that are sort of in the dark teal green to open by the end of 2024. This will allow us to do that phased implementation and be able to start maintaining assets as they begin to be put into use by the public.

And with that, the presentation is done.

I believe there's maybe one slide.

Oh, we don't have a contact slide on here.

So if there are any questions, we'll be glad to answer them.

Council Member, you're on mute.

I was saying hi to Claudia.

Thank you.

I'll get back to you, Senator Kaufman.

I'm glad you're here.

So is there any questions about the discussion before I move to second?

And then I'll ask if there's any questions again.

But is there anything that we want to ask from the pages that are the PowerPoint that Dory just went through?

Okay, we'll see none, then I'm going to go ahead and move this.

I move the committee recommend Council pass Council Bill 120163. That's the Park Boulevard designation.

Is there a second?

Where's my Second.

Thank you, Council Member Herboldt.

Apparently my vice chair is not paying attention, so I might have to pound on the wall.

Okay, so the motion has been moved and seconded, and so we'll go forward.

Can the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herboldt?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Council Member Selwyn?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Council Member Juarez, should I continue?

Yeah.

Okay, that is three in favor and opposed.

Great, the motion passes and the committee will recommend City Council pass Council Bill 120163. Before we go on, and again, this will be in front of Council on Monday, September 20th.

Before we go to item number four in public hearing, I briefly want to recognize former Senator Claudia Kaufman.

Claudia, we just reappointed you.

I'm glad you're here.

If you want to say a few words, we can interrupt the calendar or the agenda.

I tried to say enough, but I didn't want to get, you know, I don't want to go back to our days of childhood and, you know, Daybreak Star, but if you want to say a few words for my colleagues in the public, that'd be great.

And, you know, we didn't have Iris here either, but I read for both of your application packets.

So go ahead, Claudia, Senator Kaufman.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And I appreciate the opportunity to be here before your committee.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I'm Claudia Kaufman.

I'm a member of this first charge.

I'm chair of the Seattle Living Services Commission, which is a public development authority charted under the city of Seattle.

One of the first charted PDAs for the city.

And we've worked to help establish services and housing for the native community.

We're really excited that the commissioners and PDAs are all volunteers, so I apologize for for being late.

It's time for another meeting, but I do appreciate the opportunity.

We have some wonderful volunteers.

Iris Riley and Colleen Ethel Hawk, who were up for reappointment.

They are extremely dedicated volunteers in the Native community.

They have a long history here and have been doing great work.

We have a wonderful vision for the future for the Seattle Indian Services Commission and their development.

of a multi-use facility for housing and for business development, child development.

And also we've become a focal point for the Native community that we've re-established Native housing units for families and students and our general community that is just the city of Seattle.

We've done a lot of of work to move us forward, and I appreciate your support in keeping our mission moving.

Chair Kaufman, I apologize.

I was getting, we are reappointing Colleen Echo Hawk at Iris Friday, and I know that you're the chair of the Seattle Indian Service Commission, so I apologize for that.

I got that mixed up, turned around, but I want to thank you, and it's always a pleasure talking to you, and I know that you know how hard us Native women all work, and you're part of that group, And as you can see, I got Uncle Bernie behind me.

He's got my picture, got his picture.

So with that, and we did, we passed unanimously both appointments for Colleen and Iris.

And I mean, no disrespect by referring to Colleen and Iris by their first name, as I call you the Senator, you're also my sister and my friend, Claudia.

So that's how we do in Indian country.

So thank you for being here.

No worries about being late.

I won't make a joke about not being on time.

I'll let that go, and so we'll finish with our agenda.

You're welcome to stay if you'd like.

Thank you, Senator.

Thank you so much.

Great.

With that, we are now going to move to item number four, which is the operations and management of the Woodland Park Zoo.

I have a little bit more to say to preface this presentation before we begin, but I'm going to have, first of all, Nagin, can you read it, number four, into the record?

Agenda Item 4, Council Bill 120164, an ordinance relating to Seattle Parks and Recreation, authorizing the superintendent of Parks and Recreation to enter into an agreement with the Woodland Park Zoological Society for operation and management of the Woodland Park Zoo.

It's up for first public hearing, followed by a briefing.

So, um, I, again, how are we going to do this?

Cause I know we switched it around.

Should I do my comments now or should we just do the.

I think if you have them in front of you, feel free to dive in.

Okay.

I'll do that.

And then we'll hear from.

We'll hear from Aline and Marla, I believe, who called in to talk about that.

And I might as well just get this out of the way now, and then we'll come back to the two individuals that wanted to speak to this on the public comment piece.

And there will be two in addition to 13 others who signed in.

Just a heads up.

OK, great.

And so when we do that, remind me to then we'll invite our presenters in and we'll do all that, OK?

Perfect.

We'll do.

OK.

Because we originally had it switched and at the last minute we switched it back so we could have the public hearing first.

And so anyway, so this is going to go to my comments here.

It is my priority to provide ample time for the public to review and provide feedback on this new agreement.

A thank you to dozens of Seattle residents who wrote to our office and all of Seattle City Council members to share their primary concerns, which is over animal welfare and care, the contract itself, labor issues, and such.

So anyway, I look forward to hearing this presentation so we can go through with the facts.

But before we do, I want to kind of brief everybody.

For those of you following online, some of them have had the proposed legislation with the operation and management agreement has already been posted and available online.

And I want to give a quick overview.

So the following public where I've highlighted a few sections and also for my colleagues.

So when I read the legislation, I try to track it.

where those particular sections, particularly when we hear from our constituents, where those issues actually show up in the legislation and the operation and management agreement or the actual contract.

Because otherwise, you're flipping back and forth and you're trying to follow.

So these are kind of the hot spots that I've kind of laid out.

And then I know that the people from Parks and Zoo are going to go through their presentation and highlight it more.

But I wanted to give, like I said, the contours of what I believe are some of the issues that have been raised.

This legislation, which includes the Operation and Management Agreement, is about 70 pages.

It has four exhibits to it.

And exhibit number three is the MOU.

That's the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed by the zoo in the city of Seattle in July 2021. Appendix, or also exhibit number four is important.

Because in exhibit number four, there's two appendices.

Appendix A has the public benefits.

And we will go into that more when we go through the presentation.

And I just wanted you all to be aware that's where those sections are.

So it's a 70 page document, four exhibits, and it's broken into 31 sections.

Page eight is where the agreement actually starts.

And again, I'm a little nerdy here, but it's just, it's kind of the way I think.

So I wanna make sure that the public can follow and follow through as you're looking at it online.

So page 12 outlines the term, the 20 years, 2021 to 2041, if we were indeed to pass this.

And we're not voting on that today.

Today's public hearing information.

Page 24, section 11 is the public benefits section, and kudos to Parks and Zoo for putting in and doing the things that we asked them to do.

Public benefits is also, as I said earlier, in Exhibit 4 under Appendix A, which is on page 60. And the public benefits piece is very important.

It has the five-year review, the equity and inclusion, the nondiscrimination, the labor harmony, the social equity, It has the Women and Minority Owned Business Enterprises Inclusion, WMB.

It has the Community Workforce Agreement, prevailing wages, and training and opportunities for women and BIPOC communities.

And there's more to that, but that's another issue or another page that if people are looking for the public benefits piece, that's where it's at.

So it's on page 24, section 11, labeled public benefits, also in exhibit four.

On page 30, that's section 12. That's where it regards the zoo animals about care.

And I'll come back to that in a minute.

And I also want to highlight, because I'm really glad that we got this in there, and I thank you again, Superintendent Agarra and Dr. Grajal.

On page 36 is section 16 regarding reporting obligations and public involvement.

And that is some really good language in there.

for public involvement for major capital projects and a neighborhood liaison.

And I'm happy about that.

So page 58, and again, it's exhibit number three is important because we signed that in July, 2021, that's the MOU.

And again, that's exhibit three.

And then on page 60, again, exhibit four, the public benefits.

Those are the four commitments that we have made as a city that align with our values that are now incorporated in this.

with the seven service categories that total around 3 million in public benefits.

Now, the reason why I kind of wanted to give the overview is so when we're going through this document, people can kind of follow along and know where these, because it's, you know, 70 pages, so it's a bit unwieldy, but it's all in there.

So that being said, I want to share some information that I asked central staff in the zoo and parks to get back to me. regarding what we know about the zoo in the current contract regarding the actual zoo and animal care, is that in the Woodland Park Zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, known as the AZA.

Only zoos and aquariums that meet the highest standards are accredited, a rigorous process that occurs every five years.

In addition, Woodland Park Zoo is one of the few zoos and aquariums in the United States to be certified by the rigorous American Humane Conservation Program, if they are humane certified.

The Humane Certified Seal of Approval is another important validation of the zoo's longstanding tradition of meeting the highest standards in animal welfare.

Woodland Park Zoo has two full-time DVMs, that's Doctors of Veterinary Medicine on staff, and a third DVM will join the team in November 2021. The zoo's animal health team currently provides health care for over 900 animals, representing 240 species.

The zoo's veterinarians have professional license to practice medicine and surgery from the state of Washington.

Woodland Park Zoo has five veterinary technicians, veterinarian technicians on staff.

And the Woodland Park Zoo is one of the only zoos in the nation with an animal welfare scientist on staff.

As I shared in the Operation and Management Agreement, section 12, page 30, you will see where we address zoo, or they address zoo animals, in that they will comply with all federal, state, and local laws, and that we, the city, rely on Woodland Park Zoo's stated unique expertise, skill, and experience, as well as and including all formal education, licensing, and certification.

And because we also got letters that were in support of the zoo, they asked that I just quickly read the 12 letters from community-based organizations supporting the Woodland Park Zoo, the public benefits, and their support for this proposed operation and management agreement.

We have received, without going through every individual, I'll just sum up the organizations.

Outdoors for All Foundation, Solid Ground, Family Works, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Puget Sound, Mary's Place, El Centro de la Raza, Chief Seattle Club, Amara, Treehouse, the Arc of King County, Launch, and the Finney Neighborhood Association.

So I do that as a precursor.

So when we go into public hearing, if there were some questions or concerns that some of our people have signed up for, hopefully that answers some of them.

But I obviously feel free during this public comment time to tell us what your concerns are, and we're here obviously to listen to that.

So right now we will open up agenda item four, council bill 120164 for public comment.

And again, how many speakers do we have now?

We have 15 individuals signed up and of the 15, or I'm sorry, of the 16, 14 are available.

Okay, so we have 14 people signed up.

Yes.

OK.

So I'm going to let Nagin go forward and read the instructions.

And Nagin, you can go ahead and do that, and then we'll tee up our speakers.

Go ahead.

All right.

Once the speaker's name is called, we will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt if you have been unmuted.

That will be your cue that it is your turn.

The speaker must press star six on your phone to unmute yourself after your name is called.

Then you may begin speaking by stating your name.

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

Once you hear the chime, please wrap up your comment.

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

Once you have completed your public comment for this public hearing, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via via Seattle Channel or the listing options listed on the agenda.

Council Member Juarez, we are ready to have you open the public hearing.

Thank you.

So the public hearing for agenda item four is now open, and we will begin.

And Nagin will be calling folks on the list.

Go ahead, Nagin.

All right, so the first two signed up are Zoe Bill followed by Eileen Fortgang.

Zoe, are you available?

Yes this is Zoe.

Hi there.

Go ahead.

Hi.

Hi.

So my name is Zoe Bell and I'm here to express my support for the agreement between the city of Seattle and the Woodland Park Zoo.

I'm the youth services manager at Mary's Place.

The Woodland Park Zoo plays a critical role in our community and is a valued partner in the services we provide at Mary's Place for our kids and families.

Mary's Place is a leading provider of shelter services for women and families experiencing homelessness in King County.

The Youth Services Department focuses on enriching the lives of youth and providing families with important tools and opportunities to mitigate the trauma of homelessness.

The Woodland Park Zoo helps us achieve these goals by providing free tickets for group field trips to the zoo and for families to go independently.

One of the highlights of the year is the Wild Lantern event that occurs every winter.

We bring groups of families from each of our shelters to spend the night experiencing the zoo in the dark and those amazing lights.

The families look forward to the event and talk about it for weeks after.

It brings them so much joy.

These supports also continue with our families into housing as Woodland Park Zoo offers heavily discounted tickets to Seattle residents who are reliant on EBT or WIC assistance.

This access allows kids from both our families and others to participate in educational programming and for families to create lasting memories.

We are deeply grateful for our partnership with the Woodland Park Zoo and Mary's Place and for the opportunities they provide to our families and to the community at large.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next is Aline Forking.

Aline, are you on the line?

Aline, try pressing star six.

There we go.

Aline, go ahead and begin your comments.

Aline, we still don't hear you.

IT, do you have any suggestions on how we can get Aline connected?

The caller needs to press star six again.

Eileen, please press star six.

I'll give you a moment.

I did.

There we go.

Hi.

All right.

I don't know.

Let's try it again.

I'm Eileen Fortgang, co-founder of Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants.

I led the decade-long effort to get the elephants retired to sanctuary.

We are vehemently opposed to the removal of the clause in the proposed agreement that gave the city authority over the disposition of the animals.

It took an ordinance to direct the zoo to do the humane thing and move the elephants to sanctuary.

The zoo ignored science, the public, the Seattle Times, which published 17 editorials, the mayor, and a majority of the city council until, in the last minute, there was a stunning reversal of two city council members who voted no on the ordinance.

It was a tragedy for Bamboo and Chai.

The zoo removed the clause giving the city this authority citing that the city is not an expert on animals.

While the zoo may not have confidence in the city council members to consult experts when needed, we do, your constituents have become aware of the inherent cruelty of caging wild animals by not supporting the zoo as they once did.

This is evidenced by paid gate attendance declining for well over a decade.

In fact, 2019 paid gate attendance pre-COVID was at the 2004 level in spite of Seattle's robust population growth.

In those 15 years Seattle's population increased a whopping 32 percent.

And the people who got free cap tickets like Mary's Place 40 percent of them didn't go didn't use their tickets.

So when the zoo asks for a quarter of a billion dollar subsidy no it actually should be decreased commensurate with your constituents values and declining support of the zoo.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

The next two speakers are Rachel Bjork followed by Paige Hege.

Is Rachel on the line.

Please don't forget to press star 6. Okay, while we wait for Rachel, is Paige available?

Paige Heggie.

Paige Heggie here.

Hi Paige.

Hi, go ahead.

Hi.

Hi.

I've lived in Fremont apartments for over 20 years, never more than eight blocks from the zoo.

The zoo is on city land.

It has a host of amenities and 92 acres.

Through rent and taxes, I pay for the private zoo, and I oppose this.

In those 20 years, there have been a lot of bad things that have happened inside the zoo gates.

Mistakes were made.

Accidents happened.

Secrecy is valued there.

And the land and the facility board continues under the watchful eye of the Woodland Park Zoo Society, their board directors, and their parent advisor, the North American Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the APA.

Seattle is a generous funder of parks.

Over the of the five criteria used by the trust for public land we rank 100 out of 100 in investment.

So we spend the money on parks but do we get the value.

11 percent of Seattle City land is used for parks and rec.

The national median is 15 percent.

When it comes to city park acreage and amenities we hover at a lower 50th percentage.

One example of this lack of acreage and amenities is in North Seattle.

Woodland Park Zoo is a few blocks northeast of an area that in 2019 was deemed a very high need for a park.

That was, again, the trust for public lands.

If we opened the zoo's nearby North Meadow, the people who live in that area of North Seattle in a very high need for a park would be able to recreate in a green space that they now lack.

Encourage Seattleites to socialize in a safe, open-air setting.

not the marginal parks that are dotted around the zoo.

Don't let the zoo continue to lock out apartment dwellers and others who have no green space and can't afford the admission cost or membership.

In addition to the unfortunate use of city land in the form of the zoo, there is the issue of keeping captive animals in cages behind gates in Finney Ridge.

I hear that time marker so I just want Rachel Bjork.

I'm going to go ahead and try you again.

If you could press star six to unmute yourself.

I see you on the line, but you're still muted.

All right, so we'll come back to you, Rachel.

All right, next we have Holly Newman-Zyban.

Holly, are you there?

Don't forget to press star six.

Hello, this is Holly.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Hello, my name is Holly Newman-Zyvan and I'm coming to you today both on behalf of my employer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound, and as myself as a mother and a formerly low-income resident of the area.

I'm testifying in support of the renewed agreement with the zoo because I have seen the kind of difference it can make in the lives of kids and families.

It's not perfect, but being able to have a place to go where you can see things and experience animals that are out of your everyday experience and have your vision of the world broadened means a lot to kids.

particularly kids whose circumstances really, really restrict their ability to see so many parts of our city and our world.

Woodland Park Zoo over this year has given 500 tickets to Big Brothers Big Sisters so that our families who are over 75% qualified for free and reduced lunch can go and enjoy the zoo.

And in a time when there are so many things that are off limits for kids, being able to get outside and go to the zoo was basically life changing for so many kids.

And I won't forget it.

I can't forget it because those are my kids too.

So I hope that this city will renew this agreement.

It's really meaningful for a lot of us.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for calling in.

Rachel I'm going to go ahead and try one more time if you could press star six and ask you to unmute.

All right.

So the next two callers we have C.S.

signed in as well as Irene Wall.

Is C.S.

available.

Please press star six.

Hello.

Hi.

Please go ahead when you're ready.

Hi I'm a District 6 resident and my comments are on Agenda Item 4. There are multiple problems with the proposed zoo O&M agreement.

The most pressing issues are the loss of public oversight and control of the zoo and the inappropriate increased funding to the zoo.

As a city-owned facility the City of Seattle must have the ability to set policy on the use of animals on city property.

City residents and City Council should have oversight and control.

As it stands Section 12.3 is overly broad and excessively grants rights to the WPZS thus removing those rights from the public control by a city council.

The WPCS has previously shown the treatment of elephants in their care that they can't be trusted.

Section 12.3 should be reworded to allow city council the option to intervene in the breeding, acquisition, sale, or other dispositions of animals in the zoo.

Funding should be lowered, not increased.

The SPR presentation notes that in the 2019 zoo funding was roughly 20% of the budget.

That's 20% of the budget for a light item that is largely just for entertainment.

Why would you continue to fund let alone increase funding for such a frivolous purpose when there are people literally dying on our sidewalks.

Fully fund housing and health care before even considering funding a zoo.

Additionally zoo attendance has been decreasing year over year even while our city's population has been growing.

A growing percentage of the public don't find it reasonable or ethical to trap breed and cage animals for our entertainment.

Any claims to the educational value are baseless as prior academic research has shown that only a small percentage of children visiting a zoo left with a better understanding of the species than what they entered with.

The main thing zoos teach children is that it's okay for humans to dominate other animals as we see fit.

City Council should be working to gradually abolish the zoo by stopping expansion breeding or acquisitions and repatriate animals to sanctuaries in their native range countries.

Please have City Council oversight of the zoo animals and reduce, not increase, funding of the zoo.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

Next is Irene Wall.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Go ahead.

My name is Irene Wall.

I live in Finney Ridge and have been a nearby neighbor of the zoo for over 30 years.

Please refer to my previously submitted comments for details, but the following are areas that need amending in the contract before approval.

The representatives selected by the city to serve on the zoo board should have durable connections to the four neighborhoods most affected by the zoo as identified in the agreement.

This is the best way to maintain neighborhood communications and a public viewpoint on the board.

The Zoo Neighborhood Liaison Committee purpose, membership, meeting frequency, and agenda setting need further detail in the agreement to ensure its usefulness.

Three, there must be a larger role for the public and the council in developing and approving the Long-Range Physical Development Plan.

The current language places all the oversight and authority from the park superintendent.

At the time the plan will be offered, the park super may be a person with no history of the zoo or the zoo society.

Recall that it took a public campaign and a citizen appeal to prevent the travesty of a huge above-ground parking garage being unlawfully constructed adjacent to the North Meadow.

The section on changing the name of Woodland Park Zoo should be struck out or changed so that authority for any name change must only reside with the City Council.

The agreement must identify any additional properties that could be added to the definition of zoo premises.

This has the potential to be highly controversial and limitations must be placed on any such condition in the agreement.

And finally some oversight approval of admission costs should be reinstated.

Given the close to 10 million dollars city and six million dollar a year King County annual zoo subsidy some cost control for the public is warranted.

Please take the time to ensure that this agreement is more balanced.

The Zoo Society is committed to managing the zoo.

It is in the mutual interest of the city and the zoo society to ensure a careful and predictable approach to how the significant historic resource is managed.

Thank you very much for your comments today.

The next two speakers signed up are Nicole Stanley followed by Marla Katz.

Nicole are you on the line.

Yes.

Hi.

Sorry.

I'm assuming you can hear me.

Yes we can hear you.

Please go ahead.

Okay.

Hi my name is Nicole and my husband and I have lived with our two kids in Fremont for the last seven years.

We actually chose Fremont because of its location to partly because of its location to the Woodland Park Zoo.

Even though my kids have lived in Fremont their whole life which is a very wealthy North Seattle neighborhood my husband and I both work full time in the restaurant industry and our family is considered low income and we reside in a tiny two-bedroom apartment.

The pandemic also hit us pretty hard and we rely on food stamps and some public assistance.

The Zoo's Explorer Pass has been a saving grace for us for the last few years and we've been able to qualify since we are on food stamps and that means that when my kids want to visit, you know, some animals and play or go and meet up with their friends at the zoo, they get to go.

There's a huge wealth disparity in this area and my kiddos get to see their friends with nannies and Teslas and multiple vacations every year.

But, you know, don't ever really get to see the difference with being able, you know, being in this area.

My kids would miss out on a ton of fun and after-school meetups had we not had that Explorer Pass for the last few years.

It always seems to be the meetup with the little kids in this area.

There was a point where they went three to five times a week because, you know, the park was the only other free option for us.

Additionally, the zoo also offers camp scholarships that both my kids have been able to receive as a benefit from as well.

This the camp there is incredible not only because they can join their friends you know who a lot of people have no problem paying the cost but to our family that would be impossible.

The kids learn so much and look forward to it all summer long.

It's really great as parents that we aren't technically you know we're not the Amazon Google and Boeing workers of Seattle and we can't afford to pay for these camps.

All the parents can but.

They get to join their friends at these camps because the zoo offers those scholarships.

And I really hope that they can keep these programs up for these kids.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for calling in.

I received a notice that Rachel Bjork has been unmuted.

Rachel, are you on the line?

Hi.

Can you hear me?

Hi.

Yes, we can.

Yes, we can.

Please go ahead.

OK.

First of all, I'm very disappointed that the City of Seattle continues to subsidize an antiquated institution such as the Woodland Park Zoo, where you really ought to do better than funding an organization that takes wild animals and locks them up in cages.

There is nothing educational about watching animals in captivity.

There's numerous studies that have demonstrated that kids actually don't learn anything at zoos.

Furthermore, Woodland Park Zoo has repeatedly demonstrated their lack of care for animals imprisoned by giving large animals like elephants only one acre on which to live.

They have wolves there even that normally would range 50 to 1000 square miles and the zoo cannot certainly provide that much space.

The ACA's accreditation really does not mean much.

The ACA is a big proponent of captive breeding and forcibly breeding animals so that zoos can get cute babies to make money off of is certainly not a sign that an organization cares about animal welfare.

This proposal that before the city council does take away any kind of authority over the animals at the Windham Park Zoo.

So not only does the proposal even ask for more money, the zoo wants to take away existing city oversight.

Lastly, the city ought to be using the money that throws at the Willam Park Zoo for far more deserving causes.

Think of how many entities that do good work, work to actually help kids and communities could use this money.

Currently, the zoo is being used by school groups and parents just as a way to get out and do something, not as an educational experience.

There are plenty of other activities that places like Mary's Place and other groups can do that do not involve the exploitation of animals.

I recall my own visits to the zoo as a child, and my takeaway experience from that was how miserable the large cats looked.

It was not a positive experience.

It was not educational.

I certainly hope that the city council will vote no on this issue.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Rachel.

Next, we have Marla Katz.

Marla, are you on the line?

Don't forget to press star six.

Marla can you can you please speak so we can hear hear your comments.

Okay I'll go ahead and go to the next person and Marla I'll I'll try and come back to you.

Next the next two speakers.

I'm here.

There you are.

Okay great.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

No you're fine.

You said press star 6 to unmute and I had my mute button on.

Okay.

Okay.

Good afternoon committee members.

I'm Marla Katz.

I've never had a happy experience in a zoo.

In a city with so many serious issues why give this privately run zoo a quarter billion taxpayer dollars.

I hope you will renegotiate the city zoo agreement to address public concerns.

Here are mine or a few of them.

One the AZA should be removed from the agreement.

They don't pay taxes here or vote here.

Two.

Why give the zoo more free real estate for an animal breeding mill in Enumclaw.

Will they breed local species to release them into the wild or breed exotics for zoo entertainment venues.

Voters need more details.

Three.

The zoo has taken 160 million from Seattle taxpayers about 56 million from King County while they're sitting on 28 million in donations in the bank.

To close.

Isn't it time to re-evaluate the cruel confinement of animals for the purpose of entertainment?

Thank you for your time, and I hope you will consider my input.

Thank you.

The next two speakers signed up are Oliver Alexander-Adams, followed by Christy Lagalee.

Oliver, are you on the line?

Can you hear me now?

Yes, we can.

Please go ahead.

Hi my name is Oliver Alexander Adams.

I am a family and children's program manager at Solid Ground and I work with the zoo both with their community access program as well as in ongoing community partnership work with them.

And I'm here today to express my support for the agreement between the city of Seattle and Woolden Park Zoo.

Our housing is more than 360 people and 200 children.

And we have hundreds of tickets that we get every year from the Community Access Program that allow our families to attend the zoo, which they wouldn't be able to otherwise.

I think when a lot of families move in, all of our families are formerly homeless.

It's hard for the families to focus on things like activities for their kids, because they're focused so much on housing and employment and stabilization.

And so these tickets are a huge resource we can offer to our families when they're getting in to help them get settled.

Frankly, we get hundreds of tickets every year.

We're engaged with the community access programs, and I really hope these partnerships can continue.

But they're based on the funding that the zoo gets from the city of Seattle.

In addition to the standard zoo tickets we get through the community access program, we also get tickets to the wildlife program every, I guess it's in the winter, every year.

And all of these tickets together allow us to offer an additional resource to our families who don't have the income to attend the zoo otherwise.

We've done field trips with all our kids and staff.

We try to bring the zoo on site and all of this is possible because of this partnership.

So I wholeheartedly support and hope that you continue to support this agreement as well.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Christy Lagerle is signed up but is not present.

The next two speakers signed up are Sandy Labowitz followed by Michelle McBreen.

Sandy, are you on the line?

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Please go ahead.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

My name is Sandy Lebowitz, a resident of Seattle.

It is very important that Williams Park Zoo is not allowed to completely govern its operations.

It is imperative that the City of Seattle continue its oversight of the zoo.

I hear from many friends and neighbors that agree with my beliefs that zoos need to change as attitudes about wildlife and their captivity change.

And the only way we can be represented is if the city maintains oversight of the zoo.

I am still angry about the way the last two elephants at the zoo, Chai and Bamboo, were rushed into trucks in the wee hours of the morning, right into a mountain blizzard, and then had to be rerouted at the last minute to San Diego.

I believe it was San Diego.

I have no doubt that they did that because of the possible ordinance that would have required them to send the elephants to a sanctuary, a beautiful sanctuary instead of another zoo.

And then sadly, Chai died within months of arriving at the Oklahoma Zoo.

It would be a more appropriate change for the direction of the zoo to go into a rescue for wildlife and not as a breeding station as it currently is.

That would be serving the grand purpose for both the animals and the education of children and adults.

But that hopefully will happen someday in the future and not a conversation today.

But I wanted to put that out there.

My other concern is the amount of money the zoo receives from taxpayer subsidies.

With the decrease in attendance that others have already addressed and the many other needs of our city, our tax dollars should go where it benefits the most people.

The zoo does not come close to fitting into that category.

Let's improve our public parks so that many more people can use those for free, and let's get people in their own neighborhoods.

The city needs to be in ultimate control, or I believe the zoo will turn into a for-profit private company that taxpayers fund.

Please vote no on this agreement.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

Our final speaker is Michelle McBrain.

Are you on the line?

Hi I am.

Can you hear me.

Yes we can.

Please go ahead.

Hi.

Thank you.

My name is Michelle Neck-Green.

I'm the Community Outreach Manager at Treehouse which is a non-profit in Seattle that serves over 8,000 youth in foster care across the state.

I'm here today to express my support for the agreement between the City of Seattle and the Woodland Park Zoo.

We've partnered with the Woodland Park Zoo for many years to help provide valuable resources for youth and families impacted by the foster care system.

And they've been an essential partner in helping to support these youth and families by giving them opportunities and experiences that the entire family can enjoy together, especially large families who have taken in multiple children into their home.

They've supplied hundreds of zoo tickets, educational opportunities about animals, and access to special events such as wildlife to our kids through our community access program.

The zoo also works closely with Treehouse to develop the Discover Ticket Program and Explore Past Membership, which are inclusive, affordable ticket and membership programs that consider the need of kinship and foster families.

And through this program, they have helped create equity and membership opportunities for our underserved communities.

They have also supported our mission of education, fundraising, and outreach efforts through multiple zoo events and programs.

Without these programs, many of our families would not have the financial resources to enjoy the Zoo and Wildlife Program.

These programs continue to contribute to a sense of normalcy and happiness for our youth in the foster care system and added support to our essential foster care and kinship communities that support children.

Overall they have been an amazing and essential partner in helping to support the well-being of our community.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Council Member Juarez that completes the public hearing.

Thank you.

And thank you all our speakers.

And I'm sure that the panel will address some of the issues that were raised from some of our people that gave some public comment here today.

That was our last speaker.

We will now close the public hearing on Council Bill 120164. Again, thank you for your comments today.

Now, can I have the presenters, the panel, present themselves or introduce themselves?

And we will go through your, your nine-page PowerPoint.

I thought the other group had nine pages.

I think theirs was eight.

Anyway, I'll let you go ahead and introduce yourself, and then we'll go through the presentation.

I'll make a few comments, and then we'll go to adjournment.

So who do we got to take it away?

I'm Christopher Williams, Deputy Superintendent, Seattle Parks, standing in for Jesus Aguirre.

Hello, and I'm Alejandro Grajala, President and CEO of the Woodland Park Zoo.

And Brian, good night with Council Central staff.

Thank you.

Great.

Everybody's here.

So I'm going to...

Nagui, you're in charge of the PowerPoint, right?

You're doing the page turning for them?

Yep, I'm pulling it up.

Okay, great.

Glad you guys are here.

Glad you had a chance to hear public comment.

I wanted to do that first and the constituent letters both for and against and Dr. Graha, I want to thank you and your staff and, of course, you too, Christopher Williams and your team for the work that we've been doing in the long conversations we've been having between the city of Seattle, the zoo and our legal departments and going through the 70 page agreement.

And I'm going to let you guys take it away from there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Maybe I'll just jump in here.

The Woodland Park Zoo Society and Alejandro and his staff have been wonderful partners.

The zoo is a 126-year-old institution established in 1895 when the city purchased land owned by the former estate of Guy Finney.

This was done around the turn of the century.

Guy Finney owned what was termed a Victorian-era animal menagerie at the time.

These animals would later become the first collection of animals that would constitute the zoo.

In 1895, the city council paid $110,000 for what is today's zoo, for the most part.

We are pleased to propose a new 20-year operations management agreement with Woodland Park Zoo Society and continue our long-standing partnership.

The presentation today will include information about specific work the Zoo Society does around conservation, public benefits, and programming.

The current agreement expires in February 2022. The agreement provides for a new 20-year term expiring in 2041 with an option to extend for an additional 10 years.

The new proposed agreement provides for substantial public benefits.

You'll hear a lot more about that a little later.

I want to take a minute and recognize the great partnership we have with the Woodland Park Zoo Society, especially the leadership under the direction of my friend Alejandro Grayhall, who's done a great job with his team stewarding the zoo as a public facility.

We are here to renew the existing agreement in part because this partnership has been successful for the past 20 years.

We wouldn't be here likely if the previous 20 years or 19 years had not been successful.

We have every confidence that the Zoo Society and the staff will continue to be successful in the future assuming this agreement is adopted.

So at this time, I'd like to introduce Alejandro Woodland Park, president, Woodland Park Zoo president and CEO.

Thank you, Christopher.

Thank you for your partnership and the parks department.

Good afternoon, council member, panelists and attendees.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak directly to this committee about these longstanding and successful public private partnership.

We believe that our world class city deserves a world class zoo and the people of Seattle should have amazing assets that represent the city values.

Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle Parks have worked together very hard to deliver this vision to Seattle.

And I look forward to share more over the next few minutes.

So with that, I think we can move to the next slide.

And Christopher is going to take a little bit of a description of the zoo.

Thank you, Christopher.

Thank you, Alejandro.

So as you can see on the map, the Woodland Park Zoo is located on Finney Ridge, which gets its name, i.e., from Guy Finney.

on approximately 92 acres of land owned by the city of Seattle.

Some quick facts about the zoo are listed on the right-hand side of the slide.

In 2019, the zoo received 1.2 million visitors, including 668,000 guests attending public education programs and 2,400 participants enrolled in camps and classes.

In 2019, the Woodland Park Zoo Society, total expenses were $47 million with approximately 20% funded by the city's annual operating support and the major maintenance funding.

In 2002, the city provided support was about 40%.

An interesting fact here, when we transferred the zoo, The budget for the zoo was about $13 million, and I think this growth does demonstrate some of the zoo's success.

Next slide.

As previously mentioned, we've had a long partnership history with the zoo.

In 1965, the non-profit Willetton Park Zoo Society was established, and the zoo was managed by the city council in 2002. In 2001, the city council approved a 20-year operations management agreement.

This agreement was subsequently amended in 2004 to address visitor convenience and long-range plans.

This is known as the Woodland Park Zoo Capital Plan.

In 2014, Seattle Park District included funding for ongoing major maintenance support.

The original agreement included major maintenance for a limited number of years.

I think at the beginning of 2014, when we adopted the Park District, we were providing $1.8 million plus inflation to the zoo for major maintenance.

Next slide.

These next two slides highlight key terms of the proposed new agreement.

Here are a few key terms.

The term is the same as in the prior agreement with 20 years with a one 10-year term extension.

The agreement continues operations and maintenance support, but the CPI inflator increases from 70% to 100% in this new agreement.

For the agreement, the superintendent will request annual CPI increases to be included in future annual budget cycles that are approved by the city council.

The city retains the right and how the zoo uses a property for the long range plan that will be submitted within five years of the agreement's execution.

The agreement will give authority to Woodland Park Zoo to set admission charges.

Woodland Park Zoo and the city strongly agree that the zoo remain affordable and accessible.

This agreement includes new public benefit sections, which Alejandro will walk through in more detail in subsequent slides.

Next slide.

This slide lists some additional key terms.

In this new agreement, zoo animals continue

I'm sorry, Chair Warris, may I ask a question about the slide?

Absolutely, I'm sorry, I was looking down.

Colleagues, feel free to go ahead and interrupt and ask questions as we move through the PowerPoint.

I apologize, my head was down.

Go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

So for slide four, please.

I'm just wondering if you could summarize the total value of the financial support expected over the 20-year term of the agreement.

And then a couple other related questions.

I'm wondering whether or not the, because the slide says the superintendent will request 100% of CPI inflation annually.

I'm not quite sure what that says about with the agreement guarantees?

Does the agreement guarantee that that 100% inflation will be granted when the superintendent makes that request?

And then finally, on the admissions piece, is there a cap or restraint on the admission price that could be charged?

Thank you.

Okay, thank you for that, Council Member Herbold.

Maybe I'll try to bite off.

So part of what we're doing is requesting 100% of CPI each year.

I believe that's what this is saying.

Also, we don't have a cap on admission charges.

I would refer to Donnie, our finance director, way in on the total value of the contract.

Donnie, you want to jump in there?

Before that happens, I understand that the agreement says that parks can request.

I'm asking, does the agreement obligate that request to be granted if it's made?

I can speak to that.

No, it doesn't.

So the superintendent will be requesting annual budget annual increases in the annual budget cycle, but it's up to the city council to approve those.

So those are gonna be annual requests that the city council would be approving.

And then- I'm sorry, I was gonna, go ahead, I'm sorry.

And then I know Council Member Sawant is next.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I was just gonna answer the second question, which was, that we did do a projection for going forward.

And we did project, and of course, we don't know the CPI inflators yet, but we are projecting about $250 million for this 20-year agreement.

Thank you very much.

Mm-hmm.

And regarding the admissions, I think that was already answered.

I know.

I was looking at Council Member Sawant.

Go ahead, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

So it's just on the, what you said, I think 200, just making a note of that.

I also had that question actually about the The total commitment that is associated with this 20-year agreement, you said $250 million.

And just to be 100% clear, just to confirm for my own understanding, we're talking about $250 million over a 20-year period in city taxpayer funds for the zoo.

Am I right?

And not from any other sources for the zoo.

That's correct, yes.

OK.

And then I had another question about the admissions.

And I had that independently of what the comments you all made just now, which is that, and this is because we heard from many constituents about this.

So I know that there is a public benefit of free passes, but is my understanding correct that they are only free to children and that the zoo requires the parents, like if parents come with children, which obviously that is currently the case, you know, there's going to be 100% of the time, one would hope that there would be adults with little children to buy a full price, that those adults would be required to buy a full price pass in order for the children to go in, even if they're getting it to go for free.

Is that accurate?

Alejandro, maybe?

I can speak to that.

No, the tickets are equally available to children and adults as much, and most of the free tickets and passes and subsidized membership passes are available to children and families as a whole, with adults and children in the package as a whole.

And we're not requiring adults to pay full membership or full price when they are part of this program of access, tickets, and membership.

OK.

Thank you.

All right.

So you want to continue?

Thank you.

Is there anyone else?

All right.

OK.

Go ahead.

Do you want to finish?

Okay, great.

I'll pick up on slide five.

I see.

I didn't see your hand.

Oh, your hand is hidden in your bookcase.

That's why I didn't see it.

Thank you, Chair Juarez, and thank you to all the speakers who called in and people who have written to us.

We've gotten lots of communications about this, and thank you, Chair Juarez, for sitting at the table and pointing out some of the key sections of this new agreement that's being proposed.

I'll have some additional questions, but just on this slide, the 2022 figures And you all can get back to us on this, but I'm just looking for what are the baseline numbers?

I mean, what are the 2019 numbers or 2022 numbers?

I'm trying to determine whether this $7.6 million for operations and $2.1 million for major maintenance, if that's an increase or decrease from what is currently being done.

I can speak to that briefly here.

So the 2021 budget for the zoo agreement is $9.2 million.

And it is being increased in this agreement to $9.7 million.

And the main factors of the increases are that we are proposing increasing the CPI inflator from 70% to 100%.

That's one.

And then also routine maintenance, which was one of the payments in the existing agreement, is now included in the operations payment support and that is being inflated this time as well.

And also to major maintenance, which was inflated at a rate of two and a half percent in the park district for the last several years is being proposed to be increased by the rate of CPI.

So those are kind of the main factors that would bring the total agreements in 9.7 million in 2022.

Okay, so it sounds like there's not a substantial change in the public dollars, what's currently being done versus what's being proposed.

I'll have some additional questions, but thank you for answering that now.

If I may, Donnie, is that, thank you, Council Member Peterson.

I think some of that, and I don't know if you had a chance to look at the summary and fiscal note, Council Member Peterson, but attachment A breaks down section two, which goes to the financial support, which is in section five.

So I don't know if you have that in front of you.

What Donnie shared is in more detail on the continual annual operations and support.

The continuing annual major maintenance support, the support the county funding, fiscal emergency, and all that, that's on attachment A in the fiscal and summary note, if you want to look and dive a little bit deeper and if we want to develop some more questions.

Is that correct, Donnie?

Yes, that's correct.

Thank you.

Thank you for doing this.

I'm guessing you're the author of this, so thank you.

Well, not entirely, but yes.

Not entirely, but thank you.

Is there anything else for my colleagues so I can make sure I can see everybody?

Okay, I don't see it.

All right, but we can, oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Sawant.

Sorry, I had a general point because, you know, it's a question of the public oversight.

So it's not particularly to this slide, so I'm not sure where you would like me to make this point, so.

Do you want to do it now or do you want to wait till, it's your call, however you want to do it.

I can wait till the presentation is done, that's totally fine, no problem.

Okay, you sure?

All right.

You can continue.

OK, great.

Thank you.

I will pick up on slide five.

So in these slides, or rather this slide, in this new agreement, zoo animals continue to remain the zoo's responsibility in accordance with all applicable federal, state, local laws and regulations under the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

This recognizes that Seattle Parks and Recreation doesn't have animal husbandry expertise.

Part of the driver for entering into this agreement with the zoo is they have staff.

who do have this expertise.

In addition, the zoo continues to maintain the city's property.

So they'll have a stewardship responsibility there, even though the city will continue to own the property.

The agreement includes an annual maintenance amount that increases by CPI to allow the zoo to perform needed maintenance on the city's city-owned buildings.

There are an awful lot of buildings at the zoo uh that they have the responsibility to make to maintain and um some of this recognizes some of the deferred the level of deferred maintenance on some of those buildings as well so um we are uh including annual maintenance for maintaining the buildings uh so at this point yes before we go into when you when let me know when you wrap up public involvement there's a few things i want to point out before you go to termination in the um

in the contract.

OK.

OK, so I think we'll get to that part later.

I will refer to Alejandro right now, rather, to continue the presentation.

And I think that's that part about termination that I think will be included later.

So Alejandro, I'll turn it over to you.

Councilmember Juarez?

one of the hot topics of public testifiers and folks who are writing to us.

What does the agreement say about the ability to regulate the disposition of zoo animals?

Is there any ability for the council to have a role in the new agreement?

And how does that differ from the old agreement?

So in the old agreement, we did defer all animal husbandry issues to the zoo.

And that continues in the new agreement.

So, um, we are treating the zoo like absolute experts on all animal issues.

And this continues the trend from the 1st 20 year agreement.

Okay, so there's been no change to the agreement regarding the authority or the ability of the city to use its authority or to have authority, not to use its authority because it's not granted.

But that has been contemplated in the past, is that correct?

Yes.

Alejandro, do you want to jump in there?

Well, so the biggest difference is not about the acquisition and disposition, but about the ownership.

When we did the agreement in 2001, the city owned the animals.

And as part of that transfer, the animal property was transferred to the society.

In the 20 years that have ensued, the Woodland Park Zoo, of course, has kept a very diverse collection.

And at any given point, as part of a national campaign for breeding endangered populations, We own some of the collections.

Some of the animals here at the zoo are owned in loan from other zoos.

And we actually own animals from other zoos here in Seattle.

So in that regard, the ownership is a big difference between what happened in 2001 and where we are right now.

Thank you.

I'm getting a text from my very, very helpful staff who's monitoring to say that maybe I should be asking my question slightly differently because there's a little bit of a discrepancy with what I'm hearing and what I understand the old agreement said.

The old agreement, there was a clause that gave the city the ability to pass disposition policies.

Is that correct?

I can answer, yes, that was in section 15.3c.

And that's been dropped in this version.

Correct.

Thank you.

Yes, it has.

I appreciate it.

Before we go forward, and I'm glad you brought that up, Council Member Herbold, and this is going to be an issue, so let's just, you know, pardon the pun, the elephant in the room.

Why did we drop section 15.3c about animal disposition And when you look at the contract or the operation and management, section 12, zoo animals, page 30, which does say that care of the animals or zoo animals shall be and remain the personal property of the Woodland Park Zoo Society for the duration of the term.

What changed from 20 years ago to now to why that's important?

Because I have heard some other things offline.

Dr. Grajal, or if anyone wants to respond to that.

Well, I can speak to that.

I mean, the animals, in a sense, because of this agreement now, were transferred.

The property of the animals was transferred to the society in 2001. And these animals are now in our property, and we basically take care of them.

Dispose or acquire or bring them in loan according to all laws, federal, state, local regulations.

So in a sense, the big difference is that the animals are not owned by the city right now.

And that the zoo is actually managing the collection on behalf of the policies to breed them and to make sure that we have viable populations into the future.

Okay, I know, but why now does the zoo own the animals as 20 years ago, the city of Seattle had some ownership or some say in the disposition of the animals?

That's what I'm getting at.

Of all the animals that the city owned 20 years ago, there's no animal still alive from that time.

So when the original agreement was signed, all those animals have either died or been disposed of.

And those animals right now that have been bred are under the agreement in which the city does not own those animals anymore.

Is that commonplace with other cities in there?

operation and management agreements between a city and the zoo?

Yes.

I mean, basically, as Christopher Williams was saying, it's a matter of expertise, but also the fact that animals at any given modern zoo are not run by a single entity.

Animals are part of viable populations, and we are exchanging and breeding animals every day.

The fact is that at any...

make more than 400 animal transfers in a year.

That means that there's more than one animal transfer every day.

And that means that we're bringing animals from other zoos and sending animals to other zoos to breed.

The ownership is established according to AZA accreditation standards.

And every animal is traceable in a stud book that provides the genetic breeding and the pedigree of those animals for each species.

Okay.

I believe Council Member Sawant has a question.

I do have a process question for you as chair of the committee towards the end, but mainly I want to make some comments that sort of lead to the process question of how to go about it from here.

I appreciate the clarification of what exactly is changing.

I appreciate Council Member Herbold asking those questions.

I also had those.

Same question, because it was not immediately clear what exactly is changing.

And so thanks also to Council Member Herbold's staff who relayed the precise question of what's changing between the existing agreement and the new agreement.

I do have real concerns about this change.

Meaning, let's remember, you know, what's the background to all of this.

In 2015, there was widespread public concern in our city about the health and well-being of the Woodland Park Zoo elephants.

And many of the activists who played a crucial role And I thank them for it.

I also spoke today in public comment.

And these are ordinary people, also whose children, many of whom whose children have grown up in this city.

And hundreds of them wrote to the city council.

They attempted to speak at the zoo board meetings.

They published op-eds urging the zoo to transfer the elephants.

to a sanctuary, and it very much was based in scientific understanding of what is in the interests of the animals.

So first of all, I don't, I mean, I don't, I'm not an expert on elephants, but I don't appreciate sort of this tone that, well, you know, the zoo, the zoo management is experts.

Well, no, I mean, they haven't shown themselves to be experts.

I'm sure they have expertise on it, but I don't think that that negates the question of public oversight.

And I think we have to emphasize that for the city council to have oversight does not, in my mind in any case, and I'm going to say a little bit more about this in a bit, it's not about nine politicians having a say in it.

It's about the public, members of the public, which includes animal experts also, and people who have studied this issue, and also just the public at large, the constituents of the city council.

them having an avenue to have a say in this matter.

That's what needs to be emphasized.

I don't think anybody's making a claim that any given city council member is an expert on this.

It's a question of public say.

And at that time, in 2015, my office prepared an ordinance, City Council Bill 118379, to require the zoo to transfer the elephants.

Unfortunately, the majority of the council did not agree to support that ordinance.

And in fact, it was quite, I mean, my memory of it is it was quite tremendous public action at that time.

really courageous, almost civil disobedience kind of situation where people were speaking up in chambers.

And unfortunately, the majority of the city council at the time did not agree to support the ordinance and even refused to introduce it.

However, because the organizing by the public was so strong, it did have an impact and the zoo did transfer the elephants, as this was explained in public comment.

And so, I mean, that's important because most days there is not widespread public outrage over the zoo's approach to the animals.

But when there is, there needs to be some sort of democratic option for the highest legislative body of the city, you know, with council members elected directly by voters to weigh in, just like in 2015. That process was important.

And so I'm concerned about what I'm hearing about just a modicum of democratic check being removed from this 20-year agreement.

I mean, this is not a small thing.

We're talking about $250 million over 20 years.

And moreover, the city of Seattle owns the zoo.

And I hear what Mr. Gural is talking about the ownership of the animals themselves, but I don't want to be bogged down by some specific technical arguments as to why the city should not have oversight.

This is about basic democratic process, and that's why I think that the oversight should be maintained.

And as I said earlier, I don't have some implicit faith in some future establishment elected officials anymore than I would have faith in, you know, sort of implicit faith in officials or bureaucrats appointed by those politicians.

We want public, the members of the public, to have a saying that nobody's necessarily right or wrong as a given implicitly at a given moment.

It's a question of that public discussion.

And for that avenue to be kept open, I think it is important that we retain the oversight and maybe even strengthen the oversight.

So just in closing, Chair Juarez, given that this bill ratifies the agreement with the zoo, And any changes we support would presumably need to be agreed upon by both sides.

What is the process you would suggest for us, for my office, for example, to bring in amendments?

Thank you.

Right.

In the beginning, I said this, but when I wrap up the end, I'll let you know that we're not voting today, as you know.

And the deadline for amendments is November 30th.

And obviously you can work with our office and central staff.

And we've been running things through legal and making sure that a lot of the issues that we wanted in there, like I was talking about the public benefits and all those issues, but getting back to your and then, of course.

we would be voting on this on Tuesday, December 7th.

And again, I'll say this again, amendments are due by November 30th.

We're gonna vote in committee on Tuesday, December 7th, and it will go to full council on Monday, December 13th.

I'll repeat those dates again, so we can get back to the presentation.

Getting back to the issue that Council Member Sawant raised and Council Member Herbold raised, And I was going to loop back to that when I was speaking to Christopher.

Some of the issues that we're bringing up from, and I read the contract or the agreement, does section 16, which starts on page 33, I believe, public involvement, does some of that encompass and address some of the concerns raised by Council Member Sawant and Council Member Herbold regarding oversight, community, and the public, is that, can we have a response to that?

Donnie, I was looking at your comments on there, but from the panel people.

So, I'm sorry, this is Christopher, maybe I'll jump in there.

So with regard to land use issues, we would imagine that the zoo's strategic plan would come to the Board of Park Commissioners for a presentation.

and would get the blessing of the park board.

And that would be kind of our typical park board public hearing process.

So there is a stop along the way on the land use, building use long-term plan that would involve dropping by the park board.

Right.

I understand the long range plan and what that means, but I'm getting back to what Council Member Herbold and Council Member Sawant raised.

So I'm asking whether or not public involvement section 16 of the document covers some of those or answers some of those issues, or is that an area that we need to flag when we go back to the drawing board or any of our colleagues bring amendments forward that can either shore up the concerns of my colleagues regarding public oversight and retaining oversight?

Yes, if I can answer on particularly on section 16. Okay.

Yes, we will be producing an annual report to the superintendent, which is an open public document that lists all capital investment, public benefits as we described, and the advancement of our equity and inclusion program, as well as a self-evaluation of the customer services.

In addition to that, prior to that, we will submit an annual plan for the forthcoming year, in which we will provide a one-year capital improvement plan for the zoo, description of changes, description of estimated projects.

admission changes, proposed prices, and things such as, for example, the annual animal collection plan, any changes that we're predicting in acquisition, disposition, or reproduction of animals.

And then in addition to that, we also provide a quarterly report to the superintendent every three months that includes all these changes, all these plans in a much more detailed operation.

And that quarterly report usually is presented with in correlation to how we spent the money provided by the city, but also our general achievements as an organization and all its regular operations, including staff, jobs, contractors, animals, et cetera.

So those reports are already embedded into the new agreement.

They're not radically different from the previous agreements.

We also are including annual independent audits and open books on financial records.

So that is our commitment with the new agreement.

Right.

And again, I appreciate that, but I just want to be more.

And if I'm being dense here, please call me out.

I think what they're really getting at is if this what public oversight, what does Seattle Council have when you're now saying that the zoo will have will own all the animals?

I think they want to make sure with the democratic process that Seattle City Council and the public has some say in how that ownership is handled.

that there is a, it's embedded within the legislation and within committee that the public has some say.

I think people's big concern is that, and I'm putting it in the most basic terms, and I apologize for not being more sophisticated, is that if people have concerns about the treatment of the animals, the disposition of the animals, the ownership, the care, that they're not going to be met with, well, the city doesn't own the animals, the zoo does, and we have no control.

Because I'm sensing what I read is that we do.

But I need you to tell me that.

Yes.

First of all, let me direct you to section 16.5.2 of the new agreement in which we are actually talking about the zoo animal records and our enforcement of both accreditation standards and this agreement with the city.

to determine and require these records to stay up to date.

Those records are available to the public through public request, and the superintendent is obligated by this to disclose the public through routine public record disclosure procedures.

So in a sense, these animal records will be available and are available.

That doesn't change radically from the existing agreement.

and any other requests that the public provides is given to the city through these animal records requests.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Sorry.

I'm looking right at that 16.5 and I went through this way.

I understand that.

So what I'm saying is that if someone from the public were to look at this agreement and want to trigger 16.5 and say, I need to see the animal records and then have an opinion about the care disposition of any particular animal, that they have a platform or a path or access to Seattle City Council to make those concerns known and us to act on them via policy.

I think that's what they're getting at here.

And the answer I'm guessing is yes, but I'm not here to gig for the zoo.

I'm here to have you tell me if the answer is yes.

Yes, the answer is yes, the superintendent will receive any any information and we are obliged to provide that information to the superintendent.

Yes.

If I may just add one thing to I think that when we were putting this agreement together.

It was that we were trying to create kind of one primary point to receive the all of the deliverables of this contract.

And so it would be coming to the superintendent.

And so that was going to be intense, I think, as part of the negotiations.

And then the superintendent would then be communicating with the executive and the city council on those deliverables.

So I just wanted to give that additional piece.

Okay, I don't wanna keep going.

I want you to finish your presentation, but Council Member Sawant, and then I'm gonna ask Brian.

I don't know if Brian has anything he wants to add, but Council Member Sawant, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Juarez.

I guess my question is similar to what I think you were asking, but I'm not clear at all what, what Mr. Growl is saying in terms of what is, I mean, if there's a clear difference between the expiring contract and the new proposed contract in terms of what opportunity for oversight the city would have, then The answer should be no, no, that the city would not have oversight because isn't there a difference between the way the two contracts are worded?

And if there isn't a difference, then there shouldn't be a controversy.

So it bothers me that there is a clear difference but what I'm hearing from Mr. Grijal as well not exactly but so I just want to be clear I mean for this for the zoo officials to provide information to the city I just want to be clear that is not the same as the city having the opportunity to weigh in on something so can we have a Just sorry to be blunt, but straight answer from Mr. Grahl about what he thinks that, what oversight the city would have, because I don't believe that we would have what we had in the past.

Dr. Grahl?

I don't have the previous agreement in front of me, but the reality is that this section about animal records is pretty much the same as we had in the previous agreement.

The oversight in the previous agreement was directed to those animals owned by the city.

There are no animals owned by the city anymore.

So the oversight- Just to be clear, Dr. Grijaldo, you said you don't have the previous contract with you, but that is the agreement you are currently operating under.

Am I right?

Yes, yes, yes.

I will dig it out.

I just mean that I don't have it in front of me at this moment.

What I want to say is that as a practical matter, we transfer about one animal every day, more than one animal every day.

So it is a continuous flow.

We're not talking about a handful of animals, but hundreds of animals.

So that is a kind of dynamic management that a modern zoo requires.

And that is the kind of oversight that you would be talking about here, just to put it in the context of the quantity and magnitude of that oversight.

And that is everything from spiders to rhinoceros.

All right, let me get a customer before I get to you.

I think Brian had something to say first.

Brian, was there something you wanted to add?

Not particularly, no.

I'm happy to just jump in and say that I think this is something that we should continue.

It's clear that the proposed agreement is different than the existing agreement.

I believe my understanding is that the agreement still allows the city council to pass kind of general policies that would apply citywide to animals, right?

Separate from just this, but the city council's authority does seem to be limited in the proposed agreement relative to the current agreement.

So I think that is true.

I think we would need to spend more time and potentially discuss with our law department about the ownership of the animals and how that actually gets implemented, so.

Okay, so that's the answer that I think we just, and I'll get back to you, Council Member Herbold in a second.

And I think that's what Council Member Sumant was getting at, is that it's city council authority is diminished in the new proposed contract.

So with that, Council Member Herbold.

I just want to say it's like under the current agreement for when the city did own animals, we did not exercise the type of day to day.

management of animals uh...

as is being suggested with uh...

change in the agreement with would necessitate i don't i don't i don't think anybody is interested in day-to-day management of of the animals uh...

that hasn't the history in the past, right?

That was, that's it.

But it's the, it's, it's, it's about creating the potential for oversight if it's needed.

If, if the public in, you know, our democratic city of Seattle, um, uh, feels like there is an issue that is not being addressed as it relates to the care of the animals, that there is a way for the general public to come to the council and that there is some avenue for oversight in that situation.

Right.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Was that all?

Is that it?

Okay.

Christopher, I see you have your hand up.

Yeah, I just think it's important to acknowledge that we hear the nuance of the question you're raising.

And, you know, we probably need to go back and roll up our sleeves and do some more work on that.

I think that your objective is clearly different than a day-to-day management role of animals.

You know, I think the skunk on the table, no pun intended, response is that I don't think this agreement includes exactly what you're asking for.

Okay, so we know that and we will have more conversations and kind of going back to what Council Member Sawant was saying.

And I'll wrap it up and I'll let you finish about, and this is why we have committee, so people can raise all these issues and we can hear public comment.

That's why I want it done first.

That's why I read into the record with the expertise and education and who are all the veterinarians there, what the zoo does, what they've done for the last 20 years.

So anyway, with that, can I have you guys go forward and continue your PowerPoint?

You're left off on termination.

Page five.

Yeah.

Christopher, do you want to comment on termination, or do you want me to go on to the next slide?

Sure, why don't you go ahead and comment on termination, or go on to the next, or let's see here.

The next one.

Yeah, so why don't we go to the next slide.

Yes, next slide, okay.

So, to pick up on this theme, Extraordinary and compassionate animal care is the core of what the Woodland Park Zoo does.

It's integral to who we are and why we exist.

A few minutes ago, you heard about our excellent care for animal care.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, for sharing some of these details and especially acknowledging our animal care.

There are numerous proof points of how we take care of our animals at the highest level of professional accreditation.

We have decades of expertise to provide unique and dedicated care to all 900 animals and 270 species in our care.

Our professional animal keepers not only provide care but develop true relationship which is individual and work every day to enrich the physical and psychological needs of our animals.

In short, let me say very strongly, our excellence in animal care is second to none.

Woodland Park Zoo is not only a world-class zoo, but is also a global conservation organization that cares as much for the zoo animals as for those in the wild, especially endangered species.

We provide over $4 million annually to local and global conservation efforts here in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere to help wild animals suffering from the ravages of climate change, illegal wildlife trade, and deforestation.

The mission of the Woodland Park Zoo is to save wildlife and inspire everyone to make conservation a priority.

And the keyword of that mission is everyone.

Not only those that can enjoy an African safari, afford a membership, or donate to a conservation program, but everybody.

Next slide, please.

In terms of that community engagement, we are a welcoming oasis for people of all walks of life, regardless of their economic, cultural, or racial background.

It's a place where everybody is welcome, and during these pandemic times, not only welcome, but safe and secure.

It's a green oasis for respite and reflection, where people can be with themselves and connect with each other and with animals.

One of our strongest initiatives is about creating empathy for animals, because we know that our guests feel and express a deep rapport for animals.

Our guests refer to animals with personal pronouns, In these times of isolation and loneliness, empathy for animals, whether our favorite pets or our zoo creatures, remind us of a deep and primordial need.

Caring for animals is what makes us human.

By creating empathy for animals, we empower people to be active players in conserving wildlife and habitats.

Whether you are a newly arrived immigrant, a single mother, a teenager with a mental disability, or a senior citizen, Our zoo inspires, connects, and empowers everyone to take action on behalf of our planet.

And let me remind you that our collective care and empathy for our planet will determine whether we can stop whales from swallowing plastic bags in the ocean, or whether we can prevent eagles from dying in wildfires induced by climate change.

I know and respect the fact that not everyone believes that zoos should exist.

However, all animals in this planet are in our care.

There are no distant sanctuaries where animals are not in our care.

Our everyday actions affect as much the bumble bees and butterflies in our gardens as they affect the penguins of Antarctica.

As a human race, we have the moral imperative to take care for all animals in our planet.

Next slide, please.

Here I'm proposing an illustrative table of the commitment and accountability toward public benefits that the zoo is committing to provide.

We worked very hard with our Seattle Parks partners toward a formal commitment starting at $3 million annually in public benefits to meet the needs of our community and to ensure that the zoo remains accessible to everyone.

This includes zoo admissions, free camp scholarships, school field trips, community outreach support, capital improvements, jobs and services.

Our community access program provides thousands of free admissions a year to community service organizations.

Some of you heard them today and some of them will be presented in my next slide.

We offer a $5 admission ticket and a $35 membership to foster families and recipients of WIC and EBT assistance programs, which have been particularly in demand as we battle the health and emotional repercussions of the pandemic.

Our conservation education programs reach thousands of budding animal lovers, young conservationists and scientists, and we play a key role in creating a world of possibilities for Seattle's young people, regardless of their background.

In regards to oversight, the new agreement specifies that the zoo will provide a detailed annual report of these public benefits.

This will enable the city to review our commitment to provide robust public benefits to ensure that Seattle residents, and particularly those that are underrepresented or underserved populations, are able to access the Sioux, its education and scientific programs.

Next slide, please.

I wanted to take a minute to show you the list of organizations that have signed on to a letter that has been sent to your office expressing their support for the zoo community engagement program and our longstanding partnerships.

Today, some of these community members presented to this council and they inspire me personally and everybody at the zoo every day.

Our city's leadership, each one of you set the example for our organization like our zip.

We are encouraged by the city commitment to equity and share your dedication to breaking down barriers and empower everybody to reach their full potential.

Thank you very much council member Juarez and members of this committee for this opportunity and that is ends my presentation.

Thank you.

I'm interested in whether or not we have information about the And then my second question relates to the neighborhoods surrounding ZOO and whether or not they are actually represented on the ZOO Society board or if there is something similar, what I know used to exist.

That was the ZOO Neighborhood Relations Committee that once upon a time was a separate and important, I think, venue for neighborhood participation?

If I may answer, yes.

So the first question about ticket redemption, yes, those are presented in the annual report.

We account for the zoos that are redeemed, not the ones that are given.

So in a sense, yes, that is the true number.

And in the public benefits from now on, as this agreement says, we will report on those that are redeemed.

We use that redemption rate as part of the evaluation of our partnership with our community serving organizations.

And we work with them very hard to make sure that they are used as wisely as possible.

In terms of the neighborhood, yes, the new agreement calls for a neighborhood liaison.

And that is not part of the board, but it's actually part of the reporting that the new agreement has.

In addition to that, I think you see one of the letters of support comes from the Finney Ridge Neighbors Association, which has been our strong partner in the region to make sure that We work as much as possible with all the neighborhood associations surrounding Green Lake, Finney Ridge, and the neighborhoods around us.

We continue to have a dedicated person in our staff that goes to all the neighborhood meetings as requested by the neighborhood associations and be an active player and supporter of the neighborhood associations.

not only are we a good neighbor but also we support um the you know the the the car show at phoenix ridge and the art festival and the annual uh fair uh as a sponsor of neighborhood activities there's nobody there's nobody on the board

representing the neighborhood.

I think the neighborhood liaison you referenced, I'm assuming that's a staff person, not somebody whose job it is, is to communicate with the neighborhood, but is not somebody who's directly the voice of the neighborhood and independent of the zoo.

There is a section 1674. Will we have a staff member?

Yes.

All the board meetings are open to the public and all the board meetings are open to participation to the neighbors and everybody else.

We continue to be in communication.

Several of our board members are actually neighbors of the zoo, but they're not formally representing the neighborhood.

That's to be very specific, Council Member Herbold.

That's helpful, thank you.

Yes.

Yeah, and the neighborhood liaison is the zoo staff person that's designated to the four neighborhoods.

I understood what Councilor Herbold was getting at as somebody apart from the zoo, but you're right.

Some people in the neighborhood are on the board.

Okay.

All right.

So did you get a chance to go through the public benefits, Councilor Herbold?

Because we had some other good stuff in there.

And I want to thank you, Dr. Graja, on the community workforce agreement and the labor harmony, the social equity, prevailing wages, the training opportunities for women, BIPOC communities, the equity and inclusion.

There's some really good new stuff in there that we've been working on.

I want to thank you and your staff for putting all the labor issues that we wanted in there.

I know we got some work to do on the zoo stuff.

And when we talk about, you know, I think if I can just be very candid and just straightforward.

You know, we own the property.

We own the zoo.

We're contracting to a nonprofit.

We understand that, you know, if you own the animals, what we're trying to get at is that may be, but at the end of the day, it's the Seattle City Council and the community and the constituents and the public at large that have to have some say, via us as well, how the treatment disposition of those animals are.

And I'm not saying that the zoo would come back and say, well, you don't have an opinion because we own the animals.

So I think that's the crux, at least, I think.

And correct me if I'm wrong, for me and my colleagues, that's kind of what we are getting at, that we still have that avenue and that voice and that democratic platform to be able to say and bring up those issues.

I think that's really what we're getting at here.

So I apologize.

Yes.

I understand the process.

Yes.

Let me also remind you that the agreement also forces us to be in consideration of accreditation standards that require also for us to make sure that animal management corresponds to population demographic and genetic requirements.

So that, in a sense, I'm not saying that there's a conflict there, but in the future, that is a separate consideration as we manage the animal collection.

Right.

I think Councilor Herbold kind of said it as well.

I don't think city council is interested in the day-to-day practical operations.

I don't want to come down and feed the monkeys.

I'm good.

That's that you know what you're doing, but we do want to be able to respond, particularly the letters that we get from people who have concerns about the animals.

And that's legitimate as well.

Is there anything else from my colleagues before I have some final comments and anything from my panel before I close this out?

Okay.

Not seeing any then.

Let me just share this before I actually adjourn.

That concludes our items of business.

All the items that we voted on today will be forwarded to full city council for September 20th for final action.

The next public assets and native communities meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 7th at two o'clock.

A reminder to my colleagues, if you'd like to bring forward amendments to the zoo proposal, your deadline is November 30th, 2021. We also have a budget season that will begin in a few weeks time.

So here again are the timelines.

Deadline for amendments is November 30th.

And then after that, we will have our committee on Tuesday, December 7th, where we will look at the amendments, add amendments, whatever, and vote.

and or, you know, not vote, we'll see.

Well, we will vote.

And then it will go to full council on December 13th at two o'clock.

So with that, let's see.

I think, is there, I think that's it.

Anything, Brian, is there anything you wanna say?

You're looking at me, no, okay.

Okay, well then with that, Council Member Hurdle, everybody, thank you.

We stand adjourned.