So we will start.
Good afternoon, everybody.
So we're on?
Yes, we are.
OK.
All right.
Good afternoon.
This is a meeting of the Civic Development, Public Assets and Native Communities Committee.
The date is April 17th and the time is 2.03.
I'm Councilmember Juarez, Chair of the Committee, and I will soon be joined by Councilmember Gonzalez and Councilmember Bagshaw.
I want to thank you all for being here today.
I will go ahead and proceed to the chair's report.
We have one item on the agenda for today regarding the King County Conservation Futures Levy.
And we hope to run this meeting efficiently to accommodate the select committee on the library levy that is to begin at 2.30 with full council.
As I shared, that will happen the minute that we're done with this committee.
And so with that, we'll move into public comment.
And Nagina, I'll let you take it from there.
And as you know, please state your name, You have two minutes to address items that appear on the agenda, which we have one item on the agenda, and we'll move forward with that.
Council Member Juarez, we have one person signed up, and that's Alex Zimmerman.
I swear she doesn't know.
Behild, my dirty Führer, a Nazi garbage rat.
from Animal Farm.
My name is Alex Zimmerman, and I want to speak about this agenda, what we have right now.
It's very interesting to me right now.
So, approving future levy fund without city council approving.
It's very interesting innovation we have right now.
So we pay taxes, but who care about this council?
Never care about this.
They always care only about re-election.
So, they no need approve right now nothing.
When they don't approve, people don't speak, people don't involve this business, this fascism go bigger and bigger and bigger.
So right now, we pay taxes, but we cannot talk about these taxes, because consulate decide these people who in Seattle, 700,000 idiot, nobody care about these cockroaches, and they can do in everything what is want.
I love this innovation.
We have a fascism who go bigger and bigger every day right now.
Council hearing, no public present, no freedom of speech, no more America, fascism go bigger and bigger and bigger.
With Nazi Gestapo principle, you know what it mean?
Simple.
So I spoke right now to everybody who listened to me, and exactly to the 700,000 emerald degenerate idiot who live in the city.
I'm against this.
Every penny supposed to be going to public hearing, and people supposed to become.
Every people don't come today.
But Alex Zimmerman here, I come every time, every day, 2,200 times.
I think I'm enough to represent the 700,000 idiots.
So I demand stopping this new fascism.
Give chance people talk about us.
Thank you.
Okay, anyone else?
That concludes it.
Okay, so that concludes public comment.
Council Member Gonzalez, thank you for joining us.
I apologize for not waiting for you.
I couldn't stop the cameras.
Seems I didn't miss a thing.
Am I making you laugh too much?
I'm sorry.
You are.
That's what I love about you.
Okay.
So we are going to move on to items of business.
So, Nagin, why don't you read our first item into the record, and then we'll move into our presentation.
Great.
Item 1, Council Bill 119494, an ordinance relating to King County Conservation Futures Levy proceeds, authorizing the mayor to amend the interlocal cooperation agreement between the City of Seattle and King County, authorized by City of Seattle Ordinance 11494. to allow for the acceptance of conservation futures levy funds without City Council approval and authorizing the use of a new amendment template for future amendments to that agreement.
Thank you.
And so I'll let you guys introduce yourself and welcome back.
Thank you.
We'll go ahead and make introductions and then I'm guessing you and Chip will walk us through this and then we'll do a vote.
So go ahead.
My name is Jesus Aguirre.
I'm the interim superintendent for Seattle Parks and Recreation.
I'm Chip Nevins, acquisition planner for Seattle Parks and Recreation.
So my part of this is very brief because Chip is the expert here, but we really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about this proposed legislation.
And this is speaking about our Conservation Futures Tax Program, which for over 30 years has provided matching funds to allow us to access parks and open space across the city.
We've used it to match funds from all of our previous levies and are using it now to match some of our park district funds.
And what we're hoping to do is revise the interlocal agreement that currently exists between Seattle and King County that literally is just going to streamline the process for us to get the money back that comes through the CFD in terms of matching funds.
And I think as Chip will walk us through, I think we can save up to a year in terms of the time that it takes us to get that funding back.
So, with that, I'm going to actually turn it over to Chip and have him walk us through this.
We have maps.
Do you want to hand these out?
So, these are the maps that sort of show you where the properties that have been purchased with CFT matching funds.
As you can see, it's a pretty broad, pretty good coverage across the city.
And, you know, the reason you see sort of the bigger red dot is there's some of these properties, unfortunately, are rather small, but, you know, just because that's sort of the nature of trying to buy property in a city like Seattle.
Well, thank you.
Let me just continue on here.
So, just following what Jesus said.
So, Conservation Futures is a countywide property tax that's used to buy forests, farms, parks, open space.
And since 1990, the city has acquired As you can see in these red dots, has acquired about 150 separate parcels, about 130 acres, and has gotten over $60 million in matching funds from this grant source.
It's been the major matching fund source for all four of our acquisition programs.
The 90s had the King County Open Space and Bonds Program.
Then we had early 2000s, the Pro Parks Levy, 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy, and now the Park District Funding.
I think one thing to note is Conservation Futures is a matching fund.
We need to put in 50 percent of the funds.
And then we get matched equal back.
And the more funds we have available for acquisition, the more funds we can get.
Historically, we've gotten about 3 million a year.
Currently, our acquisition budget is 2 million a year, which leaves a million on the table.
So we're hoping that in the next round of Park District funding, we can bring that back up to 3 million.
Here's the map that you have in front of you.
You can see why we, opted for the bigger map because it's hard to see there's often yeah multiple multiple small parcels were acquired with this property with this.
Funding source, traditionally we use it to buy green spaces and our goal is to buy in holdings in all of our major green spaces, you know, the Duwamish Greenbelts and Thornton Creek, Longfellow Creek.
The last 10 years we've also used it to buy urban parks in our densest neighborhoods.
North Rainier, we've just closed on one, so that continues to be a priority.
So what kind of projects do we acquire?
The last three years of awards are up here and they really range from green spaces, Lake Ridge, Dell Ridge, park additions, we've got Bitter Lake, Playfield addition.
We've got Duwamish Waterway Park Edition.
We've got some neighborhood parks like Broadway, Bear Lake, Open Space, and North Rainier.
And so it's a wide variety of projects we get funded through this funding source.
And these three years of awards actually have not been reimbursed because of kind of the challenge of getting legislation through both the county and the city.
And hence, one of the reasons we're asking for an expedited way of getting reimbursements.
Before we go into exactly what the changes are, I mean, what is an interlocal?
It's really the agreement between the county and the city regarding these conservation futures awards.
These are, the awards are in the county council budget and then we end up having to amend the interlocal agreement to allow us to get reimbursements.
And so that would mean that the King County Executive and the mayor would sign the interlocal agreement.
That is correct.
Yes.
So why are we changing it?
We're changing it to streamline and shorten the process and save up to a year when we can get reimbursements and to reduce some duplicative legislation both on the county side and the city side.
So our current process is, it's about two and a half years.
So I'll apply for projects in March.
They'll end up in the county budget in November.
Then sometime in spring, the county will enter, do legislation that allows the county executive to enter into a new interlocal with the city, and then sometime later in the year, the city will do the same legislation that allows the mayor to enter into interlocal with the county, and then we get the two executives to sign, and then I can finally ask for reimbursement about two and a half years after I have applied for the original award.
The new process is streamlined in that we take out the middle steps.
So we still have to apply.
We still get in the King County budget, but then we are allowed to just have the mayor and the executive, King County executive sign the amended interlocal with the new awards.
And then I can apply for reimbursements right away.
Why is this?
So it looks like you have a question.
No, I'm just wondering what took so long for you to rework an interlocal agreement that seems so straightforward, but...
You know, it just has to do with the timing of legislation.
So, at the county, they have to wait for the budget to be passed, and then they have their three-month process to get legislation through council.
And then we have to wait for that legislation before we can start our three-month process.
And by the time all that happens, it just...
It's just time.
It's not that it's hard.
It's just time spent.
So, the duplication that we're, so there are two things here.
One, this, the county started this process because they felt they already gave authority to, they already had these projects in the county budget, so they've already given authority.
And so, it was just duplicative authority that they were giving.
In the city, the city council looks at our acquisitions in two ways.
You appropriate the money every year for our acquisition budget.
You give specific authority for certain acquisitions such as neighborhood parks, parks additions.
And in those, last year you passed an ordinance that gave us authority to buy green spaces in identified areas.
So we can buy those, but we always have to come back to council to get those accepted.
you do see every acquisition we do at least once.
And so by eliminating this CFT interlocal, you're still, you're not, you still have the ability to see all of our acquisitions.
So, this would allow us, as an example, those three CFT awards are about $6.5 million, and we'd be able to get reimbursed for those right away.
And every subsequent ones, we could get reimbursed at the beginning of the year, right after the budget passes, rather than waiting a whole nother year for reimbursement.
Any questions?
I don't see if there's any questions from my colleagues.
Just one overarching question.
I was mostly tracking the distinction you were making at the end of your remarks, but to me this legislation seems to limit both the County Council and the City Council's oversight of some of the acquisition questions and just the overall implementation of the program, but I'm hearing you say that maybe it doesn't actually modify the council's ability to continue to exercise its oversight.
Just help me understand a little bit better what the impact on council's role as an oversight body will be if this legislation is adopted.
Sure.
On the county council side, they approve all the projects, specific projects through their county budget.
So they've already looked at all the specific Conservation Futures Awards and approved them as part of the budget.
In the City Council, I think there are two ways that you still have oversight over the acquisition program.
You appropriate money every year for our acquisition budget.
And all neighborhood parks, park additions, anything outside the green spaces, we have to have specific legislation for approval of those acquisitions.
And all green spaces, you have already given us approval to buy within certain areas, but we always come back to the Council to have you approve, have you accept those acquisitions after we've acquired them.
So you will always see every acquisition that we've done.
And I'll back up.
The CFT interlocal does not include all of our acquisitions.
It's just the acquisitions that have gotten grant funding.
So you do see every acquisition outside of the CFT interlocal.
Okay, yep, all right Okay, so if that then we'll move forward anything else from okay, we'll move forward for a vote I move the committee pass council bill one one nine four nine four the King County conservation futures levy interlocal agreement Motion is moved and seconded.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Aye.
All those opposed say no.
No.
Ayes have it.
It passes and we will present this to full council or recommend to full council on Monday.
Thank you, Chip.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you for the memo and the fiscal note.
You're welcome.
Good job, Chip.
All right.
So before we adjourn, let me make a few comments and then we'll roll it.
We'll move to adjourn.
We'll see each other in a few minutes.
The next meeting of the Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee will be Wednesday, May 1st at 2 o'clock.
And with that, we stand adjourned.
you