SPEAKER_04

Good morning.

The Select Budget Committee will come to order.

It is 9.32 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the Select Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_18

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_07

Here.

SPEAKER_18

Council Member Moore.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_07

Here.

Here.

SPEAKER_18

Council Member Wu?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Six present.

SPEAKER_04

Chair Strauss is also present.

SPEAKER_18

Chair Strauss, thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Seven present.

Thank you, colleagues, and thank you to Council President Nelson, Council Member Wu, Council Member Kettle for being early.

If there's no objection, the agenda today are for our departments to present.

We've got Office of Arts and Culture, Office of Economic Development in the morning, and then Office of Planning and Community Development and Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections in the afternoon.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment period, and Council Member Rivera is now present.

Public comments should relate to the items on today's agenda or within the purview of the select committee.

Clerk, I understand that we have one in person and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight online.

We will start with the, do you need a minute to get up here?

We'll do the online first and I'll give you kind of a two to four minute heads up.

Great, so we're gonna do, typically we do in person first.

We're gonna do online public comments first today.

Each speaker will have two minutes to speak.

For folks joining today, I shared some just parameters for public comment in the future.

If we have more than 30 public commenters, we will revert to one minute.

If we have more than 120 public commenters, we will do one minute for the first 120 and 30 seconds for any thereafter.

And so since we have fewer than 30 public commenters today, we will have two minutes per person.

We'll start.

And so with that, the public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

Public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

And speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call in the next speaker.

Public comment period is now open.

Turning on to the online public commenters.

I'm going to call everyone in the order in which they registered so that you know where you are.

Alberto Alvarez is first.

Jerry Momoa is not present.

So Jerry, now is the time to call in.

We're then followed by John Gaunt, Ariana Riley, Aaron Seamer, Emily Metzer, Phoenicia Zhang, and BJ Last.

And with that, Alberto Alvarez, welcome.

Star six to unmute.

When you hear the chime, you've got 10 seconds left.

I DON'T SEE HIM.

ALBERTO, WE'RE GOING TO COME BACK TO YOU.

WE'RE HAVING TROUBLE FINDING YOU ON THE ZOOM.

THERE YOU ARE, ALBERTO.

I SEE YOU NOW.

STAR 6 TO UNMUTE.

THERE YOU ARE.

WELCOME.

THANK YOU.

SPEAKER_05

COUNCIL PRESIDENT NELSON, I AGREE WITH YOU IN KEEPING AN EYE ON THE BUSINESS AND OCCUPATION TAX AND THE SALES TAX.

A business needs working people to staff it, and working people are the ones to spend money back into the community to have that sales tax collected.

By attacking our efforts to fund our affordable housing programs, the mayor would like working people to bear the brunt of a couple of other taxes.

The tax of commuting, time, bus fare, gas, turning an eight-hour shift until nine to 10 hour day.

Time and money we won't get back.

The tax of ever increasing rents, even when property owners are granted tax cuts and easier methods to evict people, rents on the working class have always gone up.

The time has come to fund affordable housing fully and with the $200 million that Harold plans to steal from us.

The rich won't let the working class live in this town.

So it's time to bring the wealthy down to our level.

Corporations and the ultra wealthy deserve to be taxed.

They must share in the cost of keeping this city going.

Create new progressive revenue on the backs of yacht owners.

Tax those million dollar property owners who siphon our money out of state.

Council, make the right choice.

Your time here is ticking.

Thank you and have a good day.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Alberto.

Up next is Jerry Momoa, but we're not seeing you present, Jerry.

So now's the time to call in.

We'll come back to you at the end.

Follow the next three up are John Gaunt, Ariana Riley, and then Aaron Seamer.

After that, we'll have Emily, Phoenician, BJ.

Once I see John shared into the panel...

There we go, John.

I see you there.

Star six to unmute.

There you are.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you very much.

I'm John Gaunt, the founder of Culture and Code, which is a creative studio and consulting agency at the M5 Creative Building on 401 Mercer Avenue.

And I'm speaking as a member of the creator economy because I'm an author, a publisher, and an investor.

I currently support myself plus one full-time employee and an extensive network of freelancers.

Now, I want to speak about the M5 creative building as a microcosm of the transformation of creative and service industries because of changing behavior that's accelerated by technologies like AI, culture and code.

And specifically, I want to convince the council that significant support of the M5 creative building is not simply the right thing to do.

And I'm saying M5 creative building as an example, not just simply as a singular thing.

It's not simply the right thing to do.

It's also the very smart thing to do.

Now, we moved into M5 earlier this summer after four years operating remote.

And, of course, for the OED to subsidize rent for relocating physically to the city, that was an important decision, but it did not make the decision.

The much, much bigger reason was the chance of finding new collaborators across creative and technical disciplines who would be at M5.

Now, circa 2024, I am a podcaster working with fashion photographers to make short films with AI, which is an utterly ridiculous idea, except for the matter that technology means the medium is no longer the message.

If you can imagine something, you can make it real.

Music, images, animations, interactions, whatever.

The barriers to entry into the creative professions have never been lower than But also the barriers to success are now even higher.

And that is exactly why Office of Economic Development projects like the M5 Creative Building are so vital to Seattle downtown.

So the key economic benefit is it's not just simply a better place to work.

It's a better place to connect.

And we creators are the canary in the coal mine for how the entire service economy is about to be...

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, John, and we do accept written public comments every day.

If you have something else to share, please do send it in.

Up next is, we're gonna, Jerry Momoa is now present, so Jerry, we're gonna go with you next.

Jerry, I see you're here, star six to unmute, and then we'll be followed by Ariana and Aaron.

Jerry, at your convenience, star six to unmute.

Not pound six, but star six.

We're going to move ahead.

Ariana, I see you're also with us.

Ariana, if you're ready, star six to unmute.

There you are, Ariana.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_15

Good morning to our wonderful budget chair, Strauss, and everybody else.

And thank you for your welcome this morning.

I would just like to comment on the budget and say that I'm encouraging you all to practice what you've been preaching for the last few months, which is fiscal responsibility and good governance.

Fiscal responsibility is not defunding every other city department in order to fund your cruelty agenda of more cops in jail.

Good governance is not tasking endlessly more surveillance measures that increase the budget and have widespread public opposition.

We have zero regard for fiscal responsibility with the legislation that's been passed over the past few months.

Also, we do not need more progressive revenue.

The city of Seattle needs less money overall.

So you all will have less money to fund your cruelty agenda.

Rating jumpstart.

which our funds specifically earmarked for, among other things, affordable housing and small businesses, is not an acceptable solution to our budget crisis.

If you truly care about small businesses, as many of you claim, given the repeated attempts to screw over working Seattleites in the name of small business over the past year since January, then you all should be outraged about this proposed use of jumpstart funds.

defunding the police department not approving expensive jail and surveillance contracts all would be an acceptable solution to the budget crisis thank you have a nice day thank you ariana and up next we're going to come back to jerry momwa i see you here jerry star six to unmute there you are jerry take it away you got two minutes

SPEAKER_14

Hello, good morning.

My name is Jerry Mumma, and I am actually a survivor of Aurora Avenue and sex trafficking.

I am also the Executive Director of Innovations Human Trafficking Collaborative, a direct client service organization, and Ways Forward, a survivor-led policy organization.

I want to let you know that I do 100% support this budget.

This is needed services.

I've not only lived this and know what it takes to exit and to have those wraparound services, but I also know what it is going to take to help the individuals that are being trafficked on Aurora and to hold buyers and traffickers accountable.

I urge you to pass this budget because every life is worthy of being saved, helped, and supported.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Jerry.

Up next is Aaron Seamer, followed by Emily Metzer, the Phoenicia Zang, and then BJ Last.

Aaron, I see you're with us here.

Star six to unmute.

Jerry, I see you're still unmuted, so you might want to hang up just so we don't hear what else is going on.

There you are, Aaron, at your convenience.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_11

Yeah, hello.

Thank you, and good morning to you all.

My name is Aaron Seamer, and I'm the development director of Third Stone, the nonprofit that produces the city-owned Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival and our workforce development program.

With the relaunch of Bumbershoot after the pandemic, we committed to using the festival to build a more inclusive arts and music scene by supporting young people to learn, grow, and connect to careers in the arts.

With your help for the past two years, we have done just that.

The Workforce Development Program reaches young people from low-income, BIPOC, and underserved communities and teaches them critical skills to prepare for careers in the arts and entertainment industry.

In 2023, we graduated 15 young people from the program, 80% of whom found work in the industry within a few months.

We are currently training our second cohort of 19. We are proud that more than 60% of the participants in our tuition-free, hands-on, paid seven-month program identify as women or non-binary.

Two-thirds are people of color and two-thirds are low income.

Unfortunately, the proposed budget zeroes out the $250,000 the council included last year to support this program.

We look forward to working with you to restore this critical funding to support young people working in one of Seattle's most significant economic sectors.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you.

Up next is Emily Metzer, followed by Phoenicia Zeng and BJ Lassen.

Daniel, in person, we're about six minutes out from your turn.

Yep.

Emily, star six to unmute when you're ready.

There you are.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_17

Good morning, council members.

My name is Emily Meltzer, and I work for Legal Counsel for Youth and Children.

LCYC is the only legal aid provider in Seattle that is focused on supporting youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.

We recently learned of a proposed budget cut which would fully eliminate funding from the city of Seattle in the amount of $123,662 for LCYC's youth homelessness program.

LCYC provides holistic legal representation, including addressing many areas of law that function as barriers to stable housing, such as debt relief and access to public benefits.

We have strong community partnerships with large multi-service organizations and smaller population specific organizations to ensure we are reaching young people who are disproportionately experiencing homelessness, LGBTQIA plus youth and youth of color.

We operate remotely meeting young people in schools, shelters, and other locations to reduce barriers to access.

Since 2019, when we first contracted with the city of Seattle for these services, LCYC has supported over 750 young people.

to reduce or prevent their experiences with homelessness through legal aid.

We continually have a wait list demonstrating the dire need for our continued services.

The reduction in services due to lack of funding would be devastating for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness in Seattle.

LCYC helps young people identify and pursue legal pathways to safe housing.

For a young one person that might be pursuing legal guardianship with an aunt or uncle after experiencing abuse at home, for another young person that might be helping to resolve medical debt so that they can afford their rent.

A modest investment in addressing housing instability for youth in crisis can prevent years of long-term homelessness into adulthood.

Our model, along with partners, has had a significant impact in reducing homelessness in Seattle and Washington State.

Data shows a reduction of 40% through the state from 2016 to 2023. We appreciate your consideration and urgency around this issue and request that funding is not eliminated for this critical program.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Emily.

Up next is Phoenicia Zhang, and I see you're already off mute.

Phoenicia, take it away at your convenience.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you.

Good morning, Council Members and Budget Chair Strauss.

My name is Phoenica.

I am calling today as the co-chair of the Budget Task Force for the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

The coalition is one that represents over 200 organizations that provide essential services across the city.

That's everything from senior care, to distributing food to families, providing housing and homelessness services, as well as childcare and gender-based violence services.

And every year we listen to the organizations in our coalition and collate the needs that we're hearing and highlight what investments are needed to support Seattle's most vulnerable communities.

And we understand completely the budget situation the city is in and how hard your choices are this year.

but wanted to call in today and just highlight for you all that taking our word with organizations that are on the ground every day, we cannot balance the budget on the backs of already struggling community members and already overstretched organizations.

Now is really the time to sustain and fortify funding levels for human services, and that's the minimum we need to avoid losing ground in addressing our city's most critical issues.

We want to thank the mayor for ensuring that human service contracts keep up with inflation, which is essential to being able to continue providing services.

But this budget also does propose service cuts, like one of the callers actually just mentioned from LCYC, and it takes Jumpstart investments away from vital city programs like affordable housing, equitable development, and Green New Deal program.

The structural deficit that our city is facing requires structural solutions not band-aid measures that keep kicking the problem down the road.

Our communities need and deserve new progressive revenue so that our city can sustainably, responsibly meet the true level of need our communities are seeing.

So much like you all, we're still learning more about the budget, and we'll be reaching out to your offices to meet

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Phoenicia.

Up next, we're going to do our last virtual speaker that was signed up before our in-person.

That's BJ Last.

Then we're going to go to our in-person and then back to our recently signed up public commenter, Red, for the viewing public.

You can sign up for public comment as long as public comment is still open.

BJ, over to you.

I see you're off mute and then we'll go to Daniel.

SPEAKER_10

Good morning.

My name is DJ last, uh, Ballard homeowner in 2023, the metropolitan chamber of commerce did a poll and found that two thirds of Seattle voters, uh, do not trust the city of Seattle to spend my tax dollars responsibly.

This seems like a very relevant stat to bring up, given how the mayor wants to change the law in order to defund jumpstart, which doing this defunds affordable housing, renew deal initiatives, EDI, and economic development.

These are all items that the people of Seattle want.

This is why voters passed the housing levy.

And make no mistake, like this levy, this housing levy is why we're actually seeing record investments in affordable housing.

Because the people absolutely want this.

The mayor is defunding Jumpstart, which defunds this.

In fact, Jumpstart investments in affordable housing are actually getting cut 5% versus last year.

This stat on not trusting the city in terms of how it spends money is also really relevant as the city continues to give half of the general fund to SPD, the city attorney, the jails, and everything else in the criminal punishment system.

And in fact, it's going and expanding that with giving SPD 30 new positions while cutting funding for food access.

This is austerity budgeting with cuts to affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives, EDI services, and layoffs, all while giving more money to SPD And also like this increases funding for sweeps without increasing funding for shelter and also cutting funding for renter services.

So this is more sweeps without places for people to go and cutting programs that keep people housed in the first place.

So cutting renter services, this is going to increase the number of people that are unhoused.

Increasing sweeps is just going to keep pushing people around without increasing shelter that for anywhere for people to go.

for the city to actually stop authority budgeting, looking to cutting the blow to police budget to actually fund services that people need to keep people healthy, safe, and meet.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, BJ.

Always feel free to write in your comments if you have additional comments to share.

We're going to transition to the in-person public comment.

We have Daniel Shapiro signed up here.

Daniel, you've got two minutes.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_20

Awesome.

Thank you.

In the book The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, the main character Milo and his companion Tak, the watchdog, have to travel over the Mountain of Ignorance.

At the mountain, they are confronted by a being with no face.

He asks them to do him a few small favors, one of which involves moving a pile of sand from one location to another using tweezers.

The being turns out to be the terrible trivium, the demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort and monster of habit.

When this council approves soda and soap zones and the sweeping of encampments, it proposes moving a pile of sand from one location to another.

Except we're not talking about grains of sand.

We're talking about human beings.

human beings who have been marginalized, then demonized, by the colonial, capitalistic, and heartless politics that shape what we now call Seattle.

Not only are these efforts trivial, they're harmful and potentially unconstitutional, according to the ACLU.

These efforts just give the police more freedom to search and arrest the most vulnerable populations in our city.

Policies like this only fuel the cycle of catch and release that some of the more conservative members of this community decry as pointless.

They're right, it is pointless.

It becomes simply moving human beings around and dehumanizing them, sweeping them away like they're grains of sand, out of sight and out of mind.

I urge this council to stop doing the easy, useless, and trivial thing and to do something hard.

Do something that will take time and effort and bravery.

Fund and prioritize all the place-based strategies in the July auditor's report.

Fund schools.

Fund addiction recovery programs.

Fund reparations.

Fund restorative justice.

Fund mental health.

Fund the arts.

Fund humanity.

And finally, happy Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month.

Thanks.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Daniel.

Up next will be Red, who I see is online.

Star six to unmute.

You're off mute.

Take it away, Red.

Red, are you there?

SPEAKER_18

Looks like he's there.

SPEAKER_04

Red, you're off mute.

Yep, now you went back on mute.

I heard you clicking there.

Star six, not pound six.

SPEAKER_16

Hello, can you hear me okay?

SPEAKER_04

We got you loud and clear, Red.

Take it away.

SPEAKER_16

Great.

Good morning, Council Members, and thank you, Council Member Schatz, for respecting public comment.

How do you all read and comprehend this proposed budget and see the long list across departments of reductions and eliminations of impactful work that contributes to our city and not feel both rage and shame that you all voted in for an SBD increased budget of $93 million with back pay while knowing we have a budget shortfall?

Do you all hate our city of Seattle?

Do you think Project 2025 is a great economic model to replicate?

Project 2025 is what you are all making policies off of here.

Project 2025 is a systemic and elimination of vital resources to the nation.

You all are doing the same with our local budget with the tax on vital funding for vital human resources and departments that actually aid in the quality of life of Seattleites.

You all voted to encourage and celebrate Spog's documented racist culture the largest contingent of insurrectionists on january 6 came from our police force why are you eliminating city roles and rating jumpstart funding when you are literally not needing to do this and enable racist and violent police force may history remember you and your decisions forever i encourage you to do better and thank you for the time thank you red

SPEAKER_04

That does conclude our public comment.

There are no additional speakers virtually or physically present, so we will now close public comment.

We'll move on to our next item of business.

Clerk, will you please read the...

Will you please read the short title into the record?

Folks, come on up.

I'll give some introductory remarks.

Colleagues, welcome to day three of the 2024 Select Budget Committee Writing the 2025 Budget.

Be not confused there.

We're getting ready.

I got my big cup of coffee, Rob.

I've got a prop for you here today.

Got a big cup of coffee.

If anyone needs any more.

SPEAKER_18

Okay, agenda item one, Office of Arts and Culture.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Jodi.

If anyone needs any coffee, just let me know.

Thank you, colleagues, for meeting with me about process.

I will just reiterate, it is very important that we use SharePoint so that all nine of us aren't asking departments the same nine questions.

So please use Central Staff and SharePoint.

For the general public, our next public comment is going to be at our public hearing because we take public comment at the beginning of each section of the budget.

This section is department presentation.

So our next public comment period is on October 16th at 5 p.m.

It is a public hearing, and so everyone will have two minutes, no matter how many people sign up.

We will be providing childcare here at City Hall for this public hearing.

This was another thing that we did pre-pandemic.

However, pre-pandemic, we did not have the call-in option.

So this year we will be evaluating the childcare aspect because we have more accessibility options today than we did in 2019. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our presenters.

We have Director Kayyem joining us remotely, and other arts and culture staff here at the dais, as well as Director Eder and Noble.

I'll turn it over to the panel to take it away.

SPEAKER_24

Good morning, Council Budget Committee, Chair Strauss, my name is, and Council President Nelson and Council members, my name is Gulgun Kayyem and I am the Director of the Office of Arts and Culture.

With me are my colleagues, Deputy Director Kelly Davidson and Finance Manager Ali McGeehy.

Today, we will walk you through the major changes in the executive's proposed budget for the- Director, can we have introductions from everyone at the table, and then we'll turn it over to you?

SPEAKER_04

Yes, of course.

Thank you.

Over to you, Allie.

I'm just going to run down the table this way.

Over to you, Allie.

SPEAKER_22

Sure.

Allie McGehee, finance manager.

SPEAKER_04

Green light means the mics are on, and you really got to get them close.

We did hear you, Allie, but I'm going to just pass it down.

Here we go.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you.

Kelly Davidson, deputy director for the Office of Arts and Culture.

SPEAKER_25

Dan Eder, Director of the City Budget Office.

Noble Central Staff Director.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you.

Back over to you, Director Kuehn.

SPEAKER_24

Wonderful.

So today we will walk you through the major changes in the executive's proposed budget for the Office of Arts and Culture.

And we're happy to answer any questions at the end.

I just want to make sure that one of my colleagues is operating the slide deck and we are on slide one.

So if you could move over to slide two, please.

SPEAKER_04

We're going to take a minute to share screen.

Just a minute, Director.

SPEAKER_24

Yes, that's good.

I'm not able to see it.

SPEAKER_06

Great.

SPEAKER_24

We're going to have to go back up to the second slide, please.

Wonderful.

Great.

So this slide reminds us of the wide range of civic outputs that arts and culture sector is capable of delivering.

The arts are an important tool and resource.

to addressing a number of city policy goals.

Oh, excuse me.

I just realized I jumped ahead.

Excuse me.

So the mission of the Office of Arts and Culture is to activate and sustain Seattle through arts and culture.

We envision a city driven by creativity that provides the opportunity for everyone to engage in diverse arts and cultural experiences.

It's important to note that the role of our office in the local arts and culture ecosystem is to directly support its health and vitality.

So moving over to slide three.

This slide reminds us of the wide range of civic outputs that arts and culture sector is capable of delivering.

So the arts are an important tool and resource to addressing a number of policy goals and priorities.

The mayor's office and the Office of Arts and Culture are aligned in our shared commitment and belief that arts are key to a thriving and vibrant Seattle.

We invest our resources not only in downtown, but throughout all of Seattle's neighborhood.

Our work delivers vibrancy to city streets.

For example, our office recently funded Pioneer Square's newest and most unique assets, ten new art frames with rotating artworks by local artists that represent the diverse spirit of Pioneer Square.

This work was supported through our innovative Hope Corps program, which pairs funding for underemployed artists in the creative workforce with civic priorities.

Our support also brought people together and contributed to the cultural vibrancy of this historic district.

The arts also play a role as a catalyst of economic revitalization and public safety.

Arts draw people to a location, activate spaces and provide opportunities for residual benefits, such as eyes on the streets, feelings of safety, activities for youth and community cohesion.

And finally, we are all aware of the sector's struggles to fully return to economic health after the economic challenges of the pandemic.

This third bullet points out how it's important for the city to invest in the sector's economic recovery while also leveraging its assets.

Next slide, please.

So revenue streams.

Arts has two funding sources, and they're the admissions tax and the 1% for art.

The admissions tax is a 5% ticket tax charged at certain venues and events like the Space Needle or the Great Wheel or buying a movie ticket.

Revenues from that tax go to the City's Arts and Culture Fund, which provides resources for our education, and grant programs, our facilities and general operating.

The second revenue stream is 1% for art, which is an ordinance requirement that capital construction departments like Estart, City Light, and Seattle Public Utilities set aside 1% of their construction project costs for art.

Revenues go into the municipal art fund, which provides resources for commissioning public art, funds our civic collection, and provides staffing and operations for our public art division.

Next slide, please.

This table outlines at a high level our offices budget in 2024 2025 and 2026 you will see an increase in the budget in 2025 and this increase stems from one time funding related to downtown activation proposals which I will go into detail in the next few slides next slide please.

So our office's 2025 and 26 proposed budget includes a $2.5 million one-time increase in 2025 to support downtown activations and the World Cup.

Our office worked with the downtown activation plan sub-cabinet to coordinate budget requests.

These projects are intended to support the goals of the DAP, and pilot programming that can be built upon as we move forward with implementation of downtown strategies.

Our strategy is to engage local artists and communities, uplift and celebrate our local identity, and build on creative economy efforts.

So I'm just gonna go through these bullet points so that you can understand what they are.

So the first bullet point is the FIFA World Cup Community Activations.

This program will create four neighborhood-specific World Cup celebration viewing sites for people throughout Seattle to enjoy and participate in World Cup festivities.

And this will be in different areas of the city.

So we haven't identified them yet, but we expect them to be all over the city.

Arts will provide funding to commission visual art and performing artists to highlight the diverse cultures and histories related to each neighborhood and the neighborhood celebrations.

The next bullet point refers to visual arts installations at Benaroya Hall.

This proposal will fund arts installations outside and in the public areas of Benaroya Hall, which is also, as you know, a transit hub.

This is part of a greater interdepartmental coordinated effort, part of the DAP plan to improve the street level usability and overall experience along Third Avenue and to establish a creative corridor leveraging our work.

and with our city and community partners and the third bullet point refers to alleyway activations and art installations and this program centers art based interventions in underutilized and overlooked alleyways in the cid and pioneer square neighborhoods in addition to the dap fifa our office is partnering with s-stop for these particular alleyway activation activations in chinatown And it will also be done in close partnership with the Wing Luke Museum, who recently received federal funding for this purpose.

So this particular bullet point leverages that federal funding.

Next slide, please.

So these two pieces here refer to Union and King Street Station Plaza art installations and activations.

This program takes advantage of our office's prime location close to the stadium.

to fund eye-catching destination art installations designed to draw visitors into the plazas at both Union and King Street stations.

As you know, these locations are going to be high traffic areas for the World Cup.

And so this next stadium So this will also be not just for World Cup attendees but also for Seattleites.

We will utilize these funds to showcase to the world the diversity and creativity of our city with large-scale spectacular installations and events in public spaces.

This work also builds on our partnership with the Office of Planning and Community Development to develop a long-term vision and strategy to activate Union Station.

And in a way, it sort of experiments with how we will work towards that.

And it builds on our ongoing collaboration also with our partners at Station Space to activate and celebrate King Street Station as a youth arts hub.

The next bullet point refers to community engagement and cultural inclusion.

This particular program actively engages and supports our community partners in the CID and Pioneer Square neighborhoods, and it provides them with funding to allow them to work with local artists and activate their community in public spaces.

The goal of this effort is to invite communities to participate in their own events during the World Cup celebrations.

As you know, our office is a stakeholder in these communities and it is important to us to help build a vibrant and thriving ecosystem with our partners and neighbors.

And these temporary programs will focus on soliciting applications and awarding funds for project activations that will take place in 2026. So our investments will happen in 2025 and the actual deliverables will be in 2026. Our office will staff these one-time programs with permanent and temporary project management staff.

Next slide, please.

So additionally, we were given funding for a one-year continuation of our Hope Corps program, which connects, as I've already mentioned, under and unemployed artists with creative job opportunities that benefit Seattle.

Since 2021, the Hope Corps has employed more than 200 creative workers, funded more than 60 projects, and supported grantees to grow their skills and networks through its community of practice.

Nearly all Hope Corps grantees have reported high levels of satisfaction with how the program has supported their careers.

And I'll give you just one example.

The Sound Theatre Company was able to develop a new play exploring the historic roots of Black American Sign Language and the Black Deaf community.

It was presented as a stage reading at the Seattle Center Armory.

They let us know that not only did Hope Corps help them support a severely underrepresented community, but that being able to pay their artists a fair wage through this opportunity has shifted their program to providing equitable pay into the future.

Our office is currently working on the 2024 iteration of the Hope Corps program.

The application period closed a few weeks ago, and we've already received 170 applications.

And these are for proposals to activate downtown using arts and culture strategies.

These applications will be reviewed through a community-centered panel process, which is typical of all of our work in the office.

And these projects will be delivered in 2025. Next slide, please.

so uh on uh on this particular side we also talk about another significant addition um so the our office has been deeply concerned about the economic recovery of the arts and culture organizations in seattle post pandemic In 2024, we were approved $650,000 in one-time funds to distribute to arts and culture organizations who were facing a fiscal cliff as federal support ended.

And this is COVID-related federal support.

In order to implement the funding, we decided to conduct a survey of our grantees in February of this year.

And we surveyed 241 arts and culture organizations that received our general operating support from our office.

98% of the survey respondents reported that they had a funding gap in their current fiscal year and were uncertain how they would fill it.

In total, 173 Seattle organizations reported needing a total of $44.2 million in additional contributed income in order to balance their budgets.

The impact of these budget shortfalls are wide ranging, and we are already experiencing the effects.

For example, 137 organizations reported that if they weren't able to find additional resources, they would have to reduce programming.

And we are seeing fewer performances and short runs.

117 organizations said they would offer fewer paid positions for artists, 94 said they would have to reduce staff hours, and 81 said they would have to cut administrative positions, further aggravating the harm to the Seattle's creative sector.

And numerous organizations noted that they would need to reduce their outreach and community presence, which would further impact already underserved communities.

We have already distributed the $650,000 to these organizations, and that represents 1.5% of the total demonstrated need.

In this particular budget item, our office has proposed a two-year program to fund organizational transformation for these organizations who play catalytic roles in the arts and culture ecosystem of Seattle.

The idea behind the program is to develop a cohort model of like-sized organizations who would come together to workshop and strategize ideas to transform their business models.

Once ideas are developed and vetted through their boards, our office would then provide initial funding to support next steps.

The goal of this work is to invest in new futures and to provide time, space, and technical assistance for organizations to rethink their business models and reinvent themselves to better adapt to the new economic realities they are facing.

One thing I do want to note is that many of the issues that organizations are facing were present pre-pandemic.

What happened during the pandemic was to accelerate the stresses that these organizations were dealing with.

So we will also seek funding partners to support this intervention and collaborate on the design and implementation.

Next slide, please.

While this is not an addition to our budget per se, we are thrilled to have retained our CARE grant program, which provides three years of general operating support to organizations throughout Seattle.

Retaining this program is critical to demonstrating the city's support to arts and cultural organizations.

And while King County's Doors Open program is a great benefit to arts and culture, it is still under development.

It has different criteria for awards and there are no metrics available yet to us to assess the impact and operations.

Providing these funds to arts and culture organization affirms the city's commitment to them and the value they provide to the city.

Our office will be working closely with King County on our grant design as more information comes out about Doors Open to ensure that we are serving Seattle's arts and culture organizations in the most equitable, sustainable, and meaningful way possible.

Over the last year, we have been working on our internal strategic plan.

And as we complete that process, we are looking forward into the broader policy question of how to direct resources in a way that best supports the arts and culture landscape.

Arts is working on a proposal to lead a cultural planning process which engages community stakeholders and city leadership on these policy questions and provides a framework for equitable and inclusive decision making and policy.

moving forward.

Next slide, please.

Now onto reductions.

Our office did analyze its baseline budget through the 2025 and 2026 executive phase and found some reductions we could take without impact to our core services.

We will be abrogating a part-time position which was dedicated to the creative economy as included in our council budget questions our office does extensive work in the creative economy in close collaboration with the office of economic development programs like the creative advantage i've already talked about hope core creative economy career day for example these are all examples of our collaboration All of these programs fuel the health of the creative economy in Seattle.

While this position would help us to do more work in that area, it has been vacant for a while, and our office can continue its creative economy work at the current level without this position.

We also identified 60,000 in budget reductions in professional development, as well as this funding was historically used to also put on events.

During the pandemic, our office shifted away from putting on events ourselves.

Instead, we have focused on funding activations and amplifying them through our use of social media, storytelling, and other communications.

WE DO NOT ANTICIPATE ANY WORKLOAD IMPACTS FROM THESE ADJUSTMENTS.

NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE.

AND THAT'S IT.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME DURING THIS PRESENTATION.

I AM HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS.

SPEAKER_04

THANK YOU, DIRECTOR KAIM.

DIRECTOR EADER, DIRECTOR NOBLE, ANYTHING TO ADD?

THANK YOU.

I'LL BE THEN PASSING IT TO OUR COMMITTEE CHAIR OF ARTS AND CULTURE, COUNCILMEMBER WU.

COUNCILMEMBER WU, ANY COMMENTS OR REFLECTIONS?

SPEAKER_12

So I actually have a comment.

Thank you to the Department of Arts and Culture.

You guys play a crucial role in creativity, preserving heritage, and promoting inclusivity within our community.

This department has their hands in so many things in our city that we don't realize, looking at all the pictures, the murals, and all the things that we want to do in the future with FIFA soccer, downtown activation.

How do we get our youth involved?

And so it's great to hear that we're looking at transforming business models for organizational transformation and keeping these organizations open that have been part of the community since pre-pandemic, making sure they're successful for the future.

I'm excited to hear that there's a good partnership with King County and how we are going to see how doors open and to looking at developing an internal strategic plan going forward.

I do have a question regarding impacts on the reductions when it comes to events.

Were there any events that were not ongoing due to these reductions?

And also when you mentioned professional development, what do you mean?

Is it internal professional development or external professional development?

What are the impacts to the public?

SPEAKER_24

Yes, thank you, Council Member Wu.

This is the professional development is internal professional development.

We do not provide external professional development resources to organisations, so there is no public impact there.

Regarding events, since my arrival in the office, we have not produced events directly ourselves.

We've chosen to work through our partners.

So this budget, we looked at these reductions with an eye to lessening the external impacts.

So these two are ones that will not impact our core programs.

SPEAKER_12

So I also have a quick statement.

As the chair of the committee, we would love to be able to retain the entirety of the emissions tax, especially when thinking of this long-term financial stability.

I'm wondering what the arts granting allocating capacity is, especially for interdepartmental allocating and spending?

SPEAKER_24

Council Member, maybe I can ask the Director Eder to answer that question.

SPEAKER_25

My understanding of your question is about whether the Office of Arts and Culture retains the ability to give out grants at the same level that they did last year.

Do I understand that correctly?

SPEAKER_12

Regarding the emissions tax, being able to retain the entirety of its funding within department versus...

sending the allocations elsewhere.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you for the question, Councilmember.

I think that the mayor and you and others perhaps on the council share a common interest in a policy objective of having fully funded arts grants continue and have them continue in a consolidated way through the Office of Arts and Culture.

The mayor has proposed a policy change that would allow the admissions tax to fully fund all of the arts and culture grants at the same level and more in 2025 compared to last year.

The policy proposal would relieve the general fund, as we have been addressing, as you've heard, a very significant projected deficit.

to allow some of the admissions tax that is in addition to what is needed to maintain and even increase grant amounts to be spent on arts and culture programming in the Parks Department and in Seattle Center, but not on grants, on continuing programs that were funded, arts and culture programs that were funded with general fund, instead use the extra money that was available this year from the ad tax in the fund reserve for that purpose, effectively avoiding cuts that would have needed to be made elsewhere in the general fund.

SPEAKER_12

Would it be possible to allow the Office of Arts and Culture to have the capacity to fund these designated programs that would otherwise be cut within their department so they can So they would not lose that prerogative to distribute the entire emissions tax?

SPEAKER_25

I think it would be possible, and we'd be happy to work with your office on making sure we are understanding and can help achieve the policy objective that I think both the mayor and you have articulated.

SPEAKER_12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_25

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Up next, and apologies for coffee.

I drank too much of this entire pot of coffee.

If anyone wants some.

Council Member Kettle, Council Member Saagert, Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Thank you, everyone, Director, everyone here at the table for coming.

clearly arts and culture is key to our city.

It's key to us as a people.

It's key to our economy.

It's key to a whole host of, um, you know, perspectives and pieces of who we are as a, as a, as a city.

Um, obviously I have been to many of the arts and culture, uh, venues, locations, uh, in my role, uh, as district seven and to include the Sam, uh, the Benaroya hall, uh, the rep theater.

And, um, One of the things that I've learned through this process is that there's the operational budget impacts, but then there's the M side too, the maintenance aspects of this, which are really important.

And can you speak to the balance between the arts and culture and maybe FAS in terms of facilities and those pieces and how they work together to ensure our arts and culture are in good standing, literally standing,

SPEAKER_24

Yes, so thank you, Council Member Kettle.

I think what I'm going to do is split this question up and ask my deputy who used to actually work at FAS to speak to a little bit of how we work with facilities.

We do not directly manage any of the facilities ourselves.

We do provide, however, general operating support.

to organizations that apply for our gen op program that that's called care so and for us it's really critical that we're providing the sort of uh four legs of the table we're providing stability for organizations it the gen op support allows them the flexibility to hire and to operate their programs, to keep the lights on and do those other things.

But we do not address the facilities directly.

And so you're referring to FAS.

I'm going to ask Kelly if you would just speak a little bit to the FAS piece as Kelly came from FAS to our office.

SPEAKER_09

I just want to make sure that I have clarity on the question.

Is your question around our maintenance and conservation of our public art collection?

SPEAKER_08

And or like Ben Royal Hall, the facilities themselves, which puts pressure on our arts and culture community because they have this weighing on their shoulders.

Even if it is FAS, they still live with it.

They deal with these things on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_09

Currently, we're not engaged in the relationship between FAS and the organization.

We are communicating with them as we are communicating with other organizations about their overall needs.

One of the reasons we sought the Downtown Activation Plan funding that we did specifically for the Benaroya location was to bring attention to that site and to help with addressing that location.

I want to make sure if there's another component that you're getting to.

SPEAKER_06

I might just provide a little clarity and potential direction for the question.

FAS really owns...

the relationship of managing Benaroya Hall, which is a city-owned facility, and there's an ongoing management of the building and its maintenance.

Anyway, bottom line, questions around Benaroya are better directed to FAS because they are the ones who are kind of hand-in-glove with the institutions there.

SPEAKER_08

They will.

And the renovation, which will impact the symphony and all those other pieces of the Benaroya Hall.

And just to...

piggyback off that, and just to put it out there, not a question here, but the garden remembrance, which is part of, essentially, Benaroya Hall, between that and the SAM, it has major issues with the trees, but more importantly, with the membrane that separates the trees from the Benaroya Hall garage.

So again, a FAS, probably heavy, but it impacts the arts and culture community, and I think it's important to highlight these pressures that are on the arts and culture community.

And But as my father once said, many hands make light work.

So as a transition, I just wanted to start by saying thank you to the Paul Allen Foundation.

Because when meeting with the SAM, when meeting with these organizations listed in their recent announcement of support, they need the support.

And so I am really thankful.

I wanted to say publicly to the Paul Allen Foundation that We appreciate your support.

We appreciate you stepping in, particularly in a time of budget constraints.

I also appreciate the Downtown Seattle Association.

I know that they're looking to support the arts and culture community, particularly in terms of supporting it from the public safety side, which is another pressure on our arts and culture community.

There's a theme here now, you know, you have arts and culture, but have these pieces around it that, you know, circumstances that are putting pressure on the arts and culture community.

So that DSA project is very important.

Also, and highlighted with Seattle Center, but also Benaroya Hall financial pressures, like redoing, you know, we've already taken action.

You know, that's really important.

I remember being at the rep. It's important for Seattle Center, kind of like FAS, to be supporting, and they've done.

So I thank Director Foster for that work.

And to include, like, organizations that I'm sure are captured in the briefing, like Theater Puget Sound, you know, an organization that, that in itself helps many other arts and culture organizations.

So it's kind of like a linchpin, if you will.

So we need to continue to support groups like Theater Puget Sound because of that relationship with many others in terms of providing rehearsal space, for example.

So these are the things that I think that we need to look at to ensure that the arts and culture community is healthy and strong and then able to support us overall by looking at FAS, by looking at Seattle Center, by looking at these different pieces that put pressure on the arts and culture community in terms of their ability to do their job.

And as chair of the public safety, I will just close by asking too, graffiti abatement through the arts, my understanding that You know, there may be pieces within the arts to, you know, a graffiti consultant to help, you know, in terms of beautifying our city, but then also abating the problematic issue of graffiti, which, you know, helps create this permissive environment that we're tackling right now.

Anything on that?

SPEAKER_24

Yes, thank you.

We have, as I've already mentioned, a substantial investment in the Hope Corps program through the Hope Corps program, working with partners like Belltown United and in the DSA where we are working on putting murals up.

So part of our graffiti abatement effort is to cover those walls.

that need to be addressed we also collaborate with the mayor's office we have a graffiti specialist that works through our office and we collaborate with him as well and he works at the higher end working with schools as well as in your education settings so we're trying to uh tackle this issue from all angles um so that's that's um just a quick summary i hope i've answered your question of what we do in that arena

SPEAKER_08

Yes, actually, exactly, as I'm looking at my question on my paper on the graffiti.

So thank you very much for that answer.

Chair?

Thank you.

Council Member Saka, you're up next.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this presentation here.

Really insightful to learn about some of the proposals here for our arts department.

I have two questions.

First one pertains to World Cup.

World Cup.

I know there's a lot of my colleagues here at this dais, including Council President, who are very keenly interested in making sure we have a safe, successful, welcoming World Cup, thriving World Cup.

Our city's going to be on full display and on parade.

We want to showcase the many great reasons why our beautiful city is such a terrific place to live, work, do business, and enjoy our wonderful arts and cultural scene.

But there are a couple instances, Director Golgan, where you mentioned World Cup, which is great.

I guess I would just be curious to better understand, what is the specific breakdown spending breakdown in the proposed budget for arts that can be directly tied or attributed to World Cup planning.

And I would actually be curious to understand that, like, get more clarity around that question across the board, across all executive departments.

And rather than have World Cup planning efforts for 25 and 26 be sort of nested or buried in a...

budget summary level somewhere, at the program level somewhere.

You know, I do think it's important to up-level that so for full transparency purposes and so we can better track and monitor what we're doing and what we're not potentially doing and track the progress of these investments.

This is very, very, very important work.

And, you know, like I said, I've said in the past, our city has a key opportunity now more than ever to make sure we land this planning right, do it right, and have a successful launch of the World Cup in, you know, two years' time or whatever.

So, anyways, yeah, just be curious to understand.

What allocation of the proposed budget for arts is directly attributed to World Cup?

SPEAKER_24

Thank you, Council Member Sarkar.

If we can move up to slide five, I think that will be very helpful in helping to answer your question.

So the $2.5 million of investment, oh, that's the right one.

As you can see, the first line item calls out specifically World Cup.

um now all i would argue all of these investments have a world cup nexus at some level um the way we've tried to utilize our resources is we have looked at both the nexus of downtown activation needs and world cup needs um you know we're trying to be as efficient as we possibly can in delivering programs that will then transform into World Cup related activities.

So, for example, as we invest in the usual process for us is we invest in one year.

So in 2025, the investments will come through and then the deliverables will be the following year.

in 2026 so that's why i'm i'm proposing here that almost every single addition has a world cup nexus however we've called out some specific world cup items so as you can see in bullet point one the community celebration sites are in are intended to be there so that we're not just focused on downtown but other parts of the city so we can celebrate the world cup The visual arts installations at Benaroya Hall, the Benaroya is going to be a it's a transit hub and it's going to be a very, very busy during the World Cup.

And we're quite concerned about that area remaining safe and active.

So our contribution to the Third Avenue investments, as you can see, the amounts are listed.

and then the alleyway activations and installations.

This particular project, as I've already mentioned, is underway now.

We're experimenting with it so that when the World Cup is here, we can actually be more targeted in how we invest in those funds.

And this will also help businesses, not just provide arts activities.

If we can go to the next slide, please.

And then finally, the Union and King Street Station Plaza installations, because of our proximity to the stadiums, these are all World Cup related.

Again, this is what that we've already started to do.

It takes us a while to create new programs and implement them.

But the King Street Station Plaza activations, in fact, in this image, you'll see one of those activations with our station space partners.

We're beginning to put our efforts in that direction right now, and we'll continue that in 2025. Again, the investments will happen in 2025. so that the deliverables you will see the following year, and then the community engagement and cultural inclusion.

That's really a grant program inviting organizations to bring their proposals to us with the intention that the actual implementation will be in 2026. I could go on, but I just want to make sure I am answering your question, and I'm happy to also make sure that we follow up with the specifics if I'm not being specific enough.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, thank you.

I appreciate your initial response.

Definitely would love to see you know, like the further breakdown of anything that can be directly attributed.

And again, that's across, I see Director Eder here.

I, you know, I would actually like to see that across the board for all department proposed budgets.

And in my mind, like to your point, Director, it is, you know, there's a strong nexus between, you know, in this, spending example between some of the pioneer square investments and some of the broader downtown activation planning, uh, implementation efforts.

Um, so like, I think it's a, Anything with a direct tie that could be reasonably attributed to World Cup planning, in my mind, that's a simple but for test.

But for the World Cup, it would not be spent or be spent elsewhere.

So I just want to understand, after this, across the board for all departments, what is the proposed allocation for World Cup?

It's really, really important, again, I'll keep screaming it loud from the rooftops if needed, but that is a successful, safe, thriving, welcoming event for all, and we're doing some of the blocking and tackling for that to ensure as much to achieve that goal specifically right now, particularly, for example, on the public safety front.

But, yeah, thank you.

My next question is...

Director Golgan, can you...

Talk a little more about the impact of the doors open on the art sector program and specifically impact, if any, on arts funding and the overall funding for the city of Seattle.

Just curious to learn more.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_24

Yes.

In my I believe it's let me see.

Slide nine.

That was the slide where I talked about doors open.

We haven't seen direct impacts on our funding.

So the good news is, is we we We are waiting, and we are going to assess what the actual, the way the program is being implemented.

At the moment, the county is considering program implementation, and they will be coming out with a vote in November.

We're keeping an eye on that, and we'll be, as I mentioned, working with 4Culture, which is the county organization that is going to be dispersing these resources we want to make sure most of all we don't duplicate the efforts that is happening with doors open we want to be complementary so as yet we don't have enough data to know how that program is going to be implemented and there is no impact to our budget as yet thank you no further questions or comments mr chair thank you councilman up next is councilman morales followed by council president nelson take it away

SPEAKER_21

Thank you very much.

Good morning, everybody.

I have maybe three or four questions.

The first is there is a lot of DAP funding here and programming, which is great.

I understand why.

And I really support the activation, the installations at King Street, Union Street stations.

It's a great location for activating right in the middle of, well, maybe the south end of downtown So that's all great.

My question is how do we bring more arts recovery programming and support to our neighborhood business districts because there are other parts of the city that could also benefit from this kind of programming and activation.

SPEAKER_24

Yes, thank you so much for that question, Council Member Morales.

As I've already mentioned, the investments that we'll be making in the, gosh, the organizational business transformation, that is a citywide program, and that's going to be $2 million per year.

So that particular program will look at catalyst organizations, organizations that play a pivotal role in their communities, either as a business catalyst or as a community catalyst, and that come to us with a need and an interest in reviewing their business plans.

So that particular program is, you know, just to just point out, is included in this budget and will be city wide.

And then for the World Cup, as I've already mentioned, we do have the investments in community celebration sites.

and that's about 495 000 and that is not intended to be downtown so surrounding communities or we haven't look you know provided the locations yet but we are expecting local seattleites to also want to celebrate in neighborhoods.

So those two, I just want to point out, are in our budget.

Have I answered your question or would you like more explanation?

SPEAKER_21

That's great.

Thank you.

And just getting back to the World Cup question, it seems to me that at least one nexus between the World Cup and arts is how we work with the local organizing committee to make sure that it is local artists, local performers who are being tapped, if you will, to participate in these community celebrations.

I've only had one or two conversations with them, but it feels to me like there's a lot of focus on attracting like big national musicians or something to come.

And I think that's a real missed opportunity for us to hire locally to highlight our own Seattle and Washington area performers on this world stage.

So just my plug for that, if the organizing committee is listening.

My second question is getting back to the Hope Corps grants.

My hope, and I guess this is really more of a statement, but it is my hope that we are able to fully fund this beyond a one-time extension and that we really think about how we can bring this programming again into other parts of the city and make sure that we're supporting...

supporting artists and performers from across town.

My last question, Director Kayim, is about, well, it's sort of slide eight and, I don't see it on a slide, but, so on slide eight, you talk about funding organizational business transformation.

I have lots of friends who are artists.

They are great artists, but they are not great business people necessarily.

And so I understand why this is important.

I've also heard Council Member Kettle talk all year about how important it is to preserve our arts organizations and really ensure that we're bolstering the viability and sustainability of these organizations that support creative creatives, support artists, and also are a key part of how we attract people to come visit us.

So you also said that you had just completed a strategic plan.

My assumption is that that was really kind of an internally focused But then you talked about cultural planning.

So can you talk a little bit about what that is?

It sounds to me like it is maybe an externally focused plan and could really tie into what is needed for these projects.

business transformations.

I just want to make sure I understand what that is and what it would accomplish.

SPEAKER_24

Yes.

Thank you so much for that question.

I touched on it and I didn't really go into much depth about it.

So yes, cultural planning will be in collaboration with community.

And these organizations are very much part of the arts and culture community and ecosystem.

One of the issues we'll be dealing with is this issue of health?

How are organizations doing?

Because as you've pointed out, Council Member, we have an interrelated ecosystem.

Organizations support individuals.

Individuals also create their own businesses, multiple income streams.

It's a very fluid and intersectional sector.

So we want to make sure that we bring everyone to the table, both individuals and organizations, to understand the challenges they're faced with, because the pandemic has really transformed the business environment for all arts and culture.

It's made it more complicated, it's made things more expensive, and it's changed the nature of how audiences interact with the sector.

So this additional investment in organizations is to sort of be a stopgap right now, is to help organizations actually invest in their future.

So as has been pointed out by Council Member Keffel, we've noted the number of organizations that have been struggling and many of them coming to the public sector to ask for investment.

But we really also should be working on their overall health and well-being.

How are they seeing the future?

What is the future for that particular discipline?

What might be some new models they could consider?

moving forward.

So this particular addition does that, but the cultural plan is going to be where we will fully engage them and learn with them and understand how we can adapt our work to meet the realities that they're facing right now.

So we will be bringing that to council as we learn and recommending policies.

Does that answer your question, council member?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Up next is Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_23

Hi there, thank you very much.

And I apologize, my voice is going today, but I feel fine.

So just to note Council Member Morales, thank you for plugging local artists.

I'm doing the same thing with musicians for the World Cup and Leo Flohr on the organizing committee has heard that message.

So hopefully that we'll see a lot of local art of all kinds.

The question that I had pertained to this line on page nine.

Organizations are facing higher costs and struggling to remain afloat, reducing activations, employment, creative opportunities in Seattle.

And so I was wondering partly what you asked, Council Member Saka.

How has the new resource of Open Door changed your thinking about how you will allocate uh, grants to some of the, some of the care partners.

And you, you answered that and you can get, I can, I'll be interested in detail later on that one.

So just say this, unless you, unless you can, unless you have an idea right now, I assume you don't.

SPEAKER_24

No, I'm going to thank you council member for that comment.

I'm I don't want to venture out and make any comments at the moment because we just don't know enough about doors open.

As I said, our expectation is that we will work in a complimentary manner and and address the areas that the doors open funding does not cover.

We know a lot.

We know enough about it at the moment to know that individuals will not be eligible for doors open funding.

But there's other things that we need to pay attention to.

So as that becomes more apparent, we'll certainly be happy to report back to council.

Okay, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_23

And just a process question, if you may, Chair.

Are we supposed to be prepared to give an introduction of the department over which we work?

Should I be prepared to talk in advance of OED's presentation or afterwards?

I thought that we were supposed to present or introduce them just so I can prepare for the next one.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, I will be calling on, like we talked about in our process meeting, when OED comes up, I'll turn it over to you.

If your voice is hurting so much, I'm happy to do a bit of an intro.

SPEAKER_23

No, I'm going to cut down my intro, but Councilmember Wu spoke after the presentation, so I'm just trying to figure out where I'm going to provide a quick intro to OED's presentation.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, when we get to OED, I'll pass it right over to you.

SPEAKER_23

Thanks.

SPEAKER_04

Fantastic.

Thanks.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Just one of the changes that you might see in the way that I facilitate meetings as compared to what has occurred in the past, subscribing to Robert's Rules of Order, the facilitator goes last.

And so as your facilitator, I will be holding my comments to the end.

A couple note, one, two, three, four, five, yep.

A couple notes for central staff and CBO.

I'll start high level before I come back to you, Director Khaim.

Referencing the document that was put together, the 2019 to 2024 budget review, as well as the current budget, I've got some questions.

It is good and important that we have seen that between the 2019 and 2024 budget for arts and culture, there has been an increase by about 54%.

And this was mostly in response to the pandemic and the fact that arts organizations who rely on in-person events could not legally or for good public health reasons have their events held.

The one place that I see in this 2019 to 24 reduction here was to the cultural space, but that was because that work was shifted to the cultural space agency public development authority.

And so I know that whenever we make reductions in departments, it is challenging, but I'm really glad to see that we're still able to support our arts and culture.

For Director Eder and Director Noble, the question that I'll be asking is regarding the King Street Station rent increases from the Seattle Department of Transportation.

I can follow up with you later about that.

I'm gonna just make some high-level comments and then make one last call to see if Councilmember Wu, chair of the committee, has anything to share, which is, Seattle has an incredibly dense arts and culture space.

We have a high density of these spaces, from Fifth Avenue Theater now we don't call it Cinerama anymore, but to the Moore Theater, to the Seattle Art Museum, to Benaroya Hall, to Seattle Center.

This has the most density in our region, and it's so incredibly important that we support our arts community.

From the people who make the art to the organizations, I know that the Taproot Theater in my district continues to see reduced attendance and increased cost.

They've had to scale back their programming to be able to keep their doors open, and this is not sustainable.

And so we have to do as much as we can.

As Councilmember Kettle mentioned, we do have the opportunity for private fundraising, and I really appreciate the Paul Allen Foundation for stepping in.

to help our arts and culture community.

To Council Member Morales' point regarding FIFA and the World Cup coming, hiring local artists is incredibly important, and I know that in my conversations with them, they will and have already started making sure they didn't make the same mistake as the MLB All-Star Game, which overlooked the Chinatown International District restaurants, hotels, and activities in that area.

And so I know, because it is so central in everything that we do, It was really unfortunate what MLB ended up doing for us here for Chinatown International District, and I'm really happy to hear that FIFA is already thinking about the local FIFA chapter, not FIFA International.

The local FIFA chapter is already working to address what had occurred.

I don't have any questions for the committee table here.

I just appreciate you all coming in.

I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Wu for final comments, and then we'll move on.

Thank you all for coming today.

SPEAKER_12

I thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for all that you do.

You are the, I like to think the foundation in the arts and culture really informs a lot of our other departments in terms of mental health, public safety.

You have your hand in a lot of things inadvertently, if not directly, but how the city moves forward.

So thank you for all the work that you do and I'm looking forward to working through this budget process.

to implement all these action items and hopefully call out anything that may need to be addressed or any concerns.

SPEAKER_24

Thank you, Council Member.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you.

Well, we really appreciate it.

Do you have anything else to share with us?

Nope.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you for having us.

And I'm hoping to invite everyone to our next first Thursday where we will have partnership with the Station Space Block Party.

It's going to be great.

SPEAKER_04

Fantastic.

Thanks for coming down.

Clerk, will you read the short title of the next item into the record, please?

SPEAKER_18

Agenda item two, Office of Economic Development.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, and as our next presentation comes on up to the committee table, now I will share some introductory remarks.

Since you've already read the item into the record, thanks for your patience last time.

I just wanna share, colleagues, I have made the request of our city budget office and department directors to be in person moving forward.

I appreciate your patience with us as we allow Director Kayim to participate remotely.

With that, we have Director Mark McIntyre with us today.

Good morning.

I'll let you take it away from here and introduce the table.

SPEAKER_26

Do we have the presentation?

While we're working on that, I guess I'll just take a moment It's great to see all of you and just say, this is always an exciting time.

This is always an exciting time.

I know we've got some tough decisions ahead of us, but this is a really great chance to shine a light on all the work that we do, the impact that we're having, how we're stewarding public dollars and what we'd like to do next, especially with all the acrimony at the national level to be able to think about local impacts, work together, And even when we don't agree, that's okay, but it's a very healthy discourse.

So just want to express my thanks for the work that you guys are doing here in budget season.

So I want to start with an overview reminder of the Office of Economic Development.

Our purpose here at OED is to shape the future of Seattle's economy, making it more equitable, prosperous, and competitive.

Part of how we do that work is through the development of our future of Seattle economy agenda, which you'll recall we developed in cooperation with many community stakeholders.

It's our strategic framework for economic recovery and development for the city, and again, expressing thanks for you guys codifying it with legislation.

Similarly, we've reorganized our department in alignment with the future of Seattle economy agenda, including centralizing key functions and adding new ones like our city navigation team.

Over the past couple years, we've added lots of talented and experienced staff.

Part of that was a recognition of how understaffed OED's been in the past.

To do our work, we want to strike a balance between supporting our local economy and then thinking about how we're competitive both as a city and a region in the global economy.

Locally, we invest in all the neighborhoods in Seattle.

We serve at least 85 businesses in each district.

Our investments are greater in some districts, but that's in large part because we take an equity lens when we think about where we're investing and creating access to our programs.

And a lot of those underserved communities fall along geographic lines.

To give you a taste of some of our work, we've talked about some of these programs in the past, but I think it's good to just give you a reminder of the impact at the front end.

So our Business Community Ownership Fund, which is in partnership with Grow in America, and is the first in the nation small business funding model that puts small business owners on a pathway to long term control and ownership of their commercial spaces, which is really important, especially as Seattle continues to become more and more expensive.

We're very excited that in District 3, we'll soon be opening Donna Moody's next iteration of her lovely restaurant concept, Marjorie.

That's coming up soon, so we're very excited about that.

We have our accounting and business consulting program, which is helping businesses like Otter Space and D6.

Of course, now this is when Councilmember Strauss is no longer here to hear me talk about D6.

But this is a really important program, because we know that small businesses need help, wraparound support services for some of their business needs.

Our tenant improvement funds, which recently provided $100,000 to the Spanish Bilingual Immersion Childcare Center, Edu Together.

So that's helping a business relocate to a new facility in Delridge.

And it's covering the change of use and full renovation of that space to meet all childcare building facility requirements, which you probably know are very difficult and challenging.

We hear a lot about access to capital being a concern for small businesses.

So our capital access program, in cooperation with many of our community lenders, lowers the cost of borrowing by paying down 20% of the principal on qualifying loans, essentially making that capital cheaper.

One of the recipients of these awards was Mark Thai Food Box, which is in the University District.

We're also working with our partners, prioritizing the pathway to become business improvement areas.

We met with you earlier this year talking about the value of those BIAs, and we'll talk about that a little bit later in our presentation.

But some of this work includes exploring starting new BIAs in the Rainier Beach, Othello, Atlantic neighborhoods, and then Lake City and District 5. And then finally, you'll hear a lot about our work revitalizing downtown, in particular with programs like Seattle Restored, where we're helping fill vacant storefronts.

Hopefully you've noticed the new tenants in the old Bergman luggage building on 3rd, the Base Camp Studios, which has gallery space on the lower front.

I see Councilmember Kettle giving a thumbs up.

So it's providing 15 artists with studio space in the second floor, and then that gallery space on the first floor.

IN ADDITION TO ALL THE WORK THAT WE'RE DOING THROUGH OUR PROGRAMS, WE'RE ALSO LEADING SOME MAJOR CITY INITIATIVES LIKE THE MAYOR'S DOWNTOWN ACTIVATION PLAN.

TO DO ALL THIS, YOU KNOW THAT I AM A TRUE BELIEVER IN PARTNERSHIPS, ESPECIALLY PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS.

A LOT OF WHAT WE'VE BEEN DOING IS TRYING TO RE-ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL PARTNERS AS A HIGH-PERFORMING ORGANIZATION THAT GETS MEANINGFUL WORK DONE.

As such, we've also recognized that we can't do it just as a city alone.

So thinking about how do we leverage our city dollars with other public, private, and philanthropic funds to really maximize and deepen the impact.

So that's just a quick snapshot of kind of who OED is and how some of the programs are having an impact out in the community.

I mentioned the downtown activation plan.

You know that this is one of the biggest priorities for the mayor.

It's also the biggest economic development play that we can make.

Part of that is because downtown has approximately half of all the economic activity in the city, including 55% of the jobs.

It's now a neighborhood more so than ever with over 110,000 residents and more people moving in.

It's a huge driver for visitors and tourism.

And through the downtown activation plan, we've really seen progress over the last few years.

You'll notice here on the third bullet, it says people are coming downtown, which might sound simple.

but you'll recall that that's our main measurement.

Downtown runs on people, and so if we're getting more people to come downtown, then that's how we're measuring progress in all the many different ways.

Here are the seven goals for the Downtown Activation Plan.

I'm not gonna go through them, you've seen them before, but just recognizing that it's a multifaceted challenge, revitalizing downtown, which is why we've created a multifaceted plan.

And all these are interconnected and designed to bring people downtown in new and interesting ways.

As such, we've worked with the taking kind of a novel approach across departmental approach to how we're going to advance funding for downtown activation activities.

It's not just OED, there are seven departments involved in the downtown activation plan sub cabinets.

So we've proposed a budget of I think it's about $8 million in 2025 and five and a half million dollars in 2026. This is not all of the funding that's going to downtown activation.

There are some baseline budget items in some of the different department budgets that happen downtown.

And then I'll also note that there are some funds related to downtown activity in the proposed transportation levy.

But for the budget, Quote unquote DAP budget.

A lot of it's focusing on activating public spaces, including our fabulous waterfronts, which is opening the Overlook Walk next week.

Hopefully you guys will make it over there.

As well as thinking about investments in transforming Westlake Plaza, which really, really want to make our public square.

We've called it the heart of the city in our downtown activation plan.

And especially thinking about World Cup coming.

That's just a phenomenal opportunity to really transform that space.

You heard earlier from the Office of Arts and Culture and the incredible work that they're doing downtown.

So more art and beautification throughout downtown.

The mural fest that happened in the Belltown District was excellent.

We want to see more of that type of activity happening.

More enhanced cleaning efforts.

As I mentioned, activating vacant storefronts is near and dear to our heart.

And then all of this thinking about how we're getting downtown ready for the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup.

So all that's reflected in the downtown activation plan budget.

Moving on to OED's budget, you'll see here a summary table of our proposed 2025 and 2026 against the 2024 adopted.

So we maintain, in fact, we grow a little bit our FTE count while the general fund and payroll expense tax dollars drop a little bit.

So we're ending up with about $30.3 million in 2025 and $30.4 in 2026. However, I do want to put that in context historically.

So if you look here over the last 10 years, OED, since the payroll expense tax started coming as part of that economic revitalization, OED's budget has grown significantly.

So the proposed budget for 2025 and 2026 is still quite a bit higher than years prior to the pandemic.

Before I get to some of the add backs, I do wanna talk a little bit just about our thinking for how we constructed our budget.

First, we prioritize staff.

They are our most valuable asset.

You've heard me say it time and time again, but OED has historically been understaffed.

So part of the growth that we've had over the past few years has just been trying to get to kind of a stable level.

As we're working hard to rebuild and grow our team to effectively shape Seattle's economy, that's why you don't see any staff reductions on our proposals because we need every single person.

That staff has allowed us to be smarter with how we've handled the growth in funds over the past 10 years.

It's also increased our efficiency so we can focus on how do we make our programs more responsive and accessible.

We've prioritized staff through our budget.

Second is we evaluated impact, so looking at which of our programs and strategies have the most direct impact on shaping the future of an inclusive and globally competitive economy.

Which strategies and programs are doing that impact?

Which ones are additive, i.e. other organizations or other jurisdictions provide something similar?

So we really tried to look at the outcomes of our programs funds, not just kind of what's happened before, but really what are we driving towards.

And then finally, we prioritize matching funds.

In this current budget environment, those funds are more valuable to us than other funds because that allows us to directly leverage more dollars, which creates more lasting and deeper impact.

On this slide, you'll see that in 2024, we had a number of one-time funds, around $18 million of one-time funds.

We've worked with the mayor's office to add back about $11 million of those.

So that includes technical assistance.

I mentioned that earlier with the accounting, legal, and other types of kind of technical assistance that we offer.

Our business community ownership fund, creating that pathway to owning commercial space.

Our capital access program, increasing access and making it cheaper to get capital for businesses, our commercial affordability work, including the tenant improvement fund in Seattle restored, our neighborhood capacity, which in this budget, we're largely focusing on pathway to BIA formation, language access to make sure that we're doing a good job of making sure that people can access our programs and understand what we're doing.

And then as I mentioned, the downtown activation plan.

So those are all the add backs into our budget.

We did have to make some tough choices, but we really wanted to use these choices as an opportunity to pause and reflect and make sure that we're having, again, the deepest impact that we can have.

So for workforce, there's a fairly dramatic scale down, an 86% change from our 2024 budget of workforce investments.

We would continue investing in the Workforce Development Council, which is our regional backbone for our workforce system, as well as through the MLK Labor hiring hall, virtual hiring hall.

We would pause all other investments, and we are currently working with the mayor's office to do a citywide assessment of all of our city investments into workforce programs.

Through our analysis, there are about 15 different departments that have some sort of workforce investment totaling up to about $17 million.

What we really want to do is take a look at all of that.

And again, try to think about the impact and the outcomes that we're getting from those investments.

The timing is really critical because at this moment, the Workforce Development Council is also undergoing a regional strategic plan refresh.

So as they think about the entire regional system, of which the city is a big part of it, we can sync up our workforce strategic plan with the regional strategic plan.

This is all coming at a time when there is a generational amount of federal dollars on the table, much of it going towards workforce development and some of the new opportunities in the clean energy economy.

So the timing is perfect for us to actually take this pause at what we're doing and what we're trying to get from those investments, sync it up with the region and then go big after some of those federal granting opportunities.

So we think that while this is a pretty significant change for our current budget, we think that this is the smart move to make in kind of turning a problem into an opportunity.

The second notable reduction is around our place-based capacity building.

As I mentioned earlier, we're taking the funding that we are proposing in our 2025 and 2026, and really focusing that on pathways to become BIAs.

You'll see here on the map some of the communities where we've got established BIAs.

That's the ones that have the perimeter outline.

The yellow dots are the six areas that are exploring becoming BIAs.

So again, Lake City, the central area, Rainier Beach, Pike Pine District on Capitol Hill, Othello, and Atlantic are the six neighborhoods that we're currently working with on exploring that, as well as Finney Greenwood is currently in process of forming a BIA.

Our whole goal with neighborhood capacity building is trying to help neighborhoods REACH ECONOMIC SELF-DETERMINATION.

WE REALLY WANT TO EMPOWER THEM TO CONTROL THE RESOURCES OF THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY, AND WE FOUND THAT THE BIA IS THE BEST TOOL TO DO THAT.

WE BRIEFED YOU ON THIS EARLIER, BUT THERE'S A STARK CONTRAST BETWEEN NEIGHBORHOODS THAT HAD BIA SUPPORT DURING THE PANDEMIC AND THOSE THAT DIDN'T, AND WE'D LIKE TO GROW THE NUMBER OF BIAs ACROSS THE CITY.

The final notable reduction is just scaling down the amount of funding in our community wealth building program.

So this includes a lot of our commercial affordability work as well as our capital access work.

What this would result, and this is also where we have a lot of our matching fund dollars located.

So we really try to protect those matching dollars as mentioned earlier in our overarching thinking.

WHAT THIS REALLY RESULTS IN IS JUST A REDUCTION IN THE NUMBER OF PROJECTS THAT WE CAN DO FOR OUR TENANT IMPROVEMENT FUND AND OUR BUSINESS COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP FUND.

WE WOULD SUSTAIN THE FUNDING FOR SEATTLE RESTORED, BUT JUST SCALE DOWN THE NUMBER OF PROJECTS IN 2025, 2026 FOR THE TI FUND AND BUSINESS COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP FUND.

I WANT TO CALL OUT HERE OUR STOREFRONT REPAIR FUND.

THIS HAS BEEN QUITE A SUCCESSFUL PROGRAM.

YOU'LL RECALL WE Well, first, it was in response to a huge need.

We hear from businesses all the time.

You hear from businesses all the time that are dealing with storefront property damage.

We wanted to have as direct a response as possible.

The timing was right because we had some federal relief dollars that we were able to move into this new program, about $1.8 million.

And hold on.

THIS IS HUGELY IMPORTANT TO US.

IT'S HUGELY IMPORTANT TO THE MAYOR.

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS THAT THE FEDERAL DOLLARS HAVE EXPIRED AT THE END OF THIS YEAR.

SO WE'VE PAUSED ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS TO THE PROGRAM AND THEN ALSO DISBURSED ANY REMAINING FUNDS TO LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS TO SUPPORT THEIR HYPERLOCAL STOREFRONT REPAIR FUND PROGRAMS THAT COMPLEMENTED THE WORK THAT WE WERE DOING.

In the end, we were able to issue over 800 grants to individual businesses, and we are currently right now, with a lot of urgency, exploring options to fund the program.

We did look at another federal funding source that the city works with, the Community Development Block Grant dollars, CDBG dollars.

What we found in that exploration is that the federal reporting requirements for that would make it so cumbersome for a business to APPLY THAT IT LIKELY WASN'T GOING TO BE WORTH IT TO THE BUSINESS AND IT WOULD REALLY SHRINK ACCESS FOR WHO IS ABLE TO ACCESS THOSE FUNDS JUST BECAUSE OF THE BARRIERS OF ENTRY FOR DOING IT.

SO WHAT I'D LIKE TO DO IS PROPOSE THAT WE COME BACK TO YOU BY THE END OF THE YEAR WITH AN UPDATE ON WHERE WE ARE AND HOPEFULLY A PROPOSED SOLUTION FOR HOW WE'RE GOING TO FUND THE STOREFRONT REPAIR FUND PROGRAM.

WE KNOW THIS IS A PRIORITY FOR ALL OF YOU.

IT'S A PRIORITY FOR US.

BUT WE'D LIKE A LITTLE BIT MORE TIME TO INVESTIGATE SOME OPTIONS AND THEN COME BACK TO YOU WITH A PROPOSAL.

Here's a fun one.

We get a significant addition.

Special events, again, similar to the OED office as a whole, our special events office has historically been understaffed.

We currently process over 400 special events permits annually.

That's seeing a 20% growth in number of permits processed year over year since 2021. So the good news is communities want to have more special events.

We are putting on more activities activating the entire city.

The hard part is we're facing a lot of just capacity pressure on our end to actually process those permits.

So in our proposal we're adding two new staff dedicated to our special events office.

And again the timing is really good because while we're seeing the growth in our special events permitting here locally, we're also anticipating all of the special events permitting that's going to happen for the FIFA Men's World Cup.

So this capacity increase comes at a really opportune time to both address our local need as well as setting us up for success with FIFA Men's World Cup coming.

That is the overview of our Office of Economic Development 2025-2026 budget.

While we're seeing a reduction in our resources.

We're still very committed to shaping the future of Seattle's economy.

We have a great team working on this.

We've reorganized ourselves to be more effective and more efficient.

We're working with other partners within the city as well as externally in new and really exciting ways.

So we're very excited about this budget proposal and I welcome your questions.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Director Mackintyre.

And I realize, did we have an introduction of you, sir?

SPEAKER_03

No, I'm Joe Regis.

I'm the finance director for OED.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

Anything else to add?

Nothing that Markham didn't cover.

Fantastic.

I'm going to turn it over to Council President Nelson, and then I see we've got Council Member Moore and Council Member Kettle in the queue.

Council President.

SPEAKER_23

Thank you very much for your presentation.

So...

I'll speak closely into this mic, hopefully you can hear me.

There are basically two ways to solve for a deficit, reduce spending or increase revenue.

And for the latter, we most often think about raising taxes, right?

But another way to increase revenue is to grow the tax base altogether.

And you do that by attracting new businesses and supporting existing ones.

And that is fundamentally what I think of when I think about economic development and the role of the Office of Economic Development.

And so I think the last thing we should do in a deficit is to hobble the department that's responsible for economic development.

Anyway, while the payroll tax revenues keep exceeding expectations, sales tax and B&O tax revenue reflect business activity across sectors.

And according to the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts, projected sales tax revenues for 2025 and 2026 went down 4.4 million and 8.5 million, respectively.

And that's between the April and August forecasts.

And so that's a bad sign.

You see the same trend in business and occupation tax.

So more than just helping businesses thrive and generate taxable income, OED does a lot more than that.

Just riffing off your website, the purpose of the Office of Economic Development is to shape an economically prosperous, diverse, just, and resilient city with a guiding principle that an inclusive economy is most competitive.

So that just brings me to the sad observation that it looks like you're taking a 19% cut overall, right?

I'm seeing lots.

I was listening to this presentation.

I'm getting to my questions.

I was listening to this presentation to hear where this cut will hit hardest and how that may impact our values and our efforts around anti-displacement, community wealth building, job creation, where it's needed most.

Can you please tell me?

Ballpark.

When you spoke of you try to match state and federal funds, can you quantify how much you're not going to be able to do because you might not have that money to match external resources?

SPEAKER_26

So you're asking how much of the matching funds got impacted with the proposed reductions?

SPEAKER_23

And how many projects or what would be a concrete example of what that would reduce?

SPEAKER_26

Yeah, so a concrete example would just be the business community ownership fund.

So we opened Law Union Studios over on McClellan.

And then, as I mentioned, Marjorie is the second project that's opening in the Midtown Center in District 3. And so it would just be a fewer number of those projects.

SPEAKER_23

How many projects have you been?

SPEAKER_26

How many projects have you been in jeopardy?

Have you been already?

We've only done two projects.

SPEAKER_23

Okay.

SPEAKER_26

So, again, this is kind of a newer program.

It's something that we're trying to build a pipeline for because these projects are highly complex.

They take a lot of time.

They have multiple partners involved.

And so we need to be able to kind of forecast our resource base to start those projects and be confident that we can follow through on them.

The last thing we want to do is start projects that we then can't fund.

So with the reduction in funds, it just causes us to go back, review, and kind of reduce the number of projects that we think we can put in the pipeline.

I don't have an exact number for you, just because each of the projects has a different amount of funding going to them.

But it just changes our calculation for projects going to the pipeline.

SPEAKER_23

My second question was around the tenant improvement program because that is really hard.

Those are hard loans to get for a small business, especially small businesses that lack the equity that many other businesses have.

And I know that you targeted that support to primarily black and brown entrepreneurs.

So can you tell me about your anticipated impacts there?

SPEAKER_26

Yeah, so each of those grant awards is around $100,000.

So for however much the reduction is divided by 100,000, and that's how much fewer projects we would be doing in 2025, 2026 for that program.

SPEAKER_23

A million dollar reduction, I think it is.

SPEAKER_26

Yeah, so 10 projects.

SPEAKER_23

Okay, that's all my questions for now.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Council President.

I think Council Member Stocker got you a cough drop.

Do you need another one?

All right, all right.

Council Member Moore, you're up next, followed by Council Member Kettle, Council Member Morales, Council Member Saka, and Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_22

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to thank you very much for the presentation.

I wanted to echo, really, the comments of Council President that there are two ways to solve for deficit, increase revenue, or grow tax base, or do both.

Actually, I suppose there are three ways.

But it does trouble me that you know there there's a presentation there are three slides dedicated to improvements for downtown which is clearly important it is a huge economic engine but i think all of us would agree up here that economic development is happening all over the city and we really have to encourage that economic development particularly for the local businesses, like in District 5 and District 2, where we have a lot of businesses being started by black and brown communities, immigrant and refugee communities.

You know, that's part of why we have our equitable development initiative.

And I'm just wondering, so...

number of thoughts here.

So it is more than—Seattle is more than just downtown.

And speaking directly about District 5, you know, the cuts to the BIA is going to significantly impact.

We are trying to get—as you noted, we're in an exploratory phase for BIA in Lake City.

But when you look at the map, There are lots of BIAs in other parts of the city under exploration.

And District 5 is huge geographically.

So my thought had been we really need one sort of umbrella BIA when we could then have sort of sub-BIAs in the specific neighborhoods.

So right now, if we take that BIA away, that's going to significantly impact Lake City and all of District 5. So I'm very much concerned about that.

I'm also really concerned about the reductions to the tenant improvement funds.

Those have been incredibly helpful in District 5 in getting some of the smaller businesses basically up and running and being able to sustain them.

So, that's something else that we really need to look at.

And I'm concerned, too, about the business community ownership fund.

That's a significant fund for being able to deal with what we are seeing.

Increasing, you know, both we're in this odd situation where we have increasing commercial space vacancy, but we also have increasing commercial rent.

And how do we deal with filling the vacancies and dealing with unaffordable rents, particularly for small businesses?

And the Community Business Ownership Fund, I think, is a a creative and brilliant way to do that.

So I would like to see that fund grow, actually, not reduce.

And then, again, just looking at is there some way that we sort of siloed, like we've got our equitable development initiative, which I know is looking at housing and land development, and then we have OED, but they're not separate, right?

So maybe we need to expand the the definition of equitable development initiative to include economic development because economic development is fundamental to raising these communities and addressing historic wrongs in many of our communities.

So just like to see a more creative and thoughtful approach.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_26

Appreciate the questions and comments.

I do want to clarify that in our proposed budget, there would be no reduction for the BIA work.

So for the work we're doing with Lake City on the exploration for becoming a BIA, that would not diminish in any way in this current proposal.

Relatedly, totally appreciate that we've got to have a balance between downtown and neighborhood support.

And to that end, I'm actually really excited because Seattle Restored has been focused on downtown, but we've heard a lot of interest from other neighborhoods.

And so it's perfect that you asked this question because we're actually going to be expanding Seattle Restored coming this fall into D5, into the Lake City neighborhood.

So more of that to come, like where we can kind of learn about program effectiveness in one neighborhood and then grow it and scale it for other neighborhoods seems to be a really good model that we've deployed.

Finally, on your point about kind of the weird siloing that happens due to the nature of kind of how we're organized as a city government, I couldn't agree more.

And I think that there's a real opportunity to make some policy choices about how we invest in placemaking in a more coordinated fashion.

You talked about commercial rents.

We talk a lot with the Office of Housing because they're helping fund and build these affordable housing developments that often have commercial space on that first floor.

how can we do a better job of getting upstream of those projects and deploying some of our know-how to help fill those spaces or build them out in ways that are going to work for businesses?

So I really think, and especially with Sound Transit 3 coming on where we're going to have these incredible opportunities around transit-oriented development, for the city to rethink how we're doing placemaking in a more coordinated and thoughtful fashion.

So I couldn't agree more and would be happy to talk to you more about that because I think we have some thoughts in that matter.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you both.

SPEAKER_08

Up next is Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Thank you, Director Markham.

Really appreciate your presentation and Mr. Rivas for being here as well, even though you didn't get a chance to say anything.

I just wanted to note a few things.

First, a thank you for the Downtown Activation Program efforts thus far.

It's really important.

I like the shout out for Base Camp.

What we need, we have this throughout the city to Council Member Morris, but we need people like Nick who have this kind of energy and vision and then just relentless pursuit of it.

And that's what Base Camp, and particularly when it's combined with other efforts like the lighting project and so forth, we bring these things together.

Talking about silos, it's the opposite.

You know, bringing these pieces together, it makes an impact and gives results.

So thank you for that.

I also wanted to say thank you for your comments on the storefront program.

I think it's important to look at what we can do on that front because...

You know, it shows that we care.

You don't know, in my previous life as a community public safety person, I would talk to business owners who have been hit again and again and again.

And it's incredibly emotional.

I mean, I talked to one, and yes, it's hard, and the business owner's talking about trying to go through the insurance.

That very night at 4 a.m., they got hit a second time.

And then I go in a day later and, you know, it's like, wow, because they're just, they feel it.

And I felt it.

And, you know, here's the thing.

I talked to the West Precinct captain and Captain Strand gave this business owner a call.

Massive impact, positive impact.

And this storefront program is similar in a sense that it shows that we care, it shows that we're trying to help.

And I think it's important to find some way to express that support in a meaningful way for a business that we're trying to keep for all the reasons that Council President talked about, not just from the business, but for the community as well.

So very important to look at that.

And I also...

Appreciate the special events piece, particularly with the lead up of the World Cup.

It's going to be so important.

And for those who may not realize, the FIFA World Cup is coming.

And as we sit here, all of a sudden it feels like we only have a year and a half left.

Before it was like, oh, we've got a couple years.

Now it's like a year and a half almost.

And it's going to come quick.

And as somebody who went to a game in 94, I went to Germany in 06, I recognize the level of effort that takes, like when I was in Germany for the opening round, the two weeks.

Incredible.

And going to matches in Berlin and Stuttgart.

We need to be prepared.

But here's another thing, too, and I'm going to be meeting with UK folks.

I'd really like to have our England...

have a base camp.

I don't want to jinx them, but have a base camp here in Seattle.

I raised this because If people don't understand the base camp concept, where teams will come two or three weeks early to acclimatize and so forth, if we get a major country like England or Germany on one hand, or Brazil, Argentina, we're going to have weeks.

I mean, the press corps out of England itself could be like 30 Taylor Swift concerts.

So we need to be mindful of these other pieces of the World Cup and really prepare and encourage their participation.

I'm getting a chuckle from my colleague to my right on that point.

But anyways, I just wanted to highlight that for my colleagues that this is going to be not just, you know, the six sporting events.

It's going to be a month because we'll definitely get a base camp.

We'll probably get a major company.

We have Seattle Sounders, our own Seattle Sounders with fantastic facilities.

It's going to be attractive to a major participant.

So fingers crossed on that in terms of who gets selected.

Um, coming back, uh, the BIAs, um, definitely need to support, you know, there's such great examples, obviously in terms of council member Moore's comment, D7, my district is obviously well covered.

Um, and I've talked to like in Soto with Ms. Goodman and you see what they can do.

We just had the, you know, the vote for West Seattle.

Um, this is activation.

This is engagement on a different kind of angle to what I was talking about with base camp.

And at the bottom of the line, all the work that we're doing on public safety, if we don't have the activation bringing the people in, whether it's through the DAP or through a BIA event or efforts or arts and culture from our last briefing or sports, talking about the World Cup, if we don't have that activation to fill in the blanks, the spaces in between in terms of our efforts on public safety, it's basically a step forward and two steps back.

We have to get the activation.

And so I see Your effort, OEDs, working along those lines, so thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Councilmember Kell.

Anything to share regarding that?

SPEAKER_26

Just to build on what Councilmember Moore was saying about kind of creative placemaking, I do think that that stretch along 3rd is a great microcosm of that, where we're working on activating those storefronts.

We talked about what's going on at Bergman Luggage, then there's the Cannonball going into the old Bed Bath & Beyond.

pairing that with the lighting and some of the kind of built environment changes around there, that's the kind of holistic effort that we want to see.

And that required us working with SDOT and other partners within the city in a new and different way.

So I think that's just emblematic of like what we can achieve.

Let's just scale that up and do it more broadly across the city.

SPEAKER_04

And Council President, I see you've got your hand up.

Colleagues, I offer committee chairs the ability to respond to anything that they've heard during the discussion.

Is that in response or is that a separate topic?

Great, I'll come back.

You've got last word on this committee, so we'll come back to you.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Up next is Council Member Morales followed by Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_21

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

I have maybe four questions that I wanted to dive into.

First of all, I do want to thank Council Member Moore.

You're speaking my language when we're talking about the need for economic development not to be missing from the conversation around housing.

commercial development and all the things.

Markham, you and I have talked about this over and over again.

So I want to start with the question about BIA formation, which is fine.

I know that they play an important role in some of our neighborhood business districts.

But I'd like to hear your plans for supporting other business-type entities.

And I ask because I was meeting with the Chamber recently and some of the business organizations from my district, the Mount Baker Hub Alliance, the Beacon Business Alliance.

The Chamber had no idea that these groups existed.

And they do really important work connecting real estate businesses projects with small business owners who are looking for rent and helping navigate public health permitting.

We went to La Union and heard all about the things that were happening when Baja Bistro was trying to come in.

So Beacon Business Alliance really supported that very extended development process.

They are not a BIA.

They're not interested in being in a BIA.

And they still need the city to think of them not as recipients of grants, but as partners in all the work that we're trying to do in the city.

And so I just say that because I think it's important to understand that not everybody wants to be a BIA, and they're still doing very important work that we need to honor and partner with them to get that job done.

I'll leave it at that.

I want to go to slide eight, where you're talking about workforce development.

And I will say, I need to understand this much better.

because in 2022, I added a slide in the budget to review the city's investments in workforce development, knowing that across departments, we have pockets of workforce development investments here and there, but no overarching strategy for what we're trying to accomplish with that work.

So that was 2022. You and I spoke early last year about the strategic plan OED was creating.

I need to understand how the work you did in 23 and 24, what that accomplished and why you need a third year of assessment for what's happening here.

And then I further need to understand why there is a proposal to eliminate or dramatically reduce our workforce investments.

And I know you spoke to this a little bit earlier, but that...

It wasn't good enough.

SPEAKER_26

It is hard to work across departments.

And so part of the time that it's taking is just reflecting the challenge of working with departments who are actively deploying resources with taking the time out to assess and look at those in a holistic manner, which is why we had to change strategies and work directly with the mayor's office to have that leadership put onto the assessment and make sure that we're actually working towards a citywide strategic plan and not just an OED plan for workforce development.

Because that won't actually address some of the systemic issues that we've identified in our current workforce efforts.

So part of this was just recalibrating the scale of change that needed to happen for citywide workforce.

And then as I mentioned, we started investing in, I believe it was 2022, started reinvesting in the WDC as the regional backbone.

And so we've been spending a lot of time and effort into making sure that that organization is healthy and growing in the way that we need it to, to be kind of that umbrella organization for the region.

That's partly a reflection of how the federal government likes to allocate funds for workforce.

They like to do it at the regional level, not at the city by city level.

And so part of our play here again is to unlock more additional resources for workforce development, particularly for some of these new types of jobs, future industry growth type jobs.

And so setting up the, it's been this parallel effort of trying to set up the Regional Workforce Council to be the backbone and then do the assessment and reorganization at the city level and sync those two things up.

It has taken a long time, but we are now at that moment where we can actually do that and have the mayor's office working with us as well as the Workforce Development Council and their board working with us in a syncopated and coordinated manner.

So I agree with you, it has taken a long time.

But part of that is just a reflection of kind of the systemic nature of these challenges and really trying to organize things so that they work together and we're not kind of further fragmenting the system by doing one piece out of sync with another piece and then hoping that they link up later.

We need to be more intentional about making sure They're coordinated from the get-go, from kind of the planning stage.

SPEAKER_21

Well, I appreciate that.

I mean, part of the reason I started this conversation and put the sly in is because I was hearing from the Workforce Development Council that there wasn't alignment and that the city was actually moving in the direction of things that are sort of, I don't know, counter, but not the same direction that the regional partners.

Yeah, yeah.

So if that's the case, are you working with them now?

I mean, it sounds like it took two years to get there, but is there?

SPEAKER_26

Very much so.

So I serve as the mayor's representative on the board for the Workforce Development Council.

So deeply involved in both.

We've been working on rebuilding the board from kind of where it was to a more effective and engaged board.

And then getting commitments to this regional strategic plan refresh which again isn't just for the WDC ideal it's for all the regional players, so that includes us the ports, the county.

Many folks in our education sector in our industry sectors so part of it was just the relationship building and the trust building with the WDC to actually get the buy in on this type of system revision approach.

We're just now at a point where we can actually start fitting the pieces together, but it has taken a lot of time to get the pieces even on the same board.

SPEAKER_21

So sort of related to that, I'm very nervous about reduction in the jobs initiative, the impact on SYEP.

So can you talk a little bit about what those impacts might be and how we might work with the WDC to make sure that folks are protected?

SPEAKER_26

yeah I mean it's there's no way to sugarcoat it like there's going to be a dramatic impact, particularly Seattle jobs initiative with this proposal and we've talked with their team.

And some of their board members to let them know about this proposed impact and that we want to make sure that we're working with them to try to mitigate it as much as possible.

I think you're right that there are some functions that the SJI has done in the past that the WDC could absorb, and that's part of the system reorganization is thinking about who's taking on which responsibility and are they in the best position to actually help those communities.

So I think this is part of the work that we need to do, but there's no way to sugarcoat that there will be an impact in the services that we're funding for SJI to provide.

It looks like Director Eater has something to chime in here.

SPEAKER_25

I just wanted to underscore what Director McIntyre was saying and put it in the larger context where we were facing a very large general fund deficit in particular and we had to make difficult choices.

This was an area that has been a priority of the mayor's and was a really hard choice.

It was one that we were willing to do in the context of the realignment and the restructuring and the synchronizing work that Director McIntyre was describing.

But again, I just want to emphasize how reluctantly we had to make this and other hard choices in the mayor's proposed budget.

SPEAKER_21

Just one more question, Chair.

So going to slide 10, community wealth building reductions, I will say this is really disappointing to see.

And quite frankly, it is exactly what small businesses and the generational wealth building community roundtable feared when this work moved from the Department of Neighborhoods to OED.

when we started talking about this in 2022. And the fear is that there is no, it demonstrates that there's no real commitment to investing in generational wealth building infrastructure.

You know, there's a lot of focus on downtown, there's a lot of focus on key industries, but our small businesses need the city's attention too.

And programs like the Tenant Improvement Program, the Business Community Ownership Fund, these were meant specifically to target small businesses that are owned by people of color, and they're the first ones that are cut.

So this is really problematic.

It's unacceptable, to be honest.

And I think the fact that This program that was really intended to try to engage OED to move away from focusing so much only on key industries and support our small businesses better, support businesses owned by communities of color, support immigrant-owned businesses, help them understand how to build their infrastructure, build their back-of-house functions, build growth planning and strategies for connecting, becoming...

you know, places where the city could go to source for food, materials, product.

That's what they were asking for.

And so to see this just cut entirely from the budget is a real slap in the face to our small businesses.

And I would really encourage all of us to rethink this strategy.

SPEAKER_26

So I want to clarify that this is still the largest area of expenditure for OED.

Of the five pillars of our future Seattle economy, this is still by far and away the largest amount of money that we're spending.

So it is a reduction and I agree with you that doesn't come easily.

I do not think that is a reflection of our strong commitment to supporting BIPOC business owners.

That is essentially our thesis is that we can, the city in our role can have an impact on generational wealth and community wealth.

by business growth.

That's why we have these programs.

So none of this has to do with the generational wealth initiative transfer from the Department of Neighborhoods, which was a separate program than what we're talking about scaling here.

And I guess I'll just push back that this is still, our commitment, if you look at a pie chart of our expenditures, is still heavily, heavily weighted towards community wealth building.

SPEAKER_04

Well, we'll keep talking.

Great.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Up next is Council Member Rivera, followed by Council Member Wu and Council Member Hollingsworth.

Over to you, Vice Chair.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

Oh, sorry.

Was Sokka first?

I think Council Member Sokka was first.

SPEAKER_04

I can't use Zoom.

It's only been four years of Zoom.

My apologies, Council Member Sokka.

Over to you.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, goodness.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Director Markham.

Or McIntyre, excuse me.

SPEAKER_26

Either one works.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Okay.

So a couple questions.

I guess first, you know, no surprise at this point, whenever I see or hear World Cup, my ears perk up.

And so thank you for, I guess, the bullet there on slide four.

But I still do have that pending question.

requests, and I know we're kind of tracking, monitoring.

Can I get a nod that will be followed up on?

Okay, perfect, perfect.

SPEAKER_06

I've received information while I've been sitting here that is responsive, so we're not in real time.

SPEAKER_02

Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Thank you, thank you.

All right.

Next question, storefront repair front.

So thank you for kind of walking through a plan and process that you envision.

Yes, you are absolutely correct.

There are a lot of us that are interested in further exploring what's possible in light of some notable challenges.

But for the storefront repair front, repair fund can you talk more about some of the outcomes that we've seen in terms of data so how many applied for the fund in each year and how many were ultimately supported high-level what are the most common types of requests for use of these fund dollars and then Any program or project implementing it yields data.

And so just be curious to better understand on a map where are some of the hot zones from either a request standpoint application standpoint and or supported standpoint i mean i think the best deliverable would love to see uh a a kind of heat map someone to actually map it out but you know that that's can be a time intensive process uh and in the absence of that would love to better understand high level where where some of those hot zone regions are and then like It's not just a OED challenge that yields data, including actionable data that can and could and should be shared with other departments.

How are you leveraging that data and sharing it to make better decisions and ultimately achieve better outcomes for people and small business owners in this case?

SPEAKER_25

With the chair's permission, I'd like to just jump the queue here and note that we are happy to provide as much of that information as we can pull together.

I suspect that we don't have it all readily available.

We are trying just to be respectful of your time.

We've limited the number of slides and information that we came prepared to immediately answer, but we will absolutely follow up with whatever data that we have that is responsive to those questions.

This is a program that we know is very popular, very well received, very successful, and the funding that I think Director McIntyre can talk to more articulately than I can.

The funding effectively ran out.

It wasn't a choice.

We didn't keep the program going.

There was federal dollars that allowed us to implement and carry forward this program over a number of years, I believe since the pandemic.

We would love to have a way to continue this program and would like to work in partnership to see if we can find some innovative ideas.

This was not funded principally because the grant dollars that were available for the program ran out.

SPEAKER_02

Got it, yeah.

That makes sense, yeah.

Thank you for tracking and monitoring these follow-ups in addition to the kind of hard data on applicants versus grants and supported applicants.

Just high-level insights on a map and how that information is being utilized beyond OED so we can get out of these silos and truly adopt and implement that one Seattle approach, the mayor is championing.

So I guess a couple other comments.

So it's been said multiple times by my esteemed colleagues here, the notion of equity and how economic development and vitality is central to uplifting people that have been historically marginalized and forgotten about.

And so, yeah, in addition to housing, health care, education, economic vitality is really important.

And one can make the case it is the most singular, most important factor in helping to achieve equity.

And personally, I've in a prior life, you know, as a lawyer, I spent a lot of time providing volunteer pro bono services for volunteers.

entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds and communities and helping them to micro entrepreneurs helping them to start and you know ultimately grow their business and you know from small janitorial services businesses to to tech and and sort of everything in between but really really important there and you know I would just love us as a city to better think about how we can have a whole holistic more holistic approach in our programming and and services that we deliver to address economic development and equity and the like.

And then finally, I too am a bit concerned about the BIA supports in the proposed budget and just want to make sure it's gonna be adequate to meet the need, not only in terms of what's on that map, but that you presented on that slide, whatever slide it was.

But I do know, for example, in my district, there are a number of communities, I think they're at their earlier stages, but that would strongly love to explore implementing a BIA in District 1. So for example, Georgetown and South Park, there are some folks and community leaders and small business owners that I'm aware of in Highland Park, that are potentially a little earlier on in that journey, in that thinking than some folks in South Park and Georgetown.

But regardless, just wanna make sure that the three communities that I mentioned and others potentially across the city are adequately supported.

So in any event, thank you.

No further questions or comments, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_26

I do want to respond about the storefront repair fund.

We do have a map, so we can provide that in fairly short order.

I will say that we worked closely with SPD to your point about where the intensity of break-ins were happening.

I think it was, we'll have to get the exact numbers for you, but I think it was about a third were happening in the DAP zone, which includes Chinatown and International District and Little Saigon.

But we are closely coordinated with them to provide information back to them as well as using their information to help us shape the program, where it was going to be deployed, so that we can kind of address those hotspots and try to get ahead of them as much as possible.

But we'll provide more information and kind of a briefing memo for you.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

And our storefront team has done a great job retaining that data.

So we have, to your point specifically around the number of applications that we receive versus actually granted.

So I think we'll be able to provide that pretty adequately.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Fantastic.

Thank you, OED.

Now, Vice Chair, sorry to get confused there.

SPEAKER_01

No worries, no worries.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being here and answering our questions.

I want to just lend my voice of support for the storefront program, and I very much appreciate my colleague, Council Member Saka, asking for data and maps because I very much, as you all know, support data and metrics that show our work to community and our taxpayers.

So I understand that the federal funds gave the ability to do more than normally we would have.

There were less restrictions on the use of those dollars than there are our city funding because of the legal gift of public funds requirements.

So I wanted to acknowledge that and this is what makes this so challenging despite the fact that we're all very or most of us are very supportive of this particular program.

And I also want to acknowledge that we need investments downtown.

I very much have supported the revitalization of downtown.

It's a huge economic engine for any city.

It's how well downtown is doing.

That's true, I think, also of our small businesses in our neighborhoods.

So it's an and approach, not or.

And I very much support that and approach and support OED's efforts.

to support our small businesses across the city.

And then my question, well, I wanted to make, I have one more comment about the BIAs, also very supportive of the BIAs.

There is a BIA in the University District, as you know, and I will say that the BIA support more than just the small businesses in their locations, in their neighborhoods.

They wind up being supports to the other nonprofits and organizations that are in the district.

Some of them are fortunate enough to have received some city funding and other funding for ambassadors.

which very much helped the corridors in our neighborhoods.

And I'm very appreciative to the BIA and the U District for being a great partner with all the businesses there, but also all the, like I said, nonprofits and other organizations and to people in general.

Most people know you can just flag down an ambassador if you need assistance, which is really another key component of our public safety.

Even though that's not their primary function, more and more they're just a good resource for folks on the ground, both downtown and in our neighborhoods that have a BIA that have ambassadors.

So very much support the BIAs.

I very much want to see, what I heard you say, Director McIntyre, was that our BIA investment will remain the same.

It's not decreasing in and of itself.

SPEAKER_26

Correct.

We're focusing our neighborhood efforts around this pathway to the BIAs.

And I guess I want to clarify that doesn't just mean organizations that are...

on the pathway, it's also just working with organizations who are even just thinking about it or curious about it.

That's where a lot of our staff work goes is kind of that early stage thinking through what does this mean.

To your point, they're not just business organizations, they're placemaking organizations.

And so really thinking holistically about what these different communities need and what role we can play to support what they want to have happen is really what we're trying to facilitate.

SPEAKER_01

That's terrific.

And Director McIntyre, are BIAs formed when a business or business organization reaches out to you to become a BIA?

SPEAKER_26

It happens, yeah, usually they reach out to us, but in our relationship building with a variety of different organizations in neighborhoods across the city, we also talk about this as an opportunity, again, to try to pique interest and start that conversation about what this means.

It can mean many different things.

If you look at the current 11 BIAs that we have, they've got vastly different kind of geographic areas and scopes.

There are some common characteristics, but Again, the whole idea here is economic self-determination for these neighborhoods and how can we as a city best support that.

SPEAKER_01

And how they can support each other because I think that's part of the BIA too is being a hub for all the businesses there to stay in contact and support each other.

And I think that's what makes this BIA program so great.

And I'd love to see expansion across the city, including in downtown.

the D4.

And then my last question is on the permitting.

I notice that you're adding a strategic advisor and an admin assistant position.

And strategic advisor positions are high level positions.

They're not necessarily doing the work.

They're more of overseers almost of the work.

And so can you tell me a little bit about the thinking behind this just because I wanna make sure I support being able to provide capacity to fulfill more permits.

And then if our positions are too high level, they're not actually the ones who are gonna do that.

And then it becomes like we're not really making a dent into the reason why we're expanding the position in the program.

So can you tell me a little bit about this particular investment here?

SPEAKER_26

It's a great question.

So first, let me say that everybody at OED is a doer.

That's our expectation is everybody is working.

There's no one who's just kind of overseeing or delegating.

Everyone's in it to win it.

Second is I think this is a good opportunity to just reframe.

When we do special events permits or our film permitting, it's actually complex permit coordination with a whole bunch of other departments.

Mayor Mrakas, it's not just us kind of processing a permit, this is where the strategic advisor is really important, because we have to especially post pandemic well.

Mayor Mrakas, Many communities want to do special events, we need to think about policy changes to how we do permittees we need to work with those other departments, we need to interface with a lot of our external stakeholders, so those are we currently have a strategic advisor.

Mayor Mrakas, we'd be adding another one, but they are very much in the mix on.

managing the special events committee, which is all those constituent departments that issue permits to build the special events permit.

And then they're also deeply involved in the actual permitting process.

So you're correct that it's a different level, but especially with the complexity of the permitting now and then with the World Cup stuff coming on, we wanted to have that higher level of ability in addition to just some extra raw permitting power with the ASA.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for that, Director McIntyre.

And I will say that I, having worked at the city for many years, often then you hear from staff, we don't have capacity and we need another person.

So this is why I'm asking the question and would love to see on the special permitting side, how it's currently set up, because that will really help us as we're, you know, looking at all these proposals.

SPEAKER_04

Would love to provide that.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Up next is Council Member Wu, followed by Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_12

Thank you.

So I just want to preface this with I am a small restaurant owner.

So I recognize things like the window repair fund.

While it's helpful to have, but also allowed to have a more proactive approach.

There was a window film fund that went around.

I'm not totally sure which budget they came out of.

That was really helpful.

Also having graffiti coating in place, which is quite expensive compared to having to clean up graffiti.

It's also something I'd be interested in seeing And I'm not too sure where that would come out of.

But I... Know that also BIAs do take a while to develop.

It's quite a complicated process, especially when your neighborhood's where everyone may not speak the same language or has a different idea on how the BIA should go forth.

So I know this is several years in the process when it comes to creating more BIAs.

And even when the BIA is created, I know, for instance, Chinatown International District It does not fulfill many of the functions as we would like it to.

And there is an upgrade in place or trying to come to a place where these services could be filled for the entire community and are actively paid for by the businesses.

So my question is, I'm interested in the reductions, specifically in workforce.

I know studies take time, and while there's like a pause in funding while we wait for those studies to be done, there are other...

programs within the city.

Like, for instance, the city-owned Bummer Shoot Arts and Music Festival, Third Stone has a workforce development program that helps a lot of people of color, people who are low-income and who identify as women or non-binary, which is not funded this time.

So I'm kind of curious, what other reductions are we looking at when it comes to the three areas where we're seeing reductions, workforce, COMMUNITY WILTH BUILDING AND PLACE BASE CAPACITY BUILDING.

SPEAKER_26

YOU MEAN BEYOND OUR BUDGET?

IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS ARE THERE SIMILAR REDUCTIONS?

SPEAKER_12

REDUCTIONS WITHIN THE NOTABLE REDUCTIONS SLIDE.

SUCH AS 2025 PROPOSED, 2026

SPEAKER_26

$1,252,000.

So that's just the OED budget.

As I mentioned, there are 15 departments at the city that make some sort of workforce investment.

You mentioned one of them with the partnership with Bumbershoot and Cannonball.

SPEAKER_12

What does that reduction reflect?

What are we losing, or what's the impact, basically, of this very specific reduction?

SPEAKER_26

So the main impact of our reduction is what we discussed with Council Member Morales, which is the reduction in OED's contract with the Seattle Jobs Initiative, which in that contract there are a number of workforce programs and components.

And again, we're not making this proposal lightly.

It is a real reflection, though, that the city itself has a very fragmented workforce environment and we're not here to judge any of the other departments' programs.

What we do wanna do is come together as a city and figure out what are the outcomes that we wanna see from our workforce investments, especially as the nature of work is changing, especially as the city itself has workforce needs.

And just thinking about how we can actually leverage our collective resources towards broader impact if we make intentional choices rather than allow a bunch of boutique programs to kind of continue to operate with no coordination.

So this isn't saying that all the programs that the city is doing are going to go away in no way, shape, or form.

We just need to take a look at what we're trying to do and make sure that it syncs up with our values and the outcomes we want to see.

And then, as I mentioned, the opportunity to then sync that up regionally to hopefully unlock more resources that we could bring to workforce.

Because it's a critical investment that we want to make.

But we can't do it alone.

And we would like to make ourselves as competitive as possible for some of those federal dollars.

I should say federal and state dollars.

SPEAKER_12

Is there a list somewhere that kind of names all the programs that may be in risk of losing some of that funding?

SPEAKER_26

Council Central has actually asked us a very related question, so that should be coming back to you as part of all council question responses.

SPEAKER_04

Great.

SPEAKER_26

Thank you.

Yep.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

And thank you for using the SharePoint questions and answer sheet between Central Staff, CBO, and departments.

Up next is Council Member Hollingsworth.

District 3, take it away.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be super brief because I know I'll just be brief.

Thank you, Director McIntyre.

All I just wanted to jump on, and I know Council Member Morales had said it and so had Council Member Moore, was the, because we just had a presentation from our arts department who talked about the World Cup and that being great, but I just want to caution our city of when we did the MLB All-Star game, and how that was really concentrated to Soto and downtown, and it just really didn't spread where it should have.

That was a weekend.

This is more of a, and I think FIFA Cup is what, two weeks, maybe a little bit longer?

Three, three, thank you, three weeks.

And we really have an opportunity.

I can't begin to talk to so many small businesses who say, hey, we really want to feel the economic investment that we have.

And so I just wanted to highlight that because I know a lot of money has been putting downtown.

Sometimes it feels like for District 3, we're kind of lucky that we are connected to District 7. But it feels like the investments stop at the convention center.

and then everyone looks over the ugly overpass and go, what's over there?

And it's like, it's Capitol Hill, it's great.

So anyways, I just wanted to highlight that.

One of the questions I had, and I'm so grateful that PCC is returning downtown, they'll be in a smaller footprint, but I think it's great.

But is there something within the department that concentrates on economic development from the lens of grocery stores?

And I think it's incredibly important And I don't think a lot of people understand, 90% of all Americans live within a 10-mile radius of Walmart.

And a lot of the smaller grocers are starting to become impacted by that because of their massive expansion.

And so that's why we kind of see Kroger and Safeway wanting to merge because they're trying to compete as they grow.

But a lot of the small grocers like our...

PCC, we have Met Market, there was another one that just opened up in District 2. We have all these small grocers, and thinking about that for economic development, just because those are food access points, and those really draw so many people.

They're really a hub for folks.

So just wanted to know if there was there, and we can talk offline, but just wanted to highlight that piece as well.

And that was it, so thank you.

SPEAKER_26

On your first point, I share your concern about what happened with All-Star Game and not having the economic value, the kind of distributed economic value that we had hoped for.

And so I think that's a deep concern for us and for a lot of our partner departments as we think about World Cup.

And so I know that we're working on our efforts to try to communicate as early as possible.

And then what kind of toolkits can we create for small businesses to put them in the best position to take advantage of this?

and then what are ways that we as the city can help distribute the impact.

I think Director Kayyem mentioned as part of their funding, they've got opportunities for these four kind of community celebrations that are gonna be outside the downtown.

I think we could do more of that and how do those all network together Um, so I think there's a lot there, but know that it's a huge concern of ours as well on the grocery stores.

I couldn't agree more.

I mean, especially as downtown becomes more of a neighborhood thing about grocery stores, childcare, and pharmacies as kind of core pieces that everybody needs and downtown does not have enough of them.

So again, I think this goes back to council member Moore's earlier point about more intentional placemaking and really thinking about in a coordinated fashion, what are the amenity needs in a particular area?

And how can we as a city help facilitate that?

This is part of our evolution of the Seattle Restorators to become more of a matchmaker.

And so grocery stores and those other amenities are certainly high on our list of not just downtown, but all across the city.

Are we making sure that we're trying to facilitate those opportunities, knowing that they're hugely important for residents, but also they just signal kind of the health of a community in a different way.

So we'd love to talk to you more about that.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

I think everyone's had their opportunity to say something.

Yeah, actually, this is great.

Director, I'm gonna make a couple observations, not only about your department, but also Office of Economic Development.

I had meant to say this earlier, that across the board, colleagues in all of the departments were doing okay for 2025. We're making a lot of hard choices, and we are still using a fair amount of one-time funding to patch some of the gaps.

If you look at the budget book that's before us, we also see that 2026 is not okay.

We have a lot of...

We're able to patch a lot of these gaps, but those gaps are worse in 2026. The process that we're gonna go through over the next year is we're gonna review the revenue forecasts as they continue to come out.

We are hoping that with the half a percent drop in the interest rate just this month that we will continue that slow growth.

And we're gonna need to be looking at these because as we see in many of the departments, we're doing okay for 2025, 2026. We need to take a good look at I'm gonna come back, and one of the things that I'd seen reduced in Office of Arts and Culture was the communications and the ability to get information out.

And I wanna just remind all of us that we get to be these departments' biggest champion when we're sending out newsletters, when we're sending out information into the district, that we can be including a lot of the information from these departments to be able to assist them in getting the word out.

When I'm looking at your work here in Office of Economic Development, I just want to thank you for really being a thought leader in a lot of ways, especially around permitting.

We'll come back to that.

But colleagues, when I'm looking at page 122 of the 2019 to 2024 summary, what we see is, and while we're seeing a decrease in the funding for Office of Economic Development this year, we have seen over the past five years a 249% increase increase into this department and the reason that there's been such an increase is because it is One of the departments that is benefited by the jumpstart payroll expense tax when I co-sponsored that bill It was really important for me that we had small business support because in 2020 we were seeing The small businesses that rely on the activity of the largest businesses really hurting the most because people weren't leaving their house.

People weren't coming out of town.

And at the same time, we were seeing a real jump in online sales.

And so this relationship was really important to me, which is why I was such a supporter of the Office of Economic Development being part of the Jumpstart Fund.

I don't know if folks knew that part of the history, so I wanted to share it.

With events and the permitting, Director McIntyre, I'll give you the opportunity to speak to it, but can you share with me the process that you've had to go through?

I think maybe a year or two ago, I put a budget item into IT to help move this along.

Special events permits have been incredibly cumbersome in the past, very cumbersome.

That's a nice way of putting it in the past, despite every city worker trying their best.

And can you talk to me about some of these changes that you've been able to make over the last few years?

SPEAKER_26

Sure.

Well, as mentioned in response to Council Member Rivera, it's a complex coordinating process.

It's not kind of just an input-output thing.

There's an input, and then we have to work with these other departments to kind of organize a special events permit and then return that to the applicant, often on a very short timetable because they've got an event to produce and they want certainty about being able to produce it.

So we have essentially kind of used...

temporary labor to get us through some of the peak season moments for special events.

And that's part of the reason that we're asking for permanent support is we've kind of proven the concept that we need more physical capacity to move these.

And then you're right, though, that it's not just the people power, it's also the technology changes that we need to make.

Currently, things are done largely by hand, which is very time-consuming and cumbersome for all involved.

And we have been working with IT on a different solution that would streamline it, make it easier to access, better user experience, and then make it easier on our end to process these as well as to track trends and start getting ahead of some of the trends so that we can start working on different policy solutions for some of the pain points or pinch points that we encounter.

So it's really been a journey.

I didn't fully expect how much time I'd be spending on special events permitting when I took this role, but it's been fascinating because it is a unique role that the city provides and it is what brings so much vibrancy and vitality to all of our neighborhoods.

And we permit everything from, you know, kind of a small neighborhood thing all the way up to, as mentioned, these World Cup events.

So it really runs the gamut.

And we're just very excited to have it be evolving in a really positive way.

And then seeing, it's always lovely to actually see the fruits of your labor when you're out in the neighborhoods seeing a block party or what have you.

SPEAKER_04

Thanks, and I will also correct myself.

I was reading the wrong budget summary level.

Office of Economic Development does have an increase in 26. Apologies for just a small one, but just wanted to highlight that.

I was on the wrong page.

I'm now on the right page, 226 of our budget book.

Director McIntyre, thank you for that update about special permits.

When Council Member Morales was talking a bit about the workforce development aspect, it sounded very similar to the path that you and I have walked.

And so I know that working with multiple different departments can be challenging at times and can create opportunities at times.

And so I just want to thank you for that work.

As you were speaking about the business improvement areas, you mentioned Finney last and I got really a little bit of anxiety came because I thought that it wasn't gonna be mentioned.

And then thankfully it's just because they're a little bit further along than everyone else.

I have to say that a lot of the work that I do in District 6 A lot of the actually policy groundbreaking work that we're able to do has been supported by the Ballard Alliance.

We've also been able to glean good information from pilot projects that the U District Partnership runs.

Of course, I work pretty closely with the SOTO BIA as well.

And so I just appreciate your work in supporting them.

Anything else you'd like to add to your presentation?

And then I'll turn it back to Council President.

SPEAKER_26

No, just again, want to give a shout out to our staff who are working really hard on some of these difficult issues as we continue to recover out of the pandemic and try to shape the future of Seattle's economy.

And I appreciate all the work that you're doing.

We know these are tough, difficult decisions and look forward to further conversations about them.

SPEAKER_04

Wonderful.

Council President, last word.

SPEAKER_02

So thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have been asked to deliver the last words on behalf of Council President Nelson, the chair of the committee.

My voice is perfectly healthy and vibrant today.

I only hope I can do your talking points justice, Madam Council President.

All right.

So I realize it's a bit awkward to present and defend cuts that you may not want to have to make.

And I encourage my colleagues to recognize that this level of cuts was directed from outside OED.

I'm concerned about the small businesses in the Central District and South Seattle where OED has directed tenant improvement loans and the potential lost opportunity for entrepreneurs in areas facing high rates of displacement to have an ownership stake in their commercial property.

And I've said many times on the record how important the storefront repair grants are to businesses across our city.

And because it was a recommendation from my committee, Council President's Committee, in 2022, I'm very invested in its continued success.

I look forward to revisiting over the next two months if there's any way to salvage the program.

One final point, in 2019, OED received $8.5 million in general fund dollars and only $7.3 million in 2024. I think it merits a larger proportion of general fund dollars going forward.

Thank you for your presentation.

It's clear my colleagues value OED's work Council Member Sokka does too, and he's wearing some cool glasses.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Council President Sokka.

SPEAKER_23

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_04

Really appreciate that.

This does conclude the Office of Economic Development section of the presentation.

Just one last, again, thank you for all of the work that you've done on the Downtown Activation Plan.

The lights over Third, the Bergman luggage, I ride transit through that corridor every day.

So thankful.

Sorry, I'm adding on to the last words.

I just got too excited.

SPEAKER_23

Let me just say, downtown is the engine of our economy, and the work that you're doing downtown, also extremely important.

Thank you very much.

You have had to organize and coordinate work that other departments are involved in, so that's been a huge lift, so thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you.

I won't take any more words on Office of Economic Development and just closing our morning session out.

I want to thank everyone for their teamwork today.

As I said yesterday, it is all of our jobs to represent our entire city and to have specific knowledge about our districts, to have specific knowledge about the committees that we chair, and in today's case, even being able to speak for each other with each other's notes.

It is good teamwork.

I appreciate that.

I will be closing us out for recess until our afternoon session, which will begin at 2 p.m.

Colleagues, just a reminder to please use SharePoint when asking departments questions so that we're not spinning folks out with nine separately elected officials asking questions.

Somebody the same question and appreciate director McIntyre you raising up that your team's doing that with us right now Councilmember more chair because I was late I just want to make sure that the record note that I am am here.

Oh my goodness.

I'm so sorry councilmember more arrived during public comment Hours and hours and hours ago, my apologies.

And with that, if there's no objection, the Select Budget Committee will be in recess until 2 p.m.

We will be joined by Office of Planning, Community Development, and SDCI.

We are in recess.