Seattle City Council Libraries, Education and Neighborhoods Committee 1/9/2025

January 9th, 2025 meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It's 9.31 a.m.

I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Vice Chair Rink.

Here.

Chair Rivera.

Present.

And Council Member Hollingsworth will be joining us in a few minutes.

Three council members are present.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

There are four appointments on today's agenda.

We have three appointments to the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council, and one appointment to the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council.

I wanna welcome back the sitting members of this committee, our newest member who serves as our Vice Chair Council Member Rink.

I would also like to thank Kenny Pittman for coming to council chambers today to present and Seattle Sierra Howlett Brown also who will be presenting some of our appointments today.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have zero in-person speakers and zero remote speakers signed up.

All right, then the public comment period is now closed.

Will the clerk please read today's first agenda item into the record?

Agenda item one, appointments 03045 and 03046, Gabriel F. Grant and Andrew Robinson and reappointment 03047 Gundeep Singh to the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority governing council.

Thank you.

This item has been read into the record.

We're joined today by Sierra Howlett Brown, Deputy Director at the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, who will briefly introduce these appointments.

Thank you for being here today.

Please introduce yourself for the record, and then we can learn more about these appointees.

This one's on.

Hello.

Good morning.

Sierra Howlett Brown.

I am the deputy director of our Office of Intergovernmental Relations here at the city.

And our department serves as overseeing some of these PDAs.

So happy to be here to help introduce these new appointments and some reappointments.

answer any questions that you have.

Would you like me to introduce them?

Please.

Okay, great.

So the first appointment is Gabriel Grant or Gabe Grant, who is a Seattle native with a passion for creating great places and a deep commitment to civic affairs and brings a strong multidisciplinary approach to real estate with over 20 years of experience directly managing real estate transactions and projects.

He has extensive experience identifying investment opportunities, structuring and negotiating complex real estate transactions, and managing the development and creative repositioning of a variety of asset types.

He's a partner at Spectrum Development Solutions, LLC, and a managing broker at Spectrum Brokerage Services, LLC.

Gabe began his real estate career at preservation of affordable housing in Boston, working on complex mixed income multifamily acquisition and renovation projects.

Gabe was a member of the HALA committee that presented a broad spectrum of recommendations called the Grand Bargain to that mayor for how to create more affordable and market rate housing in the city.

He served for nine years on the board of Bellwether Housing, including two years as chair and has served on numerous other nonprofit and civic boards, including Historic Seattle and the Downtown Seattle Design Review Board, and was honored as one of the Puget Sound Business Journal's 40 Under 40. Gabe is a former Fulbright scholar and has a BA from the University of Washington, an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a certificate from the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School.

Great.

Our next appointment is Andrew Robinson.

Andrew currently works as a fiscal analyst for the city of Seattle in the office of city finance.

He started with the city in September of 2023 after previously working in the cloud infrastructure finance department at Oracle.

He has also spent time in Portland working at Intel, also in the finance department.

Andrew relocated to Seattle in the summer of 2018 to pursue an MBA at the University of Washington, graduating in 2020. Prior to entering business school, Andrew was in credit risk management at Iberia Bank in New Orleans, the city in which he grew up.

He also spent several years in the wealth management industry after graduating from Vanderbilt University in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in economics.

Thank you, Andrew.

And then our final appointment is Gundeep Singh.

Born and raised in the suburbs of New Jersey, Gundeep is the first generation Sikh American and son of small business owners.

He has lived in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle for the past four years.

He's a real estate analyst at BMGI, focusing on asset management, development, and acquisitions.

He has experience in underwriting and managing diversified real estate portfolios with special expertise in hospitality assets.

Gundeep speaks Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, and is actively involved in his local Sikh and South Asian communities.

He enjoys volunteering at soup kitchens and community outreach events at Puget Sound.

In his free time, you are sure to catch him playing flag football at the Seattle Center, grabbing a coffee at local coffee houses, or exploring the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

During his time at Cornell University, Gundee had the opportunity to found and serve on the boards of several organizations.

He is energized by the possibility of utilizing his experience and the understanding of real estate to enact positive social change in the broader Seattle community, and is excited by the prospect of working with the PDA Council to find creative ways to give back to Pike Place Market.

Thank you, Sierra.

Are any of the appointees here?

I think Andrew's here.

Hi, Andrew.

Did you want to address the council members and say a few words?

Oh, sorry.

You're Gabe.

Andrew.

I work in the Office of City Finance and I am in the Partnership and Policy Group.

So I work with a lot of the PDAs and have been attending the Pike Place Market Finance and Asset Committee meetings as the city representative.

So I have a good feel for the financials there and maintain relationships with a lot of the leadership there and I will be participating as a non-voting member.

Thank you, Andrew.

Gabe?

Thank you.

Hi, council members.

It's a real honor to be here.

Yeah, so I grew up in Seattle and have been going to the Peg Place Market for the entirety of my life.

And so it's a real honor for me to be able to be on the PDA Council, especially at this time when there are just some really important issues facing the market.

We've got some very, very ambitious plans in a new master plan that we'll be implementing and a brand new executive director who we're really, really excited to have on board.

So it's a great time to be on the council and I'm really honored to be a part of it.

Thank you, Andrew.

And we're really, well, colleagues, I mean, we all are big fans of the market, obviously, and it is a Seattle treasure.

So grateful to have the new executive director here, Rachel.

Thank you for joining us.

Had the pleasure of meeting with Rachel yesterday, who has really great plans for the market.

So exciting.

Excited to hear more about that as we go along here.

Want to really thank you, Andrew and Gabe, for stepping up.

We always say these are, you know, reminder, these are volunteer positions.

People take time because they care.

and they want to donate their services to the city.

And we are so grateful for you stepping up to do that.

It is critical to the work that we do.

And like I said, we're so grateful for it.

Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments?

Council member Rink?

Good morning, and thank you, you both, and for anyone who's listening online, thank you for wanting to serve on this board.

Thank you for your continued service to our community.

And I think we can all agree we want Pike's Place to continue being the treasure that it is in our city.

And I think my point that I'd like to make this morning, just rather a comment, is I'm particularly mindful about safety in these areas, particularly given in light of the attack that we saw, the terror event that killed 14 people in New Orleans on New Year's Day.

And it has me particularly thinking about the safety of our pedestrians and would like to see potentially us continue the conversation potentially about pedestrianizing and would like to have a continued dialogue with you all about the importance of that and just how we can improve safety within Pikes Place Market.

So thank you again for seeking appointment.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

All right then, seeing no other questions.

I move that the committee recommend passage of appointments 03045 through 03047, a zero second.

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend the passage of the appointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Vice Chair Rink.

Aye.

Chair Rivera.

Aye.

Three in favor and none opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council adopt appointment 03045 and 03046 and reappointment 03047 will be sent to the January 14 city council meeting.

Will the clerk please read item four into the record.

Agenda item four, appointment 03048 Bert Gregory to the historic Seattle preservation and development authority governing council.

We are joined today by Kenny Pittman, Chair of the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council, who will briefly introduce this appointment.

Thank you, Kenny, for being here.

Please introduce yourself for the record, and then we can learn more about the appointment.

Thank you, Chair Rivera and committee members.

For the record, my name is Kenny Pittman.

I am the board chair for the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority.

And with me today, I have Mr. Bert Gregory, who we're looking for confirmation as a constituency appointment to our board of directors.

Mr. Gregory has a distinguished career as an architect working with Mahouth.

Right now, he's currently a lead fellow and partner emeritus at Mahuth.

But before that, he had a 15-year leadership at Mahuth as the chair and the CEO.

In addition to that, I mean, he's considered, and I would consider him an expert in transportation-oriented development, mixed-use, and higher ed development, but he also has an extensive experience in working with volunteer work in communities, especially in communities of color where he did work in Birmingham, Alabama for the American Institute of Architects.

And he brings a lot to the board.

As you know, with Historic Seattle, we're looking at preserving historic buildings or older buildings and he brings a lot to the board and we're just very glad that he's on and we're asking for your approval for his confirmation.

Thank you, Kenny, and thank you for being here.

You were a former Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Relations employee, and we've known each other many years, so it's really nice to see you, and thank you for being.

17 years.

Many years, yes.

And it's really nice to see you.

Thank you for coming back to introduce Bert.

Bert, thank you for being here.

Again, as I said about the other, about Andrew and Gabe, I really appreciate your willingness to serve, to step up, to volunteer.

And I didn't say it earlier, but these are, you know, There is a time commitment with these positions and we really appreciate the willingness to step up and serve.

It serves our city and our residents and very much appreciate all the expertise collectively that you all have.

So wanted to acknowledge that.

Bert, would you like to say a few words?

Well, I'm thrilled to be part of the organization and the artifacts of our culture are so important to us.

And these buildings throughout, you know, King County and Seattle are really about, you know, memories and how we define place.

And so helping to contribute to preserve these artifacts of a diverse culture is super important.

And some of these buildings are just so soulful and beautiful.

that they really helped create the fabric of beauty in our city.

So I'm thrilled to bring a lot of, you know, historic adaptive reuse experience and, you know, whatever I can do to help the team.

Thank you, we're grateful for your commitment, Bert.

Colleagues, do you have any, let the record show Council Member Hollingsworth has joined us.

Hello, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments?

All right, seeing no questions or comments, I move that the committee recommend passage of appointment 03048. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, council member.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the appointment.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Moore.

Aye.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Vice chair Rink.

Yes.

Chair Rivera.

Aye.

Four in favor and none opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council adopt appointment 03048 will be sent to the January 14 city council meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here.

Colleagues, are there any other questions or comments before we conclude this, the shortest committee meeting we've had to date?

No?

Well, again, I really want to thank Sierra and Kenny for being here to introduce these really great appointments.

Really want to thank Bert, Andrew, and Gabe for your commitment and Gundeep, who's not here today, but for their commitment as well.

You know, we have at the city, I think about 200 or more boards and commissions um and they do very important work for the city and we're like i said earlier so grateful for the service grateful colleagues to you for being here today so we didn't have to wait on these appointments we could get these through so that's why i wanted to have today's meeting even though it's a brief one and um like i said seeing no other questions or or um comments.

Then this concludes the Thursday, January 9th meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

Our next committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 23rd, 2025 at 9 30 a.m.

If there is no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

Hearing no further business, it's 9 48 a.m.

and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.