Sustainability, City Light, Arts and Cullture Mtg. 6/6/2025

Good morning, everyone.

The Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.33 a.m., June 6th, 2025. I'm Alexis Mercedes Rink, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll and please note that Council Member Moore is excused.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Council member Solomon.

Here.

Council member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Rink.

Present.

Chair, there are four members present.

Fantastic.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Welcome everyone to the Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee meeting for June.

We have a relatively short agenda today with three appointments to the city's arts commission and a vote for City Light to the ZIPLI fiber sharing agreement ordinance.

Regarding the ordinance, the legislation would authorize City Light to execute an indefeasible right of use fiber sharing agreement with Zipley Fiber for an effective period of up to two 15-year terms.

Zipley Fiber is a privately owned internet service provider.

And via this agreement, both City Light and Ziply would both gain rights to use fiber connections in the other party's system in the reciprocal exchange during the allotted time period.

Both parties would also share maintenance costs.

These shared fiber networks span between City Light's Bothell substation and Marble Mount up in Northwest Washington.

City Light is seeking to increase reliability between Bothell and Diablo where limited cell service, let alone internet access is currently available.

So whether it's for school, work, healthcare, or just feel good memes.

The darkest of days of COVID and stay at home orders most certainly cemented the case for why everyone in our city and Washington state needs access to quality, reliable internet connection at home.

And with that, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

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

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

I think that's a first in my capacity as chair of this committee.

With that, since there are no registered speakers for today, we will now proceed to our items of business.

So moving on to our first item of business, will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Appointment 03168, appointment of Ed King as a member to the Seattle Arts Commission for a term of December 31st, 2026, briefing discussion and possible vote.

Fabulous.

And I'd like to invite our presenters to the table.

When you come on up, if you can take a moment to introduce yourselves for the record before speaking.

Good morning.

Hi.

Hi.

Good morning.

I know we have a presentation.

Can I operate?

Wonderful.

And you'll need to pull that microphone real fast.

Thank you.

Perfect.

You're not allowed.

Nope.

We are not.

There we go.

All right.

Thank you for having us.

I'm Kelly Davidson, she, her pronouns.

I'm the deputy director for the Seattle Arts Commission.

We're really excited to be here today and fill in some of the vacancies for the Seattle Arts Commission.

Let's get going.

So we have three appointments.

So Seattle Arts Commission comprise of 16 members or committed members.

appointed by the mayor and city council.

They advise our office on policy.

They provide advocacy and serve on the three committees of the Seattle Arts Commission.

Our three committees are the Facilities and Equitable Development Committee, Cultural Investments Committee, Public Art Advisory Committee.

These committees are aligned with our primary lines of business for the office.

and they consult on arts policy, they review and approve selections for our grants, for our commissions, and a lot of other work in terms of shaping our programming.

So today we have three appointments that we are making, two council seats, And one, Joe is on this presentation still, but we did have just a quick filing error, so that one will be coming back.

But Kate and Ed are here today, and then we also have a reappointment coming up.

So just a quick overview, Kate Nagle Caraluzzo is the Executive Director of Town Hall Seattle, where she leads strategic initiatives to expand access to arts and culture across the city, with over seven years at Town Hall Seattle, including six as Director of Development.

Kate's been instrumental in fundraising, strategic planning, and community partnerships.

A Seattle resident for over 10 years, she's a Leadership Tomorrow graduate, holds a nonprofit management certificate from UW, was recognized as a Puget Sound Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree in 2025 for her impact in the nonprofit sector.

Kate also serves on the Rainier Valley Food Bank Capital Campaign Steering Committee and is a founding member of the Seattle Chapter Chamber of Connection, which focuses on supporting individuals experiencing loneliness.

Our other nominee today is council nominee Ed King.

Ed King is the executive director of Pottery Northwest as a former award-winning visual artist, art director, marketing manager, and arts administrator from Miami, Florida.

He began his career in ad agencies, honing his skills as a designer and art director of various campaigns focusing on political, corporate, healthcare, communication.

He later worked as an arts administrator for ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale and as the chief operating officer of Creative Penelias in St. Petersburg.

Ed's passionate about nonprofit arts leadership and fiercely advocates for the financial vitality of working and teaching artists, which he considers the foundation of a healthy creative economy.

His work is focused on creating opportunities for inclusivity and diversity.

Ed is energetic in leveraging the immense power of the arts as a catalyst for transformative personal growth, community building, and social change.

I'm not sure what just happened there.

Let me just go.

Sorry.

So our last is the reappointment.

Sorry.

Vanessa Villanobos is seeking reappointment for a third and final term.

She's an experienced and professional choreographer, dancer, arts administrator, educator, consultant coach, and founder of Balerico Dance since 2009. Originally from Peru, she has produced hundreds of traditional Latin and contemporary solo and group performances, with a range of local, regional, and international companies.

Her performance, instruction, and consulting services empower adult and youth communities to use dance as a leadership tool and healing practice.

Vanessa currently serves on the Facilities and Equitable Development Committee of the Seattle Arts Commission, and she previously served as co-chair of the commission.

Those are our nominees.

Fabulous.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, what questions do you have for the nominees today?

Councilmember Strauss.

Sure.

Thank you, Chair.

I was wondering maybe if the applicants would like to do a short introduction of themselves.

I've got a couple questions, but you might answer the questions in a short introduction.

That would be all right.

Hi, my name is Ed King, Executive Director of Pottery Northwest.

I've been in Seattle for three years now.

and working for Pottery Northwest for the same amount of time.

And in that short period, I found such an amazing community.

I love what I do, love my team, but I've also loved the support that I've received from the cultural arts community.

And I wanna build on that by creating a future in which art has a huge impact.

At Pottery Northwest, we say clay is for everyone.

And in this role with the Arts Commission, I want to underscore that word, everyone, make sure that all communities are represented in the transformative power of the arts.

And I'm Kate Nagle Caraluzzo.

I'm the executive director at Town Hall Seattle.

I've been at the organization for eight years, serving in different capacities, sitting in the executive director's seat for the last year.

Town Hall's interesting because it's the intersection of arts and culture and also civic engagement here in Seattle.

really proud to represent that organization and to bring that forward for the Arts Commission.

And like Ed, we've been thinking a lot about who is welcome and how we welcome folks into the space.

And I think that is certainly worth bringing forward for the commission.

And I'm excited about that.

And Chair, may I ask a question of each?

Mr. King, reading your resume, I will say something stood out, which was Ed King Pop Art.

Yeah.

named Miami Artzine as one of the top five pop artists in Miami.

It was also shared in your introduction.

Tell me more.

What was going on at Ed King Pop Art?

Sounds like you had a couple employees.

What was going on?

What did it look like?

Try it with words.

Let us know what you were up to.

One of the passion projects of my life, Ed King Pop Art was my business.

It's literally my name and what I did.

I created pop art.

I was a visual artist.

I was embraced by the city of Miami.

People bought my work.

just like potato chips, they can never have one.

They just kept buying over and over and over.

And I sustained my life for over 14 years just by making art and selling it to enthusiastic base of collectors.

And it spanned not just from Miami, but all over the United States and some European and Middle Eastern collectors.

I think the art, Superficially, you could say, wow, you know, it's colorful, it's whimsical, people really liked it because it's cute.

But really, it was the connectivity with the community, being involved in their community festivals or the important moments, the milestones that happen with a community when you're invited in to be the chair of this or the poster artist of that or the spokesman of this.

It goes beyond the art.

It goes to human connection.

And that was really the crux of the success of the, I almost said organization, of the business, it's all about human connectivity and it's all about bringing people together.

And we just, I happen to do that through art.

That's wonderful.

And maybe not so much how have you brought that into Pottery Northwest, but how are you bringing that into the Arts Commission, that connectivity?

Because I'm taking a look at these images and it really, you can feel that connectivity between humans just through what you've produced.

I think something that I've said since art school is that the only capital is human capital.

And there's nothing that exists, whether it's this body, the Arts Commission, anything, without the investment from people.

And so at Pottery Northwest, I said, you know, we don't do clay particularly.

We do people.

We do opportunity, upward mobility, workforce development, economic vitality.

And I think the focus, on creating those opportunities for every neighborhood, but using the medium to focus that energy is my primary goal, making sure that we expand the franchise and that every single person in every single neighborhood throughout King County has an opportunity to have their lives uplifted and opportunities found through the arts.

Amazing.

Well, we're excited to have you and thank you for Volunteering to join us on this board and Commission.

Thanks for having me clearly.

I'm passionate.

I really want to do a job I'll just say one last thing.

I'm really focused on the word results and so I want my presence to Be a force not just for talk and not just for debate but for actual results for the citizens of the county.

It's amazing

And Kate, you've been at town hall through quite some changes.

I mean, both physical and there was the pandemic societal changes and how people interact with the arts.

Can you share a little bit about the challenges and the opportunities that the last number of years have presented you at town hall?

Absolutely.

Town Hall has been through this really pivotal shift over the last eight years, especially coming off the pandemic, and I think the sector at large has.

Seattle was the slowest city to rebound from the pandemic.

This will be the first year that we see 100,000 people through our doors again.

And that shift is felt by the staff.

It's felt by our rental partners.

Every time there's a sold out show, there's that energy and there's that willingness for people to recommit to coming downtown and to being part of something special.

And I think that's what the Arts Commission is also driving at.

Building on what Ed said, arts is a cultural economy in Seattle and in Washington, but it's also this intersection point, right?

Arts is more than just the economy and it's more than just a driver.

how do we intersect and how do we come together?

That's the fifth, that's the rep, that's every venue in Seattle, that's STG, that's Pottery Northwest.

Every time we get to show up to something, it's incredibly meaningful.

And I think the next five years will really get us back on track and to be able to shepherd this new set of leaders that have come into arts and culture, incredibly important for leaders like Ed and I to be showing up and showing up to bodies like this.

Exactly.

And in your opinion, what are some of the opportunities that we cannot afford to miss in the next few years?

Yeah, I think for, I mean, just from town hall's perspective, how do we have a citywide marketing campaign to really get people back out for the arts and culture?

how do we bring people downtown?

How do we get them through our doors?

Ed is, we talk about this a lot, but like getting people to show up is the hardest thing that the city has to deal with.

And that is an opportunity that we get to take on if we want to reframe it as that.

And I think that is a significant impact that we get to have.

Wonderful.

Yeah, showing up is most of everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thank you both for your volunteer service to the city of Seattle.

And we're all counting on you.

So let's go.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ed and Kate.

Thank you for your willingness to serve in such a manner.

I understand, Kate, you are a Leadership Tomorrow graduate.

I am.

Okay, cool.

Just curious, when did you graduate?

Just last year, 24.

24, awesome, awesome.

I'm gonna ask you a question about that and your learnings from that and how you apply it in this commission.

Before we get there, I'll just shout out to Leadership Tomorrow.

It is a great program.

I'm a proud alum myself, 17 or 18, I think.

I can't remember one of those.

I nominated King County Councilmember Girmai Zahalai, and I sort of dropped the mic after that.

And it's an excellent program.

We are well represented at all levels of government, the nonprofit, philanthropic, space, and also the private sector.

So my chief of staff, Elaine Coe, LT alum from the 80s.

And just a few weeks ago, I was honored to present a proclamation honoring folks in the foster care space with Linda Hall, who is one of my LT classmates.

I see folks from LT all the time, here in this chamber, just in the community, everywhere.

We're well represented.

Just another affinity that we have and a bond that we all have.

But just curious, I personally learned a lot from that program about servant leadership, and I call it servant leadership.

Tell me, what was the number one learning or takeaway, Kate, that you had from that program, and how do you either apply it in your current role or how do you intend to apply it if selected for this commission?

Yeah, Leadership Tomorrow is such a great program.

I'll double down on everything you said about it.

I think everyone should have an opportunity to go through a program like that in some capacity.

The takeaway that I had from Leadership Tomorrow is knowing how to sit with discomfort and knowing how to navigate uncomfortable conversation and space and be able to sit with that and also be civil about how we agree to disagree and that people can have many viewpoints and it is okay to have that kind of conflict, which is what I brought back to my leadership from that program and that feels really special and like a gift that I I'll be forever grateful for leadership tomorrow for being able to sit in discomfort and have hard conversations.

And quite frankly, broadening my network and being able to have these deep conversations with people in private sector, government roles.

There comes a point where you spend so much time in the nonprofit sector, you wake up and that's your whole network.

And Leadership Tomorrow really shakes up that dynamic.

And they're so particular about how they select folks and put us together to have those conversations.

So I think those are really my big two takeaways from the program.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Shout out to Leadership Tomorrow, obviously.

There are many great programs, leadership development programs, other kind of programs.

But I'm definitely proud to be an alum of Leadership Tomorrow.

So in any event, thank you both.

Thank you both, honestly.

This is really important, profound work.

Honored to be able to support your nominations today.

And thank you for your selfless service to the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional questions?

Fabulous.

Well, I'll add a quick question and a couple of remarks.

Thank you both for your willingness to serve on the Arts Commission and for your continued service to this city.

I know I've enjoyed going to many events at Town Hall, and I'm wondering if there's any upcoming events you'd like to share with us today that's happening at Town Hall.

On Sunday, Adam Mett is going to be here with Jay Inslee talking about climate change and activism.

And there's also going to be a piano on stage.

So he's a pop singer.

His band is AJR.

Everyone should come.

Also, Jay Inslee can do no wrong on our stage.

So Sunday, Adam Mett, 730.

I think the last time he graced the stage was in Year in Review with KUOW.

He was the surprise guest.

That was a really fun night.

Yeah.

And you've been on our stage recently.

I have.

It's true.

It's a great venue.

I would encourage folks to come on out for upcoming events.

But with that, I also want to particularly commend, and as a personal point of privilege, just talk a little bit about ceramic arts.

Many don't know this, but I grew up in a ceramic studio, basically.

I started attending ceramics classes as a kid, all because there was an incredible single mom who started a small studio in my hometown and offered some affordable classes.

And starting at the age of nine, I sat down on a potter's wheel for the first time.

And it actually changed my life.

it was my safe place growing up.

And when we think about expansion and making the arts accessible to many, I had a safe place to go, a safe place to express my creativity and be connected with a really amazing life mentor who was the owner of that studio, a working single mom who was trying to live out her dream and standing up for her own art studio that is still there today.

it's just incredible what the arts can do for people.

And it certainly had an impact on my life.

I ended up going there for years.

I ended up becoming a teacher in that studio.

And so I'm a former ceramics and pottery teacher myself.

And so I wanna thank you for your work.

I got a swing by Pottery Northwest to be able to see the kind of work you are doing.

But I wanted to take that personal point of privilege to just share my personal connection to pottery and the impact it had on my life.

And just thank you for creating that space for others to express their creativity and work with clay.

I would love for you and the rest of the council to come by and have a council day of clay.

I think that could be a lot of fun and also really give people an opportunity to have that experience that you had growing up.

I think that sounds also very therapeutic.

Maybe we could use that colleagues.

of Black Joy tomorrow, 2 to 5 p.m.

Oh, fabulous.

Amazing.

Thank you for that.

And thank you both again.

Oh, I see a hand from Council Member Solomon.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

I just had to acknowledge, you know, as you're sharing your story about pottery, that my wife, who is an art teacher herself, did have her own pottery studio, had her own kiln, and, you know, threw lots of pots over the years.

So when I was actually looking at your work online and looking at the pottery studio online, it's like, yeah, I need to get Suzanne over to your place, you know, get her hands back in some clay and start throwing some pots.

So again, thank you both for, and thank all our participants folks on the Arts Commission for your volunteer service and the heart that you put into it.

So I wanted to say thank you and also acknowledge that you and my wife probably have some things in common.

You know, get dirty in the clay.

Oh, I love that.

Thank you, Council Member Solomon.

And colleagues, if there are no additional questions, we're going to take up the three appointments before us all separately.

So I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 03168. Is there a second?

Second.

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

Any final comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to confirm the appointment?

Council member Saka.

Aye.

Council member Strauss.

Yes.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Chair Rink.

Yes.

There are four in favor, zero opposed and zero abstentions.

Wonderful.

The motion carries the committee recommendation that the appointment will be confirmed, will be sent to the June 17th city council meeting.

And I move the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 03169. Is there a second?

Second.

is moved and seconded to recommend the confirmation of the appointment.

Are there any final comments?

Will the committee clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to confirm the appointment?

Council member Saka.

Aye.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Council member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Rank.

Yes.

There are four in favor, zero opposed, and zero abstentions.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointment be confirmed will be sent to the June 17th City Council meeting.

And now one more time, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 03170. Is there a second?

Second.

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

Any final comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to confirm the appointment.

Council member Saka.

Aye.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Council member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Ring.

Yes.

There are four in favor, zero opposed and zero abstentions.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that appointments be confirmed will be sent to the June 17th city council meeting.

And with that, thank you all again for being here today.

Thank you so much council members.

Take care.

And with that, will the committee clerk please read item four into the record?

Council Bill 120968, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department authorizing the execution of an indefeasible right of use of fiber sharing agreement with Zipley Fiber Pacific LLC for an effective period of up to two 15-year terms.

Briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you so much.

And with that, thank you all from City Light joining us at the table.

When you get settled in, if you can please introduce yourself for the record.

Good morning, Committee Chair Rink and Council members.

My name is Dawn Lindell, and I'm the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer for Seattle City Light.

Good morning, Council Amendment Chair.

Mike Haynes, I'm the Chief Operating Officer for Seattle City Light.

Good morning, council chair and council members.

My name is Bridget Molina, and I am the council legislation coordinator for South City Light.

Good morning, council.

I'm Jeff Wolf.

I'm the legal affairs advisor for City Light.

All right, thanks, everyone.

So we are at committee today to present the ZIPLI fiber agreement legislation.

This legislation is a result of the utility's need for redundant fiber communications path from our Skagit hydroelectric project to our Bothell substation.

The legislation that will be described in the slide deck provides me with the authority as City Light's general manager and CEO to sign a long-term agreement with Zipley Fiber, a telecom company, to share communications fiber assets.

This partnership will reduce costs to City Light and deliver a more resilient fiber communications path from a critical generation asset that serves 20% of the electrical load in our service territory.

Jeff Wolf will now present the slide deck and both he and Mike Haynes, our COO, are available to answer any questions.

Good morning, counsel.

This ordinance is, again, to authorize City Light to sign this agreement.

It's an agreement for two 15-year terms with a one-year notice that needs to be provided at the end of the first 15-year terms if we're to terminate.

It does include provisions for default in the event that ZIPLI were to fail to maintain their fiber, that we would be able to get out of the agreement.

There's no money exchanged here.

So from a financial standpoint, it is a beneficial agreement, again, because it would take quite a bit of money for us to build this type of line on our own.

Back in the early 2000s, it cost us about $7.5 million to do that, and it would be at least twice that much to do it today.

So we're getting a mutual benefit, both Zipley and City Light, in entering into this agreement.

This agreement has been approved by the City Attorney's Office, and they have reviewed it and included some of the provisions which I just described.

Let's see.

The lines are a 96-mile line.

They're both about the same length, both Zipply and City Lights lines, so we're getting an exchange for equal to equal.

We have looked into the security of this.

We would be not sharing specific strands within the fiber group, so our security team has found that this is not a security risk for us.

It spans from the area from Diablo all the way to Bothell.

And you'll see on the map, if you advance a couple slides forward, you can see the map, which I think is pretty helpful.

So here you can see the two fiber banks.

One is Zipli that goes a little bit in a different route than City Light, but it provides a redundancy.

If you can go back one more slide then.

Thank you.

The importance of the fiber here is multifold.

It really does provide us with emergency communications, which are very important, but it deals with a number of different systems, including surveillance cameras, dam failure warnings.

It provides our internet and telephone communications.

It's very important that we have this system in the event of an emergency.

And so redundancy is very important.

And so by getting this redundancy through our agreement, we are getting a great benefit.

So we're looking for this redundant path.

Zip.ly is a known entity that we've worked with in the past.

They have attachments on our polls, and we co-own polls with them.

So they're a known entity that we're working with.

In summary, It will provide us with a more reliable system.

It'll be cost-effective, and there will be no environmental impacts.

One of the things that if we were to set up our own system, we would have to work in environmentally sensitive areas, which is something we would like to avoid as well, in addition to the cost.

One other note is the cost for us to do this, to connect with Ziply's system is a small cost.

It would basically be about two full-time employees for a period over a day to make those connections.

So the cost for us to connect to the system is not a significant cost.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Colleagues, any questions?

I see Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the City Light team for being here.

I see we've got the lifetime achiever at the table.

And I just wanted to repeat back in maybe more simple terms what is before us today.

It's my understanding that both City Light and Ziply have fiber optic cables that each have isolated wires in plain speak that are not connected with each other.

And we are simply allowing Ziply to use one of ours and they're allowing us to use one of theirs.

Is that essentially it?

That is exactly it.

And the reason we're bringing it in front of city council is essentially because of the length of the term of this agreement and also the obligations that we have to maintain our fiber over this time period.

And so because of that where it does require Council approval.

That's great.

And so the only cost here is really setting up the communication switches at the terminals.

Is that it?

That's correct.

Okay.

The colleagues, I can tell you, having spent some time getting to tour the Skagit Hydro facility that produces about 20% of the city's electricity, this is very important.

I would say only having that one line is kind of scary.

And so I'm really glad to have this before us today.

Thank you, team.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the presentation today.

I would echo the sentiment.

This is very important.

I would also say that this is very complex.

This is far from routine.

I think its importance and complexity is bolstered by the fact that we have CEO Lindell here at the table directly.

Thank you.

Yes.

This is very important.

And you're the lawyer.

Are you the lawyer?

I am.

OK.

As a non-practicing privacy and security lawyer, cybersecurity lawyer, and a commercial lawyer, I negotiated countless of these type of deals and arrangements.

And I will say they are very complex.

typically in the B2B context, less in the government to private sector context, but very, very complex, technically, legally, and contractually.

But I think you did a great job of explaining the high-level contours of the deal.

So I understand the value that would inure to the city, City Light, under the proposed transaction.

Help me better understand, what's Ziply getting out of this deal, this proposed deal?

Well, Ziply would get the same redundancy.

They have actually entered into similar agreements with a number of other utilities and entities for the same purpose, so that they have redundancy in their lines so that they can serve their customers better.

And I think some of their customers include some governmental entities as well that are not related to the city of Seattle.

Okay, how many similar arrangements do we have in place as between City Light and other companies?

I'm not aware of any, Mike may be better aware if there's one with a private entity.

We do have other redundancy agreements with BPA so that we're working with BPA to create redundancies by having alternate lines.

And then Councilman, that's a great question.

We also participate in leased fiber communications for our boundary facility in eastern Washington.

We don't share fibers because we don't own any over there, but we do participate in leased fiber agreements to get similar communications to the west side from our boundary facility.

Okay.

And...

How long has this proposed transaction been in the works?

Is there a term sheet established that you can enter into in the absence of formal legislation?

Do you already have an agreement negotiated and ready to sign subject to this agreement passing or this legislation passing?

We do have a contract that is attached to the ordinance that is ready to sign.

And how long was that negotiated?

I think we began maybe about a year ago negotiating it.

And it took a little bit of time to go through review from the city attorney's office.

They had some revisions that they proposed.

We went back to ZIPLI.

ZIPLI agreed to those revisions, and they were incorporated into the agreement.

And then we drafted the ordinance.

And tell me a little bit more about the, on the slide, it says benefit, unparalleled data security.

What does that mean exactly?

Yeah, I could take that.

It's a great question.

That's kind of at the core of what I think Council Member Strauss was alluding to.

But currently with a single fiber, we experience outages due to vandalism, gunshots, whatever the case may be along our schedule right away.

In fact, we've got crews out there this weekend repairing the most recent version of the vandalism.

So what this does is it creates- What does vandalism have to do with data security?

Well, when that fiber is out of service, we don't have direct communications on some channels to our Skagit project, so it becomes a locally operated facility, depending on how bad the damage is.

This alternate path provides us redundancy to immediately, without, I mean, seamlessly switch over between our primary path and the Ziply path to retain communications with Skagit.

Okay, so redundancy, which is definitely, in the cybersecurity context, is definitely a proven element to bolster data security.

There's no such thing in this space as 100% risk-free, which, when I heard you say that the security experts were saying there is, quote, unquote, not a security risk for us associated with that, I would challenge them to to revisit that assessment because there's no such thing in that space as zero risk.

Vulnerability exists at all times.

There's best practices that we can do, including this, to minimize our vulnerability and minimize our risk.

But it's like unicorns and the Yeti and all those things, mythical creatures just don't exist.

So in any event.

Correct.

All right.

Thank you for unpacking the contours of this complex proposed transaction a little more.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember Sacca.

Any additional questions on the ordinance before us?

My colleagues, it is our intent to vote on this today.

I do not have any questions for the panel today.

This seems particularly straightforward and of high importance.

I think this is a fantastic proposal to be going forward for the sake of, again, creating more reliability in our system.

And I think the cost sharing here is fantastic.

So I will be supporting this today and will be making motion to move this forward.

And so with that.

Madam Chair.

Council Member Sacca.

I would ask that we table this until the next committee meeting, I am personally not comfortable giving the, I agree on its importance, but giving the complexity and the importance and the fact that this is an ordinance, I don't think this is something that's particularly routine.

And so I personally would not be comfortable voting on it today.

So I would ask that we wait until the next meeting.

Council Member Strauss?

Thank you, Chair.

Council Member Sokka, would you be comfortable abstaining today and having a briefing between now and full council?

Since it's after Thursday, this won't be next week, it'll be the following week.

I don't need to get up to speed on this.

I have probably the most expertise on this dais about this topic, so it's not that.

I just don't feel comfortable voting on it today.

I could abstain, but I just don't think, I would not prefer to vote on this today.

Okay.

Hearing that, Council Member Saka, as chair of the committee, I will note that this committee is now only meeting on a monthly basis.

We know that there's a lot of bodies of work before council right now, and moving to the next committee meeting would push this out in a longer timeline.

You're welcome to make a motion if you'd like to, a formal motion if you'd like to table.

However, I would recommend, since I will be calling for, I'd like to make a motion to move this forward today, you are welcome to abstain and we can certainly work with City Light to make sure that we're having those discussions and preparing before it comes before full council.

I stated my position.

Well, with that, I move that the committee recommend approval of Council Bill 120986. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the ordinance from the committee.

Any final comments?

Okay, will the committee clerk please call the roll on the passage of the ordinance from the committee?

Council member Saka.

Zane.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Council member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Rink.

Yes.

There are three in favor, zero opposed and one abstention.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the June 17th city council meeting.

And we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Seeing none, we are adjourned.

It is 10, 16 a.m.

Thank you, everybody.