Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights & Culture Committee 4/8/22

8th 2022 regularly scheduled meeting of the neighborhoods education civil rights and culture committee will come to order it is 930 a.m.

I'm Tammy Morales chair of the committee will the clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Lewis.

Councilmember Nelson.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Present.

Vice-chair Sawant.

Present.

Chair Morales.

Here.

for present.

Thank you.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

At this time, we'll open the remote general public comment period.

I ask everyone to be patient as we operate this online system.

It remains a strong intent of the council to have public comment regularly included in our meeting agendas.

However, the council does reserve the right to modify these public comment periods at any point if we deem the system as being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner which we are able to conduct necessary business.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

The comment period is open for 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I'll call on speakers, and in the order in which they're registered, if you have not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at Seattle.gov slash council.

The public comment link is also included in today's agenda.

Once I call the speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it's their turn to speak.

The speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Please state your name and the item you're addressing.

And as a reminder, public comment should relate to any item on today's agenda.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left.

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

If you do not wrap up your comments at the end, speaker's microphone will be muted so that we can allow the next speaker to have their turn.

Once you've completed your comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you would like to continue following this meeting, you can do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options on today's agenda.

So the public comment period is now open.

We'll begin with the first speaker.

Sorry, let me get there.

Okay, well, I have two speakers listed.

Carlos Chavez is shown as not present.

So we will go to Maria Jesus Silva Mitchell.

Maria, please press star six and you have two minutes.

Hello, my name is Maria Jesus Silva and I've been a resident of La Quinta since August 2015. I was part of Viva La Quinta, the neighbors and community members effort to nominate the building as a landmark in order to secure its preservation.

I would like to center my comments supporting this nomination on this On my very personal experience, since I am sure you will hear, you already heard a lot of reasons why this building is architecturally exceptional.

So I'm a Chilean architect, a mother, fashion entrepreneur, and I live here with my six-year-old daughter, Begonia.

So as a creative person, I've always been particularly interested in how exceptionally beautiful and thoughtful design objects and buildings are.

expressions of people's stories.

People that have created them, inhabited them, or worn them.

Before moving to La Quinta, I lived in a historical houseman style building in Santiago, where the poet Pablo Neruda once lived.

And when I saw La Quinta, I knew that this was a place like this, like one of these objects or buildings that have a solo of their own.

But it wasn't until I started living here that I realized that it was not only the countless architectural details of my beautiful apartment, the charming always green courtyard or the Spanish style facade, which resembles an actual Spanish Quinta from another time that made it so special.

It was also the actual souls that live and lived here before us.

So this building is truly so magical that creates bonds within its residents and visitors.

which makes us closer to family rather than just neighbors.

And we celebrate Christmas, birthdays, cookouts here in like together.

And it's really a special place.

So we, I really hope you support moving the Landmark Destination Ordinances forward to the school council for this building.

Thank you so much, Maria Jesus.

I don't see the other commenter present.

Is that right?

It looks like we have no we have no other public comment registrants that person may be on the listen line.

OK, so I do show that Carlos Chavez is now signed up again.

He's on the call already.

Carlos, it looks like he's having some trouble getting on.

Carlos, can you hear us?

Are you able to push star six and give your comment?

Listen line callers cannot call in.

They need to use the number provided on the email in the registration to be able to join the meeting.

Well, I show him as a duplicate public comment sign up.

Yes, he is a duplicate public comment sign up, but he is not called into the meeting.

He is probably on the listen line.

I see.

OK.

Well, let's let's carry on, if he is able to Carlos, if you're able to call in.

On the comment line, I'm happy to come back to you and sort of reopen this comment.

But for now, I am going to close public comment so that we can move on with our agenda.

Apologies for that.

Please, Carlos, if you're listening, you can also email your comments to Seattle Council members.

And happy to take your comments that way as well.

Okay, well in that case, let's carry on with our agenda.

So we will close public comment and Devin, will you please read item one into the agenda?

Agenda item one, 2022 Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, priorities for briefing and discussion.

Perfect, thank you so much.

Well, I'm very excited to have our interim director Hamdi Mohamed here along with Catherine Cortez and Joaquin Wee from the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Welcome Hamdi, nice to see you.

Looking forward to your presentation and I will hand it over to you to begin.

Are you able to see me and hear me?

We see the slides, but yes, we can also hear you.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Well, good morning, honorable council members of the committee, Council Member and Chair Morales, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Sawant, and Council Member Nelson.

It is an honor and privilege to come in front of you today as the Interim Director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

As Councilmember and Chair Morales has shared, I will be discussing our office priorities for 2022 and my vision for the office and how we will continue to ensure that the City of Seattle remains a welcoming region for our immigrant and refugee populations.

I have provided a lot of information in the slides today and I know we are short with time and so I just want to say I'm happy to schedule a follow-up meeting with any of you to discuss any of the items that you may be interested further engage in further discussions.

Also you're welcome to stop me at any point to ask any questions.

Next slide please.

So I just wanted to quickly share a little bit about my background and my why for joining the city of Seattle.

I will just start by saying, today I'm joining millions of Muslims around the world to observe the fast in the month of Ramadan, which basically means no food and water between sunrise and sunset.

Ramadan is a special time to show compassion for many of the blessings we share and reflect on our values of gratitude, charity and humility.

And these values have helped so many of us during these last few years.

And I hope that they continue to carry us forward as a city.

You know, I came to the US when I was three years old with my family after a civil war broke out in Somalia as a former refugee, a black Muslim woman.

I have lived at the intersections of many heavily criminalized and oppressed identities that are often invisible in data, policy, and discussions.

As a former refugee and someone who has witnessed the devastating impacts of decisions made by government, I've gained a strong passion for pursuing a career in public policy, organizational development, and truly have dedicated my life to public service.

And before joining the city of Seattle, I served as a policy advisor for King County where I advised on the county's $12 billion budget.

I managed initiatives that directly funded and supported our small businesses, community organizations, COVID-19 response.

I have also worked for and with CARE International and the Refugee Women Alliance in roles that are dedicated to fighting poverty and empowering our immigrant community.

I also served as a Deputy District Director for U.S.

Congresswoman Jayapal who is an immigration policy champion.

I in fact remember when Congresswoman Jayapal was the Executive Director of One America and she was advocating for the opening of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

I was working alongside One America at that time and it was a decade ago and It truly feels like a full circle today to be in this office in this in this role.

And I've joined the city of Seattle because I have both the lived and professional experience to ensure that our offices mission to meet the needs of immigrants and refugees are streamlined through the city of Seattle's programs that immigrants and refugees have equitable opportunities to thrive.

And I've been in this role for about 60 days and have already met with dozens of community members and department leaders.

I am working on a community survey and hopefully we'll launch a listening sessions in partnership with some of our departments to help identify some of the emerging needs in light of the pandemic.

And we have an office retreat on April 28 to really set our collective vision as a team for the upcoming year.

And I hope that vision truly aligns with our community priorities as well.

That said, next slide, please.

You know, just a little bit about the office.

The Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs mission is to support the integration of immigrants and refugees in the city and to ensure that they are part of the city's decision-making process.

It advocates for the needs of various immigrant communities.

You know, immigrant refugees are not a monolithic community.

and so we ensure that we are capturing the voices of all of our immigrant refugee communities within the city area and also working to foster a region-wide culture that is built on the understanding that all perspectives of society can gain from the engagement of immigrant communities.

We are a very small office with currently 10 staff members and with an annual budget of 5.7 million.

And some of those dollars come from the general fund and others come from grants.

Next slide, please.

Great.

So I have identified six priority areas here for myself, one of them being regional and cross departmental collaboration, equitable, healthy Seattle initiative, advancing and inclusive economic recovery, ensuring Seattle remains a welcoming region for refugees, safety and access for immigrant families, community partnership and liaison projects, regional and cross departmental collaboration.

To me that's like making sure that we are breaking down the silos and working to meet our community needs is just so important when it comes to immigrant refugee needs impact all of our departments.

And it's important for all departments to prioritize engaging our immigrant refugee constituents.

And so really working in collaboration with departments is a top priority for me.

And some of those examples are collaborating with the Office of Economic Development, OED, to think about how do we engage and re-engage immigrants into the workforce.

Also ensuring that we're providing the support that immigrant-owned businesses need.

That's like technical assistance, access to grants.

Also serving as a soundboard and a partner to the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

BIPOC communities have been calling on our government agencies to work together to address things like the climate crisis And that means ensuring that our immigrant and refugee and limited English speakers who live in areas like South Seattle who are exposed to toxic industrial air admissions have the resources they need and that they are front and center when it comes to policy budget, when it comes to policymaking budget priorities at the city level.

And so ensuring that you know, our offices remaining a strong partner across departments is important.

And also being a strong regional partner, collaborating with other agencies that work on immigrant and refugee affairs.

There's a state office on refugee and immigrant affairs that is located within the state of the Department of Social and Health Services, DSHS.

King County also has a immigrant and refugee program.

So really building those strong partnerships.

The second area that I identified is the equitable, healthy Seattle initiative, you know, the pandemic has underscored.

and made it very clear the fact that immigrant communities and people of color need better access to health care coverage and services.

Today, the majority of people who are uninsured in the city of Seattle are immigrants and refugees.

I think the percentage is about 4.6% of those who are uninsured in the city of Seattle.

The majority of them are immigrants and refugees.

Also Seattle King County Public Health data shows that across the county, those the majority of those who are uninsured are also immigrants and refugees.

And while the state recently passed the Cascade Care, a program that's designed to help fill the gap in the current coverage network, we know that it's going to take a few years to help implement that program and design it.

And so the healthy Seattle initiative is also Mayor Harrell's priority area, which focuses on ensuring that Seattleites have quality care.

And so my goal is to ensure that the voices of immigrants and refugees are included in that policymaking process and the decision-making process.

Advancing an inclusive economic recovery.

You know, in the city of Seattle we hold a significant amount of power and influencing our, our economy, the economy of Washington State this region has been blessed with incredible wealth and, and then still equity is still an issue.

And so my goal is to make sure that we're doing everything we can to leverage the fact of these prosperities into real pathways to economic success for our immigrant and refugee communities.

That's, you know, partnering again with our neighborhood business districts, advancing labor standards, supporting our workforce and workers.

To me, that's supporting our immigrant refugee rideshare drivers who've been reaching out to me in this new role.

And that means, you know, working in partnership again with the Office of Economic Development, the Office of Labor Standards, to advance the priorities of immigrants and refugees.

We know that wage theft among immigrants and refugee workers is widespread and largely unreported.

So, you know, how can our office be a strong partner to OLS to offer free services to people?

You know, they're already providing free services to people regardless of their immigration status.

You know, how do we make sure that that office is reaching or that information is reaching everyone in our community?

I'm ensuring that Seattle remains a welcoming region.

We have been working really hard with our Ukrainian community right now.

You know, since 1975, Washington State has been welcoming nearly 150 has welcomed nearly 150 refugees from 70 different countries.

And Seattle is home to one of the largest immigrant and refugee population.

And today, millions of people have fled their homes in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion.

And we have been working closely with our Ukrainian community to make sure that we're getting accurate information out.

Our office has been committed to taking action to protect and address the needs of our Ukrainian community.

We've held a webinar on immigration legal options for those impacted by the crisis in Ukraine.

And there was over 150 participants that participated in that immigration legal option webinar that we held.

And our goal was for us to provide accurate information out to our legal service providers, advocates, and members of the Ukrainian community.

And the discussion was really centered around refugee and asylum process, temporary protected status, different tourist visas.

And so we will continue to center the needs of our Ukrainian community in particular, as well as Afghan refugees.

We know that there's thousands of Afghan refugees who have resettled in Seattle as well.

And so continuing to ensure that we're a welcoming region is always top of mind for me.

Safety and access for immigrant families, immigrant refugee communities, you know, deserve wellness and accountability.

You know, ensuring that we are having programs that really center the needs of those who have been impacted by our criminal justice system, providing resources to address those who are grieving, mental health services is top priority.

culturally relevant information for families who've experienced things like homicide and gun violence, that we are seeing an increase in South Seattle in particular.

We need internal and external cultural relevant information and resource guides that really center how to navigate our government system.

I can't tell you how many times I've had an East African mom call me at 11 p.m.

at night saying that her child is at Harborview and she can't get a hold of the medical examiner's office or doesn't know where that child's body was transferred.

And so ensuring that we are addressing these really emerging crisis.

is so important right now.

And so incorporating that into our existing programs is top of mind for me.

Today, the second most arrested group in the city of Seattle and in King County are East African young folks.

And, you know, as a Black Muslim woman and the only Black Muslim department director, I bring a very unique lived experience to safety and access for immigrant families at the City of Seattle.

And so what I hope to do is really focus on building leadership and collective power in our community and pulling in a lot of those, you know, East African moms who reach out to us every day so that they can, you know, help influence our public policies and drive social change as well.

Lastly, community partnership and liaison projects.

Like I said, I hope to launch a listening tour to build community partnership, do this in partnership with the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and partnership with our council members and mayor's office and other department agencies to just avoid that, you know, duplicacy that we see happening in government agencies, but really ensuring that we have an ear to the ground, that we know directly what our community needs are, is so important.

And building more of those community partnerships and building on existing liaison projects is top priority for me.

Leveraging our Immigrant and Refugee Commission and other commissions, we have so many resources and different tables and community groups already within our organization, is how do we leverage that and bring them in to help identify some of, you know, our priority areas.

Next slide, please.

Director Muhammad, before you go on, sorry, I just do want to acknowledge that Councilmember Lewis has joined the meeting.

and look forward to hearing about programs next.

Thank you.

Great.

Welcome Council Member Lewis.

It's good to have you here with us and it's an honor to be presenting today.

So the next area that I just want to talk about is I hope to develop a strategic plan in 2022 that really focuses on the next few years while I'm here for the office.

I hope to develop a strategic plan in partnership with our community that addresses some of the post COVID-19 issues and also learnings.

I want that plan to really focus on equity, health and integration for immigrant and refugee communities.

And the general goal is to evaluate city policies, programs and initiatives and set a pro equity policy agenda for our office.

that addresses where the needs are greatest for our immigrant and refugee populations.

Next slide, please.

So a lot of the priority areas that I just outlined really align with some of the existing programs that we have right now in our office.

And that's what I will talk about in this next area.

There's currently six program areas that are priority for our office.

That's language access, ethnic media, ready to work, legal defense network, immigrant family institution program, and our new citizenship campaign and programs.

Next slide.

Great.

So our language access program, the goal for this program is to continue to provide citywide language access training, to continue supporting our departments, especially when it comes to budgeting for language access.

We have You know, we're currently hiring for a language access service coordinator that will also continue to support our departments with their citywide translation services.

We also have are in the works of putting out an RFP to support a citywide translation and interpretation system.

And basically that's testing out a cloud-based translation and localization platform that connects translators, departments, and translation agencies Um, in a single connected, uh, translation delivery platform.

And so, um, there will be an RFP that's going out, um, very soon.

Um, the city has a goal of becoming a nation leader in immigrant integration and a model for language access.

And we've made, you know, a lot of progress there already.

Language access is a, you know, a necessary component of our city's RSJI initiative goals, as you all know.

And our work helps the city address new access and equity challenges resulting from, you know, the city of Seattle's growth and the city's increased diversity that we've seen in the last decade and so our program will be focusing on that in 2022. Next slide please.

So we have an existing ethnic media and external affairs program that according to the census data, there's approximately 20% of Seattle population are foreign born and of this population, over 30% are identified as linguistically isolated.

And so what does that mean?

The census defines linguistically isolated as a household in which, you know, no person 14 years and over speaks, over speaks only English and no person 14 or older or over speaks a language other than English very well is how they define it.

And so Our, this particular portfolio will continue to focus on partnerships with our ethnic media groups, hosting ethnic media round tables with community leaders, collaborating with city departments on communications that come out at the same time as they do in English, right?

Ensuring that we're providing those translation services, but making sure that we're leveraging our ethnic media groups to help us get that information out.

Um, quickly, um, you know, providing technical assistance for a minimum of 10 city department staff members and community members is among those those priorities and, you know, ensuring that we're monitoring and shaping the city's response to local or federal legislative and policy development related to immigrants and refugees.

Through this portfolio, we meet with our congressional leaders and share with them current policies that either we're advocating for or identifying as a community concerns.

And so continuing to elevate that through this portfolio will be a priority in 2022. Next slide, please.

So our ready to work and workforce development, our TW program is a no cost class based program for adults, immigrant and for adult immigrants who are limited English speaker, and the goal is to help them improve their English.

and help them land a job.

RTW has helped low-income adults, language learners from various ages gain job readiness skills and take the next step towards being economically self-sufficient.

In 2016, The US Department of Labor and the National Skills Coalition highlighted this ready to work program as a as a nation best practice model on how to leverage workforce funding to support immigrant integration in the labor workforce.

Through our Ready to Work program, we partner with a number of community organizations, including Neighborhood House, ACRS, the Asian Council, and Referral Services, Literacy Source.

And some of the priorities in this portfolio will be to, we're conducting an RFP right now to allocate 100K to address some of the negative economic impacts of COVID-19 on low-wage and limited English workers, specifically focusing on digital literacy.

And then also building some really strong partnerships with our existing workforce development organization like WBC and other community partners that advocate and advance strategies around workforce development.

That's also including OEDI around this area.

And, you know, a lot of these dollars are through the Ready to Work program is a federally funded program.

And so that's where those dollars come from.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so the legal defense network is another priority area for us.

In 2017, both Seattle and King County established the first legal defense network.

It was a partnership to really respond to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that we were seeing at that time under the previous federal administration.

And as a result, the legal defense partners really worked on ensuring that we were providing immigration legal services to our community members.

And in 2021, some of the organizations that we partnered with through this program is the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, Colectivo Legal, Kids in Defense, Kids in Need of Defense, the West African Community Center.

We partner with also the Filipino community of Seattle.

and in 2021 there was over 159 eligible community members who received legal services including in-depth assessments, consultations, legal assistance.

178 people received full direct representation in legal immigration cases.

That's including cases under our relief under convention against torture, special immigrant juvenile status, folks who were applying under the U visa and U visa is a set a A visa type that is set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered physical or mental abuse and are working with law enforcement and our government agencies in the investigation process.

And this includes folks who are basically reporting crimes against themselves and others, which is, you know, such an important visa type.

There were over 35 people who've obtained work permits.

under this program, 21 people obtained permanent or temporary immigration status.

And so we continue to build on that work.

In 2022, we're developing and implementing a model for a one-time expansion of services this year, which is about 400,000 to assist unaccompanied minors and immigrants in the dedicated DACA program.

And we work with organizations like Kids in Defense that are ensuring that no child appears in immigration court without high quality legal representation.

I'll just say, you know, often we think our immigration system is a criminal system, but really it is a civil system, but it operates like our criminal justice system, right?

Often you'll see detainees that are transferred from one facility to the next and things like shackles from, you know, they're shackled from their feet, waist and down.

and there's currently no constitutional or even statutory right to appoint counsel in our immigration proceedings.

And that's why a lot of the times you will see a child in court alone.

That means if someone can't afford to obtain an attorney that they will appear in court by themselves and that it's including also children.

And so this program really is focused on providing services to some of our most vulnerable populations in our community.

Next slide.

So the IFI program is our Immigrant Family Institution program.

is focused on bringing youth from immigrant families and their parents and Seattle police officers to really learn from each other.

It's a program that has focused on immigrant families that have been impacted by the juvenile justice system and also frontline police officers who interact regularly with the public.

And the program has provided support for families to be able to, you know, attend program sessions together and in 2020 and 2021 the program was temporarily on pause due to the pandemic.

Normally this was a program that would happen in person and this year we are intending to relaunch the program and we plan to incorporate recent local and national context around police and community relations and engaging with immigrant families who are at high risk and ensuring that, you know, the future of the program is also focused on resourcing our communities to address, you know, some of the violent and harm in a way that really focuses on wellness and away from violence and focuses on restorative justice framework.

And so I'm looking forward to building this up and also reporting back to the council on it.

Next slide, please.

Um, so our citizens are new citizenship program it's like a two part I broke this up in a two part sort of program, the new citizenship program NCP in particular.

focuses on our, we have a groups that we are in par it provides free naturali to eligible immigrant an members.

Um, I'll just s of the program is funded the state's office of Im and refugee assistance through DSHS.

And NCP organizations really focus on providing legal assistance through legal clinics, that includes preparing and filling out immigration applications, waivers to our low-income community members.

And organizations provide citizenship instructions, tutoring, interview preparation, referral services, and these services are provided in a wide range of languages.

Currently, most of NCP's organizations are offering the services via phone or video, and some are happening in addition to in person.

They really had to, you know, adapt to this current pandemic environment that we are in.

And some of our community partners under NCP are Neighborhood House, the Northwest Immigrants Rights Projects, REWA, CMAR Community Health, The Ukrainian Community Center of Washington, the Jewish Family Services are all current members of the NCP program.

And really, this portfolio is focused in 2021. We're currently conducting an RFP process for getting out nearly a million dollars in case management based naturalization services.

And so, you know, the hope is to fully expand the state and local grant funding and support also the new citizenship program agencies to increase certain services that target pre-pandemic levels.

Next slide please.

So the new citizenship campaign, the new citizen is, was created to really make it easier for eligible residents to obtain citizenship.

There are currently more than 100,000 immigrant refugees living in Seattle and King County that are eligible to become citizens.

They could be in a current like, you know, under a their status could be under a green card and so really this program is Ensuring that we're providing free services to low-income immigrant and refugee communities living in the Seattle area to help provide and prepare them for upcoming citizenship workshops, clinics, finding local organizations that are providing those services in helping people find those local organizations that are providing in-language services, connecting our community members to ESL courses and civic classes, and also connecting them to programs that provide loans to pay the application fees for citizenship.

And the new citizenship program currently offers citizenship application assistance through legal clinics, similar to the legal clinics, workshops, as well as one-on-one services.

And this portfolio for 2022 is really prioritizing completing.

The goal is to complete nine legal clinics.

That's many clinics by October with the goal of serving 250 applicants and completing 160 applications for citizenship, including expanding hosting in-person events as we are moving back to more of those in-person events across the city.

exploring possibilities for flexing our new citizenship program service to support pipelines to citizenship and other rapid response needs in our office.

Next slide.

So this basically concludes, that's all of the programs in the office.

I'll just say in closing that, you know, OIRA is a community focused office.

The office was founded through community advocacy.

It's been, you know, just about 10 years when OIRA was established through a city of Seattle ordinance with only at that time, just about $200,000 from the general fund that was appropriated for two positions and the office has grown our portfolio and programs and policies have grown and have been you know, addressing some of the challenging issues that our immigrant and refugee communities are facing.

We have an incredible team that, you know, has been so responsive to community that I feel honored to be working with right now.

And we partner with a dozens of community organizations.

There's over approximately 30 contracts in our office on ongoing programs with our community-based organizations.

And so in 2022, we hope to continue this good work and do it in partnership with our elected leaders, department agencies, and our community members.

And I'm happy to answer any questions that folks may have.

And again, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Thank you so much, Director Mohammed.

Oh my gosh, so much going on there.

If colleagues have questions, please raise your hand.

I do want to acknowledge one thing you said, which is that Because we have such a large immigrant population here in Seattle, it is really important that we provide translation services, not just for the programs that you're talking about around citizenship, but as you mentioned, that your office does critical work to partner with all of our other city departments.

We have a lot of grant opportunities through the city.

We have a lot of resources that are made available for our community members through the city.

support services and access to programming.

And it's really important that all of that be provided, information be provided in languages that people understand.

And so, you know, the first thing you talked about was your language access program.

And I know how hard your department works to be able to partner with our Department of Neighborhoods and OED and all the others.

And I just want to stress that, you know, I do think it is important for us as a city not to release grant opportunities or other opportunities until that information is translated so that our Vietnamese community and our Somali community and our Latino community have equal opportunity to take advantage of those resources.

That's a critical piece of the work that you do in the city, and I just want to acknowledge that and thank you for that.

I also do want to say, Director Muhammad, I know that you are fasting right now, and you've just provided us with a tremendous amount of information, so thank you for that as well.

Let's see.

Council Member Nelson, I have a few questions, but please, go ahead.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Morales, and also Director Muhammad.

I learned a lot in this presentation.

So thank you very much for this information.

And I was, I was, my interest was especially piqued around the Immigrant Family Institute.

So I'll follow up offline with how, you know, with more specifics, but I do have to say that that is an area bringing law enforcement and and community together is key to building more trust.

And I hear that both from officers and community members, like when officers come to the CB Panthers games, for example, just that opportunity to talk with each other.

And especially because immigrants come from many times countries where they have suffered at the hands of the military and state police, et cetera.

I'm just saying I'm glad to hear that this is being relaunched and I look forward to hearing more information about that.

And so thank you.

And then Council Member Morales, when you talk about translation services and everything that is released should be translated, you're absolutely right.

I visited the International House in the CID and the City of Seattle information was next to the elevator, and then volunteers, residents, seniors translated into the languages spoken there.

So definitely, plus translation services create jobs perhaps for our community.

So if that comes up, in the future?

Let me know.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I'll just quickly say in response to that, I'd be happy to connect with you offline, Council Member Nelson.

You know, ensuring that our Family Institute program is relaunched is so important and ensuring that we are also addressing some of the current issues that we are seeing in our communities around the heightened gun violence all across South Seattle is just so important.

And I think building stronger partnerships with our police department and addressing some of that is gonna be critical and incorporating language access even into that because a lot of the information that for our immigrant and refugee communities is what we're seeing our parents not knowing how to navigate the justice, the criminal justice system And, um, you know, not knowing, um, how to, you know, when homicides and things like that happen, where do they go to get information?

And so incorporating language access into those processes will be, um, top priority for sure.

And I see.

Yeah, please.

Council members just go ahead.

Thank you, Cameron.

I was Muhammad.

What a pleasure to have you before the committee today.

You highlighted something that I'll just raise up again, which is incredibly critical for this position, which is that you have both the professional experience to be successful, as well as the lived experience to know what is needed for this role.

My grandfather was a white Jewish German refugee here in the country, and his needs were very different than your needs.

And I know that when we solve for the needs that you and your family have experienced, that we're gonna solve for the majority of people coming into our country, because the country as we know it today was built by refugees and immigrants.

I will caveat to say that we probably need to be looking to our indigenous communities a little bit more, not for this conversation.

And just to say that I'm incredibly impressed with this presentation.

I'm incredibly impressed with your resume and what you are bringing to this department.

I'm looking very forward to the confirmation process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

And just quickly in response to that, you know, I think a lot of the times lived experience gets discounted.

I have a lot of degrees and work experience, but I will say my guiding scope has always been my lived experience.

We see really good policies that get written and when they hit the ground to implement, they're missing dollars.

They are missing that community connection.

And, you know, this office again was formed, came into formation because of our community.

And so ensuring that we're lifting the voices of our community members will be a priority.

you know, valuing that lived experience, not just my own, but others who can contribute to our work at the city.

So thank you so much.

And that perspective is exactly why we are so darn lucky to have you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, Director Barnes, we need to move on in our agenda, but I do anticipate that we will ask you back.

Myself, I'm interested in learning a little bit more about the workforce development work and the legal defense network, especially as you're talking about the need to make sure we're providing support for kids who are coming through the system, particularly unrepresented that just chills me to know that that's going on.

So I do want to thank you and thank your team for being here.

We look forward to learning more about the work that you're doing and working with you to make sure that you get the support that you need.

Thank you so much for being here.

And I do wish you an easy past.

Thank you all.

Thank you for the time.

And I'll just quickly say I have an incredible team at OIRA and who have been moving this work forward.

And I just want to recognize that and say hats off to all of them who have been moving this work forward for many years now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

OK, Devin, can I ask you to read the next item into the record, please?

Yes.

Agenda item two, 2022 Office of Arts and Culture Community Action Roadmap for briefing and discussion.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

I would like to welcome Interim Director Allie Barnes, Amy Nguyen, and Jenny Crook, or Crooks, excuse me, are here to talk about the 2022 plan for the Office of Arts and Culture.

I will go ahead and hand it off to you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales and Council Members, for allowing us to take this time to share it with you this morning.

As my colleague, Director Muhammad, has mentioned, this is Ramadan and we're fasting, so you probably notice a very significant difference in our voices, and you'll also probably notice that we stop at times and we have to take some deep breaths.

So please give us that gracious basis.

Joining me this morning, as you mentioned, Council Member Morales, is Amy Nguyen, who is our Chief Officer for Arts, and Jenny Crooks, who's our new Arts Recovery Manager.

So I want to acknowledge this part of our team being here.

Next slide.

You know, our city is so defined by Slide back please.

Our city is defined by our neighborhoods and these continuously grow and redefine their needs in partnership with public sector.

And then we have education.

And here we are always investing in our youth, the growth of our immigrant and emergent artists and innovative arts organizations.

Civil rights, we have that in common with this entire city, and this is a continuous focus on growth of unserved and underserved communities and increasing access for black, brown, indigenous, Asian, and diasporic communities.

Culture, this is the genesis of the office of a team that's presenting today and their colleagues, and really from 1971 to 2022 and beyond, because art creates civic societies.

Next slide.

Amy is going to take us through public art.

Amy?

Thank you so much, Director Ali-Barnes.

I get the honor of presenting on how we support neighborhoods in many ways, including temporary and permanent public art installations and the urgent need to provide recovery funding for our artists and organizations.

We have multiple programs that create opportunities for emerging public artists to generate artworks in neighborhoods across Seattle.

One of those programs is our public art boot camp.

It's a year-long intensive training program that culminates in the commission of a temporary artwork for artists who are looking to enter the public art realm.

Last year, this program resulted in 11 commissions in Lake City and Seattle Center.

We are currently preparing to launch Public Art Boot Camp 2022. This program is really a part of our RSGI goals by creating a pipeline for primarily BIPOC artists to enter the field of public art.

Another program is our Art Interruptions Program.

It's an annual program in partnership with SDOT for emerging artists for artworks in the public right-of-way.

Neighborhoods are selected based off of a neighborhood equity assessment and typically installed along neighborhood greenways.

In 2022, we'll be doing art interruptions in the West Seattle neighborhood of Highland Park.

Last year, we were in Lake City.

Created Commons is an initiative that transforms outdoor spaces using a curator model that taps into community brilliance.

We commissioned BIPOC artists that activate public space with spectacular temporary art and cultural extravaganzas.

And in 2021, we employed over 200 BIPOC artists and performers through this program.

One of our RSGI goals, one of our many RSGI goals is to create a temporary public art repository really to increase exposure for our artists.

Many of our temporary artworks are commissioned by public art or by BIPOC artists.

Next slide.

We have over 60 public art projects in the pipeline at various stages of completion.

Some of the upcoming permanent art investments in neighborhoods that underscore our commitment to engaging community stakeholders in art creation is Little Saigon Park in Spruce Street Mini Park.

For Little Saigon Park, artist Kalinda Chung worked with community members conducting in-depth community outreach to inform her artwork design.

For Spruce Street Mini Park in the Central District, we used a planning artist model to first work with community members to develop a scope of work before artists Ari Glass and Craig Kundra developed mural designs.

And lastly, our eMuseum is an interactive online database featuring all of our works from the Civic Collection.

Users can view artwork based on council districts sorted by typology and special curated eGalleries featuring artists of color.

We will be utilizing eMuseum to spotlight BIPOC artists in the Civic Collection as one of our RSGI priorities.

Next slide.

Thank you so much, Janie.

As you will know, Council Member, we have been talking with you over time and being gracious enough to be invited back.

Perhaps enough information around education and arts has been given.

You've had an in-depth review of some of these programs, and we'll be coming back over the year as we are balancing and challenging and seeing what our inside, in-school, actual real-time programs are looking like as they transition from having been hybrid for the previous school year.

So our goal here, quite frankly, is to continue our focus on youth K through 12 arts education, specifically in school, after school and summertime programs.

So as youth are also returning to physical campuses, we'll be evaluating how these programs are working for them.

In this slide, you can see the interrelationship of these programs in arts through the arrows.

Arts education outcomes intentionally, as we all know, fosters creativity, gives critical thinking, communication, collaboration, growth mindset, and perseverance, all skills that can contribute to the mental and emotional health of our young people.

So the programs that work towards these outcomes for the Office of Arts and Culture in collaboration with our communities include the Creative Advantage.

And this program, since 2013, has been a citywide initiative to really establish equitable access to arts education for each and every student in Seattle Public Schools.

Right now, it's reaching 55,000 students.

And so we do this through a public-private partnership with Seattle Public Schools.

We also have a relationship with the Seattle Foundation and of course our hundreds of community arts partners and art specialists.

We rolled out creative advantage prioritizing the highest need first and we had to pause the expansion on that in doing COVID.

So we're currently in 81 of 106 Seattle public schools.

We'll be expanding that as we're going forward into the 2022-23 school year.

During COVID, one of the things I want to share is the amazing level of resiliency and pivoting that the school district, art specialists, and young people did, as well as teachers, as we pivoted, created advantage to an online model.

And this was exciting because it employed teaching artists to create arts education videos.

And these are still available to our communities via SPS-TV, SPS YouTube and Arts YouTube channels.

So it's really amazing to create this resource and it will be there for teachers, students and their parents going forward.

So as of 2020 and 2021, The initiative Creative Advantage, as I said, is in 81 schools out of 106. So this is done through currently five pathways, meaning all the schools in the whole neighborhood pathway in our D7 areas that meet low income criteria.

So for Central, that would be through Meany and Washington, through Southwest Pathway through Denny, school to Southeast, that would be through Aki and through Mercer.

For a central pathway, the Southwest, that would be McClure and Madison.

And Northwest, that would be through Jane Adams and Robert Eagle Staff.

And at this time, there's only three high school pathways that we have left, and those are Roosevelt, Ballard, and Lincoln.

So we're going to resume our expansion to all of those.

As I said, 55-plus students will be involved in all of this.

Next slide.

Education begins to be not only what we provide to our young people, but education also becomes professional development.

And the goal here is to continue supporting our teachers and teaching artists, individual artists, arts organizations who really are providing the arts education.

But helping them understand and live time their experiences and so that learning for our youth is a continued hybrid environment and one that also integrates different persons from different educational backgrounds.

pedagogies and views into the classroom and into gathering places with each other.

So we do this through creative advantage again and here as we're investing in artists and educators through this ongoing professional learning, we really are able to deepen the qualities of practice in the communities and also foster community within the field locally.

So we partner with Seattle Art Museum.

They have been amazing in providing professional development for teachers and arts partners on themes such as culturally responsive teaching, trauma-informed practice, social and emotional learning, arts integration, and 21st century skill development.

Funding from the Creative Advantage also supports partner-led trainings for teachers, including integrating dance into physical education, media arts integration, and theater integration.

So this is really looking at emotional and physical and mental integration of activity, both for the adults who are teaching it, as well as for the young people who are receiving the teachings.

Community Arts Partner Roster, this is really a vetted list of teaching artists in community arts and cultural organizations who really provide the integrated and cultural arts learning for students and teachers.

The Artists Up Mentally Scholarship Program and Mentally is an online platform that connects less experienced artists with accomplished artists for career mentorship and advice.

So using all of our technology as we can to move toward integrating and connecting people in real time to the opportunities of professional development interaction is a continued priority.

So for coming out of the pandemic, we're really going to be doing an evaluation and really looking at our 21 and 22 school year and see how in-person has changed these opportunities for the previous things that were done during pandemic as a hybrid.

Next slide.

Civil rights is simply not an issue or a program or an item.

It is our civic society.

It's the fabric that we need to be certain that we're caretaking so that we can all live together.

Here we've been focusing in arts on investing in underserved communities.

The goal is straightforward.

We want to continue focus on the growth in these communities and increasing access for black, brown, indigenous, Asian, and diasporic communities.

As we do return, to our civic society and our open city.

We also want to be certain that we are cognizant of retaining and educating our allies and communities that also voluntarily ascribed as white to the importance of this equity work so that we can all live in harmony in this city.

The information from 2021 is an overview here where you see the 77% of the work that we have done here in arts in the grant area.

77% of this 2.3 mil has actually gone out to BIPOC individuals through our programs like City Artists, Artists Up, Open Art Grant Calls, through our youth arts programs and arts and parks, as well as Creative Advantage.

And so in doing this, it means 77%, that'd be $1.8 million to buy pop artists in these individual categories.

In 43% of our organizational grants, and awards, that 43% of that 4.5 mil means that 1.9 million went out to BIPOC cultural organizations.

Examples of these are like Wing Luke, Totem Star, NAM, El Centro de la Raza.

The evaluation on this is going to be our ability to create real-time reports on BIPOC investments by listening to the team.

community and deciding how we can continue integrating at this level our underserved communities into the fabric of our Seattle arts landscape.

Next slide.

One of the ways that we're going to be able to follow and trend this is by looking at flux system.

This is a new grant system that really started at the beginning of the year, and it really will be a game changer for the city.

It'll give us better data collection on individuals and cultural organizations as they pursue these arts opportunities.

But most importantly, It's going to really allow organizations to be able to have a one-stop shop by putting their, once they put their application into Flux, then at least five other city departments will also be able to understand who the applicants are coming to the city for not only arts grants, but OED or Department of Neighborhoods.

This initiative has been led by CLIT, and it really brings together, as I say, ARTS, OED, DAWN, PARKS, and DEEL, as well as HSD, and creates a one central platform that will really align investments to communities through these departments.

This also will allow us to have a greater alignment for application and assessment of our advanced programs to better understand who we're reaching and who we need to focus more on in our community endeavors to be equitable and to get equanimity in what we're doing.

So I think it's through these big and small changes like the flood system that we can begin to have that open access that Director Muhammad and other folk are talking about in this city so that everyone knows what the opportunities are here.

On an RSGI basis, it's quite simple.

We have to continue to access our selection processes to the level of rigorous tracking of the information that we get through programs like Flux and be certain that we're reporting out to our community members and listening to what their concerns are around equity in these areas.

Now, next slide.

I want you to meet Jay Crooks, who is our new recovery manager.

But first, I want to make one comment, and that is that we have been in this business since 1971 and to the present.

And so the Office of Arts and Culture is going to be driven by active listening to our communities and continuing to employ our artists and to understand what the 21st century thinking has to be in order to have an arts sector landscape change and renewal for recovery.

Jane?

Thank you, Director Alley-Barnes.

Excuse me.

So here is a very brief history of our office starting with where we came from and where we are now.

In 1971, the council approved the formation of the Seattle Arts Commission under the following ordinance referenced on this slide.

Since then, we've grown from a commission into a fully-fledged department of the city, and our mission has broadened to reflect the expansion of our work from an interest or awareness of in the fine arts, and to embrace a more inclusive definition of diverse arts and cultural experiences.

as well as our commitment to racial equity, not only within our arts programs, but also within the arts, using arts and culture as a strategy for more equitable Seattle.

Excuse me.

Looks like my There we go.

Pardon me.

Thanks for your patience.

It looks like my computer froze.

So part of our work is providing direct resources to the community through our funding programs.

As you know, our primary budget for our legacy programs, such as our city artists, civic partners, and youth arts programs are through the admissions taxes.

But our partnering programs, such as Artists at the Center, Cultural Education Fund, and Arts and Parks are from our partnership and collaborative programs with other city departments, community partners, and more recently, federal resources.

Through these programs, our office seeks to support the sector holistically, equitably, and accountably with funding to individuals, organizations, and the broader community.

And our programs continue to examine and implement equitable practices at each stage of the process, including the design of the programs, how we select the awards in relation with community, our reporting and evaluation practices, as well as our administration processes.

These practices enabled us to be responsive and nimble to community needs and made it possible for our office to be one of the first in the nation to pivot funding at the beginning of the pandemic and support artists, organizations, and communities most impacted during that time.

Our focus on accessible and equitable grantmaking provides the foundation of our recovery work.

The art sector was one of the hardest hit during the pandemic, and it's one of the last to reopen.

However, artists and cultural organizations have been vital to providing inspiration, social cohesion, as well as addressing causes of violence during these past two years.

Moving forward with our recovery efforts, we'll continue to guide additional funding directly to individuals, organizations, and community to support the continued resilience of our art sector and the vitality of neighborhoods that have been most impacted by systemic inequities during this time.

Some of these programs include Hope Corps, which will provide living wages to artists addressing community needs.

Others will be grants to organizations to support them in reopening safely.

equitably and sustainably.

And finally, grants to organizations and cultural districts to support community activations.

And our recovery efforts will continue to build on our collaborative work with other city departments and the region.

The efforts of our funding practices have resulted in the following outcomes with increased alignment of our data collection and metrics across all of our programs for more accurate reporting, evaluation, and assessment.

50% of our funding investments, as Director Ali Barnes pointed out, going towards BIPOC and BIPOC-progressing organizations.

And 80 percent of our panelists making decisions on investments are representative of BIPOC community, youth, and other underrepresented communities.

We're also moving forward with all of our programs being designed to center the leadership and expertise of the people of the global majority.

And I will hand it over to Director Ali Barnes for any other questions.

Thank you.

Oh, Director Ali-Barnes, you are muted.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

I do want to point out that this recovery work is critical, and so I do want to formally introduce to the Council and to you Council Member Morales, Jenny Crooks, who has just come aboard as our new recovery manager.

And it's in the process of developing a detailed program.

We have approximately $15.5 million in recovery funds that have been included in our budget for 2022. And we would like to come back to the council to talk in detail about the strategies that we're going to, that we are in fact using now to get those funds out so that there's food on the table in the art sector.

So if that can fit into your council agenda at a point, maybe perhaps in May, we'd like to do that Council Member Morales.

The other piece I just want to say is that for all of these programs, this is at a very highlight level.

You can imagine we have a staff of 49. So there's a great deal of work that's going on.

And it has been going on.

We also have a full return to office in place.

And so we are now going to be able to have that collegial activity that helps get this work done.

But all of these programs are reviewed on a quarterly basis and with great intentionality to move the programs forward and to really be listening, as I said, to our communities and to be able to fund our diverse communities in ways that make a difference to the art sectors and build that civic society that we talk about and do it through the arts.

We're open to questions.

Thank you.

Yeah, this is great.

I definitely would love to hear more when Ms. Crooks has had a chance to catch her breath and get settled in here.

And I just wanna reiterate what you said, what all of you spoke to, which is that it's so important that we're funding comprehensively, right?

So we're not just supporting arts organizations and education programming, which is critically important, but individual artists as well.

you know, the work that your office is doing has really helped, as you said, keep food on the table for individual artists, you know, a lot of whom live in my district, you know, a lot of folks in the South End who support themselves with their art.

And as you said, this, you know, the crush, the economic crush that came when we shut down over the last couple of years has been really devastating.

So I'm glad to know that the programs are able to ramp back up and that there was so much that your office was able to do quickly because of the systems that you already have in place.

So I know we, you know, the department worked really hard in 2020 to start ramping up granting and funding public art so that folks had an opportunity to stay, try to stay afloat.

So thank you for all of that.

I see Council Member Strauss has a question.

I do wanna have, I have one question.

I know this new flux system has been underway for a while now.

And the whole point was really to try to streamline the grant application process so that people don't have to do different things in every different department.

Can you talk a little bit about, it says that part of the transition here is to realign impact measurement for all across applications.

And so I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what that means in terms of the kinds of things that will be that will be used to measure the outcome of the of the funding that we're putting out as a city.

Well some of the thank you very much that's an excellent question Council Member Morales and one that probably needs a more detailed discussion but at a high level what we're going to be doing is looking at our demographic information how we were gathering it and the quality and the quantity that we were gathering prior to using flux but also looking at whether or not it's representative of what our communities are telling us that they're either seeing or not seeing coming through their doors, through their information channels.

So we'll be able to have, using Flux, we'll have one place we can go and begin to gather comprehensively the kind of data that will tell us what we're actually doing and who's actually being impacted.

So on a high level, that's the huge difference.

That's a change, that is a changer for the city.

So moving from that, as we're doing collaborative work with our colleagues in other departments, the city then will begin to see if Royal is simply cycling through just one department or cycling only at a lower level of grants or using myself as an example, or Royal is actually being able to have a comprehensive access and understands all of the opportunities that are available.

So this is a kind of game changer that we're seeing, that we're hoping that Flux will bring us.

And we have great IT support on this as well.

So I wanna mention that.

That's great, thank you.

Council Member Strauss, please.

Thank you.

Director Ali Barnes, Amy Nguyen, Jenny, thank you for such a great presentation.

I just have to, Director Ali Barnes, I know you've heard me say it before about vibrant public spaces and my desire to create more public spaces.

And Amy, I just need to take this moment to highlight your work.

As you know, I've been following your work since you've been working on Your Voice, Your Choice to allow the public to really use a participatory budgeting tool to make impacts in their own community.

And the public art section of this presentation presented is exactly what we're looking for when we're talking about making our public spaces more vibrant.

Because as you said, Director Alley-Barnes, when we are connecting art with physical movement and with education, we are improving the mental health of our community.

We're improving the connectivity between people and we're sharing messages about what really makes us us and what makes our community uniquely special.

I don't have any questions, candidly.

I just really wanted to take this moment to highlight your work, and especially Amy.

I'm just so impressed with this body of work, so I just wanted to say that.

Thank you all.

Both Jenny and Amy represent an amazing set of brilliance that is the teams in art across the spectrum of the work that we do.

So I wanna mention that because without that kind of collaborative and collaboration and what I call a cognitive continent thinking that this team brings for the city, the city would be not in the place it's currently in.

So a great appreciation for that team is called the Office of Arts and Culture.

Thank you, Council Member.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for this presentation.

And I'm just getting the lay of the land on everything that you do.

So my question is pretty basic, but how does it work between the Office of Arts and Culture and sort of other, you know, entities like Arts Fund or For Culture, which sounds like, you know, they have a special revenue stream, but do you, Is there overlap in your work?

Does your office provide funds to these other organizations?

Does it go the other way?

Or are they separate completely?

Can you just help me out here?

It's really a baseline question, as you mentioned, Office Council Member Nelson, but a very important one.

The good news is it's not separate.

Really good news is that it has to be totally integrated, each of us in our lane, but on the same track so that we can actually do that four by four, if you will, right?

Pass that baton off so that citizens can see that we're running this race for them.

So we actually, for instance, in our neighborhood recovery funds, we actually partnered with 4Culture and actually have 200 applicants that Jenny Crooks is going to have the pleasure of going through and making those final awards to.

With Arts Fund, you know, we use their information.

We're in other collaborative relationships with them around conversations.

and looking forward to how these federal funds can be used with for culture again and arts fund and arts wall and all of these organizations.

We're all, we have a shared constituency.

So we're all in this together.

So in every way that we can, we reach out to our constituency as well as our collegial organizations.

Thank you.

Any other questions, colleagues?

I am not seeing any, so I will thank you all for being here.

Look forward to hearing more from you.

Jenny, when you're ready to present, we'd really like to make sure that we get that information on the agenda too as we talk about recovery and really start leading into the summer.

I'm sure there will be lots of opportunity for folks as well.

So, okay.

Well, thank you all for being here.

Appreciate you, and we will see you soon.

Thank you.

Devin, will you read the next item into the agenda please?

Agenda item three, landmarks ordinances presentation for council bill 120295, council bill 120296 and council bill 120297 presented on April 8th, 2022 for briefing and discussion.

Great, thank you.

So we have Aaron Daugherty here from the Department of Neighborhoods, who's going to talk to us a little bit first about what the Landmarks Preservation Board is and does.

And then we will walk through each of the three applications individually and vote on those individually.

So Aaron, I'm going to hand it over to you to get us started.

Thank you.

I am joined today by three representatives, one for each of the landmark properties.

Would you like for them to introduce themselves now or would you like to wait?

Yeah, let's go ahead and do that now and then we'll get started.

Okay, so here for La Quinta, Ian.

Good morning, Council Members.

Ian Morrison from McCulloch Hill Area here on behalf of the owners of the La Quinta Apartments.

Very excited to talk about the landmark proposal today.

Thank you for your time.

And Michael.

Michael Oaksmith here presenting with the UMB National Bank in the UW area.

And again, very excited to be able to chat about the exciting project.

And Emily.

Hi, everybody, I'm Emily Griffin, board president and owner of one of the condos of El Monterey.

Thank you.

So we would love an opportunity to come back and talk about the historic preservation program that's within the Department of Neighborhoods in more detail at a future meeting.

Today, we're talking just about the Landmarks Board.

And the Landmarks Program, there's more than 400 landmarks in the city.

They can be either buildings, sites, structures, or objects.

And the Landmarks Preservation Board is made up of 12 positions.

They're all volunteers.

And the majority of their work is to look at proposed changes to existing landmarks.

And then they also evaluate potential new landmarks for the city.

And there's multi steps in the landmarks process.

There's nomination designation and then we endeavor to negotiate a controls and incentives agreement with a property owner and the procedural step that we're here today for is to talk about the ordinances for these three landmarks and those ordinances are to codify the language of the controls and incentives agreement.

So I'm going to share.

Some slides.

Hopefully you're able to see that.

Okay.

And so briefly, You're not advancing.

Try that again.

Okay, thank you for your patience.

So, what I'm showing at this moment are the designation standards that the landmarks board reviews when they evaluate a potential new landmark.

And there are six of them and the board needs to choose one, but many times they choose more than one.

And occasionally they choose all six.

There's only about six or seven properties in the city that have that, but they really only need to choose one.

And so here you'll see in detail where it talks about significance of an event or association with a person or group.

cultural, political, or economic heritage.

A landmark may also be recognized for its architectural style or the method of construction of the era it is from, or as an outstanding work of a designer or builder.

And then lastly, prominence of spatial location, contrast of siting age or scale.

And in addition to meeting at least one of the standards, the property needs to have the integrity or ability to convey its significance.

So today we're going to talk about three separate properties and I can, if you have any questions for me before I start with each of the properties, I'm happy to do that.

Why don't you go ahead, Erin?

Okay.

What I'm going to suggest is that we go ahead and discuss them and then when it's time for a vote, we'll just bring each subsequent agenda item up.

Okay.

Madam Clerk, is that okay?

Let me just make sure that's okay.

Clerk.

Clerk Schwinn.

Looking for my unmute button.

I'm so sorry.

There's a tiny little square on my screen.

I'm sorry, what was your question?

So we've got the three separate agenda items, but it's okay for us to actually discuss everything first and then just go to each individual one for the vote.

Yes, that's totally fine.

Thank you.

Okay.

Please go ahead, Erin.

Thank you.

The first property is La Quinta Apartments.

This ordinance is to codify the controls and incentives agreement that was signed by the property owner and the city historic preservation officer.

This landmark nomination was made by Historic Seattle, Northwest Vernacular, and Viva La Quinta, a group of residents and neighbors, and you heard from Maria during public comment.

She participated in that.

La Quinta Apartments, is located at 1710 East Denny Way.

This was designated on March 17th, 2021 under standards B, D, and E.

The landmark features include the site in the exterior of the apartment building.

La Quinta was designed and built in 1927 by entrepreneur Fred Anhalt of the Western Building and Leasing Company in collaboration with architect William Whiteley and landscape designer Edwin Doftson.

Mr. Anhalt built many elaborate revival-style apartment buildings, primarily located in Queen Anne and Capitol Hill.

La Quinta is of a Mediterranean or Spanish revival style, which differs from many of the Anhalt apartment buildings, which were characterized as Tudor revival.

The building has had a number of owners over the past 95 years, and we would like to highlight two chapters of that history.

Anna Falkhoff owned the building from 1943 to 1966 and resided here.

She emigrated to US from Russia in 1903 to escape the political and social upheaval of the Russian Revolution.

Ms. Falcoff was a mother of two who had divorced by 1914 and enrolled in the University of Washington, attending full-time while raising her children.

By 1930, Ms. Falcoff had started managing apartment properties, and by the mid-1950s, she owned at least three.

While many women purchased and managed commercial properties in early 20th century Seattle, we are only now learning these stories.

Ms. Falcoff sold the property to Richard Norman in 1964. Mr. Norman was an aeronautical engineer who met his wife, Mildred Leatherwood, a computer programmer, while they were both working at Boeing in 1962. They married in 1965 and collaboratively established their own company, Northwest Computing, on the leading edge of the tech industry.

For the first four years, they operated their business out of their home at La Quinta.

Mr. Norman's purchase of this property on Capitol Hill was unusual in 1964, due to the prolific use of racial deed restrictions and covenants in Seattle starting in the 1920s.

Mr. Norman was black, and it was common for owners to deny the purchase or rental of property to people who were black, Asian, or Jewish, up to and even after the passage of the Civil Rights and Fair Housing Act of 1968. According to Mr. Norman's son, Lawrence, his father broke through this prejudicial barrier with the purchase of this building and others throughout the city in the 1960s, both inside and outside of Red Line neighborhoods.

Would you like to do questions for each property or shall I move to the next?

Let's do for each property, if that's okay.

Well, or maybe what I'll ask you, Erin, can you talk a little bit about the controls for each of these properties as you're going through?

What does it mean for these?

What does it mean?

Yeah.

So the controlled features are identified for the board at designation.

In this case, it's the site and the exterior of the apartment building.

So if there are proposed physical alterations or changes in appearance to the exterior of the building or the site, it goes through what is essentially a design review process with the Landmarks Board.

and the owner would seek a certificate of approval, which is an application process.

The Controls and Incentives Agreement has a very detailed list of items that can be reviewed by the staff through that application process.

There's also a detailed list of things that are accepted from review so that they don't need any any review other than for the owner or the management to say we're doing this and I say, oh, that's consistent with the agreement.

In-kind maintenance and repair fits into that category, things that'll be done to just essentially repair it to look like it does today.

But then there's also a number of minor things that can also be done that's outlined in the agreement.

Then things that don't fit onto either of those lists do require the board's approval.

and we do that at a public meeting, both at the Landmarks Board and typically also at their subcommittee, which is their Architectural Review Committee.

Thank you.

Colleagues, are there any other questions about this at this point?

We can certainly come back if something comes up, so please go ahead.

I'll move to the second landmark.

So this ordinance is to codify the controls and incentives agreement for the University National Bank.

This nomination was made by local historian Larry Johnson.

University National Bank is located at 4500 University Way NE.

It was designated by the Landmarks Board on July 7th, 2021. The board elected standards D, E, and F, and they designated the exterior of the building.

The subject building is a white terracotta-clad classical revival-style structure located at the intersection of 45th and the Ave in the University District.

Historians believe the building, believe the design was developed by Seattle architects and twin brothers Lewis and Michael Beazer, although the drawings are signed by architect George Hughes.

Hughes' career was predominantly as a contractor, so his exact role is not entirely known and we can only speculate.

The Beezer Brothers firm began in Pennsylvania and came to Seattle in 1907. Over the next 20 years, they designed a number of buildings throughout the region, including many churches and banks.

Blessed Sacrament Church in the University District in O'Dea High School and First Hill are prominent local examples of their work.

University State Bank was chartered and renamed as the University National Bank in 1922, and was granted the right to print U.S. bank notes.

They undertook a major expansion of the public banking hall, removing separate retail spaces for other tenants, and redesigned a majority of the building's interior, including providing a new entrance and modifying the basement of the building to include safe deposit boxes and a large vault, which is still there today.

The renovation of the building was completed in 1927 by Portland architects Doyle and Merriam.

The current property owner is in the process of rehabilitating the property.

Thank you.

Erin, can you just talk a little bit about the incentives for the properties as well?

Sure.

Council Member Schaus has a question.

Okay, so the landmarks have, there are a number of incentives that come through code relief, both building code, energy code, and some aspects of the zoning and land use code.

So I don't know how much detail you want me to get into, but There are things that can be negotiated that don't require upgrades as part of rehabilitation if they are preserving features of the landmark.

There are also things like relief from parking requirements for landmarks.

There are also opportunities for administrative conditional use for use that's not otherwise permitted outright in a zone.

There are other types of incentives that are financial, and completing the ordinance, this step in the process, makes those opportunities available.

One is called the special tax valuation.

This is a program related to property tax.

It's an opportunity to reduce the assessed value of the property up to 10 years when there is a major investment in qualified rehabilitation expenditures.

Some parts of the city also have other incentives related to transfer of development rights or transfer of development potential.

Those are opportunities that two of the properties here before you today that are in the University District qualify for the TDP program.

So the bank and then the next property, El Monterey.

So that's a very brief.

Yeah, no, that's helpful.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Schaaf.

Thank you, Chairman Morales.

Erin, I miss having you in my committee, and I'm glad to still get to see your presentation.

Real quick on this one.

Is this the building that has a vault or a door next to the vault that goes into underground Seattle, potentially an ancient aqueduct or well?

Or am I mistaking this with a different property on the app?

Michael may be able to answer that detailed question.

Yeah, it does not have a special door or anything like that in the basement, but it does have a catch basin that you open up in the basement and you see running water down there and it's rumored it's underground aqueduct through the ave, etc.

And we've taken precautions to protect that and keep it sealed up and kind of show the guests as they ask.

I might have to stop by and take a look.

Even though it's not district 6, I still have the weird knowledge of our north end of the city of Seattle.

Thank you, Michael.

Anytime you want.

And more impressively, I'd show you the vault in the basement, which is truly, truly impressive.

We've actually collected bank notes off of eBay and Craigslist and stuff that actually say University National Bank.

So its history of printing U.S. currency just blows my mind.

It's really cool.

That's great.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Okay, Aaron, please go ahead.

Okay, this is the last that we have today.

This ordinance is to codify the controls and incentives agreement signed by the property owners and the City Historic Preservation Officer.

The landmark nomination was made by the Homeowners Association of El Monterrey.

So this property is located at 4204 11th Avenue Northeast in the University District.

This was designated by the landmarks board on April 7th, 2021 under standards D, E, and F.

The features of the landmark include the site, the exteriors of the residential and garage buildings, and the interiors of the 6 main stair towers.

El Monterrey is of a Spanish eclectic style, prominently sited on a corner in the University District.

The multifamily residence has a beautiful, mature landscape courtyard with a historic fountain and equally lush perimeter plantings, including a heritage tree at the northwest corner.

The building was designed and constructed by owner and developer Everett J. Beardsley, completed in 1930. There are known records of landscape architects or garden nurseries associated with the design.

The exterior material palette is of a stucco and brick and is highlighted with painted ceramic tile details, leaded glass steel sash windows, decorative wrought iron window grills, projecting carved wood floor beams, and heavy timber bracketed porches with clay tile roofs.

The attention to elaborate decorative details carries throughout the interiors of the 20 residential units and is also highlighted in the shared stair towers.

According to a Seattle Times article, when the building originally opened, the architect and developer, Mr. Beardsley, had traveled to California and Mexico to source the majority of clay tile and other decorative pieces that are featured on the property.

Beardsley designed a number of other multifamily residences, single-family homes in Seattle, most of a similar architectural character to this property, including the landmark Villa Costella in Queen Inn.

Thank you, Erin.

So the owners are here or representatives wanted to make a few statements.

Before we do that, if I could just ask you quickly, Erin, for the timeline or sort of the process after today's vote.

So council's action on the ordinance would be the last step in the designation process.

And then they would have, the property would have the opportunity to use the financial incentives.

Most of the other code incentives are available to any landmark aside from the ordinance process, that step being completed, yeah.

OK.

So Michael, Emily, and Ian, excuse me, I'm going to open it up to you if you have some comments you'd like to include.

This is Emily.

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, I'll go first real quick.

I'm going to be really brief.

I just want to thank everybody for listening to these, these stories of these properties and not so much from a University National Bank perspective, but from a perspective of what Aaron and Landmarks does.

We just think at Hunter's Capital, it's so important for the city to keep these cherished relics around.

You cannot reproduce these at this point.

The University National Bank is a prime example of that.

And we look forward to renovating it.

We're halfway through a renovation.

We've upgraded the fire and life safety systems.

We've added sprinklers and some ADA lifts and such on the inside.

But we look forward to working with Aaron and Landmarks for as long as humanly possible.

on the University National Bank building so everybody can enjoy what I think is probably the most prominent building on the campus.

This is Emily from El Monterey.

I want to chime in on the process with Erin and the city has been beautiful and educating and I personally I've gotten to experience love at first sight two times in my life.

Once meeting my husband and the second time finding El Monterey.

The community of 20 owners and residents, we really take care of each other.

There are some elders in our community, there are some students, and collectively we just took out almost a million dollar loan to help do a re-pipe for our building.

And we're really excited about being able to access the transfer of development potential financial program to hopefully fund further refurbishments and preservation of our building, including electrical and the roof and things like that.

So yeah, thank you all for your energy and time in this process.

We love the building and with 26-story towers going up within a block and a half of El Monterrey, we're we're even more passionate about preserving this for generations to come.

And council members, I'll be brief as well.

Thank you very much.

The La Quinta ownership is excited about the process.

We would reiterate everything that Michael and Emily said, and I'd like to give a special shout out to Aaron and staff in the negotiation of the controls and incentives for this.

I think this is an example of how the process can work between property owners.

And staff so we really appreciate the work that landmarks board staff has done and would ask for you to support this this ordinance so thank you.

Well, thank you all for being here.

Appreciate it.

And I know it is important for us to preserve these beautiful historic buildings, especially when they have such important stories associated with them, and not forget where we came from for some of these buildings.

So colleagues, are there any questions before we go ahead and move to a vote?

OK.

In that case, Devin, will you please read agenda item Where are we?

Four into the record.

Agenda item four, Council Bill 120295, an ordinance relating to historic preservation, imposing controls upon La Quinta Apartments, a landmark designated by the Landmarks Preservation Board under Chapter 25.12 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

and adding it to the table of historic landmarks contained in Chapter 25.32 of the Seattle Municipal Code for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Okay, any further discussion or questions on this particular item?

I think we've done the deed.

Okay, in that case, colleagues, I move that the committee recommends approval of Council Bill 120295. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Vice Chair Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Five in favor.

Thank you.

The motion carries the committee recommendation that the appointment be confirmed.

I don't think that's the right language, but you know what I mean, uh, that the, uh, recommendation be confirmed will be sent to the April 19th city council meeting.

Um, okay, let's move on to agenda item five.

Uh, you can read the short title if that's okay.

Sure thing.

Um, yeah.

Agenda item five, uh, council bill one two zero two nine five.

Um, and ordinance relating, sorry, two nine, two nine seven.

You're correct.

And ordinance relating to historic preservation, imposing controls upon the university national bank, um, et cetera, for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Um, colleagues, questions, comments.

Okay.

I move the committee recommends approval of Council Bill 120297. Is there a second?

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Vice Chair Sawant.

Yes.

Chair Morales.

Yes.

five in favor.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the legislation will be sent to April 19 City Council meeting.

Will you please read item six into the record.

Agenda Item 6, Council Bill 120296, an ordinance relating to historic preservation, imposing controls upon El Monterrey, a landmark designated by the Landmarks Preservation Board, et cetera, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

OK.

Colleagues, I move the committee recommends approval of 120297. Is there a second?

Sorry, excuse me.

Council Bill 120296, is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval of the legislation.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Vice Chair Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Five in favor.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the legislation be approved will be sent to the April 19th City Council meeting.

Okay, thank you very much everyone.

Good to see you and we look forward to enjoying your buildings.

Thank you, Chair Morales, and to the council members.

I'll also say quickly that landmarks are also eligible for grants through Fort Culture and the Washington State Trust for Historic Preservation, as well as others.

So that's another opportunity.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

OK, colleagues, we have one more agenda item.

Clerk, will you please read the item into the record?

Agenda item seven, appointment 2165, appointment of Sophia Fang as member Seattle Arts Commission for a term to December 31st, 2023 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you so much.

Director Allie Barnes is here to discuss this appointment.

So I will hand it to you.

And I do believe that Sophia is actually able to be here as well.

Yes, yes.

Great.

Welcome, Sophia.

OK, please, Director Allie Barnes.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Sophia Feng.

Good morning to you.

Thank you for joining us.

And Sophia is the nominee the commission sale Arts Commission appointee the Arts Commission has the option under the charter of appointing one person.

And Sophia Feng is that person.

And when I talk to you about her, you'll see why.

Sophia Feng is a startup marketeer by trade, a creative artist by nature, and a social impact creator by purpose.

By purpose.

This is big stuff, right?

All towards her personal mission of building vibrancy in her community.

Blending vibrant swatches of color and complex details, her watercolors combine whimsy, and community, and just joy to celebrate small businesses, immigrant placemaking, and food diasporas, all things that we value in our constituency in building a civic society.

If I might also share, Sophia is passionate about beautifying public spaces in her Seattle hometown and the Rust Belt as well.

She's an emerging artist.

Actually, she's much more than an emerging artist.

She has arrived at many places.

She's received public art commissions in 2021 from the city of Redmond, city of Seattle, Auburn, Pittsburgh, Bloomingfield, Garfield Corporation, Boom Concepts, et cetera.

So her artwork really has been featured everywhere, both physically and in literature as well.

Sophia was also, and correct me if I'm wrong here, Sophia, but you were the artist-in-residence at InScape Arts, were you not?

And also an awesome foundation grant winner, and a 2022 Pittsburgh 30 Under 30 honoree, very big deal.

She's also the 2021 winner of the Athena Young Professional Award for Excellence in Mentoring Women and Girls to Succeed.

So Sophia is someone who has accomplished much in her own career and has the gracious spaces and emotional intellect to remember that she needs to bring up a generation to continue her work as well.

In short, Sophia is passionate about empowering local entrepreneurs, makers, and creators.

Council members, may I present Sophia Fang.

Hi, everyone, and thank you so much for allowing me to join the meeting today.

And thank you, Royal, for that wonderful introduction.

As you mentioned, I'm a self-taught artist and kind of in my second year of pursuing public art and navigating that process of figuring out local arts organizations.

resources and opportunities by myself was at times very challenging and a lot of learning through trial and error.

And that's why I'd be so excited to have the opportunity to join the Seattle Arts Commission because I truly want to pay it forward and help build equitable pathways to support both emerging and established artists from all of our communities in the area to really allow them to access the resources to realize their own creative dreams.

And more broadly speaking, I truly believe that public art is art of the people, by the people, for the people.

And I'm really interested in understanding how we can center community collaboration and envision how public art can be a conduit for informing the livability, the walkability, the quality of life and overall vision of placemaking across Seattle.

So thank you so much for having me here today.

Thank you.

Well, I have to say, Sophia, as a former food systems consultant, seeing the work that you did at SpiceBridge and the other food justice intersection with art and entrepreneurship has been really, really fun to see.

So thank you for the work you do and welcome.

Colleagues, any questions for Sophia?

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

Very excited to have you join the Arts Commission.

OK, in that case, colleagues, I move that the committee recommends confirmation of the appointment 02165. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointment.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Vice Chair Sawant.

Yes.

Chair Morales.

Yes.

Five in favor.

Terrific.

The motion carries.

The committee recommendation that the appointment be confirmed will be sent to the April 19th City Council meeting.

Sophia, you do not need to be at that meeting, but we really appreciate your ability to join us here and to hear a little bit from you directly.

It'll be exciting to have you join the commission.

Congratulations and thank you so much.

Director Ali Barnes, thank you for staying for the entire committee to support us in this role.

Okay, before concluding, I do wanna give my colleagues the opportunity to alert this committee of any anticipated absence for the next committee meeting, which is going to be, let me see, April 22nd.

as far as we know.

Okay.

Very good.

Okay, so this does conclude the April 8th.

Sorry.

Did you raise your hand and I missed it?

Yeah, I just wanted to.

Sorry.

I just wanted to express regret that I will not be here to vote on these final pieces of legislation when they come to full council because I am excused from the meeting next Tuesday.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay, colleagues, this does conclude the April 8, 2022 meeting of the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights, and Culture Committee.

Our next meeting is April 22nd.

Thanks for attending, everybody.

It is 1128 and we are adjourned.

Have a good day.

Bye.