Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights and Culture Committee 9/22/23

Great, thank you very much.

Good morning, everyone.

The September 22nd, 2023 regularly scheduled meeting of the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights, and Culture Committee will come to order.

Apologies for the delay.

It is 9.33.

I'm Tammy Morales, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Vice Chair Sawant.

Council Member, Chair Morales.

Here.

Three present.

I do see, I thought I saw Council Member Lewis, maybe not.

Okay, thank you.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

We've got three items on our agenda today, all presentations.

We won't be voting, but I'm really excited to hear from our three different folks.

So our first item will be to hear from OPCD.

on some legislation that my office has been working on for a couple years.

I'll go ahead and ask Nick to come up.

The second item on the agenda today will be an auditor's report on a study we commissioned on workforce equity and promotions in the city.

And then the third item will be a presentation from our Department of Neighborhoods and Office of Economic Development on the community wealth building initiatives that we have been piloting in the city.

So I'm excited to hear from everyone.

Before we begin, we will open the public comment period.

Devin, do we have folks signed up?

We have three public commenters signed up for in-person public comment and one for virtual.

Great, okay, so before we begin then, let me quickly say at this time we will open the general public comment period.

I ask everyone to please be patient.

It remains our strong intent to have regular public comment in the city council, but we do reserve the right to modify comment periods if at any point we deem the system as being abused.

Each speaker will have two minutes to speak.

If everybody is in person, then please state your name and the item that you are speaking to.

And we will begin.

When you have two minutes, you will have a 10-second chime to let you know that your time is wrapping up.

So when you hear that chime, please wrap up your comments so we can move to the next speaker.

OK, Devin, can you please call the public speakers?

We'll start with remote public comment.

The first person, or the only person that we have for remote public comment today is Kelvin Donqua.

Great.

Kelvin, if you'll pass star six, please.

Hello, everybody.

Can I be heard?

Yes.

Okay.

Incredible.

Well, firstly, thank you so much for an opportunity to speak at today's meeting.

Thank you, council members, for always opening it up for the people of the community to have input on the things that you are doing in this great city.

My name is Kelvin Donqua.

I work as a mentoring program coordinator in the Office of African American Male Achievement at Seattle Public Schools.

I've also been blessed with an opportunity to work with the Department of Neighborhoods on this generational wealth initiative.

And when I think about the major concerns that I hear from all parties about Seattle and where it's heading, it's the homelessness, right?

And it's the drug addiction.

there are a myriad of things, but those are the prevailing things.

And I think a sobering reminder to me is that a lot of our houseless community, we are not, us regular people are not that far away from that.

Like we could be one degree or a one major family incident from being in the same position.

And I think that what's so incredible about the Generational Wealth Initiative is that It provides people an opportunity to be mobile with their finances.

It teaches people economic sustainability and resiliency and skills that keep them resilient.

Truly, Seattle is, I've lived here my entire life and I love this place and I refuse to say anything bad about it.

But it would be remiss of me to, to act as though everything is really affordable and that it's easy to live in Seattle.

It's just not.

And the things that are that make Seattle unique and diverse are starting to disappear and dissipate.

And not to say that there isn't an opportunity to change or grow and adjust.

There is.

However we have to be more resilient and that's what the initiative allows us to do.

It allows people to be resilient and stay in the communities that they helped build.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kelvin.

Now we'll go to our in-person public commenters.

We have three people signed up, so I'll call you in order, and then you can come up to the podium here.

First person is Angel Garcia-Guillen, followed by Cindy Wilson, followed by Alan Ruth.

My name is Angel Garcia-Guillen, and I'm here today to provide a public comment on behalf of Via Comunitaria and other community-based organizations throughout Seattle.

We at Via Comunitaria serve the Latina communities of South Park and Seattle.

We provide critical social infrastructure to help individuals and families thrive while navigating the complexities of U.S. institutions.

Like many other organizations, we are deeply rooted in our communities and have fostered unparalleled trust and investment in the well-being of the lives and future of those we serve.

If the city of Seattle is genuinely committed to investing in its most disadvantaged communities, and building generational wealth, its plan must include adequate opportunities and resources for those who directly serve these populations.

Today I'm here to request and issue a call to action for future funding from the City of Seattle to prioritize and invest in the capacity building and professional development of community-based organizations.

This looks like sustainable funding through multi-year contracts with flexible spending categories, enabling community-based organizations to receive the necessary training and certifications required to offer higher quality programming to the community.

I must also address the issue of competitive and restrictive RFP processes, which often put community-based organizations in the difficult position of competing for limited funding.

The current RFP system creates unnecessary barriers and conflicts among organizations that should ideally collaborate and share their expertise.

We urge the city of Seattle to explore more collaborative and equitable funding mechanisms that promote cooperation among community-based organizations rather than fostering competition that may limit impact of our collective efforts.

I implore the city of Seattle to align with our vision and mission and invest through increased reliable and flexible funding while also re-evaluating the competitive and restrictive nature of RFPs to ensure a more collaborative and equitable approach to better serve the people of Seattle.

Via Comunitaria serves as a vibrant learning hub for our community, a space where we nurture grassroots leadership opportunities.

Through this, we employ, train, and develop individuals and families, creating a ripple effect that spreads knowledge throughout families, friends, and the broader community, ultimately manifesting and building generational wealth.

Thank you.

Thank you, Angel.

Next will be Cindy Wilson, followed by Ellen Ruth.

Hello.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Cindy Wilson.

I'm here to speak about the importance of the BIPOC Generational Wealth Initiative.

All right.

I really urge this council to continue funding this work.

I've had the opportunity and the honor of working with the Department of Neighborhoods, People's Economy Lab, and a slew of amazing BIPOC community orgs on this wealth initiative.

And I'm myself part of Headwater People, which is a Native-run, Native ideologically-based organization doing community outreach work in Seattle.

You know, it's been about two years now, and this time has made it so clear to me that this work needs continued investment.

What a joy it has been to see the brilliance of these BIPOC leaders work on long-term solutions for the stark racial wealth gap here in this city.

It's vital that the city continues to fund spaces that allow for long-term planning and execution.

The needs of our communities are so urgent.

that it's hard to dream of next year, much less the next generation.

But we need to invest specifically in that capacity to plan and create, because you can only build something once you've envisioned it.

We are already learning so much about how to sustainably build wealth, create opportunity, and create a space where we all can thrive.

And so I urge you to continue investing in this initiative, because our communities have the wisdom, the knowledge, and the solutions required for all of us to live in a city where all of our needs are met.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next will be Alan Ruth, and then I'll call the next three speakers after that.

Following Alan will be Cindy Chibertani, followed by Matthew Higashi and Gladys Clement.

So go ahead.

Go ahead, Alan.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Lynn Ruth.

I'm here because I'm the poster child for Generational Wealth.

Full disclosure, I'm a City of Seattle employee.

I began my 49th year.

I started right here at the City Council.

Worked here for 10 years.

Started as a receptionist.

Eventually was a legislative assistant.

Be nice to everybody.

I hired Bruce Harrell to be my intern.

He's now my boss.

But because I was given an opportunity, I lived on the salary I had as a receptionist for 10 years.

When I left the city council, I bought a house at 3617 38th Avenue South.

I was the first in my family to own a house.

I was born and raised in Yesler Terrace, 1009 Older Apartment 866. I went to the only high school, Garfield.

Went to Seattle Pacific College, so did all the things that black folks are supposed to do.

Bought one house.

10 years later, I bought another house on Beacon Hill.

so I could house my family.

I now built a retirement home in Arizona.

But because I had the opportunity to buy a house and own property, I have been the financial stability for both sides of my family, my husband's family.

When my children needed houses, couldn't afford Seattle.

We spent $9,000 and bought three and a half acres of property.

in Conroe, Texas, right outside of Houston.

So they could have a legacy.

I'm still working, yes, because I have two grandchildren I want to get through college.

But the wealth is in the land.

The ability to not have every generation start over.

You know, my mother and father never were able to own a house.

I'm proud that my mother lived long enough to see her daughters own property.

And what I need from this city is for, as it affects black people, I need them to not say black lives matter.

I need them to let black people decide what matters to them.

This work is important.

And when it first started and there was a sunset, you can't make up for 400 years with a two-year program because, believe me, I've done it.

You end up making decisions that are not long-term.

So I'm asking that these decisions, as they affect black people, I'm not speaking for anybody else, let them be made by black people.

Let us decide.

That's the only way black lives matter, is what we want matters.

And I'm not on city time, so don't blame Jennifer Chow.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lynn.

Up next is Cindy Chibbertoni, followed by Matthew Hayashi.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm Cindy Chivertoni from Villa Comunitaria as well.

I'm here to support the Generational Vault Initiative.

In the last year, we have been working with the DOM to innovate, create, and design innovative projects.

Our approach has been board-based worker ownership.

In the last year, we have been able to be creative, innovative, and for the first time, we have been able to be flexible on what we need to do instead of delivering.

a specific thing.

We just want to improve and make the economy better.

What we asking here is to, for the city of Seattle to trust in us as a community partners to have those flexible funding dollars.

So for us, not just be the communitarian, but for the community based organizations to be innovative.

and to have more focus on creating programs and not rather on come with the city asking, but also from the community bringing those solutions towards the economy.

Our approach has been creating the first cooperative developer for the for the Latin community in Spanish.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Cindy.

Up next is Matthew Hayashi followed by Gladys Clement.

After Gladys, there are no more public commenters signed up.

Good morning.

Appreciate and want to acknowledge the chair and the whole committee for having us here.

My name is Matt Echo Hawk Hayashi.

I'm part of Headwater People too, and I'm here to speak in support of the Generational Wealth Initiative.

There's lots of things that stand out to me.

The thing that keeps coming up over and over for me is that to be able to witness the city's investment in not just what particular programs, but investing in how do we change the environment for this conversation, the environment for how projects and ideas can be incubated, can be supported, can be listened to, and then launched to that environment that this initiative is creating.

I think a lot goes to the staff here at Department of Neighborhoods, but that environment is really a transformational one.

It's one that's not often seen where local government and community leaders can come together in an environment of trust and openness and real ideas, not just of being able to emerge, but they have the time and space to be listened to and thought through.

and have feedback and pushback and still, like, support it as they move forward.

It's a really, really incredible program that's happening here.

And you're going to see, we're seeing right now, the outcomes of those programs are powerful innovations on different scales, but reaching areas of this city and communities that I think for a long time, we as a whole community have had a difficult time reaching.

And being able to have the chance to have meaningful partnerships with organizations that I kept just speaking is a real game changer.

The ask looking forward is they're big ones, they're significant ones.

And I just want to say that the investment in that is going to produce dividends way, way beyond what's being put into it.

And I'm quite certain of that.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Matthew.

Up next is Gladys Clement.

I'm sorry, Clemente.

And following Gladys, there are no more public commenters signed up to speak.

Good morning, my name is Gladys Clemente, and I also with Villa Comunitaria non-profit organization in the South Seattle.

I would like to talk about me and the journey, my leadership journey with Villa Comunitaria.

Over the years, I gained the trust and confidence to work in the community.

With my testimony today, I would like to ask the city of Seattle in extending the trust to community.

We know more about what we need and having the government on our side will produce bigger results.

In 2014, I joined a group of women called Promotoras that meet every Wednesday to address and discuss community issues.

After two years, I became a staff member in 2017. And as an immigrant, and among three children, I know firsthand the necessities that newly-arrived immigrants face.

I would like to acknowledge the work that grassroots organizations are doing.

I think we are communities working towards leadership, education, and workforce development opportunities.

And a real example of that Its mission is to cultivate leaders to create a stronger community.

The leadership development work in the Latinx community is a job that started in 2013, and the secret to this success is the people that serve the community are part of the community, including myself.

My request today is to trust grassroot organizations in the work we have been doing for so many years and provide flexible budgets to sustain our programs, especially the ones that are crucial for generational wealth.

And I know we all here support the generational wealth initiative.

education, leadership, and economic development.

We have demonstrated that these programs have a meaningful impact that improves the quality of life of community members, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Thank you, Gladys.

There are no more commenters signed up to speak.

Terrific.

Well, thank you all so much for being here.

I appreciate hearing directly from the folks who have been convening for the last couple of years.

So I'm looking forward to your presentation later.

Okay, so I'm going to close public comment.

And before we begin, I just want to say, you know, there's a theme here for the presentations that we're going to hear about today.

We're going to hear about what the city can be doing within our departments to make sure that we are supporting communities of color, that we are addressing the displacement that is happening in our communities by talking about some new housing opportunities.

We're going to be talking about how we can be active in community by supporting the organizations that are doing the work outside the city.

to make sure that our communities of color have tools to ensure the displacement stops, that our small businesses can thrive, that our communities can stay rooted and really support the cultural anchors that we want to see in our community.

And then we're going to be hearing from our city auditor about what the city needs to be doing internally to address the issues around racial equity and hiring promotion and retention policies because this is not just about addressing communities of color outside the city, but how we remain or achieve our goal of being high road employers by making sure that we are also doing everything we can to address whatever internal racial disparities we have within our own city workforce.

So I'm looking forward to these conversations today and really want to thank everybody.

Okay, so with that, we will begin.

Devin, will you please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, presentation of the Connected Communities Equitable Development Zoning Pilot for briefing and discussion.

Great, so we have from OPCD, Nick Welch and Katie Heimer.

Is Katie online?

Yeah.

And then from our own central staff, we have Ketel Freeman.

So I will ask each of you to introduce yourselves and then we will begin.

I'll start.

Ketel Freeman, Council Central Staff.

Why don't you go ahead, Katie?

Hi, everyone.

My name is Katie Hama.

I'm with the Office of Planning and Community Development.

Hi.

Good morning.

Nick Welch, also Office of Planning and Community Development.

Great.

OK.

We have the technical issues resolved.

OK.

Let's do it.

Um, so good morning, um, committee members, uh, again, council central staff today.

We'll have an initial briefing and discussion.

On a piece of legislation that is yet to be introduced, um, it's a pilot program connected communities pilot.

Um, I'm going to walk through most of these slides.

They're just in terms of materials that you have attached to the agenda.

There is this presentation.

Um, there is another PowerPoint presentation that represents some massive studies that was done by schemata.

Workshop incorporated for the office and then there's also a draft bill.

I don't know if you have any questions about materials, but if not, I'll just drive in dive into the outline here.

Um.

Talk a little bit about equitable development zoning, past and current phases.

OPCD, that's largely been OPCD's work.

The council will recall a couple of bills that have been acted on in the last couple of years.

Talk about the evolution of the council work on the connected communities pilot, and then talk a little bit about what the connected communities pilot would do, and then identify some next steps for the committee for potential introduction and consideration by the committee after budget.

So I'll turn it over to OPCD here to talk a little bit about equitable development zoning and what the city has done and is continuing to do.

Okay, thanks Ketel.

First off, thank you council member for having us here at the table with you today, at the committee and more broadly just for this collaboration between your office and OPCD.

We're very excited about it.

This will be sort of a quick overview of equitable development zoning or EDZ.

This is an effort from our department, OPCD, over the last couple years that really began because we sort of had a simple problem that we came to realize.

Several, about seven years ago, the city started the Equitable Development Initiative, or EDI.

That was really at the direction and advocacy of community organizations experiencing displacement pressure.

And it was intended to address primarily financial barriers that those community organizations were facing when they tried to mobilize and execute anti-displacement strategies.

And so it has funded many of those projects in the last several years, several dozen.

Most recent announcement of awards was just a couple days ago.

But over the last several years, we've realized anecdotally from those projects that they're still facing a lot of challenges, that the city regulates development and land use in ways that that challenge those projects, that slow them down, that add costs, that make them more complicated.

So a couple years ago we started this effort, Equitable Development Zoning, with a purpose of trying to align our land use policy more closely with the goals that our department and that the city generally has set for equitable development.

We convened a stakeholder group that had met for Monthly through the last year, we interviewed dozens of EDI applicants and grantees to try to understand where their specific projects had been stymied by our land use regulation.

And so from that engagement work, we sort of outlined three main strategies.

Those are what you see here on the screen.

The first one, and that's ongoing, was trying to address some of the challenges those organizations, those projects face, just getting through the permitting process.

Just frankly, navigating a complex process, getting answers to questions when many of them, their mission is focused elsewhere, not primarily on development.

So maybe the first time they're really encountering the city's land use regulatory framework.

So the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, SDCI, now has a position that is there to support those types of projects to kind of be a liaison, especially upstream when they have early questions in the process.

That's something we'd like to scale over time, but it already had been helpful.

The second phase was recent, that was sort of phase one of EDZ from a legislative standpoint, and that was a piece of legislation that the council adopted earlier this summer that removed kind of a set of code barriers that we knew were facing EDI projects right now, several of which were sort of stuck trying to move forward.

The main thing it does is sort of simplify the permitting process so that rather than requiring certain subjective or conditional land use approvals that can add time and cost and uncertainty, they have a more straightforward path through the permitting process.

It sort of unlocks more sites throughout the city where certain types of uses that EDI projects often include are now allowed or allowed in a more straightforward way.

Through this engagement we also knew and had heard about how many projects face bigger challenges.

They fundamentally don't have the right zoning for the site that they may have managed to acquire in our very high cost city where land acquisition is really difficult.

And zoning is just sort of a fundamental barrier that makes their projects difficult or financially infeasible.

And so looking for more flexibility that would really encourage equitable development uses in new development and increase their feasibility was what we thought could be a next phase, a phase two that we wanted to explore through a pilot and we're very excited at the potential collaboration with your office and as Guido will walk through in the next several slides what that pilot would involve.

Thank you.

Well, Kito, before you start, then, let me just sort of give context for the work that we were doing in my office.

So thank you, Nick.

This is really helpful.

So in 2022, we started working with a stakeholder group of about 35 organizations, community organizations, to change our land use code so that we could shift the city toward one where everybody can live in their chosen neighborhood.

with access to services and commerce that meet their needs, all ideally within a 15-minute walk or roll of their home.

So that group we called the Seattle Within Reach Coalition.

It includes organizations like Puget Sound SAGE, who was sort of the convener that advocated for the Equitable Development Initiative many years ago, El Centro de la Raza, African Community Housing and Development, the Filipino Community Center, the CHAM Refugee Community, AIA, Seattle, Interim CDA, and many others.

So our goal was and continues to be to really shift from a city of isolation and exclusion where some neighborhoods have nice things to one where everybody can have access to goods and services, to the things that can make their lives more helpful, and to really address some of the harms that have been caused by past policy decisions like redlining, like racially exclusive covenants, and other land use decisions that were really built on those legacies and are still causing harm to our community.

For example, the urban village strategy.

So we want to see affordable homes everywhere in Seattle with services like cultural anchors, healthy food, child care available to everyone.

And we want to give people at risk of displacement, particularly through predatory home buying, an opportunity to stay rooted in their community.

And so that's another component of this that we'll be talking about.

We also want to recognize that we need to add lots of housing all across the city and across the income spectrum.

So, and we want to greatly increase the amount of housing available to working families, not just to some, but to really be able to stitch together our city and build the kind of social cohesion that you get when you have folks of mixed income living in one building, not just putting all of our low income housing in one neighborhood, for example.

So we recognize the role that community and culturally based organizations play, the role that public developers play, and they will be essential to making this work.

So the last thing I'll say is I'm really glad OPCD saw our collective work and recognized its value.

and wanted to see how we could incorporate that into the next phase of the equitable development zoning.

I've been really happy to be working together on this, and I think this is the kind of collaboration and co-leadership that can really serve our communities well.

So thank you for that.

And Ketil, I will hand it back over to you.

Okay, I think moving on to the next slide here.

So this will be a pilot program.

As with every pilot program, it's good to have a clear statement of purpose so that you can analyze the results after the pilot period is over.

So I'll just go ahead and read the draft statement of purpose and intent that's in the legislation.

It's to demonstrate the social benefits of equitable development with community serving uses and housing available to a spectrum of household incomes through onsite affordability standards and incentives for housing and equitable development uses.

through partnerships between public, private, and or community-based organizations.

So that's the statement of the draft legislation.

Moving on to the next slide here.

So where would the pilot apply?

It would apply in most zones where residential uses are allowed within the city, but where the preference for those areas that are identified as community preference areas by the Office of Housing in areas where there have been historical racially restrictive covenants.

So the former community preference areas are well known.

Those are established census tracts.

I mean, areas with racially restrictive covenants are known to a certain extent, but there's not a database that identifies every place in the city.

But you see on a map here from the University of Washington, those subdivisions where those covenants have been identified.

Moving on to the next slide here, eligibility and affordability requirements, so who could participate.

The pilot period would be for the earlier of 35 projects or through 2029, assuming the legislation becomes effective in 2024, that's a five-year period.

Applicants must include or be partnered with a community development organization or public development authority.

that has as its mission development of affordable housing or equitable development uses.

So it would include a variety of community development organizations for PDAs.

It would include some that have been established, including the new social housing PDA.

Affordability requirements.

There would be a minimum affordability requirement of 30% of units affordable to households earning up to 80% of AMI.

On the rental side, we're up to 100 percent of AMI for ownership.

What is 80 percent of AMI for a one-person household?

It's about $70,000 a year in 2023. For a four-person household, it's about $100,000 a year in 2023. Next slide.

Bonus development capacity.

So, what does one get for participating in the pilot program?

You get additional floor area ratio and exempt floor area, but you have to provide some public benefits.

Affordable housing, as we just mentioned, is a baseline public benefit that must be provided.

But you get additional FAR for other things too, including location and community preference areas or areas with historically racially restrictive covenants.

You get exempt floor area, so floor area that doesn't count towards your maximum FAR, your maximum density by providing equitable development uses.

And you can get extra floor area for provision of a unit to a partner property owner who might otherwise be displaced.

So, if there is a property owner who wants to partner with a developer here, they can secure a unit through the pilot program.

Next slide please.

These are the development standards that are in the draft bill on the far left of the current development standards.

The baseline standards, and then on the right, additional exemptions and that would be available under the program.

And low rise and lowers multifamily zones and neighborhood commercial zones.

The additional floor would be on the range of 20 to 30%, depending on.

Which zone you're and next slide.

And our neighborhood residential areas, so areas that are formally designated to a single family, you would get even more developed capacity more along the lines of 50%.

Or there abouts for participating in the program, but it's not shown here, but would be an aspect of the program is exempt for area for equitable development uses.

Moving on to the next slide, so a low rise 3 example, so we're going to transition now here to a slide deck that represents the good work of.

Workshop incorporated, as you will probably know, there are architecture and design firm in the city.

There's active in a variety of different areas and.

They're under contract with the council to produce some slides here and probably before we go into the slides, it'd be worth talking about a couple of things.

But the purposes for the slides and also why we selected a low rise 3 zone, which is what we're going to walk through here.

For the spectra purpose, it's to give you all a sense about how the buildings may appear, but it's also to satisfy some of the procedural requirements for the state environmental policy act.

So, among other things, we're looking at development scenarios here that while theoretically would be possible under the pilot may not actually be that likely.

So, that's sort of more of a disclaimer and I know to users of the slide deck.

With respect to low rise 3, so low rise 3 is a, it's a multifamily zone.

That's was intended for development with apartments.

That's its primary purpose.

You get a fair amount of.

Just what we have observed is that low-rise 3 is often underdeveloped.

It is developed for townhouses, so people aren't necessarily maximizing the full potential of low-rise 3 zones, so we wanted to look at how a pilot may incent fuller development of sites in low-rise 3 areas.

With those disclaimers and explanations, let's move on here to the first slide.

Again, these are the areas where you could get extra development capacity.

Uh, and and an increment above the baseline development capacity available through the program.

Including community preference areas places with historically racially restrictive covenants.

Next slide this shows us generally what we're going to be looking at here.

There's some orthogonal views.

And street level views that kind of give a sense about how a building may look under the pilot program, but.

On the far left is what could be developed under the current low-rise three development standards.

In the middle is what could be developed under baseline standards, including an increment for developing in areas with historically racial restrictive covenants or community apartments areas.

And then on the right is what could be developed not only with those, the baseline incentives under the program, but also Um, with a project that includes exempt for equitable development uses and also provision of an ownership.

Next slide.

So here is development under existing zoning.

Two sites, it's relatively, I mean, they'll be combined in sort of future, what we'll see in slides here in just a minute, but that's essentially a 31-unit project on two parcels, about 13,000 square feet in area.

You can develop up to five floors here, what's shown in the model is a four-story building.

So, this is what you can build under current conditions.

Next slide.

And this is what it looks like from the street.

So, it's, you know, it's, this is sort of shows context for what the kind of development that may be in low rise 3 zones and in relatively dense areas.

It's not necessarily apartment buildings.

It's older houses, older apartment buildings and townhouses.

Next slide.

So here is what could be developed under sort of the baseline aspects of the program to the provision of affordable housing.

Um, and also, um, uh, by location in an area, um, that's a community preference area or where there have been historically racially restricted cover.

So some are more units, 36 units, um, townhouses in the front and apartment or an apartment building in the back.

Um, the affordable units are identified there in the lighter yellow, the market rate units are identified there with the lighter orange.

Where units might be located, don't infer from this, they'd be on the top floor or the fourth floor.

They'd be distributed throughout the building as is the current requirement under both MHA and incentive zoning.

Next slide.

This is what it would look like from the street level, a step back project.

more ground-related units in front and apartment building in the back.

Then the next slide, please.

So, here is a project that uses every single incentive that would be available under the pilot program.

So it'd be a slightly taller building a 6 story building as opposed to a 4 or 5 story building.

There'd be more units, 45 units, 14 of those units would be affordable.

The rest would be market rate units.

So there'd be opportunities for cross subsidy.

And what sort of importantly, what we see here at the ground level is exempt floor area for the equitable development.

Uses and also an ownership unit that is provided in the building through a partnership with a property owner who's participating in the program.

So next slide.

Here's what it would look like from the street level.

So, equitable development uses there at the ground level, those could be.

a variety of different community serving uses, including institutional uses, or other things like commercial kitchens, childcare, but uses that are intended to have an anti-displacement effect.

Next slide.

Here's some orthogonal views.

This is current zoning.

Next slide.

Baseline under the bonus program.

Next slide.

The maximum that could possibly be done and then 1 final slide here.

This is a maximum of what could possibly be done sort of with a comparison ghosted end of kind of existing.

Zoning under low rise 3 to give you both a sense about how something might appear.

The current development, but also with what could be developed under current zoning.

So, there are a few other slides we could walk through if you'd like there's some street views, but this is the general gist of kind of what could be provided.

Under the program with the high bulk and scale might look like, and where the uses may be located in the building.

I don't know.

Katie or Nick, if there's anything you all want to say here about the massing is done by a schemata, but.

Are you welcome to if you have any thoughts.

No, I don't think so.

That was great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't do does the committee have any questions about these about these graphics?

I'm not seeing anybody.

I do want to and should have started by thanking Councilmember Strauss, who chairs the Land Use Committee and has had a very full schedule this year.

So we agreed that we could begin the conversation here and at least sort of daylight, all the things that we've been working on for a couple years now.

So thank you to the chair.

We do expect that legislation will be ready to introduce in December.

So I'm hoping that we can formally introduce and begin the discussion that way.

But I do want to thank Chair Strauss for letting us do it this way instead.

And it looks like he has a question.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

And Ketel, if you could go back to that last slide that you were on.

Chair, I'm just also going to return the thanks and appreciation for you having in this committee rather than in mine, because my committee was three and a half hours this last meeting.

time before last, and this would have made it a four-hour committee.

And just like thank you for continuing to work on this.

I wanted to highlight the slide because the reason that I'm always very nervous, anxious, and typically don't share massing slides is because I just want the public to recognize that the building doesn't have to be this ugly.

This is a massing slide.

This shows what height bulk scale can look like and is in no way representative of what a final building would look like.

So I just wanted to say thank you and then also clarify that height bulk scale massing slides can look, the final design can actually look pretty and fit the character of the neighborhood.

You know Chair and I were both at Association of Washington City's board conference this week.

I drove through Leavenworth and Driving past the Safeway in Leavenworth.

I was struck with how Bavarian that Safeway looked and Leavenworth has very strong design standards that they place on their community for you know specific reasons.

I'm in no way saying that Seattle should look like a Bavarian town, I'm just using that as an example of how design standards in a community can be implemented to ensure that new buildings and existing buildings retain a feeling of the character of the community, so.

Great, thank you.

I went on a bit of a tangent, Chair.

Yeah, thank you for letting me pipe up.

That's quite all right.

That's actually a good

I was just going to see if there were questions.

Yes, Council Member Nelson.

Would these projects participate in the MHA program?

No, they would be exempt from the MHA program.

all of them, even if they're a private developer that's providing on, I mean, they're affordable housing providers and then they're private, but they would be exempt.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that's actually a good opportunity to sort of compare and contrast sort of the requirements of this program with the MHA program.

So, um, under the MHA program, if a, if a developer is performing, there's kind of a range of requirements there that depend on the zone and how much development capacity was granted through the MHA up sounds, but at the high end, it's about 10 or 11%.

Usually, it's a little bit lower than that, much lower than that in the 5 percent range.

There's also a deeper level of affordability required under MHA.

So, under MHA, rental units have to be affordable at 60 percent of AMI.

So, the pilot program, as proposed, sets a higher ceiling for affordability.

So, 80 percent of AMI doesn't have – that's the ceiling, certainly not the floor.

so it could be lower than that.

There's also a higher requirement for the number of units that must be provided, and that's 30% as opposed to 11 to 5.

Any follow-up, Councilmember Nelson?

No, I'll ask questions offline.

Thank you.

Great.

Okay.

Ketel, anything further?

I just wanted to get – just the discussion of the MASSIC studies sort of reminded me of kind of next steps here, and so it might be good just to look at that next steps slide, which sort of gets us on a pathway to potential consideration in December.

And one thing to recall, to remember here, is that we have to do State Environmental Policy Act review on this legislation, which is a purpose for developing these MASSIC studies.

It's something that we need to do to meet those procedural requirements.

As a consequence, one thing that we show through these massive studies is kind of not necessarily what's likely to be developed, but what could be developed, but is what is sort of.

not that probable in some ways.

So that's what we have shown here with sort of the highest example.

So that SEPA review will happen during budget, and assuming that it goes smoothly, we should have a piece of legislation introduced for the committee to consider in a December timeframe.

So that's all that I have on next steps here.

Great.

Thank you.

Katie or Nick, anything further you wanted to add?

Okay.

Well, I appreciate this.

As I said, we are really working to use every tool we have in the city to increase housing, particularly to increase housing for working families.

And more than that, we're not just interested in units of production, we're also looking at how we can be really intentional about creating the kind of community that we want.

So this is an attempt to provide for a mix of incomes in any given building to make sure that we are setting an intention that the ground floor of these buildings provides a service to neighbors, a commercial, an institution, a cultural anchor, something that community has decided is important to them.

And to really offer, you know, a new way of incorporating all of our goals into these buildings so that we are, as I said, really intentional about creating community, not just building units of housing.

So I'm excited about this.

I'm looking forward to it.

I do want to thank OPCD for your partnership.

I want to thank Ketel for working on this with us for a couple of years now.

And I do want to thank Schemata Workshop for their work on the massing studies.

We've had a lot of conversation over the last two years with these 35 organizations about what they would like to see as a potential way to develop in the city.

And so I think doing this as a pilot program for a few years to see, you know, what fruit it bears is a smart way for us to get started.

So I'm looking forward to that.

And if there are no other questions, I will thank you very much.

Okay, Devin, will you read item two into the record, please?

Agenda item two, workforce equity in promotions audit for briefing and discussion.

Great.

And I will ask Director David Jones, our city auditor, and Ibi Osuntoki from the city auditor, and Jana.

Is Jana coming as well?

Or is Jana online?

There she is.

Hello.

Okay, so while we're getting set up there, I will say that we commissioned this report when we heard about seven black women who were suing the city for promotion practices.

So it's really important to me that, you know, We understand that trust and integrity in our governmental system starts with our own city culture.

It starts with our own workforce.

And so over the last few years, as I've been part of different community roundtables that have really urged a more equitable city work environment, we've heard a lot of stories from folks about ways that the city could improve its practices.

And really, because we've had some changes in leadership, those who we entrust to serve the city.

are experiencing really high burnout.

We know that folks are feeling tired, especially over the last few years.

And so we really continue to grapple with how, as a city, we're going to embody our race and social justice goals.

So one step toward culture change is to codify our longstanding race and social justice initiative, which we did do this year.

I'm really proud of the fact that we were able to shift that from being just an executive order to policy that really sets an intention and sets expectations for how we follow our goals there.

And then another step towards changing culture is to really shine light on our current practices and learn how we can improve our workforce from hiring and retention to promotion practices.

So as I said, I asked the city auditor office to examine the life cycle of city employees.

I'm interested to learn more today about the This will be the first of several issues that we are asking the auditor to work on, and really look forward to hearing from Jana Elliott, the Chief of Staff at our Seattle Human Resources Division, on how we can support human resources tools for our current and our future workforce.

So I will hand it off to the office of the auditor.

Should we say who we are for the record?

Yes, please introduce yourselves.

I'm David Jones, Seattle City Auditor.

I want to thank you, Chair Morales, for inviting us here today to make a presentation on our audit, which you requested, concerning the equity of promotions within Seattle's city government.

This next slide just talks about what our office does.

We do independent analyses of city programs and make recommendations where warranted to improve city services.

And we submit our reports to those entities you can see listed.

I do want to say to the viewing public, if they want to see the report, you can go to our website.

And I'll just give that web address right now, www.seattle.gov slash city auditor slash reports slash 2023. And if you go there, you will see the report.

Again, this report was done in response to requests council member Morales made.

to look at workforce equity in promotions in the city of Seattle.

And our objectives, we had two objectives, basic objectives.

One was to establish a baseline of city of Seattle employment promotion data.

And then secondly, to determine if this city has been following best practices on promotion.

and retention, particularly for women of color.

I do want to emphasize one point.

In this effort, I.B., who did the work, along with our recently departed, beloved Virginia Garcia, who worked on this audit, We looked at one year of data, just one year of data.

And as data analysts, we're very nervous about making really hard conclusions based on one year of data.

Nevertheless, there are some things we can say.

And one of our recommendations, which Ivy will talk about, talks about the need to do this every year.

So we know what's going on every year, and we know it across trends across the years.

Let me turn it over to Ivy Oshintoki, who was the auditor in charge of this report, and he'll take you through the report's findings and recommendations.

Thank you, David.

Before I present the audit findings and recommendation, I would like to go over how the city defines workforce equity and how we apply that definition to our audit.

The city defines workforce equity as when the workforce is inclusive of people of color and other marginalized or underrepresented groups at a rate that is similar to the greater Seattle area at all levels of city employment.

Our audit focused on promotions, which the city identifies as a form of participation in city employment.

For the purpose of this audit, workforce equity in promotions means that employees who are getting promoted should be representative of the city employee population.

Our presentation today covers some of the audit findings.

The audit report, which is available on our website, contains more information on our findings and methodology.

Our first major finding is that the city has not included promotion analysis in its annual workforce equity reports, even though the city identified promotion as an important outcome to analyze in 2018. The workforce equity reports are published annually by the Seattle Department of Human Resources, which I will refer to as SDHR in this presentation.

We found that the city has seven different types of promotion, as shown on this slide.

And in 2021, there were 937 promotions in the city.

The 2021 promotion data was the most recent data available when we started this audit last year.

We found that the lack of promotion analysis in the annual workforce equity reports obstructs transparency and could be contributing to employees' complaints about promotion.

Our office was able to use the 2021 promotion data to conduct a baseline analysis on promotion.

We completed descriptive analysis that shows the percentages of promotions among different groups of employees.

One of the findings from those analysis was that promotion outcomes were slightly higher for most women of color in the city in 2021. We also conducted what is called adjusted analysis, where we were able to control for factors that could influence promotion, such as the number of years an employee has been with the city, or if an employee is temporary or permanent.

The results of both our descriptive and adjusted analysis were consistent.

However, as I mentioned earlier, we conducted this analysis to establish baseline data and promotions.

It would be premature to draw any major conclusions based on a year worth of data analysis.

And although promotion outcomes for most women of color were slightly higher in 2021, we find that women of color on average received lower promotion pay increases compared to men of color, white women, and white men.

The city needs to follow up on this analysis and conduct further analysis in order to understand and address these findings.

Our next major finding is that there are data gaps in the city's human resources information system.

For example, about 4% of employees in the 2021 data do not have any specified race or ethnicity, which affected the analysis we conducted.

The gender categories the city uses to identify employees are also very limiting.

This means that the city might not be able to address potential inequities faced by non-binary employees as required by the executive order that established workforce equity in the city.

This brings me to our first recommendation.

As you may be aware, the city will be transitioning to a new HR system known as Workday HR in 2024. We are recommending that SDHL use the transition as an improvement opportunity to address the data gaps we identified and design the city workday HR platform to automate data analysis.

We are also recommending that SDHL publish regular analysis on promotion and pay equity.

Our next major finding is that the city's federated HR system has impacted the implementation of promotion-based practices.

A federated HR system basically means that HR's management in the city is decentralized.

For example, SDHR implements promotion practices for 20 small departments and offices.

And large departments have semi-independent HR units that implement their own promotion practices.

We find that the federated system has led to siloed practices and has impacted the implementation of promotion-based practices across all city departments.

We are recommending that SDHR and HR units in large departments explore how to effectively work together to ensure citywide implementation of promotion best practices.

SDHR and HR units could use a collaborative framework such as a community of HR practices where HR managers work together to address gaps in the implementation of promotion-based practices in the city.

Our next finding and recommendation relates to the city's class specification system.

The class verification system described the typical duties, responsibilities, minimum qualifications, and other requirements necessary for city positions.

The current system was developed between 1991 and 1993, and it hasn't undergone any comprehensive updates since then.

As you can imagine, a lot has changed over the past 30 years.

We found that outdated class specifications create misalignment with current technologies and business operations in the city.

The use of outdated descriptions of positions and minimum qualifications can limit the number and diversity of candidates who apply for city positions.

Irrelevant requirements such as a driver's license for positions where it is not necessary can further limit the pool of qualified candidates.

We are recommending that SDHL develop a plan to update the city's classification systems.

The plan should include a budget proposal for the city council and a strategy to ensure that the system undergoes periodic updates.

Our last major finding is that promotion policies have not been reviewed with the city's racial equity toolkit.

While all the HR managers we interviewed identified workforce equity as a goal for their departments and told us they incorporate RSGI factors in their HR processes, we found that analyzing promotion policies with the racial equity toolkit could further help the city identify potential barriers to the long-term goal of an equitable workforce.

By completing and sharing a racial equity toolkit, the city can also increase transparency in its promotion policies and practices.

We are recommending that SDHL work with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights to adapt the city's racial equity toolkit and perform a racial equity analysis of promotion policies.

And that concludes our presentation.

Thank you.

That was great.

Ivy, thank you very much.

And I know Virginia's not here, but we worked very closely with her.

So I will thank her anyway for everything.

And thank you, Director Jones.

I will start us off with a question.

And then if my colleagues have questions, please chime in.

And then I will ask Jana if she wants to respond or provide any information for us.

So, I want to start at slide six.

It seems reasonable to infer that women of color are recognized for their work.

They're provided more duties, but they aren't compensated similar to their peers for the work.

I know some of the outcome questions that you mentioned are difficult due to the available information and the limited time that you were looking at.

But is it possible to attribute the pay and skill gap to the variations in the salary bands?

And are women of color generally started lower on the salary bands?

That's a very good question.

Thank you.

In response to your first sentence, if it is reasonable to infer that women of color are recognized for their work but not compensated, similar to their peers, why being very conscious that our audits report only analyzed one year of data, which is 2021, I think it's reasonable to infer that in 2021, women of color on average are recognized for their work because the promotion rate for women of color in 2021 was a bit higher than other employees, but their pay increases, their pay increases that they got in 2021 was lowered.

than other employees, so that statement is correct.

As to why that is the way it is, that's a bit difficult to answer because our analysis focused on promotions.

and it did not address why women of color are getting lower pay, lower promotion pay increases, but it is part of our first recommendation that the city needs to conduct more analysis to be able to find out why, and we'll be able to start to address that, especially by conducting a pay equity analysis that will be able to answer some of the question you asked.

And yeah, I guess this is why we do studies, because I don't want to operate on assumptions.

But it is my assumption that women of color might start at a lower pay band in any given position.

And that just makes it harder to get the sort of advance that others might.

Yes, why not making any conclusion?

That is some of the things we had during our audit interviews.

We interview employees in affinity groups, and that was one of the issue there is that women of color might be starting at a lower side of the payment, and when they get promoted, like they are still getting, our analysis Our analysis was able to show that in 2021, when women of color were promoted, their pay raises was lower than other groups of employees.

Okay.

Thank you.

So, Jenna, I will hand it to you and maybe just start with a really, I will start with a really general question for you.

There are several actionable steps here, recommendations that were made.

I'd love to hear from SDHR about your reactions to this and if there are steps that you think the department could start to take to dig a little deeper here.

First off, to Council Chair Morales, to the other Council members that are present here today, I just want to say good morning.

Thank you for inviting Seattle Department of Human Resources into this space with not only the public, but also our Council members, as well as working closely with the City Auditor Jones and with I.B.

It has been very informative to go through this audit process.

The first time for me here at Um, the city, um, in a past life, I was an auditor, so I very much appreciated the space.

Um, that, uh, you know, the audit team invites departments into to have conversations.

Somewhat around the why, or, you know, what are the hesitations or limitations.

Um, in our processes or systems that we have at the city and so.

Um, I think, uh, you know, the purpose for any anyone being audited.

Is really, um.

allowing us to create action plans and close the gaps in any of the findings and recommendations.

Seattle HR is looking forward to working really closely with our large departments.

We're a federated model, and so many of our large departments have very smart and competent HR professionals.

And we look for ways, I think one of the recommendations around community of practices, bringing together HR teams so that we can collectively work to provide responses to the recommendations, build systems and respond in a way that will be supportive of our employees, the current employees that we attract to the city as we move forward.

So just wanted to thank you for being in this space, excited about the recommendations and findings.

As many of you who have read through the audit, the auditors did a great job, kind of identifying two large areas.

One is being currently in the makings of being fixed, which is Workday, the new HRS system.

It will provide us with robust data and information, and we are excited to be able to provide, I think, better, more collaborative spaces where our data can be used to change principles and practices, processes, and policies as we move forward.

I think as David mentioned in his opening, a one-year spotlight on an important issue like this is very limiting.

Next year, we'll have Workday implemented, but in those same lines, it will take some time for the systemic issues around not having good data to really be evaluated and look to see what we can do to make those changes.

I'm excited and hopeful with Workday that we'll be able to specifically close that gap.

Thank you.

I have another question about the class specifications.

And I know they are related, but to me seem like a separate issue, which is that this is a 30-year-old classification system.

And I don't know if this is for the auditor or for you, Jenna, but I am interested to understand a little bit more what it would take to update this 30-year-old classification that it sounds like for, you know, for many reasons is not really advancing some of our goals as a city in terms of how we treat our workers.

Can you talk a little bit about what that would take?

Of course.

And I meant to mention before, it is Jonna Elliott, just for those that are listening.

So thank you for that.

It absolutely leads in.

The mayor's office gave me permission not to get too much in the weeds or ahead of Mayor Harrell's budget announcement next Tuesday, but there was a commitment to put $1.1 million investment in response to our outdated classification compensation system to do a review of our program.

And in the recommendations provided by I.B.

in the audit, very specific, and I appreciate the specificity, but I believe that we'll be able to meet the recommendation around the outdated classification compensation system.

And in that recommendation, I'll just share, it asks to consult with relevant stakeholders, which we plan to do.

We believe that the system, the program review will develop a multi-year plan for how we will update the system.

We expect to have specific budget proposals for city council's consideration, as well as a strategy for periodic updates of the classification specification system.

We are excited to be able to, again, not get too much into the weeds about Mayor Harrell's upcoming budget announcement, but I was allowed to share that here with you all to make sure that you understand the importance of that.

And that is not just an SHR importance.

It is citywide.

And so we're excited for that.

That's exciting.

Thank you for sharing that.

I look forward to seeing that next week.

Colleagues, are there any other questions for our panel?

So, Auditor Jones, did you have final comments you want to make?

Sure.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just want to let the public and the council know, we do follow up on the implementation of our recommendations.

We do an annual report on that.

So, we'll be tracking these.

They're listed in the report in Appendix B. There are four of them.

And SDHR gave us an estimated date of completion for each of the recommendations.

So we will be following up with them, a normal part of our process to see how they're doing on implementing on these recommendations, be reporting to council on what we find.

And that's it.

Okay.

Well, that's all very exciting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Johnna.

Thank you for being here.

Really appreciate it.

And thank you, I.B.

Okay, we look forward to hearing more.

Thanks very much.

Okay, Devin, will you read item three into the record and I will ask the folks from DON and OED to come on up.

Agenda item three, update on the generational wealth initiative for briefing and discussion.

Well, as everyone is settling in, I want to say I'm really excited about this conversation.

I'm excited to hear about the work that has been going on.

I will say I am closing out my first term reflecting on the work that our office has been doing, that we've been trying to advance around community wealth building.

My very first committee meeting in January 2020, in the before times, we focused on community wealth building.

At that time, I had a discussion with OED, with our Office of Arts and Culture, with our Equitable Development Initiative partners.

And we really focused our conversation on asking several questions about how our departments collaborate to build community wealth.

And so some of the questions we asked then, and I think we will start to hear some answers now, included, do you know of any specific tools that could support community wealth building?

What can or does get in the way of community wealth building?

How do we currently try to build wealth?

How could we try to build wealth in the future?

And what support does community need to build generational wealth, community wealth?

So we've been asking these questions for some time.

This work really got off the ground in 2021. I'm excited to see it culminating in a report on what our next steps should be as a city.

so that we can close the racial wealth gap, stem the displacement that's happening in our communities of color in particular, and really start to create, as I feel like I've been saying for many years now, the kind of healthy, vibrant neighborhoods that we all deserve.

So I'm excited here.

I will let our panelists introduce themselves, and we will get started.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Jackie Mena with the Department of Neighborhoods.

And I am so excited to be here to share the results of a 15-month engagement effort with departments and community stakeholders to envision what is a pathway for the city of Seattle to address the racial wealth divide.

I'm representing the Department of Neighborhoods and my team, Malia Brooks, Cassini Simani, Amanda Kim.

Without them, this work wouldn't be possible.

And of course, my director, Jennifer Chow.

So thank you, D.O.N., for being so supportive.

And I'll pass it along so everyone can introduce themselves.

Hello, my name is Jaguna Gishoro.

I'm a lab leader and consultant with the People's Economy Lab, and we've been privileged to conduct research and community engagement to build strategies and recommend strategies towards BIPOC generational wealth building, and look forward to speaking to you about them today.

Hello, I'm Shiho Fuyuki, also a lab leader and consultant with the People's Economy Lab.

My name is Caleb Jackson.

I am one of the inaugural pilot leads, and I am with Uplift Investment Group.

Hi, good morning.

Heidi Hall with the Office of Economic Development.

I manage our community wealth building team, which is implementing some related programs and strategies.

Thanks.

And so today, we're going to be primarily focusing on our research around what are the current investments that the city of Seattle is making in community wealth building, how we landed on a community wealth building framework as the strategy for addressing the racial wealth gap, and also the recommendations that were included in this report.

Before we get started, I really want to share that at the Department of Neighborhoods, we have two North Star goals, centering community in our decision-making and putting race at the center of our decisions.

Those two North Star goals have absolutely influenced how we've approached this work.

It's been a true labor of love.

When we think about the presentations that came before us, really looking at the diversity that exists here in the city of Seattle and also the inequity that can happen in our departments.

The DON is an incredibly diverse department, and the support of the people of color in our office for this work has been incredible.

Our Black Caucus even held a reception for this and for our community partners.

So I just want to make sure to let them know that their love is felt and is infused in this report.

And so if we go to the next slide, there are a lot of people who have, again, like our department, been a part of making this process possible.

We have an incredible interdepartmental team that has shown up, shared how community wealth building has been a part of their work.

and you'll get to hear a little bit more about that later and a lot about it in the report, so I hope you have the chance to look at that.

One of the biggest things to consider when it comes to this work is that it's not about one department or siloing this work, it's about thinking through what does a citywide approach look like.

and recognizing that every department has a role to play in addressing the racial wealth gap and supporting community wealth building.

So these are some of the departments that have participated in that process and we hope that even more get to be part of this work.

Last March, we also launched an RFP to identify WMB firms that could help us support this work through engagement, research, evaluation.

And so we're really proud that we got to partner with Headwater People, People's Economy Lab, and the VITA agency in carrying this work out.

And you'll hear more from People's Economy Lab today.

And lastly, I want to make sure to celebrate and recognize all of the community leaders who participated in this engagement effort.

We met with a lot of folks, and we also convened a community roundtable to help guide this effort.

This is a list of folks who, over two years, have committed several hours, two hours every two weeks, actually, and very high attendance records.

true dedication from folks in shaping this work and making sure that their ideas were shared.

While this group was convened specifically for this process, we also looked at other engagement efforts that the city has done to engage BIPOC communities.

And in this report, you can hear about some of those efforts that have been led by the Office of Economic Development and other departments.

We also want to recognize that this work is building off of other advocacy from community.

So if we go to the next slide.

some background on the Generational Wealth Initiative and how it got started.

Our work is fundamentally rooted in the movement for black lives and the demonstrations that we experienced here in Seattle in 2020. Because of that root, because of what initially funded this work and sparked it, Our recommendations, our research, our methods for engaging community have absolutely existed in that intersection of economic justice and racial justice.

And I want to recognize all of those community efforts by black indigenous people of color to push the city to analyze our local economy and how we participate in it and how we can shift it to truly be regenerative, restorative, and support communities of color.

A little more background on this.

So the initial funding for the Generational Wealth Initiative came from the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force, but council also invited us to look a little deeper at some of these issues.

So while we funded wealth building education for BIPOC communities, we've also led research on thinking through What are community wealth building strategies and equitable economy strategies that the city of Seattle can adopt?

And so in today's presentation, we will be sharing the findings of that research.

And yeah.

I think one more thing to mention is when we're talking about addressing the racial wealth gap, we're looking for solutions that are long-term, that are sustainable.

It is a way of recognizing that a lot of our equity work sometimes can feel like a one-time investment.

or a Band-Aid solution, and this work really requires looking at whole systems and the root causes of inequity.

And so we hope that these recommendations really reflect that long-term perspective, that long-term need.

And again, looking back at Don's North Star goals, that these solutions really reflect the communities that are most impacted by the racial wealth gap and their ideas and their solutions.

And so with that, I'll turn it over to People's Economy Lab.

Thank you, Jackie.

So in partnership with our community roundtable, we're here today with recommendations for the city of Seattle with a goal of building not just generational wealth, but community wealth to close the racial wealth gap.

We believe that we must reframe our understanding of wealth and economy if we want to transform realities like the racial wealth gap.

Our approach centers a just transition framework which asserts that each economy has a purpose or outcome that we choose to manage toward.

This generational wealth project envisions an inclusive Seattle economy that is managed toward universal well-being and justice for people of all races.

Our research process involved working in close partnership with a BIPOC community roundtable and a community participatory research partners.

Part of the process included creating a learning community and building trust among the group.

We heard solutions to the racial wealth gap need to take into account history and provide space for communities to imagine their future in ways that connect to their experience and culture.

They articulated a vision of wealth that includes healthy living, creating pathways to transformative economic opportunities, thriving communities and families, growth and transfer of knowledge, access to education, a sense of belonging, and a collective wealth.

With their guidance, we sought a framework that empowers BIPOC to build the family wealth they need to secure well-being in the current economy, initiates the economic transformation that is required to truly secure and sustain BIPOC generational wealth, Practically addresses the needs, challenges, and realities of BIPOC.

Advances restorative economic justice to redress past and current harms.

With that, we identified community wealth building as an ideal framework to meet our identified objectives and advance true progress towards BIPOC generational wealth building.

Community wealth building is an economic development model that transforms local economies by creating direct community ownership and control of productive assets.

This is a way of organizing our local economies to ensure that they genuinely work for all people.

As People's Economy Lab explored various community wealth-building strategies to address each of the community roundtable's focus areas and priorities, we identified six strategies for BIPOC in Seattle that we believe can most effectively meet the vision and goals identified.

First is a broad-based worker ownership, where businesses are owned and democratically controlled by their employees and ensures workers receive a fair share of the wealth.

Secondly, community-controlled capital and access to affordable capital, where capital flows are affordable and accountable to community priorities and gives underserved communities the power to be a part of the decision-making process of how capital is allocated.

Community ownership of real estate.

Often seen in housing and commercial real estate, benefits and obligations of ownership are shared between individuals and communities and enables the community to pool resources together.

Progressive procurement, harnessing the immense spending power of our government and anchor institutions to recirculate wealth in our community and local economy.

equitable small business ecosystems, building strong networks for accessing resources, for organizations that generate the conditions and support all entrepreneurs need to thrive.

And lastly, wealth retention and asset building programs.

This last strategy was previously wealth retention and asset protection, but we have updated it to wealth retention and asset building in response to continued engagement with our partners.

In particular, for indigenous and native communities, it's been expressed over and over that past harms have excluded them to create pathways to wealth.

So priorities include safe and permanent housing, home ownership opportunities to provide stability which strengthens communities.

This strategy provides trusted and culturally relevant wraparound services to support individuals, families, communities to gather the resources that will move and sustain them towards economic well-being.

These wealth building strategies explored are not new ideas.

Seattle already has strong investments in community wealth building, and several departments have identified community wealth building as a priority.

We urge you to continue and expand on these investments.

These efforts reflect our community's visions, and we deeply value DON's leadership and confidence in a community-centered process that centers BIPOC voices to create long-term solutions and shared economic well-being for all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Shiho.

Great.

Thanks.

So as Shiho was mentioning and Jackie earlier, Seattle has made some strong investments in recent years in community wealth building.

And just to echo what Jackie was saying earlier, these reflect years of engagement with community partners who have been participating, sharing their experiences.

and ongoing relationships.

So a lot of these are around, so using the Democracy Collaborative research as a frame, the initiative identified 17 programs across five departments in supporting access to affordable capital, community ownership of real estate, progressive procurement, equitable small business ecosystems, and wealth retention and asset building.

So there's a full list in the report and some highlights here on the presentation.

Next slide.

And also wanted to, as we were kind of engaging through conversations as departments and kind of reflecting on some of these strategies, I think there's some shared barriers that were identified.

So I wanted to lift those up here as we think about this work and building it.

And the last thing I was going to say about the multiple investments that the city currently has, one thing we're really thinking about is how do we maintain those?

How do we scale them to meet the need?

and really have greater alignment across departments.

So there's a lot of investment.

How do we better align that and center our communities ongoing in those investments?

So around some of the shared barriers, I know different funding sources have supported this work over time.

And so really having sustainable funding.

I know the payroll expense tax is a really important, significant funding source that's supporting a lot of the new investments that have come online.

Yeah, I'm most familiar with the ones that we're supporting around business ownership, equitable small business ecosystems, but as well as equitable development initiative and other efforts that are ongoing.

So having sustainable long-term funding sources that allow us to scale and grow and be able to work with community over multiple years.

Secondly, a lot of investments in technical assistance and capacity building sometimes don't match our timelines for city programs and impact.

thinking about and working through some of those mismatches in terms of timing.

Then also shared policy barriers.

I know we're intimately familiar.

There are challenges around gift of public funds, lending of credit in Washington State.

So as we look at other models and strategies in other places in the country, thinking about how we can bring that into Seattle, but those are some challenges that we encounter as well as just some of the administrative challenges around like prevailing wage, for example, when we're talking about community ownership and business ownership of real estate.

So with that, I will pass it back to, I think, People's Economy Lab.

Jaguna, are you?

Yes.

Okay, thanks.

And today I'll be speaking about the specific recommendations that we're making in our report.

Over two years in our community-led research process, we've worked towards the development of a set of powerful recommendations for the city of Seattle that we believe chart a path forward towards a city where BIPOC generational and community wealth is anchored through ownership and control of productive assets.

We understand that transformational systems change on a national and multi-generational scale is the only lasting solution to the racial wealth gap, but we assert that the City of Seattle as a municipal government has both the opportunity and the obligation to lay the foundation for this transformation locally by advancing community wealth building for our BIPOC communities.

And so based on all of that general research and analysis, our engagement with some amazing community leaders and entrepreneurs and participatory research with specific communities who experienced the racial wealth gap, our report recommends that the city of Seattle dedicate $30 million annually for 10 years to advance community wealth building and to begin to remedy the impacts of the racial wealth gap locally.

Next slide.

And so we made three specific recommendations on how to do this.

The first is that the City of Seattle commit to community wealth building as its guiding framework and strategy to advance BIPOC generational wealth building.

We recommend that the city do this by first developing a community wealth building framework shaped around the needs and circumstances of our city to transform our local economy.

Next, we recommend that the city ensure that the 2024 Comprehensive One Seattle Plan reflects community wealth building as a priority and that the policies included in that plan work to address structural contributors to the racial wealth gap.

We recognize that land and development are essential factors to both the racial wealth gap and community wealth building, and that as the city's guiding vision for what gets built and when, the comprehensive plan is a vital opportunity to implement community wealth building strategies.

We also recommend that the city establish a BIPOC community wealth building initiative.

This would provide for the administration staffing and evaluation to support departmental alignment around these strategies, legislative engagement, and a community governance structure that includes broad-based participation of community members in the development and implementation of these strategies.

And so we envision a community wealth building initiative that would support the city as it adopts a comprehensive community wealth building framework, again, shaped around our city's needs and circumstances, that builds a comprehensive internal action plan for city government, for the transformation both within city government and in the economy throughout our city.

An initiative would also build, sustain, and support local infrastructure that our BIPOC communities need to effectively implement community wealth building models, It would be governed through participatory tools, such as community assemblies or participatory allocation of resources.

It would have a role of informing council members and central staff on community wealth building, discussing the implications of legislative proposals and helping to shape proposals.

It would also build a system and tools for evaluating impact and tracking and communicating progress to our communities.

Our second recommendation is that the city honor the commitment to make substantial investments over 10 years through funding a complete pathway for BIPOC communities to obtain ownership and control of their productive assets.

These funds would go towards addressing key gaps in our current investment model and would rely on sustaining current investments in BIPOC community wealth building.

These would look like investments in building out the infrastructure and capacity of BIPOC-led and serving organizations committed to advancing community wealth building.

Also investments in community wealth building pilot projects that focus on researching, learning, and testing models for advancing our BIPOC-identified strategies.

Next would be investment in a community wealth building ecosystem program that would fund an interconnected network of partners to provide high quality, specialized, and culturally relevant capacity building, technical assistance, and capital to eligible nonprofits and businesses that are starting, sustaining, and scaling community wealth building models.

Finally, it would make investments in community organizing resources and public education campaigns so that it can continue to share knowledge about our wealth building strategies and to help grow the engagement of our communities.

Next slide.

Our final recommendation is that the city retain and recirculate its spending locally and equitably to BIPOC communities through community wealth building strategies.

We recommend that the city do this by setting targets for and making a commitment to prioritize procurement expenditures towards worker-owned enterprises that target or explicitly benefit BIPOC communities, and that it also set targets for and make commitments to direct a portion of its multibillion-dollar affordable housing expenditures towards community ownership of real estate models.

So in conclusion, within this initiative, we've been empowered with our communities to develop these recommendations and then to model what an ecosystem of community wealth building can look like for our city.

This has been a really powerful opportunity, and some of the leaders in our communities will have the opportunity to share how their pilots look and are developing later in this presentation.

Finally, our research on generational wealth building has made it clear that this is an immense and complex problem.

But we really do believe that this is an opportunity to innovate and deepen the roots of transformation in our communities in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Juguna.

Good morning.

Do you want to introduce yourself?

Yeah, good morning.

Apologies for being late.

I thought it was going to start around 11.30.

That's quite all right.

My name is Jose Manuel Vazquez.

I'm with Coring Contigo LLC.

Great.

And are you speaking?

Would you like to go first, or do you want me to?

Oh, Caleb?

Ready?

Do you mind going first?

I go first.

Sorry.

Thanks.

Hi, everyone.

My name's Caleb Jackson.

I'm with Uplift Investment Group, and I am one of the inaugural pilot leads.

My strategy is with the wealth retention and asset protection.

And so I'll tell you a little bit about our program, some of the things that we've learned, and also how it's shaped how I think about some of the problems that Seattle's facing.

And so my program primarily revolves around coaching, coaching legacy homeowners.

And what we do is we really focus on three pillars.

We focus on the individual, a lot of the population that we work with, their legacy homeowners, so they're a little bit older.

And so we try to figure out, OK, how do they want to spend their golden years?

What are their retirement plans?

How do they want to live life to the fullest for the remainder of their days?

So that's number one.

Number two is we focus on their family.

While building wealth, we have to make sure that it's generational wealth, and that comes with education and educating not just them, but their descendants, right?

And so the third pillar is the asset.

What is the highest and best use for that asset?

And not highest and best use in regards to, you know, development, but what's the highest and best use based on those other two pillars?

How does it help the family the most, right?

That's how the program works, and we've learned a lot.

So like I said, we come in and it's a coaching, so we have to ask questions and gain an understanding of the scope of that family.

And so one of the questions we ask is, You know, how many people are you supporting?

Who lives here?

And you get a wide range of answers.

You'll get, you know, Kevin's downstairs.

He just graduated college.

Emily's here.

She's, her and her partner's pregnant.

And so they're just coming here to save money until they can afford another home.

I've talked to people who have entire families living at their property that are from their church who aren't even like in their, nuclear family and so It was very telling then I asked a follow-up question right to get a understanding of what it isn't a picture of not just right now But for the future we look at the past and so I asked how many people of you support in the last 10 years and we've gotten a very Wide range you've gotten over a hundred We haven't gotten one that's been under 30 Wow, right and so What we see is, what we kind of know, we've kind of seen empirically, when you take and you cut down and add displacement, you take away pillars of the community who provide housing security to the whole community, right?

And it makes sense because as displacement in our community has increased linearly, homelessness and housing security has increased exponentially, right?

And so it's amazing being part of this work.

I'm glad that the Department of Neighborhoods has funded it.

It's taught us a lot.

I think that the main thing that it taught me is that, or the main paradigm shift it caused is that I understand that generational wealth is community health.

Right?

We have to empower the people, the community members, the specific community members, because they're the ones that are empowering their neighborhood.

They're giving housing security, food, all that.

So thank you for your time.

I appreciate you guys for listening.

And that's my program.

Thank you, Caleb.

And I know I've heard you speak before about just the challenges that families have.

And if they are contemplating selling their home because somebody's walked up with a bag full of cash, how do you say no to that if you know that you could use it?

And so the service that you're providing is really important to help people understand that there are alternatives.

that you can look at to keep your home and still know that there is wealth there.

It might look different than a bag of cash, but there is wealth there that you need to keep for your family.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks, Kayla, for that.

And definitely, I also wanted to add some context on why a program like this or an initiative like this is so important to my community.

I myself grew up in South Park since the age of seven, but I grew up as an undocumented immigrant for over 30 years.

This is the first year that I've been eligible to adjust my status.

So hopefully, fingers crossed.

Congratulations.

By the end of the year, that will change.

But for now, I still am in that limbo status.

But having grown up through that experience and seeing my parents go from coming to a new country, learning a new language, learning a new system, learning how to survive in a new world, but then also learning how to thrive as small business owners.

They started a small business in South Park and were very successful for over 15 years.

I saw firsthand what was that like, what that life was like as an immigrant starting a business, not knowing how to interact with local government, not knowing, you know, when the city comes in and the health food inspector comes in and tells you, hey, you're doing something wrong, you know, me having to translate and interpret for them at the young age of 10, seven years old, right?

And I see many members of my community go through those same challenges because we know immigrants, we're natural entrepreneurs.

We're more than likely to start a business than non-immigrants here in the US, right?

But yet we know that 8 out of 10 businesses fail after the first year if they're not set up successfully.

So one of the reasons why I'm so excited and thankful to be part of this initiative and have received the support through this funding has been to build an entrepreneurship incubator to help my community learn how to build the fundamentals of starting a business, building a sustainable business, how to plan for your budget, create a robust marketing plan to make sure that you're able to build a sustainable client base, right?

And I wanted to highlight two really great examples from our incubator.

We're in month six, I believe, of our eight month incubator program here that we've been piloting.

right in South Park in partnership with Villa Comunitaria there.

One example, Lu Piñatas.

She is a piñata maker who came from Mexico as a young kid and grew up making piñatas at home through her family.

It's kind of a family, I don't know if they did it as a business in Mexico, but she comes with that tradition of making piñatas.

And she's always wanted to try it out as a business.

She's a stay-at-home mom.

So through this program, she was able to to envision that and plan for that and not just build a business, but figure out what it costs to actually run a business and not just how to value her product, but how to value her time.

She realized through this program that she was selling her piñatas and just covering the cost of materials.

She was in accounting for her own time, which as we know, it's probably one of the biggest expenses for small business owners.

So through this, we were able to help her come up with that yearly budget and some budget projections.

From going from an initial stage of it just being an idea, a concept, something she wanted to see if she could try.

Now she's averaging three orders per week.

in building a sustainable business, and that's really exciting, seeing somebody like that go through this program.

Another example is Nepantla Cultural Art Gallery there in White Center.

It's a very successful business that has been a pillar in the Latino-Latinx community.

They're wanting to expand, but through this program, they're learning how to build a budget, how to apply to funding through banks, how to build a robust marketing plan, how to build a business plan, so that when they do engage with an institution like a private lender or like a banking institution, or maybe some other type of government grant or financing, what they need to do to get ready for that.

And those are just two examples of the two spectrums of the type of entrepreneurs that we're working with.

But another great example is, and this wasn't by design, but we happen to just have And this shows the great demand that we've had.

From day one, we got about 24 applicants that came in.

We were only able to select 10, and all 10 were women entrepreneurs.

And that's just something that I'm really proud to say, that we are actually investing into women small business ownership and empowering entrepreneurs in our community through this program.

But not just the fact that we're delivering this curriculum or this content, but it's the way we're doing it, the methodology.

We do one virtual workshop a month, one in-person workshop where they get to work as a team, build a community, a support community with each other, empower each other, ask each other questions, give feedback to each other as they're developing their business plans.

And then they get one-on-one business coaching through me and my company, Growing Contigo, LLC.

So we're able to help them apply what they're learning in the workshops, but also connect them with other resources or help them with the business registration process or help them build their budget and whatnot.

So this is why I'm really excited to have been invited to be part of this roundtable, part of this program.

and know the value that this can bring to my community.

Because when we talk about economic recovery for Seattle, especially, you know, we're coming out of the pandemic, I really want to urge the City of Seattle Council Mayor's Office to not just focus on the downtown core.

We have communities all over the city, right?

And we've been historically, especially in a community like South Park, like the one I grew up in, we've been historically left out of Many of these programs, things are changing.

I have noticed that, but there's still so much more that we can do.

So my ask to you all is continue supporting programs like this and initiatives like this.

that are empowering our own community to lead these efforts because it's very different somebody from outside the community come to my neighborhood and say this is what you need to do.

It's very different when one of us is able to do this not just in our language but also understanding the cultural norms, understanding what it's like to be an undocumented immigrant and navigating all these complex government infrastructures, right?

And I think that's been the unique aspect of this program.

And again, just again emphasizing how thankful I am be able to be part of this initiative.

And I'll just add a couple things that I feel like y'all didn't share this time around, but Jose, your program is not only Latinos helping Latinos, it's run completely in Spanish.

And so when we think about the initial goals of this funding through ECI, they specifically said, we want this funding to help BIPOC communities build a path for their dreams and hopes.

And so when we think about each of these projects, even Caleb's didn't mention that hundreds of people have signed up for his help, attend his events.

And we're looking at key community partners that are delivering services that are culturally relevant, that are interconnected in communities.

You know, I think of what Cindy said during public comment for Via Comunitaria.

They have set a vision to be the first Latino cooperative development organization in the Pacific Northwest.

These are bold visions.

These are bold strategies.

And they're absolutely rooted in the cultural communities that they're aiming to serve.

And so when we think about all of the recommendations that we've made and the way that these pilots are setting up our city, it truly is to meet gaps.

Gaps that are general programs.

as powerful as they are and as much as they're working, this work complements them through addressing those key gaps.

And so just really thinking about what is the role of this initiative and how can it partner with our existing investments and help our city reach even more folks.

That's great.

Well, I really appreciate all of you sharing your stories and sharing the work that this group has been doing for the last couple of years.

I know that it is key to addressing some of the other goals that we have in the city.

And, you know, as we're thinking about what is the city's role in this, I think as we've said, and as your recommendations point out, there is work that we are doing within city structure.

It needs more sustainability.

It needs more funding.

But the work that you're all doing also needs support.

And so how we address some of the policy barriers that Heidi was mentioning in terms of, you know, the prohibition on gift of public funds, I know that's a huge one.

But we do need to start understanding how we resource the organizations in our city who are doing this important work to elevate small businesses, to elevate cultural organizations, to elevate technical assistance providers who can really help build the capacity of our organizations to do the work on behalf of their own communities, but that still need support.

So I really appreciate the robust ask for commitment from the city to invest in this long term, because as I think it was Ms. Allen said, you know, we can't make up for 400 years of harm with a two-year program.

I think we need to be very clear about that.

We have 400 years worth of investment that we need to catch up on.

That's probably going to take us some time to figure out how we make that happen.

But I think that is our goal.

And that needs to be a really concrete statement of intent and priority for us as a city if we're going to, as you were saying, Jose, invest in communities outside of downtown because Yes, a downtown revitalization is important, but most of our community members live elsewhere.

And we also need our neighborhoods to be thriving, for our neighborhood commercial areas to be thriving, for our residents to be able to access the goods and services that they want without coming downtown.

And so we have a lot of work to do there, and I'm really excited that this work has begun and that we will continue to have these conversations.

And I know there's, you know, conversation about what phase two is of this work.

I see Council Member Nelson has a question.

I will just ask quickly if you can talk about how this entity continues?

Do you have plans to continue meeting every two weeks?

Or what is the sort of organizing strategy that you have identified?

I guess I'll take this one.

I'll just say, echoing, I think, the deep message in this presentation around sustainability, when you're funded year by year, it's hard to sort of plan for that next year.

Also, when we think about that principle of really supporting communities and forging their own solutions, we have done what we could to make this process one that's about co-creation, that's about sharing power.

And so, as of right now, in our conversations with our roundtable, literally just yesterday, we're starting to set the course for how do we plan for the funds that are remaining this year that are being released with the submission of this report?

What are some of the strategic priorities that we want to lay to support existing pilots, perhaps even add new pilots?

to leverage investments that other departments are making and partner with that, right?

What are those different strategic priorities that we want to make?

Does the community roundtable continue?

I think these are all key questions that we need to answer.

And there's a lot of things through this budget process that, you know, those answers depend on.

And so it's partially a wait and see, but I think the intention there is that we do co-create that plan with our community roundtable.

If I could also add to that, definitely.

I think whether there's funding or not or this structure exists, I think the relationships we've built through this work are going to continue on forward because our communities have been doing this work with government support or not.

And we will continue doing that.

And something that, at least for me, being part of this roundtable was learning about the other strategies.

You know, I came in and really focused on the small business support ecosystem.

But through the conversations and seeing what the other pilots are doing, I'm now starting to think what a phase two could look like.

And what if we, you know, partner with worker co-op strategy to create a community-owned investment capital fund that invests into businesses that could eventually be worker-owned, right?

So those are just kind of the things that I've personally been exposed to and I'm excited to continue learning about them and continue building relationships to see how can we do more of this much-needed work for our communities by our communities.

Well, and I know we do have a commitment for at least another year, we will have the opportunity to keep, everybody's looking that way, I keep thinking there's somebody coming.

You know, so we will have the opportunity to really be strategic about, what next steps look like and what the next budget process will look like as well.

Did you want to say something, Heidi?

I think too.

I was just going to say as, you know, being a partner in this work, like we can't do this work without our community at the center of it.

So that absolutely whatever, however that structure, you know, I think we're going to figure out what the, you know, how we implement some of this stuff and just really want to reiterate how essential kind of these relationships and these partnerships and, you know, whatever, you know, we'll figure out the right structure and what that looks like, but it's just absolutely essential to how we do the work.

Well, and as I don't know who said something like, you know, government moves at the speed of trust and trust moves at the speed of relationships.

So this is a demonstration of how important it is.

If we're going to have the impact that we want in our communities, then we have to be building these relationships.

So Council Member Nelson, please.

Thank you very much for this presentation.

I remember that it was about a year ago when I 1st encountered this, this effort in committee, and you come a long way.

And in the meantime, has also done a lot of work on.

On an investment agenda for it can also be called building community wealth that was driven by the whole future of Seattle economy process.

And so my question and I'm anticipating that we'll see specific budget items in the mayor's proposed budget that will implement the, the outcomes of the findings of process.

And I'm just wondering if you're anticipating any budget items this year, that will implement or begin to implement some of these recommendations.

Yes, there's a lot of alignment around the future Seattle economy.

One of the five investment pillars is around building BIPOC community wealth.

So there's definitely the connection there.

And I think the work that we're scaling up and building in partnership with community around the business community ownership funds, is really significant and maintaining those investments, building equitable business support systems.

I think we actually just submitted a slide on some of that initial work through the pandemic and so continuing to build that.

And so, and then around access to capital and kind of community informed capital strategies.

And so there's a lot of alignment there and opportunities actually to start working through and scaling up some of these really significant investments.

building on kind of the business ownership piece around the incubation project, a lot of alignment with what came through that community process and some of the priorities that were lifted up around WMBI support, building BIPOC wealth, and so forth.

Okay.

Thank you.

Did anybody from the Department of Neighborhoods want to answer as well?

Do you have anything to add?

I think, you know, I really appreciate OED because they have provided such a powerful framework for working with small businesses, specifically Heidi and her team working on community wealth building.

You can't separate this work from the work happening there.

And so I agree with everything Heidi is saying.

I think what that partnership looks like moving forward is something that, again, takes time, relationship building, figuring out what opportunities are in front of us and how do we best leverage those.

And so I think alignment with the Future of Seattle report is absolutely a part of this work and what that process looks like.

Again, we'll just take time and we'll be developing along the way.

Thank you.

Okay, if there are no other questions, any final remarks?

Well, I want to thank all of you for the passion that you're bringing to this work.

It's really important for all of us that this work is happening and that there is, it makes me happy to know that there's so much work happening on the ground to really make sure that we are increasing the capacity and the ability of our communities to stay and to stop getting pushed out of the cities, so.

Thank you all.

We will continue these conversations.

And if there are no other comments, let's see.

This concludes this meeting of the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights, and Culture Committee.

The next meeting is scheduled for December 8th at 930. If there are no other comments, then we're adjourned.

Thanks, everyone.