Budget Committee Meeting Session II 09-24-26

Good afternoon.

The September 24th Select Budget Committee will come back to order.

It is 2.38 p.m.

My apologies for tardiness.

If the clerk can call the roll, please.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Sanka?

Council Member Foster?

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Lynn?

and Chair Strauss.

Thank you.

Five present.

We will come right back into order and jump right on in.

Will the clerk please read item four into the record?

Agenda item four, Seattle Center for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

We have Seattle Center here.

Director Engstrom, council president is now here as well.

Turn it over to the table for your presentation and we'll save questions for easy stopping points or the end.

Well, my colleague Dematris here and I will tag team the presentation, but thank you for being here.

Thanks for the opportunity to present our budget.

I just want to say that, you know, this was a tough budget year for the city.

I think that's known, but I just want to appreciate Ali Panucci and Alan Lee and Alex Rouse and the whole team at CBO, because in spite of it being a challenge, I'm really happy with the budget that we have and I'm really confident that we can deliver with the resources that it contains.

We'll start with just an overview.

I'm sure you're all familiar with the Seattle Center.

I know some of you got to come and visit yesterday and take a tour.

We are home to a 74-acre campus and also have stewardship over the 20-acre Waterfront Park.

Happy first birthday to Waterfront Park just a few weeks ago.

We saw over 11 million visitors to the campus in 2025, about 9 million to the waterfront.

We anticipate seeing probably 15 million visitors to Waterfront Park this year.

So just a really successful and vibrant cultural and civic space.

We're home to 35 independent organizations on the campus that call Seattle Center home, have a very close partnership also with Friends of Waterfront Park on operating the waterfront.

The center's also a pretty big economic engine for the city, $3.3 billion of direct economic impact, $37 million of direct tax revenue generated by the activities of the campus, and we support over 19,000 jobs, which is something that we're really proud of.

and we're largely self-funded.

It's different than a lot of departments wherein we earn about 70% of our annual budget year over year and we have about 230 full-time staff and hundreds, about 550 seasonal and intermittent staff that fluctuate with the festival seasons.

Our priorities for the year are really to build on the recent success and the momentum.

We approved a strategic plan last year that outlines a pretty aggressive fundraising campaign by our partners at the Seattle Center Foundation, the goal of a significant public investment to address the big infrastructure needs that we'll, I'm sure, talk more about today, and also to figure out how we can right-size our economic model and ensure a long-term sustainable future for the Seattle Center for years to come.

We're really excited about the progress at Memorial Stadium.

We're gonna host a topping out ceremony tomorrow, which is really exciting, reaching the sort of the maximum height of the project.

And I know Councilman Burkettle, you've been super involved in the Memorial Stadium for the last many years.

It's gonna be a great resource.

And I think, My friend Todd Lywicky described Memorial Stadium as a living classroom when it's done and redeveloped and I'm really hopeful that that's actually a way we can think about the entire campus.

I'd love to see the entirety of Seattle Center on the Waterfront be a living classroom and find ways to connect young people in this city with meaningful careers and jobs like the 19,000 that we support with our 10 union partners.

and that's something that we see in the future and obviously the most important thing that will happen as a part of our future is the potential bond measure that we hope to see pursued next year.

The budget does include, and we'll get into the detail of it, but a pretty significant investment in advancing that planning work so that we can stay on schedule and be construction ready in 2028. I also want to acknowledge the public safety investments that the city is making in the Seattle Center.

What happened at the BITE of Seattle was a tragedy and it was also an opportunity for us to come together as a team and learn both what happened and what could be done better or differently.

And I've shared with a few of you our after action review and the implementation of the recommendations.

So the timing of that resource was also really good for us.

And finally, I think you'll again hear more about this, but we're excited to extend our stewardship of the waterfront and help take on the ongoing implementation of Elliott Bay Connection.

Distinct from the Waterfront Park, it'll have a different function, but we're really honored that the trust of the stewardship of that space is gonna live with the Seattle Center.

And looking forward to working in collaboration with all of you on council.

with my colleagues across the cabinet to help this next year be as successful as it can be.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss and Councilmembers.

I'm going to give a quick summary of our budget and then Dr. Engstrom and I will go into more detail.

So first, there's two major changes to our budget this year.

The first is the creation of the Seattle Center Campus Revitalization Fund, which will result in substantial reinvestment to campus infrastructure via bond, which is proposed to occur in 2027. The second major change is the LA Bay Connections, which will expand Seattle Center's waterfront park operations along the waterfront.

And we have two other, or three other important changes.

One being Interfund loan support included in the budget.

Another one being waterfront park staffing to assist with repairs and maintenance.

And there's also two general fund reductions in the budget.

including an impact on our intermittent staffing levels and temporary staffing and McCall Hall programming.

And before I go to the next slide to give you a little bit more detail, just an overview of our budget.

As Randy, as Director Enstrom pointed out, we are a social enterprise.

And so we generate revenue through, commercial revenues, including parking revenues, long-term leases, sponsorships, concession sales, and the monorail.

We also generate a significant amount of tax revenue for the city, including missions tax, Sweden beverage tax, and commercial parking tax.

So this is the first of the two general fund reductions.

This one impacts our temporary and intermittent staffing.

And so essentially that impact will have, it'll have an impact on our operations in support of campus events and programming.

The way we intend to mitigate that is through attrition and vacancy savings and revenue enhancements.

Otherwise we'd have to do less.

And so our plan is to mitigate that reduction.

The second of the two reductions involves McCaw Hall's Prelude.

Prelude is a dinner service that's provided before shows, and we will reduce the number of prelude dates in order to generate savings.

Our McCaw Hall manager discovered over the last couple of years, we haven't had the volume at the dining services, and so we're gonna cut back on that in order to make these savings possible.

A couple of admissions tax resources are being continued that started in the previous budget.

One in support of Northwest Folklife, which is really one of the incredible anchor festivals on the campus.

It brings about 300,000 people over the course of four days and really kicks off our festival season at Seattle Center Memorial Day weekend.

And the second is for winter which is the sort of holiday, it's the train in the armory, it's the lights around campus and it's a great place to be able to bring families to celebrate the holidays in whatever way folks want to celebrate.

I also just want to acknowledge that I have deep love and respect for the Office of Arts and Culture and its need for its own admissions tax.

I spent a lot of time in that office and and I also really appreciate Director Nguyen.

I think she's a brilliant and visionary leader.

I think the city's very lucky to have her in that role and I look forward to collaborating with her on how we can grow and sustain investments for all of our cultural communities and all of their needs.

I get to do the additions part.

Dematris had to do the reductions part, so my part's more fun.

But this is the single biggest item on our entire budget, and this is the external resource.

This is to hire planning consultants to advance the Century 21 Master Plan update, to do more architectural and design work on the armory, to better understand its capital needs.

It's to move forward with the decarbonization and revitalization of Fisher Pavilion, and also to extend the monorail bridge.

We just started construction of the monorail platform at the north end of the terminus, and we need to do some work on the bridge that connects the platform to the armory itself.

so that's the capital side and then the next slide is the staffing needs associated it's a it's a modest amount of positions because we're borrowing this money from future proceeds but it does allow us to have a lead a policy lead on the bond which is Michelle Caulfield who joined our team from the Office of Sustainability.

We're lucky to have Michelle.

And it also includes a finance analyst, management systems analyst, and a safety coordinator for the campus, because we're going to go into, theoretically, a level of construction that hasn't happened since the 1962 World's Fair.

Shout out to Tiffany Malake, who is the lead, our division director for Waterfront Park.

She's built a really impressive team down there and it continues to expand.

I think if the World Cup taught me anything, it's that Waterfront Park might have been more successful than we had even hoped.

And I can't believe that we're expecting 15 million visitors to go to that park and only it's going into its second year of operation.

But we also found that there's pretty significant maintenance needs for a park that gets that much use.

And so this is really about positions that can up our, particularly our skilled labor, electricians, carpenters and help with the maintenance needs of the park.

Okay, so the next ad here, a significant ad for us is Elliott Bay Connections, some staffing additions.

And so this item adds donated back positions to support operations and maintenance of Elliott Bay Connections.

And so including that staff would be a maintenance crew chief, a senior gardener, installation maintenance worker, and half a FDE for human resource specialists to help us with the hiring.

the other, the labor management issues.

And so the Seattle Center and the principal donors right now are working on an agreement and so that we can take over that space and the takeover would happen in 2027, quarter two.

And that area includes Myrtle Park and a new greenway along the Alaskan way between Pier 62 and Pier 70. So the next addition is support for our Interfund loan.

And so the Interfund loan is comprised of some debt related to the pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic.

And so this is the city providing the center $2 million in 2027 and $1 million in 2028 to make those payments.

And so we had worked pretty diligently with CBO staff to help them understand what the loan did to our finances.

and this very much supports our strategic plan and tenure vision plan of being more financially sustainable.

This edition, as I mentioned earlier, is around supporting our public safety and community safety needs.

I want to reinforce how proud I am of how folks responded in the moment on that tragic day.

Our team did their job, and they did it with courage, and I appreciate both our staff, our partners at SPD, our partners at the fire department, and the care team.

It was an all hands effort to meet that moment.

And like the rest of the city, we learned a lot about what we need to get right going forward.

So this includes, we're still figuring out exactly what we will use this money for.

There's a list of equipment that we've proposed.

There's some staffing needs that we've identified, particularly on the comm side.

as well as on the training side.

And so we're figuring out what of those items we can resource through the budget and what items we might be able to resource through external support through the state, county or others.

and these are the actual positions that were enumerated in previous slides, but that looks like four or five positions related to the critical pre-bond work.

That looks like four skilled labor positions for Waterfront Park.

It looks like three and a half FTEs for the Elliott Bay connection expansion.

And we are looking forward to growing the team and getting those folks onboarded as quickly as we can to hit the ground running.

That is our presentation.

Happy to answer any questions.

Oh yeah, go ahead, Ellie, please.

I just wanted to acknowledge for the Elliott Bay Connections work, this is just the initial positions that will be needed to really take over that work at Seattle Center.

So just wanted to flag for the budget chair's awareness and the entire committee that we are needing to get that agreement settled and there will likely be an ask for a...

first quarter legislative package to fully implement what it will take to fully take over the management of that.

But right now, because we don't yet have an agreement signed, we want to make sure we understand what the full reimbursement will be.

So I just wanted to acknowledge that for the record.

Thank you, Director Panucci and Director Engstrom.

Councilmember Saka has been here with us since the beginning of the presentation.

His camera came on right as you started speaking, so I wasn't going to interrupt anyone.

With that, Councilmember Saka is the chair of the committee overseeing this department.

You've got first and last word.

Excellent.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Interim Director Engstrom.

Yamatris, really appreciate your leadership here in the presentation.

And thank you as well, Chair, for getting the Seattle Center in front of the Council to provide a specific departmental briefing.

As we know, they're not typically one of the selected departments to brief, but given the substance of an impact of what is likely to be proposed in terms of a substantial bond package next year, it makes a ton of sense.

So thank you chair for your leadership on this.

Also wanna, Acknowledge some people within the department as well.

The Seattle Center tragedy in July was awful.

And we learned a lot as a city.

And we had some public conversations and Chair Kettle's Public Safety Committee about that, you know, as recently as two days ago.

And some things worked well, some things didn't.

We weren't at our best in certain regards.

But I want to thank the hardworking people of Seattle Center The staff who did their job showed up, provided thoughtful contributions to the Center's after action report, laser-focused on effectively implementing those findings and those mitigations and the like.

So special shout out to Diamantris again, really appreciate you.

Roseanne Lopez, thank you.

Bruce Linton, I think K.

Rowe Keono, V. Nguyen, who's the Chief of Staff, David Kunzelman, and so many more.

within the department that are showing up and doing this work and made our city.

Well, to the extent we did great things and we did do some effective things that day, that tragic day.

Just wanna thank you again personally and publicly for your contributions and service to our city.

I was really excited.

I was really excited.

In fact, thrilled, tickled even when I saw the budget for the mayor's proposed budget for Seattle Center because recall earlier this year, I think in May or June, we passed that council resolution affirming our commitment to put a bond measure package before the voters next year in 27. And it was a council resolution, a joint mayoral and council resolution, but that was kind of words on paper.

And right now during the budget season is our first major opportunity to back those value statements and words and commitments, back it with dollars and tangible investment.

And so that's why I was excited to see the proposed budget here, at least until the next round.

Next year, we'll go through the major substantive package in our review of that.

But really excited to see that.

Wanted to ask about, learn a little bit more about the armory design and allocation.

So the proposal provides 3.14 million for the campus revitalization program, including approximately 2.35 million for project work across the Armory, Fisher Pavilion, Monorail, and comprehensive campus plan.

So the, as you'll recall, that resolution, 32205, the Seattle Center renovation resolution, required a specific design milestone, 30%, in fact, for the armory, the sort of flagship facility there, arguably.

So how much of that, the money that I just mentioned, how much is specifically allocated to each of those four work streams?

And does the armory allocation actually help achieve the 30% design milestone standard as required by the resolution?

If not, what additional appropriation would be required?

Thank you for that question.

And I should have said earlier, thank you Councilmember Saka for your leadership, particularly on the joint resolution.

You've been a huge champion of the campus renovation project, and we really appreciate it.

And I also am grateful for your acknowledgement of our staff.

I'm incredibly lucky to have a super talented team across every division.

It's some of the hardest working public servants I've ever met, and I feel privileged to work with them.

The answer to question one is that $500,000 of that appropriation is for a consultant that we have under contract who had started early design work related to the Armory.

I don't know that in the time that we have that we could get much farther than that $500,000 worth of work.

I don't think it's gonna get us to 30% design.

I can fairly confidently say I don't think it'll get us to 30% design, but that's more a feature of time versus money.

We are gonna get, you know, we go before DimPack I think on October 14th.

and my hope is that we can start spending against that appropriation that day and get that work moving pencil to paper to get as much design information as we can for the armory.

It is a vast and complex building.

I appreciate a couple of council members coming down yesterday to take a tour and we know we need to know more so that we can have more certainty ahead of legislating a ballot measure.

So that's certainly our goal.

Yeah, no, thank you for that initial clarity.

We'll talk about time in just a moment.

Timing and sequencing in just a moment.

So now here it is.

Bond readiness milestones for 27. By what specific dates will the executive provide counsel with the prioritized project list?

reliable cost estimates, public engagement results.

I know there's efforts ongoing right now with respect to community engagement and affordability analysis, a private philanthropic and non other sort of non-city matching strategy sufficient for a 2027 ballot decision.

All those things, of course, we call out in the resolution.

Councilmember Saka for the question.

We will follow up with you with more details and potential timelines.

We are working really hard to make sure we are prepared to transmit a package to the Council.

We are still not finalized on whether it will go to the August ballot or the November ballot.

So currently we are working on a timeline that would deliver a package to the council early in the year, assuming an August ballot, which is sort of the feature of the timeline that Randy was getting, excuse me, interim directorings from.

But anyways, I will follow up with you offline with more details.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Panucci.

Really curious to learn specific timing and sequencing for an executive proposed package.

and look forward to partnering with you all to get that done.

The next question I have pertains to some of the safety and security investments in the proposal.

So noting that it includes $500,000 that is to be apparently appropriated and spent on very specific safety investments.

including weapons detection equipment, area fencing, support vehicles for campus security and various training and emergency training and crisis situations.

With respect to weapons detection equipment, what's the specific rollout plan, implementation approach, and anticipated milestones for deploying that weapons detection equipment?

I can speak to some of that.

I wanted to go back to your previous question.

I can say that we are under contract currently with the Armory vendor, with the Armory consultants, and with the Monorail Bridge consultants.

We interviewed three finalists for the Fisher Pavilion contract on Monday, and we hope to be out with an RFP for the Century 21 Master Plan within a week.

and we will just go as hard on those things as we can starting the day that we can spend the money.

In terms of the timing for the safety investments, I believe this is gonna be part of a 2026 fourth quarter supplemental so we can utilize the resources more quickly.

We put together a combination of open gate metal detectors, which is what we use at Macaw Hall and what's been used for festivals like Bumbershoot and KEXP BBQ.

we also included fencing that can limit the number of access points if we owned that fencing it could bring down the cost for producers to have that option we did include for consideration a pilot related to cameras not installing a full camera system because it wouldn't be enough resources to do that but being able to bring out the one of those portable solar-powered camera kiosks like they have at Memorial Stadium.

The camera conversation is a bigger policy conversation that we will be at the table for.

So those were all, and then various equipments that our emergency services unit has requested, an additional trike so they can move across the campus more quickly, updated radios, things of that nature.

And then on the staffing side, there were two ESU positions that we'd like to fill.

we may be able to find a way to fill them outside of this.

And we know we need more communications capacity, that's been clear for some time.

And we need dedicated communication support to be able to better communicate with our campus community and our staff.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

Thank you for clarity there.

On the one hand, when I saw the safety and security investments, I was really, really excited to see that and wanna thank the mayor for including those.

specifically in the proposal here.

On the other hand, when I dove deep into the, well, took an initial pass, our review is ongoing, of course, but took an initial pass at diving deeper into the specific terms of the Seattle Center-related proposal, that defined list that I mentioned of specific safety investments, weapons detection equipment, area fencing support, vehicles for security, training, etc.

That's a great list.

It's an excellent start, but also a little intrigued and a little disappointed not to see security cameras not on that list.

But I'm hearing now, not in the actual text of the proposal, that there's a pilot for some sort of temporary...

I'm fine with a temporary deploy...

What's the executive's plan to install the permanent infrastructure?

We can keep those cameras on at all times, given the main event threat at Seattle Center.

What's the plan to get some cameras deployed there that are not pilots?

Councilmember Saka, the current plan is as represented in the in the budget book for the the immediate security investments.

So that's the immediate security investments.

I'm asking longer term.

So actually, I would prefer the short short term.

But what is what is the what is the plan or approach to deploying cameras at the Seattle Center?

There isn't currently a plan.

This was again, we were making an immediate investment and as I think, well, maybe it wasn't with you, but there are more discussions to have, but this is the immediate plan.

My assumption is that the cost related to trying to stand up a program like that, if that's a decision that's made at whatever point in time, would probably need to be part of a larger renovation package just because of the scale of it.

But yeah, I'm happy to share what we know as soon as we know it.

Okay, well, just to underscore the urgency and importance of installing vital security cameras there, and it's important.

And again, that list is a good initial list.

It's not necessarily an exhaustive or sufficient list, and cameras should be included on those safety and security investments for the Seattle Center as well.

But thank you again.

for your presentation here.

Look forward to continuing the conversation, kicking the tires a little bit more during our budget deliberations here, but after having reviewed take an initial pass at reviewing the proposal and kind of mapping it against the commitments made in that resolution.

We passed earlier this year, really excited overall to see the level of investment.

And now our job now is to ensure that Seattle Center will truly be ballot ready in 2027. So I want to thank the mayor for taking a great initial strides and responding to our resolution effectively and establishing the machinery to make sure we're set up for success next year during the bond proposal.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Sokka.

Councilmember Kettle, District 7 in the center.

Yes, I'm gonna take the privilege of going second because for the first two years here, I was looking out for Seattle Center and waterfront issues as part of my district.

And because of that, I have met many over those two years of your team.

And so I thank them for their work and what they've done across the board and all the various elements.

And plus, in their work with partnership, I noted partnerships with me because the work, like with Pacific Science Center and the Space Needle Chihuly you know the arena I mean you mentioned KXP there's a lot of partners the the rep and you know I mean there's a whole massive list and and so that work you know collaborating with those has been really important so welcome Interim Director Engstrom and Mr. Winston So for me, again, yes, Seattle Center is super important because it's, you know, it's part of the neighborhood.

And, you know, with Uptown primarily, but also Queen Anne on one side, South Lake Union, Belltown on another.

It is super important to the neighborhood to do these things right.

You're right, I have been involved with Memorial Stadium since just before the school levy vote in various capacities, and I am so upset that I can't be there at the topping.

We'll get you to where whenever you want.

The challenge of being the council member versus the mayor is that our schedules are driven by council meetings and committee meetings, and I can't flex too much.

A little here and there, but not too much.

But I do look forward to it, and I'll put a plug in.

Anything down the road, like six months ahead, please give me advance notice as soon as possible in terms of as we hit these milestones for completion of the stadium.

And I do thank, by the way, One Roof.

You mentioned Mr. Lewicki, but also the school district, Mr. McCarthy, who I always used to be working with primarily for that.

And then there's the bond work.

I think it's important, as seen here, we've got to do it right.

It's the same thing with the vision, setting up the future.

You get what you pay for.

and Seattle Center is center to the city and we have to do it right.

So we have to make those investments.

Similarly with the waterfront and the Elliott Bay connections, I recognize this kind of goes to the parks discussion about receiving parks, like onboarding new parks or park land sometimes, not necessarily a full kind of traditional park.

and there's cost to that.

I mean, it's great, yes, great.

And so now the challenge that Ms. Linda French-Gates and Ms. Mackenzie Scott have created is that they've created something beautiful.

And there's gonna be this kind of transition period where things will be beautiful.

And there's gonna be an expectation for the city to make sure that it remains beautiful.

And so this is where the partnership comes in.

and we should plan for that because it is such a gem for us and so I appreciate, that's a long way of saying I appreciate the various pieces in the briefing that speak to that.

I am on the book about keeping everything related to arts and culture with arts and culture and I remain so but obviously you're in a very unique position right now having as your former role so we need to be smart on that to ensure that we are We are good as it relates to arts and culture.

This is massive for the city.

It's also massive for District 7 because the vast majority of them, particularly the more major or even, you know, they're located within the district.

And we need to ensure that they're that, because that's part of the linking.

And as I said previously too, unfortunately by Seattle and et cetera is kind of taken away.

But nothing builds momentum like momentum.

And we have a huge amount of momentum coming out of FIFA World Cup.

It's sports.

as like anything else, ESPN, it's entertainment and sports, and how can we then translate that to arts and culture as it relates to Seattle Center here, which I'm speaking about?

How can we build on that experience in terms of programming you're doing?

Unity loop, any idea, like what can we do, and then how you can partner, nevermind outside partnerships, but partnerships within the executive departments to further that is really important to me.

100%.

I mean, I mentioned my admiration for Director Nguyen's work.

We talk about this a lot.

And thank you for pointing out the important role that partnership plays.

Next year will be 65 years of the campus, 50 years of the foundation, probably our closest partner, 30 years of Festall, which is the 25 cultural festivals that represent the best of this city, five years right now of Climate Pledge Arena.

I'll be at the game tonight.

if I can stay awake long enough.

And one year of Waterfront Park.

Waterfront Park and Climate Pledge and KEXP, which you also mentioned, are some of the most successful examples of public-private partnership that I've ever seen.

And I think they offer us a bit of a roadmap for what we're gonna need to do over the next years to come in our redevelopment plans, our capital plans.

Yeah, I mean, I also want to highlight the partnership with One Roof.

The answer to your question about how do we expand and build off that momentum is twofold.

One is what I mentioned about that notion of a living classroom.

We're meeting next week with the Executive Director of Comprehensive Schools and Athletics and the Executive Director of Alternative Schools to explore how we might build off of our partnership with the Center School and Memorial Stadium and really create a dedicated career-connected learning campus.

work with the skill centers, work with other CTE providers, and create an environment whereby any student in Seattle Public Schools on one bus can get to the campus and can start building a pathway towards a meaningful career.

I want every parent, I have a 10 year old daughter, as you do, and I want her to see that as a possible future for her as she comes up through the Seattle Public Schools.

The other is, you know, we've already expanded our work through Waterfront Park, now the addition of Elliott Bay.

What are the other ways we could bring the unique capacity that Seattle Center offers to broader parts of the city?

We're one of the only producing departments that can bring event infrastructure, so does that look like bringing Festall programming to all of the middle schools in Seattle?

Does that look like working with parks or neighborhoods or the Office of Arts and Culture?

to support neighborhood block party, neighborhood park festival infrastructure.

I would like to see the capabilities of Seattle Center extend beyond the borders of the campus and into more neighborhoods, especially downtown.

I think there's a huge opportunity, you know, Every downtown in the world has a combination of the challenges that Seattle has, but no downtown in the world has a Seattle Center to the north, a stadium district to the south, a waterfront park, and a place market to the west, and a convention center to the east.

We are surrounded by all of the human participation we could ever hope for.

We just have to figure out how to draw that into the center of the city.

So those are two ways that I'm hopeful that we can do that.

And I'll shout out another cabinet member, Rico Quirindongo, working with him through the planning for our future sub cabinet, along with a number of other departments, including OED, Arts, Sustainability, at what could our role in downtown activation look like?

What greater role could Seattle Center play?

That's a good point with OPCD, Mr. Carandango, and I would encourage you to engage with community like for the South Lake Union Regional Center Plan and also the Uptown Regional Center Plan.

And to your point about reaching out like downtown, really greater downtown, aka Uptown, because last night I was at the Seattle Storm game.

I came out of there, and for whatever reason, it was a hot mess traffic-wise.

And who pays the price for that?

The neighbors, the residents that live there.

so they need a little extra love because they burden some of the effort, if you will, in terms of how all these major events that happen at the entire campus, that's important.

Okay, one last thing, Chair, public safety.

We've spoken about this Tuesday.

We spoke about this.

I handed the thank you for your after action report.

I've already spoken to it.

I gave copies to all my colleagues on committee.

I gave one, you know, my honorary member on Tuesday, Councilmember Strauss.

I also gave them hard copies to the OIG investigators that were here that day.

along with fires as well, because it's really important.

I really positively and surprised, not surprised is not the word, but okay, use the term pleasantly surprised, because it was really well done with the 10 findings and recommendations and your response in terms of it's all about implementation.

I go, yes.

And I can see that being part of a foundational document because, and I've written a letter to the mayor on this, regarding a review of major venues, major events, safety plans, and public safety approach.

And I wanna do this in collaboration and partnership with the mayor, along with gun violence, for the record, also part of the engagement.

because it's really important.

So I think that document and Seattle Center are going to be important in terms of our work because we're already setting up next year's work plan for the committee, Public Safety Committee, and that will be central to it as well.

So thank you, Chair.

Hopefully that wasn't too long.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle, not a problem at all.

That's why we're here.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the presenters.

And just kind of a comment and question a little bit, and it's a little bit of a different aspect around public safety, but one piece of public safety, at least for our youth, is getting them jobs.

And earlier we talked about, Chair, you talked about the Seattle Conservation Corps, and what a great program that is, that Parks has.

you know that's a transitional employment program for adults experiencing homelessness where folks do generalist landscaper and generalist construction labor type jobs so a couple just kind of question I know that there's a fair amount of landscaping and other grounds type stuff at Seattle Center just wondering if you have anything sort of currently or could we do something like Seattle Conservation Corps at Seattle Center but The other point would just be with this bond work, really appreciate you talking about the CTE and the partnership with Seattle Public Schools, but we have a real opportunity to dedicate or to be very intentional about who's going to be working on this site.

And I think one of the big selling points for me is if we can employ our youth You know, folks going through a pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs.

You know, Seattle Public Schools has a new, you know, community workforce agreement where there is a priority for Seattle Public Schools' families.

And so, you know, a lot of times it can take a while to lay the groundwork to do that type of priority hire and or to do that intentional outreach and to start that planning on the apprenticeship.

to the extent possible as you do the bond prep work, if somebody could also be thinking about the apprenticeship, the plan to make sure that these jobs are going towards, we're laying the groundwork for Seattle Public Schools students and families.

Yeah, that's, thank you Councilman Berlin, that's 100% the plan.

And that's, we've been talking with our labor partners about how to really build a meaningful pipeline for their members.

And many of the unions are part of the skill center program.

So the electrical worker, the electrical program down at Rainier Beach, Could that come to Seattle Center for the summer, when the skill centers happen in the summer?

And if and when we are successful with this public ballot measure, we're going to be facilitating thousands of living wage building trades jobs.

And I would love nothing more than to see meaningful internships and apprenticeships made available to young people who are interested in those pathways.

I said in my first confirmation hearing last week that not every kid in Seattle Public Schools, the 50,000 students, is going to be in a position to pay $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year for a four-year degree.

But if we give them a pathway to a meaningful job that can help them live and work in this city, I think that's part of our responsibility.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lin.

Councilmember Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I really appreciate this presentation, and thank you for your leadership.

I want to just turn us to slide seven, and Interim Director Engstrom, I know you spent many years as the leader of the Office of Arts and Culture, and I know this, you have a lot of experience here.

I just want to make sure I understand, for these two items that are funded through the admissions tax that are made permanent, are these the only two items in the Seattle Center budget that are now funded through the admissions tax?

Yes.

Fantastic.

And do we have any information?

I love folk life, and I haven't been to Winterfest in a little while, but I did take my kid there to see all the fun when he was a little bit younger.

But do we have any information just in terms of the number of artists in the city that are directly supported through these programs?

Um, I could definitely get that.

I know that, um, and you know, credit to Reese Tanimura and Ben Hunter, who are the managing director, artistic director of Folklife.

About five years ago, they started paying all of the artists for many, many years in Folklife's history.

It was, it was all volunteer.

And I think those folks, speaking of folks who do apprenticeship and workforce development, Folklife does a great job of that and they really believe in paying artists and and Folklife represents a pretty big investment and I can also get you that number for Winterfest because we do contract with a ton of of local artists visual and performing arts as a part of that series So yeah, I'm happy to get you those numbers

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe Festall is also funded by the ad tax at Seattle Center at about $460,000.

It's correct.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

I stand corrected.

I'm still kind of new.

And that's why we've got a full table, a full complement.

I do want to say my hope is that in partnership and collaboration, we can work with our friends at the Arts Office, Economic Development Office, and Planning Office to grow the pie.

and to not be further and further subdividing.

We have this incredible opportunity ahead of us with this bond measure, and I want to see how it can have the maximum benefit for the maximum number of communities, particularly the working artists in the city.

I mean, I gave the best years of my life to that office in many ways, and I love it very much and care very much about how its resources are governed.

Thank you so much, interim director, and I hope you've still got some good years left to give to Seattle Center.

Director Panucci, can I get you to give me that number one more time on Festall, please?

It's important to me to make sure that we have an accurate accounting.

I know there was very difficult decisions made here, and I appreciate the care taken by the mayor's office.

I just want to have an accurate accounting of the ad tax resources that are not going directly into the Office of Arts and Culture.

Absolutely, it is $460,000 and we can post a full list to whichever department it makes sense.

I'll consult with Director Whitson, but we can just give you a list of all of the swaps related to the ad tax.

I will own up to the fact that when I was director at the Arts Office, we initiated that investment in the Seattle Center because they were having a down budget year and the ad tax was growing.

now here on the other side of it, we find ourselves.

There's so much overlap, there's so much shared purpose between the Office of Arts and Culture and the Seattle Center, and I really want us to be able to swim in one direction and be collaborative, solution-oriented partners and not be reaching for resources across the table.

I appreciate that, and I'll just say I do appreciate that the projects that the Seattle Center has that are being funded through ad tax, I appreciate that they are ones that do have direct impact to local artists, and so when I say the care and the difficult decisions, that's specifically related to that, because that is something that's really important to me as arts chair and as somebody who has a lot of working artists in my life, so I appreciate the attempt at the through line and the connection there with what AdTax is funding.

And I'll have more comments about this when we get to the Office of Arts and Culture, but thank you for that, and I look forward to the follow-up.

And I'll just, not a question, but just a statement.

I know there was discussion earlier from Council Member Saka in terms of the design and the work that's happening there, and I will just say I share an interest in that to make sure that we have the fullest accounting and the deepest understanding of the needs for this really important cultural institution as we look ahead to the work that we'll need to undertake in the next year or so, getting to Seattle voters.

so I look forward to more engagement there.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

We'd love to, A, I'm glad that you're the Chair of the Arts Committee.

That just makes me really happy.

And secondly, anytime you wanna come down to the center, we'd love to give you a tour and connect you with our planning and capital development team.

It's something that I think we should do more of and happy to have you anytime.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Colleagues, any other questions?

I'm gonna jump in and then I'll pass it back to Council Member Saka at the end.

I will just say, as Council Member Foster came on and we had a brief discussion about the push and pull conversation around arts funding this year, the thing that she said to me most importantly is that we're using the money to pay artists.

Maybe not most importantly, I'll let you use your own words, but that was something that really stuck with me because it's really so critical.

And when I was looking through your budget book, the folklife aspect, the using admissions tax for folklife in particularly sits, it felt poignant, got to start my timer, felt poignant to me because It's a donation requested event that is open to the whole public.

And we're using admission tax to give people access, no matter how much money they can pay to the arts and culture of our city.

I mean, Folklife was one of those first events as a young child that my parents took me to.

So just wanted to thank you there.

Also want to second what you said about Tiffany Malachi down at the Office of Waterfront.

Dang, she's punching above her weight.

Keep it up, Tiffany.

Focusing back on your 70% of the budget is self-generated.

I think the hardest part about Seattle Center is that we as the city, when we budget, we view Seattle Center still in that realm of when you were 100% revenue generated and operating.

that might have been in the 1980s, that might have been in the 70s, but there was a time when we weren't adding general fund to your funding stream because you were able to generate that money yourself.

We are so far past that.

And so it's this cognitive dissonance moment where even under FIFA, we asked you to do off-campus events, the Seattle Center, like off of the waterfront, off of the Seattle Center campus, and we gave you some general fund money to do it, but we're asking you to upkeep nearly 100-year-old buildings without doing the maintenance, the deep maintenance and renovation.

I believe I heard the last major maintenance was McCall Hall in 95. Was that about right?

McCall Hall and Fisher.

Yeah, so that was 30 years ago was the last time that we did any infrastructure upgrades to your campus.

And so just getting in, I was one of the council members that took the tour yesterday, really appreciated your time.

Getting into the guts of the armory, I thought it was bad before I went on the tour.

It's worse than I expected.

and so one of the pieces that really stood out to me is that your campus utility plant that provides the heating and cooling for 17 of your buildings, is that correct?

This is all off the top of my head, so tell me if I'm wrong.

The heating and cooling itself, that plant is highly efficient, but by the time the heat or cold air gets to the building, it's lost 50% of its hot or cold, is that correct?

I believe that's right.

That's why decarbonizing the campus, it's critical, one, because I think we generate something like 10% of the greenhouse gas for the city of Seattle with our gas powered power plant.

So we need to decarbonize the campus for like climate values reasons.

It's also what we have now is terribly inefficient.

A lot of our campus was built for the 1962 World's Fair and it was never intended to last beyond two or three years.

And there are literal duct tape and zip ties holding parts of the campus together.

And our TFM team, our technical facilities maintenance team does an incredible job, but it is, I told this story at my first committee meeting when three hours before the Rainier Beach High School graduation at Memorial Stadium, we lost power.

The power plant went down.

and we had to scramble to find every generator available in King County so those kids could walk in their graduation.

That's the risk of critical failure that we're sort of up against.

So it's inefficient on its good days.

Some days things just break and all of it is in desperate need of a reinvestment.

I think it's 16% of the city owned building emissions 16%.

Yeah, and it's very inefficient.

Come work there for a day and you'll be cold or hot, you know, or come to an event and you will get a lot of calls about, hey, it's too hot, it's too cool, it's too something, but it's hard to regulate.

Very inefficient and costly.

Yeah, so just using that though, if we were able to just have pipes that didn't have holes in them, we could reduce our city-owned carbon emission by 8% of our total emission.

I'm just doing back the envelope, Matt.

Significant improvement.

If we lose 50% of that heating or cooling by the time it hits that building, and you're making up 16% of our carbon emissions, if we just had new pipes, we would be 50% better.

Well, if we could decarb, it would be better than 50% efficiency improvement.

100%, I'm just saying status quo.

I am here to help you get decarbonized.

I'm just saying if we took the current situation, and at the beginning of my remarks today, I talked about additional efficiencies within the city.

This wasn't even it, but this is an example of why this Seattle Center upgrade is so needed right now.

I already mentioned that you and your team are punching above your weight.

Something that struck me yesterday about this heating cooling is that in the armory if you're holding an event in the main hall, you then have to take that hot or cold air away from the offices or from the school or from the Children's Museum or from the theater or from the police station or from your offices or from the Folklife offices.

I'm going on this long list because there are so many different organizations tucked in this really massive building.

Just wanted to highlight that.

And when we were talking yesterday, you have about a million visitors at the Seattle Center itself a month.

I took that from 11.5 million per year just at the Seattle Center.

It really stands out to me that this is a civic campus and so I'm glad to hear that the monorail projects are going better because we need to provide better access there.

I know that when we've had the light rail placement conversations, a lot of folks at the Seattle Center have had displeasure about the proximity of that station entrance to the campus because of construction-related impacts.

But my challenge right back to the entire Seattle Center campus and everyone there is that if we are negotiating against ourselves about impacts versus 100-year infrastructure, the farther away that entrance is from the center, the less well it will serve my grandchildren, their children.

and everyone thereafter.

Because again, Pacific Science Center was built as a temporary building that's now historically landmarked, right?

And so if we are using, if we are negotiating against ourselves about 100-year infrastructure, I think that we could lose out.

So that's more of a plug than anything else.

And sorry, last question, first question.

That was my last statement.

First question, what are your maintenance costs?

Oh, the timer's running hot.

This is on me, right?

What are your maintenance costs for all of those lines getting into all of your buildings, both the hot air, the cool air?

Do you know?

I don't have that number in front of me.

We could get that for you.

I do know our capital improvement budget has always been about 50% of what our actual needs are to maintain the buildings, and that doesn't include any sort of enhancements like we're talking about in the bond.

Okay.

So actually, this is my final statement, which is that if we are able to upgrade your infrastructure, we are going to save money, and that money is general fund.

and that is how we can address the structural budget deficit continually.

And it's just that is the point that I was leading us to and making.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

That's what I got.

I see.

I got Council Member Kettle and Foster's hands up.

Those are old hands.

Great.

Council Member Saka, I'm gonna pass it over to you for last.

Actually, I'm gonna let the committee table respond to me.

Any last words and then I'm gonna pass it over to Council Member Saka for last, last words.

No, I just really appreciate your time yesterday, you and Council President.

I appreciate, you know, we want to get into the details of really what are the hard costs, the soft costs, where can we be more efficient, what would it mean?

You know, we are going to put so many heat pumps online with the renovation of, you know, two dozen buildings that we could train a generation of HVAC technicians that don't currently exist to take care of the heat pumps.

The opportunities are really big and really exciting and it's going to be in the details and figuring out how we sequence these projects and how we're able to realize true efficiencies as a city as a result.

I love that you said structural budget deficit because I, you know, we want to fix that too.

Yep.

Thank you.

Council Member Sokka, over to you.

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank the Department for their presentation today.

More importantly, all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes and toil that's reflected in the dozens and dozens and dozens of pages of documentation in the proposed budget.

So really appreciate that.

I want to thank my colleagues, all of you, that have asked such terrific questions.

Couldn't agree more.

with the essence of everything I heard.

Thank you, Chair, for your thoughtful questions.

And I really appreciate, in particular, how you teased out and very thoughtfully articulated the vision here and making clear, making more transparent the specific need and the problem that we'd be solving for if we put a bond measure package before voters to do this.

And it's all those things that you mentioned and discussed at length in terms of the decarbonization and addressing the infrastructure and preventative maintenance.

And yes, it will have a long-term positive impact in terms of addressing our structural budget issues, at least in part, absolutely, crystal clear.

So thank you for teasing out that point.

It's all those things and more, because we're going to do all those things and build back better, restore the center to its original glory and vibrance, if you will, but make it better as well.

There'll be some cool new features and opportunities to reimagine specific spaces.

And so I'm really excited for that.

That's why I want to thank everyone for a great conversation and comments and questions.

Thank you, Council President, Mr. Chair, for joining that tour yesterday.

So that is all.

Thank you, Council Member Sokka.

Thank you to the Seattle Center employees and administration and to everyone down there at the Office of Waterfront.

Keep up the great work.

We're gonna transition into the next presentation if the clerk can read item number five into the record.

Agenda item five, Office of Arts and Culture for briefing and discussion.

17 minutes, 51 seconds, that's what I'm at.

Are you timing us too or just you?

I don't care about you guys.

I do it during breathing.

Well, welcome.

We're gonna have the clerk read this item in just a second.

You read it in while we were doing other things.

Welcome, Director Nguyen.

Welcome, Alex.

Great to see you again, Director Panucci, Director Whitson, you haven't moved.

Great to see you.

I'm gonna turn it over to you to run this presentation and then we'll turn it over to Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, and good afternoon.

My name is Amy Nguyen.

I am the director for the Office of Arts and Culture, and I am joined by my wonderful colleague, Alexandra McGehee.

And I want to thank you so much, Chair Strauss, all of the council members.

Let's have a good close out here for your day.

I know you have a lot in front of you for the days to come.

So really, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here to present on the Office of Arts and Culture 2027 to 2028 proposed budget.

In this presentation, we will provide a high level overview of the department and its current work and walk you through the proposed budget and its investments in Seattle's arts and culture sector.

Following this presentation, we are happy to answer any questions you may have.

In grounding us, the Office of Arts and Culture was established in 1971 and started out with two core mandates to steward the 1% for Art public art program and to make investments in the city that foster and support a thriving art and culture ecosystem.

Our mission is to activate and sustain Seattle through arts and culture.

We envision a city driven by creativity where everyone can engage in diverse, meaningful cultural experiences.

We work to make that vision real through grants, programs, partnerships, and cultural planning that help make Seattle a vibrant and inclusive city.

The backbone of this work is our racial equity lens.

We believe that art can be used to drive change and to reflect not only the world as it is, but the world we want to build together.

We seek solutions that use arts as a strategy to drive not only our office, but the city as a whole toward that racial equity and social change.

Our office is structured around four programmatic areas.

Public art, which stewards the 1% for Art program and manages our exceptional world famous civic art collection.

Our partnerships, education and grants, which focuses on community centered investments designed to support diverse arts experiences, cultural organizations and manage the creative advantage partnership with Seattle Public Schools.

are finance, operations, and facilities, which is the backbone of our organization, operating the arts at King Street Station Gallery, and the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, and providing the technical resources and support to administer all grants and programming.

Last but not least, creative placemaking, which supports our cultural districts, job programs, and other initiatives which are designed to embed arts and culture in community development.

We are supported by a fantastic 16 member Seattle Arts Commission, citizen volunteers appointed by the mayor and yourself.

2026 has been a big year for our office.

The creative place making division scaled up to deliver an outstanding experience for the hundreds of thousands of visitors and residents who celebrated FIFA World Cup in Seattle.

With over $2 million in community grants, we supported community events far beyond the Chinatown International District and downtown, extending to every council district.

In pure numbers, our office invested $2.3 million in community grants throughout the city, funding 29 organizations supporting over 100 community events across 16 neighborhoods.

We also celebrated the successful passage of legislation establishing Georgetown as Seattle's newest cultural district.

Georgetown joins Capitol Hill, Uptown, the central area, Columbia City, and Hillman City.

And we are so grateful to the mayor's office and council for your support of this legislation, which continues our commitment to protecting and investing in these key cultural neighborhoods and their districts' verve and character.

We also want to call out some interdepartmental partnerships we have been working on this year, including Community Hubs, an innovative wellness program focused on youth mental health from our office, our Parks and Recreation, and the Department of Early Learning.

and new public art on the symphony block, a key corridor with cultural anchors to enliven public space and really spark new art experiences in partnership with our Department of Transportation and other county and downtown agencies.

The 2027-2028 proposed budget makes key investments in grants and frontline services, the creative advantage, civic art collection maintenance, cultural districts, and King Street Station activations.

It also makes ongoing the formerly one-time redirection of admission tax through the Office of Arts and Culture to Seattle Parks and Recreation and Seattle Center.

The Office of Arts and Culture budget is reduced from the 2026 adopted as one-time funding lapses.

There's an overall drop as we move into the biennium, reflecting natural reduction as one year appropriation authority lapses.

That said, the mayor's 2027-2028 budget includes some exciting one-time and ongoing investments for the Office of Arts and Culture, which we will talk about next.

I'm gonna kick off these significant additions and really calling out arts education.

This investment increases the budget of the Creative Advantage by $557,000 ongoing, raising the total annual program investment into Seattle Public Schools from $541,500 to over $1 million.

annually.

The program is a collective impact model and includes collaborations between the Seattle Public Schools Visual and Performing Arts Program, our office, the Seattle Foundation, and over 100 community arts partners.

The program's core goals are to expand equitable access, ensuring all Seattle Public School students, regardless of race, income, language, or ability, have access to arts education.

Creates consistent sequential arts education experiences from kindergarten through high school, within students' neighborhood, school pathways.

It's about connecting schools with a vetted roster of teaching artists and cultural organizations to provide in-school multi-session artist residencies.

We offer training for educators in our arts integration and culturally responsive teaching practices.

Research shows that arts learning gives students far more than artistic skills.

It's critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.

There are 21st century skills that life and careers demand, and they matter even more in the age of AI.

Arts learning also boosts student motivation, academic success, graduation rates, wellbeing, and civic engagement.

This investment expands our community arts partnership grants so every Seattle public school can use these resources.

These grants pay for school day student residencies with approved partners through our office's community arts partner roster.

exhibitions of student work and youth performances it also raises the average award to 8k per school with exact award amounts scaled based on need we set the old budget based on assumptions from a partial rollout now we fund the program as a full district operation and we make our grants available to all schools

The next area of investment is a broad 3% adjustment to all Office of Arts and Culture grants and front-facing service budgets.

This impacts areas including but not limited to our Centering Arts and Racial Equity grants, which provide multi-year funding to arts and cultural organizations, Arts at King Street Station Gallery and the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, Smart Ventures, our flexible introductory grant for first-time applicants, Arts in Parks, our partnerships with Parks and Recreation to bring arts and culture to underserved and economically constrained areas of the city, The Cultural Facilities Fund, which creates better access for people who have been unfairly excluded from owning, managing, or leasing property.

And Youth Arts, which funds out-of-school arts programs for middle and high schoolers.

This reflects the importance of the cultural sector in Seattle and recognizes the higher costs to live and work here, especially for creative workers.

This investment modifies our base programming budget in these areas from $6.5 million to $6.7 in 2027 and nearly $7 million in 2028. This investment will allow us to adjust grant sizes and continue to deliver the high quality programming and arts experiences in our spaces.

The next investment included in the mayor's proposed budget is a 98,000 increase to our civic art collection maintenance budget.

This is that beautiful artwork in your office.

The Seattle Civic Art Collection is one of the largest civic collections in the country.

It plays a vital role in preserving the city's cultural identity and brings diverse artistic expression into the daily lives of its residents and visitors.

comprised of thousands of portable works and integrated public installations embedded in cities, parks, libraries, and municipal buildings.

The collection acts as an accessible open-air museum that democratizes art outside of traditional gallery spaces.

The law requires us to maintain the art in our collection for 20 years or for the life of the capital construction bonds from our partner departments.

That job gets harder.

Material and labor costs are rising and our collection continues to grow in age.

As urgent repairs pile up, we struggle to keep up with routine maintenance.

This investment helps us meet our legal obligation and honors the promises we made to the communities we partner with to create these artworks.

It also reflects our steady commitment to keeping the arts cared for and open to everyone in Seattle, no matter your neighborhood, income or background.

The King Street Station Activations Program has truly put Arts at King Street Station on the map.

It has helped establish the Office of Arts and Culture's King Street Station Gallery as a cultural anchor and bridge between the Chinatown International District and Pioneer Square neighborhoods.

These activations increase the visibility of our office and our work, drawing thousands of visitors to our events.

They highlight local artists, cultural workers, and creative talent in a highly visible way.

While we are fortunate to manage the Arts at King Street Station Gallery, the space itself is tucked inside a station and can be difficult for the public to find.

The Activations program brings energy and activity to both King Street Station Plaza and the gallery, reflecting the vibrancy of the neighborhoods we serve.

Our solstice events, Longest Day and Longest Night, continue to grow in scale and impact.

This year, programming expanded significantly, with multiple activations each week and a full slate of World Cup-related events.

The Activations work that began in 2024 has no base funding in our budget.

This investment allows us to build on the strong momentum created in 2025 and 2026 and continue the work in 2027. It supports local creative talent and generates positive spillover effects into surrounding neighborhoods through economic activity, cultural vibrancy, community connection, and improved feelings of safety.

Much of our work happens behind the scenes.

This program is our prominent public-facing investment and creates cascading benefits.

when we operate not only as funders, but as producers, conveners, collaborators, and change agents.

It expands our ability to lead and engage directly with the community beyond administrative and financial support alone.

We want to end on, again, thanking you all so much for your time and consideration, and let's dive into some questions.

Thank you, Director.

Director Panucci, anything to add?

Allie?

Anything?

Councilmember Foster, over to you.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you for that fantastic presentation, Director Nguyen.

It's just such a pleasure getting to chair the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee.

I will say, I'll just be brief here and say one thing that's really on my mind often is the important role that arts plays in our city in many ways, right?

You talked about the impact for young people in our education system and the expansion of programming there.

just in our offices, the ability to have an incredible art collection here at the city that supports local artists and helps create vibrant places both inside City Hall, out on the streets with our public art, and so much more.

And it's also not lost on me the significant role that the admissions tax has in supporting the Office of Arts and Culture.

And colleagues, I know you've heard me ask earlier today in previous presentations about the information regarding the ad tax going to other departments.

And I, again, will echo what I said, which is I think that the approach taken in this budget has been balanced in terms of dealing with a really challenging situation and trying to refocus those ad tax dollars in places where they still support artists directly.

I am gonna just take a second to recount some of those uses.

And I don't take issue with uses.

I really wanna make sure that I'm highlighting them for my colleagues here.

so that we understand the impact to the arts department, particularly as we're looking ahead at any possible additional changes the council may wanna undertake.

So I think I heard $460,000 for Festall, 400,000 for Folklife, 222,000 for Winterfest, 280,000 for Arts in Parks, 210,000 for the Teen Summer Musical, fantastic by the way, and 224,000 to support and I know that Director Panucci is going to send some follow-up so we have the full accounting.

And again, I don't take issue with this use, but I think it's important to highlight it.

And my question, because I know that was not a question, and I know that the budget chair has got the timer on me.

My question, Director Nguyen, when we look at some of the things, the programs that the Arts Department runs, programs that I think are, again, really important, say, for example, the Cultural Facilities Fund, Can you talk about the way that the asks that come into the department for that fund and how much of that ask you're able to fulfill, generally speaking?

Thank you so much, Councilmember Foster.

And you said it so well.

I will say most of my time, my day is spent talking to small, medium, large arts and cultural organizations, individual artists, and they're expressing that they're impacted just by several of the items that we heard today, just as what we struggle as a city.

You can't say enough on that rising cost, whether they are themselves employers, on healthcare, how they struggle to keep their doors open, and the very limited levers they have to pull.

So I love that you kind of leaned in specifically to the Cultural Facilities Fund.

we run a program that administers shy of $400,000 and we have tens of millions of dollars in requests for those cultural capital needs.

And these are places where I can't emphasize enough that we saw as we are still now years out of COVID recovery that arts and culture is alive when it's in your backyard, in your neighborhood, and that we have places in which we can access arts and culture together.

Those cultural facilities in neighborhoods from our D5 in Lake City all the way down through South Seattle in Rainier Beach, they need a hand to keep I liked what you said, Director Engstrom, about zip ties and duct tape.

I hear a lot about creative uses of how to keep our aging infrastructure going and the burden that that falls on small theaters to have to operate to keep up with that as well.

I really appreciate so much of the framing today because it really is about the future and rather than continuing to think in the kind of short term of where our needs are, how can we partner and really think effectively about how investment for arts and culture can be truly sustainable as we move forward?

If the question comes into what I don't even know where to begin, how to even describe the needs that come out.

I do open community office hours for sign up.

I have one tomorrow.

And if I could just even tell you the scratching the surface on the totality of the complexities of problems that I hear come up, We're excited again for all of these fantastic investments and I think folks saw really the power of arts and culture investments that are very much guided by our Seattle Arts Commission and our open panel processes in play and action when that happened this summer with our We Still Dream of Future.

Thank you so much, Director Nguyen.

I appreciate that.

And I know we still have the directors from Seattle Center here and Parks Department here.

And I just want to underscore again, I think that the programming that is being run across the city to support arts is critical and is really important.

It's just important to me as Arts Chair.

to uplift, to make sure that we have, I hope Council Member Juarez wasn't on here to hear me say uplift, but to make sure that we have a full view of the diversity of needs across our arts sector so that we can make the smartest and the most informed decisions.

And just knowing, you know, $400,000 in resources obviously doesn't go that far when it comes to the diversity of arts-based and cultural organizations around the city.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Foster, Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to thank Director McGuinn and Ms. McKay for being here and presentation.

You heard me before during Seattle Center of my points about arts and culture.

And again, to be consistent, I'll say it again, we do need to keep that budget whole, keep that package together, not have it bifurcated.

And I don't think we're there now, but that has been a question in the past, so it's probably good to keep saying it so then we don't have any backsliding on that front.

You know, key, there's a lot of key points.

I do like the point about partnerships.

And as I said earlier too, again in the Seattle Center section, you know, after the FIFA World Cup, I had a conversation with Inspire Washington, you know, what they're doing.

And also, you know, I'm bringing it to the DSA too about having an after action, speaking of after action, like a lessons learned review of of the World Cup and then really how to transfer it from sports entertainment and in this case entertainment means arts and culture because I think there's opportunities there and I think about all the pieces like I go to a group, on one hand I go to a non-profit group called Jazz Ed and the music education to all these young people and they serve a wide range across the city and beyond actually and on the other side the Seattle Chamber Music Society and the work that they're going into their new location.

When that's done, that's gonna be beautiful.

and we have this cluster and it's like how do we create, in terms of partnership, like a unity loop for, again, the music venues or the theater venues or to keep the momentum and keep the activity and to keep the activation going.

And so the partnership piece as it relates to arts and culture is so important.

How do you see that and how does that play out in terms of what you're looking to do with the budget?

I have to first compliment whoever paired these three departments together because I think that's where the partnership really starts.

It was Director Engstrom as the break came on that said, it's really about belonging.

That's where Parks and Recreation, Seattle Center and Arts and Culture meet.

But I also want to add into the levels of complexity and what I'm interested in too is how arts and culture can really reflect that we need to also evolve and be more rigorous in how we think about our partnerships.

So Council Member Kettle, I'm really glad you brought sports up.

So often there's this idea that sports and arts and culture are in opposition when they really aren't, not at all.

and I think we also saw that with this fantastic summertime.

What we're thinking about is things that bring us together, things that connect us.

I have said this during my confirmation processes.

so often been taken by how much artists in order to survive must function as small businesses and entrepreneurs themselves.

And you cannot be a working artist and depend entirely on public subsidy.

There's a need to ensure that there's a creative competition in that.

Those are skills that we hear all the time about businesses themselves needing to evolve from marketing budgets to technical assistance.

That's very much arts and culture.

I am very excited about several different partnership opportunities that we're looking at.

And I think what you see also within the mayor's proposed budget here is really a kind of signaling on how we're thinking through those partnerships.

This expansion to the budget and creative advantage, you heard me say it a bit in my remarks there, but we know that some of the biggest tech firms, what they're actually recruiting for and looking for is creative, critical thinking skills, and that is what is being diminished and lost within so much of our education.

when we look at the studies on student success, so much of that comes to an arts and culture education.

I can rant about this for some time, so I'm gonna go ahead and stop, because I just love that you brought up partnerships.

I'll just pause there and hope that I answered your question there.

You did, and I'll give full credit to Chair Strauss for the pairing of Parks, Seattle Center, and Arts and Culture.

I am not an artist, but I did have an artistic opportunity earlier this year with our famous now, FIFA World Cup artist for our poster, Mr. Shoguota, because he did a mural in Belltown near Pier 66 when you come off.

And I was able to spray paint a little star into this mural.

And the captain from the cruise ship, he also did a little piece.

He stenciled the name of the cruise ship on that little cruise ship that's part of the mural.

And I say that as this really makes a big difference.

The mural program in Belltown, for example, is massive.

And it makes a difference because there's a lot of challenges, as we know, in public safety for that.

Again, bring things to public safety usually.

And I bring that up because as a Navy guy, it's all about maintenance.

And then in your briefing, you showed that one piece of art and it's the same thing with murals.

If something's not maintained, one of the pillars in our strategic framework plan is urban blight remediation.

We have these issues that we have out there.

when we don't want to contribute.

Because the converse of is that if we do the maintenance and that piece of art is looking vibrant, then that adds to the thriving vibrant city goal that we all have.

And so I just wanted to thank you for highlighting the maintenance piece.

It's kind of like what Director Panucci's doing related to this budget process.

It's addressing the nuts and bolts pieces.

Now there's going to be disagreements on where and what.

there already is, but not on approaching the budget and approaching these things.

And another from a good governance point of view is you gotta do the maintenance, as painful as it is.

And this applies to arts and culture too, so I just wanted to say thank you for that.

No question there, but if you want to speak to maintenance, I'm more than happy to hear.

Oh, I wanted to speak to, now I need to check out your star edition on that mural.

That's quite cool.

No, thank you for recognizing that maintenance component of it.

And I will say that we have dealt with, I think, so much of it, even in the Seattle Times back in 2020 with our public art collection, vandalism is up.

There's the general aging of one's collection, but it's everything from weather to ensuring that those costs are staying up and prime, and we also put a lot of time into and lead up to World Cup to ensure that those beautiful art pieces were shining and looked fantastic for the world to welcome in it.

So it's a place where there's a lot of ongoing maintenance needs, and it's also a place where we draw a line too as we consult on public art projects, not only with our sister agencies, but also community partners that are interested in public art to really underscore the need to make maintenance sexy and prioritize it.

Excellent, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Colleagues, additional questions, comments?

I'm gonna jump in and then give it to Councilmember Foster at the very end.

Multiple notebooks.

Thank you.

A couple statements.

I think I only have statements for you today.

The murals and the artists and the funding of murals and artists is so impactful.

It actually, like yesterday when I was visiting the Seattle Center, I had a pinch me moment as I was looking at Belltown, right?

Belltown's mural projects over this last year have put dinosaurs and all sorts of other vibrant pictures on what are otherwise dull gray walls.

It is amazing to see our city liven up in that way.

And for me, with the Ballard mural project that we've had a couple years going, The momentum is building incredibly.

Stevie Chow, I think we've got her best mural in the city in Ballard.

I'm just so grateful.

What was most impactful, and this goes back to what Council Member Foster had schooled me on when she came in, was like, what about the artists?

And are we making sure to pay them, right?

the best part of the mural project for me is not the fact that it is a brighter, more vibrant space.

It was getting to meet these artists, hear their story, and get to support them along their way of living a creative life.

And that, because those interactions stick with, they stick with me at least, well beyond the few days it takes to paint the mural.

It really, and I appreciate what Council Member Foster is doing about highlighting the pass-through dollars that you are providing.

That is still the Office of Arts and Culture doing that work, even if it's in other departments.

Thank you for highlighting that because the breadth of your impact is just throughout the entire city.

And what I really...

what I really see is that your department adds vibrancy and adds life to people whether your department is actuating it or not.

Going back to the Festall conversation of Director Engstrom on now both sides of Festall funding.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter because the people of the city and the people of the region are having an artful experience and they don't need to know what kind of back end disagreements or agreements we're having.

They just need to have a nice day that they can't forget.

Already talked about folk life and just like admissions tax being used for an admission free festival.

Just really, that was a pinch me moment again today.

You asked who my favorite artist is in our collection.

No, you didn't, but I'm gonna tell you.

Blake Haygood.

Blake Haygood is my favorite artist in our collection.

And now to my only question about public art again.

Your department punched above your weight during FIFA World Cup.

It really made us look good to be an international city.

An international city is live and vibrant.

You did this in partnership with many others, but this is your core focus, so thank you.

As you have, I think when We almost worked together.

That was like when King Street Station was just opening.

It was still under SDOT control and then it switched over.

It's been amazing to watch that transformation at King Street.

One of the things that I loved during FIFA was, I think it's on your second to last slide, that art piece.

If you wanna switch slides real quick, just so we can bring it back up.

Behind the dancer, that art piece.

Was that temporary?

Is it permanent?

How do we do more of that?

I also see just you own that building and there's no fault here, but the windows are kind of blank.

Is there a way to put artful vinyl?

How can we liven up this space?

Thank you so much, Chair, for that question.

And that artwork has, I think if we more sophisticated social media investigators could, I saw that photo tagged in so much around internationally, that artwork with the train station behind, and that artist, Alex Proba, that's a temporary public art piece.

We're quite honored to be able to showcase, based out of Oregon, but internationally renowned public artist.

that piece is no longer there.

We actually just de-installed it.

It's headed to its next home.

But it was one of those really powerful stories of just how art can change and make a space alive.

As soon as it was installed, we had like 20 children running around it.

I remember we stood in our office, we were like, I don't think we probably should put some signage about that out there.

So just to give you a kind of a people, just being alive in that plaza.

Also, it is a story of, it was an upward battle for us to get that artwork there.

And by battle, I shouldn't put it in such, we are so excited to be in a historic district.

It is just the hotbed of Pioneer Square, Chinahill International District, where this gateway, and that process just as many of the processes of when we are considering or would like to do things on the facade or within the public realm is really about respecting the historic character of the neighborhood which requires respecting the levels of review that go to it.

That project, specifically that artwork opened up a lot of really great conversations on what should be allowed in Pioneer Square.

I'm using very intentional language here to say that.

I think we saw a lot of the power of embracing change and what that can do to the life of that neighborhood.

that artwork is no longer there, but we fully intend a part of one of the exciting ads that the mayor included is that one-time funding to really extend that King Street Station activation so we can build on that momentum with the full intent of having another temporary public artwork in that plaza.

Thank you, very helpful.

I understand the need to protect our historic districts and when it comes to, if that means that we have to have a black vinyl window compared to a colorful vinyl window, I am challenged by how that is protecting a historic preservation area.

I'm not a preservationist.

but we've seen in Belltown with their mural projects, those murals were able to go onto historic buildings because they were able to meet those requirements.

And so I know it's not out of the question.

And so my request is that the historic preservation groups ensure that we are able to add vibrancy rather than leaving dark places in our community.

With that, Director, any last comments?

Either directors, I'm gonna pass it over to Council Member Foster to take us home.

Thank you so much, Chair Strauss.

And I just, I appreciate that we all get to share our love for the arts and artists here in Seattle and how important they are to making the city that we all wanna live in.

I will just close this out with this and say, you know, there's really difficult decisions that had to be made this year and it's not lost on me that we're looking at and actual reduction in the overall budget for our Office of Arts and Culture.

And I think that you all will continue to sustain incredible, incredible work with the resources that you do have.

And I just deeply appreciate that.

And I think, you know, I look forward to working in partnership.

I know we heard other folks speak earlier about the need to grow the pie to make sure that we are able to invest adequately because artists are doing so many things for our city, whether that's the murals that Councilmember Strauss spoke about, and I've got a family member who painted one of those, and Dan and I have talked about that.

And that plays an important role for employing artists, for supporting our small businesses, making neighborhoods more beautiful, reducing the amount of money that we're spending on scrubbing graffiti off the walls.

I could go on and on, but those investments, we just get so much from them.

And so I look forward to continuing to partner alongside the Mayor's Office, Office of Arts and Culture to grow the pie so that we can make these investments that I think really, you know, carry more than their, we get more bang for our buck from them, I think.

And I think that's important to note.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster, as chair of the committee overseeing the department.

With that, Mr. Whitson, Director Whitson gets full credit of putting together his presentations together.

So I just work here.

Mr. Whitson makes sure everything happens on time and with grace.

So thank you, sir.

It's been a great partnership with the City Budget Office.

There we go.

Love this.

Colleagues, any other final comments, questions for the day?

Seeing none, tomorrow's presentation will be the Seattle Police Department, Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department, and Seattle Fire Department.

We will try to move things up, although there may be some timing issues with Seattle Fire Department, so we'll keep you updated in the morning.

There is no verbal public comment.

so literally at 9.31 a.m.

the police department is starting their presentations.

I believe council member Rink and Kettle were the only ones on time for this afternoon's session.

I was on time, which is late.

I am timing myself and no one else.

So I forgot to turn on the timer again.

So with no further ado, this does conclude the September 24th, 2026 Select Budget Committee meeting.

We'll see you tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m.

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