We are recording.
Thank you so much.
The June 7, 2023 meeting of the Seattle City Council's Public Assets and Homelessness Committee will come to order.
It is 2 p.m.
I'm Andrew Lewis, chair of the committee.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Council Member Herbold.
Here.
Council President Juarez.
Here.
Council Member Morales.
Here.
Council Member Mosqueda.
Present.
Chair Lewis.
Present.
Chair, there are five members present.
Thank you.
Approval of the agenda.
If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
Public comment.
The clerk will moderate the public comment period.
And I believe we have one public commenter signed up online and presumably a couple in chambers, Mr. Clerk.
That's correct.
I believe we have four signed up in chambers and one online.
Excellent.
We will first hear public comment from those who are here in chambers.
Our first public commenter is Guillermo Memo.
I'm sorry, Morgoyen.
Guillermo, you may begin and we'll start your two minutes whenever you're ready.
Good afternoon, council members.
My name is Memo Moroyan and I'm with Teamsters Local 117. And today I'm testifying in support of a labor harmony agreement at the Waterfront Park.
The 2026 World Cup will bring a lot of foot traffic to our city, which means there will be a lot of jobs in the Waterfront Park.
Therefore, we need to ensure that the horrendous labor rights injustices that took place in the 2022 Qatar World Cup do not occur here at home in Seattle.
We will accomplish this by having the highest possible labor standards in this park, which sits on public land.
The workers that are going to make the park work need a commitment from their employer to stay neutral and allow them to freely decide to organize their union without having to deal with harassment and retaliation from their employer.
Although there has been progress made in labor harmony at Waterfront Park, our coalition of union asks that the Seattle City Council not move forward with a management agreement until Friends of Waterfront enters into a labor harmony agreement with Elmwood K Labor.
Thank you.
Thank you, Memo.
Our next public commenter is Jennifer Bacon.
Jennifer, please approach the dais and you'll have two minutes to speak whenever you're ready.
Hello Council Members, Jennifer Bacon.
I'm president of IATSE Local 15, representing live event technicians in Western Washington.
I also want to urge the Council to ensure that there is labor harmony for these workers at the waterfront.
There are many events that take place on the waterfront.
These workers who are ensuring that the public has a safe place to come and see entertainment that those entertainers are supported.
Those workers also deserve fair jobs with benefits, many of these workers work for multiple employers in order to be able to make a living in their trade, having labor harmony allows them to in.
ensure that their right to organize is supported, that they can choose representation, and they can benefit from multi-employer trusts to ensure that they have health insurance as well as retirement insured, and can have a long career, successful career doing their trade of choice.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jennifer.
Our final in-person public commenter is Alex Zimmerman.
My name is Alex Zimmerman and I live in Bellevue for more than 35 years.
I'm staying here with my sign and below David's star.
You never saw my face for almost 13 months right now, 14 months here.
It's very terrible, I never see like this before.
But how about waterfront park?
This waterfront park is a classic example of fascism, when government, together with corporation, with fat cat, you know what it means, doing everything for suck blood and money from us.
Tunnel, what has cost $6 billion, right now in debt $250 million every year.
So why you need this tunnel in first place?
And why this 55% of Seattle idiot vote for this tunnel?
Who lives in front of Waterfront Park?
So housing and apartment complex, right now jumped two, three times because we don't have an aqueduct.
So my situation right now, very simple.
Where is the 700,050 idiot, you know, who live in this city, who always support government for everything what is government together with corporation doing.
In government together with corporation, it's a classic fascism.
It's nothing different from German, Italy, Portugal, or Spain.
You understand, you freaking idiot, all of it, idiot.
hundred percentage, cretina.
You don't understand?
Amazon classic example too.
You know what does that mean?
So right now I speak to everybody who have a little bit brain in their heart, head.
You understand what does that mean?
Stand up America.
Make America great again.
There's only one chance.
this fascism and fat cat.
Our governments who suck blood and money with us together with this fat cat.
Thank you very much.
That concludes our in-person public comment.
We have one person who called in for public comment.
That is Mr. Bill Curlin-Hackett.
Mr. Curlin-Hackett, you've been unmuted, and if you press star six, you'll be able to speak when ready.
You'll have two minutes.
Thank you.
Thank you, Committee Chairperson Lewis and Committee members.
I'm the Reverend Bill Kerlin Hackett Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness and a member of a subcommittee of the King County Regional Homelessness Authorities Vehicle Residency Work Group.
We're addressing vehicle residency in Seattle specifically.
We've met with several of you separately.
I forwarded to all of you the letter we wrote to some of you with a new addendum giving a very brief description of what some of our mutual efforts might produce.
Our group is a partnership that includes providers, advocates in the business sector.
We feel our experience and partnership with the city can produce better responses, more positive and respectful to those homeless than the remediations and the removals and the relocations.
We've met with the executive's office four weeks ago and we await their response.
I met with Deputy Mayor Washington in May of 2022 going over a portion of what's presented to you.
Over the last year, we've met several times with HSD staff members, Michael Bailey and Chris Clayson.
We would like to present to this committee as a panel in the very near future, the sooner the better, in fact, to outline the innovative proposals, to address further questions and ideas that you may have, and to gain for all of us a better grasp of how we can be working together on vehicle residency.
Recall, we are still under the 2015 declared state of emergency.
And our subcommittee work is under the umbrella of the Regional Homelessness Authority.
To date, despite the conversations I have noted, nothing has really changed on the streets to address the half of the unsheltered living in vehicles.
So please be in touch soon as to when we can present before you and discuss better pathways.
And I'm pretty sure you have the contacts of our working group.
So thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Kerlin Hackett.
Mr. Chair, we have no more people signed up for public comment.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
We will now proceed with our agenda.
Will the clerk please read item one into the agenda?
Item 1, Council Bill 120590, an ordinance relating to the Waterfront Park and Public Spaces, authorizing the Superintendent of Parks and Recreation and the Director of the Seattle Center to execute for and on behalf of the City of Seattle an agreement with Friends of Waterfront Seattle for operation and maintenance of Waterfront Park and Public Spaces and ratifying and confirming certain acts for briefing and discussion.
Thank you.
While we have the legislation before us, we're only hearing a presentation today on this legislation.
We'll plan to hold a vote at a later committee meeting.
Our presenters are here virtually today with the exception of Council Central staff who joins us in chambers.
So why don't we go ahead and start with Marshall for the introductions.
And Marshall, why don't you popcorn the intro off to the next person on your team after saying hi.
Absolutely.
Good afternoon.
Thank you for having us back.
Marshall Foster, I'm the interim director at Seattle Center, and I'll hand it over to Tiffany.
Hello, Tiffany Malacke.
I am our waterfront operations manager, and I'll give it over to Joy.
Hi, good afternoon.
Joy Shigaki.
I'm president and CEO of Friends of Waterfront Seattle.
I'll pass it off to Elvin.
Hello, Elvin Tam, CEO of Friends of Waterfront Seattle.
Pleasure to be with you today.
great and yeah go ahead sir yep hello eric mcconaughey on the council central staff good afternoon great okay uh well with that why don't we go ahead and jump into the presentation
Excellent.
Thank you again.
We're happy to be back with you all today.
This is a continuation of the briefing we gave in the mid part of last month on our operations and management agreement.
So you're going to see some common elements.
I think the key thing today is to help answer any questions, concerns that the committee members may have before we bring this forward for a potential vote later this month.
And so one element we will touch on in the presentation toward the end is the question of labor harmony, which came up in several of the public comments, and we'll be happy to, if there are any questions about that, we can discuss.
I think I'll turn it to you, Tiffany, to walk us through the update.
Great.
Thank you, Marshall.
And yeah, just to piggyback on that, we thank you for the opportunity last month to be able to brief you all on this coming forward.
And we're just going to do a quick recap of some of that information and continue with any questions that you may have.
So next slide.
So waterfront park and public spaces, the area in pink here is what is going to be covered under this agreement with friends of our front Seattle for our operations and management between the city and friends.
As you all know, this is still under construction, but there are portions of it that are open now and are continuing to open in phases between now and 2025. So the agreement really specifies how we upscale this and get our operations in place on a phased timeline.
Next slide.
Our model with FRIENDS for operations is really what's going to drive our success for operations and management down on the waterfront.
We've been in our pilot agreement with FRIENDS for the last two years for operations on Pier 62. We took our 2019 guiding principles and ordinance for O&M and really built our partnership and relationship off of that.
And the management agreement is also reflective of everything that was specified in 2019 that council wanted to see included in this operations agreement, as well as some adaptations to lessons learned from the last two years of operating.
Friends is responsible for providing free public programming and events all year.
The city is responsible to have a dedicated maintenance team and we're really excited because we have been hiring up over the last couple months and we are ready for that team to take on the waterfront starting July 1. And then we've put a lot of work in together over the last couple of years on what public safety and outreach is going to look like on the waterfront.
We're really excited between friends in the city to be having our our four-tiered system that really is people-centric, people-focused, and will start with outreach services for anyone on the waterfront.
And then in 2019, we created our Oversight Committee, which they have been helping drive this work over the last couple of years.
And really, we've solidified our performance standard, and some of our key recommendations that we've had over the last couple of years have been in partnership with them.
Next slide.
And I'm going to let Joy pop in here, just talk a little bit about, just recap some of the amazing things that Friends have been doing in the last couple of years on the waterfront, and a little glimpse of what's to come between now and 2028. Thanks, Tiffany.
Good afternoon, Council Members and Council Chair Lewis.
We've been really pleased to activate Pier 62, which opened in the fall of 2020, and really, really developing placemaking in this new, incredible, new civic space for Seattle.
This sort of gives you a glimpse of some of the programming that's happened since then.
We've seen probably close to 750,000 people who have come to the pier and really just enjoyed the beauty of that space.
And I've probably seen nearly 130,000 people who have come specifically for programming since that time.
This summer, we're really looking forward to another 100 activations.
So that's art, culture, education, recreational programming, to bring the public down, to find that sense of connection, to place on Pier 62, to connect to what will be our new 20-acre park that will open in its entirety.
in 2025, but in centering all of this is really about how we work in partnership with community and co design and ensure that that folks who have not felt that sense of connection belonging and safety really are grounded in that through all of this amazing programming, where community sees themselves in this public space.
And that I think is part of the commitment that we have in working with the city, but also working really closely and in partnership with community partners.
And I think for those of you who've been down there really get a sense of both the joy and the excitement and really the renewal of downtown and how we're really bringing that to downtown, but also really inviting people to begin to get excited for what Waterfront Park will be for our city and our region and nationally.
This is a quick snapshot of some of our programming from last year.
Again, we saw 81,000 people come for about 163 programs.
You see the average attendance numbers.
We've seen Zumba, who has 50 people who come, but then some of our largest events attracted about 5,000 people.
Again, that real connection to space into place and relevance of programming, but really pleased about the diversity of artists and performers who are coming into waterfront park to really make that connection and be able to have a platform to really.
elevate talent, and I think a real demonstration of diverse talent that exists in our city in a way to really give honor and really celebrate what Seattle really offers to the public.
And then we had over 55 organizational program partners through our programming.
80% of our artists, performers, and program partners were BIPOC, and that has continued to be a commitment.
that Friends leads in partnership with the Oversight Committee and with the city, and as we're thinking about creating belonging and connection and inclusion of this public space, this is what we want this place to be as we lit up to opening in 25. As we look to programming after 28, so as you know, Friends is going to be the nonprofit who continue to fundraise and steward and activate the space.
The park experience, as a reminder, will be the extraordinary experience.
We're seeing a slice of it on Pier 62, but as we begin to open the park over time, the park will really be the experience, and so we really see programming activation as an enhancement.
So beginning next year, we are going to begin doing an open call process for events to really allow for the community to be weighing in on the type of programming that we want to see between now and opening and post-opening.
We will be seeing a lot more spotlight on the Waterfront Series.
So for those of you who come down on Thursdays between 5 and 7, it's really an opportunity to invite anyone in the public to come down and experience music and visual performances.
There will be a lot of pop-up platforms for local artists, and really bringing this introduction to dance, arts, and culture to a lot of new audiences who may or may not have been coming down to Waterfront Park and Pier 62, and that we just kind of experience a lot of spontaneity for people to pop in, really enjoy what's happening on Pier 62, and then be able to continue on their experience at the waterfront.
We expect to see more temporary art installations in spaces along Waterfront Park, and then hosting one-time amazing regional global moments.
What was mentioned, you know, World Cup is coming in 26. The Pride Parade, though, we expect to be down at Waterfront Park, which is exciting.
And then we'll have a number of ongoing programs that really center on Indigenous programming and connection to Indigenous communities.
and that will include the Indigenous Queer Festival, which will be happening in the month of June, but that'll be a continual location at Waterfront Park, as well as Salmon Homecoming, which last year celebrated their 30th anniversary and a real part of, I think, our connection to that celebration locally for Indigenous people.
And I'll pass it back to Tiffany.
Thank you.
Thanks, Joy.
So just really high level kind of wanted to hit again the points of the highlights of our agreement that is before you.
We have aligned the operations management agreement with the Seattle Park District funding, which is the funding that supports the city dedicated team for the waterfront and our MOA between Center and SPR, which um, follows the transfer of the delegation of operations from SPR to Seattle Center.
Um, so we're looking at a term that, uh, we'll kind of look at this as a whole package together, um, in 27 for, uh, 2029. We have integrated the performance standard.
Um, so we spent a lot of time over the last couple of years with the oversight committee and, um, really did a deep dive research, uh, on the National Care Parks that Council had asked us to look at in terms of their operations model.
And we came back and built out some subcommittees and built our performance standard, and that has been integrated into this agreement.
We have our park use is essentially we're giving friends a park use permit for everything that you saw in pink on that map.
Any agreements that are already in place for operations that we have with partners, friends will align with all of those roles and responsibilities.
And we have a couple of agreements that are still to come.
So Overlook Walk's not completed yet.
We will look at how we work with our partners, with friends on how we operate that space together.
We do have rental zones that are, it has become really apparent over the last couple years with the popularity of Pier 62, that there will be a need to have pockets of rental zones, but really keeping our public benefit of free public access at the forefront and priority of the park.
We are just limiting it to specific zones with a fee schedule.
And then one thing that we heard that was really important to council as we were building this out is that our partner and stakeholder coordination was really kept at the forefront of this.
And so we have built that into the agreement along with our performance standards.
Again, the public benefit being our main focus of free accessible programming for all aligning with our waterfront for all vision.
And we have put in all these different accountability and reporting mechanisms.
We really tailored this off of kind of what we have with the license agreement in terms of an annual report to mayor and council, as well as we have our performance standard that has a lot of data collection points and reporting out that we will be doing with that.
And Labor Harmony has been kind of at the forefront of this The conversation was to hear public comments.
So we just want to touch on that briefly.
And so we can go to the next slide.
So I just wanted to touch base really quickly that in 2019 in our ordinance that we had, we did have labor harmony protocols that were outlined for us in terms of how we would structure both our license agreement and the long-term management agreement with Friends.
And we have, we have done, and Francis done what Council has asked and we have put those requirements both we had a license agreement, as well as this operations management agreement.
And there was really any city funding that was going to anything that was happening in the park would include labor harmony.
At this time, we do not have any funds that are coming from the city to Friends to support any of their operations.
It's actually the opposite.
Friends is helping us support public safety.
And we do have 43 new positions.
We are creating city positions representative from the city side with our operations model that are coming online between now and 2025. Friends has been doing a lot of work labor harmony, and I will let Joy and Eldon kind of step in and speak out where they're at with that right now.
Thank you, Tiffany.
So, from Penn's perspective, the negotiations around the labor harmony agreement have been productive and fruitful.
There were some scheduling complications over the last couple of weeks, which meant we only really had one cycle with the legal counsel from both sides able to provide their input.
But in even that first round, we were able to resolve the majority of the comments and concerns.
So our hope is to meet in the next week with all the parties in person to resolve those final issues.
So the current delay is mostly just the scheduling of the various legal representatives from both sides.
But Friends fully supports our employees being able to choose who represents them and also taking a neutral stance towards any organizing efforts of our staff and our contractors.
And is that the conclusion of the presentation?
I think our next slide is a question slide.
Oh, well, there you go.
Perfect.
Okay.
Council Member, oh, excuse me, Chair.
I just want to make one brief comment in closing.
I think, you know, this entire approach, we're very appreciative of kind of the partnership with Council over multiple, quite a long time now, many years to lay out this approach.
The incredible programming partnership we have with friends is really looking for this certainty and clarity to have a multiple year agreement with the city so that we can put the resources in place on both the city side and the front side to be able to not only do what you saw with joy slides in terms of the incredible programming, but to be able to go even farther.
with what they're doing.
And then just the last note on the labor harmony, I just want to express my appreciation for both sides of that discussion with the FRIENDS team and MLK Labor.
I think FRIENDS is going, just to be clear, they're going beyond what was originally asked of them.
This is fundamentally a nonprofit organization that every single dollar they raise through fundraising is committed to provide public programming.
And they're just going a step further in terms of their commitment to our public goals around labor harmony beyond what we had originally asked.
So just gratitude to friends for being willing to go there.
Thank you for indulging me there, Chair.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Thank you so much.
Are there any questions from the committee?
Councilmember Mosqueda.
Thank you very much for the presentation again today.
Thanks for the update as well on labor harmony conversations.
That's promising to hear.
And always, of course, the appreciate that there's been good conversations.
I think that for us, I'll speak for myself, for myself, I think it's really important when the public dollar is involved in any way that we continue to invest in the public good and we know that investments in strong labor standards actually improve the health of all workers and the health of our local economy.
So I think it's a really good way for us to continue to show the public value of having that labor harmony conversation come to fruition and appreciate the non-profit status obviously.
In my past, I've worked with a handful of non-profit organizations who have been represented in the city that we hear, also contract with a number of non-profit entities who provide services for things like the human service provider contracts within affordable housing and across our city for serving our vulnerable population.
You are in good company, with other nonprofits who similarly have labor harmony agreements as well.
So thanks for that update and we will stay focused or we will look forward to hearing the outcome of that.
I do have one question, Mr. Chair, if I might continue.
Yes.
Thanks so much.
I believe central staff is sitting at the table, but given our hybrid model, I can't quite tell who's all in the room.
I think this might be a question for central staff, but of course, anybody from friends or within our city family, please feel free to chime in as well.
As we've been looking at the legislation, one of the areas that stood out to me was the implications for protected free speech.
Could you explain the function and implications of this section related to free speech permits?
in licensed areas.
Does that mean that there are areas along the waterfront where free speech, i.e. protests, are not going to be allowed?
The short answer is no, but because it is pretty detailed and the folks who have been working on the agreement over the past few years with regard to free speech are present, I would like to defer that over maybe to Tiffany to speak to that.
There is a specific section in the agreement that attends to free speech, but before I wade in, maybe someone from the Office of the Waterfront would like to take a shot at it.
Thanks, Eric.
I'm happy to take that question.
Council Member Mosqueda.
So, no, free speech is not being restricted at all on the waterfront.
What we're really saying in the agreement is it requires a permit then it will go to the city to permit.
If it is something that doesn't reach that threshold for a permit, and Friends is already doing an event and there is any kind of free speech activity that does not reach a permitting city level, Friends will have the ability to coordinate with us and let us know what's happening, but it's not permitted.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Just because the word permitted was sort of used in two contexts.
I just wanted to clarify with Tiffany that not permitted, meaning not an official permit from the city of Seattle for free speech activity.
There isn't a limitation on free speech on the waterfront under the agreement.
Is that correct?
Correct.
That's correct.
And I'll just add in, I think it's very consistent with what you see with other parks and Seattle Center spaces.
Small scale free speech events happen every day and are part of the natural life of those spaces.
When something requires a permit, so it's at a scale where there's a level of gathering where we have to manage it, there's essentially a free speech permitting process.
We're going to have the same process for the waterfront that we would for any other.
And so the language in the agreement is just clarifying that Friends is not responsible for trying to do that.
That falls to the city then to ensure that that event is handled appropriately and frankly, consistently with other city parks and public spaces.
Can I ask a few follow-up questions, Mr. Chair?
Yes, please.
Great, thanks so much.
Okay, so is it exactly similar to what the other parks policy is, like in terms of who issues the permit and do we have a better sense of the timeline for acquiring a permit?
Is there a payment that's necessary?
Is it the exact language that we're mirroring here for the waterfront?
Yeah, we're not changing any city policy or process.
Okay, I'm not changing any city policy or process, but you are mirroring the same approach that we would use in public parks.
Yes.
Okay, great.
And then as it relates to the sidewalks, given the large sidewalks down there, and as you mentioned, I think correctly, Director Foster, like sometimes free speech activities happen as a daily occurrence across our city, but including at the waterfront, what is the threshold?
You mentioned that at a certain scale or at a certain level, what would be that scale or level that would then require a person or an entity to get a permit.
So Tiffany, you may have to pull the agreement on that one.
It's a very fair question, Council Member.
I know that the way we structured it is it'll be the exact same threshold we have with other city parks, but I can't quote you the number.
Thanks, Marshall.
It is the exact same that Seattle Center and Parks does.
It's in our waterfront park rules and I just was scrapping that document because there is a threshold of how many people it is and where they actually need to have a permit.
So we can definitely get you that information.
We have it.
It is aligned with what is currently in place at Seattle Center and Seattle Parks and Recreation.
Okay, thanks so much.
I'll look forward to that additional.
We'll follow up on that.
Okay, appreciate it.
are there any additional questions for the panel?
Okay, hearing none, this is, I think, our second hearing on this topic, our first one with the legislation actually in committee.
I don't know if central staff has anything to add.
No, thank you.
All right.
Well, with that, I think that we can call it good on this particular agenda item and appreciate everyone for joining us this afternoon.
Will the clerk please read item 2 into the record?
Item 2, Bumbershoot Festival Agreement Presentation.
Okay, excellent.
And we are joined by the similar panel, so I'll hand it over to Marshall Foster to get us started.
Thank you, Chair Lewis and committee members.
Marshall Foster, Interim Director at Seattle Center, and joined by none other than...
Mark Jones, I'm the Director of Marketing and Business Integration at Seattle Center.
And is Joy still with us for this one or she's departing?
Okay, great.
Okay, who wants to take it away for the presentation?
I'll just say briefly, thank you.
We're very excited to be here with some important Seattle Center business.
Years in the making, we're excited to be returning the Bumbershoot Festival to Seattle Center this Labor Day and have a great team of partners who I know you've heard about through the media and through past discussions here.
Mark is going to walk you through the key elements of our facility use agreement, which is a key element of what we put in place with every festival like this.
And in this case, it will create a long-term path for us to help the new organization rebuild the Bumber Food Festival over the next number of years.
And I'll turn it over to you, Mark.
Great.
Thank you, Marshall.
And thank you, Council Chair Lewis and Council members for inviting us here today.
I'm excited to be briefing you on the proposed ordinance relating to the Seattle Center Department and the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival.
The purpose is to just provide an overview, as Marshall said, of the ordinance and its significance to the city.
The good news is that Bumbershoot is back after, you know, not happening since 2019. It will be happening on Labor Day with new producing partners with enhanced arts lens and many public benefits, which I'll go through in the presentation today.
So next slide, a little bit about the background of Bumbershoot.
I think most folks are very familiar, but for those that aren't, it is one of the Seattle's longest running music and arts festivals.
It serves as a centerpiece for tourism and creativity and really helped develop Seattle's brand since the 70s with over 40 years of innovation.
Another interesting piece is that the city owns the trademark of Bumbershoot.
It is truly the city's festival.
Part of this process was to bring that back and associated with this annual arts festival.
Previously, we have entered into agreements, as Marshall said, facility use agreements with One Reel through previous ordinances.
However, the city and One Reel have mutually agreed to terminate their contractual relationship.
Part of that termination and agreement was, and you can go to the next slide, is to find a new producing partner through an RFP process.
So OneReal, we partnered with them and a committee to basically to ensure the continuity of the festival and to look at for what is the future of, you know, Bumbershoot 22 and beyond.
So the RFP sought proposals that would reimagine and reinvigorate the Bumbershoot Arts and Cultural Festival.
New Rising Sun was the successful proposer based on their vision for the festival, really meeting our objectives that we set for the city.
The next slide.
So the new agreement with New Rising Sun, it's necessary to have the legislation that authorizes a 10-year agreement with a five-year option between the city and New Rising Sun to produce the festival.
New Rising Sun is a coalition of Seattle-based arts, entertainment, and cultural leaders and are reimagining and revitalizing the festival.
part of a social purpose corporation and they're partnering with a nonprofit to help present the festival this year.
So this agreement will ensure the continuation of the historic Bumbershoot Festival and being a showcase really of national, local, worldwide performers.
Really aligning with the basic essential characteristics that were developed since the festival launched in the 70s, which includes popular entertainment, local, etc, but also featuring arts, all this with an arts land with visual art, performing arts, literary, music, comedy, and film.
So one of the other big benefits of this relationship is that New Rising Sun is really taking all the risk.
They'll be responsible for paying all the associated costs of permits and contracts, contracted services by the city departments.
Next up is next slide talks a little bit about what we were looking for in this transformation for Bumbershoot.
We really wanted to bring it back through kind of a city-owned, arts-focused lens.
We also wanted a sustainable business model that could live on for the next 15 years.
So New Rising Sun had proposed to transform the Bumbershoot Festival into year-round events.
So as I talked about, still all aligned with the essential characteristics that I mentioned.
A new rising sun is going to ensure that this sustainable business model really works for the festival and not relying on direct city funding.
They will cover direct costs at Seattle Center, and they will also in future years provide different revenue streams back to Seattle Center with a per-ticket fee.
They'll also provide a percentage of annual adjusted ticket revenue receipts and other revenues from merchandise and other outside Labor Day weekend events, a dollar per ticket for ticketed events.
So this is really exciting because this does help create a long-term future for Bumbershoot with measurable goals that we really want to retain the culture in the face of all the growth and change of the city and keep why Seattle is special.
So the festival also supports the economic development and revitalization of the city, focusing on an affordable entertainment option and then year-round education programs.
The next slide.
Part of the other public benefits, which I'd like to walk through, they're focused on several different areas around education, community engagement, accessibility, and an arts-first lens.
So one of the big benefits is a lower cost ticket price, which they launched with a two-day ticket that actually you could purchase for about $85, a $50 one-day ticket.
They're also continuing to provide low-cost access to Bumbershoot in general and Bumbershoot programs.
They're distributing over 5,000 free tickets to families from low-income communities.
This is going to be distributed through their nonprofit partners.
That whole process is under development now as they're jump-starting this first-year festival.
They're also going to engage and create the Bumber Works, the Bumber Shoot Workforce Development Program.
I want to thank the council members for their support for some additional funding in the last budget to help them kickstart that program.
This program is already providing opportunities for interns to engage with the work with organizations and people in the creative industries, hands-on work at Folklife, Friends of the Waterfront, partnerships with Climate Pledge Arena, and many more, and I think Chair Lewis is even involved in that program and providing his knowledge and experience in the industry and through city government.
New Rising Sun also commits to providing, you know, uplifting diverse programming.
We're actively working with the BIPOC communities, LGBTQ, and other marginalized communities through their Bumbershoot Works program, but also the artists they select.
We're also requiring that they have a goal of 25% or more of WNB businesses contracted for the festival.
And they have a huge focus on ADA, language access.
An example there of that is they're offering free entry to caregivers, assisting individuals with disabilities.
And thank you to Council Member Herboldt for really advocating that across the city throughout the years that she's had a big impact in helping make that a standard practice with lots of organizations.
So just wanted to thank her for that work.
Also, just a little bit about the bumbershoot ordinance details.
This proposed ordinance authorizes the Seattle Center Director to execute the agreement with New Rising Sun.
It would basically be authorizing Director Marshall to enter into a facility use agreement that is a standard practice for our other festivals, but since it is a longer than a five-year agreement, and we need to authorize the use of the bumbershoot marks.
We have to have a license agreement also and that requires ordinance.
In addition, we wanted to make sure we cleaned up the ordinances that have superseded this related to the resolutions for the former bumbershoot agreement.
So all that will be taken care of through this process too.
So timeline here, we're starting that review and approval process and seeking the council's approval throughout June through committee meetings and briefings like this.
And we'll be hopefully pushing this forward to have it take effect just in time for the Bumbershoot Festival, which is back this day in September 2nd and 3rd over Labor Day weekend at Seattle Center.
So, in conclusion, we're really just excited to be at this point to have the return of these tentpole festivals to Seattle Center, as we continue the revitalization and it's really a symbol of hope for not only Seattle Center but downtown, and just the arts and cultural environment in general, which is such a significant piece of our recovery and has really been charging and leading the way.
So I just want to give a special thank you to members of our Bumbershoot Advisory Task Force, our RFP committee, some of this work that in this vision was started in 2014 of what we wanted as a city and city leaders.
So it's great to see this finally come to life.
And I just also want to thank all the Seattle Center team for helping us and hope we see all of you out on Labor Day.
at Seattle Center.
So that's my conclusion and open up for questions.
Thank you so much.
Committee members have any questions?
This is a pretty fun agenda item.
Don't see any right now.
Could you expand a little bit about some of the...
Oh, sorry, Council Member Herbold.
I'm sorry, I'm a little slow getting in the queue here.
Really appreciate this new vision of returning Bombershoot to its local roots, affordability, and showcasing arts and artists who reflect our community.
I'm really excited about this vision, and thank you for taking some time to brief me in advance of today's meeting.
I just wanted to lift up some of the information I had requested when we did meet, which is how reduced and free passes will be distributed, how you'll measure that they're getting to the right people, and how you select nonprofits to work with.
and getting free passes out.
This is an issue.
It may seem like, oh, it'll be easy, no problem.
But we have heard from other cultural institutions that have a public benefit of free passes, hearing that they go unused.
So it'll be really good to hear what your distribution plan is.
And then we also talked a little bit about free passes and admission for caregivers.
We did find some information about other cultural institutions that offer this benefit.
I'm happy to share it with you if that would help.
And then lastly, just wondering what you expect the metrics will be for the Bummer Works program and how you'll share those amazing successes with council when there's something to share.
Thanks.
Yeah, I think, you know, make I might need to ask you to remind me of 1, but 1 of those questions, but I think the.
The main point we're working new rising sun who's.
Is working with a nonprofit 3rd stone who's working on the distribution and James miles, their executive director.
Is the 1 that's developing that distribution program.
So, he, they're actually handling that on our behalf as part of the agreement.
He did indicate, as I mentioned earlier, that they are distributing over 5000 tickets.
So I think.
Part of, you know, another part of your question was how are we going to measure the results of the bumper works program.
So in the agreement there's expectations of before they actually release the $100,000 in funding for the kickstart that you did that's built into this so we can provide that payment.
There are their checks and points they need to provide a presentation in advance, and then a report out so we've outlined some of those details.
In the presentation, which we can we can we can share and follow up with you on so there's some checks and balances on that piece, and then I think just getting a briefing setup with.
You know, James and the crew at new rising sun might be a good next step to share your thoughts and really dig into that distribution issue I did not have enough time to really kind of.
barrel in as they're developing it, you know, imagine a first year festival, they're kind of in startup mode.
So it's kind of all hands on deck.
So they're definitely excited about that distribution and getting input.
So I think we can follow that up as a next step.
Um, what was the other tickets?
Yep.
So the caregiver piece, too, we did confirm that.
There's several areas of the agreement outlining requirements and expectations on ADA access in general.
And we did confirm that they are following the model that you've helped to push forward.
And thank you again for the work you've done.
But they are going to provide access for caregivers, for folks with disabilities that need help and guidance around the grounds.
I'm so glad to hear that.
Really appreciate you kind of pushing on that too, but it was good to hear that they were already doing it.
So we didn't even have to ask them.
So.
And I think I, I think I got, I think I got awesome.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Good to see you.
Are there any other questions or comments on the presentation?
If I might, just while we're here, I do want to recognize Mark and his team.
They have been absolutely tenacious and passionate in working with New Rising Sun and the whole organization to bring this back to life.
It has not been easy.
They have been working tirelessly.
The whole team here has a huge passion for all of our festival partners, and I think Bumper Chute, because of its history, there's a special relationship there.
So I just want to share my gratitude to Mark and his team because they've been just working kind of around the clock on this.
Yeah, that's great.
Well, we're really looking forward to this tradition coming back to the campus.
Great.
All right.
Anything from central staff?
No, not at this time, but if folks want to reach out to me on the committee, I can help to coordinate with Mark, or you probably also have Mark's contact directly, but happy to help out there.
And my understanding is that in a couple of weeks, this will be back to committee for consideration.
I appreciate everyone making themselves available for the presentation.
Thank you so much.