All right, well, good morning and welcome down here to Occidental Square.
And thank you for coming to this announcement on the proposed second cycle of investments for the people of Seattle's Metropolitan Park District.
When we began this journey in the spring, I committed to community being the guiding North Star of this process, and I'm honored to be joined today by a broad coalition reflecting that outreach and that shared commitment in our broader Seattle community.
Leaders from business and labor, advocates for open space, activists pushing fervently for action on the existential threat of global climate change, and neighborhood groups organizing froth-leash areas, playgrounds, clean bathrooms, and more all across the city of Seattle.
Together we joined as a council with Mayor Harrell to build a plan to make our parks open spaces that are clean, green, and accessible to all.
Partnerships between the mayor and council are essential for us to build on our mandate from the people of Seattle for the action-oriented change that they expect and demand from their leaders.
And to Park Superintendent Christopher Williams, who I'm joined with here today, to Director of the Waterfront Marshall Foster, to all of our other partners in the executive branch, I offer my sincere thanks for that partnership that is moving this city forward.
This proposal today maintains the investments that I jointly announced with Mayor Harrell at the end of last month.
and builds on it with additional supports for a funded mandate to make our parks clean, green, and accessible to all.
It's the result of 14 public meetings, over 300 in-person public comments, 20 formal requests from organizations, and more than 500 letters, emails, and messages.
It reflects the testimony of a city proud of the legacy of our Olmstead Parks and our collective determination to protect and expand them.
Our parks will be clean, This plan adds crews to respond to graffiti and vandalism, expands the cleaning of bathrooms and comfort stations, and increases major renovations to those comfort stations so that they can be used year-round.
This proposal is a funded mandate for park bathrooms that will be clean, safe, and open for all the people of Seattle.
Our parks will be green.
This proposal increases the planting of trees in our developed parks to make sure we have more, not less, trees at the end of this six-year cycle.
We will expand the Seattle Conservation Corps, Seattle's answer to the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps, to provide jobs and workforce training to people experiencing homelessness in our community.
More than 80% of Conservation Corps members leave that program with stable housing.
More than 90% leave with long-term employment.
We will green our parks and we will provide economic opportunity to the people of Seattle through this proposal for the people of Seattle's Metropolitan Park District.
And as we were starkly reminded just a week ago, the smoke from climate change-induced wildfire will appear every summer to choke and oppress the people of the Pacific Northwest.
This plan will put real support behind achieving our goal of decarbonizing our community centers by 2035. This plan will put real support behind cooling and heating and ventilating and air conditioning and weatherizing those community centers.
Because the legacy of this generation that we have inherited can't be the legacy that we leave behind to future generations and our children.
Together under this plan, we will build community centers that truly center community.
Our parks will be accessible to all.
For decades, most park matching funds required community fundraising to upgrade equipment and expand amenities.
Under this plan, we will double the equity fund to $3 million a year and require no neighborhood match for meritorious programs.
Every community in Seattle deserves playgrounds, pocket parks, walking trails, and public art.
This plan puts resources behind that commitment.
Perhaps the most revolutionary contribution we're going to fund through this plan is the opening of all of our comfort stations in our park system.
Out of 129 bathrooms in our parks, 60 are only open seasonally.
Through this plan, we will open them all year round to make our parks truly accessible to all the patrons who use them.
We will build on our work through the Urban Park Partnership with the Downtown Seattle Association to program and activate our parks.
And under this proposal, we will double the resources for neighborhoods outside of the downtown core to realize those same partnerships with the City of Seattle.
And now I am proud to be joined by a broad coalition of members of our community who will highlight some additional components of this plan, who will talk about how this Metropolitan Park District is going to impact our broader community.
And we will start with the head of the Seattle Parks Foundation, Rebecca Baer.
Rebecca, come on up here.
Thank you very much.
I want to first start off thanking both Mayor Harrell, Park Board President, and all of the members of the Park Board for their commitment and investment in time and energy, listening to the community for this second cycle of the Park District.
Through the last couple of years in the pandemic, through our racial reckoning, we have really learned that parks are essential infrastructure for the city.
Without our parks, we would not have had the space to breathe, the space for community, and the space to recreate and connect.
So it's really a critical moment in time for us to invest in those parks.
Our parks have been loved and overloved over the last couple of years, and they really need additional investment to ensure the longevity and future health of our city.
So this park district plan makes a commitment to the city.
It makes a commitment to the Seattle residents.
It addresses our concerns about safety, maintenance, bathrooms, and programming.
It invests in our youth and it invests in our dogs and as well as our elders.
It gives us a future of a city that we can be really proud of.
Our hope at the Seattle Parks Foundation is that this plan, through the investments in this plan, we reverse the hundred year history of racism in our city by eliminating the red lines.
Our hope is that we address the future of our city through climate resilient hubs in our community centers and places where our community can go to feel safe and recreate in a healthy way.
It invests in our workers and future jobs, green jobs, for the future of Seattle.
So our hope is that in the next six years, we have residents who are deeply proud of the Emerald City, that we can truly call it the Emerald City, and that loving our parks in Seattle stands out beyond measure.
Thank you very much.
And now it's my pleasure to bring on up here a representative from the Labor's International Union.
Andrea, where are you?
There you go.
Come right on up here.
Thank you so much.
Good morning, everyone.
I'm Andrea Ornelas, a proud member of LiUNA Local 242. I'm glad to be here today in support of Seattle Parks Levy and the benefits it will create.
Opportunities like this allow me and my husband to provide for our families and I know it will do the same for other Seattleite families as well.
Expanding the Seattle Parks Levy is an opportunity to implement the city's own equity goals by establishing resilience centers to communities most impacted by pollution.
Upgrading Seattle's community centers for climate resilience and clean energy is of most urgency for workers, families, and surrounding neighborhoods.
These many opportunities will benefit the neighborhoods, the residents, and their families.
Creating jobs by expanding the hours of several community centers The users will have these centers, increase the access to these services and programs that each has to offer.
This increased access and jobs they create are a win-win for the community.
Building pathways and career opportunities through Seattle's priority program will give Seattle residents an expanded opportunity to work on projects covered by this levy.
Having access to livable wages and job on-the-job training by state-registered apprenticeship programs, the community can upgrade their own homes with own air conditioning, own heat, and while having health care, a pension, sick leave, and more benefits for their own families.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And next up, we've got John Scholes from the Downtown Seattle Association.
And before he jumps up here, I want to recognize the park ambassadors here who've been activating the space, who have been in this park all morning, helping us to set up this space.
It's just such a testament to the partnership we hope to build and emulate with the Downtown Seattle Association.
And to all of the ambassadors within Earshot and beyond, thank you so much for your service.
And with that, I'm going to introduce John Scholes.
Thanks so much, Councilmember.
And I echo your appreciation for our ambassador teams and the city staff that do so much work to keep our downtown parks and parks across our city in great shape and make sure that they're open and welcoming to all.
You know, great cities have great parks and great parks get the basics right.
And it's why I'm so pleased to see so much focus by Councilmember Lewis and the mayor on the basics of ensuring our parks are clean and well-maintained and safe and open and inclusive for all.
That's so critical to all of our enjoyment of these spaces throughout our city and in our downtown.
We've had just a great partnership with the Parks Department over the last seven or so years to take this space and Westlake Park and others and make them spaces where we all can enjoy and be and spaces that are well utilized.
And that's so important in our, particularly in our urban neighborhoods where you might not have a backyard and so the park in your neighborhood whether it's downtown or on Capitol Hill or maybe in downtown Ballard is in many ways your outdoor space and it's your space to connect with others in your community and to recreate and to socialize and to enjoy the outdoors in our great city.
So we look forward to continuing to build on this partnership where downtown property owners have been invested along with the city to take what used to be fairly underutilized spaces that a lot of people would avoid and make those spaces that are accessible and open to everybody and that are well used throughout the day and throughout the week.
So thank you to the community members, the Park's board and the leadership of our mayor and Councilmember Lewis for this proposal so that we can reboot and reinvest in our park system in downtown and across our city and again focus on getting the basics right.
I think that's so key to the success of our system overall.
So appreciate the opportunity to be with you today and thank you again to our ambassadors who are out here every day in this park and public areas downtown keeping it clean and welcoming to all.
Thank you so much.
And I want to bring up as our next speaker, the secretary treasurer of the King County Labor Council, Katie Garrett.
Katie.
Good morning.
In the labor movement, we greet each other as family.
So good morning, brothers, sisters, and siblings.
It's good to be with you all today.
My name is Katie Garrow.
I'm the elected leader of MLK Labor.
MLK Labor is an umbrella group for unions here in King County.
We collectively represent more than 150,000 union members who labor in our community centers, who run programming in our community centers, and who build and maintain the construction of our community centers.
I want to acknowledge and thank the broadcast professionals who are covering this press event today.
Thank you.
A free press is critical to a democracy.
Thank you to your union, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, and IBEW.
I am so delighted to be here in support of the Parks Levy renewal, not just because it's a jobs program, and let's be clear, it is.
You heard from Sister Andrea Ornelas that there's more than $200 million in capital improvements to our community centers and parks as a result of this levy, which goes directly to jobs, to feed families, to sustain our communities here in Seattle.
But it also contributes to the vitality of our social fabric here in Seattle.
Having community centers and parks that are welcoming spaces are fundamentally a working class proposition.
Who uses community centers and parks?
Working families.
They're where we go to make sure that our kids learn how to swim.
They're where we go with our teenagers to make sure that they stay safe but still have some autonomy.
They're where our seniors go for social interaction.
And making sure that our community centers are in fact climate resilience hubs into the future is going to ensure that our most vulnerable populations have a safe place to be during inclement weather situations.
The levy is undoubtedly a jobs program and will improve the quality of life for Seattle's working families.
Thank you so much to Council Member Lewis for his leadership on this levy package.
To our union leaders who have been partnering with environmental leaders at 350 Seattle, LIUNA 242, IBW 46, Teamsters 117, Protech 17. These are all the unions that represent workers who maintain and build our community centers.
Thank you to all of them.
And now I'm proud to introduce the former Secretary-Treasurer of the King County Labor Council and now the Executive Director of 350 Seattle, Nicole Grant.
Nicole, come on up.
Thanks everybody in the media for covering this important story.
My name is Nicole Grant, I use she and her pronouns, and I'm the executive director of 350 Seattle, a climate action organization.
And we have gratitude to all the elected officials and city leaders that brought us this parks levy.
I think we know that climate change is no longer a future problem, it's a now problem.
We had Six people die in the heat wave this year.
Over 80 people died in the heat wave last year.
We need to be able to have public welcoming places that are safe from heat waves, from wildfire smoke, places that can provide emergency power during power outages that are concurrent with heat waves.
And this levy does that.
We have a chance to build climate resilience hubs at 13 community centers in every neighborhood of Seattle.
Whether you're at High Point or Van Asselt or Green Lake or Lake City, this levy makes places that people can go and recreate, enjoy themselves, like you're supposed to at our parks.
as we face this climate challenge.
So thanks everybody for being here and making this happen.
All right, and then is Lisa Howard from Alliance for Pioneer Square back here yet?
Yeah, I don't see Lisa yet.
So we were going to be joined or are going to be joined later this morning by Lisa Howard with the Alliance for Pioneer Square, the neighborhood that is graciously hosting us on this early autumnal morning.
She has not arrived yet, so I'm happy to go ahead and recognize just a few more of our community stakeholders who are here.
Very honored to be joined by Alec and Paul, along with their four-legged companions Houston and Jupiter, who've been organizing for an off-leash area in the West Seattle neighborhood for years.
that we are going to be able to deliver in this levee renewal.
Houston, Jupiter, Alec and Paul, thank you for coming out.
It's great to have you here, and I look forward to that off-leash area in West Seattle.
I want to also recognize we have some folks from Friends of the Waterfront.
Joy, raise your hand back there.
We've got Friends of the Waterfront in the house, our advocates for programming and maintaining the marquee new waterfront park that is going to be a defining component of Seattle's built environment.
Thank you for being here and thank you for your partnership on putting together this Metropolitan Park District proposal.
With those shoutouts, I am happy to start questions if folks have any questions here.
Yes, Sarah Grace.
Are there any specific examples of community centers or parks or neighborhoods that would benefit from this version of the budget compared to the one that was introduced earlier?
Yes, so this plan is going to build on the investments the Mayor Harrell put forward to expand the amount of money that is available for community center renovations, particularly climate conscious improvements.
By making this commitment and by taking advantage of our ability to bond some of these investments, we can expand the number of community centers to a to a larger list to make progress between now and 2035 on this goal.
And really early a big commitment that I wanted to make in this package is more often than not as a city we set ambitious goals and That's just words on a piece of paper.
That's just words on a resolution unless we come together to put real resources and real assets behind achieving those goals.
And what we are seeing here today is a commitment from the city that in this metropolitan district renewal, there's going to be real money put behind the ability to do climate conversion work in our community centers.
And we do have a board here indicating community centers that will be receiving climate conscious improvements.
that we hope will at the very least commence in the six-year cycle and will hopefully be completed by the end.
Yes, breakdown for us.
What exactly is going to be in this equity fund and why it's so important that we double that and maybe just some illustrations examples.
So people at home can find it tangible.
Yeah, I'll answer that question first.
Then I'm happy to have Superintendent Williams jump in.
The equity fund is truly a great step forward in how we as a city work with the community to realize important community projects.
As I stated in my initial remarks, more often than not, historically the standard has been if a neighborhood can raise some money, the city will come in and match it.
That's been a prohibitive barrier for a lot of important projects for communities that don't have the ability to raise that money to seek that match.
There's a couple of examples on this map that I can call out immediately that we are prioritizing for funding and increasing to make sure we can realize it in the six-year cycle.
Rainier Beach Skate Park.
We're going to put some dedicated money in this levy to realize that community goal of activating the Rainier Beach Skate Park.
and getting that over the finish line.
Beersheba Park, which has been a great example of partnership with multiple sources of funds from different governments and different grants, we're going to put some money in the NPD to get it over the finish line and complete that critical investment.
There was some great reporting today in the Seattle Times on some critical investments in Lake City.
One of those mentioned investments, Little Brook Park, we are funding Little Brook Park in this package.
And it's really critical because this is an iterative list.
Communities are constantly coming up with ways that we can activate our spaces, improve our spaces, provide opportunities for people to get outside and enjoy our parks.
And this equity fund is going to be an ongoing source to make sure that when those projects are proposed, we can work through meritorious projects and make sure that money will not be a barrier to partner with the city to realize those visions.
And superintendent, if you want to jump in on that.
Great job.
But you're just sure here.
Thank you so much, Councilmember.
I'll just echo everything the Councilmember said.
This is an opportunity to lean into the equity proposition for the city.
These grants are likely going to be as much as $750,000.
So they are significant investments that will not require a match, that will likely have some sort of equity filter or equity screen.
So, this is a big step in the right direction.
Yeah, well I'm going to start by talking a little broader than your question, but don't worry, I will answer it.
I'll get back to it, alright?
But the first thing that I want to say is this whole process has been a great example of the kind of partnership that people of Seattle expect to see from their government.
It's been an example of the executive branch and the legislative branch working together to deliver on those tangible improvements that, with the premise of your question, you're talking about seeing and maintaining and sustaining.
City government does not work if the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
And we have plenty of recent experience to show that that's the case.
So when we started in the spring, my question was to Superintendent Williams, look, we want our parks to be clean, safe and open.
And then, you know, eventually, by the time we got to the fall, I wanted to be clean, green, accessible to all.
But, you know, at the time, clean, safe, and open.
That's what I was saying at that point.
What do you need to do that?
How can we partner with Mayor Harrell and with Superintendent Williams to make sure that we are preparing for the types of investments that are going to allow us to sustain, to build, to make sure our parks are clean, safe and open?
And through that partnership and that communication between the Council and Mayor Harrell, we've come up with this proposal today and Superintendent Williams could maybe come in to talk about some of the nuts and bolts of how that's going to be implemented.
But look, We're the budget authority as the council.
We decide what resources a department gets or they don't get.
The executive then has to implement.
The system only works.
if the legislative branch is asking the executive, what do you need to get the job done?
And that's what we've been seeing this year with our partnership with Mayor Harrell.
And that is demonstrated today in this proposal we're bringing forward.
But as I stated in my opening remarks, we're gonna have clean teams that can go out to parks to mitigate and take care of vandalism.
So if there's graffiti, if there's damage to a comfort station, we're gonna have teams we can dispatch to take care of those problems.
We're going to increase the frequency to clean comfort stations.
So people can expect a comfort station will be open and it'll be clean and we'll have the resources and personnel to do that work.
And I think that it would be best at this point to get into the specifics, to have Superintendent Williams, who will be implementing this, come in to talk a little bit more about that mandate.
But in our engagement as a council, it was, you know, how can we give you a funded mandate for the reality we all want to see?
And that's what this plan does today.
So, Superintendent?
Thank you.
Yeah.
So the park department over the past summer has been quietly engaged in what we call a cleaning surge.
And what this has meant is we have gone across the city and provided enhanced cleaning to all of our parks.
question for anyone that our public park system took a hit as a result of the pandemic when we were focused on mission essential services.
We took, rather, we took this past summer to really double down on basic maintenance in order to ready the system to be able to take on these new investments Councilmember Lewis just described.
So we're going to have increased graffiti removal.
We're going to have an after hours crew that will work seven days a week after hours to respond to vandalism, graffiti, enhanced maintenance and cleaning.
We're going to double down on the investments in cleaning comfort stations and public restrooms.
Just the kinds of nuisance kinds of things that when you go to a park are kind of annoying.
So we're going to do more of those things.
where do you stand on tha that these Rangers would
Yes, thank you.
So as I said, this plan maintains all the investments that we jointly proposed with Mayor Harrell, including the Park Rangers.
I spoke extensively at the press availability in August about the need for Park Rangers and my support for that program.
That support still stands here today.
I'm glad that community members have raised potential concerns about what we need to be how we need to be vigilant in what the role of the park rangers will be and make sure that they truly are an investment that makes our parks accessible to all and not a potential tool to exclude people from our public spaces.
Councilmember Herbold spoke in great detail last week in open session, I encourage everyone to go watch it if you want to see it in its entirety, about the journey and the process we've gone through as a city on the role and the scope of our civilian unarmed park rangers.
that in 2012 there was a negotiated agreement between the public defenders, between the city, between the parties, to make sure that park rangers were a diplomatic source of service for all the patrons of our community, to make sure that only in incredibly extreme circumstances would they issue a citation or an exclusion.
We have shared the statistics we've received from the parks department that in 2021 only one citation was issued total by our park rangers and I personally went on a ride along with the park rangers and the only interactions I saw between park rangers and members of our community experiencing homelessness was wellness checks to make sure they were doing okay.
I didn't see anything coercive.
I saw them being a source of comfort and a diplomatic source of presence from the city to make sure all of our community members have a conduit to social services and to the kinds of dignity they're allowed.
The ranger I went on the ride along with, Sandy, told me that on one instance she has had to apply Narcan to a community member who was experiencing an overdose.
It was certainly important to that community member that we had a ranger working on that day.
So I stand by this program.
We are going to work with community and the resolution that we're drafting to acknowledge these policies to make sure that they continue to be how we operate as a park system.
But I will let Superintendent Williams fill in if there's any additional details.
But we are taking these community concerns very seriously and working to address them in the program.
I would just add that part of the success of the park ranger program is ensuring we hire the right people.
They've been very successful at gaining voluntary compliance, meaning that they literally hardly issue any citations or any written warnings.
Um, they work in parks downtown every day and therefore get to know the patronage in the park.
And I think just building that kind of relationship connectivity, they've been very effective.
So we'll continue to find the right people to do that job.
Sarah Grace, you've been very patient.
Thank you.
What's the difference in cost of your plan versus what was introduced in august?
And how does that affect the levy?
Yeah, thank you for that question.
So the So the plan that we jointly announced with Mayor Harrell went up to about $0.38 per thousand dollars of assessed value.
This plan is $0.39.
So it is a slight increase.
For the average homeowner in the city of Seattle, this plan will be for 2023 a little bit less than $1 a month more than what the joint plan we announced with Mayor Harrell was.
So is that sufficient for answering the question?
Yes, so the current levy amount is about $150.
This new total for the average home value in Seattle, which is $860,000, will be $342 a year in the total assessment.
Yes.
Yeah, that superintendent...
It was about how are we going to keep them open all year.
That sounds like a good invitation to talk about the auto locking, which is a good policy.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Great question.
So we've got, this is a multi-layered strategy.
One of the strategy components will include an auto locking mechanism, and this is a, sort of a computerized, centralized locking feature.
Currently, we contract with a security service that goes around and locks up comfort stations.
And as you might imagine, we've got so many across the city, it's hard to get to them.
One of the big changes that will happen is that currently comfort stations have to be winterized so the pipes don't freeze.
We will make some mechanical adjustments to plumbing to insulate those comfort station plumbing systems so that they can be kept open full-time.
We will also add increased levels of staffing so we've got more people to, it's not just good enough to have comfort stations that are open, they have to be clean and usable for the public.
So it's sort of a three-tiered approach.
Automation, sort of the mechanical refiguration of the plumbing, and enhanced maintenance.
about the rate of the levy.
It's practically doubling in its second iteration, and can you speak to that a little bit?
Yeah, well, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, we had very extensive outreach as part of forming this plan.
And, you know, I held a number of town halls in my district in Queen Anne, Magnolia, Belltown.
We held town halls throughout the city that were well attended in Rainier Valley at Rainier Beach Community Center and up in Northgate as recently as two weeks ago in the Northgate Community Center.
And the feedback that we heard overwhelmingly was that people wanted a funded mandate for our parks.
We have, of course, received in some of our feedback some people who have expressed concern over the rate.
But I would say overwhelmingly, more of what we have heard is people willing to pay a higher rate if it can translate into tangible, felt benefits in how they interact with their parks and public spaces.
and that is the plan that we put forward today.
Part of what we're going to be talking about over the next week and a half as we move towards confirming this are some of the accountability measures that we are going to put into this levy to make sure that we are in a position where there's performance auditing of some of these investments, that we're working with the Parks Department on metrics tracking to make sure that the things that we are putting out there that we want to fund as the budget writers, as the council, are the things that are getting implemented.
And you're going to see more of those details as we have deliberations and open session over the next week and a half on this, but it's really important that we deliver on the funded mandate that people of Seattle want to see and that Mayor Harrell and the council are committed to delivering.
If I remember correctly from last week's meeting, about 30% of public comments involved dogs in Dog Park.
So we had a whole hearing on dog parks that I highly recommend anyone who's interested.
I think it was in August.
We can send the link to any outlet that's interested in checking it out.
But one of the things that we asked the department, like when you have an executive and legislative branch that are working well together and sharing information, you can get a lot more done.
One of those things was identifying where are the gaps, where are the deserts in the city without off-leash areas.
And you know, as the organizing for the West Seattle Dog Park Coalition shows, West Seattle is a neighborhood that is not well served by off-leash areas currently.
So that is an area that we have definitely identified as one where we are going to earmark a new off-leash area that is reflective of that process we had in that hearing of identifying where the deserts were the gaps.
There are other areas in the city where we could improve the coverage of off-leash areas.
We are fully funding an additional off-leash area for this cycle.
that we are going to work with the Parks Department to identify where that's going to be sited.
But one other thing I just want to remind folks for, the Metropolitan Park District is an important tool.
We're going to fund a lot of important things in the community with it.
But over two-thirds of the park's budget comes from other sources.
So if something is not in the four corners of this Metropolitan Park District, it doesn't mean that we can't work with parks, work through the budget process, to figure out ways to continue to build on park priorities above and beyond the investments that we're making today.
And I think that's another area where clearly there's demand for more than just two new off-leash areas.
And I'm committed to continuing to work on bringing those investments forward.
So, thank you.
And I think that with that, we are going to go ahead and end the press availability today.
But I'm happy to stick around for some additional one-on-one questions.
I'm sure that my fellow panelists are as well.
And with that, I'm going to wish everybody a pleasant morning.
And thank you so much for coming down here and enjoying one of our marquee Seattle parks.
So thank you.