Seattle City Council Public Assets & Homelessness Committee 1/4/23

Thank you.

The January 4th, 2022 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.

Council President Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Chair Lewis.

Present.

Chair, there are four members present.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

Moving on to approval of the agenda.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Chair's report.

Chair, I believe Council Member Herbold has entered the meeting.

Oh, thank you.

Let the record reflect that Council Member Herbold is now present for the meeting.

So chair's reports, we're gonna hear a couple of agenda items that were passed over from December.

And I do wanna thank Vice Chair Mosqueda for filling in in December to chair the meeting in my absence and graciously allow some of these items to be heard in January rather than at that meeting.

So we're gonna have a presentation from the Seattle Center and our partners at the Office of the Waterfront.

And then we're gonna go through a little bit of business that was postponed to this January meeting for a couple of council bills that we will hear presentations and I hope vote and take action on just to flag that for committee members.

So before we get to that point, we will have public comment.

I will give folks two minutes for public comment.

And I believe we have four people signed up to comment, Mr. Clerk.

And so I will hand moderating the public comment period over to the committee clerk and you may proceed when ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Our first public commenter is Alex Zimmerman.

Alex, you may begin when you're ready.

Sieg Heil, my dirty Nazi psychopath.

My name Alex Zimmerman, and I always here with my red sign.

Hello, David Starr.

You never show my face.

For eight months, I speak every day.

So right now, I want to speak about something.

Think, what is you talking about taxes?

Yeah, number four.

Taxes, taxes, taxes.

It's very good.

You're doing a very good job.

300 people homeless die every year, and no taxes, no schmucks.

It doesn't surprise me so many of you go out right now, go home.

You know what I mean?

So I demand that everybody go home.

You know what it means, because you all bandit and criminal.

When you don't show my face, there's pure conspiracy.

You are a criminal.

There's no rules, no law.

Why are you doing this?

For re-election?

I don't think so.

You will be re-elected right now.

Situation very dangerous and people hate you because most of you are crook and very privative Nazi, Gestapo, fascist.

It's exactly who you are.

Taxes, taxes, taxes.

When you start talking about housing for everybody.

It's a constitutional right.

And this happened in America.

I lived there for 35 years.

Seattle, always before, very nice with people, low income in something like this.

Poor, you know what I mean.

What is going for last 10 years?

You never touch Amazon.

$120,000 of a rush salary.

My salary is $100,000.

My social security very low.

Why you cannot give me a free housing?

Is this a point what I ask, talk to you?

So right now, speak to everybody, to the 750,000 slaves.

So always elect this Democrat psychopath.

You know what this means?

Stand up, America.

We need to clean this dirty chamber totally.

It's time right now for bringing America back.

Stand up, America, for everybody.

Thank you very much.

Our next public commenter is Nathan Rosenbaum.

Nathan, please approach the microphone and we'll start the timer when you're ready.

Hi, I'm Nathan Rosenbaum.

I'll make my comments brief.

I'm here because I own a property in Seattle's U district located at 711 Northeast 43rd Street.

And that property is being considered for the public benefit rating system incentive today.

And I just want to mention, I bought this property several years ago and I renovated all units.

It's historic, designed by Fred Anhalt.

It was a labor of love.

It's, to be honest, it's not particularly profitable right now, particularly with the pandemics impact on the UW over the last couple of years.

So this tax incentive will help quite a bit.

And I'm available for any questions during that event.

Thank you, Nathan.

We will now move to public commenters who called in today.

Our first public commenter is Joanna Tiagarajan.

Joanna, please press star six to unmute your telephone, and we'll start the timer when you're ready to speak.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

My name is Joanna Tiagarajan.

And I'm here to speak in support of the proposed operating agreement for the Seattle Japanese garden between the Parks Department and the Arboretum Foundation.

I'm a community volunteer and I sit on the Japanese garden steering committee.

I was honored to be asked to serve on the committee because I have family who came to Seattle from Japan and supporting the work of the garden is personally very meaningful to me.

Over the past seven years, the Arboretum Foundation has significantly increased the number of cultural programs in the Seattle Japanese Garden as part of the free First Thursday and Family Saturday series.

This means that traditional arts like origami, ikebana, and butoh dance are offered to the general public at no charge, along with the chance to experience one of the most beautiful places in all of Seattle.

Sharing these cultural experiences is made possible through the successful partnership between the Arboretum Foundation and the city.

In 2020, even at the height of the pandemic, the Arboretum Foundation planned and executed a 60th anniversary celebration for the garden.

One of the most meaningful events was the planting of a small ginkgo tree which had been nurtured from the seed of a tree that survived the bombing of Hiroshima, a visible symbol of peace and reconciliation.

In recognition of the efforts of the Arboretum Foundation and Parks to promote cultural understanding, Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs awarded accommodation to the garden in 2020, only one of a limited number of institutions to be recognized.

As we look to the future, I believe that public assets like the Seattle Japanese Garden are important to our community and that public-private partnerships can magnify their value.

I ask you for your support of the proposed agreement with the Arboretum Foundation to pave the way for continued success in the next decade.

Thank you, Joanna.

Our final public commenter is Tyler Moriguchi.

Tyler, please press star six to unmute your phone.

Great, thank you.

Hello, my name is Tyler Moriguchi and I'm also serving on the Japanese Garden Steering Committee.

Besides that, I also serve on the board of the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple, and I'm also a community volunteer with the Arboretum Foundation Board.

In 2022, I served as a fundraising chair for the restoration of the Tsutakawa Gates in the Arboretum.

Today, I'm also here to speak in favor of the proposed operating agreement between the Arboretum Foundation and the city for the Seattle Japanese Garden.

Over the last seven years, the foundation's marketing efforts have led to more than 40% increase in attendance, enabling more programming and free access days.

The foundation manages a robust social media presence for the garden with over 19,000 followers across Facebook and Instagram.

As a nonprofit partner, the foundation also raises private funds for capital projects like the renovation of the garden's central pond, as well as other garden programs.

In 2022, the foundation raised more than $750,000, which will be deployed in the 2023-2024 timeline to help complete elements of the original 1960 design, which were never realized.

I'm asking for your support to help keep up the momentum that has been established between the Arbreen Foundation and the Parks Department.

The Seattle Japanese Garden is a unique and special place, and this partnership will serve it well.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Tyler.

Mr. Chair, we have no further public commenters.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

I will close the public comment session and we will move on to our items of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Item one, central waterfront management and operations presentation briefing and discussion.

Our guests are with us virtually today for this item, and I'm gonna go ahead and see them all come on to the camera here so I can introduce them.

So we have Marshall Foster from the Office of the Waterfront, and we have Director Nellums, and I think some additional staff who are joining us, as well as Eric McHaney from our Council Central staff.

So how should we do this?

Who should I hand it off to first to start the presentation?

I'm happy to kick us off, Chair.

Okay, take it away, Marshall.

Thank you.

Great.

Well, thank you very much, committee members, for having us today.

Glad to be here.

Again, Marshall Foster, Director of the Office of the Waterfront, and I'm actually really happy to share with you.

I'm transitioning today to also take on a new role as the Interim Director of Seattle Center, preparing for Robert's retirement, which is coming right up.

Whether we like it or not, we're getting ready.

Just kidding you, Robert.

No, it's great to be here with you as part of our overall strategy for the new waterfront for Waterfront Seattle.

I think you all recall the amount of work and time we have put into planning not only to have a great waterfront, but to have a well-managed and maintained waterfront and one that will really do an incredible job of welcoming the public to an incredible place for many years to come beyond opening day.

And as we have done that work, the council established really a North Star for us on how to do that well.

and an ordinance that was passed in 2019, which did a few things.

We're going to talk about it in more detail, but it really set the framework for how to not only partner with our friends at Friends of Waterfront Seattle, but also how to stand up a high quality operations management and public safety approach.

At this juncture, what we are recommending is that we delegate the maintenance and public safety roles for the new waterfront to the Seattle Center Department and create an opportunity to build on their experience operating an incredible campus to support the work that the parks department has done to deliver this new waterfront.

And so through a little over a year of careful work with the park superintendent and their team, Robert and his team, we are excited to be able to walk you through how we think that would work, why it would be potentially a good thing to do.

And then ultimately we have some legislation coming later this month to the committee that would potentially formally delegate and also create some new positions which are funded in our 23 budget to enable Seattle Center to take on that maintenance and public safety role.

So before we get into the meat of the presentation, Tiffany Malacca, our operations and management advisor, will be leading that.

I'd like to turn it over to Robert Nellums to just give us a little bit of perspective from the center.

Thank you, Marshall.

And thank you, committee members.

This is a wonderful opportunity for collaboration, partnership and creativity to bring a new grand public space to our city.

Seattle Center is honored to be part of this historic endeavor and look forward to building great partnerships with the Friends of the Waterfront, the Central Waterfront Oversight Committee, the businesses and people who live in the area, and other city departments and the public at large.

We are grateful the park will evolve over time, allowing us an opportunity to grow into this public space.

And we look forward to helping friends create a wonderful new space for our citizens to engage in.

We see this as a great thing for our city and we are honored to be part of this and we look forward to engaging with all of you in this new endeavor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robert, for that.

And I'm going to apologize, council members.

I got a text from Christopher Williams.

He was going to be with us to represent the Parks Department.

He's had a windstorm where he is and he's lost his Internet connection.

So he's not able to be with us today.

I don't want to speak on behalf of parks, but having worked with Christopher for a very long time, he's been a central part of everything, along with many people from the Parks Department.

Part of what this decision is also about is enabling the parks department as an organization that's focused on a system of parks, many hundred parks across the city of Seattle, enables them to focus on their core mission and objectives in terms of addressing all the community needs across the whole city as they maintain and operate those parks.

Addressing some of the new priorities that have been established with the help of this committee as part of the on the MPD.

We came to this decision collectively that we thought a smart approach would be to allow Seattle Center to take this leadership role for the new waterfront park.

And again, I'm sorry, Christopher can't be here, but I know he's very supportive of the direction that we're taking with this.

Okay, without further ado, I'm now gonna become Tiffany's tech helper to the best of my ability.

Let me see if I can get this screen share to work.

OK.

Is that coming across?

Yeah.

Looks good.

OK.

Tiffany, just give me a little nudge when you need a new slide.

OK.

So good afternoon, Chair Lewis and council members.

I'm Tiffany Malacke.

I am the Waterfront Operations and Management Advisor for the Office of Waterfront.

And I am just going to kind of quickly go through a little bit of the legislative history related to the operations and management from Marshall.

So the Waterfront Program has over a decade-long legislative history.

And I'm just going to quickly highlight the ones that are really important and instrumental in the operations and management and how we've been building up the future of the waterfront.

2017 was really setting the stage with our resolution to enter an agreement with Friends of Waterfront Seattle for the long-term high-quality operations and management of the waterfront.

and really identifying friends as our key public private partner in this work together.

And then 2019 is where we really had a package of legislation that really is solidified and set the foundation and building blocks for where we are right now.

This legislative package had three ordinances to it.

And they did a couple different things.

It established the local improvement district, which was $160 million of property owner dollars that helped fund the capital improvements on the waterfront.

It was a contractual agreement with the lead property owners with the city committing to a set standard of maintenance, programming, and public safety.

We also committed at this time to come back to council in the future and create a park boulevard for the waterfront.

And it approved our O&M ordinance, which was ordinance 125761, which is a really kind of very put together, well thought out ordinance that authorized our Central Waterfront Oversight Committee, which is 19 mayoral and council appointed positions.

It's authorized a two-year agreement with Friends of Waterfront Seattle for operations at Pier 62. And it established the framework for our long-term management agreement with Friends for the park in its entirety.

And then in 2021, we did come back and delegate public space and park portions of the waterfront as Park Boulevard.

Oh, sorry.

I should have muted myself.

I'm getting PTSD, Marsha.

All this is like going down memory lane here is just a little emotional for me.

I'm sorry.

Sorry, Chair.

Should probably mute myself on that one.

No, no, not a problem.

We've come a long way.

Yes.

So following the 2019 O&M ordinance, we developed a two year license agreement with Friends that basically outlined that Friends was going to be responsible for social services, programming, activation and special events.

The city would be responsible for maintenance, both preventive and daily, and that we would have a shared responsibility for public safety.

Next slide.

Um, you know, over, we opened up here 62 in, um, 2020, not the easiest time to open up a new public space.

Um, so major kudos to friends and all the hard work that they did.

We saw many successes over the last two years with the license agreement, um, with friends, with thousands, tens of thousands of visitors to the pier, um, just participating in various programming, activation, special events.

Friends did an outstanding job with outreach and engagement, bringing diversity to the waterfront.

And we learned a lot from the last two years under the license agreement with them.

And the Central Waterfront Oversight Committee that was established in 2019, also in the last two years, spent a good amount of time as council had asked to look at national peer parks, which also included Seattle Center, and how they operate and what made them successful to help them build the performance standard, which they did and completed in 2022. And at this time, they also had the recommendation to shift operations from Seattle Parks and Recreation to Seattle Center to kind of help build that dedicated culture that's similar to Seattle Center, that really encompasses the large scale events, activation, public safety, maintenance, and kind of a holistic package.

And, you know, that was a lot of work between our leadership, Marshall, Robert, and Christopher as well, that really came together with this vision and really thinking about what the future of the waterfront would look like together.

So we have two ordinances that will be coming to you later in this month for consideration.

The first one essentially does three things.

It delegates the Waterfront Operations and Management to Seattle Center from Seattle Parks and Recreation.

It delegates the authority to Seattle Center to enforce waterfront park rules, and it extends our current license agreement with Friends.

Our 2019 ordinance gave us a two-year license agreement, and we are looking to extend that for six months.

Next slide.

So this map is when we came back in 2021 and this outlines the Waterfront Park Boulevard in pink.

So the pink is Waterfront Park Boulevard, the blue one and two is Pier 62 and Pier 58, which is current park property.

So it was not a part of the delegation, but it is a part of the delegation of operations.

So Seattle Center will be operating and maintaining and providing public safety for the piers 1 and 2, which is pier 62 and 58, as well as everything shaded in pink.

Portions of the waterfront will continue to open in phases between now and 2025. I'm sure if you've been down there, you've seen just tremendous activity and progress every time we go down there.

We have a phased opening schedule of when things will be coming online, and our agreements Our agreements interdepartmentally as well with friends will allow for phased operations, the biggest you know our public spaces peer 58 and overlook walk will be coming online in 2025 and those are those are really key to our work with friends.

So the second ordinance you will see later this month is around authorizing 11 and a half FTE for public safety positions and accepting funding from Friends so we can hire a public safety team for the waterfront.

Currently, Friends has been providing a 24-7 contracted public safety service on Pier 62. over the last two years.

And this really gave us a really good opportunity to learn a couple of key things.

One was having a presence, a dedicated presence 24-7 was really, really instrumental in the success of operations at the park.

And two, that having the contracted public safety team, while it was really effective, we didn't have the ability to enforce park rules because that is a city responsibility.

So learning that, We have put together a tiered public safety plan and strategy interdepartmentally between parks and Seattle Center, our office, as well as with friends on how we are approaching public safety on the waterfront.

So tier one is, you know, this is very, very human centered, human focused.

public safety, we want to create, our real core mission here is to create a safe and welcoming place for everyone.

And so our tier one is social services.

Friends currently does a contract with reach and provide support for anyone experiencing crises or need on the waterfront.

And we will continue to have that as our tier one response for anyone that needs it on the waterfront.

Our tier two is Park Ambassadors.

This is friend staff, very customer focused, oriented, friendly staff that will be in zones on the waterfront, providing information, setting up programming events, also able to let someone know if they are violating a park rule they're not able to enforce.

So if we have somebody who's maybe smoking or doing graffiti or something, you know, that violates a park rule, they can say that to them.

And we've built within our performance standard, um, a two warning system within our park ambassadors to give notification that, Hey, this is a park rule.

Um, maybe you didn't know that to, um, deter the behavior and then it would get elevated after two warnings, um, to tier three, which is the emergency service team.

that is city staff that would be hired through Seattle Center, dedicated to the waterfront, and they can actually enforce park rules.

The safety team for the city would have the ability to do trespass and exclusions that already exist within the city system in both parks and at Seattle Center.

So we are not creating a new system of enforcement here.

It's just going to also be allowed at the waterfront.

So that's tier three.

And then tier four is if anything is criminal or life-threatening, we have the Seattle Police Department.

If anything, you know, from the very beginning was criminal or life-threatening, we would skip the tiers and immediately call SPD.

Next slide, Marshal.

So this is just really here outlining those three key tiered levels of service that really are focused on providing a safe and welcoming park experience for visitors, as well as our residents.

Again, that really just human-centered, human-focused, social services, tier one approach, as well as our park ambassadors, and then any kind of basic rule enforcement coming from our public safety team that is hired through Seattle Center.

And I really want to give a pause really quick and just give a shout out to friends of Waterfront Seattle, Joy and Elden, who I believe are in the audience and so instrumental in this partnership and support and making this happen, because you see this tier one and tier two are not possible without them.

And they are also providing funding and support for us to be able to do tier three to have our public safety rule enforcement as well.

I see Council Member Herbold with a hand.

And I will open it up to questions at this point on the presentation.

So thank you for calling out Council Member Herbold there.

So why don't we start with her?

Thank you so much.

Just wanting to follow up on the basic park rule enforcement.

I understand the orientation from Seattle Center might be a little bit different than the orientation with the parks department, but the parks department has agreed to constrain the way that they are permitted under the municipal code to enforce the parks exclusion ordinance.

And they've done so via a series of filings with the city clerk related to the Parks Code of Conduct.

And it sounds to me from your description that Seattle Center is not going to be following that particular approach.

The way the Parks Department has constricted itself is that warnings can be issued if there's a violation of the Parks Code or laws.

There are warnings and there are there is the ability to escalate those warnings to an exclusion, but it's very narrow to if the conduct presents a risk of personal injury or property damage, they can be excluded, but only for the remainder of the day.

And I'm interested to know whether or not Seattle Center is agreeing to constrain itself similarly.

And if so, how we can memorialize that And if not, sort of what the approach is going to be for issuing exclusions.

So there is a slight difference in how Seattle Center does their exclusions and trespasses versus the Parks Department.

And I've got Robert here that can talk about how they handle it at Seattle Center, which is the same way we will handle it on the waterfront.

So parks has that one day exclusion, but Seattle Center is able to do between one and 365 days, depending on the severity of the behavior or the reoccurrence of the behavior.

And so we will be aligning with Seattle Center.

We have that within the waterfront park rules that the Seattle Park Board of Commissioners is looking at.

Thank you.

I just want to be clear my question.

I'm happy to hear from Director Nell.

Thank you.

The Parks Department can't exclude the 365 days.

They have voluntarily agreed to constrain their enforcement.

So I'm happy to hear more about that.

But again, the Seattle Municipal Code permits Parks staff to do 365-day exclusions under the leadership of previous interim director Williams.

They worked with homelessness advocates, public defenders, and a whole variety of folks, and have been, again, voluntarily constraining that enforcement authority for probably a decade now.

Well, thank you.

you know, I don't, you know, want to get into a lot of what's happening here, what's happening there.

I will just say that at Seattle Center, our staff is very cognizant of the fact that We want people to be there.

We want people to enjoy themselves.

We want people to be part of the things that they are coming to Seattle Center for.

So you would have to do some pretty egregious activity to be trespassed for an extended period of time.

Most of the trespasses that happen at Seattle Center are between one and seven days.

And that is just to give people an opportunity to calm down and to make sure that they understand that this is serious and that they are welcome to come back when that period is over.

If there is something that is going to trigger some extensive trespass, it would have to be something that would indicate some either physical harm, violence, and or property damage.

And so, you know, similar to parks doing this for the last 10 years in the way that they do that, we at Seattle Center have done it this way for the last 20 plus years.

And so, you know, I just want to say that we've done this.

We don't have a lot of people complaining or suggesting that we're doing it wrong.

And we have a lot of grace that we give people when we approach them.

Director Nelms, thank you for that.

I mean, I can speak from personal experience as someone who went to high school on the Seattle Center Campus and experienced that system as a student.

And I do just want to lift that up that while it's a different model from how Seattle Parks and Recreation have managed these concerns on their properties.

This is an imposition of a mature and well-respected system of public safety on the waterfront.

And I do appreciate the comprehensive presentation earlier on slide 10 that we were just on indicating the mix of the different presence and different assets that would be there to really provide care-driven outreach in addition to other types of presence from ambassadors and security personnel and whatever else to have a balanced approach that has worked well on the Seattle Center campus without controversy or issue.

So these are good questions for us to grapple with in terms of how this regime differs from what would be expected if the parcel on the waterfront were operated according to the procedures policies and personnel of parks instead of the Seattle center so I think Council Member Herbold does raise a relevant question in us assessing this arrangement.

But I do think it's important to state that it's not like we're completely building a new model from the ground up, but rather working with another model that has been successful and well regarded on the Seattle Center campus and figuring out how to transition that to the waterfront.

in a way that accomplishes our shared goals.

So I think Director Nelm's response is prescient and I look forward to continuing to work on this as we expect legislation to continue this discussion.

So should we, are there other questions at this point?

And Council Member Herbold, did you have a follow-up?

I did.

Yeah, go ahead, please.

One, I just want to be clear that the Parks Department voluntarily constraining itself evolved over time.

The authority under the Parks Exclusion Ordinance exists back to the 90s.

So they too were operating under the full authority of the Parks Exclusion Ordinance and then they decided in the early 2000s to constrain that authority because of the research that was done on the use of parks exclusion.

So similarly, it would be really helpful for me to understand more how parks exclusion has been used at the Seattle Center.

The number of exclusions that are given in a typical year.

The length, I appreciate knowing that the majority of them are for seven and under days.

And for what purpose?

I would very much like to confirm these experiences that we're hearing with some data, if that's possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I might just put on the record too, that as Director Nellams compiles that information, I think the entire community would benefit.

So if that could be distributed and shared to all of us, I think that would be useful as we make these deliberations.

So thank you.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

And I wanna congratulate Nellams as well on your tenure.

a litany of successes under your belt, but wanted to thank you for the opportunity to meet with you and also note that at the Seattle Center, we had the chance to finally bring our daughter to the Children's Museum the other day and just could not get her to leave there.

So thanks for everything you've done there.

Also want to thank you for the partnership along with the Council President when we worked on the budget to ensure that there was the commitment to the stadium and make sure that our community know that we remain committed to the $40 million.

So look forward to being able to add that to the list of accomplishments that you've also been able to achieve, even though we know that the process is still very much just beginning and underway.

Very excited about that.

I did have a couple questions that I thought that the appropriate time to chime in, Mr. Chair.

addition to what our chair of public safety has brought up here regarding the park ambassadors and public safety approaches here.

Thank you again for meeting with my staff yesterday.

I understand that many members of the team here met with my staff to get some more information on this.

And one thing that really stood out to us was the approach to low-level non-threatening criminal incidences to still approach those through the tiered system rather than escalating straight to calling the police, which you've also noted here today.

I'd love to have a little bit more information, and perhaps this is what Councilmember Herbold is also asking us for, but if you have any more information for us here today, that would be helpful on what approaches you are using so that the public can better understand what the policy is.

I heard some explanation of it, but is there some place that we can point to so people have something in writing or would you like to flesh that out a little bit more?

And you can, can you also tell us a little bit more about the warnings, the warning system and what specific policies are being offered before escalating to the next tier?

Tiffany, one thing that might be helpful to talk about a little bit is the park rule setting process that you went through and then I think and the involvement of the Oversight Committee and the next steps with the Board of Park Commissioners.

You want to say just a little bit about that?

Yeah, I definitely can do that.

So one thing that we had in our, again, the ordinance from 2019 that really set the stage for what the park operations would look like is that the ability to make park rules that were specific to the waterfront.

And so we have spent the last nine or 10 months with Seattle Center and the Parks Department looking at how operations have kind of worked at Pier 62 and lessons learned from that experience.

And we have developed a set of park rules for the waterfront.

90% of them, I would say, are already rules that are in existence between Seattle Center and Seattle Parks and Recreation.

We basically took what was applicable from Seattle Center, not really related to buildings, what was applicable to parks, and put them together.

And then there were five rules, five rules that were specific to the waterfront in terms of fishing and tying up boats and access on the promenade versus the cycle track for vehicles.

And we have those that will now be going to the Park Board of Commissioners with Christopher Williams that have been kind of recommended and blessed by the Central Waterfront Oversight Committee, which was prescribed in that ordinance as they would need to have recommendations and review them prior to any rulemaking process through the Seattle Municipal Code and the park superintendent.

And so we have those rules as our foundation for how that will guide and govern the public use of the space.

The performance standard outlines this kind of warning system through the tiers of us having our first touchpoint being social services as needed.

And then if somebody is violating a park rule, that they are given a warning, they're made aware that there is a park rule in place.

And if they, 15 minutes later, are still continuing to violate the rule and it's not at an escalated point, they would receive another warning.

The park ambassadors would engage with the emergency service unit team.

And if needed, they would then come and engage with the patron.

So really, there's a series of warnings and systems in place to really let people know that they are in a park and that there is a park rule in place before it's really escalated up to anybody doing any kind of enforcement against it.

One other thing.

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, that's okay.

I was just going to let the Chair know I have a quick follow-up.

Please.

Mr. Foster.

Councilmember Mosqueda, do you have a follow-up?

Oh, sure, I do.

And perhaps this is part of what Mr. Foster can comment on as well, if you had a follow-up to that.

Thank you for that.

I appreciate that you're taking steps to make sure that there's less severe avenues for possible action before getting the police involved.

I hear that.

It does sound like you have policy that's in writing.

versus the sort of narrative description that we're hearing.

So I look forward to reading through more of those as well.

And if you could also reiterate, at what point will there be dedicated reach teams available on the waterfront as well?

So I'll jump into a couple of those.

First, just the comment I was going to make earlier, the question about when does it escalate quickly?

I think just to be really clear on that, that, you know, our plan is to use this tiered system for the vast majority of any type of situation where we need to, you know, engage with someone's behavior.

If there's something that is a direct threat to public safety or there's potential for harm involved, and unfortunately we do see those kind of incidents, we've had a number of them on the waterfront just this past summer, Those go direct, that's where we would go directly to SPD and Tiffany jump in here at any point if I don't say anything the correct way, but you know it's a very limited case.

It's truly where we have an instance where someone poses a threat to others in the park.

In terms of, you know, the process we will go through in terms of continuing to refine the rules and we can of course share the material that Tiffany was describing that is all written out and that is all established and then ultimately that'll be the basis for the training of the staff that would be hired through this once we have the authority to kind of we really emphasize the importance of training on a whole host of different fronts.

It's actually one of the best practices that Robert and his team have emphasized is how much they want to make sure we're setting a strong baseline for all the all the staff, whether it's the ambassadors or the public safety team.

And then the last point, your question about reach.

We do at this point have a dedicated reach contract that is due to the leadership of friends.

They're providing that and they're committing to continue to provide those reach services Really, those are the those are the thing that are kind of the central first touch for everything that we're talking about here is that reach that reach social service element and so that is part of that larger commitment that we're making together the city and friends together on the waterfront.

And can I.

Oh, sorry, Tiffany, were you about to say something there?

Sorry, go ahead, please.

I was going to say with REACH right now, we currently have, Friends has them Monday through Friday, nine to five.

We have definitely, and Friends is great about this, as we are talking about a phased approach and more public space coming online and what this looks like in 23 versus 25. We have taken into account building out that staff into more hours and different days of the week and adjusting during peak season.

They did a pilot over the summer of providing weekend support, which doesn't really exist in the downtown core right now.

So we've done a lot of learning and still trying to be nimble and flexible in how we approach this for the future.

Can I take a second just to ask for clarification, either from the panel or from central staff?

It's my recollection that the Metropolitan Park District that we approved in September included resources to stand up the reach component of this work.

And I just wanted to clarify if that's the case, or if I'm not remembering correctly, because one of the questions Council Member Miscada just asked, which is a good question, was sort of the phasing, the timing of the reach resource being a part of this work when the waterfront is completed, and we put this into effect.

And my understanding is, that is a fully funded commitment and is gonna be central to this effort.

But I just wanna take a second to clarify that my understanding is correct on that.

Eric, you want me to go ahead and answer?

Yeah, that'd be great.

Oh, and Tracy's here now.

Oh, great.

I'm here.

Go ahead, Tracy, sorry.

Tracy Retzliff, my esteemed colleague.

No worries.

So council members as you remember, late in your discussions and decisions on the park district spending plan, you added an additional approximately $1.2 million I think Marshall is the amount beginning in 2025 to specifically pay for public safety services.

there's a base amount that is going to support the waterfront park of around, I think, $3.6 million.

I'm just talking about my head here.

I don't know to what extent some of that base funding that is in existence starting in 2023 and going forward would also be used for public safety.

That is part of what I was hoping would be clarified for all of you when this ask for the staffing request has been been put in front of you.

So I will leave that Marshall and if need to provide some further clarification about what funds, what are the fund sources that are committed from the park district will be used for the public safety aspects, both for the ambassadors as well as for reach, etc.

Yeah, Marshall, do you want to weigh in?

Yeah, happy to.

And Tiffany, as always, will jump in too.

Fundamentally, the city funding request is supporting the public safety aspect, the public safety team, the ESU team at Seattle Center.

Friends is contributing and has entered into a commitment with us that they are providing the funding for REACH staff, for park ambassadors, And they are also actually supplementing our funding for the city public safety staff.

So again, just I have to emphasize, it's a remarkable level of commitment that they're offering here.

But all the reach and the ambassadors are funded through Friends.

And they are committing to sustain that funding for the same period of time we're sustaining the city staffing.

Yeah, and just to build on that a little Marshall because I mean this is refreshing my recollection from the fall.

A big reason for the urgency of using the Metropolitan Park District as a vehicle for the support was to match the commitment from friends to make sure that they would be able to raise their commensurate investment.

knowing there would be a city match as part of their effort to bring this all together.

I mean, I would add, I mean, if we went down to the waterfront right now, my understanding is that there are reach folks who are contracted with Friends of the Waterfront who are currently doing this work.

I would also just like to highlight my appreciation for the panel here that there are certainly lots of things that we have to provide oversight of where the city's work could be interpreted.

as controversial and having some issues in this area.

I'm very grateful to Friends of the Waterfront and the panel here for their work that this work is fairly universally praised for being responsive and well-coordinated and fine-tuned to the placemaking we want to see on the waterfront and having a balance of making sure that we're meeting people where they are and having services that are based in harm reduction outreach, and not an approach that is overly coercive or exclusive in its constitution.

So part of the reason we haven't really talked about it till now in, I think, manifesting these arrangements is, when things that are happening are not controversial, they don't tend to get to the council dais because we don't have to fix what isn't broken.

So I do just want to take a moment to offer that gratitude for the work of Friends of the Waterfront, Office of the Waterfront and the Seattle Center.

And hopefully as we answer the questions that were raised today, we can put something together that builds a good foundation to continue to emphasize the vision of the Waterfront Project that we've been putting together for more than a decade.

So with that, I do wanna offer an opportunity if Council Member Muscat and Herbold have any final follow-ups and then we can move to finish the presentation.

So I wanna make sure I don't cut the conversation short if there's any other items.

So are there any closing questions here?

Okay, seeing none, so there is some information we're requesting from the Department of Seattle Center and Office of the Waterfront and Friends of the Waterfront in terms of how this all comes together.

And I think that those requests have been made very clear by committee members.

And I would like that information just sending to the department and the partners for central staff and everyone to distribute that to all committee members so we have that handy as we go into final considerations of some of these proposals.

So with that, why don't we go ahead and continue the presentation?

Okay.

All right, so given the change in the lead department for the city on park operations, we're looking at coming back to council in spring for consideration of a long term management agreement with friends that will incorporate the performance standard, our lessons learned from the license agreement and the phased opening approach.

We had anticipated having this done at the end of 2022, but we are in instead just given just all of this change and the addition of the public safety and the transfer of operations to Seattle Center, working out a little bit more of the details and thought behind how we're going to incorporate that change with our partnership with Friends with the phased opening.

And so we will be coming back to Council for you to look at that and to approve the long-term agreement with Friends.

We are aligning it with the interdepartmental agreements between Seattle Center and Seattle Parks and Recreation on a six year term to come back and look at the around the same time you will be looking at the NPD cycle to make sure things are aligned and are working out.

So our next steps are Later this month, you will have legislation to consider for the delegation authority to Seattle center, the 11 and a half positions for the public safety and the accepting the funding from friends for those positions that they are helping support.

And.

We will come back in later spring with the management agreement, and we will start hiring our dedicated team, both operations and public safety between February and June, so that we can have a transition of a July 1 date from Seattle Parks and Recreation to Seattle Center.

And I will hand over to Marshall to maybe, if I left anything off or anything to add,

No, thank you, Tiffany.

I think that's great.

I appreciate, again, I think we all appreciate the time today.

We will make sure and have material for the committee ahead of the consideration later this month, including, Tracy, your question about the specific allocation of the funds in the original NPD versus new.

So thank you for that.

And we look forward to talking more in a few weeks.

So I'm gonna start off with a question about this slide 12 and some of the key next steps.

It'd be good to clarify, and maybe this is the opportunity, and if not, maybe we can take this offline, about the Office of the Waterfront transmitting the management agreement legislation and the relationship with the position authority because it would be good in my estimation to candidly line up the position authority with the management agreement legislation to know in essence what the business plan is that we're staffing and what the positions are gonna be bespoke to in terms of the mission we're expecting them to fulfill.

I see those as kind of interrelated items and they're not necessarily linked in how this timeline has been laid out.

So I wonder if anyone wants to address that.

It does look like to a certain extent, the timelines overlap.

It says January to March, 2023 for the management agreement.

So it appears that it's possible that could be done in January based on this timeline.

But does anyone on the panel sort of acknowledge that the issue that I'm getting at of it seems odd to approve position authority when we don't know what the plan, the approved final plan is going to be yet.

And that's, excuse me, Councilmember that's a very fair question to ask.

I get it.

I'll start and others feel free to jump in.

I guess the fundamental thing I would say is, we do have we spent the better part of this year developing pretty specific plan for what the new positions, how many positions are needed, and what activities and services they're going to be providing in the park.

And that's been developed through that same partnership we've talked about.

The reason we're asking for that authority and approval first is we really need those positions approved so that we can advance the hiring and recruitment process so that those positions can be filled and on the ground providing services on the waterfront this summer.

That has been our goal.

The management agreement is actually a little bit different.

The management agreement is fundamentally, and this is again going back to the ordinance from 2019, it is about the city's relationship with friends.

It actually isn't specifically about the public safety positions.

It really talks about, it's a lot about what authority is the city giving Friends to do programming?

What type of activities do we anticipate?

What are the city's responsibilities to help Friends be successful?

And then what are some of the oversight accountability requirements for inclusion and diversity and those types of things?

And we're very happy to be bringing that management agreement to you for consideration.

So, you know, I would just put out there completely hear that question, it would impact our ability to deliver service this summer in terms of public safety if we're not able to advance, so that we can then hire the positions.

We could very easily come to you at the next meeting and go through the specific positions what what activities will be providing, why we need them, how they fit in, if that would help.

But that detail actually isn't in the management agreement.

The management agreement is a little different.

Marshall, can I add that with the position authority ordinance?

We do have a commitment letter from friends for the funding for their contribution towards the public safety positions.

And we do have the city funding that is already in our 2023 spending plan.

So all the funds are allocated and committed to with that ordinance that will be coming forward.

Great, well, I'm happy to talk about that in anticipation of the next hearing.

It sounds like it would be possible for there to be a presentation that reconciles how this all comes together based on the information you just represented here.

So I think that'll probably square the circles I'm talking about.

Are there any other additional questions now that we've gone two more slides from our previous break here that committee members have before we wrap this up and knowing there's gonna be some plenty of opportunities in the near future to continue to talk about these issues?

Any questions?

Okay, well, thank you so much.

For getting us ready I think it was good to have this introductory briefing and presentation before we get into a lot of these interrelated ordinances that will be considering in the first quarter of this year and, and many of them before the end of this month.

and really look forward to some big milestones in 2023 as we get closer and closer and closer to fully realizing this impactful transformative waterfront space.

So thank you so much and I want to offer my congratulations here to Director Nehlems on his service.

I'm sure that the council will take an opportunity to more formally recognize that service soon.

We're gonna dearly miss you.

And I do wanna take this opportunity to congratulate Interim Director Foster.

We may have broken some news in today's hearing by Marshall giving us that update, but do wanna offer my condolences Congratulations to Interim Director Foster on his new position and look forward to working with him on this and other projects.

So thank you so much.

Is there any last considerations here from central staff before we move to the next agenda item?

No, thanks for asking.

I think that covered all the details.

And I appreciate, as always, working with Marshall and Tiffany and all the other folks, the Office of the Waterfront and Seattle Center.

We'll keep working on it.

And just selfishly for a moment, I worked on this pretty much the whole time I've been on central staff, so that goes back a little ways.

And it's exciting to be here, because I remember Bertha.

Remember Bertha?

I remember the days when things were not so clear that we would arrive.

So thanks for the indulgence.

It is, there's a lot to do, a lot of lifting still to do, but I appreciate the collaboration.

Thanks.

Thanks, Eric.

I'm also nostalgic for the days when the biggest problem we were facing was debates around the waterfront tunnel, candidly.

But in any event, it's good to see this progress coming along and the space really getting closer and closer to completion.

Okay, well, why don't we move on to item two?

So Mr. Clerk, will you please read item two into the record?

Yes, and first Director Foster, would you mind to stop sharing your screen?

Thank you.

Item two, Council Bill 120489, an ordinance authorizing the city of Seattle through Seattle Parks and Recreation to enter into an agreement with the Arboretum Foundation for support of the Seattle Japanese Garden consistent with the non-government agreement in attachment one to this ordinance for briefing, discussion and possible vote.

Thank you so much.

So for this agenda item, we're supposed to have a parks panel.

Do we have a parks panel coming on in here?

Okay, great, excellent.

And Tracy, are you here to be central staff on this item?

I surely am.

Hey, excellent.

Okay, so it looks like we have, Jane and Donnie from Parks.

So who wants to take this on first?

Okay, Donnie.

Yeah, I'd be happy to introduce myself.

Donnie Grabowski.

I'm the Finance and Administration Director for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

And I do apologize that Christopher Williams is unable to join us.

And I also have here with us Jane Stonecipher.

Jane, do you want to introduce yourself?

Hi, I'm the executive director of the Arboretum Foundation.

Good afternoon, everyone.

All right.

And I will go ahead and share my screen.

Hopefully, everybody can see.

Not quite yet.

Here.

Please bear with me while I try to do everything here.

OK.

Is the PowerPoint on screen?

We can see it.

Okay, perfect.

Well, I just wanted to kick this off by saying that we, Seattle Parks and Recreation, we're very excited to bring to you for your consideration a new Seattle Japanese Garden Support and Development Agreement with the Arboretum Foundation.

And as you probably know, we have a unique set of partnerships at this site.

The University of Washington owns the plant collection, the city owns the land and operates, maintains, and manages the Japanese garden, including grounds, an entry gatehouse, and buildings associated with the garden.

And for the past six years, the Arboretum Foundation has collaborated with Seattle Parks and Recreation to provide programming, events, fundraising, volunteers, marketing, and outreach support for the garden.

And this partnership has resulted in stewarding this beautiful space that can be best enjoyed by the public.

So we will be going through the elements of the new agreement, including a new public benefits section that is expected to yield about $2.65 million in incremental value to the garden and the community.

And I will mention that this is just a beautiful picture of the Japanese garden in the summertime facing south.

And so the next slide here is giving a recap of the, or an at-a-glance mention of the garden.

It's a three and a half acre city-owned property, and it's located at the southern end of the Washington Park Arboretum.

It was established in 1960 and has been open to the public since then.

And it's open to the public each year from March through November.

And this is our busiest drop-in admissions location.

We have about 100,000 annual visitors, not counting recent COVID years, when the garden was closed for a portion of time back in 2020. And our gatehouse revenue for 2021 was $626,000, of which Parks received about $411,000, and the Arboretum Foundation received about $215,000, so about 34%, and we received about 66%.

And we'll talk a little bit more later in the presentation about the revenue split.

Okay, next slide.

Okay, so the next slide here, this gives a snapshot of our partnership history.

Until 2015, the Associated Recreation Council was our primary support partner.

In 2014, the Parks Department and the Japanese Garden Society conducted an optimal operation study that looked at the operating model and the long-term interests of the garden and confirms the need for a nonprofit support partner model.

And following this study, the Arboretum Foundation was selected to provide capital fundraising, programming, outreach, and volunteer management.

Our current six-year agreement expired just last month in December.

We've put in place a very short-term extension pending city council decision on this agreement.

The successes of our partnership with the Arboretum Foundation have included, I think, as it was mentioned during the public comment, increased visitation.

We've received about 40% increase in visitors.

Back in 2016, it was about 84,000, and in 2019, 119,000.

And we have a first free Thursday and family Saturday programming and capital funding for a recent pond renovation.

So a lot of really great things have come out of the initial years of the partnership.

Okay, and to discuss the selection process, we issued last year in March of 2022, a letter of interest process to select the next Seattle Japanese Garden Support Partner.

This was suggested by the city law department and it was supported by the interim superintendent.

And as you can see on the slide here, the requirements included being a nonprofit entity, an entity with financial solvency, an entity that had demonstrated capital programming experience, capital fundraising and programming experience, volunteer management and advocacy support.

And the Arboretum Foundation was the sole respondent from that process.

Okay, the next slide, oh, I think I might've gone just one moment here.

I think I went too far.

Yeah, okay, sorry about that.

So the next two slides highlight key terms in the new proposed agreement and changes from the existing agreement.

As you can see on the left-hand side column are the elements of the current expiring agreement and on the right-hand side, the proposed agreement.

So just to go through these quickly, As was previously mentioned, the term for the expiring agreement was six years.

The proposed agreement would be a 10-year agreement with one five-year extension option.

So the first 10 years would expire in December of 2032. Just to clarify roles here, which I mentioned at the very beginning, we own, City of Seattle owns and operates the gatehouse.

We do 100% of the cash handling for entry.

We provide also the gardening, and other maintenance support to the garden.

The Arboretum Foundation provides capital, fundraising, programming and events, membership program, volunteer coordination, branding and marketing.

And that's really no change in the new agreement.

This has been our arrangement and will continue.

Public benefits, the current agreement did not spell out any public benefit metrics, but in the new agreement, we have public benefit metrics mentioned, and you'll see that in some subsequent slides.

For admissions, the original agreement or the current agreement that just expired did not mention admissions.

However, in the new agreement, we have that the city will still set the admissions pricing, but we will consult with the Arboretum Foundation and community groups first.

Merchandise sales, 100% went to Arboretum Foundation, the AF in the slide is Arboretum Foundation.

In the new agreement, 10% of the sales will now come to the city and 90% to the Arboretum Foundation.

And then reporting essentially in the new agreement will include a new public benefits section reporting.

Okay, and then this next slide discusses a little bit more about the revenue sharing agreement.

Revenue sharing is a carryover from the existing agreement with revised baseline budgets and percentages.

As you can see, we're receiving a higher amount of revenue in the new agreement.

And then we also have a beyond base revenue sharing, which continues to be 50% city, 50% Arboretum Foundation in the new agreement.

That's between 500,000 and 750,000.

I should back up a minute to say that based revenue sharing in the new agreement is split up to the first 500,000.

And then there's a beyond based revenue sharing beyond 500,000.

And as you can see in the slide that we have two components of that, 50% city, 50% Arboretum Foundation from 500,000 to 750, and then beyond 750,000, 40% is allocated to the city and 60% to the Arboretum Foundation.

in and then annual earned revenue in the current agreement.

It's about 600,000 in the next agreement, we expect to earn about 700,000.

And in part, large part due to the fact that we are increasing fees in 2023, which were approved as part of the 2023 budget.

Of In terms of Arboretum Foundation earned revenue, they received a total of $904,000 between 2018 and 2022. We expect in the next 10 years that they'll be earning about $2 million, and that's based on an annual average of about $175,000.

And for public benefits, which are new in this agreement, we expect, and Jane will explain more about the public benefits in just a moment here, but we expect about 165,000 in program benefits and 300,000 per year in capital fundraising.

And if over the 10 years, that would be $4.65 million.

And if you subtract out what we expect to pay them, which is the 2 million here, that would be a net incremental benefit of about 2.65 million over the 10 years.

And now I will, pass the baton over to James Stonecipher, who will discuss in greater detail the public benefits.

Thank you, Donnie.

I'm pleased to be with you today representing the Arboretum Foundation.

The Foundation was started back in 1935 in support of the Washington Park Arboretum and was involved in the planning of the Seattle Japanese Garden right from the very beginning, first in the 1930s and then later in working with the Tokyo Parks Department for the opening of the garden in 1960. So it's felt both special and natural to take on this greater operating role in the garden since 2016. We really appreciate our partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation and are proud of what we achieved together during the previous term of the agreement.

And I'm sorry that Christopher Williams is not here today because he was very involved in that initial agreement.

And I think also should take a lot of credit for what's been accomplished during this time period.

The Seattle Japanese Garden, we just wanted to take just a minute to show a little of the seasonal beauty of the garden.

It is a place both of breathtaking beauty and cultural inspiration.

So Donnie, if you could go to the next slide.

So the foundation is committed to providing substantial public benefits and access during this next contract period.

And I'd like to walk you through just a few of the particulars.

So as been mentioned, the Foundation offers two signature programs each month.

Free First Thursday, which features visual and performing arts, like on the museum model, such as Sumi Calligraphy and Butoh Dance.

And then Family Saturday, which is family-friendly programming, including themes like Koi Day and the Tanabata Wish Festival and storytelling workshops.

We also support seasonal festivals like Maple Viewing each October, and youth photography workshops, which are provided on a pay-what-you-can model.

We have two dedicated staff members who manage these programs, which have an estimated value of approximately $110,000 annually.

An important part of increasing awareness of these programs broadly across the community fits into our emphasis on greater equity and inclusion.

We maintain an active social media presence across Facebook and Instagram, we currently have more than 19,000 followers, as well as PR across TV and print media which extends both in English and Japanese.

create posters for community centers and libraries across the city, and are looking at maps and collateral being published in multiple languages.

The value of this outreach is conservatively estimated at $10,000 annually.

Next slide, please.

Volunteers are also a very important part of the equation.

There's a dedicated group of longtime volunteers who lead daily tours of the garden, catalog its plants, order merchandise, and assist with events.

We plan to recruit and train a new set of docents this April with the Parks, Race, and Social Justice team involved in their orientation.

Using a commonly accepted rate of $30 per volunteer hour, we estimate $45,000 in annual value as we resume to pre-COVID levels of volunteer programs.

Now, one of the key roles that a nonprofit partner like us can provide in these public-private partnerships is fundraising.

The Arboretum Foundation has demonstrated our ability to raise funds on behalf of the garden, both for incremental programming and minor projects, generally somewhere between 15,000 and 100,000 per year, but also importantly for larger capital projects.

During the course of this agreement, the garden team hopes to undertake substantial improvements to the north end of the garden, finally completing elements of the original 1960 design that were never finished.

In 2022, we actually raised more than $750,000 for this effort, which will be deployed during the next two years.

And then we anticipate raising at least $3 million for capital improvements during the course of the new contract.

In addition to some of the specific programs outlined here, the Arboretum Foundation helps promote the Seattle Japanese Garden on behalf of the Parks Department and the City in a number of ways that help strengthen the overall fabric of the community, including building relationships with the local Japanese consulate, the Japan America Society, maintaining a presence at the Cherry Blossom Festival at Seattle Center, and Japan Fair.

Overall, the foundation estimates that an incremental benefit of 2.65 million, as Donnie mentioned, beyond our revenue share will be returned to the community over the term of this agreement.

And I'd just like to close by thanking the council members here for your support of parks and for your service to the city.

It's a privilege to be your partner in stewarding the Washington Park Arboretum and the Seattle Japanese Garden.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jane.

So that does conclude our presentation.

We are open for questions.

Thank you so much.

I will open it up to the committee.

And I don't see any questions from colleagues.

If we could go back to the slide a little bit earlier comparing the previous and the proposed agreement, I think that was sort of a helpful grounding slide for our oversight obligations as a committee.

And, you know, from my review of this in advance of today's panel, in advance of considering this bill, my initial Perusal of this.

I mean, I guess this is more of a comment than a question.

seem to have been negotiated well between the foundation and the parks department and all of the different parties.

I guess I did have a question about the change in term of going from six years and transitioning to 10 years with a five-year extension option.

What was our thinking behind changing that structure and have we historically done this in six-year stints?

Is there a reason that we want to switch to this new model of 10 years with an option for a five-year extension?

I can answer that.

I think it was actually suggested by the Parks Department that we increase from six years to 10 years and in large part because there's a lot of capital fundraising as you heard from the presentation and I think if we had it in a smaller you know, fewer year increment, we would be building, you know, building for a few years, and then we would have to start that whole process of renegotiating an agreement.

So we thought that 10 years was a good amount of time to allow the foundation to continue to do a lot of the capital fundraising.

And we have a really good momentum started from the first agreement, which was six years, which went by pretty quickly.

So that was really the rationale.

And we do have agreements at parks that are way longer than than 10 years like, for example, the zoo is a 20 year agreement, so we don't really have.

I think different agreements are different lengths, but we really felt that that was a good kind of.

term for this particular agreement.

Thank you.

I don't really have any additional questions.

I do have one more comment that I do appreciate the inclusion of a more robust public benefit component, which was covered in the presentation.

and that the agreement will be amended to have the reporting standards reflect report backs on those public benefits is good accountability and definitely something that the committee appreciates.

So I do wanna just lift up that component.

Are there any questions or comments from colleagues before we move forward and vote on this ordinance?

I don't see any, so I'm gonna go ahead and move Council Bill 120489. Is there a second?

Second.

Having been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill, will the clerk please call the roll on recommending the bill?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Chair Lewis.

Yes.

Chair, there are five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

legislation will be recommended at the next city council meeting for final passage, which is anticipated to be on Tuesday, January 10th.

So thank you so much to the panelists and really appreciate the consideration of this and the diligence of all the parties and moving this forward.

So we will now move on to item three, which is our final agenda item for this afternoon.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Council Bill 120483, an ordinance relating to current use taxation, approving applications for current use taxation of properties located at 8240 43rd Avenue Northeast and 711 Northeast 43rd under the King County Public Benefit Rating System and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

And we do have some presenters present on this item.

And Lish, are you the central staff person for this item?

Yes, Lish Switz and Council Central Staff.

Great, thank you so much.

Okay, so who is kicking this off?

Bill, are you our primary presenter here?

No, I think I'm going to let Lish lead the charge, and I will certainly be here for any questions or any clarification that might be needed.

Great.

Lish, I'll hand it over to you.

Great.

Thank you.

Let me.

Are you seeing the presentation?

Yes.

Thank you.

So this is an application for the current use taxation program under Washington State law and King County's public benefit rating system.

This is a program that's been in place in Washington State for about 50 years, over 50 years, but the Seattle City Council hasn't seen any of these applications for the last 10 years.

This is new to all of us here, but it is an old and long-running program.

Its purpose is really to preserve permanently open space on private property in Washington state.

The program is intended to preserve open space, forest land, farmland, and landmarks, recreation space on private property, shorelines on private property.

Under state law, it requires a public hearing and approval from both King County Council and the Seattle City Council.

And King County Council's Transportation, Economy, and Environment Committee has approved both the applications that have been filed over the last couple of years that would both be approved under Council Bill 120483. The first of those applications is in the Wentwood neighborhood, just south of Inverness Ravine Park.

The western portion of this, sorry, the eastern portion of this property is bounded by yellow.

lies within an extension of Inverness Ravine, which is south of the park.

The proposal is to preserve that portion of the park property in open space.

Under the public benefit rating system, the property is granted six points.

One is a buffer to public or current use classified land.

There are other adjacent properties that include portions of the ravine that are already into the system.

So the idea is that multiple properties together provide greater public benefit.

And it is also classified as a special animal site.

If approved, the program would allow for a reduction of the market value and taxable value for the portion of the property that is enrolled.

The property owners would agree to maintain that space in open space use.

in perpetuity.

If they do remove it from the program, they would need to pay back taxes.

The other property is a landmark building, Anne Hall, which was designated in 2018. It's a six-unit multifamily building in the University District.

And it would receive five points under the public benefit rating system because it is a landmark.

The open space surrounding the property would be maintained in open space use in perpetuity.

And again, they would receive a reduction in the market value and taxable value of the property under the program.

There is one amendment attached to the agenda.

The first property, the application and King County's report on that application were filed and published in 2021. Since they were first filed, the pileated woodpecker has been removed from the list of species of concern.

which means that we are no longer preserving pileated woodpecker habitat under this program.

That reduces the rating and there is a new report to replace the attachment one to the bill that we recommend that you replace.

That's all I have for this presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Are there any questions for Lish before we move on to Bill?

Okay, seeing none.

I'm seeing Council Member Herbold.

Oh, sorry, Council Member Herbold.

Please, go ahead.

Thanks.

I maybe prematurely cheered about the amendment.

Is the Pileated Woodpecker no longer eligible for habitat for preservation because of improvements in the population, or is there some other reason for why it's no longer eligible?

It's my understanding that there are sufficient, the Pileated Woodpecker population is sufficient of sufficient size that we are no longer worried about it.

Reason to chair.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate understanding that better.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

I'm gonna ask for a little bit more explanation about the intent here for preserving open space.

And I will say I'm especially confused about the landmark building.

It makes sense to me that if we're trying to preserve open space that is farmland or forest land or shoreline, that makes sense.

If it's for public use, that makes sense.

But at least looking at the photograph that you've included for the...

This is some...

lawn around the building.

And I'm just, I'm not, it's not clear to me how that particular space around, I just don't equate that with what I would typically think of as, you know, our goal of preserving open space.

So can you talk a little bit about that, please?

Yeah.

Since the program started in 1970, one of its goals has been to preserve landmarks and historic sites in the state.

Um, there are financial challenges as you heard during the public comments with maintaining landmarks and historic resources.

And so 1 of the.

Benefits that's provided 1 of the incentives is provided.

for landmarks under state law is the ability to use this program for open space on their site.

In this case, it is basically lawn area and shrubbery and some trees, I think.

But it is part of the package of incentives that are used to help to maintain and preserve sites that the city and state have designated as landmarks and as important structures and sites in the city.

Okay.

Thank you.

Are there any other...

Oh, Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much.

So, I have 2 questions here.

And commented on these, but I think it would be helpful if you could repeat.

Can you talk about the overall goals of the current program and how historic buildings fit into this program?

My 2nd question is about ratings.

The building received 5 points under this rating system.

Can you tell me what the total number of points a property could receive under the rating system is?

And is there a minimum number of points a property needs to receive for consideration for participating in the program?

Yeah, I'll take the last first.

The minimum is five points.

Anything below five points would not qualify.

Bill, do you know what the maximum or the maximum use team?

Yeah, so the maximum can really be dependent upon the point system itself.

So the way the tiered reduction levels are set up is based on how many points you are eligible for determines where you fall in that 50 to 90% level of savings.

And so any points of 35 or more gets you at that top level 90% reduction in land value for that portion of the property enrolled.

And your first question was more about the goals of the program.

The, you know, the reading from the state law.

It's intended to preserve open space, any land designated by an official comprehensive land use plan.

or any land area, the preservation which in its present use would conserve and enhance natural or scenic resources, protect streams or water supply, promote conservation of soils, wetland, beaches, or tidal marshes, enhance the value to the public of abutting or neighboring parks, forests, wildlife preserves, nature reservations or sanctuaries or other open space, enhance recreation opportunities, preserve historic sites, preserve visual quality along highway, road and street corridors or scenic vistas or retaining its natural state, tracts of land not less than one acre situated in an urban area and open to the public as required under the law.

I guess it's clear that the first property at 8243rd Avenue, we can see how this contributes to the public space argument.

The back of the property, as you talked about, is part of a continuous ravine close to this habitat area.

And I think similar to Council Member Morales' point, it's left clear to see how the Anhalt Hall contributes significantly to open public space.

It appears to be a small area or yard, as we can see from the picture, next to the building.

And I understand that there's a provision in the RCW that encourages historic preservation within the use of the existing taxation program.

So are the five points merely being awarded just by the fact that this is already qualifying due to its landmark status?

Yes.

It's recognizing that one of the goals under the state program is preservation of historic sites.

And about half of the lot area for this property is an open space use.

And so it is using this tool to help to encourage the long-term preservation of the historic structure.

Are there any additional, oh, Council Member Morales.

Thanks.

I guess just to follow up again, It seems as though the goal here is preservation of the landmark, not preservation of open space necessarily.

I guess I'm just wondering if there is a different tool that this property owner might take advantage of.

This just feels like a slippery slope, you know, to be offering these reductions for something that isn't really contributing to public space.

And maybe we're not understanding the goal here well enough.

Bill, do you want to leap in and then I'll add something.

I think this certainly is one of the program categories that has kind of the least open space feel to it.

You're right, most of the categories deal with protecting forests and farms and streams and wetlands and wildlife.

But that being said, One of the benefits of adopting a public benefit rating system which King County did back in 1992 is it allows us to better define what resources we really are protecting within the within the allowance, you know what's allowed within you know RCW 8434. And it is clear that, you know, protecting historic landmarks is an important component of what this program can do.

And in this case, as you mentioned, it is odd because it's not open space per se, but what we're doing for this landowner is awarding a tax reduction by them voluntarily placing a historic landmark designation on the property.

The entire property is designated as a landmark and so therefore we are applying that tax reduction based on that five points to the land value of the property.

As a whole, minus the structure itself, and that is.

A little counterintuitive, as you mentioned, because that is the landmark.

However, the way the program and state law works, you can't enroll structures, residential structures.

And so in this case, we're applying the category to everything outside of that footprint of the structure under the allowance of that historic landmark category based upon the fact that the entire property is designated as a landmark.

In that case, that's how it's being applied here, strictly under the idea that it's a designated landmark and we're applying that 5.50% reduction accordingly.

There are other tax incentives available to the property owner, mainly related to renovating the units or the building.

There are property tax rebates available when renovation occurs for the structure itself.

This property is in a mid-rise zone.

It is going to be surrounded by dense development built primarily lot line to lot line.

The open space on this site will actually provide some visual relief to neighbors and nearby pedestrians as well.

Oops, follow up on that.

Yeah, Councilmember Mosqueda, please.

Thank you.

You mean it will provide relief in what regard?

The fact that people will be able to have a picnic on this lawn or?

Visual relief.

Visual relief.

Maybe we should define our terms in the committee.

I think that's maybe what Councilmember Mosqueda is getting at.

Can we get a Can we get a working definition for what visual relief means from one of our presenters?

Yeah.

So the plant matter, actually, as many of your discussions of trees have discussed over the last couple of years, plant matter does provide a visual relief and benefit to residents of the city.

Looking at the grass is part of what would enhance our urban experience.

Is that essentially the argument that visual relief is?

Yeah.

Okay.

I just want to make sure.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

I just want to make sure though that when we talk about the density that we hope will come to this area and other areas of the city, we also recognize that there is visual relief.

to be built into the structure and the architecture as well.

So I don't want there to be an assumption that additional density wouldn't come with grass and trees and bushes like this.

So I just want to make sure that that's not a black or white definition that if density comes in, there will not be the greenery that we're talking about here.

Mr. Chair, I'm inclined to vote for this because I think it conforms with the RCW.

I just want to make sure that when we're thinking about promoting and preserving public space, that we really are creating accessible public space that can be used and enjoyed by members of the public in the area, especially if there's a tax benefit argument tied to this.

So I will be supporting this today, but I do think that we, as we flesh out these definitions and as we move towards a denser vision of what living within this city should look like.

It should include denser living opportunities mixed in with the protection of trees and green space, lawns, and public places for people to enjoy.

And I think there's some examples of that across the city as well, where we see setbacks and public plazas and public park areas for play.

But I don't want to totally make these two things in competition when I think density could also equal the same, you know, I think that's probably for another definition argument and density vision discussion that we will soon be having throughout the course of this upcoming year.

Are there any other, oh, yeah, Bill, I'm sorry if I cut your presentation short, please, if there's any final thoughts you have, and then we can maybe just call the question on this, but Bill, go ahead.

Yeah, I was, I was just trying to, you know, if I was able to provide a little more clarification on on the landmark and this, this idea of open space and public use.

1 thing that just popped in my mind was was just to remind remind you all that that public access isn't a requirement on property that gets enrolled in the program.

So there are.

Categories within the program that award property owners points for allowing public access in their open spaces, but it's not a requirement.

Certainly, and in this case with this landmark, obviously, that's not what we have here.

This designation won't allow folks to.

Use the property or the grounds for their own personal recreation.

Again, what what we're doing in this case is.

Rewarding the property owner for voluntarily placing a historic landmark on this very historic piece of property because both King County and state law values the importance of protecting historic structures.

Again, that's kind of why we have that category in place and it's written in the way that it is in terms of again, not not.

Not thinking of this so much as an open space piece of property with forest and trees and public trails and that sort of thing, but really focusing, drilling down on the idea that this is a critical historic landmark.

The property owner has gone to the effort of designating it as such.

And because King County has a very specific category that addresses the importance of those designations, we are therefore encouraging folks to implement those types of designations and therefore see a tax reduction for those efforts.

Great, thank you.

And why don't we have those comments close us out?

It doesn't look like there's any other comments from committee members.

So I'm gonna go ahead and move the bill to get it in front of us.

And then just to flag it, I'm gonna move the amendment to the bill.

So I moved the committee, sorry, Ashley, just to clarify with the clerk, do I move the amendment and then move the bill or do I move the bill and then move the amendment?

and call the question on the bill after it's amended.

Chair Lewis, this is Linda Barron.

Thank you.

You wanna move the bill first?

Yes, thank you.

That is my recollection.

So I move council bill 120483. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, the bill has been moved and seconded.

Are there any comments on the bill?

Seeing no comments, I move Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120483. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120483?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Lewis?

Yes.

Chair, there are five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120483 as amended.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Chair Lewis.

Yes.

Chair, there are five in favor and unopposed.

Thank you.

And with that, this bill will also advance to the Tuesday, January 10th full council meeting and appreciate.

the discussion and I know that'll probably extend into our full council deliberations as well.

So thank you so much.

You learn something new every day here at the city council.

So with that, I am gonna go ahead and queue us up for adjournment unless there's anything for the good of the order, seeing nothing for the good of the order and with no further business to come before the committee, it is 3.49 PM and we are adjourned.