Yeah, I got my script.
Tell me when we're ready.
We're good to go.
Starting now?
Yes.
Thank you.
We'll do a call to order here.
This is the November 23rd meeting of the Seattle Park District Board.
It will come to order.
It is 610, I believe.
Oh, 510. I didn't look at my clock right.
I'm Deborah Juarez, president of the board.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Board member Gonzales.
Here.
Board Member Herbold.
Board Member Lewis.
Present.
Board Member Morales.
Board Member Mosqueda.
Present.
Board Member Peterson.
Board Member Sawant.
Here.
Board Member Strauss.
Present.
President Juarez.
Here.
Six present.
Great, let's move on.
Approval of the agenda.
If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
Let's go to approval of the minutes.
These are the minutes of November 25th, 2019 and the October 19th, 2020 Seattle Park District Board meeting.
Those minutes have been reviewed.
If there's no objection, the minutes will be signed.
Hearing no objection, the minutes are being signed.
Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?
All right, let's keep going here.
Public comment.
At this time, we will open the remote public comment period.
I ask that everyone please be patient as we continue to operate this new system.
It remains a strong intent in Seattle City Council and the Seattle Park district board to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.
However, the Seattle Park District Board reserves the right to end or eliminate this public comment period at any point if we deem that this system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.
The clerk will moderate the general public period in the following manner.
The public comment period is up to 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.
So Madam Clerk, let's see, do we have any speakers at this time?
At this time, we do not have any speakers that are online.
Okay, so at this time, Madam Clerk, if we do not have any speakers, how do I officially close that out?
We can close the public comment period and move on to item of business.
Okay, I will close the public comment period as we have no speaker signed up and we will move on to items of business.
So we have six items of business today, and I have a quick overview for y'all.
We have six items.
The first item is a presentation and a PowerPoint by our fabulous superintendent, Aguirre.
Item number two is resolution number 35 regarding reallocating of the Metropolitan Park District funds.
Item number three is resolution number 38, which is a resolution adopting the 2021 Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-K And the last item six is resolution 41. And that just sets when our next two meetings will be in June of 2021. And for a quick cheat sheet, if you look at the PowerPoint, I believe on page seven and eight, it lays out the resolutions quite nicely.
So with that, I will have the clerk please read the first item into the record.
Agenda item one, Seattle Park District proposed 2020 budget changes and proposed 2021 budget for briefing and discussion.
Great, if folks can introduce themselves and then we'll move through the PowerPoint.
Good afternoon, Council Member Jesus Aguirre, Superintendent, Seattle Parks and Recreation.
Michelle Finnegan, Policy Director with Seattle Parks and Recreation.
Amy Williams, Finance, Parks and Recreation.
We're not hearing somebody there.
Amy, a little bit louder.
Sorry, this is Amy Williams with Parks Finance.
And Tracy Rassif with Council Central Staff.
Why don't you go ahead, Jesus, and kick us off.
Thank you and thank you all for for being here tonight this evening as thank you.
I was waiting for Michelle to pull up the presentation.
So, as you might recall, we provided a detailed update to our 2020 park district changes as well as the proposed 2021 budget a few weeks ago on October 19. so my intent wasn't to go into great detail today.
but to just highlight some of the elements that you're going to be considering as part of the resolutions that Chair Huat has mentioned that we'll be considering later today.
So next slide, please.
But I did want to just take a minute or two to do something that we haven't been able to do in quite some time, which is just talk a little bit about regular old parks and recreation activities.
A couple of little celebrations.
One of the things that we are supposed to deliver to you all as a park district governing board each June is a report to the community on the park district activities from the prior year.
Like many things, this 1 was delayed.
We weren't able to complete it by June, but we are now able to, we have completed it and you and your constituents can have access to it here at the link on the presentation.
But just to highlight a couple things, you might recall way back in 2018, we opened 2 land bank sites, Alice Ball Park in the Greenwood neighborhood and the Urban Triangle Park in the South Lake Union neighborhood.
We increased access to recreation services through our scholarship funds as part of the park district funding, including using some supplemental funds through the sweetened beverage tax revenues.
And we continue with all of our major maintenance through 2018. You see the photo there is a picture of the Medgar Evers pool during construction and after.
We were slated to open that pool up as a pilot actually this week, but we had to pull back on that given the bias health guidelines.
So there's a lot of work that's been going on, continued in 2019, and obviously has continued this year, but wanted to highlight a couple of those key pieces there that you'll find much more in the report.
Next slide, please.
So now to the reality of 2020. So this slide really just captures the changes that you're gonna be considering as part of your resolution 35. This represents sort of the significant changes and realignments that we made to address the general fund gap as well as our park fund gap in the Department of Parks and Recreation.
The $10 million park district and general fund swap is something that you all acted on this summer as part of our revised 2020 and then $5.3 million park district and park fund swap is part of the realignment for the park fund.
which was acted on today as part of the supplemental.
And also includes, the resolution 35 also includes a $700,000, a couple technical adjustments and a $700,000 carry forward on the park district.
If there are no questions on 2020, we can continue to 2021.
I'm not seeing any questions, colleagues.
OK, let's keep going, Jesus.
Thank you.
So in terms of twenty twenty one and consistent again with actions that you all took in October approving, giving us the authority to to put a one year pause on the park district planning cycle.
We developed a one year twenty twenty one budget, an interim spending plan for the park district.
So and also as discussed in October, this one year budget It does keep the property tax revenue increases at the standard 2.5 annual rate that we've been utilizing since the beginning of the park district.
And this does result in the tax rate going from, excuse me, from 20.8 cents in 2020 to 21.3 cents in 2021, which is about a $6, just under a $6 tax rate burden on the median home buyer, homeowner here.
Additionally, we utilize interest earnings generated by the park fund revenues to cover some of the wage inflation, excluding our management staff.
We utilize that to continue the Ballard Commons activation programming, as well as some portion of our utilities costs.
Uh, we used the, uh, we also included in the 1 year pause, uh, a pause on the.
Inter fund loan payback, uh, which also allowed us to further support our, um, utilities.
And then, uh, of course, the bigger changes to really address this unprecedented revenue challenge for 2021, our spending, our spending plan included.
ongoing funding realignment to cover general fund gaps of $9 million, and then one-time realignments to cover our park fund gaps of $4 million.
And just a reminder, the park fund is the revenue that we receive from program fees and facility rentals, et cetera.
Any questions on 2021?
Not seeing any.
Oh, I think you can keep going.
So, you know, just a little more detail on the 2 significant items.
So, again, this is this is what you'll be looking at in resolution 38, but we had a 1 time realignment to 4.1M dollars, which included.
Some central waterfront backfill to maintenance savings and programmatic savings.
They got us to 4.1Million dollars on the ongoing side.
We reduced several of our programmatic initiatives didn't zero them out.
So there's still some work that could happen in 2021, depending on the public health guidance and what we can do.
but we reduced those.
Because we put, on the capital side, land bank sites on hold, we recouped the operating dollars that would have gone into operating those parks.
We reduced our land acquisition pot of money, and you might recall we're retaining funding there to continue to be able to access acquisitions, focusing on Greenbelt, et cetera, and keeping our staff on board to continue to do the opportunistic sort of acquisitions as this work happens.
We put a hold on the major projects challenge fund as well as significant holds on the major maintenance backlog.
And that got us to the $8.9 million number.
Any questions on those?
I think we're good.
Great.
And actually, that so that is the the gist of what we want to get through today.
Any general questions, council members or chair?
I think we're I think what we we're going to you went to the PowerPoint and I think as we go through each one, some of our colleagues may have some questions, but I think we can move forward.
OK, OK.
Yeah, that's great.
So, OK, are you going to I got to I gotta do some, I gotta have it read into the record.
Can you hold on?
Oh, can I do a quick just note of appreciation before we jump into the resolutions?
I did want to thank Tracy, who's gonna go through these with you, but just, it's a lot of work putting together the budget and a lot of work on our end, but we couldn't do it without the help of Tracy and the rest of central council staff.
So thank you, Tracy, for all of your great work on this.
Thanks to you and your staff and the budget office staff.
This was a monumental effort this year.
With the summer changes we had to do and then the fall changes in particular, there were quite a bit of moving parts here.
So I appreciate your forbearance in working through all the details and giving me all the gory details that I asked for to understand the changes here.
So I really appreciated the work this year in particular.
I want to apologize.
I'm sorry.
I thought you had gotten to the end.
I was wondering how you got there so quick.
Yes, the four resolutions, the 35, 38, 39 and 40 have been a work in progress for at least four or five months.
So thank you, Tracy, and for the technical changes and all the stuff that you did to keep us up to date and the game and all of you guys, because this has just been a revolving, changing as we all are adapting to what we're dealing with right now.
So.
Can we done with that part?
OK.
So we will now move on to agenda items two to five.
And these items will approve the budget changes that were just described by the superintendent.
Item six will establish the 2021, as I shared, meeting dates for the park district.
And Tracy Ratcliffe of central staff and superintendent Aguirre are available to answer questions about any of these items as we vote on them individually.
So clerk, can you please read item number two into the record?
Agenda item two, resolution 35, a resolution amending the 2020 Seattle Park District revised budget by reallocating appropriations.
Great.
Are there any questions from my colleagues about item number two?
Hearing none, I move the board adopt resolution number 35. Is there a second?
Second.
Motion has been moved and seconded.
If there is no further discussion, will the clerk please call the roll?
Gonzales?
Aye.
Lewis?
Aye.
Morales?
Aye.
Mosqueda?
Aye.
Peterson?
Aye.
Sawant?
Council Member Sawant had to leave.
Thank you.
Strauss?
Yes.
President Juarez.
Yes.
Seven in favor.
Thank you.
The motion passes and the Seattle Parks District Board adopts resolution 35. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the resolution on my behalf.
With that, let's move on to agenda item number three.
Could you please read that into the record?
Agenda item three, resolution 38, a resolution adopting the 2021 Seattle Park District Budget.
Councilmember, after this, well, after this resolution is moved and seconded, I have to move again to substitute version two with version three to reflect the addition of a technical reference to an associated council bill.
That's correct, right, Tracy?
Did I get that right?
You did.
That's correct.
Councilmembers, are there any questions about this item?
That's resolution number 38. Okay, hearing none, I move the board to adopt Resolution 38. Is there a second?
Second.
I move to substitute Resolution 38, Version 2 for Version 3. Is there a second?
Second.
The motion to substitute Version 2 with 3 has been moved and seconded.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the substitute?
Gonzales?
Aye.
Lewis?
Aye.
Morales.
Aye.
Mosqueda.
Aye.
Peterson.
Aye.
Strauss.
Yes.
President Juarez.
Aye.
Seven in favor, none opposed.
Thank you.
The motion passes, and the Estelle Parks District Board adopts the substitute version.
I will now move the board to adopt Resolution 38 as amended.
Is there a second?
Second.
The motion has been moved and seconded.
There is no further discussion.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution as amended?
Gonzales?
Aye.
Lewis?
Aye.
Morales?
Aye.
Mosqueda?
Aye.
Peterson?
Aye.
Strauss?
Yes.
President Juarez?
Aye.
Seven in favor, none opposed.
The motion passes and the Seattle Parks District Court adopts resolution 38 as amended.
Will the clerk please affix my signature to the resolution on my behalf.
Thank you.
Let's move on to agenda item number four.
Agenda Item 4, Resolution 39, a resolution authorizing the levy of regular property taxes by the Seattle Park District for collection in 2021, representing an increase above the regular property taxes levied for collection in 2020.
Thank you.
We may have, is there any discussion on this matter?
This is the resolution that gives us the authority to increase the property tax.
Um, any, any discussion there up customer Peterson, you are recognized.
Go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Chair Juarez had a question for central staff about this property tax increase.
Obviously, we don't want to increase property taxes lightly.
I know that Last year when I was going door-to-door a lot of people were Worried about property taxes, especially if they're on fixed incomes and so wanted to get a better understanding of the scale of this and it's my understanding that This has not been done for the last couple of years.
We just wanted to get some more context for this for this increase and
Sure, so as Superintendent Gary mentioned, last year's tax rate was about $0.20 per $1,000 of assessed value.
This year, the rate is estimated to be about $0.21.
A little change, actually.
So it represents just a little over a half a cent increase in the tax rate per $1,000.
And as he indicated, for the median home price of about $699,000, it represents a $6 increase per year.
So the way that the executive came up with the amount that we were going to collect this year, which is really what we authorize and drive our decisions about, was based on what we had done for each of the prior six years of the six-year spending plan, which was to increase every year the amount that we collected of the total property tax by 2.49% to account essentially for inflation, knowing that as you would go through the years, you would in fact have inflation that impacted the cost of providing those programs that you needed to account for.
So what they did was they took the 2020 amount and just increased the 2020 amount that we collected by the two.
And that's what they came up with as the amount to collect.
You are correct in that for every year, and I went back and looked at this, except for this year, there's actually been a reduction from where we started in 2016, which was 30 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value.
to $0.27 in 2017, to $0.24 in 2018, $0.22 in 2019, and $0.20 at $0.20, and then looking at estimating at $0.21 at $0.21.
So why is that?
That's because our assessed value in the city has been going up, went up from 2016 until actually 2019. And as your assessed value goes up, you can drop the rate because the total amount that you need to collect, obviously there's a broader base.
So this year we lost assessed value for the first time in five years.
So that's why the rate has gone up just again, just a little over a half a penny.
And the rationale for why they chose to collect the amount that they did was to, in fact, to account for the inflationary costs impacting those programs.
And Tracy, that's the process that was set up in the 2014 interlocal agreement between the city of Seattle and the Metropolitan Park District to account for inflation and then in fact we went down, correct?
Yes, for the first six-year spending plan you will have a decision for the next six-year spending plan that comes before you whether you think every year we want to collect an additional two and a half percent more from the prior year or we want to have that be actually something that you decide every budget year because as we have experienced there have been some years where the inflation rate has actually been higher than 2.49 percent and then this year when it's actually going to be lower probably.
So it will be a decision that we make that's based on that spending plan and how much we decide every year We want to collect in the way of those taxes and we will have Decision to make for that next six years spending plan just like we did for that very first one in 2014 correct Casper Peterson.
Is there any follow-up or anything else?
Thank you.
No, I'm fine.
Appreciate it Okay
Not hearing anything else from my colleagues.
I move the board to adopt resolution number 39. Is there a second?
Second.
Second.
Thank you.
Motion has been moved and seconded.
There is no further discussion.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Gonzales?
Aye.
Lewis?
Aye.
Morales?
Aye.
Mosqueda?
Aye.
Peterson?
Aye.
Strauss.
Yes.
President Juarez.
Aye.
Seven in favor, none opposed.
Thank you.
The motion passes and the Seattle Parks District Board adopts resolution 39. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the resolution on my behalf.
Okay, so let's move on to agenda item number five.
Will the clerk please read resolution 40 to the record.
Agenda Item 5, Resolution 40, a resolution relating to the levy of property taxes, fixing the rates and or amounts of taxes to be levied, and levying the same upon all taxable property, both real and personal, in the Seattle Park District to finance the activities of the district for the year beginning January 1, 2021.
Thank you.
Colleagues, are there any questions?
Some of this obviously was covered in the presentation by the superintendent.
Are there any questions from my colleagues on resolution number 40?
Seeing none, let's see.
I move the board.
Let's see.
Did I get this right?
Yes.
I move the board adopt resolution 40. And is there a second?
Second.
Great.
The motion has been moved and seconded.
If there's no further discussion, will the clerk please call the roll?
Gonzales?
Aye.
Lewis?
Aye.
Morales?
Aye.
Mosqueda?
Aye.
Peterson?
Aye.
Strauss?
Yes.
President Juarez?
Aye.
Seven in favor, none opposed.
Thank you.
The motion passes and the Seattle Parks District Court adopts Resolution 40. Will the clerk again please affix my signature to the resolution on my behalf.
Let's go to our last item, item number six, which is resolution 41. Madam Clerk, will you please read this into the record?
Agenda item six, resolution 41, a resolution setting the Seattle Park District Board regular meeting dates for 2021.
So our dates are, did you just say the dates?
Oh, Tracy's gonna say them.
We typically meet three times a year.
Mid-year, June 21st will be the first meeting that we would have to get a mid-year report on the parks levy.
We then will meet in a public hearing for the budget on October 18th.
Then just as we are doing today, we will meet on the 22nd of November to adopt the 2022 budget.
The two dates are the first one is June 21st, 2021.
The second one is November 22nd as usual, 2021 after the budget, correct?
At 2.30.
Correct.
Okay.
And then the public hearing on October 18th.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Public hearing on October 18th.
All right.
Got that.
Okay.
Council members, any questions?
All right.
I move the board adopt resolution 41. Is there a second?
Second.
The motion has been moved and seconded.
There's no further discussion.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Gonzales?
Aye.
Lewis?
Aye.
Morales?
Aye.
Mosqueda?
Aye.
Peterson?
Aye.
Strauss?
Yes.
President Juarez?
Aye.
Seven in favor, none opposed.
Okay, the motion passes and the Seattle Parks District Board adopts Resolution 41. Will the clerk again please affix my signature to the resolution on my behalf.
Okay, so before we adjourn, let me make one more comment.
Like I shared, the next meeting will be held on June 21st, 2021. Is there any more business for the good of the order?
Council Member Mosqueda, do you want to say anything or thank anyone?
I thank all of you, and thank you, Council Member Juarez, for your leadership on this effort.
It's President.
It's President.
Oh, excuse me, Madam President.
I'm actually the President, so.
That's Madam President to you.
Thank you.
Okay, so with that, with no further business, we stand adjourned.