Parks, Public Utilities & Technology Committee 2/14/2024

Good afternoon, everyone.

It is February 14th.

Happy Valentine's Day.

It is 2.02, and this is the meeting of the Parks, Public Utilities, and Technology Committee.

Again, it's 2.02.

For Councilmember Kettle, that's 1,400 hours for you.

I'm Joy Hollingsworth, Chair of the Committee.

Will the Clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle?

Here, ma'am.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Five council members are present.

Thank you.

There are two items on the agenda today, but before we jump into the agenda, I wanted to start by saying I'm super excited to chair the Parks Public Utilities and Technology Committee.

Parks have been hugely important to me throughout my life.

My father worked for Seattle Parks for 30 years and growing up and playing basketball at Miller and Garfield, golf at Jefferson and Jackson.

I genuinely believe that Seattle Parks has one of the best systems in the country.

I also have the privilege of working with the Seattle Center and soon-to-be-completed Waterfront, two incredibly civic institutions that draw millions of visitors every year with cultural programming, arts, music performances, access to some of our region's most recognizable landmarks.

Seattle parks and community centers give our youth a safe space, welcoming space, place to come together outside of school, to hang out with their friends and to learn new activities and skillsets.

I also believe that parks give us the opportunity to build a home and they create a sense of community.

I have spoken a lot about parks.

I also am equally passionate about our utilities and technology as well.

The Seattle Public Utilities plays a critical role in maintaining the functionality and livability of Seattle, serving as one of the main backbones of our city infrastructure.

They provide essential services such as water, sewer, and solid waste management to ensure that residents have access to clean drinking water, effective waste disposal, and sewer treatment.

They are crucial to our overall health, environment protection, and quality of life in Seattle.

Beyond the basic utilities, SPU also engages with watershed management, conservation efforts, and infrastructure projects designed to enhance sustainability and resilience against climate change.

Our information technology plays a pivotal role in enhancing our city's operations and services.

Embracing innovation and technology will be key to continue to push ourselves to be at the cutting edge of IT solutions to streamline city services and foster transparent government.

Two items on the agenda today, introduction and presentation of ordinance requested by SPU authorizing ecological thinning, which is forest management practices in the Cedar River Watershed.

And we also have an introductory presentation from our Seattle Center and Waterfront Operations by Director Marshall Foster.

If there are no objections to the agenda, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

With that, we'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should be related to the items only on today's agenda or within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for today?

We have one in-person speaker and one remote speaker.

Okay, each speaker will have two minutes or less.

Clerk, can you please read the instructions for public comment?

Public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

I will call on speakers by name in the order in which they registered, both on the council's website or from the signup sheet available here in council chambers.

We will start with the in-person speakers first.

If you have not registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period.

Just go to the council's website or by signing up on the sign-up sheet near the public comment microphone.

The online link is listed on today's agenda.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 minutes are left of the allotted time.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to move on to the next person.

The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first speaker is Charles Raines.

Council Members, my name is Charlie Raines, and I am a resident of the City of Seattle, and I've represented the CR Club for over 30 years on issues regarding the city's watershed.

I was closely involved in the development of the Landmark Habitat Conservation Plan in 2000 and have remained engaged ever since.

As the Sierra Club's representative on the HCP Oversight Committee, I was actively involved in the preparation of the Forest Management Plan.

The HCP was a remarkable 50-year commitment and set the course to ensure the watershed's intrinsic ecological values are protected as a reserve while providing high-quality drinking water.

The watershed is large and has a substantial amount of low elevation forest habitats, which have become scarce in our region due to logging and development.

We have now spent two decades on implementation, working with SPU staff on projects, different prescriptions, and scales that meet the HCP goals and don't become just a logging program.

SPU has essentially completed a key element of the program, decommissioning a lot of the extensive road system, which reduces impacts to water quality, wildlife habitat, and reduces maintenance costs.

The Forest Management Plan provides clear direction for achieving the terrestrial habitat goals of the Habitat Conservation Plan, preserving remaining old growth forests, restoring late successional forests over most of the watershed, meeting the obligations to the Muckleshoot Tribe, allowing adjustments to deal with climate change.

This will involve limited thinning projects.

We will continue to work with SPU to ensure that those projects are ecologically effective and not driven by anticipated revenues.

It is important the SPU work with agencies to promote recovery of endangered species that are dependent upon these habitats, spotted owls, marbled murrelets, and recently listed wolverine.

We are fortunate to have a professional staff that are committed to the HCP, and let me mention specifically Watershed Director Amy Labarge and Forest Ecologist Rolf Garcon.

It's a pleasure to work with them.

I urge the Council to provide support for forest management plan through funding of the SPU staff and for scientific monitoring and collaboration with the tribes, agencies, stakeholders to ensure we are fully achieving the goals of the habitat conservation plan.

Thank you.

We will now move on to remote public comment.

Once I call a remote speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that is their turn to speak.

And then the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Our first remote public comment is by David Haynes.

Hi, my name is David Ames.

It's suspect that the Kraken came to Seattle center.

Yet you all are talking about budget shortfalls and desperate needs to raise revenues at Seattle center.

Maybe the pre maybe a previous council and mayor should not have given a $100 million tax incentive package to billionaires to rebuild climate pledge arena with the same unsafe cracked rooftop from the 1960s.

As if there was something iconic about cold war era concrete.

That alone arguably violated the original memorandum of understanding of what constitutes a 21st century first world quality arena.

Maybe the new council should try and renegotiate with OBG, the owners of the Kraken, about the $100 million favor that could cover the shortfall since the Kraken are taking in so much money practically tax-free.

Secondly, how much money is spent on corporate office suites for executives at the parks department?

Remember a few years ago when the executives at the Parks Department simply wanted to move to a Martin Selig office space at the waterfront that was artificially inflated when the budget had a surplus?

It's obvious government employees are treated more like a voting block of election supporters instead of employees needing to be kept honest, forthright, diligent in their work ethic and efforts to provide good government services.

And lastly, The friends of the waterfront are ruining the waterfront by prioritizing another highway road that chokes off fresh air again, only not as bad as the viaduct, yet with same toxic soot exhaust and same poisonous industrial terrain, creating a location inhalation of what causes leukemia cancer.

That's not really resident and pedestrian friendly.

It's only friendly or another tourist attraction for a certain amount of hours, while the only pier available is run by private fascist security, treating you like a criminal after 10 p.m., harassing you if you walk onto the pier 62 to 64. It's almost as if locals are treated like second-class citizens at the waterfront, while tourists dump millions into...

Awesome.

Thank you.

Okay, did I see someone else sign up for public comment in person?

No, okay.

If there are no additional people signed up online or in person, we will proceed to our items of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item number one, Council Bill 120725, an ordinance relating to the Cedar River Watershed authorizing five years of ecological thinning in accordance with the Cedar River Watershed Habitat Conservation Plan and Forest Management Plan and declaring the logs resulting from ecological thinning to be surplus to the city's needs.

authorizing the sale of such logs pursuant to applicable city contracting and surplus property sale purchases and directing a deposit of the proceeds therefrom to the Water Fund for the purposes of the Habitat Conservation Plan and Forest Management Plan implementation.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And I also wanted to give my colleagues a shout out.

Thank you all for being on this committee.

I know I just jumped right into everything.

Just really happy to be serving with you on this committee.

Know that you all are really passionate about parks, utilities, and technology.

chair i am equally excited i think we're about to jump into a presentation i will sink my teeth into and then i'm really excited to get to talk about the waterfront today i'll save those remarks for later but right back at you awesome thank you thank you council member strauss uh thank you ralph uh ralph

So I apologize.

My dad's name is Raft, and it's similarly spelled.

So Ralph and Amy for being here.

Also want to thank Brian Goodnight from our central staff as well.

Just to note for our colleagues, we will not be voting on this ordinance today.

Brian Goodnight will be giving us, from central staff, will be giving us an overview of the process of this bill.

And please introduce yourselves, and you can jump right into your presentation.

Thank you.

Brian, good night.

Council Central staff.

Hello, I'm Amy Labarge, Seattle Public Utilities Watershed Management Division Director.

Hello, I'm muted.

Hello, I'm Rolf Gersona.

I'm Forest Ecologist in the Watershed Management Division.

Go ahead.

Okay, so thank you for having us today.

We're very pleased to be here.

I believe that this is the first agenda item for this committee for the year.

So we are going to be talking with you today about stewardship in Seattle's municipal watersheds, which are the source of Seattle's drinking water.

So I do think it's appropriate to have this meeting today as the first item starting off the year.

So Seattle owns 100,000 acres of forest land in the Cascade Mountains that provide high-quality drinking water for the region, provide fish and wildlife habitat for many species, and significant cultural resources.

The city acquired these lands over a century.

Both source supply watersheds are managed under long-term plans to meet regulatory commitments and steward resources for resilience.

The Cedar River Municipal Watershed is managed under a 50-year habitat conservation plan, as you've heard, that was approved in 2000, and Rolf will talk about that a little bit more.

The forest management plan under the habitat conservation plan advances those goals and incorporates new goals of climate change adaptation, tribal wildlife habitat provision, and wildfire hazard reduction.

So we have developed this plan in collaboration with our regulators, with the Muckleshoe Indian Tribe, environmental stakeholders, and the research community, some of whom you've heard from today or in advance of this meeting.

So our request today is Council Bill 120725 to implement the forest management plan and provide ordinance authority to sell timber as surplus property from ecological thinning projects that are completed as part of this plan.

So thank you for having and Ralph will walk us through the presentation.

Thank you.

I'm excited to be here.

Thank you very much for the introduction, Amy.

So to step right in, if this forwards.

I might need some help.

There we go.

There we go.

To step right in with the purpose of our request here, it is to give Seattle Public Utilities ordinance authority to sell timber as surplus property from ecological thinning projects in the Cedar River Municipal Watershed.

This authority would allow SPU to conduct ecological thinning on up to 600 acres of second growth forest over the next five years.

The revenue from the sale of the surplus logs would be deposited into the waterfront to offset the cost of implementing the habitat conservation plan.

And similar ordinances have been given, ordinance authority has been given to Seattle Public Utilities in the past several times.

And we do provide an annual report to city council and the mayor's office about our activities and the amount of timber sold.

So I start out with the request here and want to give you some background information as well here.

So the Cedar River watershed, as you see here on the map in green, is part of Seattle's municipal source water system.

Together with the South Brook Tolled Watershed, about 100,000 acres of protected watersheds of forests, rivers, and lakes.

They are owned by the city of Seattle and managed by Seattle Public Utilities.

Together, these watersheds produce about water for about 1.5 million customers in Seattle and the surrounding urban areas.

In addition to that, the watersheds provide really important ecosystem services that include carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, and cultural resources.

And while forest management occurs in both watersheds, our request here only pertains to the Cedar River Watershed on this map in green at the bottom.

So as we mentioned before, the Cedar River watershed is managed primarily as the source for municipal water supply in our area.

And to allow SBU to withdraw water from the Cedar River, which was habitat for threatened salmon species, the city implemented the habitat conservation plan in the year 2000. This plan serves as the incidental take permit under the Endangered Species Act and allows the SPU to manage the Cedar River as water supply, at the same time setting aside the watershed as an ecological reserve and literally ending a century of commercial timber harvest in the watershed.

With the HCP, the city has made a long-term commitment, really, for watershed management that includes active forest restoration in the watersheds.

To better understand the need for active forest management or restoration in the watersheds, it's really good to look back at the land management history in the watersheds.

The city purchased the lands in the watershed from private landowners following large-scale timber harvest and slash burning.

You see here a photo of the watersheds on the right.

Today, these forests, these lands have regrown a continuous canopy of forests, young, dense forests that are growing well.

They protect the water source from erosion and landslides.

But at the same time, they provide relatively little wildlife habitat.

A continuous forest canopy, they create a continuous wildfire fuel, potentially, and have relatively low resilience to recover from climate impacts and natural disturbances.

I want to also mention that the program in the HCP was specifically designed to help these young second-growth forests develop into structurally diverse, more functional old forest habitat over time.

That is a key element of the HCP that we continue on.

Now, what we mean when we talk about thinning projects with ecological objectives is it's important to understand that the thinning seeks to further or to promote development of these older, structurally diverse forests by reducing the amount of trees in these forests and opening up, creating complex forest canopies with greater species diversity.

It also increases individual tree growth and vigor, and over time actually increases the health and development of these forests.

On the image on the right here, you see a typical second-growth forest that we see oftentimes in the watersheds.

Relatively dense forests, high stem density, and very little understory vegetation that creates poor forest habitat for wildlife.

The resulting The thin forest will, over time, over a long period of time, develop in what we consider rich functional habitat, as you see here on the right-hand side in that image, having larger trees, having young and old trees growing side by side, greater species diversity, and overall improved ecosystem health and resilience to recover from natural disturbances.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

This is a great presentation.

I'm gonna ask you some questions.

I admit colleagues I already know the answer to, but to help us have this conversation, can you help me understand what is a second growth forest compared to first growth or are there more iterations after a second growth forest?

I appreciate the question.

Sorry, I should have maybe left with that.

Second growth forest we call forests that were previously harvested.

So in our land management history, we consider many of the really old forests primary forests that never been forest harvested before.

Once they get harvested, get regrown, we consider them second growth as a second generation following the primary forest that never got harvested.

Theoretically, you could talk about third growth and fourth growth forest too, but in the watershed, we only deal with second growth forest.

Because we have protected that land and we've been managing it.

That's correct.

But in private land, we could see third, fourth, fifth growth.

Absolutely.

And when you say harvested, do you also by saying that mean that the trees have been cut down?

That's correct.

A lot of times, The forest harvesting was either high grading the best trees and burning the rest or harvesting the entirety of the forest biomass and basically exporting it to the timber market.

Thank you.

And on slide five, you say the forests are young and dense, which creates poor wildlife habitat.

On your slide six, I think we've got some visualization there.

Can you speak more about, number one, how does a forest, how does second growth become like this?

Right.

And then why is it bad?

That's a great question that might require a longer answer, but absolutely correct.

After the harvesting, and particularly after burning the area and removing all the slush to have the forest regenerate evenly, industrial forest managers prefer regrowing a dense forest that has a lot of carbon accumulation fast.

Growing the forest relatively dense maximizes wood productivity what we don't see in those forests is the diversity of species and the diversity of life forms and different structural elements to maintain that particular diversity that we see in some young forests that naturally generate with out timber harvest has a much greater opportunity for different species to survive and to thrive on it.

Species diversity is important.

As these stands grow up, they start competing for the limited resources available on the land.

And that resource competition really creates a very competitive environment in which only few species survive.

And they outcompete everything else below these trees.

So what we see virtually is a very denuded forest floor because of the very competitive trees growing above it.

For us, that is, we have learned over time that that constitutes relatively poor wildlife habitat for larger wildlife, not having forage on the forest floor.

For other species, not having the vertical diversity of habitat niches that we see in some old forests, as you see here on the photo on the right.

So it is a natural stand development.

There's nothing unnatural about it.

But if you see it across the landscape, It's a detriment to the overall species composition and communities on the landscape.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I've got one last two-part question.

And if you could slide back to the previous slide and then slide forward to the next one during your answer.

Looking at this picture versus on slide seven, what I'm hearing you say is that a herd of elk will have a hard time getting through this forest.

but they would not have a hard time getting through the other picture.

And then could you explain to me why or how this picture of a forest is more dangerous for fire as compared to the other picture?

Absolutely.

And that'll be all for now, Chair.

Okay.

Yes.

In terms of wildlife habitat, we consider wildlife habitat for over 80 species in the watershed.

And many of those require a much more vertically diverse forest canopy to thrive, having different habitat niches.

For larger animals such as ungulates, elk, and deer, these forests provide not a barrier to necessarily move through, but they find relatively little forage opportunities in them.

Considering that they might need some shelter at some point, they do like relatively dense forest structures in some places, but in other places, they do require openings where they have forage opportunities in the summer and in the winter.

So that structural diversity is really important for most of the species that we are concerned with in the watersheds.

The second point I want to address here really quickly is the concern about wildfire fuels.

And the issue that we see today in the relatively dense young forest is that they provide fuels for crown fires that are continuous throughout the watershed.

So if you consider wildfires moving into the watershed or through the watershed, what we are concerned about is that the fuel is continuous and doesn't have breaks or places where the fire could stop or fire behavior could stop.

We're particularly concerned about this as being a continuous cover and are interested in the forest management plan to create defensible space, particularly around water management infrastructure, where we can let firefighters to those structures and have them defend them rather than on the landscape level.

So that's really the point about the continuous fuel cover in the watershed and where we want to make a difference around infrastructure.

And I understand you wanted to talk about the second image here too.

This is actually an image of an older forest and it's pretty clear that there's a very big structural differences between these two.

I hope that answered your questions.

Yes, and thank you.

I was just making the point that the previous picture looks like kindling and this looks like large logs.

Kindling lights up real quick.

Chair Hollingsworth, Councilmember Strauss says this is like a perfect opportunity.

You look at these slides.

If you're taking advantage of the fact that we have the Olympic National Forest, the Mount Rainier, the Mountains of Sound Greenway, National Heritage Trust, if you hike these areas, you already know what these two slides are pointing out.

And so that's my recommendation to everybody is to go hiking in those areas because you really get the sense of this.

It's not just slides and a PowerPoint.

Thank you.

Proceed.

Well, thank you for those comments.

I would also just encourage you to maybe come visit the watershed because it's this publicly-owned city watershed, and you're all welcome to take a look at those firsthand.

So, but I'll continue here.

So, just to keep going, since...

the implementation of the Habitat Conservation Plan in the year 2000, several new objectives have emerged, and those include impacts from climate change, the concerns by the Muckleshoot Indian tribe about deer and elk populations, and as I said, the risk of wildfire to the watersheds.

Those functions were only minimally addressed in the Habitat Conservation Plan, and we have place a much greater importance on those today so in in the year 2018 we began to update our guidance documents for forest management to address this broad list of goals basically for the watershed and they include our primary goals watershed hydrology so source water forest habitat restoration or the development of old forest and landscape and integrating into those climate adaptation habitat for specific wildlife and wildfire risk mitigation.

I would like to point out three things about the development of this forest management plan.

I think that's important to understand.

We completed this forest management plan in the year 2023, last year.

And it integrates the new objectives into the previous older objectives, not replacing them.

And I think that's really important to understand that we want to secure our commitment to source water protection and developing a landscape of old forest habitat.

That's the first part.

The second part is that the planned development had a really inclusive process, and it brought to the table the diverse voices of the stakeholder that we have and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.

The stakeholder also included the signatory parties to the Habitat Conservation Plan, including the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, the Sierra Club as a representative of our environmental community, the University of Washington representing the scientific community, private citizens, and the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

Lastly, really important for us was acknowledging that we work on a large landscape with multiple objectives and limited resources.

So this plan really tried to avoid management conflicts of the objectives, find synergy where it's possible between actions and objectives, and prioritize those actions to let us achieve those goals that are most important for us to achieve for now and into the future.

Here on the, actually I wanted to point out that a copy of the forest management plan was included in the supporting material.

You can download it there and take a look for yourself.

So, to come back to the ecological thinning project, that's why we're here.

It is an important part of the forest management plan.

These projects cost us about, the program costs about $80,000 a year, which is provided through the Water Fund.

And it is really a commitment to watershed management through the HCP that was made in the year 2000. The revenue from log sale from some of these projects is expected to be variable depending on the timber markets, but we expect to put that money back into the water fund to offset the cost of the implementation of the program.

On this map here on the right, you see the outline of the watershed.

And on it, in different colored dots or polygons, you see there the proposed thinning areas for the next five years, meeting different management objectives.

That's about roughly 600 acres in this 92,000-acre watershed.

So a relatively small amount for the next five years.

And I want to end here going back to our request.

Really quick, there's an image of the watershed.

I'm inviting you again to come and take a look at that for yourself.

But again, the purpose of our request is to give Seattle Public Utilities ordinance authority to sell timber as surplus property for ecological thinning in the Cedar River municipal watershed over the next five years.

And again, it would allow us to conduct forest thinning for multiple objectives, ecological objectives on up to 600 acres and sell up to 6 billion board feet of timber.

for that period of time.

And again, the revenue from that sale of logs, the surplus property would be deposited into the water fund to offset the cost of implementing the habitat conservation plan.

All right.

Thank you very much for your attention.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rolf and Amy.

And I'd like to pass it to Brian, who's going to explain.

Remember, we're not voting on this.

Brian is going to explain the process.

THANK YOU, CHAIR, COUNCILMEMBERS.

SO, YEAH, IN TERMS OF NEXT STEPS, STATE LAW REQUIRES THE COUNCIL TO HOLD A PUBLIC HEARING BEFORE TAKING ACTION ON THIS BILL.

IT HAS TO DO WITH DISPOSING OF SURPLUS PROPERTY THAT'S OVER A CERTAIN VALUE.

IN THIS INSTANCE, IT'S OVER $50,000 REQUIRES A PUBLIC HEARING.

SO THE PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE FOR THIS ITEM WILL BE ISSUED THIS WEEK.

IT WILL BE IN THE it'll be published and then that will allow the committee to hold a public hearing at its next meeting on February 28th.

And then at that time, if the council still choose after the public hearing, it could decide to take action on the item and refer to the full council.

Awesome.

And I also want to recognize the Muckleshoot Tribe.

They wrote a letter in support, you know, ensuring that the original caretakers of this land is on board is important and all the work that they've been doing to make sure that the Cedar River and the watershed is protected.

And thank you all for all your hard work.

I would like to open up to my colleagues if you all have any questions.

Councilmember Strauss.

May I?

Sorry.

And if I'm talking too much, just say so.

You're good.

Just because we have you here, Amy, if you could speak to why Chester Morris and the Cedar River watershed are unique and special, I might just prompt of colleagues we're hearing that Rolf said, we only have second generation forest.

Like that's super unique, right?

Because the rest of our state has been cut time and time again.

And then we've got old growth forest up there.

But I was really hoping if you could talk a little bit about filtration and access.

And I'll prompt you with the access where there's certain parts of the forest where only the muckleshoot are allowed to go.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, and it's great to see you today.

I love all your questions to help us have a rich conversation here.

You are right.

The Cedar River Municipal Watershed is an incredibly special place.

This is a landscape that has been used since time immemorial, and I will just share that there are...

registered archeological sites in the watershed that date back to 9,400 years as evidence of the long, long history of use in this landscape.

So as we mentioned, the city of Seattle started acquiring lands in the municipal watershed after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. So it really did take a century for the city to acquire the 91,000, roughly 500 acres of land that we now own, which is 99.7% of the area that is the drainage basin.

There are a couple of little pieces here and there that Seattle still does not own on the borders, but nearly 100%.

And so we take very seriously the responsibility of stewarding these lands for the primary mission of providing high quality drinking water supply to the region as our larger source supply watershed, not forgetting the South Fork Toll.

river municipal watershed, which is small and mighty, providing about a third of our drinking water supply.

But the cedar, back to the cedar, it's a large landscape with a very rich array of resources, different types of forest that Rolf has been talking about, wetlands and streams and very rich history.

of human presence.

So in 1996 is when Seattle completed roughly its current ownership of this watershed.

And that is when we did a land exchange with the forest service and acquired about 16,000 acres from the forest service.

Most of those lands that we acquired from the forest service in the mid nineties have old growth or primary forest.

that has not been logged.

And so those are really important natural resources in the watershed landscape.

The municipal watersheds have been closed to public access for over a century.

And that is for the purpose of providing high-quality drinking water.

And that applies to the Cedar, which we've owned for longer, and the Tolt, which we started acquiring in the late 50s, early 60s.

1960s that is.

So the cedar is very unique in the nation in terms of being an unfiltered surface water supply.

So in terms of the lack of filtration, we do practice filtration avoidance on the cedar.

It is a treated supply.

both with rough filtration as it leaves the Cedar River and heads over to the Lake Young's Reservation.

We filter out the chewable chunks, if you will, and add a little bit of chlorine and fluoride.

And then it goes to the Lake Young's Reservation where our treatment facility is. and the water is then ozonated and treated with UV and chlorinated again before it goes into the system for drinking water.

So we maintain on the Cedar a limited alternative to filtration.

And this is a very unique status that is under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

EPA has delegated to Washington Department of Health to monitor our limited alternative to filtration, so we are inspected every year.

This, I'll call it LAF, has certain requirements, and those include consolidated ownership, which we have in the CEDAR, It includes controlled access and activities.

So we do maintain a secure closed watershed and monitor all activities that happen within the watersheds.

It requires no development, no habitation, and a host of water quality criteria that need to be met.

So those are the pieces that feed into LAF, which plays into the affordability of the water that Seattle provides to customers and communities.

I think I touched on filtration and access.

Hopefully I answered your questions.

If you could just elaborate a little bit about cultural access into areas where the rest of us aren't allowed.

Yeah, so we do grant access based on business need.

So we may have contractors or researchers in, but we vet what that business need is and then provide access.

We also have an agreement with the Muckleshoe Indian tribe that was settled in 2006. And that agreement allows Muckleshoe Indian tribal members and staff access into the Cedar River Municipal Watershed for the purposes of fulfilling their reserve treaty rights in the area for hunting and gathering.

So we work with the Muckleshoot every week and really consider them great collaborators.

And so they do come in and monitor wildlife and manage wildlife.

They conduct an annual subsistence hunt, usually in the fall.

They have an ability to conduct ceremonial hunts in the watershed as well with limited notice.

And so we have really good communication flow at this point with the tribe.

And we're extremely happy that they were eager to participate on this forest management planning process.

Largely the planning process was initiated because Muckleshoot had some concerns about how much active management that we're doing.

And we realized we really needed to have a conversation about that and bring all of our collaborators together in one conversation and develop this plan.

So as Rolf said, that started in 2018. It did take us through COVID five years to complete the plan, and we're just extremely happy to be able to present it today with the support from Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, with the support from the Sierra Club and all of you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council President Nelson.

Thank you very much for this presentation.

I am very familiar with HCP, and I am glad to see that there's deeper focus on forest health through these efforts.

The fiscal note says that this ordinance would authorize the ecological thinning for another four years.

So it seems like ordinances, let's see, 124853 and 12673, authorized ecological thinning through, well, I don't know, one of those allowed it from 2016 to 2022. So this is basically a continuation of a program that already exists, right?

Yes, it is.

With the understanding that we have a new forest management plan that brings in these additional goals of climate adaptation, habitat improvement for wildlife species that are important to the Muckleshoe Indian tribe, and also stepping forward into the wildfire hazard mitigation space.

So those are new.

But I first came to Seattle City Council in 2002 as a new employee to present the first ecological thinning ordinance along with the HCP implementation ordinance.

So, yeah, we've been doing this for a while.

Okay.

And no complaints so far.

And I'm glad that Chair Hollingsworth did mention the Muckleshoot in tribes approval and we did get a letter and they hit the same points.

It's beneficial for the forest and biodiversity.

Now, I have a question.

Where do these logs get sold?

I could answer to that.

So we do sell logs to local mills in our area that anywhere between Shelton and and Cedar Woolly, they are all sold on the domestic market.

So none of the logs that we sell are allowed to be marketed internationally.

That's very important.

The second important item is that we are, that our management in the two watersheds is certified under the Forest Stewardship Council.

which allows us to market FSC certified logs to, we know of one mill that we can send it to, and produce high quality certified products for our local infrastructure needs.

So we try to be relatively local in the log markets, but it really depends on where our contractors will sell those to.

They're all domestic and all in the Puget Sound region.

So it's a local market.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That sounds like they're being used to the highest and best use locally.

Absolutely.

That's our goal, and we're trying to be in the certified log market as much as we can.

We're not woodchipping or something like that, pulping.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle.

Just a quick question on the climate adaptation piece.

Obviously, in the news, we hear a lot about snowpack and the, you know, the concerns about the dwindling snowpack.

Is there any flexibility, you know, natural ability for, like, rainwater catch and hold?

Is there flexibility there that just happens to be unique to the Cedar River?

Or is there any concerns on those, on that front, regarding basically the climate adaptation and the question around snowpack?

So if I understand the question correctly, it's how do we manage the rain that's falling as opposed to relying on the snowpack?

Yes, you can ask.

Yes, that goes to the adaptation point.

So this is in the water management space.

And I will say that we have observed less snowpack over the last year.

It's been a little more noticeable with 2015 being a very memorable year as a snow drought.

And so our water managers are really learning about more dynamic management of our water supply and capturing rain where they are able to while also addressing flood hazard reduction during the rainy time of year.

So 2015 was a remarkable year with that scenario where we didn't have snow, but we did have some very significant rainstorms in the spring and were able to fill the reservoirs and then manage from there.

So I hope that answers your question.

Rolf might want to add a little bit in terms of forest and water cycle regulation, if you wish.

Just an aside, I would say over the last 15 years, we've started learning about forest and water interaction more and more.

And it's really interesting for us to see that our approach of developing older forests actually goes really well in line with watershed management.

We've learned over the past, 10, 15 years that the older forests actually use less water than the younger forests.

The thrifty growing young forests can use up to three times as much water in the summer when we have the greatest deficit of precipitation.

So we are really interested in seeing that old forest development across the entire watershed in order to have more base water, base flows in the summer and rely less on the snowpack.

That is really an interesting development that we've only come around to learning over the past 10 years maybe.

And so I think we have a really good case to be made here to keep that watershed as an ecological reserve for water quality or the amount of water and for wildlife habitat.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera.

And thank you for this presentation.

This work is so important, particularly with the impacts of climate change.

So very appreciative of all your efforts.

And I will echo my colleague's sentiments regarding the work with the Muckleshoot tribe in this work.

I'll say not part of the actual ecological thinning program, but you all, the Watershed Maintains an Education Center that I say I have visited with my children when they were younger.

And I actually visited with, when I was in LA here for council member Rasmussen, we actually had a retreat there very many years ago.

So I say all that to say that you all do a great job educating the public.

And I encourage people to really visit the education center to learn more about the work that SPU is doing at the watershed.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

And we do have a new manager at the Watershed Education Center who just came to us from Seattle Parks and Rec.

And there may be a conversation that we wanna have there at another time.

And I do wanna reiterate Rolf's invitation to come out to the Watershed Education Center and we can give you a tour into the watershed and see the reservoirs and the forest that we've been talking about.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And if there are no further questions, I just want to thank Amy Rolf and Brian for your presentation today.

And I'm looking forward to working with you on this, protecting our aquifer and our watershed and all the good stuff.

So thank you.

We will now, will the clerk please read agenda item two for the record.

Agenda item number two, overview presentation by the Seattle Center.

Thank you for being here, Director Foster and Demetrius.

Had a wonderful time visit a couple of weeks ago with you all on campus.

And the Seattle Center is near and dear to a lot of us as it is Seattle's rec room, as we like to call it, with all of the wonderful events that you all host.

A plug this weekend is the health clinic that you all are hosting.

And I will be there on Saturday visiting with the mayor, looking at and visiting with you all and our health clinic.

So really excited about that.

Please.

introduce yourselves for the record.

I know you all are getting set up, so I don't want to rush you at all.

And then you can be able to jump into your presentation.

Thank you, Director Foster.

I think we are there.

Awesome.

Good afternoon, Chair Hollingsworth, committee members.

It's a real pleasure to be with you and to be with you in person in this chamber.

So thank you for having Seattle Center out.

We're delighted to to brief you on the center.

My name is Marshall Foster.

I'm the director of Seattle Center, and I have with me today

Dematris Winston.

Sorry about that.

There you go.

Dematris Winston.

It's a pleasure to be here too.

I've been at the Seattle Center for about a month, a little under a month.

And Chair Hollingsworth, it was a pleasure meeting you and your staff the other day and hearing about your early experiences at Seattle Center.

And yeah, we've got, I think, a good presentation today.

And I'll just say I bring a wealth of experience with financial management operations.

I've worked in the public sector and at nonprofits doing those items, including strategic planning.

And so I look forward to working with all of you to shape the future of Seattle Center in terms of the art and the culture and the economic vibrancy of the center.

Thank you.

I want to apologize.

I butchered your name, Dematris.

That is my bad.

I apologize.

Totally understandable.

No worries.

All right.

Well, we have an informational presentation for you today.

This is our opportunity to kind of help do some stage setting, share some context for Seattle Center with you.

Let's see.

I think we need to get the...

Actually, I think share screen on the Zoom meeting and then we should be all set.

Yeah, there you go, Logan.

Thank you.

If my colleagues have time, go visit the Seattle Center.

I know you've all been there plenty of times.

I don't need to tell y'all, but it's a fun place to go to.

This will be a very big weekend for us.

Actually, we'll come back to the clinic, but as you mentioned, we have the Seattle King County Clinic happening starting tomorrow.

All right, we're just about there.

We're all getting our in-person...

You know, legs back here.

Excellent.

Okay, so thank you again.

We're delighted to kind of give you an overview.

Next slide.

So let me just start by kind of laying out the fundamentals of Seattle Center.

And bear with me, I know a lot of you know Seattle Center well, but also for the audience at home, et cetera.

very unique place seattle center's mission um is very it's it's very unique for city departments i've had the opportunity to work in various parts of the city family and this is the only place i've worked where delight and inspire is in our mission statement we create exceptional experiences events and environments to delight inspire the human spirit and build stronger communities And we do live that on a day-to-day basis, and we'll talk more about that.

Seattle Center is a 74-acre campus, created as part of the 1962 World's Fair, with 40 acres of green space at the heart of that.

It is a very eclectic mix of 30-plus cultural, arts, sports, entertainment organizations who all call Seattle Center home.

We have a huge annual visitation and I'll talk more about this, but this in 2023, we saw 10 million visitors on the campus again, which is a huge return of public excitement about being at Seattle Center.

And that generates an enormous amount of economic activity for the city of Seattle.

One of the things that's also unique about our department in the city family is we are We're not technically an enterprise department, but we're in the business of generating our own revenue through commercial events, through our leases, through all the activity in the Armory Food Hall, et cetera.

We generate the majority of the revenue needed to cover our expenses.

Not all, we do rely on city funding as well.

And in order to do that, we play a range of roles.

We're a business partner and sponsor.

We help finance the work of our resident organizations.

We're obviously a landlord and a custodian.

We're also an event producer and promoter.

So I'm sure many of you have been to our Festall community events.

You've been to Winterfest.

Those events we actually produce as Seattle Center.

In addition to the events we do where we invite partners onto the campus, Bite of Seattle, Bumbershoot, Folklife, events like that.

So we play a lot of different roles.

We employ about 230 permanent staff, as well as hundreds of event-related intermittent staff, folks who are on the campus helping people find their way, ushers at McCall Hall.

Those are intermittent staff who come on on a time-limited basis.

Next slide.

Just some fundamentals of the campus itself.

At its heart are a whole series of Seattle Center operated spaces.

Obviously the Armory or the Center House is the kind of beating heart of Seattle Center.

Artists at Play Playground, Fisher Pavilion, McCaw Hall, I won't go down the whole list.

When you experience those spaces, those are actively managed directly by our staff.

We have a number of the major attractions on campus which are leased spaces.

Chihuly Gardens and Glass, Climate Pledge Arena, probably the largest of those, Pacific Northwest Ballet, the opera, et cetera.

And then several major elements of what you think of of Seattle Center are actually privately owned.

Memorial Stadium.

That is a nine-acre site which is operated by the Seattle School District.

We're in a partnership there for the future of the stadium that I'll come back to.

The Pacific Science Center and the Seattle Space Needle are all privately owned.

Next slide.

Looking back at 23, I mentioned, you know, attendance is really back in full force.

We saw Folklife, Pride, Bite of Seattle, Bumbershoot, all back to, I don't want to say their pre-pandemic numbers, but close to a huge resurgence of public interest.

We brought a variety of new events to campus this year, Blastfest.

which was an incredible new event that we haven't done before, focused on Afrobeats music and bringing a really new audience to the campus.

The Christmas Market, which became part of our Fest All program, as well as broadening our Fest All events.

You know, it's interesting when we talk about that visitation, part of why it's important to us and the 10 million visitors is it drives all the other things on the campus.

It drives the monorail, it drives sales in the armory, it drives our parking revenue, which is an important part of how we fund everything at Seattle Center.

At the same time, as you know, we're dealing with a challenging budget environment.

So how are we going to reduce costs and increase revenue as we look forward to help manage the future?

And then lastly, just acknowledging this has been a major transition year.

I'm sure you all knew my predecessor, Robert Nellems.

He was a close friend and a real inspiration.

And he was in that role for, I believe, 17 years.

So for our staff, that's been a big transition.

I think we're all about getting the fundamentals right, strengthening our management, and sort of setting the stage for the future.

Looking ahead, this is a snapshot of our major priorities for 2024. First and foremost is building on our recent success with major events.

The other thing that we'll come back to is we have now taken on the role of operating the new waterfront park.

So as of last July, Seattle Center is providing the overall operations leadership for the city family, including maintenance and public safety on the waterfront.

We do that in partnership with Friends of Waterfront Seattle, which we'll talk about.

Our second major priority is planning for Seattle Center's future.

Really, this is a moment to articulate the future vision for the center, to look at how we plan strategically for that, how we plan our budget, and plan well for funding and revenue in the future.

I'm very happy to have Dematris here with us to help work on our strategies there.

And then, we've stepped in as a real partner, along with a whole host of city departments, on our downtown activation plan, recognizing that arts and culture is an enormous driver of the return to downtown.

And then lastly is expanding into partnerships.

You know, Seattle Center has always been driven by partnerships.

We're at a moment now where we're prepared to bring forward agreements to the city council over the next few months regarding the future of Memorial Stadium.

We're looking creatively at key spaces on the campus like Thomas Street, which is a major gateway that the public experiences to the campus.

And then some very important sort of setting the stage for the future.

A key one is the Fifth and Mercer property, which was formerly home to KCTS and Cascade Public Media, which, as you know, they've just moved into a new home on Capitol Hill, and we just took the keys to that building at the beginning of this month.

So we're thinking about how the future of that property plays into the future of Seattle Center.

Next slide.

Now what we're gonna do is just take a quick moment to kind of walk through our major divisions and lines of business, and I'm gonna turn this over to Dematris to talk about his piece, which is finance and administration.

All right, thank you, Marshall.

First off, I'd just like to point out that the Seattle Center generates about two-thirds of its own revenue through earned revenue, and the other third comes from the city.

And so I think that's a very important thing to...

to share early on.

Campus revenue comprises about $36.5 million of that revenue.

And so, in terms of campus revenue, we're looking at parking revenue, which last year was about $8.4 million, so a pretty significant number.

And as Marshall mentioned, the events and things happening around campus really drive that revenue.

Secondly, we have sponsorship revenue.

That was about $1.2 million last year.

And then, of course, leases, events, and the armory space, and then outdoor food.

That helps comprise the campus revenue.

Secondly, McCaw Hall, that's the second, I guess, line of business, and that's about $6.5 million worth of revenue.

And so that's the ballet revenue, that's the opera revenue, and that's...

third-party rental revenue at McCall Hall, which is a significant portion of the revenue there.

And then the third line of business being the waterfront, a newer addition to the Seattle Center's work, $7.8 million.

And much of that funding comes from the Park District.

This next slide here really shows the capital budget.

In total, it's about $5.1 million allocated to four different areas, the first area being McCaw Hall, second area being campus for various things.

I was talking to Marshall earlier, and he mentioned roof replacement and that there's a lot of roof replacements.

It's an aging campus, and so the needs there for capital improvements and maintenance are substantial.

Secondly, there's the monorail.

And then last, Memorial Stadium and much of that funding there.

The city has a much larger commitment, but much of the funding you see in the 24 budget is related to consulting and planning and some staffing related to getting that project going and continuing the project.

All right.

So I'm gonna kind of take us through our other major divisions.

The second is what we call facility planning and operations.

This is the area where we really focus on all of our, both our strategic capital planning, but also the day-to-day operations of the campus.

Next slide.

There we go, thanks.

So we have the largest body of work in terms of staff at Seattle Center goes into the daily operating of our facilities and grounds.

And that includes a whole range of different expertise and trades work from janitorial to carpentry, plumbing, electrical, everything it takes to operate that 74-acre campus on a daily basis.

And that is the backbone of this division of Seattle Center.

Second key area, which is a major priority right now, is we are doing a comprehensive facility conditions assessment, where we are looking at the condition of all of our assets on campus.

As Dematris mentioned, Seattle Center has been the little engine that could for a long time.

It's an aging campus.

We have done several major new projects, McCall Hall, Climate Pledge Arena, obviously Mopop, you know, different pieces.

But it's been quite some time since there's been a comprehensive assessment of the overall condition of all the campus facilities.

So we're in the process of that.

We do anticipate significant capital needs down the road to reinvest in the quality of our facilities on campus.

That work is underway.

We're also very involved right now in looking at opportunities to decarbonize the campus, to look at how we could potentially learn from our experience with Climate Pledge Arena, which was a commitment to building essentially the world's first carbon neutral sports arena and expand that concept to the larger campus and look at we're fortunate to have a district energy system that operates our campus.

So it's all networked, whether we could leverage that to move away from fossil fuels.

We'll have more to say about that in the future.

And then you see there a list of some of the major capital projects that are on our plate at the moment.

Dematris mentioned the roof replacement at the Seattle Repertory Theater.

That's a critical project.

We have a very nice FTA grant to rebuild the Seattle Center monorail platform, which is under design right now.

And then teeing up some other major projects as we look out to the future.

Next slide.

Next area is marketing and strategic partnerships.

So I mentioned we do a lot of different things.

Seattle Center is very actively involved in supporting not only the marketing of who we are and our brand in the city sphere, but also supporting all of our resident organizations.

When major events happen on campus, whether it's a Festol event or Bumbershoot, we are actually active marketing, promotion, partnership with those organizations.

When you talk to the public about perceptions of different spaces in Seattle, the two kind of top of the list in terms of positive association are Seattle Center and Pike Place Market.

And that's kind of a year over year association.

We work hard to keep that perception that way.

And you can see some of the different things here that we do in terms of social media, customer service, digital content, and then strategic partnerships with these major campus partners.

Climate Pledge Arena, obviously, that's an enormous one.

We really work with them.

to help not only market their events, but really to market the campus and what's happening on campus.

Come to the Armory Food Hall before the Kraken game for the pregame show.

Hey, did you know this weekend we're going to be having, you know, a Festol event prior to the Kraken game?

Trying to leverage all those partnerships to grow visibility for the Seattle Center community.

On that point, can I ask a quick question?

Just particularly with Chair Hollingsworth, I think you would agree with me.

As I told the Kraken team that I'm big in hockey, but the Kettle family is a Seattle Storm family.

So each time I see this, I'm like, is there a reason why the Storm's not included?

Or can we add the Storm?

It's funny that...

Thank you, council member.

I couldn't agree more.

My family are huge Storm fans as well.

We spend a lot of time at the games.

They're absolutely central to that as well.

Yes, they are part of that partnership and we do the same type of collaboration with the Storm that we do with the Kraken.

Partly to make a point, partly out of curiosity, because I always do see Kraken, but then I don't see Storm, and I was just wondering if that was purpose, you know, why that comes about, and that's why I was curious.

Yeah, their lease agreement is basically with the Kraken for the building.

So the city held the original lease agreement with the Storm, and then that was basically transferred to them.

So in terms of the primary partnership, it is with the Kraken, but that doesn't...

That's not to suggest there's not as much commitment to the storm.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

And, Chair, allow the record to reflect.

The Seattle Storm are the most winningest team in city history.

Thank you.

Arguably the winningest, at least professionally.

So last area in terms of marketing and strategic partnerships is business integration.

So this is the side of Seattle Center that manages all of those campus sponsorships.

So when you're on the campus, you see some of the signage.

We actually generate about 1.2 million in annual revenue from that that supports all the public programs, the food hall, and transportation and parking.

Next slide.

Just a few imagery of, you know, this is the kind of, I'm sure you've seen this, the kind of marketing material that we put out there Next, yeah.

So last but not least, the programs and events team at Seattle Center.

Next slide.

This is really where you see, there you go, thank you, a lot of the programs and events that people think of when they think of Seattle Center.

This team does all of our booking and sales, working with folks who come in to do events and rentals at Seattle Center.

We directly manage events with our staff, manage productions.

We have a very skilled stage and sound team who do all the event support when you see a great event at Seattle Center.

guest services, and then emergency services as well.

So we do maintain our own public safety staff on campus who keep the campus safe and welcoming.

Public programs, that's all of our Festall, Winterfest, essentially our events that are free to the public.

The 4th of July naturalization ceremony, which you may have been to, and then our commercial programs, which that's our revenue generating side of the operation.

Next slide.

Just a few images of some of the high points of being on campus, the different types of things that that group of people does.

Vestal, this is our 2024 schedule, which just kicked off two weekends ago with Tet in Seattle.

And we'll go all the way through to November.

And then as we mentioned earlier, this weekend is our free King County, Seattle King County Clinic.

And so if you haven't had a tour, I know several of you are coming out for a tour this weekend.

It's well worth it.

It's an incredible operation, completely free to the public, dental, medical, vision, everything that people need.

And it will be, we will serve tens of thousands of people in the process, so.

All right, I'm going to close with just a little focus on two major kind of new parts of Seattle Center.

First is our partnership with the Seattle School District for Memorial Stadium.

So as you may remember, last March we had an RFP process, a request for proposals together with the school district, which resulted in the selection of the One Roof Partnership.

which is a very interesting organization.

It's a nonprofit partnership to assist the city and the school district in redeveloping and operating the new stadium.

And that organization has been in talks with the district and the city since then, since June.

And we are right on the precipice of having kind of agreement on the key terms for the redevelopment of Memorial Stadium.

I won't go into the details of that now, but we do anticipate bringing agreements to council here just in the next few months.

We think probably May, June, we'll be talking in more depth.

We will also, in partnership with the district, be talking with the Seattle School Board about those agreements as well.

This has been decades in the making.

I know a lot of you have been directly involved And it involves a lot of really, really critical opportunities, both for Seattle public school students in terms of having an incredible new facility, for sports, for graduations, for performance, and also for Seattle Center to really enhance our ability to be an incredible destination for events.

So lots more to come on Memorial Stadium.

Next slide.

And as I mentioned, this is really exciting.

This is the first time where we've really been looking at doing something beyond the campus.

Let's see, in 22, and then finalized in the early part of last year, the city council and mayor asked Seattle Center to step into the primary operating role for Waterfront Park.

Over the first six months of last year, we basically brought on 23 new staff who are our landscape maintenance and public safety team, along with management group who are now overseeing all the aspects of maintenance and public safety on the waterfront.

You can see here, this is one of my favorite pictures.

This is one of our images, one of our events at Pier 62. That space, if you haven't been there, has just become a magnet for all kinds of very interesting cultural events.

We're blessed to have a very strong partner in Friends of Waterfront Seattle, who are our programming lead and are helping to fund the community coming together in that space.

Just some of the key aspects.

I mentioned the major roles that Seattle Center is playing there.

We also work, as you would imagine, very closely with the Office of Waterfront and Civic Projects, and our team, our longtime partners there.

Friends of Waterfront Seattle on daily programming.

We do have an important oversight committee that was created by the Seattle City Council and the mayor called the Central Waterfront Oversight Committee, which is committed to ensuring the city does a great job of maintaining this new waterfront.

And you can see some of the other key partners who are part of that partnership.

One very unique thing about this waterfront is that in addition to state, city funding, private philanthropy, we also have a waterfront local improvement district, which is an assessment of downtown property, which is supporting about $160 million of the capital cost.

So they also have a seat at that table to ensure that the project is well managed.

I have a question before we move on.

Is that part of the 12% that is listed under the waterfront park, 7.8 million?

I mean, where is that listed on the source of revenue?

That slide was talking about operating costs.

And so revenue sources on this page that I'm looking at, where is that?

The numbers I was just quoting in terms of the LID and the philanthropy are part of the capital.

So we have 160 million LID and 110 of philanthropy on the capital side.

The Metropolitan Park District funds the operations of our maintenance and our public safety staff, along with a very generous five-year contribution from friends to support the public safety.

And we're operating under that funding model under a five-year agreement between Friends and Seattle Center and the Parks Department.

Got it.

And just for folks in the viewing public, the Metropolitan Park District Fund is paid for by Seattle property taxpayers.

That's correct.

Yes.

Thank you for that question.

And that's where I will end.

We're very excited.

2024, if my colleague Angie Brady were here, she would tell you this is the year of the waterfront.

We're gonna see a lot of the new park open this year and it will be completed in early 2025. So we're very excited to be partners in that.

And I'm gonna stop there.

Thank you for letting us walk through that, and we're happy to answer any questions.

I love it.

Thank you, Director Foster and Dematris.

Really appreciate your time today.

Also, I was visiting, and I noted this and told you all how incredibly impeccable the campus was, the cleanliness of it and the safetiness of it.

And just, you know, it just felt very...

incredibly manicured, and you spoke highly of your staff that know every square inch of that campus, and I think that really, really makes a difference, especially when people, you know, the Seattle Center's, and we talked about downtown being the front porch, and Seattle Center's included in that, and that's people's first impression of our city, I think really speaks highly to your commitment.

And we also talked about the affordability for young families and all of the free festivals that you all do to drive people there.

And then the youth engagement piece that you all are committed to as well and the learning and the connectivity and just really, really appreciated that, you know, that being one of your values.

And I would like to open it up to my colleagues if they have any questions.

And I see Council Member Kettle with his hand up.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

I have two questions.

Previously, just ahead of the school levy related to the stadium, I started engaging on the school, the stadium piece with your predecessor and others, primarily related to the memorial wall.

And now, I no longer do that with my VFW cover on, hat on.

I now sit here in the dais.

So I will ask, as a council member, you mentioned the Memorial Stadium.

Can you speak to the Memorial Wall piece of that?

Yes, Councilmember Kettle, thank you.

That's a great question, and I appreciated all your advocacy on behalf of the VFW in the early phases of this.

I'm very happy to say the memorial wall, I think, is not only preserved in the current vision, but is really elevated.

One of the things that the new design concepts focus on is how to really give that a place of honor and to improve on its current setting, which is essentially on the edge of the school district parking lot there, make it a gathering place, make it a central point of arrival to the new camp, to the new stadium, so that people can really appreciate the service and the history that that represents.

So again, the design is in process.

We will be back to talk about it in more detail.

But I think what you will see is that it is really elevated in its prominence as a place of honor for the Memorial Wall.

Thank you for that.

I appreciate that.

It's very important.

Secondly, with my district hat on, You know, this briefing is great.

A lot of big pieces.

Obviously, I've been down there a million times.

I know the different parts that you're talking about.

And we have these big things going on.

But sometimes it's the little things.

And so I just want to channel one of my constituents, an elderly lady, who prior to the pandemic would go to the armory.

I believe it was the armory.

And there was like a senior's dance event or opportunity there.

which was very popular with the seniors.

It was a great way to have, you know, some cultural life enrichment, which is really important for our elderly in terms of, you know, to combat isolation and the like.

And, you know, I recognize with the pandemic, a lot of things ended and some things haven't restarted.

But in the focus of all the big things, I think it would be great to also look at some of the little things in terms of what we can bring back for the Seattleites.

And so I just throw that out on behalf of Dolores Rossman is her name.

And, you know, use it as an example of like little things that we could do for Seattleites.

Thank you very much for that.

And it's funny that you bring that up because one of our senior guest services staff who's been with the Seattle Center for a long time, worked every corner of the campus, actually brought that up with me recently as well.

And I think there's a rich history of a lot of different public programs at the campus, some of which frankly have have stopped because of funding.

And so one of the things we're very interested in is how can we be a little more entrepreneurial if there are places where we can grow revenue?

Can it allow us to bring some of these things back to do new things?

And we're happy to look at, you know, if there's opportunities to bring that that event back.

That was a much beloved part of what we used to do in that when it used to be called the Center House, what we used to do there.

So thanks for sharing that.

Great.

Thank you.

And that leads me to a quick question before Councilmember Rivera.

Can you, and I forgot the stats, but could you share with us the percentage of people that are in Seattle that utilize the Seattle Center, people within King County?

And I think you gave me stats.

I can't remember.

And it's off the top of your head.

It's fine if you don't have it.

And it's off the top of my head too, but I'm pretty sure I will get this right.

And I know Mark Jones, who oversees our partnerships, will correct me if I get it wrong.

50%.

in Seattle, 25% regional, and then 25% more broad than the region.

Perfect.

Just to give you a rough sense.

Thank you.

That was good, because I would have got that wrong.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera?

Thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth.

I want to thank you both for this great presentation.

It's really exciting to hear all the things that are happening at the center.

I think we've all been there a million times, as Councilmember Kettle said, and have really enjoyed many parts, all the parts that the center has to offer.

I also, it's exciting to hear you're now at Seattle Center having worked so, you know, done so much work at the waterfront.

So thank you for your work to make the waterfront in partnership with the Friends of the Waterfront the reality that it is today.

It is really exciting.

And it's really great to see this point of connection between the Seattle Center and the waterfront.

rather than have two separate things.

So really I had not realized that now the Seattle Center was gonna be doing that point of oversight.

So that's really great.

I do have a quick question about Festal in terms of revenue.

I know that it had been receiving some ad tax from the arts department.

And I wondered if that was still the case or if that has been shifted out of your budget.

That is correct, and Dematris, feel free to jump in here if any of this doesn't sound right, but I believe we have about $700,000 in the current budget from the admissions tax, which is supporting the Festol program.

Sounds correct.

Yeah.

We can get you a precise number for that if you'd like.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Council President Nelson.

Two compliments.

Number one, on the reboot of Bumbershoot, I was not able to go this past year, but I was proud to support the youth program as a budget item the past couple years.

And to all, for everything I hear, it's fabulous, great new production company running it.

Name escaping me, but some legends.

So thank you for that.

And also the winter, what did you call it, the winter market?

Winterfest.

the winter market, this past year.

Oh, and the Christmas market, yes.

Yeah, the Christmas market.

I understand that there was some grousing about the admittance fee, but I'm assuming that that revenue was important, and that was an added benefit, I think, a great use of space during this past, you know, during the holiday season, so thank you for that.

I got a lot of Christmas presents there.

Anyway, I have a question.

You went through the marketing, and it's clear that there's a certain look to the materials, and I...

I don't need to know if that's in-house or out-of-house.

I'm assuming that there is a company that you work with, but is there any partnership with Visit Seattle?

Obviously, they generate revenue from hotel stays, but they market the whole city of Seattle and Seattle Center and the market and the waterfront being so central to our identity.

I was wondering if there was any kind of work together, aligning of messaging or any way of, yeah.

Yeah, thank you, President Nelson.

A couple of different things.

We do work closely with Visit Seattle.

We have a great partnership between our marketing team and their marketing team, and we do look for every opportunity to coordinate, collaborate with them.

They're not directly, you know, funding any of that work or vice versa, but we're part of that kind of tight-knit group of people in the convention visitors visit Seattle who are all looking at how we are telling Seattle's story and bringing people not only to the campus, but to the larger downtown.

You know, one thing we're trying to think of Seattle Center as is part of downtown and make us, you know, central to how we're helping support this recovery of the whole, you know, visitor sector of our city.

And so those relationships have gotten even more important over the past year or two as we're working so hard on recovery.

I do also just want to...

sort of stand up what you brought up about Bumbershoot and recognize New Rising Sun, which is the new leadership of that organization.

And I wanna thank the council for, you've supported the Bumber Works program, which is a youth development and apprenticeship program, workforce development program that they lead, which is focused on BIPOC youth, which has been extremely successful in growing youth into what we're doing with Bumbershoot.

I mean, it was incredible to see you know, the folks they were able to bring in and make part of the festival this year.

We were very happy with the feel of the festival.

It felt accessible.

It felt open to the community.

It was super different than what it used to be when it was just about the music.

And we're lucky to now be able to grow that Bumper Works program, thanks to some funding that is in this year's budget.

So just wanted to recognize that.

We do use an outside party for the marketing materials you saw, but they work closely with our graphics team as well.

So it's all very, very connected.

And they've worked with us for a long time.

You've probably seen this has been our look for some time and it's worked well, so.

Nice.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Chair and Demetra.

It's great to meet you.

Director Foster, it's always a pleasure.

Colleagues, I'm going to take us in the way back time machine.

Five years.

So February 14th, 2019, the viaduct was still standing.

The tunnel had just opened.

Climate Pledge was not quite under construction.

Construction was about...

Yeah, you're right.

It was getting started, but we weren't through it yet by any stretch.

Yeah, because I remember going to view it, the construction hole, while we were in the pandemic.

It was my first site tour during the pandemic.

The waterfront was...

Again, the viaduct was still standing.

Memorial Stadium was still an unknown ball of wax.

KCTS building was same situation.

We didn't know where it was going.

The monorail didn't run as frequently as it does today and did not accept ORCA passes.

And let's see if I had any other notes.

I mean, oh, but also Seaskate, the skate park that was at Climate Pledge Arena, what is now, had to be moved.

Thomas Street was just an idea of a pedestrian corridor.

say all of these things because in five short years, our city has transformed on both the waterfront and at Seattle Center because just with Climate Pledge Arena opening, that vitality that you were talking about, Council Member Chair Hollingsworth, is that same vitality that I feel that maybe didn't exist 10 years ago and no fault of anyone, but having our Coliseum, Key Arena, Climate Pledge Arena being as, I mean, I loved going to concerts at Key Arena because you could hear the song four times bouncing off the walls and the acoustics are so much better now.

But I guess I don't have a question.

I'm just making a point that in this short term, we have really turned a corner in a big way.

And I just want to thank you, Director Foster.

Thank you, Director Nellems.

Because some of my favorite memories in life are at Seattle Center.

I survived the Nisqually earthquake there.

I've seen everyone from Big Boy to Tribe Called Quest and so many others.

You know, going to Children's Theater for acting classes as a youth and so many other things.

It's just, it really is the heartbeat.

And we didn't even talk about that there's a school there.

So I just thank you, Director Foster, for all of the leadership that you've provided.

I mean, you've been central to the downtown activation plan, even though you're adjacent to downtown.

And thank you for teeing up some of these conversations about the budget, because in next week's budget meeting, we're going to be going through some of these different revenue sources and taking a high-level look at what the trade-offs are.

Because, I mean, in short, yes, we might...

we could either not have an entry fee to the Christmas market, but that would require more general fund, right?

Or, and we'll save the budget conversation for next week.

Really great to see you, Director Foster.

Oh, and I know that it wasn't all just on your own.

Angela Brady, Angie Brady, amazing.

So many people.

Joshua Curtis.

So many people.

Yeah, it's been incredible to see, like you said, how much has happened, Council Member, and so many people.

We actually joke about the party that needs to happen.

around all these things to get people together to, like, actually be able to break bread and recognize this, because it's an incredible lineage of people.

Not just city staff.

I mean, city staff, organizations, partners, people out there in the community who've been fighting to make it happen.

And I will just say, because I can't resist, all the things that you just alluded to, I'm excited to come back to, you know, as we get deeper into this work together and talk about the future Seattle Center and how we're gonna position it for its future and how we're gonna set it up for long-term success, both in terms of budget, but also how we're managed and how we embrace some of these projects and opportunities to reinvest in access in youth, in how we get that sense that people always have a place where they feel welcome, where they belong.

And the city can be entrepreneurial and can leverage those partnerships to reinvest in that thing.

So I don't want to go on too long, but I'm very excited.

It's really a great moment for Seattle Center right now.

Amen.

And I know for me personally, when I got to work with you, working with Tiffany Malake was so crucial.

She really is the glue that keeps everything together.

I'll make sure and share that with her.

Thank you.

And last question, in your presentation, you talked about revenue from parking.

And I know that we are shifting to where there are different transportation models.

And I was curious how many people are coming to the Seattle Center?

What is their transportation means?

And when we are shifting people out of cars, how does that affect your overall revenue?

That is a great question.

I will tell you, it's a very double-edged thing for us.

Because yes, as part of the city family, we're in the business of encouraging, take the monorail, take transit, you know, walk to campus.

We're so fortunate to be at a very urban campus with great access.

We have Sound Transit 3 coming and bringing light rail.

At the same time, the way that we have set up Seattle Center is we are very much relying on the revenue from our parking structures.

The key thing is that we try to make sure that revenue is not at the expense of access.

So how do we strike that balance?

And I won't pretend that it's an easy one because we are, I think, especially with budgets, looking more and more at those revenue sources.

But we have to start thinking of new ideas.

You know, if we move more towards transit, you know, we need people to not drive as much.

So we're going to have to, at some point, really look at that question.

Understood.

Okay.

Well, that's good.

And then Councilmember Kettle.

Sorry, my esteemed colleague at the other end highlighted all those going through all those historical pieces is that I went through all those too.

But when I was on the board of the Queen Anne Community Council, which was a reminder to highlight how important it is for Seattle Center to continue to work with all the various neighborhood organizations to get that insight, to give the insight but also gain insight.

You talk about transportation, there's transportation issues, obviously with Mercer and Denny, and there's a lot of things that play into that.

We're going to start up a District 7 Neighborhood Council.

And so I just encourage you to continue to work with the Queen Anne Community Council, Uptown Alliance, Southlake Union Community Council, and Belltown.

Don't forget Belltown on the southern border there to encourage that outreach.

Because you know what?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

A little engagement with these neighborhood community organizations will really pay off, as what we've seen with the port, too, with our NAC community.

you know, the neighborhood advisory council that the board has with Magnolia and Queen Anne.

So it pays dividends.

Thank you.

We will definitely make sure and continue to focus on that aspect of what we do.

I just want to highlight what Council Member Kettle said.

We've received a couple emails from the Uptown Alliance, and one thing that I'd never thought about before was the fact that when people are going to Climate Pledge, they are depositing things in the garbage cans going in and recycling in and out of the campus.

And so, you know, for your committee, I mean, it's just those tiny little things about how are we maybe increasing pickup along those arterials or whatever.

So, yeah.

That is a key thing.

You know, one thing that happened, Uptown has always been such a an important area for kind of making sure we're managing the impacts from big campus events, because it's so right there along with Queen Anne and everything around us.

We actually set up a kind of regular community coordinating role and an ombud position on the campus, which is focused on really making sure not only are we doing a good job of managing trash, managing all the things that happen around large events, but that Climate Pledge Arena and the other big big players on campus are doing that.

So that's now become a tradition.

I think we have a pretty strong foundation of relationships there that we're continuing to reinvest in as we go forward.

And just when it leaves the campus.

Yes, no, very much.

This is very much about the neighborhoods around the campus.

Yep.

Awesome.

Does anyone have any more questions?

If there are none, we will move to adjourn this meeting.

This concludes our Valentine's Day, February 14th meeting of Parks, Public Utilities and Technology Committee, also known as PUT.

Our next committee meeting is scheduled on Wednesday, February 28th at 2 p.m.

And if there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

Thank you.

Hearing none, no further business.

It is 3.38 and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.