Committee on Economic Development, Technology, and City Light 8/9/23

Good morning, everybody.

The August 9th, 2023 meeting of the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee will now come to order.

It is 9.31.

We've got quorum.

I'm Sarah Nelson, chair of this committee.

Our vice chair and Council President Juarez has asked to be excused today, so will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Chair Nelson.

Present.

Four present, one excused.

Thank you very much.

So we've got three items on our agenda today.

First, a briefing discussion and possible vote on a City Light Whatcom County Impact Payment Agreement Ordinance.

A briefing discussion and possible vote on a City Light Electric Vehicle Charging Station Leasing Ordinance.

And then finally, a briefing and discussion on an ordinance to renew the Ballard BIA.

Are there any objections to the agenda?

Seeing none, the agenda has been adopted, and we'll now move into our public comment period.

And we will start with the in-person commenters, and I'll call on speakers in the order in which they signed up to speak.

Speakers will have two minutes, and then we'll move on to remote callers.

If you're there, remember to press star six before you speak to be unmuted.

Okay, our first two speakers will be Mark Craig and Roger Lawrence.

Go ahead, please.

Step on up to the microphone, please.

Good morning, City Council.

Is that mic on?

It should be.

Yes.

Go ahead.

Good morning, City Council.

My name is Mark Craig, and I am president of Henbart, a real estate development company that developed and owns the Ballard, the Commons at Ballard building, which is located within the BIA boundary.

I've engaged with the Ballard BIA since its inception and currently serve on its ratepayer advisory board.

As the owner of a mixed-use building in Ballard, which consists of 18,000 feet of retail, including a Bartell drugstore, over 20,000 feet of commercial, which has a corporate headquarters for a locally owned company, and 84 residential units, we are uniquely focused on ensuring the safety and well-being of our commercial and residential tenants, as well as helping to create a vibrant and thriving environment for our tenants to reside.

The Ballard BIA has been an invaluable partner in helping us do that.

2021 was a particularly challenging year for us, with the encampment that resided in Ballard Commons Park immediately across from many of our residential units.

Public safety challenges increased throughout the year.

However, the BIA, through its partnership with REACH, was able to establish relationships with park residents, and through the partnership with the city, the BIA successfully advocated for resources for park residents, and over the period of several months, REACH was able to offer shelter and housing resources for the vast majority of Ballard Commons Park residents.

Since that time, the BIA has worked closely with Council Member Strauss, the Mayor's Office, and the Parks Department to reopen Ballard Commons Park, and beginning this month, construction of a new children's park where the park will begin.

As a BIA repayer, I was the first to sign my petition in support and was pleased to help secure support for other residential rate payers in the BIA as well.

I respectfully request your support for the BIA renewal.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I neglected to say that that ding means that you have 10 seconds left.

Good morning, city council members.

My name is Roger Lorenz, and I've had the privilege of serving on the Ballard Alliance Operations Board for several years, including co-president for two years in 21 and 22. I'm here today to ask for your support in the renewal of the Ballard BIA.

During COVID, the Ballard Alliance stepped up to help businesses in every which way.

Some of those ways include securing support of more than 25 artists to create inspiring murals on boarded up storefronts.

The organization also played a critical role in disseminating information and materials to support small businesses throughout the changing policy landscape during COVID.

The BIA also worked closely with the city, Ballard Small Businesses, and the Ballard Farmers Market to help negotiate an agreement that allowed street cafes and the market to coexist and thrive through the share use of a public right-of-way.

It also successfully advocated for a tunnel approach to light rail in Ballard.

This is a project that will transform the Ballard community in the coming years.

and these are just a few of them.

Throughout the first seven years of its life cycle, the Ballard BIA has created a strong track record of supporting Ballard residents, property owners, and small businesses.

The BIA's continual work, continued work is critical to the continued success of the Ballard neighborhood, and I'd like to request your support for the renewal of the Ballard BIA.

Thank you city council members for your time.

Thank you.

Our next two speakers are Tom Patrick and Gunther Swanson, please.

Go ahead.

Great.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for taking some time to come in and thank you for having us here.

My name is Tommy Patrick.

I own three businesses on Ballard Avenue.

I currently serve on the Ballard Avenue Landmark Board and I'm also one of the board of directors for the BIA.

I own three bars and restaurants and I wouldn't be here without the support of the BIA.

As the first person to have put up the outdoor dining structures in Seattle, spreading the different plans to all the different people around, having that ensured like cooperation and level of success throughout the entire scope of the pandemic.

I for sure wouldn't be up here speaking unless the BAA had reached out to me for different further success avenues to be able to make sure that my businesses were able to survive and thrive.

Ballard.

I'm sure that you all know did very well during the pandemic and it wouldn't be that way just because it wouldn't be that way without the continued support and the continued outreach and also the continued translation of policy.

I'm not a very big policy person myself.

I need help with all that different stuff.

And without that different layman's term translation to different like day-to-day business activities, I wouldn't be here right now speaking up in front of you.

It's been a huge benefit for other Ballard businesses as well, just because we get different check-ins from all these different people that want to come out and then be a part of what it is going on, like the day-to-day foot activities of the neighborhood.

And having, listening to all these different things that go on in this council chamber, without like that sort of like interaction with us, we for sure wouldn't have made it through the pandemic.

The continued support of the outdoor dining structures from Councilmember Strauss, the continued leadership from Mike Stewart and all of his different like people that work with him are very important to us as Ballard business owners.

I know that I speak for a lot of different people on that when we ask you to renew the BIA for us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Gretchen Swanson.

That's okay.

Thank you, Council Chair Nelson and Council Member Strauss for attending and everyone on Zoom.

My name is Gretchen Swanson.

I am a member of the Ballard Alliance Executive Board as well as the Ratepayer Advisory Board.

As a professional bean counter, I can assure you that we are excellent stewards of the money we're provided to do the great work that the Ballard Alliance does.

You'll be hearing more about some tangible things.

cleanup we do, the advocacy we make for our neighborhood in the council chambers.

I'd like to talk about some of the softer side.

We really create a wonderful neighborhood for our residents, for our visitors, for our business owners.

Ballard is a great place to be, a great place to do business, a great place to visit, a great place to live because of some of the wonderful things that the Ballard Alliance does.

The wine walk, the art walk, the Tompty Trail at the holidays, the Ballard Seafood Fest, the best free thing we have in Seafair season.

I'd just like to say that Seattle's a big city, and people can really feel like they're just a number somewhere, and the Ballard neighborhood makes you feel like you're really at home, and that is completely due to the Ballard Alliance.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And our last public speaker in person is Sheila Stickle.

Good morning, Chair Nielsen and members of the committee.

I'm Sheila Stikolai here.

I'm here to represent the National Nordic Museum and speak in support of the Ballard BIA renewal.

Originally founded to tell the story of Nordic immigration in the United States, the museum is the only museum in the nation to represent the history, art, and culture of the Nordic nations, which are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Åland, and is the cultural region of the Sami, which are the We are also a community resource where Nordic values of openness, equity, innovation, and environmental stewardship are celebrated.

One of the great enduring benefits of the Nordic Museum is the role it plays as a convener of Washington State and U.S.

Nordic countries working to continue to build economic ties, but also cultural bonds.

We have the opportunity to work closely with BIA on marketing and special events, and also in cultural placemaking and creating public art.

Additionally, the BIA is critical in ensuring that we have a clean and safe neighborhood for our visitors, which come from around the region and around the world, as incidents of intensive safety issues have arisen for us.

The BIA has been a very good partner.

They've been a link to the city, and they've also helped us identify solutions to some of those issues.

The Nordic Museum sees tremendous value in renewing the BIA for Ballard.

We're supportive of the assessment and we're grateful to have a true community partner that's working every day on behalf of Ballard.

Not only for our local businesses, but for our residents and behalf of the visitors that, like I said, come from all over.

So we encourage you to support the renewal.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right.

I am going to I do not see anyone signed up for our remote commenters.

That's correct.

OK.

So I officially closed the public comment period.

I do want to say that every two years council updates its council rules and I put forward an amendment to the council rules that will enable committee chairs to have the discretion to ask Seattle Channel to show public commenters to broadcast images.

So that will be changing soon.

So when you come speak next year, if you ever do, then your constituencies will be able to see you as you speak.

Okay, at least in my committee.

All right, let's move on to the first item on the agenda.

I am officially closing again public comment and will the clerk please call, read item number one into the record.

Agenda item number one, Council Bill 120636, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department, authorizing a 15-year agreement with Whatcom County, providing for payments for general and emergency law enforcement and other governmental services provided by Whatcom County to the city's Skagit Hydroelectric Project generation facilities and residents of New Hillim and Diablo, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

So, as you all know, Seattle City Light operates the Skagit Hydroelectric Project, which is in Whatcom County, and state law requires that City Light pay the county for services rendered by the county sheriff to protect city infrastructure and personnel at the project and the towns of New Halem and Diablo, including general law enforcement, emergency, terrorism, disaster response services, and others.

We currently have a 15 year agreement with Whatcom County, but that agreement is set to expire in December.

So this bill would extend the agreement by another 15 years.

We have representatives from Seattle City Light and central staff.

So would you please introduce yourselves and begin the presentation?

Good morning, council members.

My name is Jeff Wolf.

I'm the legal affairs advisor at Seattle City Light.

Good morning councilmembers my name is Angela Song I am the transportation electrification portfolio manager at Seattle City Light.

Good morning Chair Nelson and councilmembers thank you for hearing us today I'm Mike Haynes I'm the interim general manager and CEO for Seattle City Light and we've got two pieces of legislation here today and Whatcom County is first.

Good morning I'm Eric McConaghy I'm the council central staff.

Thank you go ahead.

Thank you, Councilmember Nelson.

So we're asking City Council to approve a 15-year agreement with Whatcom County for impact payments related to the services that they provide us and the cost that is related to having a hydroelectric facility up in their county.

Next slide.

Under the statute, we are required to have an agreement with Whatcom County to compensate them for the lost revenue and cost to maintain public peace, health, safety, and welfare attributable to CLC Light's operation of the hydroelectric project as required under RCW 35, 21, 420, and 425. Next slide.

Under the statute, under 420, it requires the city to pay impact payments if the following conditions are met.

The city has a population greater than 500,000 people, it owns and operates a public utility, and it owns facilities for generation of electricity located in a county other than in which the city is located.

RCW 3521.425 requires an agreement and continued payments after expiration of the agreement.

So if this council were to not approve this agreement that we're asking it to approve, we would have to continue making payments anyway under the old agreement.

But we are asking you to approve this agreement.

In this instance, the Skagit Hydroelectric Power Project is located in Whatcom County.

And just as a side note, we have another impact payment ordinance that was passed by city council two or three years ago with Pend Oreille County.

Both of those were not the first contracts.

These agreements have occurred over the years, and this is just a renewal, and so was Pend Oreille.

Next slide.

Under this contract, under the original contract in 2009, it was predominantly focused on having a sheriff's deputy and housing that sheriff's deputy and making sure the sheriff's deputy had a vehicle.

This contract or agreement is, it does start at 15% higher than the last payment that's being made in this year, 2023, but it also provides for additional services.

And those include having a sheriff's deputy on vacation.

So when the current one is on vacation, we'll have a substitute deputy.

It includes general emergency law enforcement services and also traffic services.

There's a highway that goes right by New Halem.

There'll be additional sheriff's officers available there to monitor transportation.

There also is coordination with the federal agencies for terrorism and natural disaster response, as well as a commitment to participate in training exercises and also access to a rescue helicopter.

We also currently have radio communications, but they need to be updated, and Whatcom County is going to provide support for that as well.

So this new agreement provides a fair amount of additional services than the old agreement.

Next slide.

So the 2024 payment is in the amount of $1,419,497.

That's really just calculated with a percentage increase, a 15% increase from the 2023 payment, and there's an agreement in there that it will increase annually by the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue-Washington 12-month percent change in the Consumer Price Index, with a caveat.

And because we had so much inflation this current year, we wanted to have some guardrails in place that the increase will be no more than 5 percent, and Whatcom County Wanted also to make sure that it'll be no less than 2%.

So we have those guardrails in place.

That summarizes the agreement.

It is attached to the materials that have been provided to you for your review.

We ask that you pass this ordinance.

And if I could just highlight, it's never more prevalent the need for emergency services than what we're dealing with right now with the Sourdough Fire.

So this agreement will ensure that those services will continue and actually be expanded for future disasters.

Well, you just made my point.

I was going to note that we We have a situation going on right now and I was going to ask if when we're finished with this, just a two second update on that on the fire up there.

But what other conditions have changed significantly since the last?

since the last contract?

Well, I guess it's a good question.

What I would say is that, number one, the threat, the evidence of threats to hydro facilities and generation facilities at large has increased tremendously over the last several years.

We've seen incidents at Tacoma Power substations, Puget substations.

The position of the Skagit project on a state highway creates vulnerabilities that some utilities don't have to deal with.

And so I think that's one element.

And a lot of that comes to training for my staff up at Skagit, the staff here in Seattle.

And Whatcom's been very forthright in their desire to coordinate more with us locally, have more of a presence there.

A lot of vehicle traffic, a lot of things like that, especially in the summertime.

And it's one deputy, it's a lot for one deputy to maintain.

I think just an escalation of their emergency services, their training, and their support during disaster and emergencies is going to benefit us tremendously.

Thank you.

Do my colleagues have any questions?

I'm looking at the screen here.

Chair, not really.

I mean, this is really straightforward.

We have city facilities a very long distance from the city of Seattle, right?

So this is really just common sense information.

I know, Chair, you mentioned we'll get into the Sourdough Fire in just a moment, but it sounds like right now, it's my understanding, New Halem is fire camp, and we've got probably more people camped out there since the dams were built.

Yeah, it's probably larger than the construction town.

It's getting close to 400 firefighters that we're camp, allowing camp space, allowing administrative support in our two of our buildings and they've got camps at both New Halem and Diablo plus are using our we have two heliports and they're utilizing those as well.

What is the current risk to infrastructure?

Pardon me?

What is the current risk to city infrastructure and personnel?

Well, just as I was sitting here, we got notified by WSDOT that they're actually reopening the highway east of New Halem.

So I think that's good news.

Yesterday, Council Member, or Chair Nelson, I think I told you that we energized Diablo Powerhouse.

It's been down for several days.

So that's good news.

That means we have transmission available back to Seattle now for the first time in several days.

We still got some work to do to get Ross Powerhouse in service and some work to do that the firefighters are helping us with.

So the threat to our infrastructure has been contained or been pushed out and the fire seems to be moving.

And I'm sure that's part of what gives WSDOT confidence to open the highway to visitor traffic.

So that's all good news.

We're very cautiously optimistic, I would say.

And if you want to take more questions on Sourdough specifically, I'd be happy to answer those too.

So.

Thank you for that.

I think that we should, we've got a fairly full committee.

So I think that we should go ahead and proceed if there aren't any other questions from council members.

Not seeing any.

Hearing no questions, I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 12036. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the Council Bill.

No further comments, I see.

So will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 12036. 120636.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Chair Nelson.

Aye.

Four in favor, zero opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass council bill 120636 will be forwarded to the city council for final consideration at the next council meeting on Tuesday, August 15th.

All right, thank you very much.

I believe that you're all staying for the second presentation.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record.

Agenda item number two, Council Bill 120637, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department, authorizing the department to lease real property to and from private parties for the purpose of installing and operating electric vehicle charging stations and supporting infrastructure, amending section 21.49.130 of the Seattle Municipal Code and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

So, one in four vehicles on Seattle streets are electric, and that is the good news.

However, there is a there's a dearth of electric vehicle charging stations everywhere in convenient enough places to really encourage people that the switch from gas to an electric vehicle will be fairly seamless and non-impactful.

So I've been advocating for building out our network in some way possible since I was elected.

And that's difficult because those charging stations are very expensive.

So that requires some creative thinking and also some opportunities for public private partnerships.

So this ordinance authorizes City Light to lease department owned property to third parties and to lease property from third parties for the purpose of installing and operating electric vehicle charging stations.

And if we go forward with this legislation, City Light expects to install some 10 to 20 projects in the next couple of years with more to follow.

Again, we have a presentation, so would you please go ahead and begin.

All right, good morning, council members.

Today we're going to be discussing this proposed ordinance, and it's really to help us scale and accelerate publicly accessible EV charging installations.

And as a reminder, in 2020, city council actually approved the City Lights Transportation Electrification Strategic Investment Plan.

And earlier this year, we were able to come back and share our progress and accomplishments since your approval.

And we're really at this juncture now, as Chair Nelson said, we're at this juncture where we really need to start deploying and scaling our publicly available charging stations to meet the current demands of electric vehicles on our roads and in our service territory.

Next slide, please.

So just to recap here, City Light is seeking new authority to enter into private lease agreements to install and operate electric vehicle charging stations, and we really intend to use this in the two ways.

The first way is to lease private property from businesses so that we can operate City Light-owned chargers.

And the second is to lease City Light-owned property to other electric vehicle charging station providers.

Next slide, please.

So we are seeking this authority because City Light is really seeing this increase of electric vehicles on the road.

Currently, we're seeing about a 22.9% growth rate of new vehicle sales as well.

So it's really City Light's responsibility to stay ahead of the electrical capacity needs for electrification at large.

And this role is really outlined in the City of Seattle's transportation electrification blueprint as well.

So in 2018, City Light actually launched our very first public charging pilot.

Our objective was to fill in the charging network gaps and to really site our charging locations based on community feedback.

And so this proposed legislation is really in support of both of these objectives and meets the, and addresses the challenges that we found while deploying deploying charging during this pilot.

So we'd like to lease private property to build more EV charging stations.

During our community engagement phases, we found that communities really want us to locate these chargers in places where they're already visiting.

So we're thinking like grocery stores, for example.

We actually found it really difficult to negotiate terms with the property owners who are still trying to identify the value of hosting these charging stations on their property.

So this proposal would also allow us to lease City Light-owned property to other EV charging providers.

This really supports our objective to fill in the charging network gap and really enables us to install more charging stations in our service territory.

So for the city to meet its climate goals, we really need these public-private partnerships to scale.

And just a note here, as of July 2023, there's an estimated about 1,100 charging points in our territory.

In 2022, City Light actually completed a study, an electrification assessment to really help us understand where we need to go.

And that report found that we need about 8,000 charging ports by 2030. So we have a little ways to go.

Next slide, please.

So we're expecting nominal budgetary impacts from this leasing ordinance.

As City Light and other EV charging providers actually install more charging stations in our state, we can generate a credit via the Clean Fuel Standard Program.

This program allows City Light to generate a credit based on the carbon intensity of our fuel and the utilization of our chargers.

This is a statewide initiative already and there's these credits that we generate actually have to be spent on transportation electrification and will further our ability to invest in charging infrastructure and the grid to support it.

Next slide, please.

Great.

So this slide covers a few items that are included in the ordinance.

Any agreements that we enter into actually must be used for EV charging for the term, for the duration of the contract.

And we anticipate installing about 10 to 20 projects over the next two years and really excited to scale that up.

And the agreements that we're seeking will essentially be up to 84 months.

Next slide, please.

So in closing, this proposal really supports the City Light's climate commitments and the lessons learned during our pilots.

We're really interested in leveraging these public and private partnerships to scale our investments in charging stations in our service territory.

And with your support, we can meet the needs and wants of our community groups who are expecting City Light to provide strategic siting locations for this new era of transportation.

I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I have a couple of really basic questions, which is how much space do you need for a charging station?

How much land would you need to be leasing?

And also, how much do these charging stations cost ballpark?

And I'm just talking about the hardware, not the installation costs or the electricity.

Great.

So for the parking, it's similar to a regular vehicle parking space.

So it doesn't necessarily take up more space than a regular vehicle.

But right now, the way that we're kind of rolling out the charging infrastructure, we're installing about two chargers per space, so I would say two vehicle spots.

We're seeing a lot more alignment with NEVI funds, so that's the federal standard and funding that's coming out, and they're actually seeking four more charging stations.

So we'll probably start moving in that direction as we're starting to see that growth in our service territory.

And then your next question was the cost for installing charging?

No, it was just basically, In general, if one were to go out and buy a charging station, how much is that?

Oh, okay.

Because you, City Light did put charging stations on public property over the past few years, so.

Correct.

So for this leasing ordinance, we're really talking about DC fast charging stations.

So they're a little bit more expensive because they deliver more speed versus the level two chargers, which are a little bit less expensive.

So we're finding insulation, So just for the hardware, it's probably anywhere between $50,000 and $75,000.

Inflation probably bumps that up just a little bit more, though.

Thank you very much.

I mean, the point being that we, the city, doesn't have the resources to actually purchase all of these charging stations, so we do need.

That is what the value of providing our own property, City Light property, to have a company install theirs.

Go ahead.

Yes, that's correct.

And I think also another point is with all of the grant funding coming out from the state and the federal government, we can't capture all of that at one time.

So we really need to think about these partnerships in order to get those resources here and meet the demand in our territory.

Got it.

And how are you prioritizing locations on private property?

And I imagine that you will be putting out an announcement, inviting, but when you're scouting around at these locations, how are you prioritizing where you're going to invest your resources?

Yeah, great question.

So it's really been around our community engagement.

Traditionally, we've been connecting with local neighborhood groups, community organizations, and trying to get their feedback on where they would like us to site these chargers.

So once we collect that information, we then go out and talk to the private businesses and try to negotiate those terms.

So it's all based on community feedback that we're receiving right now.

Okay, and I do see Councilmember Herbold's hand up, but just one second, please.

I will say that I did attend the opening of the EVGO chargers last year, and they were located in a, in the parking lot of a, I hate to say strip mall, but a collection of locally owned independent small stores, and that did You know, I think that there is an economic development aspect here because people want to charge where they will be doing something else with that time.

And so it could also, I think that keeping that in mind if, as these locations are chosen, could help those small businesses in the neighborhoods as well.

Council Member Herbold.

I just want to get a handle on the big picture plan for EV charging.

I understand that what we're talking about today are the charging station locations.

And I'm also familiar with the city's curbside pole installed charging locations.

And so I'm just trying to get a sense of how do we make a decision between the two?

Just to guide us on how many stations we're seeking to develop and how many curbside locations we're setting as a goal, and sort of how we prioritize between the two, given that there are costs and opportunities associated with both approach.

Go ahead.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, we're really excited about the curbside pilot.

We actually received over 1,800 applications.

We did an opt-in process for that and received 1,800 applications.

So that was a great surprise and really tells the demand and the story here for the city of Seattle.

So this is, I think, where I would say, you know, for Seattle City Light as a municipal utility, we are interested in partnering really closely with the Department of Transportation and also rolling out our investments in the right-of-way.

Maybe I'll take a step back, actually.

So across the portfolio, there's a lot of different sectors that we're working on.

And so fleet electrification, multifamily is also kind of the main programs that we have out right now.

So I think for City Light, our role is really around partnerships with our sister departments, and then also expanding that curbside level to pilot.

We're actually just about to start some discussions with our department teams here to see what does phase two look like.

So we're really excited about that, and we know our constituents really want us to expand that.

This is why I will say this proposal is really important, because we can't do both, right?

There's a lot of charging infrastructure to cover.

And so this public-private partnership will really actually help us scale in some of the areas where the private market really wants to essentially deploy charging infrastructure at.

So we're hoping with a multi-pronged approach strategy here that we can focus on a lot of the city-owned properties and making sure we're good partners on that, and then also incentivizing the private market to come and install charging infrastructure here.

So it's a two-pronged approach.

Does that answer your question?

And not to focus too much on the curbside.

You said that there were 1,800 requests received in last year.

Did I hear that correctly?

And that's for the curbside?

So, during our opt-in process, you know, we were actually only installing about 30 sites.

So, you know, it's a small pilot.

It's the first time we're kind of deploying this type of technology and also installing public chargers in residential right-of-way.

So, we really wanted to make sure, you know, we have the technology right, we have the rates right, et cetera.

And so, yes, 1800 is the, the eligible applications that came in during that process.

So 1,800 applications, about 30 executed.

Correct?

30 sites.

So we will actually be installing 56 ports across the city.

Okay.

Do we have a goal for the curbside versus the more place-based charging stations?

So we're working with our departments now to come together and figure out what the second phase looks like.

I will say it was a little bit of a surprise for us to think that we would get 1800 applications and support of this.

So now that we're kind of finalizing the construction of this first phase, we're starting to come together to figure out what that strategy looks like.

So more to come.

Okay, thank you.

I mean, I just think it's an important question to grapple with.

when, you know, about the idea of setting targets for the different approaches so that we, as folks who are, uh, you know, sort of guardians of, uh, of public assets and public funds.

Um, we really know that the, um, the investments are being guided by, um, a planning process that considers, um, all the different approaches to accomplish the goal.

Thank you for those questions.

Are there any others?

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Angela, it's always great to see you.

Whenever I see you, I know that we're here to talk about the future.

And for colleagues who it might not be as easy to see with all of the questions that were just asked about cost, applications, number of locations, Angela, you didn't check your notes.

That was all mental recall.

And I think that that speaks to your depth of knowledge in this field.

It's really quite exciting because as the chair noted, we've got a quarter of vehicles on the road right now that are electric vehicles.

We're going to see that number increase.

And as we move into an electrified world, this is going to be key.

This will be essentially the gas stations of the future.

And as we move in transition into this, We have to test new things because we won't have the final answer just when we first set it up.

And so I think the number of applications that we've received speaks exactly to that.

Your legislation that you have before us right now is important because it gives us some of that increased flexibility.

And I'm just really excited.

I'm glad to have you leading this charge.

No pun intended, Chair.

The, you know, I will say I was having office hours a couple weeks ago and somebody, and I don't know that this was a City Light charger, it probably wasn't, but they had pulled up to a charger and they went to pull the charger, you know, but somebody had clipped the cord right at the base of, the unit, you know, everything was still there.

They pulled up like they didn't realize it.

And you might not have the answer to this, but, and it might be too technical or too much of a late question, but is it possible just to have a retractable wires, you know, like, like, or am I too far off base here?

Yeah, no, that's a great question.

Well, thank you.

Just to start off, thank you.

I think, you know, I'm able to do this job because of the leadership here at Seattle City Light and being able to be, you know, creative on the solutions that we're rolling out.

Maybe to address that, Vandalism question, I will say it's a new thing that we're seeing across the industry.

It's not just here at Seattle City Light.

We're seeing it across the nation as well.

And I've been speaking to my fellow colleagues in the same space to try to address what we're seeing.

So for the DC fast charging stations, the cord is actually a lot thicker.

So there is not a recoil technology right now.

But for the curbside level 2 chargers that we're installing, they actually do have a recoil technology.

So it's essentially a garage.

garage gear in it, and so when you tap or activate the charger, it'll drop down, and then once it's done, it'll pull back up.

So we're starting to talk to manufacturers about whether they can do that for the DC fast charging stations.

They're a little bit, you know, slower behind us, but we're starting to kind of advocate for that type of technology in order to address the situation that we're seeing now.

better answer than I would have expected.

For the DC chargers, those are mostly in parking garages or on private property, is that correct?

Or are we looking to put DC chargers on the city streets?

So actually they're currently, we have a few located in the right-of-way already.

So that was the pilot that I was speaking to.

It was our first time working with the department.

Seattle Department of Transportation created a permitting process in order to start installing right-of-way chargers.

So most of the other private entities in our service territory are partnering with private organizations in order to install the chargers.

So that's kind of where you'll see, you know, like Banks, for example, is one of the locations that we're starting to see a lot more chargers at.

Wonderful.

I'm excited to vote in favor of this legislation.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Got a lot of pent-up demand, clearly.

All right, Eric, do you have anything to add?

No, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay.

Well, seeing no other questions from colleagues, I move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120637. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the Council Bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120637?

Chair Nelson?

Oh, yes.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I will be voting yes on this legislation.

I just wanted to make a few points.

In slides two and three in the presentation, it was talked about releasing property to install City Light-owned charging stations and allowing private charging stations to install private charging stations on City Light property.

Also, there's been lots of conversation today about related Topics and I'm a little concerned by this presentation because I want to be clear that I think the charging stations on city property should be publicly owned by city light.

I fully agree that increasing the number of charging stations in Seattle is a priority.

There are more and more electric cars on the road, more charging stations along with federal subsidies.

So it has now become possible for working class people to buy electric cars.

Yes, most electric cars are still expensive luxury models, but that is changing.

And because there are more charging stations, we can see the difference between private chargers and City Light's public chargers.

Right now, City Light charges significantly lower rates than the private chargers in the same way that City Light provides cheaper and more reliable electricity to people's homes than private for-profit utilities.

This is, of course, no surprise because the for-profit chargers and utilities need to generate profits for their major shareholders.

I want to be clear, as I said, I'm supporting this bill, allowing City Light to contract to build chargers on private property is necessary because it is a significant convenience for people to be able to charge their vehicles while they shop for groceries and run other errands.

City Light should eventually own and operate charging stations in every large grocery store parking lot in the city.

However, I urge City Light to use this authority to establish publicly owned charging stations not give sweetheart deals to private and for-profit energy companies.

And to be clear, I do not accept that City Light is unable to make them all publicly owned.

City Light is a billion dollar utility.

It is a question of political will.

A hundred years ago when City Light was formed as a public utility, they could have privatized and if they had, working people in Seattle would be today paying much more for electricity than they do.

I think City Light owes it to future generations to invest in public charging stations.

In reality, the actual text of this legislation does not advocate for having private charging companies build, sorry, for-profit charging companies build chargers on city-like property, which makes me a little perplexed by the focus on that in this presentation.

I hope that none of this will be an attempt to prepare a narrative for privatizing public charging stations in the future.

But in terms of the actual legislation in front of us, I support it and I'll be voting yes.

Thank you, Council Member, we take your comments to heart, and thanks very much for the feedback.

Thank you very much.

Okay, the legislation has been moved and seconded, and will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120637. Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Chair Nelson.

Aye.

Four in favor, zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass council bill 120637 will be forwarded to the city council for final consideration next Tuesday, August 15th.

All right, thank you very much for the presentations and the legislation today.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record.

Agenda item number three, council bill 120634, an ordinance relating to Ballard business improvement areas, establishing a new 12-year business improvement area to be known as the Ballard Improvement Area, levying special assessments upon owners of commercial property, multifamily residential property, and mixed-use property within the area, providing for the deposit of revenues in a special account and expenditures therefrom.

providing for collection of and penalties for delinquencies, providing for the establishment of a ratepayer advisory board, providing for an implementation agreement with a program manager, disestablishing the existing Ballard Business Improvement Area that was established by Ordinance 125151, the 2017 BIA, Suspending the issuance of assessments and providing for the continuity of services under the 2017 BIA, providing for the transfer of any remaining funds from the 2017 BIA account, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

For briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much.

So this ordinance is part of a package of legislation that renews the Ballard Business Improvement Area by winding down the existing BIA and establishing another one.

The package also includes three resolutions, respectively disestablishing the BIA and setting a public hearing.

stating intent to establish a new BIA in setting a public hearing and initiating the new BIA.

Those resolutions are procedural and necessary to allow the committee to take a normal consideration of the ordinance.

For example, the resolutions are set up set up a necessary public hearing, so the resolutions will go directly before full council next Tuesday.

They are on the IRC already.

That means this committee will hear and consider the ordinance today, but we won't take a vote on it until after we hold the public hearing at the next, until after the public hearing.

And so we'll continue this discussion on September 13th at our next meeting.

The current BIA is set to expire on December 31st of this year, and this ordinance would extend it by 12 years.

We will have a presentation from first the Office of Economic Development, and then representatives from the Ballard Business Improvement Area, but I'd like to frame this conversation a bit with some, just with some comments of my own.

Mike Stewart, you were going to introduce yourself.

But anyway, Fremont Brewing's production facility is located outside of the Ballard BIA boundaries.

But the BIA does have memberships from businesses throughout the neighborhood.

And so over the course of the years, we've been a dues-paying member of my family business.

And I've had occasion to go into attend many of your functions, your events, and I've seen up close your fierce advocacy for small businesses in the neighborhood.

And also, I've had an occasion to recognize all of, obviously many people here listening probably have attended the events.

And you're gonna go into the services that the BIA provides.

But I just wanted to say that, I've gotten to know you as someone who is deeply knowledgeable about the needs of small business, and so that is why, fun fact, the very first meeting that I had when I assumed office, a week into the job, was with you and Aaron Goodman, because I wanted guidance on how the city can better support small businesses.

So I say all of this because, as I was going through your materials that would be presented today, It wasn't your, what you bring to policy development, and when I'm saying you, I mean you, but also your whole team.

So what you bring to policy development here in the city isn't called out as explicitly or as concretely as it could be.

And so I'm saying this in case your rate payers are listening so that they know that the value, that there are things that you do and the relationships that you have that extend beyond what they might see directly within the neighborhood.

So I just wanted to.

to say I appreciate you being here and you've participated in the small business round tables one and two and et cetera.

So anyway, with all of that, I would like to begin the presentations and go ahead and introduce yourselves and begin the first one, please.

Good morning.

My name is Jasmine Marwaha with Council Central staff.

Good morning, Philip Sit here, Small Business Navigation Team from the Office of Economic Development.

Good morning, Mike Seward, Executive Director of the Ballard Alliance, and thank you so much, Chair Nelson, for the kind words and preamble at the beginning.

Good morning, I'm Tom Malone, and I'm Chair of the Ballard Alliance Rate Payers Board.

Chris Hackerman, and I'm on the Rate Payers Board.

Thank you very much.

I'll just go ahead and kick us off.

I was going to give an overview of the legislative process, but Chair Nelson, you did a beautiful job.

But I will only add that these process-intensive procedures were established by state law and city policy, which was adopted by Resolution 31657 in 2016. And again, as required by state law, the notice of the public hearing that is anticipated to be set for the next committee meeting on September 13th will be published in the Daily Journal of Commerce and mailed to all potential rate payers at least 10 days in advance of that public hearing once the resolutions, as mentioned by Chair Nelson, are adopted hopefully on Tuesday, August 15th.

And today we're hearing an initial presentation on the council bill.

And I will go ahead and turn it over to representatives from OED and the proponents to present the proposal.

Thank you very much, Jasmine.

We can advance to the next slide.

Let's just have everybody say their name first.

Excuse me.

Done that.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Councilmember.

So just a little bit overview, I think most of you guys have heard this particular presentation slide about we have 11 BIAs currently in our city, providing about $35 million in enhanced services.

Some of the public comments pertaining to kind of the you know nexus of small businesses and property owners funding kind of this self-determined model in order to navigate things that one would expect such as a pandemic or policies and kind of city departments.

I think one of the most interesting facts right now for our office is that in kind of as we're coming out of the pandemic we're as OED are working on a BIA expansion strategy.

A lot of our non-BIA neighborhoods have certainly taken note of the capacity that our business improvement areas were able to provide in a critical time.

But in terms of the revenue that's collected, the work plan and budget, that is overseen by our Office of Economic Development with support from Treasury Services.

Next slide, please.

I think Jasmine covered the majority of this already in terms of the formation process based on state RCW.

The petitions are required for 60% of weighted support based on the assessments and also the formulas determined by the BIAs.

The city departments provides our review and then it goes over to city council for consideration.

Next slide.

In recent years, we've been looking to expand the duration of these business improvement areas.

In particular, in the University District and in Ballard, they were set up for five to six years in duration.

We made a policy change internally to OED to give a little bit more runway for new BIAs to kind of hit their strides.

And also, we've established organizations that have a proven track record giving them a longer duration versus coming into council and the executive's office every five, six years for renewal.

So in this particular case, the Ballard BIA proponents were able to secure nearly 65% of support from their district for renewal and expansion.

Next slide.

Mike and the proponents will talk a little bit more in terms of the rationale and the motivation for boundary expansion, which is pretty typical for BIAs that have been around.

But we added, I believe, over 30 plus parcels in terms of this expansion based on public interests.

And one small tweak that we did make was there was a secondary service area, the Ballard Blocks campus.

That is going to have some modifications when it comes to the assessment rates, but that is a current service area for the current Ballard business improvement area.

Next slide.

Modest modifications to the specimen formula based on kind of just changing costs related to service delivery and also the composition of properties in the district.

The base formula is seeing some minor adjustments in terms of cost per lost career footage and also on total appraised value.

This is a component that OED works to support the BIA zone via MOU with the King County Department of Assessments.

We did adjust assessment ceilings for residential.

Mike will talk a little bit about that as the district has changed.

I believe in this particular petition about 68% of the support and budget is coming from residential multifamily.

There is inflation factors built in, but we are adjusting the residential ceiling to 130 per unit.

And this is applicable to apartments and condominiums with four units or more.

CPI adjustment to keep up with cost of inflation two to six percent that is the floor and ceiling on an annual basis and with other property based PIAs new construction are accounted for annually until they are at a hundred percent completion.

Also, updates similar to the mid-renewal and U-District, we made some policy changes a few years back to account for multifamily tax exemption buildings that are competing in the marketplace, not the commercial residentials that are managed by nonprofits.

Those language are all built into the ordinance for consideration.

Next slide.

Mike will also expand on this with his board members in terms of service delivery, but not anything dramatically different.

I think going back to the capacity aspects of our BIAs, you know, one, I want to say it's a fun fact, but looking at some of the foot traffic data from 2021, Ballard Avenue actually saw a modest increase from 2019. I mean, that just shows kind of the public realm improvements and helping small businesses navigate things in real time with public health.

with city departments and SDOT in our office.

But expansion of programming will be kind of covered by the proponent's presentation.

Next slide.

Budget breakout, the current base budget for the current Ballard Alliance is about $600,000.

This increase is reflected based on the combination of the assessment formula change and also the inclusion of new parcels in the district, getting us to closely nearly a million dollars in services for the first base year.

Next slide.

And in terms of the percentage breakout by buckets of investments, including the cost for the Ballard Alliance to manage the Ballard Improvement District, as the committee chair noted, the Ballard Alliance oversees the BIA as the program manager.

But while the services paid for by the BIA are exclusive to the boundaries, the Ballard Alliance, as the program manager, can provide support and connection points to businesses adjacent and outside of the boundary zones.

Next slide.

And that's the end of the Office of Economic Development portion of the presentation.

And we can defer to questions until the conclusion of the Ballard Alliance PowerPoint.

Before you go on, I do want to note that Brian Scott is a substitute presenter, and he is online here too.

So welcome.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Well, you've already had the benefit of a very nice presentation from Mr. Sitt and some public comments from some of our representative group from us.

And with me, of course, is Mike, as you've mentioned, and Chris.

And Chris represents a part of those residential units that have shown such growth in our area.

And the BIA does represent really all aspects of the and individuals within our district, that is residential, commercial, and property owners.

I think Tommy Patrick's presentation was also, I think, very good for us because as Philip pointed out, we survived very well during COVID.

And as chair of the board, I would like to praise our leadership here and Mike's in particular.

The reason that we, I think, thrived during the COVID area was in great deal measure to Mike's efforts in working with all of the people.

And I must say, we feel very, I'm pleased with our relationships with the council members in our area, Mr. Straus and working with him.

So I don't want you to hear too much from me.

We have a nice slide presentation here, but when we commenced this seven years ago, there was a group within Ballard that felt that Ballard had not been doing its job in working with the people within our community and also in our relationships with the city to try to make Ballard a better place.

And the BIA, we think, has taken a very strong position in enforcing and strengthening all of those relationships.

So we're really very pleased to be seeking reauthorization.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Tom.

If we can actually click forward, Stephen, just to the, let's go ahead and start with that video, which is on two slides from now, I think.

Chair Nelson and Councilmember Strauss and other Councilmembers, thank you so much for having us here today.

We're really excited to prepare this briefing for you.

We thought we would kick it off with, it's a short video, but in our view, it just really tells the story of the Alliance and what we've been doing.

So I think if we do that, we will be able to move through quickly with our presentation.

The Ballard Alliance is a non-profit organization that exists to work on behalf of our business owners, property owners, and our residents.

And we have a wide range of programs, everything from economic development and business attraction to marketing and promoting Ballard through our brand, visitballard.com, to providing a street cleaning service and homelessness outreach.

Our objective is to create an amazing experience for anyone who walks these streets in Ballard and dines at our restaurants or shops at our retailers.

Ballard Alliance has the marketing piece, the community piece, the health and wealth of the businesses in mind.

I feel very, very fortunate to be part of this.

The Alliance, I think, has been very effective in working with the city and with members of our community to start influencing policy while it's being made rather than reacting to it after it's being made.

It's great to have a central place where we as a community can talk, both as retailers and residents and landowners.

And the Alliance can work with people and crystallize those ideas so that we can get help from the city when we need it.

And the Alliance really helps us do that.

The Ballard Alliance also produces a number of events, from our monthly art walk, to a semi-annual wine walk, to an event that we've been doing since 1974, the Ballard Seafood Fest.

We put these events together to help not only support our businesses, but also provide a really great experience for our residents and the broader community as well.

If you love urban living but still want to be close to nature, Ballard's the place to be.

And really, the biggest impact the Alliance has had is really just being an advocate for the community.

It's just nice to know that there is a group that is dedicated to making life better for everybody in Ballard.

Terrific.

Thank you.

And if we can move back.

Well done.

Thanks, Chair.

Which slide would you like?

If we can go forward about three slides, I think.

All right, here we are.

I'd like to do a quick overview of the existing BIA.

Much of this was covered.

Current life cycle expires at the end of the year, 175 parcels.

Our rate payers are commercial and residential property owners within that district.

As you can see from the shaded areas in the map on the screen, it is essentially the core of Ballard, the core commercial area that includes historic Ballard, Market Street, lot of a significant portion of the multifamily residential, and then also in the lower right-hand corner, those are the two Ballard blocks parcels that are also part of the BIA.

Programs and services, you'll hear this repeated, there's not a lot of change coming there, just some expansion of programs that we'll be doing within each of these categories, but they are public safety and health enhancement, clean environment, business development and retention, advocacy, urban design and transportation, marketing and promotions, and management.

Next slide, please.

The Alliance at Work.

We wanted to take this moment just to give a quick recap of what we've been able to accomplish over the last seven years.

Next slide, please.

Clean streets.

We work with Uplift Northwest.

For those of you who are not aware, Uplift Northwest, formerly Millionaire Club Charity, is an organization that puts primarily unhoused individuals to work, gives them a job, gives them some extra resources and training.

And for us, developing that partnership was really a perfect marriage when we started our BIA to be able to bring that kind of institution and organization to bear.

to help keep our streets clean in Ballard.

So you can see the numbers there, 10,000 bags of trash over the life cycle thus far, 5,000 sharps collected in more than, or nearly 16,000 hours spent in total.

But in addition to that, our team works directly with the city, whether it's SDOT or Parks Department or others, on streets maintenance, tree maintenance, tree wells, park maintenance, and all of the above.

We were really excited with Seattle One Day of Service that began last year.

And in the lower left, you'll see a community painted mural that we completed as part of that project.

You'll see some other slides a little bit later from this year.

And then, of course, holiday lights.

We light Ballard Avenue and Market Street, 115,000 twinkling lights, and over 220 trees in the Ballard core.

Next slide, please.

From an economic development standpoint, we really do a lot of different things, and I'll just touch on a few of them.

Business recruitment and incubation.

For us, Ballard is uniquely independent, and we like it that way, and our business owners and residents love it that way.

So we do a lot of intentional work to identify businesses that might be a really great fit for Ballard.

We've done recruitment to at least 110 businesses, with the majority being either BIPOC and or women-owned.

We've successfully landed 13 of those.

We do some property business and market research.

We provide technical support and information, often in partnership with our friends at OED and other departments.

Public space activation, outdoor dining, holiday light, we've all kind of talked about this so far, and we will a little more.

Business-focused marketing events is key as well.

Next slide, please.

Quick pause on Ballard Blossom.

Ballard Blossom was sold pre-pandemic.

It had been a fixture on Market Street for years.

It was sold to a hotel developer, and they pressed the pause button during the pandemic in terms of development.

I will note it still has not redeveloped at this point yet, but we're hopeful for the future.

However, in that time, our team worked really closely with the property owner to identify this space as an opportunity for small business incubation.

Working with the property owner to set some lease terms that were extremely favorable, we were able to bring in, during the pandemic, some very small businesses that got their start there.

So you'll see Nomad Boxing in the lower right-hand corner.

We did some work.

My team, Devin Reynolds in particular, did an amazing job of securing artists to do murals on the outside of that particular building.

and bring those businesses in.

We're excited.

There were a number of businesses there, but three of those incubator businesses have now signed long-term leases nearby, many of which are in the Ballard core, which is really a great success.

Next slide, please.

Ballard Avenue Street Cafes, that was mentioned in public comment and mentioned previously.

You know, at the turn of the pandemic, when businesses were shut down, restaurants were very concerned.

And as most of us know, Ballard Avenue has a very thriving, as does Market and the rest of Ballard, a very thriving restaurant scene that not only supports their own restaurants, but supports the retail businesses that are adjacent.

working closely with the mayor's office, SDOT, Councilmember Strauss.

We worked closely with our businesses to negotiate a little bit of a partnership agreement with the farmers market that utilizes that space on Sundays.

and our business owners and the city to do a couple of things.

Allow for the expansion of those street cafes, allow for those street cafes to stay in place 24-7, which made it much easier for our businesses to thrive.

And then on Sundays, relinquish that space for use by the farmer's market.

So that really worked quite successful.

And we've been working very closely with the city on tweaks and redesigns of Ballard Avenue.

Councilmember Strauss, thank you for your leadership in particular in that arena.

And we've made some great changes thus far, and I think more are coming down the line.

Next slide, please.

Public art, our team has contributed directly to and indirectly to over $200,000 worth of funding for 47 different local artists, resulting in 21,000 square feet of public art in the Ballard core.

Those are not $200,000 from the Ballard Alliance.

Rather, every dollar that the alliance invested yielded $13 in either public grant support or private support.

So really a tremendous success rate.

Those are just a few examples of the buildings or murals that we've done.

And then in the upper, that's actually the pump house building at Ballard Commons Park.

And that was part of our Seattle One Day of Service event for 2023. Next slide, please.

Also hearkening back to the pandemic, when everything shut down at the very beginning, there was concern about safety.

There was concern about property damage.

Many of the businesses around Ballard and certainly around the city boarded up, and our team worked aggressively to identify 14 different artists who did 25 different storefront murals all throughout Ballard.

And it really created vibrancy, as the slide says here, while businesses were closed, and drew people to the neighborhood in a very safe way during the pandemic.

So next slide.

Homelessness outreach, Mark Craig in his testimony earlier talked about this, but we were the first neighborhood BIA to partner with reach and bring on an outreach worker to do Truly neighborhood based outreach and we're excited because this model has been Adopted in other parts of the city as well, and it was extremely effective.

So in Ballard Commons Park filled with individuals who were unhoused during 2021 It was it was a significant impact James Sizemore was our outreach worker at that time with reach and He developed key relationships with all of those individuals and had an understanding of where they were, what their needs were, what sort of illnesses or special needs they have, and then also had a good understanding of where they might be willing to go.

And so taking that knowledge and information and working with mayor's office, city council, parks department, human services, we were able to get the city to provide those resources.

And then James was able to work systematically throughout the months in the late days of 2021. to get the vast majority of those residents inside to shelter.

That was an amazing feat.

I think, again, Council Member Strauss, thank you for your leadership, because I know you ran those weekly meetings, and we appreciate your leadership on that, and really holding everyone accountable to getting this process done.

And the park was closed for a period of time.

And actually, if we could go to the next slide.

The rehabilitation was done throughout 2022 and then in March we did a grand reopening of Ballard Commons Park, which was really truly an amazing event.

The Alliance has been working closely with Parks Department on ongoing weekly programming with a number of businesses doing different events.

Our summer movie series kicked off last week and continues again every, actually the first four Thursdays in August.

And groundbreaking will be happening this month on the playground area in Ballard Commons Park, which is going to bring more kids, more families to this park and really activate that space.

Next slide, please.

Marketing and promotions, and Steven, I know, had another video, but I think we can, in the interest of time, I think we can just scooch on through, if that's okay with everyone.

We've done a series of promotional videos that highlight restaurants, that highlight retail, cultural opportunities, and also sort of a day in the life of a Ballard resident.

So our marketing arm is visitballard.com, and we use that to get people to Ballard, because that's what our businesses need and want, is they need more visitors.

helping our businesses actually improves the dynamic for our residents as well because they choose to live here because of all the great things that are happening in Ballard.

Next slide, please.

Can people access those videos at visitballard.com and at the Alliance?

At visitballard.com and then if you search visit Ballard on YouTube you can find it and you should be able to find it on Instagram as well.

Thank you.

This slide, we partner with Port of Seattle for some SeaTac spotlight ads.

So in the upper left, you'll see if you've traveled in the D terminal lately or this upcoming quarter, you'll see our ad, which is just kind of a fun play on, hey, you've visited Seattle, you've been to the Needle, you've been to Pike Market, why don't you come to Ballard next?

That should be the next checkbox for you to check.

We've had significant social media growth on both Instagram and Ballard Facebook.

We're also doing some more unique things, too, including the creation of an online map listing out the LGBTQIA plus owned businesses within Ballard, and you can see that highlighted on the right of the visuals.

Next slide, please.

Programs and events, art walk, sidewalk sale, hullabaloo, wine walk, cocktail trail, movies in the park, it's an important part of what we do, and it's about Events that help support our small businesses is about events that support our residents and finding you know So they have amazing things to do right there in their neighborhood next slide, please And advocacy.

And thank you for that call out, Chair Nelson, at the very top.

I mean, advocacy certainly is something that we do a lot of.

And frankly, a lot of it is just relationship building and conversations and working to know and sort of understand what our community needs, what our rate payers need, and being able to share that with elected officials and also departmental leaders as well.

I think really one of the key highlights for us was our advocacy work around Sound Transit.

We spent a great deal of time working with that agency, participating in numerous working groups to achieve the ultimate objective for Ballard, which was an underground light rail configuration that goes underneath the water and then terminates underground at 15th Avenue.

And at this point, as we head into the DEIS, or I'm sorry, the FEIS, That's exactly what is decided as the preferred alternative.

There's still work to do, but that's huge for Ballard.

And I think for us as an organization to be able to provide kind of that unifying voice has been very effective.

Using Sound Transit as an example, we definitely were one neighborhood along the alignment that was very unified in what we wanted, design, location, and all of those things.

I think that really benefited for us.

There are numerous other things that we do, case conferencing, we talked about the playground, and then also elected official walking tours and just making sure that our leaders have got good access whenever they need it to small businesses and residents to have a good understanding of what's going on on the ground.

Next slide, please.

Planning for the future.

So when we created the BIA in 2017, it didn't happen the year before.

Frankly, it happened starting in about 2011 with some visioning work which led to an OED grant to do some broad-based strategic planning, and as an outgrowth of that strategic plan, We realized that an organization like ours, then a chamber of commerce that was funded on membership fees and donations and seafood fest was not enough to get everything done for Ballard.

So we created a very in-depth strategic plan that led to the creation of the BIA.

And so when our leadership group got together a couple of years ago, anticipating this time that we would be renewing in 2023, we started our planning work in about 2021 and 2022, early in the year, to pull that group together, at least 50 or 60 individuals representing residential, social services, apartment owners, condominium building owners, restaurants, retail, you name it, to go back and do that work again to look at, well, where have we come since the last time we've done our strategic plan and where do we want to go?

So there was a significant amount of front loading, if you will, that led to, ultimately, our renewal plan.

Next slide, please.

And in a quick snapshot, that group in our strategic plan, developed these two statements.

They're brief, I'll read them now.

Ballard is an eclectic and independent urban village with something for everyone.

We embrace balanced growth that celebrates the many layers of our heritage and a very focused mission statement.

Collective action to build and sustain a vibrant, inclusive, and resilient Ballard.

So, again, those were really the guiding statements that led us to our plan into action, which is the BIA renewal.

Very quick snapshot of the services.

The main categories stay the same.

What will be a little bit different, obviously, the boundary expands a little.

We'll talk about that.

And they expand our cleaning service as part of the plan, increasing security services, new beautification programs, and then really doubling down on our core advocacy, business recruitment, marketing and promotions, and again, providing that unified voice for Ballard.

Next slide, please.

Philip, I believe, covered this quite well, the proposed life cycle January of next year through December of 2035. The parceling count increases from 175 to 234. Ratepayer-based is still the same.

Governance is still the same, and those program and service categories are also the same.

Next slide, please.

The boundary map, the hard lines that you see, the solid lines, that's the existing boundary, and where there are dashed lines, you'll see the expansion areas.

Pretty modest expansion, but also an expansion that we think really, as Tom says often, rationalizes our boundaries.

And so the glaring hole, of course, was Leary Avenue was nonexistent in the BIA in the first go-round.

We have made some changes to correct that.

In addition, you'll see below Leary and Ballard Avenue, that cutoff is essentially at the end of the historic district.

And as you get southeast of there, The district changes.

It's a little more industrial by nature.

We have great industrial partners and friends that we work with all the time.

However, they are not part of this particular organization.

We're focused a little more on commercial and residential.

So you'll see those changes there with the dash line.

And I think Philip mentioned earlier, The Ballard Blocks area in 2017, only one segment, the north segment, was actually completed and that has the Trader Joe's, Top Pot Donuts.

Below that or to the south, it was a vacant industrial land that needed to be cleaned up and in a sense been redeveloped.

and is anchored by the PCC market there.

Essentially, they love the work that we do.

And in fact, when we had created our initial program back in 2017, they were not in the original boundary, but they came to us and said, would you draw us in because we'd like to be a part of this.

And so that happened in 2016, and they were part of the original map.

The change of use for that area, it's essentially like a small shopping mall or a smaller version of U Village.

They provide security services, extensive security services, and cleaning services because they have to.

And so they are listed as a secondary service area.

And the only distinction is that they would not receive cleaning or security from the BIA, but would receive all of the other benefits.

Next slide, please.

Now I'd like to turn it over to Brian Scott with BDS Planning and Urban Design.

Brian, thank you for being here remotely.

I appreciate you making the time.

And Brian has been with our organization for years and led us through our early visioning work, helped us through our initial BIA, and has been assisting us here.

So with that introduction, Brian, take it away.

Thank you, Mike.

Chair Nelson and members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be with you here today.

Sorry I'm not in person, but I'm in fact in Rochester, New York, where I'm working with the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation to create a business improvement area in Rochester.

I had the pleasure of noticing one of those advertisements Mike talked about at the Sea-Tac airport in Terminal D when I was heading to the airplane on Monday.

So I feel very connected.

As I say, as Mike said, we've been involved with Ballard since first reorganizing of the chamber into the Ballard Alliance and creation of the first BIA, we've also played a role in each of the other BIAs in the city, most recently the mid-renewal, and I played a similar role in the presentation for them a few months ago.

The updates in Ballard are essentially just kind of smoothing off some edges and rounding out some services from where it was in 2007 years ago.

Formally, it's essentially the same assessment formula.

The rates are just updated to reflect inflation.

It's a 12 year life cycle.

The first time it was seven years, it's a lot of trouble to go through the whole renewal process.

So we're gonna do it for a little longer period, which is more like some of the other BIAs.

In Seattle, there won't be a mid-year property valuation.

It's going to be basically just based on inflation.

So we'll increase the rate by the consumer price index for Seattle every year.

Each year's assessment will increment by that amount, but by at least 2% and by no more than 6%.

So if inflation is really low or really high, it will be within those boundaries.

Then if there is new construction, we will add that to the assessment once it's reflected in the King County assessor's property records.

Next slide.

I don't have the specific numbers then.

We have made the adjustments that I just said and in the ordinance are the specific amounts for those numbers.

Thank you.

Terrific.

All right.

Thank you, Brian.

And now I'd like to turn it over to Chris Ackerman to close out our presentation.

Thanks, Mike.

I've been a resident of Ballard for about 11 years.

I've worked on the Ballard ratepayer board as well as the reauthorization for the alliance.

I have to be honest, in 2017, the condo that I represent was very vocal, came to the city council to give their concerns about being included in the BIA.

So when it came up for reauthorization, I met with the board.

Their primary concern was that some of the larger residential areas in Ballard were excluded.

They were kind of core.

the canal station, and lava.

Those things have been resolved.

So I wanted to make sure that they understood that.

We also talked about all the accomplishments that the BIA has done in the years that they've been formed.

A lot of those have been talked about today.

One that hasn't is really the relationship between the working waterfront and the core businesses within Ballard.

And I think you've done a great job in that balance.

It's a delicate balance.

We also talked about the value provided by the BIA and the partnerships they forged with our councilmen and other city leaders that have been instrumental in keeping Ballard a vibrant community.

We emerged from the pandemic faster, I think, than some other neighborhoods because of the advocacy program that we had and the support we had had from Councilman Strauss and from the BIA.

Because of that, our HOA board voted nearly unanimously to reauthorize the BIA.

We still have a lot of challenges ahead of us, but I look forward to working with BIA for the next 12 years.

And then with that, Chair Nelson, I think we would be happy to open it up to questions and answers.

Sure, well thank you very much for this presentation.

I'll say what I always do, which is why would we not let property owners charge themselves to improve the neighborhood, support small businesses, and make the neighborhood a better place to live, work, and play.

So I am really pleased to be bringing this forward and I'm glad that it's not, that the next life cycle will be longer because it is a lot of work to get 65% approval and you have A lot of other more important – not more important, but clearly from your presentation, you're busy as it is, and also staff as well.

I know that that is – it does take time on both sides.

So, BIAs are often talked about as providing supplemental services, and I always argue that these are essential services.

I can't imagine Ballard.

without the work, without those, you know, think about all those bags of garbage still there, et cetera.

I mean, the city just cannot.

can't do it all and you do.

And the increase in security and cleaning services is very much appreciated by everyone and unfortunately necessary.

But in any case, you mentioned case conferencing and I do want to mention that that was a recommendation that came out of the first small business round table where the impacts of crime were focused on.

That was at my second committee meeting in February of 2022. and that evolved into case conferencing, and you've been lead on that.

And so I do think that that has improved the situation in Ballard.

So I just have one question that I'll open it up for other folks.

I notice on your map, of course, that Shilshol is not included.

Has there, and the waterfront was mentioned, so has there ever been conversation about including Shilshol Ab as part of the boundaries when you were going through expansion?

Sure.

You know, that conversation actually did not come up in depth during expansion.

It certainly came up at the very beginning when we created, and we certainly had many meetings, and there was a lot of willingness to do it and partner.

And then there was a point in time where our maritime and industrial friends said, hey, listen, we like what you're doing.

We certainly support it.

However, we think that we're very different than the commercial and residential core in Ballard, and this doesn't make a ton of sense for us.

We would be happiest if it was just kept at the, you know, the commercial and residential core of Ballard.

And to which we said yes.

And we certainly partner with the North Seattle Industrial Association and many of its members on a lot of different issues, mostly in lockstep.

So it did not come up extensively.

I don't know, Tom, if you had any additional feedback to add on that.

No, I think that they do consider that their own issues are significantly different.

Mike and I talked to a number of the businesses down there, so I think we have a good relationship with them, certainly as Mike mentioned with the NSIA, but we're happy with being able to represent our groups this way too, so.

And I did not mean to imply by my question that there was no relationship, because I see you at the same events advocating for most of the same issues all the time anyway.

So OK, any comments or questions?

Go ahead.

Jeremy, it's really great to see you all down here at City Hall.

When you were walking up the steps today with the big Ballard team, it felt like you were here to annex the city of Seattle.

That would have been great.

But seriously, when Ballard was annexed, it was annexed at the same time as Leschi, as West Seattle, as Bryant, a number of different cities at that point.

Ballard was the second largest city in King County, and it was the seventh largest city in the state of Washington, which has set us up a little bit differently.

Within your own boundaries, You have a major institution overlay.

You have a historic district.

You have an industrial zone and a commercial district.

You're expanded lines now abut single-family residences.

This is a dynamic place.

It is, currently it has the zoning that could be a regional growth center, you know, which is only in the north end right now.

That's the University of Washington, U District and Northgate, right?

And so the challenges that Ballard faces are different because of its long history and because of all of the complex issues going on.

And success is not by accident.

And so I just want to start by thanking everyone in the room for making success occur in Seattle, or in Ballard specifically, because it's the product of hard work, focus on outcomes, and the ability to bring people together to find common ground who don't necessarily agree.

You know, I think that's something that wasn't really touched on in the presentation, which is a soft value that everyone in the neighborhood doesn't always get along.

And, Mike, you do a really, an amazing job of mediating conversations to find resolution that benefits our neighborhood.

That's not a small feat.

You know, going through, you know, even before I was elected, Ballard Commons was having a lot of issues.

Your idea of the children's playground, I think, was 2018, 2017. Maybe even a little earlier.

Maybe even a little earlier than that.

And without you, That idea would have been lost a long time ago.

It would have been a small group of people that got together that said, hey, we'd like to do this thing.

And after a number of years of it not working, I assume that it would have given up.

But because you are institutionalized, we're now going to construction.

which is just fantastic.

And our teams partner so much, and it really helps me do my job better.

And I know that having us, especially having a district office, it just creates that partnership.

So I'm going to read what my team wrote, because I think it's all true.

And it speaks to the partnership, which is The team writes, the Ballard Alliance has been one of the strongest partners in almost every aspect of change for local Ballard businesses, neighbors, and community.

With the Ballard Avenue redesigned street cafe work, Ballard Alliance serves as a business incubator and an innovation They've been absolutely critical to allow our restaurants, boutique shops, to survive during the pandemic and thrive post-pandemic.

It was noted that we now have higher foot traffic than pre-pandemic.

And now I'm going extemporaneously again, which is to say, when I was growing up in Ballard, FenPro sheet metal fabrication, is now the Nordic Museum, which is essentially an embassy.

When you look at Market Street, when I was growing up, you could take a successful business from somewhere else in Ballard, place it on Market Street, and it would fail because there was not the foot traffic.

We are in a different place, and that's what Tom was saying, of needing to have a unified voice to steward us through this growth.

Going back to the notes here, The Ballard Alliance continues to work with my team and department leaders to update Ballard Avenue, working towards a long-term plan.

The Ballard Commons homelessness encampment removal and resolution, I don't think folks recognize that that helped set off policy change in our city that has doubled the intake into shelter when resolutions and removals occur and simply by changing practices, not changing types of resources or who does the resources.

But I mean, from the work that we did together, that has changed city policy and it all started as a pilot in Ballard.

Beyond the encampment removal and resolution, Ballard Commons Park grand reopening and activation took literally nine months of behind-the-scenes planning.

Ballard Alliance worked tirelessly to activate the surrounding space while the park was closed for improvements and then get over 35 businesses, community organizations, bands, and food trucks to come together to celebrate the park's reopening and our shared vision for a vibrant and shining park.

And now they are ensuring the park is a place for people of every age and ability to stay engaged and enjoy from hosting the outdoor movie series that's occurring right now, to facilitating free public yoga classes in the park, and as Mike mentioned, the children's playground going into construction.

Sound transit, we've talked about it a lot, but you know, this was an example of bringing together the folks on the working waterfront, my office and others where we, you were the one that was convening us all and convening board members of sound transit to come out and see that the original plan was to put a station entrance into an industrial zone, which doesn't really work.

And we couldn't have done that without you.

That kind of speaks to, what Tommy was saying about the government relations aspect.

It's really easy for me to turn to you and say, hey, this is what's going on in City Hall.

Can you help me out in Ballard?

And vice versa.

Tommy's really good at swinging a hammer.

He was, again, one of the first people to put up a pergola for outdoor dining in our city and now look at it.

And I don't think that he would have been able to be as effective without you.

And for the record, he was in business casual for Tommy today.

I've been kind of going on here just to say I'm an enormous champion of Ballard BIA's renewal and its geographic expansion.

I think it makes a lot more sense.

I look forward to the city partnering with the Ballard BIA for years to come.

I'm going to just look at some of these other notes that I took while you were talking.

Just, oh, this was one thing about the system, the geographic expansion.

I was talking to a business or a property owner actually about getting trash picked up in front of their business.

And they complained that the boundary was half a block away from them and that they weren't getting the services of Uplift Northwest.

And I think it speaks to the importance of your work.

that there were businesses complaining that they weren't within your boundary.

I don't think that there's any other marker of success.

With that, Chair, I'm, as I said, an enormous champion of this legislation.

Where are you going to go with your vote here?

Just kidding.

And the one last plug I'll give for Ballard is that you can come to Ballard and taste food from around the world.

You can go to McLeod's for Scottish, truly Scottish food.

You can go to Wiru or Kimchi House for Korean food.

If you're looking for Italian, you can go to San Fermo or Palermo.

If you wanna go down under, Kangaroo and Kiwi has authentic, and these are all authentic people, food from people who have lived there or grew up there.

La Carta de Oaxaca, Mr. Euro's, Skull, these are all providing authentic food from around the world, and if you want authentic Ballard food, you can always go to Hattie's.

Right, I was wondering when that would come up.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, and one last question or comment.

Thank you very much for what you were able to accomplish at Ballard Blossom because that is a win-win-win for those small businesses, the neighborhood, et cetera.

So I am interested in that model because that is something that could be effectuated elsewhere as well with empty properties.

So thank you for that.

So unless there is, oh, I see Council Member Herbold, go ahead.

Thank you so much.

And I just want to echo the thanks and appreciation from both District Council Member Dan Strauss, as well as Committee Chair Nelson.

It is certainly true that a willingness to expand the boundaries of existing BIAs, as well as the expansion of new BIAs where they don't exist, is a great testament to the success of the model, as well as the implementation of the model.

You're actually providing not just what you promised, but more than what you promised.

So really, really pleased.

I did have a question about the program and service areas as defined both in the council central staff memo as well as in both presentations.

There are two bullets that might have an overlap, but I'm sure you have a way of distinguishing between the two.

I just would be interested to learn more.

One bullet you referred to as public safety and public health enhancement.

And then the other bullet is clean environment and public realm.

And I just see a little bit of overlap between the concept of a public health enhancement and a clean environment.

And I'm just wondering, And I think it's important because you are allocating a certain percentage of revenue associated with VI to the two different buckets.

So I just would like to understand what is the public health enhancement piece as opposed to the clean environment piece?

I think it's pretty clear that the clean environment is, but correct me if I'm wrong, are things associated with clean streets and garbage pickups and that sort of thing.

But maybe you could just explain that a little bit more in the weeds for me, for my benefit.

Yeah, you bet.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Clean environment is exactly what you think it would be.

So that's primarily our Clean Streets team, which includes our partnership with Uplift Northwest, but it also includes a ton of staff work that we do working with city and other partners to address certain issues that may not be covered by our Clean Streets team.

If an alleyway really needs some pressure washing, we help make sure that that work gets done, if dumpsters are overflowing and perhaps waste management hasn't quite done its job, we have city partners that we can work with to help address and remedy that situation.

So clean environment is pretty discreetly that.

Public safety and public health enhancement, not only will that include funding for having some security for our district, kind of on the public safety side, but then also is very derivative of a lot of policy and advocacy work that we do.

It's more sort of the softer kind of government affairs types work that we'll do and having conversations with you all about public safety, conversations about public health.

We did have a hepatitis outbreak in the early stages of the pandemic and that was something that we communicated a lot about to seek support for.

So does that help give a little bit more delineation there?

Absolutely.

Just a follow-up question to that.

So, we heard, and I just want to also recognize that my recollection is that your BIA is one of the early pioneers of using funds generated from your BIA.

to fund homelessness outreach services, so I really appreciate that.

But I'm wondering, are those types of projects like the one described on slide 13, is that an ongoing project or was it a pilot or a one-time?

And if it's an ongoing project, I'm wondering where are you placed, where does it fit within those categories that we talked about just a moment ago?

Unfortunately, I don't have the slide number on my printout.

So which slide number was 13 or topic area?

It was the homeless outreach project.

I'm sorry.

We're finding it.

Oh, around the Ballard Commons.

So I'm sorry, the question again is where does that fit into, that would fit into the public safety and public health enhancement category?

Okay, so projects like that are an ongoing investment as opposed to one time.

Yes, and actually we've leveraged as well.

I mean, there was a point in time where for our outreach worker that we had secured some city funding to help offset the cost of that.

Currently have funding supported through the actual King County Regional Homeless Authority as well.

Great.

And then just one other question about the security services that your BIA very helpfully supports.

As Council Member Nelson mentioned there, unfortunately, that partnership is very necessary, and I'm appreciative that you have entered into those partnerships with private security.

wondering about specifically the training and access that they may have to overdose reversal care and medicines, specifically naloxone training.

Is that something that these individuals carry and are trained to administer?

So these individuals are contracted.

So I don't have a specific answer to your question, but that is a very good question.

And we can certainly find out the answer to that.

We actually will be in the process, I believe, of making a little bit of a transition.

We've got currently just some very minimal level security.

That was never something in 2017 that we thought we needed to do.

But with the renewal and expansion, it'll allow us to fund that a little bit more completely.

Presuming that we are successful next month.

We'll be having conversations with more providers To see what can be possible in 2024 and beyond and I think that that's a really good Point that you raised and something that we can look at as we go through the procurement process I will say too that we are looking into training and just segueing another piece of safety is we've got a new safety coordinator position and frankly both council members present here and We're very, very helpful in that.

So, Chair Nelson, that was one of the early recommendations in 2022, was to create safety hub coordinators for neighborhood business districts.

That was something we brought up around the table, and I know you were certainly a champion of that, and Councilmember Strauss, I believe that you created the budget amendment that provided for that.

So that was successful last year, and Wyatt Hoffman, I believe, is here with us today and is our safety coordinator who's been on board since March.

So very early in that process, but I think that sort of training is something that we can look into for that position as well.

And just one quick note on it, a safety coordinator is not a private security person.

A safety coordinator is an individual that works with our organization to represent our businesses and our residential partners and help them communicate with various city departments, whether it is SPD or Human Services or City Attorney's Office.

to really ensure that there's connectivity because guys like Tommy who were here earlier, I mean, I can't believe he took the time to come down here today because he's got three restaurants he needs to run.

The last thing he has is time to be able to navigate the public safety system, if you will.

So having an individual like Wyatt is incredibly impactful and important.

Just to clarify, did I misspeak?

You're not using BIA revenue for security services?

We are, but just a very small amount.

Yes.

And I just want to reinforce the reason for my question is that increasingly, people on the front lines in the city family, whether or not you're talking about parks maintenance workers, um, people who are staffing, uh, service desks, increasingly the city, the city family is, uh, being, um, encouraged to carry in a lock zone.

Um, it is not, even though I referenced, uh, training and its use, it is not something that, requires a lot of training.

And recent information that we received from the Seattle Fire Department is that in the first six, seven months of 2023, of the approximately 2,100 firefighters, OD reversals that were performed in public spaces, about 40 percent of them were done – the first dose was administered not by a first responder, but by a member of the public.

So, increasingly, both members of the public, other BIAs who operate, for instance, the MID, their safety ambassadors, they are trained to offer these life-saving services as well.

So that's the context in which I'm making the inquiry.

Thank you.

All the more reason to expand access to comprehensive addiction treatment services.

At some point, this will become less necessary to be responding to overdoses.

But I do want to say that it's my understanding that it's increasingly common that the nightlife businesses in our city do have training and are providing overdose prevention services as well.

And I want to mention that the JET, the Joint Enforcement Team, has relaunched and is available for nightlife businesses, for trainings, et cetera, not just for security, but also for the safety of patrons.

So I'm sure that your businesses are taking advantage of that.

If not yet, they will, because it's great that that's up and running.

Okay, it's almost 11.30, so if there are no other comments, questions?

Okay, so just a reminder, the next steps for this legislative package are that the three resolutions that are part of this package will go before council, excuse me, The resolutions that establish the date of the public hearings are on the IRC, and we will be voting on them.

They'll go straight to full council next Tuesday, August 15th, and those are procedural, and then we will have those public hearings on They're kind of combined, one to disestablish, one to reestablish.

They will be on September 13th at our next committee meeting.

And we hope to be able to vote on the BIA's renewal after that public hearing.

So with that, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you very, very much for coming.

We will be on council recess.

the last couple weeks of August.

That does not mean that, so no committee meetings, but council is still in service.

So thank you so much for coming today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This meeting is now adjourned.

It is 1124. Thanks, everybody.