Sustainability, City Light, Arts and Culture Committee 7192024

Good morning and happy Friday.

The July 19th meeting of the Sustainability City Light Arts and Culture Committee will come to order.

It's now 9.34 a.m.

I'm Tanya Wu, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Chair Wu?

Present.

and Vice Chair Moore will be joining shortly.

There are currently three members present.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales has been excused today.

And when Council Member Moore joins us, I will announce it.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently, we have zero in-person speakers signed up and zero remote speakers.

Thank you.

As a reminder, members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the signup cards available on the podium or email the council at council at seattle.gov.

So we will move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read the first item into the record?

Agenda item one, arts and culture round table for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Will the roundtable presenters please come to the community table?

And once again, when ready, please introduce yourselves.

And while we wait, I want to give a special thank you to King County Council Member Claudia Balducci.

Thank you for all that you have done and for being here to have this discussion with us.

I know, I have a little scratchy throat, so I want to give you a little bit of distance.

Good morning.

Sorry, let me pull up my notes.

Well, I am thrilled to be here with all of you today.

I'm Manny Kowalian.

I'm the executive director for Inspire Washington.

Of course, we are your cultural advocacy organization.

We believe in the uplifting power of science, heritage, and the arts.

Today, I am really excited to brief you on something that's so close to my heart, the Doors Open program of King County.

And before we get started, I want to give you a little context of how this came to be.

I think it's really important for all of you as authorizers to understand the long history that preceded the passage last December so you understand what the intent was, how did this happen, and understand there's a long road with a lot of impressions and champions and people and visions.

So let's go back to 2003. In 2003, Seattle was a very different place.

I think we all look favorably back to that time in Seattle.

We were booming.

McCall Hall had just opened.

we had really leaned into cultural infrastructure.

And of course, everywhere you went, there was just a vibrancy.

And I think we throw that word around a lot.

But what vibrancy really means is people out and about, connecting, laughing, right?

enjoying things, experiencing things together.

So I want you to imagine how authorizers, elected officials like you, wanted to drive more of that in Seattle and throughout King County.

Where was I at the time?

Well, I was finishing up a residency at the old Rainer Vista housing community.

For five years, I worked with Cambodian American children because their refugee parents wanted to make sure that their children understood their experiences and how they came to America.

And we explore that conversation through arts and culture.

So that's my way of saying all across the city, there were passionate arts people leaning into community, but there was more that they wanted to do.

So therefore, the Puget Sound Regional Council did a tour, and actually Claudia was on that tour, to Colorado, and they wanted to look at all the things that were driving prosperity in other communities.

And what they saw in Denver, Colorado was a taxing authority which was driving an incredible amount of support to cultural organizations for the purpose of driving that type of vibrancy, that connection, that joy within their communities.

And so began a long road of us trying to figure out how do we bring that to Seattle?

How do we really reach out and serve communities that are not experiencing the joy of science, heritage, and the arts because of the cost or the issues around transportation or the lack of outreach, just the lack of resources.

And so eventually, that idea played itself out within state government, and the state legislature created the Cultural Access Program in 2015. We have made an attempt to authorize it and adopt it in 2017. We were on the ballot, access for all.

We lost by a mere, but significant enough, 4,500 votes.

And we never lost sight of wanting to do this right and really create the program that would serve the vibrancy in Seattle, that would connect communities in every neighborhood to arts and culture, but to recognize that in Black Diamond, in Maple Valley, In Bellevue, in Redmond, Woodinville, and on and on, there were communities that didn't have the same level of access.

And that's why we are so thrilled that Doors Open was passed last year on December 5th with unanimous support of King County Council.

And this is now the third cultural access program because we have a program in Tacoma and we have a program in Olympia.

But today we're really going to talk about what happened, why this was created, and also what we imagine the tangible benefits will be for our communities in regards to job, in regards to quality of jobs, in regards to quality of life.

Again, that vibrancy that I think we're all craving more and more in Seattle and throughout King County.

So let's get started with the first slide.

Thank you, Manny.

Good morning, Chair Wu, council members.

My job in this presentation is really to set up the conversation.

Rather than a monologue from me, what I'm going to do is go through slides and invite color commentary from the experts at the table so that we can have more of a dialogue, less of a monologue.

So as you bear with me, I'm going to be the operator of the slides.

OK.

Oh, that.

Oh, thank you.

Okay, so slide number one.

I'm just gonna read out the content and invite any comments.

So as Manny presented to us and set us up, the legislation and funding distribution model for Doors Open, this is just a general overview.

In December 2003, King County Council adopted Washington's access legislation with unanimous support.

Their doors open ordinance increases funding to the county's arts, heritage, science, and historic preservation nonprofit organizations through a 0.1% sales tax.

The organization that is designated to distribute these funds is 4Culture, and it is a PDA in the county.

When established, it is anticipated to be approximately 100 million a year will be available through Doors Open.

But there's a caveat there that is when it's established.

It isn't currently fully established, and we can hear more from our experts about where it is.

Another aspect that I think you'll find interesting, and we mentioned this at our last roundtable, is that a minimum of 25% of all Doors Open funding will go to organizations outside of the city of Seattle.

And I invite you both to tell us why.

And the program was designed to be a countywide program serving historically underserved areas.

Again, consciously understanding that Seattle has resources, but other parts of the county do not.

So having said that, who would like to take it over?

Sure.

Do I have to turn this on or does it just work?

I can hear you.

Green lights go.

Thank you.

I don't see any lights.

And now I'm really feeling for all those people who struggle with our microphones in chamber.

I think it's okay.

Yeah.

Thank you, council members.

Chair Wu, really, thank you for the time to speak about this today.

In what you said, I actually had four points I wanted to touch on real briefly.

We do gloss over the December 5th vote as unanimous without sometimes pausing to point out that we built over many years to get to a unanimous vote.

The first time we voted on this, it was very split.

I want to call out my former colleagues on the county council, Councilmember Jeannie Cole-Wells and Councilmember Joe McDermott, who have been champions of this work all along.

I have also been fighting for it, not quite since the Denver trip almost two decades ago, but for a very long time, and it took a lot to get to where we are.

Part of that was due to what is referred to in that last bullet on the slide as designed to be a countywide program serving historically underserved areas.

The initial state statute that authorized the county to adopt this tax gave very detailed instructions about how the money should be distributed and used.

And there was a strong feeling at King County among some of the council members that it was too inequitable, that that formula that was provided us by the state took really good care of big institutional organizations, but did not take very good care of smaller, newer cultural organizations from historically underserved areas.

So one of the things that we did was we went to Olympia and lobbied very hard with many and others to get the legislature to take those strings off, which they did.

And that allowed us to build our own program, which you'll hear more about today.

So I wanted to hit on those two points.

Science is new.

This program will be 10 times the size of what 4Culture has done in the past, but in some ways not that different from what 4Culture has done in the past, just a whole lot more of it.

and science.

Science is completely brand new and it'll be a new area of investment.

Very exciting to branch out into that area.

And then finally, I would say about the idea of the council at King County was the one who put in that 25%.

The purpose of that was we've long had discussions about how do we lift up new and emerging cultural centers.

If you're in Auburn, you want to have cultural activities and a cultural center.

We could call it a regional or sub-regional cultural center in your downtown that you've been working so hard to grow.

Places for your residents to come and have a night out and enjoy culture in their own city, but also for people to come into Auburn and spend some money and help lift their tax base.

So the idea of the program is to lift all boats.

And one thing that the council really wanted to make sure we concentrated on was helping to support areas that need capacity to ensure that all communities have access to cultural experiences.

I represent the East King County, and I'll tell you that Bellevue has been, had a vision of being a sub-regional hub of arts and culture for a very long time and really struggles to launch.

That city, unlike Seattle, hasn't put a ton of money into the arts, and this is hopefully going to leverage this 25% and this investment from the county Our hope and dream is that it will leverage local jurisdictions to also contribute so that together we lift those sub-regional areas as well.

I hope that answered your question.

Yes, well, thank you.

This came up in our last conversation, which is as we are focusing on activating downtown, other downtowns are focused on activating downtown through arts and culture.

So there's something, you know, we could talk about that later, but that's something that I think would be interesting to acknowledge.

OK, so next slide.

So we looked at eligibility.

So who's eligible for these resources?

And as I mentioned, 501 organizations are eligible, and whose primary purpose is science, technology, visual arts, performing arts, including zoology, botany, anthropology, heritage, or natural history.

So that's a big scope.

and also fiscally sponsored non-designated 501c groups.

So these can go to fiscal sponsor so that they can get access to these resources.

So potentially we have a big pool.

Does anyone want to add to this?

Sure, I'd love to.

You know, I look at this legislation all the time, and of course it's really specific to me.

When I look at this list, I know we're talking about the Pacific Science Center.

We're also talking about all of our wonderful museums, like the Henry Art Gallery.

the Wing Luke Asian Museum.

The broad array of performing arts that, yes, is significant to downtown, but is also significant to all of the neighborhoods that you represent.

It is what happens in the Theater of Jackson, in the International District Chinatown.

It is what happens at Arts West in West Seattle, just to name a few.

And of course, it's the science that people usually have questions like, what are those places?

Do those places matter to our Seattle communities?

Absolutely they do.

Millions of people visit the Woodland Park Zoo every year.

In this job, I've had the opportunity to tour our beautiful gardens, the Seattle Chinese Garden, the Japanese Garden in the Arboretum, the Arboretum itself.

Did you know that the Seattle Park Arboretum is one of the most, they have one of the most diverse audiences because of course their specimen collection, which comes from across the world, brings people into that garden to connect with something that is familiar to them, but here in Seattle.

So, of course, this is a list, but there's color and detail in this.

All of these organizations bring vibrancy and connection.

And, of course...

Because if you're like me that takes your nephews and nieces to the zoo, it's not just a trip to the zoo.

It is always hamburgers and fries.

It is usually the bus.

It is a lot of things.

I'm surprised I have any money left after that trip.

So it is vibrancy and connection and, of course, a joyful afternoon that we're going to remember forever.

And going back to our conversation last week, Manny, last time, Manny, we talked about residual spending, how non-for-profits trigger residual spending.

And if we remember back to that mapping of what non-profits were, that sun, this is the center of that sun.

So the people that produce art.

Now, obviously, we also have science, technology, zoology, much more.

That's the culture part.

So I think that's good.

I think that's really positive that we have further investments in this sector because they are really struggling post pandemic.

Anything else before I move on?

I'd love to ask, you know, with Office of Arts, why is that supporting organizations or artists that are fiscally sponsored?

Why is that important to this type of program?

Because it's about access to resources.

And some groups that are very new haven't formally organized.

Our office doesn't just work with nonprofits.

We also work with folks who are for-profits, but others don't have any organizational structure.

And therefore, being fiscally sponsored allows them to tap into resources and do projects without going through the legal process of organizing.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

I'll just add that for culture, as they start to plan out the implementation of this new resource, has really surveyed the landscape around which organizations are out there.

And they have some estimates about the numbers of organizations they think will apply.

And it's over 120 in heritage and preservation, about 500 in arts and culture, and about 80 in the sciences.

So this is a broad-based program that is going to support hundreds and hundreds of organizations and programs.

Thank you.

OK, moving on to the next slide.

So let's talk about who is not eligible.

I think it's good for us to know this.

I'm just going to read off here.

So individual artists.

Now, they can work through 501 s, but they themselves cannot directly apply.

Independent science workers, cultural workers, and heritage professionals.

So the people who are working in these institutions cannot apply.

agencies of the state or any of its political subdivisions, municipalities, organizations that raise money for redistribution to multiple cultural organizations, radio or television broadcasting network or stations, cable communication systems, internet-based communications, venture or service newspaper magazines, and then any groups with any uncertainty should seek eligibility, who want to apply need to go to 4Culture to confirm.

So anything anyone wants to add to this particular eligibility slide?

Absolutely.

Again, I spent a lot of time with the state legislation, and this is the aspect of the program that creates the most heartburn for me.

Why?

Because there's a tremendous amount of important work that happens within some of these definitions.

For example, internet-based services.

There is a wonderful organization called Densho, and they tell the story and document the stories of Japanese Americans, and they've done oral history interviews, and they put them online.

It makes it the most accessible way for communities to hear these stories.

We have HistoryLink.

My dad...

is such a Seattle history buff.

He is always sending me links from HistoryLink so he can show me what a building looked like when he was a kid.

These are important.

These are cultural.

The state legislature probably didn't have a really good understanding of the full breadth of what creativity and cultural programs are.

And I know that four cultures really, with their admission, I'm sorry, with their lodging tax, will do their best to make sure that all boats rise.

But this is my way of also saying that Seattle's support for these types of things are also really important because the support is necessary.

Yes.

We do support HistoryLink as well as individuals.

Council Member.

Council Member Strauss.

Mayor, thank you, Manny, for that clarification and the example.

So if Densho, though, was to put on a physical exhibit from their work that is based on the internet and travel to either schools or have it in a fixed location, whether it's Auburn, Bellevue, or Ballard, would they then be able to qualify because they're not just internet-based?

You know, that is a detail that really is, you know, I'm not the person that will be giving out the money.

So that's a detail to work out possibly.

I know that we had these questions when we were on the ballot in 2017, the same thing about Densho, the same thing about KEXP.

They are a radio station.

They do concerts as well.

So there's a lot of examples of that.

And I guess really, I think that's something that can be worked out.

But the point is multiple pots of money multiple investors that care about the same thing create the flexibility to ensure that each valuable program is supported and therefore the communities they serve are not left out.

And to be clear, we do not have those restrictions in our office.

We do fund KXP.

We fund history links.

We don't have the barrier of virtual versus in-person, as well as working with individuals, for-profit organizations too.

So we have a broader scope than this particular link.

I'm so glad.

I think we complement the funding that way.

Briefly, there are obvious ways that a partnership could come together around a particular program or project with potentially eligible members and potentially ineligible members and find a way to provide funding through Doors Open.

And I would say with Densho as a great example, a couple of years ago, an artist created a shack with art on it with pictures of Japanese American farming family members from Bellevue And as part of that, there was an AR component where you could point your phone at the faces and they would start talking and telling their own stories and their own voices from the Densho collection.

Yes.

It's incredibly moving, and I'm going to send you details when it gets up and running again.

But that was a partnership of an individual artist, Densho, and the Wing Luke.

And the Wing Luke is obviously eligible.

So if you were to pull together a partnership like that in the future, Wing Luke could apply for, in my view, could apply for funding.

So I think we can get creative as we always do in this zone.

I mean, arts organizations are scrappy and they figure out a way.

I'm so glad you brought up that exhibit because it's also an opportunity.

So that artist was Michelle Kamada and was really wonderful.

It did originate in Bellevue and then it was installed in South Lake Union and was there for quite a bit of time too.

So also it's important to understand the interconnectedness of arts and creativity that moves beyond throughout the region to ensure that everyone has access to great work.

Okay, moving along.

So some more context for you.

As mentioned by Council Member Balducci, there are approximately 700 organizations with combined annual budgets of over $1 billion.

So something to think about.

And here are currently the six programs in the initiative, noting that there's still the conversation at the council.

So we could have you talk a little bit about that.

I'll just go through them.

Sustained support, so this is general operating support.

This is the bread and butter of most organizations.

Facilities, so investments in capital.

Public school, cultural access, so that access piece is represented through in-school and off-site cultural education programming.

Other countywide initiatives such as investments addressing unmet community needs.

There's a launch program.

So this is startup funding for new and emerging organizations.

So in a way, Doors Open will stimulate more organizations to apply.

And then public free access, so reduced and free tickets.

Who wants to go next?

Since you mentioned the process for adopting the plan, I'll just insert that here.

As has been stated, we adopted this funding source in December of 2023, and we agreed, I will take credit, this was an amendment that I brought forward, that we would split it into year one funding and year two through the end of the six-year levy.

So year one funding is going to be about $48 million in one-time capital and operating funds.

The grant application timeframe is supposed to open in early August and run through September.

And grants will be announced by the end of the year for awards to be distributed in early 2025. That was just because of the way we adopted the tax, we're not collecting a full year worth of revenue in 2024, so it's a little bit lower.

And we wanted to get the program up and running and start moving support out into the community.

We are now working on an implementation plan that will much more specifically define how the annual funds from 2025 on are distributed.

And we expect, so 4Culture has been developing that plan with their board.

A number of council members, including myself, are ex-official members of that board, so we've been following that process closely.

The county executive will take that plan and transmit it to the council likely in early August.

It seems to be the most likely time.

Then it has to go through two committees at King County.

It goes through my committee of the whole and then the regional policy committee where you are very ably represented by Chair Wu and Council Member Moore with alternates Council Members Morales and Nelson.

So the regional policy committee will have a say.

As a reminder, What that committee adopts, the county council is required to either adopt it without further change, or if we make any changes, we have to go back to regional policy committee.

So it's not just advisory.

It actually has a say, and you will be able to sit there and be represented to have that say.

Our final action is scheduled for later in the year, hopefully to have the ordinance take effect by January 1, 2025, and then govern what happens throughout.

The program itself is likely to look very similar to what is on the screen, but there are some big discussions to be had, including...

things like what are the possible maximum size of the grants?

There's been a lot of discussion about big programs.

Some of your major institutions need capital investment, and Doors Open should be a big part of supporting that.

What size of grants are possible?

Frequency of grants.

Should this be an every year thing?

Do we want to make...

individual organizations apply every year?

Or could it be longer so that they can rely as more reliable funding enabling the transformational kind of programming and change we want to see?

And that's just a sampling.

There's going to be, I think, a really robust discussion about a number of questions.

I will say to you, my hope is that what Doors Open will do through all of its programs is create real, not just cultural, but also economic impact.

You all, I know, speak a lot about downtown Seattle and are focused on downtown Seattle revitalization.

Other jurisdictions have that same interest or growth or just making it vital to begin with.

And so that's what I want to see.

I want to see how each of these individual programs adds up to major economic impact as opposed to just a lot of little grants all over the place.

We want to help everybody.

We want to lift all boats, but we also want to make a big change because you know bringing people out into the streets and bringing people out at night to see things to...

to have vibrant interaction with each other and engagement.

Arts is a huge part of that.

And so we're hoping that that will be somehow show up in the programming as we adopt the implementation plan.

Council Member Strauss.

No, thank you.

really just want to recognize that downtown Seattle has one of the densest places of arts and culture institutions in the nation.

And it's really a lucky thing that we have, which creates a lot of economic activity.

We still have more work to do downtown, and it is one of our cornerstones because there really is nowhere else in the country like it for the size of our city, especially.

We are the most geographically isolated city of our size in the nation.

And we have just such a rich set of institutions.

And then council member Balducci, I'll switch hats with you over to our sound transit hat, building the spine North and South and East to Redmond, Bellevue, et cetera.

When this doors open is now giving us the possibility of having the densest region of arts and culture institutions.

And so whether you're getting a tourist coming in for a cruise, they soon will be able to take light rail to Bellevue to see one of these institutions or maybe Redmond, hopefully soon down to Federal Way and up to Linwood.

I guess Linwood's outside of our county, but it's close.

It's close enough.

But I highlight that because as we all work together, we're able to really highlight Each community's contribution to our culture, cultural community, it's just a very exciting opportunity because it's not just Seattle that we want to have this rich vibrancy.

We want the whole region.

Thank you, Council Member.

I want to add that we were curious about, out of that 700, how many were in Seattle.

So we did an informal count of who applies to our programs that are nonprofit, arts and culture.

And we found 546 organizations.

We knew that was an undercount because we know some organizations that don't apply to us.

And we also didn't count science because we don't support science.

So that's just some context to bear in mind that quite a few organizations will be here.

You know, the one thing I want to add about this list that really excites me as someone who has worked in science and heritage for so many years here in Seattle is this opportunity.

It's super personal.

When I did work at the Northwest Asian American Theater, eventually our 10% deficit that we carried year after year eventually led to the closure of that organization.

Financial instability will eat away at your work.

even though the work is important to the community.

Especially in Seattle today, this is the most expensive place to do cultural and creative programming.

Also, one of the things, when I worked at Youth Theatre Northwest, that public school cultural access We got a phone call, I'll never forget the phone call that we got from North Bend because there was a school.

They didn't have money for a drama teacher and they needed, they wanted somebody to come up there and direct a show for the kids that wanted to be in a show.

And we didn't have the money for it.

So my education director, because we didn't have the money to hire on, She drove up at 3 o'clock every day to North Bend to make sure the kids could perform in Seussical the musical.

But we had to put our money into that because it was important to them.

So knowing that there will be resources just like that, and it goes beyond that kind of example, but resources for students to experience the joy of creative programming and, of course, the important social, emotional skills that come with that.

And then launch program.

I was on the board of Cultural Access Washington when we put Access for All on the ballot in 2017. One of my outreach areas was Black Diamond.

I went up there almost every weekend and talked about why this program was important.

And it was devastating to me at the end of the day after the vote that that was the community that had the lowest amount of support.

And when I had those conversations, why we only garnered 18%, their answer was simple.

We don't have enough cultural programs here.

I can't figure out where that money will come in.

That is why the launch program provides opportunities in Ballard, in West Seattle, in downtown, and in Woodinville and Shoreline for creative people to have an idea and to create something that will serve the community.

So, and of course, public free access.

So many people want to participate, but it is expensive to do things.

And organizations do as much as they can to create access, but there's still a bottom line at the end of the day.

All of this is really going to lift up our communities.

It's going to provide that great access.

It's going to create that vibrancy that we always talk about.

And of course, everything else will come along.

Jobs, local economy, tremendous impacts for every city in King County.

So moving on, I think this is an interesting aspect of the program that not many people understand.

And I'd really look to you both to help us understand it better.

So there is a legislative mandate.

It's called the Non-Supplantation Clause for county funding that any funding usually and customarily provided to cultural organizations similar to funding that would be available to those organizations under this chapter may not be replaced or materially diminished as a result of funding becoming available under this chapter.

Help us understand what this is in plain language, please.

Sure.

In plain language is, and I'm talking from the view of the legislature of 2015, they recognized that all of these opportunities were really important.

There was no direct revenue stream that came from public government.

But they also understood that all across the state of Washington, there were existing revenue streams.

But the point is, it was not to replace it.

The problem wasn't that that there was something wrong with investing current money the problem was is the existing money wasn't doing enough and so therefore by not supplanting it by adding this new level of revenue to support access to science heritage and the arts the legislature felt this is it this is how we serve the people that aren't coming into the museums or sitting in the performing arts centers they felt that if you supplant it then we don't then there's no There's no advancement, there's no greater access, there's no real outreach that's happening.

So one thing that when I talk about the story about cultural access, I'm always talking about the opportunities that we don't have the resources to pursue.

And that very much is a story that's important to have here in King County, especially in the city of Seattle, just because it's the most, I just finished up a 30 city state tour.

I was in Klickitat County, for example.

No place is as expensive to do cultural programs.

The gaps are bigger right here in Seattle.

And one other thing to add is that the nonprofit creative sector is still struggling post-pandemic.

As federal funding is now moving away, they're looking at fiscal cliffs.

So I think they could use every single penny they can get in order to maintain, sustain, and then grow.

I will add that as we adopted our ordinance at the council in 23 when we adopted the program, we added a statement that affirmed that we would not replace or materially diminish funding available under this chapter.

And for us, as Manny pointed out earlier, that's largely the lodging tax.

Our current Cultural Arts Heritage Program is funded primarily by lodging tax.

And lodging tax can be used for at least three different things.

It can be used for arts and culture, economic development, and affordable housing.

And we made the commitment that we would not shift our current funding pie, if you will, the wedges of the pie in order to do this.

So we will add the Doors Open funding on top of that and then create a program that distributes all of it.

I'll also say that it is our hope and our dream, and the council members over the years have talked about the fact that we want this to be transformative funding.

When you have this kind of a brand new resource at this magnitude, you really want to see transformational things happen.

And that happens when we can leverage other investments as opposed to shrinking and replacing.

So that is our dream and our hope.

And we all live in fiscal reality, so we're going to have to work through it.

But that's where we really hope to look back in a few years from now when we're thinking about round two of doors open and say, wow, look what we did here.

This made a big difference to lots and lots of people and families, workers, and institutions.

Okay, this is our last slide.

So, other notable features, what's next?

Well, year one programs will be awarded in 2024, as already been mentioned, with a funding distribution model starting in 2025, and then programs starting in 2025 and beyond will still need to be approved by council, and I think we've already talked quite a bit about that.

So this is our last slide.

We're open to any further questions.

We hope that this was more of a dialogue.

And yes, council member.

Yes, so I have a couple of questions, but just want to really quickly thank you all for being here today.

Council member Adichie, I look forward to learning more and how the city can be good partners in the doors open program.

Thank you everyone for all your work on this.

Colleagues, any questions or comments?

Council member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Quick comment.

First off, thank you, Councilmember Balducci, Director Golgan, and Manny.

I really appreciate this awesome presentation and kind of overview, helping empower me personally and get all of us up to speed.

But on this really important sort of body of work, regional body of work as well.

Also, Councilmember Balducci, it's great to, I've had the pleasure and honor of appearing before you in various King County Council meetings as a volunteer, BOARD COMMISSION MEMBER IN WHATEVER VARIOUS CAPACITIES, AND IT'S NICE TO BE ABLE TO HAVE YOU APPEAR BEFORE ME IN THIS CAPACITY AND THEN BE ABLE TO WORK ALONGSIDE YOU ON A NUMBER OF REGIONAL BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS.

BY THE WAY, COUNCILMEMBER SHROUCE, THOSE IN YOUR HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE, THOSE CRUISE PASSENGERS, THEY'LL BE ABLE TO TAKE SOUND TRANSIT TO THE EAST SIDE, AND SOON THEY'LL BE ABLE TO TAKE SOUND TRANSIT TO WEST SEATTLE.

WE NEED TO BUILD THAT AND GET IT GOING.

But I wanted to talk just a moment about the whole STEAM versus STEM distinction.

I happen to have strong feelings on that.

And it's informed by the fact that the last 10 years of my life I spent in tech, Microsoft, Meta, Perkins Coie representing startup technology companies, the Fortune 500, everything in between.

And I'm also, for members of the public that might not know, I'm also someone who overcame the foster care system.

I'm someone who Went to 13 different K through 12 schools, all of them Title I for kids like myself at the time that were free and reduced lunch.

Never met a public school I didn't like all the way through law school.

And I had not one but two community college degrees.

And I entered these really cool, spaces professionally in tech where not many people shared a background similar to mine from a race, socioeconomic standpoint.

And, you know, I had a lot of imposter syndrome, but I fought like heck to open up the doors and do what I can advocacy-wise to make sure that more people from disadvantaged backgrounds and communities are able to achieve their true potential in life and thrive, and ideally in tech, and represented nonprofits pro bono that were on the private nonprofit side to help that had missions exactly to do that.

Was very involved, including in leadership roles at various affinity groups within these organizations, whether it's veterans or black employees at, you know, whatever it is, and help champion diversity, equity, and inclusion, not just diversity and inclusion.

And so I have strong feelings about this.

And for members of the public, this whole STEAM versus STEM, what we're talking about here is STEM is science, technology, engineering, and math.

STEAM is, you just add an A onto that.

The notion there is you're being inclusive of the arts.

This is one of the most classic debates.

Should it be STEAM or should it be STEM?

And I'll just share, personally, I happen to be a fan of STEM and STEM only.

Reason why is, so STEM and then treating art separately.

And reason why is because when you start introducing arts into STEM, it risks scope creep, risks the possibility of boiling the ocean.

and makes potentially results in situations where roles and responsibilities and impact are unclear.

however well-intended, when you start chaining on one well-intended construct or idea and to potentially result in creating this Frankenstein-ish, cool-looking thing that's somewhat confusing and clunky as well.

And so that's why I'm personally a fan, at least from the city of Seattle government perspective.

I'm personally a fan.

of treating those two really important constructs separately.

So having them be co-equal and independent and for the reasons I mentioned.

So I just wanna share that.

And as my kind of view with respect to the city of Seattle and the doors open You know, great program, wasn't at all involved in that.

But I can see why it makes a lot of sense to, regionally, to add technology and science into the model there.

But again, from my perspective, from the city of Seattle, I think they should be separate, co-equal, independent.

Thank you!

Thank you.

So I have two questions.

We get a lot of questions regarding doors open, which was what brought about this round table.

A lot of organizations are very knowledgeable, but how do, is there an outreach or engagement plan to reach the smaller organizations that are the furthest away from the county or from the city?

You wanted to go ahead.

Sure, you know, I think that I want you to imagine, of course, the time that we've been through.

There's been a tremendous amount of outreach to organizations during the pandemic because the support was so critical from our city arts commission, as well as from the county arts commission for culture, as well as from the state.

So I think there's just a lot of people tuned in right now.

I have full confidence that for culture has the resources and the heart to and the drive to do all of that important outreach.

And of course, there's great partners.

It is very important to inspire Washington as well, that everyone that is eligible is applying.

Information is power.

That's why we do 30 cities and towns across Washington every day, every year.

So absolutely, that's gonna be an intention of the program.

We also have a seven-year authorization period, so I think that more and more people are gonna get on board and understand where the opportunities are.

There is imagination that will take place through this.

I mean, there's imagination with those artists that live in the Snoqualmie Valley, imagining that they could create a poetry center and they could apply for a launch program.

So it is not just about information, it's about feeding folks and their cultural imaginations.

I would just add, Council Chair, that for culture in building both the proposed ordinance that we ended up amending and adopting, over the years and adopting at the end of last year and the implementation plan have conducted dozens and dozens of community engagement sessions all over King County.

They have made an explicit effort to try to reach the folks that don't already know 4Culture exists.

And they've done in-person and online, tried to be accessible in every way.

I would be happy to take away your interest in that and make sure that we get a more detailed piece of written information about what the outreach has been.

And if I may, I'd love to just say a quick word of comment to Council Member Saka.

I heard that, and thank you for sharing that very clear interest and your background and personal story.

I want to be sure that we are clear that the science aspect of what had been an arts, culture, and heritage program, and heritage and preservation, was added by the state statute.

So that's what we have to work with.

Those are the topics.

But as we implement it, and it might not have been clear, there will be four different programs.

arts and culture, heritage, preservation, and science.

And they will be different teams with different grant programs.

These different types of things, public school access, free access, building for equity, will apply in each of those four different programs, but they will be separate.

There's a team that's being hired to do science.

So we can't wholly say that'll be over in a different place and we're not going to fund it with this money, but we will keep the chocolate and the peanut butter kind of separate in that way in how this is implemented.

And I'm really delighted about some of the opportunities in the science sector, because we have organizations that are just brand new, like maybe you haven't even heard of yet, like the Seattle Universal Math Museum.

They're working to launch a new, they have some mobile programming, but they're looking to launch a new place-based math center for children in STEM education in South Seattle.

So I think there's so much opportunity to increase how we're connecting people to STEM as well as STEAM, the word of your choice.

I love this kind of conversation.

It happens in my work all the time.

And this is how I approach it.

So I love to keep talking about this.

I think that STEM and STEAM is really structured around skill building.

And what we are talking about in the arts and cultural sector is our human experiences.

It is about promoting curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.

I believe in the full unlimited possibility of human beings.

I think that we can be creative and we can use our critical thinking skills.

Here is my experience.

I know that my engagement in the arts has made me a better person because I'm a better son and brother and sibling because I have very developed emotional skills, right?

And I know, I'm going to talk about my looks.

I worked at Youth Theatre Northwest.

Claudia's son was a student there.

And many of our students went on to work in the tech field.

In fact, their parents were tech people.

They put their kids in Youth Theatre Northwest because they knew, many of them, that their kids were smart enough for the technical side, but they feared that they would get lost in the people culture of tech organizations, right?

So it is not one or the other.

I think all of this is important for us to be successful.

And I know from the kids that we mentored, at Youth Theatre Northwest.

I just ran into one when I was coming back from Spokane on the light rail.

He recognized me, and he was like, you know what?

I'm running a restaurant right now, and I would never be able to do it if I had not been in the show, because I got 50 people all coming at me.

It's a lot to juggle, and it is those people skills, those social-emotional skills that make him a great leader.

So I think it really is all of that, but I look forward to having more conversations about this.

You're right, and I couldn't agree more.

Thank you, Councilmember Bellucci and Manny.

You're right, it's absolutely not one or the other, and, you know, all these things can coexist harmoniously.

It's just my comments still do stand from a Seattle City government perspective.

Programmatically, I think they should be treated separately, and, you know, notwithstanding state limitations in certain instances and otherwise, but...

Yeah, because when you start chaining them on together, it dilutes the potential voice and impact.

And they can coexist separately.

Thank you.

I'm very excited to hear that the heritage as well as preservation is a part of Doors Open.

I've worked with for culture.

I applied for grants from the organization, had an amazing time, and had great guidance throughout the entire process.

I even came back and was sent a couple of committees to choose grants or who to grant money to, and the organization is amazing.

I'm very excited to hear that they will be able to expand, hopefully, their programming and their reach.

And we'll love to hear more about that.

So how can city council members such as ourselves and this committee be good partners with King County?

And this also applies to your work, Manny, and to Director Kayim in your advocacy work.

What can we do for the city of Seattle to help this program in the county?

Well, this is something that I'd love to have a conversation about because we're still imagining it, and I think we can figure this out together.

You know, prior to the program, our pillars here in this region were, as far as public investment, were the City of Seattle's investment through admission tax and King County's investment through lodging tax.

Now, when we got doors open across the finish line, it was really important for us to really demonstrate with tangible resources that we were going to grow cultural infrastructure countywide.

And that is why we have that 25% provision for a minimum of 25% funding going outside the city of Seattle.

A lot of that was envisioned as a way of balancing, right, with the city's significant investment.

And I think that this is something that we have to pay real attention on the public policy level because here are some things that we know.

There was a time when I lived on Capitol Hill and so many creative people lived there.

They don't live there in the numbers as they used to live before.

They live in Renton.

They live out all throughout the county, Shoreline, because they're looking for affordable places to live.

Many of them still travel into Seattle for work, but you can imagine how exhausting that could be with all the things we have to get done in the day.

I know that the intention with the 25% was to grow cultural infrastructure outside of King County, but not at all to threaten the very important cultural hub here in the city of Seattle.

So there's some play between those.

And I think that a really great conversation for us to have as this roundtable, as well as the broader community, is why is that, what is that relationship to each other?

Why is that important?

How do they work with each other?

May I add something, Manny, to your question there?

There's also one other aspect to think about for nonprofits that we're inviting to collaborate with us on revitalizing downtown.

So with the resources that they currently have, they are really struggling to get back to pre-pandemic levels.

And again, I've mentioned this before, with the federal dollars going away and they're facing fiscal cliffs, I think this type of resources, these types of resources are exactly the type of thing as...

mentioned by Council Member Balducci, we're looking to not just stabilize, but push the engine forward so we can make downtown activation a reality.

So from my perspective, the resources that we already have, we should keep in place.

It shouldn't be a situation of an either or, it's a both and, from my perspective.

I will just add, on a very mechanical level, please do engage in and give us your sincere input into the implementation plan.

That is going to help us make where...

So we voted for the funding.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

But we want to make the implementation and the distribution of the funding have the greatest impact.

And that requires the knowledge that you all have of your city and what the other cities have of their cities so that it's not King County Council just making those decisions.

So please do engage in that via the RPC or any other way you would like to, right?

Be in touch with us, with your council members.

I want to second Manny's and Council Member Strauss interweaving the issues.

So much of what you all do and what we do, transportation, housing affordability, it all works together to build a vibrant community and economy.

We do hear a lot from people in the creative sector who have jobs, and it's not just people who stand up on the stage.

It's the people who work the lights.

It's the people who engage with the public to make sure tickets are getting out.

It's all so many jobs.

It is a very large sector and a percentage of Seattle's economy To your point, council members, Seattle has always punched way above its municipal weight in terms of arts and culture, and that's just a lot of jobs.

But those people can hardly afford to live in our county anymore, let alone the center city.

So continuing to work on those interlocking issues as we build this sector will be so important for us all.

And then finally, I really want to thank and commend the city and the city council for being such leaders in supporting arts and culture and seeing the value of arts and culture and science and heritage and preservation.

I want to see other cities, I want my cities and all the cities of King County to follow and join that because together we have such strength and leveraging that strength means that we can really, really make this an incredible pivot point for the future of our region.

So thank you so much for having us and thank you for asking that question.

Thank you.

We've been hearing loud and clear that people are worried that doors open funding, that we have to preserve our current funding and not allow this piece of funding to replace that or in lieu of and to be able to preserve those services and grants and opportunities.

I'm also hearing that, you know, we always talk about FIFA soccer and about how FIFA soccer will bring six Super Bowls worth of people into our region for a month.

But we don't talk about, and it was just made aware that the arts community does the same thing every single season.

The amount of people, the amount of Super Bowls they bring into downtown Seattle from the arts community, concerts, events.

is the same, and so we, while we're focusing on FIFA, we should also focus on the everyday of what the arts and culture community does for the city of Seattle.

And so, thank you so much for all your work on this, and I believe it's really important to understand the resources that are out there and the kinds of impacts it has on our creative economy.

Thank you, Council Member Balducci, Manny, and Director, for all your work and for being here today.

And do you have any last words to part us with?

Yeah, I want to share a point of view that I was able to experience this past weekend.

So, you know, of course, Inspire Washington works with organizations like ours in every state.

And so this last weekend, one of my counterparts, the former director of Texans for the Arts, came to visit Washington State.

And she had a family union over on Whidbey Island, and I had a whole day where I took her all over Seattle.

We went downtown.

We walked through the market.

We went to the Olympic Sculpture Park.

We went to our Seattle Art Museums.

She saw one of the original pieces of public art in the nation at Gasworks Park.

We ran into so many festivals.

She kept saying, my gosh, there's festivals everywhere during the summer.

Come around Seattle.

Absolutely.

And what she saw just really reinforced what we're all fighting for, a vibrant city with people engaged and happy.

The number of people that were sitting on Kite Hill in Gas Work Parks was overwhelming to her.

She was like, it is 9.30, right?

And we have something really special here.

And I know that we can be more.

And I also know that we can be more for everyone that is not having an opportunity to experience that.

But I also know that everything that we saw has a foundation of public support.

And that's really, really, really important.

So I just really appreciate everything the city of Seattle has done to really make sure that we have built up this incredible cultural ecosystem.

I know that we have that incredible cultural ecosystem in King County, but now we're going to have more of that for the people that deserve it.

So I'm just so honored to work with all of you to make this, of course, the cultural capital of the world that I know we can be.

I think that's a great ending.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here.

And thank you.

And we will have another roundtable next month and we'll probably announce the topic shortly.

But thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you, Council Member.

Madam Chair, point of personal privilege, just want to say that is a really cool shirt you're wearing.

I really like it.

From someone, a leader in our arts community, I would expect nothing less.

Thank you.

Talk about imposter syndrome.

I feel like every time you're around.

Anyways, thank you.

Thank you.

So we will now move on to our next item of business.

Will the clerk please read our third item into the record?

Agenda item two, Seattle City Light Independent Financial Audit Report Overview for briefing and discussion.

Okay.

So thank you for being here today.

Go ahead and begin when you're ready.

Hi, I'm Jewel Eleven, General Accounting Manager.

Hi, Natalie Hayashi, City Light Controller.

I'd also like to introduce Aaron Werthmann.

Aaron is the Baker Tilly principal who is in charge of the Seattle City Light audit.

Aaron has spent his 26-year career focused exclusively on utility and energy organizations.

He also teaches utility education courses for the American Public Power Association, or the APPA, and he has authored nationally and regionally published articles on utility regulation and accounting issues.

So Aaron will present Baker Tilly's report on the 2023 financial audit.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

Again, my name is Aaron Werthmann, the lead audit principal on your audit engagement.

and I'm pleased to present the fiscal year 2023 financial audit.

Next slide.

What I want to do is I want to go through an audit overview.

You know, what exactly is it that we do as part of the audit?

I want to highlight some of the main areas of audit focus, talk a little bit about internal controls and our required internal control communication.

And then I want to go through our auditor's communication with you charged with governance.

That's a required communication from our accounting profession.

And then lastly, open up to any questions any of you might have.

So if we take a step back and look at our audit, our firm spends about 1,200 hours auditing your Seattle City Light.

And I will say, although the management team may not spend 1,200 hours, it is a significant amount of time.

It's a very heavy lift.

In addition to their day job, they are answering many, many questions.

They're putting the financial statements together.

So there's a ton of work involved, and we think they did a great job, and we appreciate all their help in that.

So if we were to compare this year's audit to prior years, I'd say this year was a pretty straightforward year.

The one big thing, the one big change that we had this year is there was new accounting guidance relative to subscription-based information technology arrangements.

Very similar to the accounting changes that we had a couple years ago relative to leases.

Basically, it's cloud computing leases, if you will.

I do want to let you know that there's a significant amount of time that your team spends looking at that, not so much just analyzing those leases.

subscriptions, but trying to determine how do you know you have them all?

How do you know you've looked at them all?

And as you can imagine, with an entity of this size, that's a considerable undertaking.

But that was the biggest change, if you will, that we had this year.

To give you some other perspective, our team spends about, we call it field work, we spend about four weeks of field work conducting our audit.

That's a combination of on-site and then remote auditing.

Our last day of field work was April 5th, and after we get done with field work, we then take a look at your financial statements, we review our work, things like that.

The good thing to note is we did not have any or identify any adjusting journal entries as part of this year's audit, and again, that speaks to the preparedness and the abilities of your management team.

Next slide, please.

So our audit is performed in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards.

Those are the standards that we're required to follow as your audit firm.

In addition to that, we also have to audit you in compliance with government auditing standards.

Those are additional standards relative to our continuing professional education, the supervision of my audit team, due care, quality control, and then the independence of your audit team.

with our audit objective being reasonable assurance that your financial statements are free from material misstatement.

At the end of this year's audit, your financial statements have received an unmodified opinion, which is also known as a clean opinion, which is the highest level of assurance that we can provide as your audit firm.

Next slide.

So if we were to take a look at the audit, just to give you some perspective as to what do we look at, what do we do, I'd say roughly 30% of what we do is specific to internal controls and testing those internal controls.

Most of which, not surprisingly, would be in the information technology area.

So much so, in fact, that we have a certified information systems auditor go about and conduct that testing, and they function as part of our audit team.

But that's about 30% of what we do.

40% of what we do then is specific to what we call substantive testing.

That's the nuts and bolts of our audit, if you will.

That would be taking a look at source documents, whether they be invoices, individual bills, you know, fixed asset additions, your plant retirements, things like that.

But that's about 40% of what we do.

And then the last 30% is specific to taking a look at your financial report and then the planning that goes into our audit.

So what I've done here is I've kind of outlined the main areas of audit focus.

And I think if you were to look at your financial statements, you know, none of these should really be a surprise.

If you look at your balance sheet, the biggest item on your balance sheet of this organization is going to be your plant and service, your fixed assets.

So we do spend a significant amount of time auditing fixed assets.

I mentioned information technology before because that, you know, kind of sets the base for all of your internal controls and Most of your internal controls are information technology-based.

Revenues, accounts receivable, billing, environmental liabilities at Seattle.

I mentioned leases and the subscription-based information technology arrangements.

Obviously, your expenses, your expenditures, and your accounts payable, payroll, and financial reporting.

But these are the main areas of audit focus.

Next slide, there.

So I had mentioned earlier that we do provide an opinion on your financial statements, and I talked about internal controls, but I do want to stress we do not provide an opinion on internal controls.

However, as auditors, we're required to communicate to you if we identify any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in internal controls.

So as part of our audit, the profession requires us to categorize the severity of internal control breakdowns or lack of internal controls.

The most severe would be a material weakness, and that's any breakdown in controls that would lead to more than a reasonable possibility that your financial statements could be materially misstated due to that breakdown.

And we did not identify any material weaknesses.

The next categorization down, less severe than a material weakness, but strong enough that it really warrants your attention as governance, is a significant deficiency.

And again, we did not identify any significant deficiencies in your internal control structure.

Now, I will say as part of any audit, whether it be when we're auditing your peers or your organization, we will almost always have minor control improvements or industry best practices, things like that, and we will communicate those with management.

However, just note that we did not identify anything that we would deem to be material or significant.

Next slide.

Going through the required communications that we have with you as governance, one thing to note, if you haven't looked at the statements, one thing I'd urge you to take a look at closely would be the significant accounting policies in Note 1. Again, they're accounting policies that your organization uses.

an example of which would be your capitalization policy.

Well, we as auditors are required to look at those policies.

We're engaged to make sure that they comply with generally accepted accounting principles, and not only that the policies comply, but that you're following those.

But again, that's in note one.

Now, I often get asked by governing bodies, when you're looking at financial statements or when users of your financial statements are making decisions, what areas should they pay specific attention to?

And I will say those areas almost always deal with significant estimates.

So much so, in fact, that we're required to communicate in your financial statements what are the significant estimates within those.

And you have quite a few.

One would be your net pension liability, because that is a significant estimate.

It's a very large number.

It's determined by actuaries.

Your self-insurance claims.

Your allowance for doubtful accounts on your billing.

your net other post-employment benefits, your unbilled revenues, and then your environmental remediation liabilities.

So when we take a look at these estimates, for instance, your pension liability, can I sit here today and tell you that the number within your financial statements is 100% accurate, your liability is that exact number?

I can't, but what I can tell you is within those statements, it provides a range.

it takes a look at your discount rate.

It shows, based on the actuary's discount rate and one percentage more and one percentage less, what's the range of what that estimate would be?

So I can tell you, more than likely, your actual liability probably follows somewhere within that range.

I also say that number fluctuates significantly with market, right?

So if the market goes up, the liability goes significantly down.

If we have poor market years, you'll see significant swings.

But again, just wanted to illustrate the sensitivity of some of these liabilities.

Next slide.

If we had any significant difficulties encountered during the audit, I would disclose those.

Just know if we did, if we had any significant findings or a significant concern or a detection of fraud, this would not be the first time you'd be hearing about it.

I would reach out to you separately before this meeting to have those discussions.

But we did not identify any significant difficulties during this year's audit.

Oftentimes, management teams will have, after year end, they'll identify, I'd say, insignificant audit adjustments, or not audit adjustments, but adjustments to your accounting books and records.

However, given that they're insignificant, they will not go back and open up the prior year statements to record those insignificant amounts.

But what we need to do as an accounting firm and audit firm is to take a look at what those are, get a listing of those to make sure that in totality or in the aggregate, They don't become material.

So one of the things that you'll have in your communications letter is a listing of those waived entries.

Those entries were created by your management team.

So we did not find those.

They provided those to our attention.

We looked at them and determined those entries were immaterial.

But just know you'll see that in the communication letter as it's a requirement.

But we did not identify any adjustments as part of your audit.

If we had any disagreements with your management team on an accounting policy or any matter during our audit, we'd need to communicate those, and we did not.

And again, we did not have any other significant findings or issues.

So again, a very straightforward, clean audit year.

Mentioned before, the biggest thing that governing bodies look at is, did the auditors have a lot of correcting entries?

Did they find errors?

And we did not identify any adjusting journal entries again.

In that letter I talked about before on the required communications, we have a letter called Management Representations.

And if you haven't, I'd urge you to take a look at that.

And what it does is it outlines management's representations that they make as part of the audit process.

It will include their thoughts on internal controls, the accounting policies that we talk about, fraud, and things to that extent.

So again, if you can, I'd urge you to take a look at that to see what types of representations your team is making as part of the audit process and financial statements.

If your team had any consultations with other accountants, so for instance, if they had questions on a questionable accounting transaction or something to that extent and they reached out to a peer audit firm of ours, that peer audit firm would be required to communicate to us so we'd understand that these communications took place and we were not notified of any communications like that.

One thing you may hear about in the accounting profession and audit profession is the auditor independence.

One thing I need to disclose is that our firm and every single individual on your audit engagement is independent, in fact, and appearance with your Seattle City Lights.

And then lastly, we want to thank you for allowing us to serve this organization.

I had mentioned earlier, again, we thank your management team.

Everybody here and their entire team did a great job.

One thing, if you talk to those folks, they definitely would probably tell you, hey, you know, we're not just being audited the three weeks or couple weeks that Baker Tilly's on site.

It truly is a year-round audit effort.

which can become extremely taxing for your team.

However, it is because of that year-round audit process that when we do get to the end of the year, that it's a seamless, pretty efficient and effective audit, as evidenced by no audit adjustments, things like that.

If during the course of the year they do have questions, they reach out.

We have those discussions on a timely basis.

So again, that's probably the driver of why this audit went so smoothly.

So again, we appreciate everyone's efforts in that regard.

So with that, I'll open it up to any questions you all might have.

Colleagues, any questions or comments?

Council Member Saka?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you for this overview and presentation of the current state of the audit here.

I'm a huge fan of audits because they help shed the bright light of transparency and highlight what's working well, in some cases, what's not working so well, and opportunities, because everything is subject to iteration and improvement, whether it's a process, program, service, and everything, so individuals included, myself included.

Just curious to better understand what you meant, so this is true independent, non-city auditor's office.

But what do you mean by it's independent in fact and in appearance?

That sounds like a technical term specific to the industry, but it's a really important distinction.

I think I understand, but I want to tease it out with you.

So in fact, so to give you an example, in fact, if we were...

If we came in and we designed we implemented an internal control for Seattle city light if we came in implemented that control and I say it's information technology we helped implemented a software if you will we set up the controls.

And then we also came in, my group came in at Baker Tilly and audited those controls that we set up.

That would be a violation, right?

Because we're not independent because we would be auditing our own work.

Part of what we look at is we test controls, look at controls.

So that would be a violation in fact.

So let's say we did a lot of work for the city that didn't affect the audit.

We weren't taking the place of management.

We weren't making management decisions.

We weren't testing our own work.

But we were doing enough work at the city where somebody from the outside would say, geez, you know, Baker Tilly spent, I don't know, 1,400 hours on the audit, but their firm worked for City Light 3,000 hours.

Now, even though what we may have done, we may have been assisting some minor consulting things that didn't violate any independence rules, someone from the outside may look at it and say, how can this firm be independent when they do more work for the city or City Light then they actually do doing the audit, right?

Now, didn't violate independence at all, but from the outside, appearance-wise, it might look like there's an independence issue.

So one of the things we need to state is, hey, even from, if we were to step back and look at what we've done for the city, we're committing that even from an appearance standpoint, we've not violated any independence.

So with respect to independence in appearance, preserving the independence in appearance, you're saying that if your firm happened to have contracted with City Light for, like, unrelated consulting services but performed this, and you have appropriate, assuming you do, which, of course, no doubt you do, have appropriate internal firewalls in place and walling off teams and people and knowledge management systems, that...

Not withstanding the consulting services, if you go and perform an audit, there might still be an appearance.

There could be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so one of the things they make us do, let's say you're engaged to do this service, and someone's like, yep, no, that's fine, doesn't violate independence.

You could add on, let's say, maybe four or five, six more services.

Individually, they're fine.

But if you look at it in the aggregate...

somebody might say, you know, if there's scales here, the scale may have tipped that in appearance-wise, you're probably not independent anymore.

So we have to, and on an annual basis, independence is such a big thing that annually we have to sit down and assess and look through our billing records and do all these different things to make sure our entire firm in totality hasn't done that.

The good thing here is that we do not provide any other services to City Light aside from the audit.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you for enlightening me with that.

No further questions, comments?

Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Great.

Well, I'm glad to hear that, you know, coming into work today, we're hearing about the worldwide IT outage.

I'm glad it does not affect us.

So thank you for being here today, and thank you, Aaron, for flying up here and for all your work.

Thank you.

So as the Governing Body Counsel receives this report every year, we are grateful for this oversight and accountability.

So if there are no further questions, we will move on to our next item of business.

Will the clerk please read our third item into the record?

Thank you.

Agenda item three, resolution 32138, a resolution relating to the City Light Department acknowledging and approving the 2024 integrated resource plan progress report as conforming with the public policy objectives of the City of Seattle and the requirements of the State of Washington and approving the progress report for the biennium September 2024 through August 2026 for briefing, discussion or possible vote.

So as presiding officer, I am now opening the public hearing on resolution 32138. Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for this public hearing?

Chair, we have no remote speakers and no in-person speakers.

Being there is not a member of the public registered for this public hearing on resolution 32138, this public...

However, I believe it will be important to schedule additional opportunities for public input so that we will have ample time to gather meaningful community feedback.

This integrated resource plan is critical to how Seattle City Light addresses changes in customer power needs, existing power supply and assumptions on new energy requirements.

So it's important that customers have time to digest and understand this information as it will impact the utilities cost and ultimately how rates are set.

So when ready, please introduce yourselves and begin.

Thank you very much, Chair Wu.

And we will introduce ourselves as we go along in our presentation.

I appreciate you and I appreciate the members of the committee for being here today as we present the Seattle City Light 2024 Integrated Resource Plan Update.

City Lights Integrated Resource Plan or IRP is a long-term study of our expected balance of future loads with the available energy resources to serve those loads.

The IRP addresses changes in the customer's power needs, existing power supply, and assumptions on new energy technologies and costs over the 22-year study period, which for us is from 2024 to 2045. IRPs are completed to ensure that we can reliably, sustainably, and economically meet our future loads.

City Light produces a full IRP every four years with an IRP progress report completed at the two-year mark, and this is one of those.

This update refreshes critical inputs such as the load forecast and the energy market forecast, which reflect the evolving regional energy landscape.

Just as with the full IRP, we also engage with a group of external stakeholders throughout the development of the IRP progress report to ensure City Lights customer owners' needs and priorities are addressed through the IRP and to ensure we stay apprised of the latest energy industry and technological developments here in Seattle.

and the surrounding communities.

Consistent with the 2022 full IRP and the recently completed 2024 demand side management potential assessment, the 2024 IRP progress report shows increasing levels of load growth.

The primary drivers of this anticipated load growth are transportation and building electrification, in addition to economic and population growth.

Increased load has increased City Lights' power supply needs, which will require adding wind, solar, batteries, and clean, firm energy resources to City Lights' portfolio.

City Light is a municipally-driven, not-for-profit utility that works hard to ensure we can reliably keep lights on for our customers in a way that is environmentally responsible while also keeping rates low.

I'd now like to hand it over to our presenters today.

With me is Siobhan Doherty, Power Supply Officer on the end.

Paul Dockery, Senior Manager of Energy, Resource Strategy and Planning, and Vereen Martin, Data Scientist, Strategic Advisor in Resource Planning and Analysis.

Thank you.

All right.

Good morning.

Thank you for your time this morning.

Today, we're going to present on our Integrated Resource Plan Progress Report.

As Don mentioned, this is both a planning tool as well as a regulatory requirement.

Go to the next slide.

So today we're gonna ask you to approve a resolution that acknowledges and approves the 2024 IRP progress report and allows us to submit it to the Washington Department of Commerce by September 1, 2024. Today we'll walk through the results of that progress report.

And we've also included the narrative in your materials.

To start, we want to level set on the purpose of the integrated resource plan.

An IRP is an opportunity for customers and stakeholders to share their vision for our future power supply.

An IRP is a study of options for meeting electricity needs of customers that find solutions that balances a variety of priorities.

An IRP is not intended to be a shopping list for specific resource acquisitions.

Acquiring resources is a separate but related utility function.

Also, today's request is not an appropriation of funds for resources.

When we do go out to acquire resources, we'll come back to City Council to request the approval for those resources.

What an IRP is is a playbook that describes the types of resources to pursue under the studied assumptions.

We're looking at a variety of changing circumstances over the next 20 years, and the deliverable of the IRP is a playbook for how do we meet those loads over that study period.

As mentioned, the integrated resource plan is an opportunity for customers and stakeholders to share their vision for our future power supply.

We engage with an advisory panel for that insight.

The IRP Advisory Panel is a group of 11 advisors that provide feedback on the development of both the Integrated Resource Plan and the Demand Side Management Potential Assessment.

And it is comprised of individuals representing customers, environmental organizations, regional energy-related governmental organizations, and academics.

The panel was convened for seven meetings since our last IRP.

And these industry experts can dedicate time investigating modeling assumptions and resource inputs to ensure that we have input from a diverse group of advisors that represent our customer interests.

Now I'm going to hand it off to Paul to get into more of the details.

Thank you, Siobhan.

So as Siobhan mentioned, an integrated resource plan is an evaluation of customer power needs and power supply resource needs.

Toward that end, every two years, Seattle City Light produces a 20-year plan that is approved by City Council and filed with the Washington Department of Commerce by September 1st.

For the evaluation of loads and resources in the Integrated Resource Plan, we used 30 years of weather traces to simulate hourly values for the 20-year study period.

Twenty years of future simulated hourly loads are compared to 20 years of future simulated hourly generation from City Light's resource portfolio to check whether City Lights' resource portfolio can produce power greater than or equal to the power needed by City Lights customers.

The resource plan is a requirement of Washington law, which requires all electric utilities with more than 25,000 customers to develop comprehensive resource plans every two years that identify strategies to meet their customer electricity needs in the short term and the long term that gets approved by their governing body and filed with the Washington Department of Commerce by September 1st.

As Dawn mentioned, City Light is required to file a resource plan every two years that is either a full integrated resource plan or a progress report.

A progress report reflects changing conditions and provides updates on the progress of full integrated resource plans.

City Light produced its last full IRP in 2022 and will produce its next one in 2026. The 2024 Resource Plan is a progress report that addresses changes in customer power needs, changes in our existing power supply, and changing assumptions on new energy resource technologies and costs over the 20-year period from 2024 to 2045. The analysis for the 2024 progress report started with the energy efficiency targets from the 2024 demand side management potential assessment that was approved by city council.

The 2022 IRP, the 2024 demand side management potential assessment and the 2024 IRP progress report that we're presenting on today use the same tools, the same processes and similar assumption with the main difference between them, the load forecasts.

The load forecast used in the 2024 integrated resource plan reflects the new policies for building electrification and transportation electrification.

When we refresh this IRP, as I mentioned, the biggest and most consequential change comes from significant increase in our load forecast over the 20-year study period.

This plot compares load forecasts used in the last 2022 IRP to load forecasts we're using for this progress report.

The plot shows megawatts on the y-axis and years on the x-axis with lines for annual average loads and units of average megawatts.

and hourly peak loads in units of megawatts.

Historic actuals are on the left in blue, forecast values for the 2022 IRP compared to the 2024 progress report on the right sides in shades of yellow, brown, and red.

In 2024, which is one of the latest years included in both the 2022 IRP and the 2024 progress report, City Lights forecast for annual average loads in 2040 increased by 238 average megawatts, and the peak increased by 580 megawatts between the two reports.

The increase in peak loads compared to previous expectation is driven by updated assumptions for electrification of building and transportation sectors.

I'm actually going to hand it to Vereen Martin next to describe how this changing load forecast is changing the needed power supplies to meet that load.

Thanks, Paul.

The increase in forecast annual average loads and especially the increase in forecast peak loads from the last slide are the biggest drivers of the large increase in resource needs we see in the 2024 IRP progress report compared to the 2022 full IRP, as Paul was mentioning.

This table summarizes the magnitude of City Lights needed wholesale resource additions and the recommended mix of resources.

What we mean by wholesale resource is any utility scale supply side power generation project like a large wind farm or a solar project.

On the left side of the table are the needed resources identified for the given milestones in the 2022 full IRP.

And on the right side are the needed resources identified for the milestones in the 2024 IRP progress report.

The timeframes that group the resources reflect the reporting periods required by the IRP filing.

For example, the first 10-year reporting period for the 2022 full IRP was 2022 through 2031, and the first 10-year reporting period for the 2024 IRP progress report was 2024 through 2033. Where the 2022 report showed we needed 400 megawatts in the first 10 years of the study period, the 2024 IRP is now showing we need 1,825 megawatts in the first 10 years of the study period.

That's an increased resource need of more than a factor of four in the next 10 years.

As a note though, as part of the R-plus program, we've recently executed contracts for 87 megawatts of solar, so we've already made a little progress.

Next slide, please.

The wholesale resources needed that were shown in the last slide are in addition to the conservation resources identified by the 2022 and 2024 demand side management potential assessments, which were used as inputs to the 2022 full IRP and the 2024 IRP progress report, respectively.

Conservation resources encompass any source of power from the demand side or customer side of the grid.

Notably, going from the 2022 IRP to the 2024 IRP progress report, customer solar programs increased significantly and demand response programs decreased, which is a result of a deeper analysis of the availability and cost of those programs done for the 2024 DSMPA, or Demand Side Management Potential Assessment.

The subtotal for conservation resources is shown at the bottom of the table, and the grand total of needed resources is broken out at the bottom of the slide.

The total needed resource additions for 2022 was just under 700 megawatts over 20 years, but now in the 2024 IRP progress report, we're showing a need for more than 2,500 megawatts over the next 20 years.

That's the main takeaway from the 2024 IRP Progress Report and what we want to show in this presentation.

The 2024 IRP Progress Report is showing a need for significantly more new resources than the previous full IRP in 2022 in order to ensure we can reliably meet load from now through the next 20 years.

The rest of this presentation unpacks more of what's driving that resource need and shows the wholesale resource mix that can best meet our demonstrated resource needs.

I'll hand it back to Paul.

Thank you, Vereen.

So in the 2024 progress report that's included as an attachment to the legislation, we're updating some graphics to show loads and resources with hourly values instead of using average values.

Month-hour graphs are a way to show how daily load shapes change across a year and across the study period.

This graphics key shown on the slide is an intro and a month-hour graphs, which we used in both the written report and in the next couple of slides of this presentation.

The stylized dark line is the load shape for a sample day of a month.

It has one value for each of the 24 hours in a day.

The graphics have labels for 1 AM, 9 AM, 5 PM, or 1,700 hours on the graphics.

And a tick mark is present for every hour of the day.

It's stylized, this example is stylized to look like a winter load with a morning ramp to show loads ramping early in the morning for lighting and heating, a lull in the middle of the day while people are at work, and then a ramp up of lighting and heating loads in the evening when people are getting home from work.

The band around the stylized line is a simulation band that reflects the low and high values for that hour of a day in the month.

Month-hour graphics, which you'll see in the upcoming slides, string together 12 panels like this, which is 12 panels of 24-hour periods to show 288 total data points, which is meant to reflect the load shapes across the year.

The month-hour graphs show the shape of load for a single day for each month of the year.

We think this is important because changes to the energy system means it's more important to evaluate every hour of the year to figure out periods of stress, and updating graphs to show hourly values is a way we are using to socialize the importance of that shift in analysis.

As Paul described, this is the month-hour graphic with data for 24 hours of a day plotted for each month of the year along the x-axis and megawatts are along the y-axis.

The data that's plotted on this month-hour graphic shows near-term simulated load for the IRP update compared with actual recent extreme events.

The black line is the median simulated load for 2025. and the shaded orange band shows the range of simulated load values for each month of 2025. The winter months generally have the highest overall system loads of the year due to heating and lighting demand and have two daily peaks, as Paul described in the previous slide.

In the summer, you'll notice there's only one peak in the daily load shape instead of two.

People tend to follow the same daily routines, but in summer, the sun is up early and also up late, so there's less lighting and heating demand in mornings and evenings.

Additionally, summer temperatures are warm but generally relatively mild, so overall there's less cooling demand in the summer than there is heating demand in the winter, keeping summer loads lower than winter loads on the whole.

The dark orange lines in January, June, August, and December show the actual load trace for single days from the last few years where Seattle's system was particularly stressed.

We've got a load traced during the peak day of the heat dome in June, 2021. We've got a day from the cold snap from late December, 2022. We're showing a load trace during a day in August, 2023, where the system was particularly stressed during the sourdough fire at the Skagit that summer.

And finally, there's the MLK weekend cold snap just this past January.

What we can see is that recent actual stress conditions line up well with the upper bounds of the 2025 system loads.

This shows us that our near future simulated peak loads are approximating recent actual peak loads pretty well.

Next.

As we transition to the next slide, I'll encourage us to watch the orange lines.

We're using them as references between these two graphs.

So this is showing for the simulated bands in 2025 where that orange line fell.

And as we transition to the next line, those orange lines will remain in the next graphic.

Great.

This plot shows the simulated load and generation for 2035 from the IRP update, so 10 years farther in the future than we were looking at in the past slide.

Let's see.

And the situation has changed significantly because forecast loads are increasing so quickly, like we saw a few slides back.

The shaded orange band in this graph now shows the range of simulated hourly loads for 2035 across the hours of the day for each month of the year.

This is similar to the orange band showing the range of 2025 loads in the previous graph.

This graph adds a shaded blue band to show the range of simulated generation for 2035 based on the generation capability from resources in our current portfolio.

We've still got the dark orange lines, as Paul said, showing the actual system load from those most stressed days from the past few years.

And we've added our actual system generation from those same stress days as the dark blue lines.

It's noteworthy that the stress events in the last few years land around the middle of the orange bands representing the range of loads in 2035. So our current most stressed conditions are going to be what we can expect for normal days in 2035. If we wanna serve firm loads with our own resource stack, City Light will need to acquire significant new resources in the next 10 years.

Thank you, and I'll again pause before we transition to the next slide.

I do think this is an important understanding of how our system is changing and using that reference for extreme events that we've recently experienced compared to what we can expect in this study period for 2035. If we have extreme events in 2035, we need to make sure we're building a portfolio of resources that can reasonably respond to the upper band of this orange simulation band.

And that is what we're transitioning to.

And the next slide is the resource planning playbook that this study identifies that can help us meet the needs in those stress conditions.

So earlier in the presentation, Vereen spoke to the table that showed our resource additions over 10 years, and this resource planning playbook zooms in on the individual years of that study period shown in that table earlier.

The x-axis shown on top is the year of the resource plan, and the y-axis on the left is the resource cost in dollars per megawatt hour.

When we evaluate resources in the study period, one key input is the assumed price.

That price is shown as a dot in the center of the rectangles.

That dot maps to the y-axis.

So a higher dot in the center of the rectangle means the resource is more expensive.

A lower dot means it is less expensive to get to a specific price.

You just take that dot and walk it to the left axis.

The nameplate of the resource is reflected in the height of the rectangle and in the label at the top of the rectangle.

This height of the rectangle provides a visual representation of that nameplate capacity.

The type of resource is associated with the color key on the right.

A yellow box is a solar resource.

And then the width of the rectangle is the contribution of that resource to our meeting periods of system stress.

That's typically referred to as resource adequacy, but it's how effective that resource is to meeting periods of system need.

The wider the rectangle, the more the resource contributes to meeting our customers during those peak stress conditions.

So to kind of summarize the graphic, because this is also a new graphic that shows up in our resource plan, but we think it's an important way to present as we're adding more resources, how those show up and how they compare.

We're communicating four vectors for resources.

First is cost, the second is quantity, the third is that resource's contribution during stress conditions, and the fourth is the year it's selected.

This resource planning playbook we think is useful for understanding how we can effectively meet customer power needs.

The key conclusions of the report and of this graphic is the near-term need to add significant amounts of wind, solar, and batteries.

That is the yellow, orange, and blue.

Another conclusion is the selection of the enhanced geothermal resource as a power supply resource in the study.

That is selected starting in 2032. Interestingly, 2032 was the first year in the study period that we made enhanced geothermal available to our resource planning tools to optimize resource additions to meet customer power needs.

and we limited in the study the amount of enhanced geothermal to 400 megawatts, which the planning tools exhausted before returning to other types of resources.

This is the first instance where we've modeled enhanced geothermal in the resource plan, and its selection, even at relatively higher price than wind and solar resource, leads us to a conclusion in the report that we need to evaluate, do additional evaluation of clean, firm resources for future study periods.

Thanks, Paul.

To bring us back to the beginning, the 2024 IRP progress report is a refresh of the 2022 IRP using the same tools same process and similar assumptions that resulted in dramatically different results due to the significantly increasing loads that we're seeing.

Customer electricity needs have increased as a result of the electrification of buildings and transportation.

The study provides a resource planning playbook for the addition of wind, solar, batteries, and carbon-free energy, carbon-free firm energy resources to meet the growth in electricity needs.

In the 2024 IRP Progress Report, we included enhanced geothermal as that representative carbon-free firm resource.

In future studies, City Light will continue to evaluate carbon-free firm resource options that can reliably respond to changes in demand, including the additional hydropower, enhanced geothermal, small modular reactors, hydrogen fusion, and other emerging technologies.

Next slide.

Finally, our requested action is to adopt a resolution that approves the 2024 IRP Progress Report, which will allow us to submit it to the Department of Commerce.

Thank you.

So thank you for being here today.

I have a list of questions on this, but I want to be mindful of time since we'll have you back on August 2nd.

So colleagues, any questions or comments?

Chair, like yourself, I have a long list of questions.

I'll say I really appreciated the time that I spent with you earlier this week.

I'll hold my questions in the interest of time for the second.

Great.

Customer Osaka.

I'm not holding for the interest of time.

This is important stuff.

But thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you, CEO Lindell and the team here for this wonderful presentation, insightful, eye-opening presentation, kind of teed up an opportunity here in terms of the demand, load, and the resources required to meet the anticipated.

And who knows?

I mean, in some of the modeling that you mapped out, it could be even worse.

So a lot of opportunity here.

Yeah, we're going to want to continue the conversation.

Absolutely, Madam Chair.

But I will just say, so this, the whole presentation, again, teed up the opportunity.

I really love that what I kind of view as like the punchline slide, which is at slide 13, and the key there to address the opportunity.

And you aptly noted that wind and solar are increasingly important.

and talked about the importance, among other things, in terms of cleaning renewables, geothermal.

Just be curious to better understand a couple things.

First off, with respect to geothermal energy, how...

As I understand it, that's somewhat of a nascent resource and technology.

Are there any other...

utilities that are crushing it in terms of their use of geothermal, and what barriers do we face here from a City Light perspective to adopting and scaling that resource locally?

So that's question one.

One other question.

I'll start with that.

So there are utilities that are crushing it in geothermal.

It's a technical term, too.

I like that.

I like it.

HECO in Hawaii is one.

Iceland does some good work here as well.

I had geothermal in my portfolio at Burbank Water and Power.

That said, geothermal is in this model and in the slide 12 that Mr. Dockery presented here as a placeholder for carbon-free renewable energy that's firm.

Notably, he did not introduce this into the model until 2032, and it was all used up at 2039. So the model grabbed firm ahead of everything else.

Had we introduced it earlier, the model would have grabbed it then.

Because firm energy, that energy that is available 7 by 24, is...

is much more, offers much more reliability to our system ensures we will be able to supply it with less having to go to the market in the midst of the event if we've got that available.

It's not weather variable.

So that's an important thing to note.

So it really is a placeholder.

Geothermal will be, if we're able to find it, and we should be able to, then we have to build the transmission.

from where we find it to bring it here.

And that can be a somewhat expensive and daunting task to do.

But I'll ask the team other thoughts.

I would just add a couple things.

Thank you for that.

On the new nascent technology, this is modeling an enhanced geothermal, which is one of those additional newer technologies around geothermal.

And people that are killing it recently, I guess, to use your term, I believe.

Envy Energy recently signed a power purchase agreement for Envi.

in coordination with some other outfits for this type of technology off of this type of resource.

But we do add it later in the portfolio to give it some time to become more commercial.

Thank you.

And so, yeah, that was, you also answered another question.

question i had is like geothermal it sounds like it's definitely much less weather dependent than wind for example and more consistent reliable source if we can find it and uh you know kind of begs in begs the question of well what happens if we don't are unable to find it so to speak procure it leverage it here locally and um Because my reading of this chart is that key assumptions are based on the fact that we're going to find it.

So in any event, this is interesting stuff.

I will likely want to do a deeper dive offline with you all about these various resources.

But I think we should continue to explore, Madam Chair, colleagues, the assumptions baked in here and what that purports from a city policy and planning perspective.

And yeah, thank you.

I geek out about this stuff, so yeah.

We'll have plenty of time.

So I want to acknowledge that for the discussion is needed before voting on this resolution today.

So we will not vote on it today and we'll consider it for the August 2nd committee meeting.

I too have questions regarding, Apollo will reach out to you as well as maybe have these questions answered in the next committee meeting, but hoping to connect the dots from this IRP and how it informs setting rates and planning for future needs.

And so we'd love to have a detailed breakdown of the projected cost for each proposed resource acquisition and how they compare to alternative options.

We'll also like to know the metrics and benchmarks that will be used to measure the success and cost effectiveness of the proposed resource plan over time.

So I will send these over.

Thank you.

So let's move on quickly to our next item.

Will the clerk please read item four into the record?

Agenda item four, a resolution related to the City Light Department adopting a 2025 to 2030 strategic plan update for the City Light Department and endorsing the associated six year rate path for discussion and briefing.

Thank you.

So we heard from the City Light on their strategic plan update and the associated six-year rate path during special committee on Monday.

I think we were overly ambitious today on how much we could do and coming across time.

So I'm so sorry to have to do this, but we'd love to invite City Light back to have this time for more discussion on the financial and rate path portion of the strategic plan on August 2nd.

But looking at the time, so I apologize for running out of time and look forward to a very robust discussion on August 2nd.

So as a council member, we have to consider any proposed rate increases in the context of other proposed rate increases, such as the one recently announced by SPU, as well as other tax increases being requested by the city, such as the recent transportation levy.

A 5.4 average increase looks like about a $6 jump for the average resident.

But if the rates, quote, continue to increase 5% annually over until 2040, end quote, as the plan states, then by 2030, the average price jump is significant.

And I'm very concerned about the impacts on the residents of Seattle.

And so while we have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns, I want to be mindful of time today, knowing we have more time scheduled on August 2nd.

So if it's okay, SAVE OUR QUESTIONS FOR AUGUST 2ND.

AND I WOULD RECOMMEND PREBRIEFINGS BETWEEN ALL OF US AHEAD OF THAT DATE AND BE ABLE TO ASK THAT BY NEXT COMMITTEE.

WE HAVE ALL THE KEY ASSUMPTIONS DRIVING THE INCREASE RATES, POSSIBLY BEING ABLE TO COMPARE TO OTHER RATES, SCENARIOS MODELED, AND A BREAKDOWN OF EACH CUSTOMER CATEGORY AND HOW THESE INCREASES MAY IMPACT EACH OF THEIR RATES.

in addition to the request for details from the last IRP presentation.

And so again, apologies.

Let's hold our questions for a transparent and public discussion August 2nd.

I also encourage the public to provide public comment or attend the second public hearing on the integrated resource plan.

So if there are no further questions or comments, we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Hearing no further business is coming for the committee.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.