Seattle City Council Transportation & Utilities Committee 6/16/21

June 16, 2021 meeting of the Transportation and Utilities Committee will come to order.

The time is 9.31 AM.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Gonzalez?

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Chair Peterson.

Here.

For present.

Thank you.

Colleagues, if there's no objection, today's proposed agenda will be adopted for the committee.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

quick chair's report, just an overview of today's agenda.

We've got three new appointments to the Seattle pedestrian advisory board, legislation to proceed with a loan for Seattle public utilities, the ship canal project.

We've got two presentations, one from Seattle city light about their strategic plan.

And then we've got sound transit here.

We're going to be talking about what they're calling their realignment process and asking them questions.

And I hope this is just the first of several visits with Sound Transit here in our transportation committee.

At this time, we'll open the remote general public comment period.

I ask that everyone please be patient as we operate this online system.

We are continuously looking for ways to fine tune this process of public participation.

It remains the strong intent of the city council to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, the city council reserves the right to modify these public comment periods at any point if we deem the systems being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

Public comment period for this meeting is 20 minutes.

It looks like we've got 13, 14 speakers.

We're going to have the time of a minute and a half for the speakers.

We do have a full agenda today.

So we're gonna have the public, everybody will get a chance to speak, but it'll be for a minute and a half, 90 seconds.

I'll call on two speakers at a time and in the order in which registered on the council's website.

If you've not yet registered to speak, but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at seattle.gov forward slash council.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone, and an automatic prompt of, you have been unmuted, will be the speaker's cue that it's their turn to speak, and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not, and there are comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following the meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

I do want to let folks know that our council president, Lorena Gonzalez, has joined the meeting.

The regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

One moment.

Hey, good morning.

My name is...

Go ahead, Mike.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

Good morning.

My name is Mike Stewart.

I'm Executive Director of the Ballard Alliance, an organization that represents hundreds of small businesses and thousands of residents in Ballard.

First, thank you, Committee Chair Peterson and Vice Chair Strauss for organizing today's presentation regarding Sound Transit.

The West Seattle to Ballard Light Rail Extension is indeed a transformative project that will have a significant positive impact upon communities throughout the region.

For Ballard, a hub urban village has received a tremendous amount of residential growth over the past decade.

The project will deliver on the promise to provide needed transportation infrastructure to a community that has accepted significant growth and the challenges that come along with it.

Ballard is united in its desire for a tunneled alignment with the station located on Market Street at or west of 15th Avenue Northwest.

A station placed in this location will not only serve the abundance of residents and transit riders located in the central Ballard core, it will also help preserve our maritime and industrial lands for their intended use.

We're at a pivotal time as we inch ever closer to the end of the pandemic and anxiously await the potential for swift economic recovery.

With regard to the realignment process, I encourage that Sound Transit decision makers take the time that is required to conduct meaningful and transparent engagement with City of Seattle leadership and key station area stakeholders.

Additional time and analysis is needed...

Go ahead.

I'm sorry, keep going.

Okay, sorry.

Additional time and analysis is needed to better understand our changing economic landscape and project cost volatility that is essential to carrying out a thoughtful realignment process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike Stewart.

Next up, we've got Jane Zalutsky, followed by Deborah Froustow.

Just a reminder to press star six.

Go ahead, Jane.

Hi, thank you for taking comments today.

I am Jane Zalutsky, executive director of the Seattle Center Foundation, and we appreciate your thoughtful commitment to the ST3 program that voters approve.

We at Seattle Center want to provide equally thoughtful and helpful information back to you so that the full West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions are built and help Seattle become an even more economically vibrant city with sustainable transit.

For the arts and culture and entertainment organizations at Seattle Center, which come in all shapes and sizes from some of the region's largest to smallest, we absolutely need transparency, adequate information, and enough time to review that information.

We ask that the City of Seattle and Sound Transit work with us over the coming months to engage in station-specific stakeholder conversations before making decisions that could delay light rail, shortchange Seattle loaders, and have a lasting impact on the health and vitality of Seattle Center.

The decisions before you will have consequences not only on our region's mass transit system, but on the critical health of Seattle Center, one of our region's most important cultural assets.

As a city, we must always pay careful attention to our arts and cultural organization and our ever more valuable gathering places.

Our community's economic, mental, and spiritual health depends on it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jane.

Next up, we've got Debra Frosto, followed by Tia Petrovich.

Go ahead, Debra.

Hello, my name is Debra Frosto, and I am representing Uptown Alliance in the Uptown Arts District.

and have comments on ST3 as well.

Over the last three years, Uptown Alliance has been a strong partner with Sound Transit in providing thoughtful input and a community voice to ST planning for the Seattle Center Uptown Station.

We continue to work with our community partners, Seattle Center, Climate Pledge Arena, South Lake Union, and others to provide a clear vision for this event station.

Keeping this station in the initial buildup is key to the success of ST3.

providing equitable access to millions of people coming to a regional destination, as well as our residential community.

In preparing for the release of the DEIS, we need information now on how the community input has influenced the location of this station and ask that the review period be extended.

An expected 45-day review on such a complicated document, thousands of pages long, It's a huge burden to put on communities, and so we ask for your support for an extended review.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deborah.

Next up, we've got Tia Petrovich, followed by Tiernan Martin.

Go ahead, Tia.

Good morning, and thank you for putting Sound Transit on the agenda for this committee and for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Tia Petrovich, and I chair the Pioneers Corps Residence I live in Tammy Morales' district.

My concern is the huge impact that Pioneer Square will feel with this large project.

When something this big is placed in our neighborhood we should be hearing from and centered around BIPOC voices and resident voices.

Those who will be the most impacted by the project specifically on design and operational elements.

This project is one of those hundred year projects and it's going to affect many generations to come.

I want to keep voices at the table that are reflective of those who will use the facility and who live extremely near the facility.

My answer request.

Can we please get calendar commitments for regular reporting on realignment and the Jackson hub process planning and allow input where possible.

The goal would be to design something that feels like it belongs here and isn't just being put here leaving neighborhoods to try to figure out their own adaptations and next steps post project.

Thanks again for the opportunity for this time allotment.

Thank you, Tia.

Next, we have Tiernan Martin followed by Alex Hudson.

Go ahead, Tiernan.

Thank you, Chair Peterson and other members of the committee.

My name is Tiernan Martin.

I live in the Chinatown International District, and I serve on the board of directors of SCIPTA, the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority.

My comment this morning concerns the sound transit realignment update.

Skipta and our partners are pleased to see that this committee is engaging with Sound Transit on the Ballard West Seattle light rail extension.

The Chinatown ID needs the council, the mayor and city staff to do everything you can to ensure that our community's voices are heard during the EIS review process and that our priorities are reflected in the new light rail station and its surrounding station area, as well as throughout the construction process.

This new station could bring meaningful benefit to our neighborhood, but it also poses serious risks.

In the past, Infrastructure planning projects like the Jackson streetcar have done a poor job meeting the needs of the CID community, particularly the staff and owners of small businesses and our residents who use mobility aids to get around.

And of course it isn't just the streetcar that's impacted the CID.

Our neighborhood is surrounded by fast moving arterial roads and is cut in half by an elevated 12 lane interstate.

We are asking this committee to help ensure that the new light rail station and its surrounding station area do not repeat the mistakes of the past and instead are planned in close collaboration with the CID and our neighbors in Pioneer Square.

Setting up a recurring meeting, non-transit in this committee would be helpful as a first step toward that goal.

Thank you for your attention this morning and for your leadership on this issue.

Thank you, Tiernan.

Next we have Alex Hudson followed by Tom Marra.

Go ahead, Alex.

Thank you for the opportunity to weigh in on this important topic, the timely delivery of ST3 and the multi-generational impact it will have on the City of Seattle and the entire Puget Sound region.

I'm Alex Hudson and I'm the Executive Director of TCC.

We are deeply committed to helping all parties deliver on the promise of a robust and equitable light rail system in operation as soon as possible.

It is not hyperbolic to recognize that few decisions or processes will come before the city council that have as much consequence as how, when, and where light rail service is delivered to Seattle.

This infrastructure is planned at the scale of a century and will fundamentally reshape our communities in every possible regard.

The very essence of the city's future is on the table.

You're making decisions that affect where Seattleites live, if and how they will prosper, what they can do and where they can go.

decisions that will make people's lives easier and opportunities richer, their lives more connected, their communities safer and more just, and that will ensure our planet's future is more viable.

That is why we urge City Council to make the process of West Seattle-LaValle Light Rail Extension planning deliberate.

Take the time to ensure you're asking all the questions and getting all the answers to ensure we're doing right by this responsibility.

A deliberate planning process must include meaningful and transparent engagement, including with Seattle residents and station area stakeholders, particularly in high-risk neighborhoods like Delridge and South Downtown.

Iterative, inclusive conversation should inform the development of priorities that will guide the city's policymaking, planning, design, engineering, and ongoing maintenance of the station areas.

While the magnitude of these decisions cannot be overstated, time is of the essence.

The city should make this a top priority and direct capacity with us.

Thank you, Alex Hudson, and please, for anybody who was preparing for the two minutes and then down to one minute and 30 seconds, please also email your comments to us.

We really appreciate your time this morning.

Next, we have Tom Marra, followed by Jonathan Hopkins.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you, council members.

Appreciate this opportunity.

I'm Tom Marra, the executive director of KEXP, and also wear another hat as a member of the Seattle Center Foundation board.

My organization, KEXP, is adjacent to the preferred alternative site for the Seattle Center Station.

And at this point, we're quite concerned, almost at the existential level, of how we may be able to operate during the time of construction and also during the time of operation afterward.

We seek more information, better understanding, and more engagement with Sound Transit leadership to look at alternatives and look at ways for KEXP to remain viable during this time.

And also, I thank Peter Rogoff for his engagement with us in starting a dialogue with much appreciation.

Thanks again for the opportunity.

Thank you, Tom.

Next, we have Jonathan Hopkins followed by Jacqueline Gruber.

Go ahead, Jonathan.

Good morning, Chair and committee members.

On behalf of Seattle Subway, I want to thank the committee for engaging on the topic of Sound Transit realignment.

We hope the council will think critically about what realignment executed now will mean for our city, and we hope the council will ask Sound Transit a few critical questions that deserve answers.

This realignment process will have immense negative impact upon our city.

Core to the realignment proposal are concepts to massively delay light rail connections to Alaska Junction, Ballard, Everett, Issaquah, and Intel stations at 130th and Graham Street into the 2040s.

as well as moving quick wins, quote unquote, such as the C and D line improvements to 25 years out.

This is a big deal.

The re-alignment process was created with failure as the core assumption and central precept, willingly giving in to breaking faith with voters.

Sound Transit says, quote, sustainability is part of our daily business, unquote.

Yet in an era when we have nine years to avert a cascading series of ecological disasters, how can a transit agency willfully, willfully, give in to delaying critical projects into the 2040s.

That's an ecologically unserious effort by an otherwise great agency.

We have two questions.

First, why are we doing this now?

Mayor Durkan, Dow Constantine, and Claudia Bilodeau, she have rightly called for a policy realignment.

Why?

Because it feels like we're lowering the bar without a basis in known facts.

The affordability gap has fallen by nearly $4 billion in just five months, with which is proof that we have no clue at this time what the gap really is.

We should not lower the bar without knowing that.

Second, why hasn't Sound Transit organized for success?

Creating a working group focused on what is necessary to complete all Braille projects on time or early.

It hasn't done this at all.

Note that SD2 and SD3 actually did that, filling gaps for prior projects to complete those on time or nearly on time.

Thank you, Jonathan.

And again, everybody, just send your email, your comments to us as well.

And we really appreciate your time this morning.

Next, we have Jacqueline Gruber followed by Lisa Howard.

Go ahead, Jacqueline.

Hi, council.

My name is Jacqueline Gruber, and I'm here today representing Vulcan to comment on SD3.

We are among the stakeholders of several SD3 station areas and believe that transit is critical to the health, equity, and vibrancy of our city.

Sound Transit 3 represents a pivotal opportunity to expand our transit network and meet our equity and environmental environmental goals.

Getting it right will not be easy.

Thoughtful attention and analysis is necessary to better understand and overcome the recent cost increases and deliver the package promise to voters.

Finalizing the exact station locations and design will require meaningful community engagement, but it should not be rushed.

We must ensure that stations are thoughtfully designed, accessible, and enable seamless transfers between modes all while minimizing unnecessary impact to ground floor businesses, civic institutions, and arts and cultural organizations during construction and into the future.

While this work will be challenging, the benefits will be long lasting.

They require our intentional and deliberate planning.

Thank you for initiating the dialogue to deliver the promise of ST3.

Thank you, Jacqueline.

Next, we have Lisa Howard followed by Kathleen Johnson.

Go ahead, Lisa.

Hi, thank you, Council Member Peterson.

This is Lisa Howard with the Alliance for Pioneer Square.

First off, I want to thank you for hosting this discussion, and we hope your leadership here kicks off a series of discussions regarding West Yale's Ballard Link Extension.

We need the leadership of the entire city council, particularly this committee, to ensure that the project that Seattle voters endorsed and are largely paying for is built for the city.

We hope that you will use this forum as a regular opportunity for council to identify and meet project planning needs inside the city.

A key goal for the South downtown communities is that the project and all future major infrastructure projects are developed in a way that implement and reflects the priorities of these two historic neighborhoods.

For decades, people in both areas have engaged in dozens of outreach and planning efforts, and over that time, consistent and durable themes have surfaced, including public safety, comfortable, safe, and accessible public spaces, and design that connects the two neighborhoods and the people who live, work, and play here.

Jackson Hub began as a joint community effort, and thanks to Mayor Dworkin's leadership, the city has taken on delivering the Jackson Hub station area planning process to build on these past community-led planning efforts, raise up community voices, and improve coordination within and among agencies.

We're grateful for the work that is being done by our city agencies to develop outcomes from the process that will guide the responsible design, and hope you will support these agencies in their work.

We look forward to ongoing collaboration with this committee.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next, we have Kathleen Johnson followed by Jamie Lee.

Go ahead, Kathleen.

Thank you, Chair Peterson and Vice Chair Strauss for this opportunity to discuss the West Seattle Ballard Light Railroad Extension Project.

I'm Kathleen Johnson, Executive Director of the Los Balson Town Estate Agency, charged with investing in the vitality of the two historic neighborhoods of Chinatown International District and Pioneer Square.

We are grateful to Seattle for providing financial support to HSE to provide capacity to these two neighborhoods to fully engage in the WSBLE grant planning process.

The WSVLA project is the largest single investment in transportation infrastructure in Seattle.

The alignment runs from West Seattle to Ballard entirely within the city.

We welcome the council's leadership to ensure the project is planned, constructed, and operated in a way that serves the people who live, work, and play here, both who we are today and who we will be in 100 years.

The two neighborhoods HSC focuses its work on, CID and Pioneer Square, live with a history of bearing the negative impacts of major infrastructure projects.

while the benefits accrued to people living in other parts of the city, county, state, and even country.

Think of I-5, which cuts the CID in two and destroyed the vibrant center of the neighborhood, including family homes and businesses.

Or the two stadiums, which bring joy and community people all over the state, while South Downtown handles the clean-up, public drunkenness, and traffic.

The list is literally endless, and for that reason, the state founded HSC to invest and help elevate the voices of communities We hope that you will lead the discussion to help WSBLE reflect the priorities and concerns of the people who live west of site in these two hoods.

Thank you, Kathleen.

Next, we have Jamie Lee, followed by Mark Johnson.

Go ahead, Jamie.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name's Jamie Lee, and I work for the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation Development Authority.

When I started working for SCIPTA, seven years ago today, actually, The first hill streetcar construction had finished, and one of my first projects was to help the community mitigate the impact that construction had on the neighborhood.

I saw firsthand the impact, not only on our businesses, but on the trust and belief our community had in that particular transportation upgrade.

The communication and thought given to our neighborhood was lacking, and it took many years for us to recover.

I don't need to tell you that the West Seattle to Ballard Link light rail station is a significantly larger project, This is a once-in-a-generation project, likely to impact the CID neighborhood more than the construction of I-5, and it is a 100-year-plus transit project.

You, the city, have acknowledged that transportation infrastructure projects like this disproportionately impact South Downtown, without censoring the voices of BIPOC voices.

There is a great possibility that this project will fall in the footsteps of many others, that it is planned as something through our neighborhood for other parts of the city, not for our neighborhood.

I urge you as our city to work closely with Sound Transit to ensure that this project takes into consideration the needs of our small businesses and residents of the CID as they make up the fabric of what makes this neighborhood so unique.

We need our elected leadership to be involved in the realignment process and upcoming stages of environmental review.

We need the mayor and council to make sure that the community is re-engaged in realignment processes and our voices are heard by Sound Transit during the EIS process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jamie.

Next, we have Mark Johnson, followed by Jeffrey Herman.

Go ahead, Mark.

You want to press star 6. And this is for Mark Johnson.

We'll go ahead.

go to Jeffrey Herman, and then we'll come back to Mark later.

Jeffrey Herman, if you don't mind pressing star six and starting.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Oh, great.

Hey, good morning.

Thank you for welcoming comments this morning.

My name is Jeffrey Herman.

I am the Managing Director at Seattle Rep. Based on information that's currently available, the Ballard Light Rail Project and specifically the Seattle Center Uptown Station will have huge consequences for the rep and many of our colleagues on the Seattle Center campus.

I believe that there's a lot of opportunity here, but there's also a lot of risk and consequence and real concerns about how the rep and our neighbors can keep operating through the duration of this project.

And I urge you please to ensure that we have sufficient time and transparency and engagement with our friends at the city and at Sound Transit and on the Seattle Center campus and in the neighborhood to make sure that we're all moving together thoughtfully and cohesively.

I know the time is of the essence, but the magnitude of these decisions and the impact on all stakeholders cannot be underestimated.

This is such a huge project, and more time and information and partnership and dialogue is needed to move forward thoughtfully.

Thank you in advance for your help in ensuring a process that will involve, include, and respect all the key stakeholders.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And we're going to try Mark Johnson again.

Mark, if you can hear us, press star six.

Mark Johnson, we're ready for you.

Those who are listening can still email the council at council at seattle.gov with your comments.

But that appears to be the last speaker who we have present, but I'll check with our IT team to make sure.

There are no other public comment registrants.

Well, thank you for everybody who called in to speak.

And again, you can email us at anytime, council at seattle.gov.

I will go ahead and close the public comment period.

And we will start with the first three items on the agenda.

We've got three appointments.

Let's have our clerk read those first three items into the record.

Agenda items one through three.

Appointments 1947 through 1949. Appointments of Aaron Fitzpatrick Hung Nguyen and Grayson Simon as members.

Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board for terms to March 31st 2023. For briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

I'm excited to have these three new appointments to the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board here at our meeting today.

Polly from SDOT, if you don't mind telling us a little bit about or reminding us about the Pedestrian Advisory Board and their mission.

And also we'll then hear from our three candidates to give us a little bit about their background and why they like to serve on the Pedestrian Advisory Board.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Holly.

Thanks, Chair Peterson.

So I'm the SDOT liaison for the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board and the board advises SDOT on pedestrian projects and especially the pedestrian master plan.

So we had a big recruitment process.

We received nearly 50 applications, which is more than a typical year.

So that was really exciting.

And we narrowed it down to our final three applicants who I'm very proud to present today.

And that includes Hong Nguyen, Aaron Fitzpatrick, and Grace and Simon.

So thanks for having us.

And I know they have other things to get to today, so I will keep it brief.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you.

We'll go ahead and just go down the list as presented on our agenda.

So we'll start with Hang Nguyen.

Go ahead and tell us a little bit about your background and why you'd like to serve on the Pedestrian Advisory Board.

And thank you in advance for your willingness to serve.

Cllr Rachel Gilliland?

s iPhone 2?

I saw the opportunity to be on the board as a great way to be more involved in the public, serving my community, and having been a resident close to major roadways like Aurora and Lake City Way, I know that pedestrian safety is at the forefront of the city of Seattle.

And I want to be a contributing member to finding ways to make our pedestrian experience a lot safer, a lot more enjoyable.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

And colleagues, we'll ask questions.

If you want to ask questions, we'll hear from the other two candidates first.

So let's go down to the next candidate, Grayson Simon.

Good morning, Grayson.

Good morning.

Thank you for having us here.

My name's Grayson Simon, and I don't have professional experience kind of relevant to this.

I am a queer trans person and I do run a community resource called the Trans Language Primer at translanguageprimer.org.

And as our community is generally underemployed and underpaid, most of us are pedestrians for a large part of our lives and safety especially is a big part of that.

And I just happened to stumble over the fact that the board had openings and I was thrilled because I've been looking for a way to get more involved in the actual infrastructure of the community here.

And I'm just so thankful that I get to bring my experience and the relevant perspective of my communities to this position.

I'm very excited to see exactly what we can do here.

Thank you, Grayson.

Next, we've got Erin Fitzpatrick.

Good morning, Erin.

Good morning.

I'm Erin.

My background is in orientation and mobility, which is teaching people that are blind and deafblind or blind with other disabilities how to travel safely and independently through their environment.

We're based here in Seattle.

And as you can imagine, I do a lot of walking of the Seattle streets and sidewalks.

I'm very passionate about making sure things are accessible and trying to marry our transportation and our pedestrian infrastructure so that it's accessible to all.

I'm very excited to work on the board and be able to advocate for my people.

Thank you very much.

Thanks all three of you for your willingness to serve.

And council members, I know that we've all reviewed their application packets, but if you have any questions for our applicants, please let me see.

Let me just check the raise hand.

Council member Morales, thank you for the old fashioned raising of the hand.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

I don't have any questions.

I just want to thank all of you for your willingness to serve on this board or commission board.

You know, the thing, Aaron, especially as you were speaking that I was thinking about is a few months ago taking a walk with folks from Lighthouse for the Blind down underneath the intersection of I-90 where the new Mount Baker light rail station is going in.

Sorry, the Judkins Park light rail station.

And just seeing how scary it is to be walking around with a lot of fast moving traffic, with construction projects going on, blocking sidewalks, with a highway ramp that is blocking somebody's access to the bus stop.

There's a lot happening.

And it was hard for me to try to walk through there with no impairment.

So I really appreciate what you will bring to this body because I do think it's really important for us to remember that not everybody drives, not everybody has the kind of, you know, mobility that allows them to navigate our streets safely, and we really need to keep folks but people's safety in mind, no matter how they move around the city.

So I'm really excited that all of you are willing to serve in this capacity and are willing to hold us accountable to keeping our community safe.

I'm glad you're here for this particular panel because I do think it's important that all of our different transportation entities understand that the work they do impacts people who aren't just driving.

who can't drive and we need to keep their safety in mind too and need to keep their mobility in mind as we're planning these different transportation projects.

Whether it is you know directly related to to a pedestrian project or not pedestrians are impacted and their safety is important.

So I just want to thank all of you for being here and welcome aboard.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Members, any more comments or questions before we vote on these appointments?

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

This is not a comment nor a question directed at the appointments here with us today.

Thank you so much for your service.

I really look forward to working with you.

I do want to flag my quick review of the participation roster.

of representation from district one.

So I'm just flagging that for future vacancies, would love to work with you and or the mayor's office in filling either mayoral or council vacancies with a district one person.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions before we vote on these appointments?

Okay.

what Councilor Morales was saying earlier about the integration of all the different modes.

I mean, we have sound transit here as our last item today, but we'll be talking with them, maybe not at this meeting so much, but in a future meeting about accessibility to their stations and their new stations and how they're built for pedestrians so that people can get there more easily to those stations of working escalators and what's needed to keep people moving.

Again, thank you for your service and council members.

And unless one of you would like to separate out any particular candidate for a separate vote, I'd like to vote on all three of these together for the Pedestrian Advisory Board.

Okay, so hearing no wish to do that, I'll now move that the committee recommend approval of appointments 01947, 01948, and 01949, items one, two, and three on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of all three appointments.

Any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that the three appointments be approved for forwarding to the full city council?

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

That's five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation is that the appointments be sent for approval to the June 21st city council meeting.

Congratulations to our appointments.

You're going off to the big show, the full city council.

You do not need to attend that meeting though.

I'll be able to talk about your appointment packets.

And again, thank you so much for serving and I'm sure I'll see you at a pedestrian advisory board meeting in the future.

All right, thank you.

Bye, thanks, Polly.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda item four, resolution 32007, a resolution related to the City Light Department adopting a 2022 to 2026 strategic plan for the City Light Department and endorsing the associated five-year rate path for briefing and discussion.

Okay, thank you.

Our committee will now discuss the strategic plan for Seattle City Light.

It's a multi-year plan for implementing the mission of this $1 billion city-owned utility enterprise, which provides portable, reliable, and environmentally responsible electricity to over 900,000 people in Seattle and surrounding areas.

I just want to say I'm pleased that despite several cost pressures, such as the COVID pandemic, Seattle City Light has surpassed expectations in keeping their rate increases under control.

Seattle City Light succeeded in not increasing the bills of electricity customers this year, while also lowering the future rate increases when compared to their previous strategic plan.

As we'll see, the net result is the six-year average increase will be less than 3.5% instead of the original 4.5% increase we were expecting.

So in other words, the rates will rise as close as possible to the rate of inflation, which is fiscally responsible and reasonable for our ratepayers.

Not surprisingly, the customer review panel has endorsed this plan and supports its adoption by the council.

And so we're hearing the resolution that today is just a briefing and discussion of the resolution.

I want to welcome Seattle City Light and also give our central staff analyst, Eric McConaughey, an opportunity if he wanted to lead off with any introductory remarks.

Thank you council member, good morning.

Eric McConaghy and the council central staff.

I don't have anything to add in addition to how you framed it up.

I look forward to being another audience member to the presentation and then we'll see everyone back in the month of July for the committee's continued discussion and potential vote on the resolution.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome general manager Smith and your team.

Please go ahead and take it away.

Great, well thank you so much for having us, I want to say that Eric is being incredibly kind because I cannot imagine that he's actually all that interested in being part of the audience for this presentation that he's heard I don't know how many times so Eric you're a trooper and.

Thank you again.

I just wanted to say as we started today that you know I'm a downtown dweller and I have been with the city now going on three years which is kind of crazy to think about and live downtown and my husband and I intentionally chose to stay even as things here have been hard and You know I lay in bed at night and I have the windows open now and what I want to appreciate all of you because I was I was thinking about the Simon and Garfunkel song sounds of silence last night and what I'm starting to hear downtown Seattle.

is the opposite.

You know I'm starting to hear the sounds of a city coming back alive and I appreciate all of your efforts to make sure that that happens and I know it's Yeoman's work and I'm thankful that it's not my job and I'm appreciative of the job that you all do.

And lastly I just want to say to Council Chair Gonzalez that you and your family continue to be in my thoughts and prayers and I'm so, so, so sorry for your loss.

So on that note, this is my first plan.

And as I said, it's been almost three years.

And yet because of COVID, I got another year to kind of assimilate and explore and learn about the utility.

And now we are moving and we are excited about the direction we're moving.

So we just completed some rating agency presentations for some debt that we're issuing later this month.

And as we went through that process with Standard & Poor's and Moody's, we were able to say that we have a very good story to tell.

And when we look at how City Light did over 2020 and the future that we're moving towards, indeed, it is a good story.

And I'm really proud of my folks and my team who have been able to make incredible changes and to really, truly pivot.

in terms of our priorities as an organization and as part of the city family, and to do so in a way that uplifts customers, uplifts BIPOC communities, and really is beginning to focus on the equitable results that we all want to see for our city.

So let's go to the next slide, please.

Oh, let me introduce folks first.

So thank you for introducing Eric, but I have with me today Maura Brugger, who is largely going to be my AV consultant.

And participating in the presentation will be Kirstie Granger, who is City Light's CFO, and Lee Barreca, who may jump in a bit, or for the sake of quickness, what I may just say here at the start, as you go through these slides, and in particular, as you look through the actual draft plan, you will find that a number of the photos that you see are actually part of the Essentially Seattle project that Lee worked on with the Seattle Arts and Culture Group.

And the idea was to create work early in the pandemic for some of our artists and our struggling arts community by engaging folks to take pictures of essential workers across the city, certainly not just city employees or City Light employees.

And this is a project I want to note that Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light largely funded.

And so some of the photos that you see in this presentation were taken by those local artists and photographers, and we were honored to work with them during this time.

So next slide, please.

So this is just a bit of history and over to your right, you see that the strategic plan process was established by ordinance in 2010. This is our fifth plan, although it is in some ways our sixth plan because we started a plan that would have come forward in 2020. But we pulled it.

So typically City Light always does a six-year view of priorities and then a six-year rate trajectory.

What is different about the plan that you are seeing today is that it is a five-year plan.

And the reason for that is to get us back on our typical biennial budgeting process.

So we're doing a one-year plan.

We did a one-year rate strategy that the council has already acted on.

That's another thing that is slightly different about this plan is usually the rate, the rate piece would follow the plan, but we went ahead and legislated that and use the amount that was in that 2018 plan that you see over on the corner and at the end of our presentation today curious he's going to talk some about.

the financial impacts and the rates.

So that's where we are.

The review panel, as Councilmember Peterson noted, supports the plan.

We had a fantastic time working with them on this.

And they were really good sports because they did one plan, then they had to come back, do another plan, and then quite honestly, they're going to stop and then they're going to start all over again here.

in just a few months.

So they have been tremendous to work with.

They represent, as you know, the various customer groups, and there are five members appointed by mayor, four by council, and we do have some vacancies right now that we are working with Council Member Peterson and the mayor's office to fill.

So let's move on.

So this is just where we are in the process.

So we're going to be going through these slides fairly quickly.

I doubt that we'll have a lot of time left for Q&A, but if we do, that will be fantastic.

But if not, we are happy to answer questions offline.

We're happy to meet with council members.

We're happy to answer questions with staff.

We will be back on July 7th at committee and our review panel will be there to share some thoughts and comments and then we will be answering questions and then moving forward either on July 12th or 19th for final action at full council.

Next slide.

So guiding our path in 2020 and actually beginning in 2019 City Light did update our mission, vision and values.

The mission is largely unchanged.

We tweaked a couple of words.

It used to talk about delivering and now we are providing because customers are receiving energy services in different ways.

It also used to say electricity services, but we are Again, noting that for customers, energy is a commodity and it provides comfort, light.

It provides all the things that we value.

And I think we value them more now after the pandemic and living and working from home than we ever have.

But there are different ways of meeting those needs.

And so we want to be cognizant of that.

And our vision is about creating a shared energy future by partnering with our customers to meet their energy needs in whatever way they choose.

So the focus is on partnership and the focus is on customer choice.

Our values are the way we do our work, the how we approach our work, and some are very well embedded in the organization today.

For instance, environmental stewardship, very much who we are.

Customers first.

And there's a reason it comes first, because we are really pivoting and we are focusing and centering the work we do on our customers with, again, special emphasis on equitable community connections and making sure that our products, services are available to everyone in the same way.

Let's move on.

So we did quite a bit of output.

And I would say that our outreach actually benefited from the pandemic in some ways.

We were able to talk with more folks because it was less of an investment of time by doing it remotely.

So we had 10 stakeholder group presentations across the board, lots of attendees.

We had, as I said, 22 strategic planning meetings with the City Light Review Panel.

And then, you know, again, a great deal of community and employee outreach.

We shared materials.

We had a virtual town hall open to the public.

We shared employee meetings.

So, and we really tried to get this out.

Also, as we developed the plan, we not only worked with the review panel, but we worked with groups of employees as well so that they could see themselves in the work we were doing with our review panel.

That was super important to us.

We know a key to an engaged workforce.

is understanding how my work is tied to the goals of the organization I work for.

And so we really wanted to incorporate that all through the process.

Next slide, please.

And, you know, despite the pandemic, we made some amazing progress.

I'd like to point out here that the young woman, she will like me saying that, the woman on the left is Michelle Vargo.

And she, just as of this Monday, is our chief operating officer.

But we got a tremendous amount of work done.

We made progress with our portal, brought that portal online, increased enrollment in the UDP by over 23%.

A big part of that was by implementing self-certification during this time.

We continued to invest in the critical infrastructure, including making good progress and achieving our goals with respect to the accelerated pole replacement program.

We went live with the Western EIM, and we did that on April 1 of 2020, which was pretty remarkable.

We thought about delaying it, but we did not, and it was a good year.

Our first year results in the EIM exceeded $8 million.

We earned the highest reliable public provider rating from the American Public Power Association.

a rating they do called the RP3, which stands for a reliable public power provider.

And the first time that we ever applied, most public utilities participate in this program, we were awarded platinum status, which is the very highest they award.

And it speaks not only to the reliability of our system, but it also speaks to how we handle people and culture issues, how we handle safety, how we handle succession planning.

So it's the big version of reliability.

Next slide.

General Manager Smith, we've got Vice Chair Strauss with a comment or question.

Perfect.

Thank you for watching for me too.

As you know, it's hard to see when you're presenting.

Council Member?

I always have to remember the mute button.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, General Manager.

We had a great discussion before this meeting talking about UDP enrollment being up.

I wanted to take this moment to highlight the Western energy imbalance market because when this legislation, when we were making the decision to enter into this market, we were the first public utility to do so, which you all know, I guess I'm just rehashing this for the public.

And there was a lot of risk involved.

There was a lot of uncertainty.

General Manager, can you remind me, what was this year like for us in the Western energy and balance market?

Well, as I said, it was a very successful first year.

We had various estimates for what we did because the city, and of course, I wasn't here yet either, council members, so none of us can take any credit for it, but the folks that came before me and the folks that are still here made some great decisions.

And so we looked at various business cases, but we exceeded our most likely.

And again, as I said, we made more than $8 million in additional revenue during the pandemic.

And I will also say, so just as a quick reminder that the EIM deals within our variances.

So, you know, we balance our power, we have a real time desk.

The physics of energy, which I will say I only partly understand, but the reason the lights come on when you flip the switch is because the system is always in balance.

That's why we spill water at certain times of the year.

And that's why even though city light in general is a long utility, which means we have by long, it means we we have access to more power on an annual and generally even a monthly basis than our customers use.

Within the day, within the hour, we are constantly buying and selling in order to stay in balance.

And what the EIM allows is for the most value from those in-hour transactions.

And those are really critical.

And last year with all of the wildfires, the public safety power shutoffs that happened in primarily California and in some other places.

The value of being in the market in that moment was very high.

And when we look ahead to this summer, the prices for the spot prices are very high.

So being where we are positions us well for the future.

And you should know too that Tacoma is also in process now and they will go live next spring.

So exciting news for them.

That's great.

Thank you, General Manager.

And it's great to hear that while we understood there was risk in joining the market, that we have been rewarded.

Also highlighted on this slide is our highest reliable power provider rating from American Public Power Association.

And for the viewing public, I'll highlight General Manager Smith joined American Public Power Association's podcast PolarPowerX, and she did an amazing job discussing everything that we're talking about today and many more topics.

If you haven't had a chance to listen, I highly suggest it.

Wow, thanks so much.

Okay, next slide.

All right, so we're going to go through the strategic plan.

I'm not really going to talk from this slide.

This is an overview of our five business strategies.

Instead, I'm going to talk briefly about each of them.

I am going to go quickly through them, but I will stop at the end of each and ask if you have a question or a comment about each.

So number one, again, customers first was our lead value, and improving the customer experience is our lead business strategy.

Our goal is to consistently meet our customers' needs by providing employees with opportunities and training, One thing we've become really clear on is that our employees in some areas, because of the pace of growth in the City of Seattle, which really didn't even let up last year, the pace of growth is such that our employees struggle at times to keep up with their workload, especially in those who are dealing directly with customers.

So we are working to empower them, to give them the training, the development, and the tools that they need to really deliver on that customer value proposition.

So we have a voice of the customer initiative that we're working on.

We are strengthening and fixing our core customer services.

We call that the service to build project and it is literally, we have gone through the process of identifying all the pain points that customer feels when they sign up for service or they ask for new service at their home and all the places they touch us and all the places that goes well and all the places where there's an opportunity to do better and we are working on that.

We're also expanding customer service options both digitally, so how do you deal with us, but also on the customer energy solution side of the house, etc.

What are the products and services that customers of today want and need?

I should have said, on each of these slides, we've listed some of what we call PIAs, or projects, initiatives, and activities.

These are not an exhaustive list.

These are some samples of things, things that were particularly important to the review panel, perhaps, but there are others.

And this is a plan, we will update this plan next year, but we will live with this plan for some time to come.

And so as time goes on, we will update the PIAs.

Any questions about improving the customer experience?

Okay, I don't see any, let's move on.

This is where we are super excited.

So, you know, the time I've been here you've heard me talking about this.

The future is now, and it is our responsibility and our huge huge.

privilege to create the energy future for Seattle.

So there's a lot of words on this slide, but they're all important and they all mean slightly different things.

But the bottom line is, you know, I usually use this as an example.

So forgive me if you've seen it before, I really need to go out and find a Motorola flip phone.

But a lot of what we're talking about here, especially in the beginning is we need infrastructure and a grid that is capable of two-way communication that is capable of handling the increased load of electrification, that is capable of self-healing at an even faster rate, and that centers our investments on BIPOC communities.

So, you know, my in-laws have, who are both in their 90s and have done great through COVID, you know, they have this very old Motorola flip phone and my father-in-law is legally blind.

And so despite the fact that the phone hardly works, he knows how to call people on that flip phone.

That's all he can use it for.

In many ways, City Light's grid is that Motorola flip phone.

Nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't have, it can't run the apps, you can't text, it doesn't meet today's needs.

So, you know, my iPhone does, and our goal for the grid is to update to the iPhone.

And we believe, and we believe this not just because it sounds good, we talk to people all the time.

There's a lot of interest in partnering with Seattle to make Seattle truly a city of the future.

A smart grid can do a lot of things beyond just carry increased load.

And I know you frequently deal with conversations with Sam Zimbabwe and SDOT, and Sam and I talk about this, and he's probably on this call, but certainly a smart grid will also allow us to do things with our transportation infrastructure that we can't really think about today.

So the PIAs, we're doing a grid modernization roadmap.

We're working with some consultants because it's just like any kind of technology.

Having a roadmap, knowing where you're going, and designing the architecture is critically important in order to make smart investments.

We're implementing our electrification plans, which include the T-CIP that you all approved last fall, but also includes the city's electrification roadmap.

we are working to fund and implement our utility next portfolio, which is a group of 18 separate projects that have all been scoped, budgeted at a high level and are ready to shop and receive funding.

So we spent six weeks with a group of really smart, motivated, bright city lighters back at the beginning of the pandemic, and they created this portfolio.

And today we are continuing to work with folks at the national labs, and at the Department of Energy who are very vested because they were part of our project team in helping us find funding sources.

we are ready for an infrastructure bill to hit and for the funding to be available.

And we're also even now attracting existing funding, working with the port on electrification.

So just a ton going on.

And then lastly, you know, as we think about a new grid, it is an integrated grid.

So in the past we did resource planning, which was kind of like if I have a funnel, I put stuff in at the top, it comes out the bottom.

But now what we're talking about is planning in a very different way, because the resources and where we are long and where we are short are also dependent on the distribution system.

So we are integrating our resource planning, our strategic planning, our financial planning, And we are shifting the focus.

We recognize that we have a responsibility to our governing body, which is you to deliver the products and the work products that you need in the form you need them.

But we also have a responsibility as as leaders within within the city department to operate our utility using the very best information available.

And so we are focusing and we are really getting clear about what we need in order to be good stewards of the resources that we're given.

Questions on this really exciting business strategy.

And General Manager Smith, you can keep plowing ahead.

We'll raise our hands if we've got questions.

Next slide.

The next three are going to go much faster because they are super important, but they are more internally focused.

So I already talked about the fact that the only way to deliver outstanding customer service is through engaged and outstanding employees.

So we need to continue to develop our workforce and to build on the organizational agility and the flexibility, the nimbleness that we acquired during this last year.

We also want to make sure that our folks have the skills and knowledge to advance social justice, because it has to happen everywhere.

We can plan for it here, but if it isn't being implemented at the front line, an organization of 1,700 to 1,800 employees, we all need to be rowing in the same direction.

And we know that's the direction we want to row.

We want to build an agile workforce.

We want to prepare employees for the future.

Right now we have tons of newer employees who are super excited.

And then we have people who are kind of figuring out what's their role in this future.

So we're working on a matrix type approach so that we aren't standing up new groups and old groups in terms of technology or direction, but so that we are one utility and we are supporting our current organization while we are building the organization of the future.

And we are really focused on Organizational Change Management, or OCM.

We have come to realize this past year that most of the places where we struggle, whether it's through technology, implementation, customer billing, you name it, it's because we didn't have appropriate resources put to communicating with employees, communicating with customers, getting the training in place, preparing folks for the change.

So we're standing up a small OCM practice within the general manager's division.

My chief of staff is heading it, and we are committed that if there aren't OCM resources available to do and support projects in the right way, then we won't do the project.

Next slide.

Ensuring financial stewardship and affordability, of course, is incredibly important.

We want to offer rates that are, and again, lots of words, but each one of them is important, transparent, understandable, reasonable, equitable, and consistent.

We want to make sure that vulnerable populations can afford our products.

We want to have a sustainable and predictable approach to setting rates.

We know customers value predictability.

very highly.

So, as already discussed, Councilmember Peterson did a great job of queuing this particular initiative up, but we are committed to controlling rate actions.

And, you know, our trajectory that we've been on for some time was not sustainable.

We were frequently, almost exclusively having rate actions that were in the four to 6%.

And, you know, we came in, I came in and we said, we started talking about it.

And my team, my senior team, they are equally committed to ensuring that rates going forward increase at about the inflationary rate.

So right now we are using about 3%.

as what we see that as being with everything going on right now.

And that's what you should expect from us unless inflation starts to change at a different rate.

We want to price products for the services for the future.

So We are continuing to plan for time-of-day pricing, which will be optional, opt-in.

It will be a rate strategy that customers can select, and they will have the ability to price it using historical data before they hit go.

It's slower than we planned.

2020 really slowed us down from a technology implementation perspective.

and as it needed to.

And so that combined with lack of OCM and other things, we are now looking at 2023 as the year that we can implement those types of raid strategies.

But we're very excited to do so when we have pilots that are in play and we are learning from those pilots on a daily basis.

And then lastly, Road to Recovery.

So this is the name that we have given to our project, which is designed to work with customers who were negatively impacted by COVID and the economic downturn associated with it, to get them on payment plans, to help them deal with past due arrearages.

We're looking at a variety of funding sources, and payment plan options for customers to help move them along.

We're working with PSE.

We're doing, we're really trying to shake every branch to come up with the resources that our customers need for us to help them.

Okay.

Oh, next slide.

Lastly, we power.

So this is the, you know, this is our mission critical services, even as we prepare for the future.

We're advancing our mission.

We're prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And we are managing the uncertainty of this COVID world.

So we're still learning every day.

And by the way, we are having a Skagit emergency EAP exercise right now.

So I am getting queued here on things.

So I think I'm okay.

It's an annual exercise that gets planned in great detail.

So underneath WE Power, some great examples.

That's where you would find SCADGET relicensing.

That's where you would find the accelerated pole replacement plan.

There are examples and, you know, work under each business unit, under each division.

And over time, and we are piloting this right now, over time, each of our divisions will have a dashboard that allows them to manage the key metrics, things like reliability, lost days, et cetera, but also the key initiatives and how we're doing with those.

So next slide.

That's the end of the strategy portion.

And I'm gonna turn things over to Kirstie Granger, our CFO, to talk with us a bit about the rate path.

Great, so a little bit about the numbers part of our strategic plan.

So you can see here in the top line of the chart, that is the rate path from the last strategic plan that we brought to council back in 2018, which is like a decade ago, or it feels like it at this point in COVID time.

And you can see there that the average for that six-year plan was 4.5%.

With the five-year plan that we are bringing forward to council today, you can see that the average for that plan is 3.5%.

And then these are the rate increases that underlie the strategic plan that Deborah just described.

And so just as a reminder, The financials underneath this include funding for all of the projects, activities and initiatives that Deborah described, as well as critical capital projects, we've got going on like pull replacements, Skagit relicensing.

And then also, and I don't think we have a slide on this plan but as as many of you are aware.

our demand for electricity has been declining as our customers get more and more efficient.

And so this rate path does take into account a flat and declining outlook for demand for electricity that we're expecting for the next while until electrification comes in and starts turning that back towards increasing.

So all of that is incorporated in this financial outlook you have here and this rate path.

City Council has already approved the 2021 and 2022 increases that you see here.

Thank you.

That was back in March.

And just as a reminder, the 2021 rate increase replaced a rate decrease in RSA surcharges.

And so customers' bills in 2021 are unchanged from what they would see in 2020. And then looking out to January 1 of 2022, We have legislated a 3.9% across the board rate increase, which means it would be the same for all customer classes.

However, we are anticipating that news from the Bonneville Power Administration, which is the federal agency that we get a lot of our bulk power from.

They're going to announce rates later this summer, and we have a rate pass-through where we pass through whatever the difference is between our budget and the actual that goes right through into customer rates.

And based on everything we're hearing, we anticipate that what's going to happen is that that Bonneville pass-through will be a rate decrease.

And so when we combine that decrease with the 3.9% legislated increase, we think that what customers will see is something that's about 2%, maybe a little less on January 1. So we're looking forward to that and having good news for you on that front this fall.

This is just some bill increases that sort of translate those percentages into numbers that folks might be able to relate to.

So for an average residential customer, they would have a monthly electricity cost of about $77.

And just as a reminder, a residential customer, we bill every other month.

And so we've made all of these numbers monthly, but just as a reminder that the billing cycle there is different.

But that would translate into about $3, that 3.9% rate increase.

And then, as I mentioned, with the Bonneville pass-through coming, we're thinking that all of the numbers on this chart for 2022 would be about, will probably be about half of what we're showing here on this chart once that other part comes through.

We just, that's news to come later.

But yeah, so these are just some bill impacts here.

And then finally, just as a reminder, we are committed to making sure that all customers can afford electricity, afford their energy bills.

We have the utility discount program, which offers a 60% discount for qualified customers.

We currently have a self-certification process to make that really easy for folks to join this program.

We have a federal assistance program called LIHEAP that can help customers who are behind on their bills And that's administered by outside agencies that we partner with in the community.

We have an emergency bill assistance program, which was recently expanded for 2021 using some COVID relief funds.

And so there's opportunities there for customers who might be behind on their bills.

And we also have Project SHARE, which is another program.

We're always working to increase awareness of all these programs.

We know there's a lot of information out there, but we are really committed to helping meet customers where they are and helping everyone who may be behind on their bills get caught up.

Christy, we've got a question from Council Member Herbold.

Thanks so much.

While we're on this page about affordability, I saw in the City Light Review Panel letter, they called out some successes on a number of different pilots, but specifically, I'd be interested to know a little bit more about the energy equity rate pilot.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Sure.

So the Energy Equity Rate Pilot is designed to reach a small group of customers who we know that even with the discount offered by the UDP, the Utility Discount Program, are still energy burdened, which I guess is defined as 6% of your monthly income.

If you're spending more than that on your electricity bill, then you are, by definition, energy burdened.

So that program provides a It's about on average about an 80% discount.

So there's there's no basic service charge.

It's just a flat rate of about 3 cents per kilowatt hour.

And then the program is also designed to offer other wraparound services.

So balance management in home weatherization, you know, we're really trying to to offer a comprehensive program to help customers who who are energy burdened manage their energy costs.

It's a very small program.

I think, I wanna say we have about 70 participants right now.

And to be honest, this program launched right before COVID started.

And so, as you can imagine, some aspects of the program, like going into customers' homes and helping with weatherization, just the conditions of pandemic response have kind of slowed down the efforts on that front.

And so, I think it's a great program and I'm really glad that we're trying to be creative about creating something that will help folks who are experiencing the energy burden.

But we are learning a lot.

And of course, the COVID has made it challenging as well.

Thanks for that.

Thank you.

And this is actually, I believe, our last slide.

And what I wanted to do is to just say, end with, Our commitment because the programs that the city has put into place to help customers, you know, they've never been more needed than they are now and when when I mentioned the road to recovery.

These are all part of that the UDP, as you know, is prospective so We have been thrilled to be able to enroll additional customers in that we will begin potentially certifying those customers this fall.

No one who was self-certified who does not qualify will be asked to repay prior bills, but we are continuing to look at sources of funding to deal with utility arrearages and going forward, I believe the most important thing that we can do as a public utility who provides critical services, the number one thing we can do from an affordability perspective is to manage our own rate trajectory.

So that's the commitment that we're making here is to manage and to make our services and to ensure that our services are as affordable as possible for everyone.

Because the one thing we certainly have learned through this time is There are a host of people out there who are not UDP customers.

The UDP customers have very, there's very few of them with past due arrearages.

There are a lot of people who don't qualify for that program, who when something like this happens are really struggling.

So managing the rate trajectory for them is critical.

And I think.

Thank you, General Manager Smith, and thank you to your team.

And I just want to commend everybody at Seattle City Light for their focus on controlling costs so that we can pass that affordability on to the ratepayers.

As we know, utility bills are, by their very nature, regressive.

Lower income families will end up paying more of their household income.

So by your controlling costs over the years, working with the review panel and your employees to do that, you're able to show this amazing outcome in terms of the old strategic plan at a 4.5% average increase down to now 3.5% for the the five years, and if you look at the six years, including this year, I think you're down at like 3.4%, and we're expecting perhaps even lower rates based on the Bonneville pass-through.

So this is very good news for ratepayers.

Council members, any final comments?

I know we'll be able to hear back from, I see Council Member Strauss has his hand raised.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, General Manager.

Thank you, Kirstie.

My question is, I guess, more of a comment similar to Chair Peterson's.

If you could slide back to slide 15. That would be helpful.

I think this just demonstrates what Councilmember Peterson just said.

You are keeping your rates as close to inflation as possible, which was not a previous practice.

And furthermore, in the past, oftentimes City Light would come back and ask for a higher rate than what was endorsed in the strategic plan.

And you, General Manager, have done a good job in your time here keeping us to the number that we have past in the strategic plan.

And I just have to call out your leadership for that.

And thank you incredibly, because this is difficult work.

It doesn't always occur.

I will note that another fun fact I learned during listening to the We Power podcasts is the understanding that the federal government really does provide the majority of the wholesale power for the country and that it is local local entities that do the retail selling to customers.

And that's in part why the BPA rate, Bonneville Power Administration rate, is what drives our rates, because they're setting rates that, and we don't have control over that.

And so understanding that there's an aspect that you cannot control, General Manager, and you've kept these rates to inflation, and you're keeping your budget to what is endorsed, I can't thank you enough.

Great job to you, Mark, Kirstie, Lee.

Thank you, thank you.

And I do look forward to that follow-up meeting in between this time and the next committee meeting.

Yeah, just let us know who would like additional information, and we look forward to providing that to you and or your staff.

And we look forward to sharing additional information with you as we develop our dashboard, et cetera.

We do have an executive-level dashboard, which I think you'll enjoy.

So yeah, thank you very much.

Thank you everybody from City Light.

Big thank you to Lee Baraka just before we end.

She's the behind the scenes or who makes sure everything happens.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record.

Agenda item five, council bill 120100. An ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities authorizing the general manager CEO of Seattle Public Utilities to enter into a water quality combined financial assistance agreement between the State of Washington Department of Ecology and the City of Seattle Public Utilities Department to partially finance costs related to the construction of the Ship Canal Water Quality Project through a Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan.

for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Welcome Seattle Public Utilities to our committee again.

And this next item, Council Bill 120100 will approve a very low-interest loan, as already planned, to finance $66 million of the $570 million Ship Canal As you may recall, this is a mega project planned over many years due to the state and federal governments requiring the city and county governments to prevent harmful stormwater and wastewater from polluting our local waterways.

This environmental protection project includes a new tunnel boring machine that was creating a 2.7 mile stormwater storage tunnel from Wallingford Ballard.

This particular financing program through the state government enables a below market interest rate of approximately 1%, whereas if we went out to the conventional bond market, I think we'd be paying a higher rate, around 3%.

This would save approximately $12 million for this particular loan.

I know SPU and King County have been doing a really good job financing, refinancing their debt to keep the costs low and take advantage of low interest rates, which is then helps us to save money for our rate payers.

So welcome Seattle Public Utilities.

And I wanna just give Brian Goodnight from our city council central staff an opportunity if you wanted to say any introductory remarks.

Thank you, Council Member.

Brian, good night.

Council Central staff.

I think you've summed it up well.

I'll just note that this is just one of a series of financing opportunities that SPU is taking advantage of or is taking advantage of to reduce costs for the project.

But I will let SPU handle their presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome, General Manager Hera and your team.

Please take it away.

Thank you very much, Council Member Peterson and members of the committee.

As your committee has a very full agenda today, we'll aim to be as brief as possible.

The proposed legislation is very straightforward.

It would authorize SPU to accept a $66 million, as you said, low-interest loan.

from the Washington Department of Ecology for the Ship Canal Water Quality Project.

And I believe you have briefing materials on the overall project budget and status in your packets.

And we would be very happy to provide individual briefings at another time if you would like.

This morning, Keith Ward, the program manager for the Ship Canal Water Quality Project, will spend a brief moment reorienting you to the project.

And then Ben Murray, who is in charge of planning and program management in our drainage and wastewater line of business, will discuss the details of the loan.

And we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

So with that, Keith, may I ask you to provide the overview of the project, please?

Great.

Thank you, Mami.

Thank you.

So, just a couple slides on what is the ship canal water quality project.

This is part of a regional effort to protect people and water from sewage and stormwater pollution and then this will remove about 75M gallons of stormwater and sewage due to combined sewage overflows.

in Lake Union, the Ship Canal, and Salmon Bay.

And just to get us oriented here, we have a map on the right.

This is Gasworks Park here at the end of Lake Union.

We have the Bowerd Locks.

And the areas that you see here are all shaded in are basins that flow to outfalls where we must discharge these combined sewage overflows in very large storm events.

So both the city since 2013 has been under a federal consent decree that's administered by the Department of Ecology to bring our 82 overflow locations throughout the city down to a performance criteria that each overflow must, it can't overflow more than one combined sewage overflow at that specific outfall per year on a 20 year moving average.

And by far our largest overflow volumes are along the ship canal.

So in about 2015, the county also, the areas in green are county basins, and the areas kind of in pink are city of Seattle basins.

And you can see here that we joined together a joint project, ship canal project, to bring six of these overflow locations, two for the county and four for the city, down to meet this standard.

So we signed a joint project agreement, which has a cost split of approximately 65% for the city of Seattle and 35% for the county.

Our overall budget for this mega project is $570 million.

And that was set at a 65% confidence in 2018. And that means that the project is 65% likely to be delivered at or below that budget.

I'm really happy to say that after three years of a very Herculean effort, we are still on track at that same budget and same confidence.

So moving on to a little bit about the project itself, what you see here are the five neighborhoods.

They are actually where we have these overflow locations, so we must be working in those areas.

And we are in the process of just starting a 2.7-mile-long tunnel that goes from Ballard to Wallingford.

It's an 18-foot, 10-inch diameter.

It'll provide about 30 million gallons of storage, so it's essentially an underground storage tank.

And in each of these neighborhoods, we need to build deep drop shafts to bring the water down into the tunnel.

At the end of the completion of the tunnel in early 2013, we'll build a large pump station in Ballard to drain the tunnel to the West Point Treatment Plant when the plant is ready to take that.

I also want to clarify, we have a second tunnel that we're getting in process, almost getting ready to put in an eight-foot diameter tunnel underneath the ship canal.

So lots of work at these neighborhoods.

We will be, what I neglected to mention is that we need to have this project complete and operational four and a half years from now by the end of 2025 according to our consent decree.

So I'm going to turn this over to Ben Moray who's going to talk a little bit about our loan.

Good morning, and thanks, Keith.

So we're here today to vote on a Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan for the project.

It's the third of four loans that we've pursued.

Today's is a $66 million loan for costs associated with the storage tunnel construction.

It's at a very low interest rate of 1.2% over 20 years, which is a lower rate than we could obtain on the conventional, on the bond market.

conventional financing, and it saves ratepayers approximately $12 million in borrowing costs.

So I mentioned this is the third of four loans that we've pursued.

We've already pursued a similar Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan in 2019 for this project.

We've also pursued federal EPA WIFIA, which stands for Water Infrastructure Financing and Innovation Funding for the project.

We're here today talking about the $66 million loan, and then there'll be one more coming next year for $28 million.

Overall, we're financing about 80% of our portion of this project through these low-interest loans.

And overall, that's saving our ratepayers about $84 million.

Next slide.

I think that's it.

Any questions?

Thank you for that presentation.

It's great to see all the departments taking advantage of the low interest rates and saving money for rate payers in this case on this big project.

Brian, good night.

Any additional thoughts on this?

Because I know we're voting on it today at committee.

No, no, thank you.

No thoughts or no concerns from such staff.

Okay.

Council members, any questions for Councillor Herbold?

My question relates to the project generally.

Appreciate the opportunity to vote on this legislation and to realize some savings.

But just generally on the project, Keith, you had mentioned that the budget was set with a 65% confidence rate in 2018. And it sounded like, you know, when you were rightfully pointing out the good news that we're still at that same target for the cost of the project.

I thought I heard you say that we're still at 65% confidence rate.

When will we go to even more confidence?

That's always something I'm focused on.

And that's what's actually in the packet materials that we gave to council, but I'm glad you mentioned that.

You know, we have a $255 million contract with a contractor, so we've kind of transferred that portion over.

That's good news.

We still have two additional construction projects that we will be bidding on the open market in 2022. They're about $100 million between those two.

So once we get bids on that, I mean, you know, and I do want to say most of this project is underground.

There's always underground risk.

But we have transferred some of those risks to our contractors.

So I'm hoping that by about late fall 2022, we'll have more cost certainty on those additional construction projects.

And I expect, assuming tunneling goes well, by then we should be finished with tunneling, our confidence should go up.

Thank you, Keith.

Sure.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Council Member Bullock.

Colleagues, any other questions on approval of this, accepting this low interest loan from the state?

Great, we'll hear more about the Ship Canal Water Quality Project.

And there is an attachment that gives a more fuller explanation of it.

I know Council Member Strauss and I are very familiar with it because it flows through our districts.

Okay, well, Council Members, I'd like to move now that the committee recommend approval of Council Bill 120100, item five on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of this bill.

Will the clerk, any final comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to approve Council Bill 120100. Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the June 21st City Council meeting for final consideration.

Thank you to everybody from Seattle Public Utilities for everything you're doing for our rate payers and our city.

Thank you very much to you and all the council members for your attention and to Brian Goodnight for his support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And colleagues, we've come to the last item on our agenda based on what we were just talking about with Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Light, and these are massive publicly owned enterprises doing critical work for our city, providing clean water, providing electricity.

The public commenters are very excited about Sound Transit being here at our committee.

This is our last item.

So let's have the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record.

Agenda item five, presentation on Sound Transit Realignment for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Colleagues, I'm pleased to welcome CEO Peter Rogoff and his team from Sound Transit.

I also appreciate Director Sam Zimbabwe of our Seattle Department of Transportation and Anne Fennessy from the mayor's office for joining us for this presentation on Sound Transit's potential plans for what it's calling the realignment process.

Along with King County Metro, Sound Transit is the most vital transit agency for Seattle and the region.

As we know, the Board of Sound Transit has 18 members, and while only two of them are from our city government, our Mayor and Councilmember Deborah Juarez are strong and tireless advocates for Seattle and the region.

I want to thank them for helping to make possible Sound Transit's visit to our Transportation Committee.

I'm sure it'll be other presentations we're going to get from them.

We're excited here in the city about the opening this October of three new light rail stations in Seattle, funded by the Sound Transit 2 measure, approved by voters in 2008. The ambitious next step is implementation of the massive Sound Transit 3 expansion, approved by the region's voters in 2016. Seattle voters were instrumental in making possible the funding for Sound Transit 3, and so we want to make sure it delivers on its promises for Seattle.

We heard a lot of public commenters focused on this.

This includes light rail stations to West Seattle, which will impact the Port of Seattle, stations to Ballard, which will impact South Lake Union and Seattle Center.

additional stations for South Seattle, as well as a station at Northeast 130th Street and the massive connection important for the entire region impacting our international district.

It's no surprise that I share the stance of many others in our city that we prefer the Sound Transit Board to delay any drastic decisions on realignment of Sound Transit 3 projects until the rapidly changing picture for revenues and costs becomes clear.

I believe today we'll have several questions about the financial assumptions Sound Transit's been relying on to make the realignment recommendations.

In addition to the presentation today, we hope Sound Transit returns to our committee later this year to update us on the environmental impact statement process.

The EIS will be an appropriate platform for raising other issues important to us, such as the need for thoughtful, community-driven stakeholder input.

to ensure excellent access to stations and integration into our communities, to deliver a positive experience for transit riders as we encourage more people to move out of their gasoline-fueled cars to carbon-friendly transit to meet our ambitious goals to address climate change.

So, CEO Rogoff, welcome, and please proceed and introduce your team.

Well, thank you, Chair Peterson.

Can I just confirm that you can hear me okay?

Can anyone just do a thumbs up?

Great.

Thank you, Sam.

I do want to thank you for inviting Sound Transit to address your committee today, and we really do welcome this opportunity, Chair Peterson.

We have been doing presentations on realignment to dozens of city and county councils, planning and port commission stakeholder groups.

throughout Snohomish King and Pierce counties.

I did hear your interest in having us come again to discuss the EIS.

Would we welcome that opportunity?

And I also heard you talk about wanting to have a discussion of station access.

And when we do that, I hope you'll include a position that I created at Sound Transit in the form of our Chief Passenger Experience Officer, who is really focused on these issues.

A gentleman named Russ Arnold who could come up with assorted project staff to talk specifically about that.

As was pointed out by one of the public witnesses, we are at a pivotal moment in the Puget Sound and we know that millions of people have been vaccinated and we can now finally see the other side of the pandemic.

People are coming back to work, commuters are coming back to transit.

And in fact, just this last weekend, we increased link service to every eight minutes.

during weekday peak hours, 10 minutes off peak and 15 minutes late at night to recognize not only that more people are coming back, but we want to invite even more people back to transit and that service needs to be reliable and desirable.

At the same time, inflation is growing and costs for most goods, but most especially real estate and construction materials, are continue to rise at really precipitous levels.

Through it all, we really expected Sound Transit to continue to be a driving force in the region's economic recovery.

It's important to remember that with voter approval, Sound Transit is currently planning and building the largest transit expansion program in the United States, which includes the 54 billion Sound Transit 3 ballot measures that was approved by voters in 2016. We are currently in the ground building eight major capital projects simultaneously.

Seven of those eight are on or under budget, and all eight are on schedule.

Ultimately, over the next quarter century, we'll build out a 252-mile system with 116 miles of light rail, 91 miles of commuter rail, and 45 miles of bus rapid transit.

That network will connect Seattle to Everett and Tacoma to Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah on the east side, West Seattle, Ballard, and will give citizens mobility options while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gases and growing a sustainable region.

However, the agency has a shortfall in our finances and it is clear that we don't have the financial capacity to deliver the voter approved plan on the timelines specified in the plan.

Like many entities in this region, Sound Transit faces a combination of revenue loss because of the pandemic and substantial growth in estimated future project costs.

Based on current forecasts of both revenues and the cost to deliver the program, the agency has an estimated affordability gap of $7.9 billion over the duration of the 25-year plan.

Under the provisions of our ballot measure, the Sound Transit Board of Directors is required to implement a process known as realignment when it knows the program to be unaffordable.

The board has known the program to be unaffordable and has been working on the realignment process now for 14 months.

This is not, it's important to point out, it's not the first time the board has gone through the realignment process.

A similar process was completed in 2010 when the Great Recession hit, soon after the approval of the SD2 ballot measure.

Put simply, realignment is the way that Sound Transit plays it straight with our voters and taxpayers.

It's the way Sound Transit stays transparent with the commuters throughout King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.

what transit expansions they can expect and when those expanded services will be delivered.

Importantly, realignment is the process through which we also demonstrate to our lenders and the bond market and the federal government that we are living within our means and are worthy of their continued financial support.

Earlier you heard Debra Smith at City Light talk about her presentations to the rating agencies.

Well, obviously we too at Sound Transit must make presentations to the rating agencies to secure our very positive credit rating.

And we need a good story to tell because that very positive credit rating results in much lower credit costs to the taxpayers of the region.

Completing realignment is also the trigger that will allow the Sound Transit Board to move forward on numerous project actions that are currently paused.

Our board is currently in the process of squaring our financial capacity with our projects while balancing the interests across our region so we can deliver the voter mandated regional transit network within these new economic realities.

The board is simultaneously looking at new sources of revenue, including at the federal and state levels, which while also looking at cost savings opportunities.

I know you may have questions about the board realignment work, and I just want to say that we were going to do a little table setting before we get into that.

Today, our team will provide a comprehensive snapshot on the latest of Sound Transit's efforts in the City of Seattle and across the region.

Our aim is to share when decisions are being made and the scope of those decisions.

First, Ron Lewis, our Executive Director of Design, Engineering, and Construction Management, will preview new service openings and how we are powering progress throughout the Sound Transit District.

Then Don Millen, the Executive Director of Planning, Environment, and Project Development, will discuss the recession's impact on our revenues and project costs and the 2021 realignment process to adjust project plans and schedules.

And Don will also cover the cost savings work that we're doing as we move forward.

Before I hand it to staff, I do want to comment on just some general observations.

Unfortunately, I have to apologize in advance.

I'm going to have to have a hard stop at 1145 we had a rather major announcement with Amazon regarding affordable housing today and I need to be somewhere at noon to answer questions on that.

Staff will be able to stay beyond that, but I did want to make just a few comments and perhaps we can get into it in greater detail and questions and answers.

Comments responding to some of the things you heard in public witnesses.

I very much appreciate all of the public witnesses that came out earlier to discuss their concerns and anxieties surrounding the realignment process.

The first observation I do want to make is I think there is a lot of anxiety and concern that whatever the board does through the realignment process this summer is going to be, as the board chair puts it, permanently carved in stone.

And in fact, the resolution that we've been working with the board chair on drafting is something very different.

It's what he refers to as a flexible framework.

That flexible framework is building into it an annual program review so the board can update and improve on the plan based on new projections of revenues, costs, and perhaps federal opportunities that might come through a Biden infrastructure plan should it be adopted.

Second, I heard a lot of concern about station planning and our engagement with communities and I want to assure everyone that there's nothing about the realignment process that puts a stop to our engagement with community on station planning.

We fully intend to engage with everyone and all concerned stakeholders as we do this.

I think there may be some concern that a realignment plan, folks may suddenly wake up and discover that the board has eliminated a whole station.

I will tell you in all of the dozens of realignment scenarios that we have prepared at the board's request, none of them eliminate a major station.

And that really brings me to my third point.

While there is some disagreement among board members on precisely how the realignment process should proceed, every board member, every 18 that I've heard in the last several months is fully committed to delivering the entire plan.

No one is really interested in segmenting off or throwing over the side any of the major investments that were adopted by the voters in 2016. In fact, to the contrary, they were all very committed to delivering them as soon as we possibly can.

And fourth, I'll just repeat something I said in my remarks.

We do want to move forward with our capital plan and realignment for reasons we can explain.

is what we believe allows the board to move forward on a number of actions that are currently paused.

So that is how I think we continue to make progress through the board's actions in the coming months.

So with that, I just want to apologize again for having to leave in about a half hour's time.

Mr. Chairman, your invitation letter asked us to get through quite a bit of material.

So, you know, please forgive the staff if they rifle through it pretty fast, but I know we want to get to questions and answers.

So with that, I will hand it to Ron Lewis.

Thank you, CEO Rogoff.

And for colleagues on the committee, this PowerPoint presentation will be put on our online agenda.

It was received late last night.

I just saw it this morning for the first time.

So we'll circulate that and it'll be posted on the agenda.

I believe it's about 43 slides.

The largest portion is about realignment.

So I would encourage Sound Transit to focus in on the realignment discussion and to encourage council members to ask questions during the presentation, especially while we have CEO Rogoff here.

There is a slide called what is realignment, which I think is slide 10, which will be key because we do want to know what what is, what is baked in and why not have that dec fall when there's more ce government sources of fun I believe that $7.9 billion While that is a very large number relative to many budgets, that was a smaller number than what it was originally.

In fact, it keeps shrinking as the outlook gets better.

So the question is, why not just wait a few more months until we have better revenue and cost estimates?

and want to also ask about whether there's been an independent analysis of the costs, any value engineering that's occurred to sort of trim those costs.

Thank you.

Thank you for that, Mr. Chair.

My name is Ron Lewis, again, Executive Director of Design Engineering and Construction Management at Sound Transit.

I'm very pleased to share with the committee how our capital program is powering progress within the region.

This photo is of our U District station where testing and commissioning is underway, as the chair noted, as we approach our October 2nd opening of the North Gateway Project.

Next slide, please.

Currently, we have several major projects under construction, as Chair, CEO Rogoff noted.

In total, we have approximately $15 billion worth of investments in the three-county region that we serve.

28 new stations will come online by 2024, and pictured here, just to give you a sense of what's happening in the field, are three of our light rail extensions, systems work that's going on on our East Link project on the overhead catenary system, elevated guideway construction on our Federal Way Link extension project, and final preparations for a major concrete core on our Linwood Link project over I-5.

This truly is an exciting time to be part of the system expansion program.

Next slide.

I do want to focus just for a minute and highlight the Northgate Link project with its upcoming opening day on October 2nd.

The Northgate project will bring online three new stations, New District, Roosevelt, and Northgate stations.

The project is comprised of 3.5 miles of twin bore tunnel and approximately just under a mile of elevated guideway as we approach the Northgate station.

When it opens, we'll be providing 14 minute trips to downtown Seattle and 47 minute trips to SeaTac Airport.

I want to note two notes of appreciation for city participation.

First is the partnership with Sam Zimbabwe and the SDOT team on the city's pedestrian bridge project that connects directly to our Northgate station and will enhance mobility for pedestrians and bicyclists.

And also an appreciation for recent work done by Seattle City Light, energizing our last traction power substation, facilitating the testing and commissioning that's now underway.

Next slide.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis.

And Vice Chair Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

It was slide five and six that I had comment on, just highlighting that For the next four years, you're opening nearly 10 stations per year.

And just want to highlight that as a success.

As your momentum continues to build, we are going to see the benefits rather quickly.

And it took us a while to get here.

And it's exciting to see this spine expand.

I do just have a couple of comments to lead us off.

I appreciate The chair inviting you here and I appreciate Sound Transit presenting to our city council.

It is hard for me because I don't believe that this to be the most appropriate venue for this discussion.

We have many elected leaders throughout this region that need to be at the table for this conversation because Pitting Seattle against Everett doesn't work.

We need to make sure to finish the spine all the way to Everett as soon as possible, and at the same time ensure that 130th Street Station, which I testified before the Sound Transit Board in January of 2020, as benefits to District 6, the district I represent here in Seattle, we need to do both.

And so this is my, I'm saying that this is not the most appropriate venue because we need to have all of the regional elected leaders around the table for this discussion so that we can advocate and have conversations with each other.

So at this time, I'm requesting that we restart the elected leadership group or something similar so that we can have conversations with each other rather than in a vacuum.

All that said, I appreciate you being here today and I'll have more questions as we continue.

Thank you.

Let me continue here with just a couple more slides in this portion of the presentation.

I described what we're building and all of the work that's under construction out within the region.

I want to spend just a moment on how we build it.

The what is important, but the how is also important, and we're very proud of the diverse workforce that is building our infrastructure throughout the region.

As you see the statistics here, nearly 20,000 jobs to date, family wage jobs supporting the construction, over 12 million labor hours, and importantly, the diversity of the labor force that's building our projects.

People of color performing nearly a third of the work between 2016 and 2020. And the last bullet is also important.

Women make up 7.5% of our workers.

That's compared to a national average of 3% in the construction trades.

We're proud of that 7.5%, but we're not stopping there as we're investing heavily in apprenticeship programs and training programs to encourage and help women become a larger part of our workforce.

Next slide, please.

And finally, my final slide really reflects our commitment to sustainability.

Sound Transit and Link Light Rail is the first light rail system in the nation that operates 100% on carbon-free electricity.

And we believe that is important in large part because of the contribution that transportation makes to greenhouse gases within our state.

It's critically important that we be a leader in this effort, and we are.

This is just a short snapshot of how we're doing with regard to powering progress at Sound Transit.

completing our current projects to make way for the next series of projects that Don Billen will address in the next portion of our presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ron.

And thank you, Chair Peterson and council members for having us here this afternoon.

If we could go to the next slide.

So I want to start with what is realignment.

Peter described this well and his opening remarks, this is really the sound transit board, responding to an estimated affordability gap in the program.

by realigning our plan to balance cost and revenues.

Council Member Peterson, you aptly described the program as massive.

SC3, in fact, is the largest transit expansion program in the nation currently.

And all of the realignment plans that we were looking at will still deliver the full program with some potential adjustments in schedule and scope over time.

options that the board has include modifying scope to reduce cost, raising new revenues, and or delaying or phasing projects.

Next slide.

And we've got a question from Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much.

I'm zoning in on the language in the text in orange, a required response to estimated shortfalls.

I don't think there's a question of whether or not there needs to be a response, but there are, I believe, a lot of questions about the timing of these decisions.

board action is needed right now.

And I'm hearing a lot of good arguments for waiting until we have a copy of a final version of the draft EIS for West Seattle Ballard, which will be published later this year.

Just really want to understand what the rationality is for making a decision on realignment before the public has even had a chance to review the draft EIS.

Further, need to understand why we must make a decision, why you must make a decision, before there's clarity on how much federal funding will be available.

You know, there are updates that we're all receiving on potential approaches for federal infrastructure packages nearly every week.

And this is, I think, a really critical factor to any decision that is part of consideration of a realignment.

Why don't I take a run at answering that and Don and others can fill in.

First, Council Member Herbold, you are right that while the process of realignment is required under our ballot measure.

The ballot measure does not set an absolute timeline or a deadline date by which it must occur.

There are a number of programmatic and policy reasons why the board chair feels that it should be concluded this summer.

And I'll just name a few.

As I said earlier, the board has been at this for some 14 months.

And there are, and I think this comes in a later slide or certainly information we can provide, There is some $2.4 billion in actions that the board would be expected to take in the coming year.

What we refer to as major baselining actions, which is to say we would go forward, baseline set the schedule and scope of the project and put it out for bid.

It is gonna be extraordinarily difficult as it already has been even prior to this to get the board to move forward on major actions.

especially major actions in other people's regions of the district, or what we call other sub areas, without knowing if and when their project is going to be delivered in any reasonable timeframe.

So the board chair believes strongly that in order to be able to coalesce the board about moving the capital program forward, board members are going to need to know with some level of comfort and some level of transparency and clarity when their projects can and will be affordable.

You know, the board is required, this is a requirement in law, and it's required to be adopted every year, both in state law and as a required submission to the Federal Transit Administration, to annually produce a, what we call a TIP, the Transportation Improvement Plan, that lays out what amounts of money we're gonna spend on what projects over the next six years.

At the end of last year, the board adopted a TIP that was, they identified as a placeholder, It said every project is going to be delayed five years.

And that's what makes the program affordable in the moment.

I think what you'll see in when Don Billen comes forward with some of the scenarios that the Board is considering, it is not necessary for all these major projects to be delayed five years.

In fact, some of them may only need to be delayed a year or two.

And a lot of that corresponds not necessarily with financial delays, but delays associated with the fact that it's taken longer during COVID to get environmental documents cleared through our federal resource agencies, through the FTA, to get the level of engagement we need to produce those documents.

So we can do a lot better than delaying everything for five years.

And I think that is why if we adopt a realignment plan this summer, the staff can then bring a transportation improvement plan to the board in the fall, along with a budget for 2022, that aligns with that realigned plan.

And that's, in the board chair's view, how we make progress.

That is the thinking behind the timing.

Thank you, Peter.

And I would just add in terms of the relationship to the West Seattle and Ballard environmental process, there's always been a distinction between system level planning and project level planning.

The original ST3 plan established a system plan for the build out to West Seattle and Ballard of first to West Seattle in 2030 and then to Ballard in 2035. left details about project level planning precise station locations as an example to the project and nothing in this realignment process presupposes any outcome of those project level decisions that are yet to come.

We could go to the next slide.

What's included in realignment?

Projects that are currently under construction, the projects that Ron Lewis just overviewed for you are not included in the realignment process.

Projects in planning or that have not yet started planning are affected.

I would also note that in some cases, the board has authorized very limited construction on portions of projects.

That limited construction is not affected, but the completion of the projects are included in the realignment plans.

And that includes both our bus rapid transit projects and the 130th infill station.

So Don, if I may, why is Northeast 130th Street included in that if it's already under construction?

So that's an example where the board has authorized only very limited construction.

So the ST3 plan assumed that the Northeast 130th station would be completed in 2031. Last year, the board authorized completing design on the station.

and doing some very limited construction work to reduce future disruption that would otherwise occur when the station is completed.

They did not make a decision, however, to accelerate full completion or full construction of the station.

So that question of when the station is fully built out remains before the board of directors.

Okay, and I know Council Member Juarez is our board member is actively engaged in that.

And she, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

As well as Council Member Juarez, I'm also very interested in the station at 130th because it does serve District 6, as I mentioned before.

I just wanted to ask a couple of questions here.

In 2016, Sound Transit staff presented an original cost estimate for the 130th project to be between 62 and 67 million.

As of 2021 in April, the project is estimated to cost 311 million.

So over the last five year period, the project cost has increased fivefold.

This is significantly higher than predicted by some transit models.

This update warrants further review.

Can you help me understand why is this so high?

Well, let me interject first and I'm gonna let staff answer the question.

Respectfully, council member, I think you're doing a little bit of an apple to orange comparison.

There is no question.

that the Northeast 130th Street Station, along with our cost estimates for the other infill stations at Graham Street and Boeing Access Road have undergone cost growth and significant cost growth.

I think the numbers you're citing actually compare, I believe, a year of expenditure number to a current year number, but staff can make those, what the real numbers are clear and answer your question as far as the causes of the cost growth.

Thank you.

I think that's what you just said.

It helps me ask my question again.

Does this update warrant further review?

I can just add a little bit more to that response, Council Member.

Peter is correct that there's a little bit of apples and oranges with regards to the year of dollar we're talking about in escalation.

But even adjusting for putting all of the dollars in 2020 dollars, there was still a significant increase in the cost of that station.

So in 2020 dollars, the comparisons would be $79 million at ST3, $153 million at 30% design and $201 million at 60% design.

So it's still a significant increase.

And I will just hit the quick highlights of what contributed to that.

And then I will note, as you noted, we have been briefing board member Juarez and provided her a more detailed presentation on this.

We'd be happy to send that over to the balance of counsel at your discretion.

The items that contributed to the cost, and these are items that we are reviewing in light of our overall cost estimating methodology with a consultant that we brought on to help us look at that process.

One of the things that we have noted is the lack of detailed design at the point that the ST3 estimates were put together.

There were some fairly major components which weren't well-defined in the station that led to early estimates being low.

We also underestimated the true challenges and difficulties associated with constructing around an operating service.

Uh, and what is we updated the estimates we're taking now into account what the actual impacts on construction would be from operating, uh, having an operating light rail system as we're doing some of that construction.

And that results in doing more work off hours, more overtime and other challenges working around a live railroad.

The third item, uh, some additional right away improvements that were identified in collaboration with our Project Partners, City of Seattle, and also WSDOT.

And the fourth is economic conditions related to labor supply shortages and also materials cost, as Mr. Roback noted in his initial presentation.

So there are a number of contributing factors.

And again, if interested, we would be happy to provide the same detailed information that we have to board member Juarez to the balance of the committee members.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ron.

I would love to receive that presentation and would love to meet with you outside of the committee.

I guess my last question here is, is a concurrent opening date for the 130th light rail station and Linwood Link currently on the table?

Why or I guess why not?

No, it is not on the table.

Constructing the best case scenario for constructing the Linwood station would be we going back to the board this fall for consideration of the next phase of construction on Linwood, and then back in the first quarter of 2022, once the design is completed and we have final pricing for board consideration.

If the board were to choose to move forward with that, it would still mean that the 130th station would be complete the year following

That's hard news to hear.

I guess, you know, I'll just register my hope that we do not have a ghost station for 20 years as we know that ridership in that area.

If we are to put all of the riders at 145th and Northgate, it's going to not only jam those stations, but it also reduces our ability to build affordable housing in and around stations.

130th in particular, while this may sound like a pie-in-the-sky idea at this time, we are studying how we lid I-5 in downtown Seattle.

And that area in particular has a ripe opportunity to be lidded.

We've seen lids occur throughout the country with both private and public investment.

I guess I'm just very disheartened to hear that we could be having a ghost station at 130th for a period of 20 years.

Thank you, Ron.

Well, if I could just comment quickly on two things.

how long one 30th may or may not be completed is obviously not yet a decision made by the board and one which Council Member Juarez has been very articulate about to her board colleagues.

Another thing, now this goes back several months now because I believe Rob Johnson was still on the board just to give you a sense of timing, but when we did get into a conversation about 130th, the question regarding the city's actions on upzoning that area to actually maximize the potential of a new station was of interest to certain board members.

And perhaps there's a dialogue to happen on that topic as well.

Absolutely.

I think that's a great conversation to have.

And it's not a conversation that is easy for me to have if we have uncertainty whether the station will be placed there and opened on concurrently with Windward Link.

I'm happy to take this conversation offline in the interest of time.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

I have questions about two stations, Graham Street and Jackson.

But before I do that, and before Director Rogoff has to go, I do want to just, before you leave, reiterate what we are all hearing from our constituents.

which is that we need to make sure we're keeping neighborhood voices at the table.

And there is a request to hear regularly, more regularly from Sound Transit.

So I appreciate the chair inviting you here.

I know this isn't a new message to you and that Sound Transit has been doing some work on improving your community engagement practices.

And community engagement in your work is critical.

And I just wanna make sure that there's an understanding that you're accountable to the communities that you do work in.

you know, Sound Transit is not just about laying track through a neighborhood.

There are people there in those neighborhoods.

There are communities that are surrounding the rail who are permanently impacted by the work that goes in.

So I look forward to continuing to talk with you and to hear regularly.

I would like to hear specifically about the graham street station which i know is uh you know on a completed line that's different from the situation at 130th.

i'd like to hear a little bit more about why this station opening is being pushed back so far and i would like to hear a little bit more about whether there is planning a design where in the design process it is and i'd also like to hear about the jackson street hub and where in the design process that is My understanding at the beginning of last year was that it was only at 5% or 6% design, and I'd like to hear a little bit about the progress there.

Let me answer a couple of parts of that, and then I'm going to ask Don and Ron to fill in the blanks on the design status of projects.

First, we wholeheartedly agree that, and thank you for recognizing our improved efforts to engage community on all parts of our process.

And it's really not just planning for new projects, it's how well our service is serving community now, including the existing service.

I spoke earlier about the hiring of our Chief Passenger Experience Officer.

But he has been working increasingly closely with our new Director of Equity and Inclusion, John T. Robinson.

in terms of how we engage communities, especially BIPOC communities, again, not just in looking at our future, but looking at our present.

And this is one area where I think we have upped our game.

We have improvements yet to make.

And we are also an agency that recognizes, you made the comment about we need to do more than just lay track.

I think we all recognize that.

I think when the initial segment of light rail was built, there was such a lot of pressure on the agency to get track in the ground that some of those community impacts were not investigated enough.

So we're not looking just at, again, our future state, but also looking at our current state and seeing where we can improve on that.

With that, Ron and Don can provide information specifically on the status of Graham.

I do know you've made an assumption on the length of delay for Graham, somewhat similar to what Council Member Strauss said about 130th Street.

I think it's important to highlight these various measures of delay are just proposals currently before the board that have not been acted on.

So as we said, nothing is cast in stone.

And even when the board acts, the board has said rather unanimously, whatever they do, they plan to, as a group of 18, aggressively work to improve on it when it's adopted.

So for that, maybe Don and Ron can provide some detail.

Sure.

So in the ST3 plan, the Graham Street station was scheduled for 2031. So we would, that plan began the design work in approximately 2024. So we're a few years out from that.

If I could request that you let me get through a little more of the presentation, we can talk about how the realignment process is treating that and other infill stations.

And then Cahill Reg, who is our project director for the West Seattle and Ballard project, at the end of this presentation can give you much more detail on the Jackson Street hub planning process, if that's all right with you.

Thank you.

Let's, yeah, here we go.

So financial changes.

As Peter indicated, the total estimated affordability gap is currently $7.9 billion.

And that is made up of a combination of projected revenue declines over the 25-year plan of $1.5 billion.

And a net increase in cost of $6.4 billion for some of the reasons Peter described.

Estimated project costs have grown.

They've been partially offset by grants and remaining debt capacity.

But there is another $6.4 billion still to address, leaving the affordability gap of $7.9 billion.

that we are tackling through the realignment process in order to be able to then move forward with our project planning and delivery work.

Next slide.

So in terms of realignment timeline, the board really began this conversation last April.

The chair is targeting next month for potential action that will then in turn inform our annual budget and tip process in December.

Next slide.

So the way we are tackling the affordability gap is by analyzing different scenarios for reprogramming our expansion plans.

And the board really started this conversation last spring with a conversation about what criteria might guide their work.

They conducted a workshop in June and at the end of June adopted eight criteria, including ridership, equity, connecting centers, and other criteria that inform their work.

The end of the year, we published project evaluation results using that criteria.

The board held a workshop in January to go through those results.

February and March, we developed illustrative scenarios that built on those criteria, and then have led to discussion around what we've referred to as hybrid scenarios that perform well against multiple criteria, that integrate with partner plans like King County Metro and the Washington State Department of Transportation, and also account for agency policies related to subarea equity.

Next slide.

COB Mark Davison.

COB Paul Heinrichs, Jr.: : One of the things that is really integral to every scenario that we have looked at is potentially phasing projects by building a first affordable segment and then.

COB Mark Davison.

COB Paul Heinrichs, Jr.: : Looking at completing the project in future phases, and this is a common approach.

really around the country, around the world, frankly.

Sound Transit's used it before.

Our Central Link project started with light rail between downtown Seattle and Tukwila, and then has expanded incrementally over time with the next increment coming in October, as Ron described, to Northgate, followed by East Link, Glenwood, Federal Way, and Redmond.

Phasing can adjust project length or other project features.

The board is in an active conversation about what is Sound Transit's role in supporting drive access to our stations and may consider deferring some of the ST3 park and ride capacity to later phases.

Next slide.

So I just want to walk through a few examples of things the transit program and ST3 and the I-405 and SR522-145th corridors.

The ST3 plan envisioned opening all of those services on the same day.

It would be possible to phase these services into, they are three separate operating lines, so each line could open at a different date.

Next slide.

To the north, ST3 envisioned a light rail extension between Linwood and Everett opening at one segment.

We are evaluating a potential interim terminus at the Mariner Park.

Next slide.

To the south, ST3 extends light rail from Federal Way to the Tacoma Dome.

We're evaluating a potential interim terminus in fight.

Next slide.

West Seattle and Ballard, the ST3 plan called for light rail to go from Soto to West Seattle in 2030 and then be extended north to Ballard in 2035. So in that scenario, Soto is an interim termini.

We're also looking at Delridge, Denny, and Smith Cove as potential interim termini, and I'll speak to that more in just a moment.

Next slide.

So all of these scenarios are utilizing schedule as a way to spread our cost over time to keep the program affordable.

But importantly, they also build in keeping the plan shovel ready.

So each project, depending upon the tier that it is placed in and the estimated years of delay, would continue with work that enables that project to be accelerated.

Nearly every tier would include, as an example, completing environmental review and at least preliminary design and at least some strategic right-of-way acquisition.

And this will enable us to be flexible so that if financial circumstances improve, whether that be by reducing cost or new funding opportunities, that the board retains the option of accelerating some of these projects from their realignment dates.

Next slide.

I want to very quickly walk you through three scenarios that the board is currently reviewing.

All of these scenarios include system components, bus bases, operations and maintenance facilities for light rail, and a second tunnel through downtown Seattle that are essential for system operations.

In the north, every scenario considers that interim terminus at Mariner for the Everett Link extension, The east side looks at different ways to phase the BRT program.

In the central corridor, this particular scenario would prioritize funding of the Delridge to Smith Cove portion of the West Seattle Ballard project.

For operational reasons, it would open between West Seattle and Soto in 2035, and then go to Ballard in 2040. Graham Street would be in tier two in this scenario, and the 130th infill station in tier four.

Next slide, please.

So scenario two in the central corridor takes a little different approach.

It tries to provide direct service from the West Seattle area into downtown Seattle sooner with that Delridge to Denny segment in 2035. an extension out to the West Seattle Junction in 2038, and then Ballard in 2041. In this scenario, both infill stations would be in tier four with a projected 2041 completion date.

Next slide.

Finally, scenario three follows most closely the original ST3 sequencing going between Soto and the Alaska Junction in 2032. Then building the tunnel through downtown Seattle out to Smith Cove in 2038 and on to Ballard in 2040. In this case, both infill stations are in tier two with estimated completion dates of 2037. Next slide.

Excuse me, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you again, Dawn, for this presentation.

I guess just in these slides, can you help me understand what federal funding is already assumed in this map and what additional federal funding could be attained?

Yes.

So the beginning of the year, the agency updated its federal funding projections.

And currently, the ST3 plan assumes that our capital expansion program would receive about 17.7% of the total program would be underwritten.

by the federal government.

We are, of course, actively engaged under Peter's leadership with discussions at the federal level about opportunities to increase that share, but it will be many years before we have certainty about what the overall federal share might be.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

My next question leads me on this slide, and then if we can circle back to slide 19. I guess I lead with making decisions to delay when math is still uncertain.

Seems like a bad idea to me.

Can you help me understand what you believe the right time to delay would be?

Well, for the reasons that Peter described, we are working under the chair's direction towards a July action on realignment.

And, you know, one of the reasons that it would be so helpful to have clarity on a realignment framework in the near term is that we have about $2.5 billion worth of projects that are through environmental review.

And we can't advance those programs into design and construction until we rebalance the overall program or The board goes through a very challenging process of looking at how each individual project would affect future decisions.

And those include whether to advance further on the 130th infill construction, our bus rapid transit program along the north edge of Seattle, and then sounder investments in South King and Pierce County.

Okay, thank you.

I guess, you know, I'll just still say I think making decisions to delay when there's such uncertainty does not seem like a good idea to me.

But if you could go back to slide 19, I guess my question here is what does phasing look like from a usability perspective rather than a cash flow?

Also, it seems to me that Delridge to Smith Cove does not really serve the city from a usability framework.

I'll make one comment and then my last question.

I heard from public testimony today building a station in Ballard at or west of 15th is was called out in public comment today and that's a position I support.

And my last question here is.

West Seattle has been seen to go before Ballard.

It seems like Ballard could go before West Seattle, but why not do these concurrently?

So the two questions I wanted to circle in on, what does phasing look like from a usability perspective rather than cash flow?

And can we do Ballard and West Seattle concurrently rather than one before the other?

Let me start with the usability question.

I mean, whether a station is an interim or a long-term termini, there are similar considerations.

Any station that is the end of the line is likely to have higher ridership demand.

And so we look very closely at how we design the station to accommodate that ridership demand.

And what we need to do in terms of ensuring good bus integration at interim termini stations.

So Cahill and his project team are in fact at each of these locations in conversations with King County Metro and SDOT about how would those stations function as potential termini locations to ensure that there's good bus access, that there's good walk access, that there's good bike access, and that we design the station to accommodate what the ridership demand might be.

Can you repeat your second question, Councilmember?

Yes, Don, I appreciate that.

Next question is, can we do Ballard and West Seattle concurrently rather than one?

Yes, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for the reminder.

They both rely on the downtown transit tunnel, which I know is the largest layer.

Yes, so that downtown transit tunnel is precisely why in the original ST3 plan that West Seattle was proposed to open ahead of the Ballard extension.

It's just a reality that the construction duration for that tunneling is going to be longer than for the extension to West Seattle.

So there will in fact be concurrent work occurring just as both are being evaluated simultaneously through the environmental process.

It is quite likely that you will see concurrent construction.

We just need to phase our opening dates to match when enough construction can be complete to actually provide revenue service.

Okay, I'll look forward to talking to you more.

I see Council Member Herbold also has questions, so waiting with anticipation to hear what she has to ask.

Council Member Herbold, please.

It's not going to be all that exciting, Council Member Strauss.

Questions on three of the slides, scenario specific questions, and then I have some questions generally about all the scenarios.

So moving first to slide 21, scenario one, the asterisk at the bottom of the slide says that the Delridge Station opens with tier two extension to the Alaska Junction.

I just need to understand what that means and does it, until a station being built at Delridge and not being used for several years.

And just flagging that if that's indeed the case, that is going to create a lot of stress on the residents of the Youngstown neighborhood with construction impacts possibly, if I'm saying this correctly, occurring at different times rather than all at once.

For slide 22, my question is whether or not the option here under scenario two would entail a station operation in Delridge in 2035. And then lastly, on slide three, I want to just affirm that I'm understanding this correctly, that six years there would be a line from West Seattle to Soto.

I'm thinking about the capacity needed on trains for riders from West Seattle, and if Riders have to wait at a Soto station while full trains go by.

It'll hinder success of the whole system and really highlights the need for integration and cooperation between Sound Transit and Metro and SDOT.

All right, let me take those in reverse order since we're on this slide.

So yes, under this scenario, you would first in 2032 have rail operation between the junction and Soto.

And then six years later, complete the extension out to Smith Cove, including the second downtown tunnel.

So there is a six-year period where riders from West Seattle would transfer at Soto onto other trains.

That's very similar to the original ST3 plan that had about a five-year period where that transfer would occur.

And we are, in all of this work, looking closely at not just individual projects, but the whole system.

So we will have to In 2032, in this scenario, we would also be extending light rail to Tacoma.

And we will have to establish headways and train lines on that Seattle to Tacoma service sufficient to accommodate those transfers from West Seattle.

So if we go back one slide to scenario two.

So in this scenario, Delridge to Denny would be complete.

We'd have spine segmentation in place, which is our technical term that enables trains from West Seattle, in this case Delridge, to operate through downtown Seattle and actually north to Lynwood.

And then three years later would extend from Delridge out to the junction.

So there would be a three year period in which the Delridge station would be an interim terminal station.

And then if we go to the prior slide.

This is where I think we've maybe not done the best job of communicating the scenario.

We would not complete the Dell Ridge Station and have it sit unutilized for a multi-year period.

Practically speaking, what this scenario would mean is that in 2035, you would run trains from the junction to Soto, and we would phase the construction to support that.

And then five years later, you would, or I'm sorry, two years later, you would extend to Smith Cove, and then three years after that to Ballard.

So in this scenario, Council Member, there is a two-year period between 2035 and 2037 where West Seattle riders would transfer Ed Soto.

Thank you very much, I appreciate that.

Sorry to give any of my friends in Youngstown a scare if they were looking for that question.

And then I just have, with the chair's cooperation here, one more follow-up question as it relates to all of the scenarios, really.

Yes, of course.

Thank you.

So for all of the scenarios, if a realignment action is taken by the board, would all of the options approved by the board for the West Seattle and Ballard lines be included in the draft EIS's plan?

Asked a different way, could board action on realignment limit what is published in the draft EIS?

And would board action on realignment result in any additions to the draft EIS?

I'm not seeing anything out of realignment that would limit what is published in the draft EIS.

The only potential addition is if, in fact, the board adopts a realignment scenario in which Denny is an interim termini.

We would need to add evaluation of that to the draft EIS.

And I also really want to emphasize that in all scenarios, West Seattle and Ballard is completed within tier two.

And so the proposed work plan is not only to finish the environmental process, but also to advance the full corridor into final design and to begin right away acquisition in order to, you know, try and contain the type of real estate price increases that we've seen on that project.

Thank you.

So I think I'm nearly done.

I'll just wrap this up real quick if we go to slide 24. So Council Member Morales, and I know the full council, very interested in engagement.

And we have been doing intensive outreach, including with a focus on equitable engagement over the last year, and particularly in the spring timeframe.

And we have a lot more information about that work that we could share with council members if you're interested.

Next slide.

So next steps, we are anticipating that board chair Keel at the June board meeting will propose a draft realignment action.

And then the board during the month of July will consider whether they are ready to take action and adopt a realignment framework with, you know, built-in annual program reviews to continue to monitor financial conditions and adjust as those conditions change.

And to that point, I want to just say a few words about our cost savings work.

Next slide.

So when we saw the significant increases in the estimated cost of the number of the ST3 projects, we made a decision to bring in an independent third-party reviewer to review those estimates.

It's a consulting firm by the name of TriUnity.

They have confirmed that the current estimates are appropriate for the current levels of design.

And the board has elected to continue to engage Tri-Unity to help assist with capital cost savings work that we will also be undertaking.

Next slide.

And there's really three categories to this cost management work.

looking at improvements to our cost estimating process, two, looking at enhancements to our project management controls, and then three, looking at capital cost savings.

And that will be ongoing and tied to specific project schedules.

So in the case of the West Seattle and Ballard projects, that is work that Cahill Ridge will lead.

This concludes the realignment section of the presentation Councilmember Peterson.

We do have Cahill here if you would also like to continue with some updates on the West Seattle Ballard project.

We have a question from Councilmember Herbold and we are coming up against time here and you know we we would like to welcome you back to our committee.

I know one of the things we'll want to talk about are the The design elements and the outreach and the access and integration of the stations to plan that very early.

Because I know with the stations that are opening this October are very excited about it.

and know what a long lead time is required to have input on stations like that.

So we wanna invite our Office of Planning and Community Development, our Department of Neighborhoods, Design Commission, when we talk about the actual stations themselves.

But we do have questions right now from Council Members Herbold and Morales.

Go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

I recall that we received a presentation a while back around the the West Seattle.

line tunnel and that the presentation showed that the delta between a tunnel and an elevated line was actually decreasing.

And just wanting to know whether or not value engineering is being done.

Is it still planned?

My recollection is that this really played a key role in the decision to tunnel from Roosevelt to close the North gate station.

And, you know, again, if value engineering is being done, I.

think that might be another reason to not lock in a decision at this time.

And again, just really want to restate, I appreciate the need for the board to make realignment decisions.

I do continue to question the proposed timing.

Thank you.

Cahill, would you like to speak to the examination of tunnel versus elevated cross in West Seattle?

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Yes, Council Member Herbold.

In my slides, I don't know if we'll get to them today, but we do speak to the environmental process, which as you know, we're publishing the draft EIS later on this year.

We will be able at that time to speak to all of the costs of all the different alternatives, including tunnel and elevated alternatives in West Seattle and have more detail on that.

We've had some preview of that, of course, in previous conversations.

And then of course, as Don just mentioned there, we are looking at a cost savings efforts throughout the corridor and looking at opportunities to reduce costs.

So looking at the different things that we could do to configure not just our tunnel configurations, but all of our alternatives to potentially look at cost savings will be part of the effort moving forward from this period as well.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

I have a question.

I think it's further down slide 37 in terms of, you know, how the station area serve community.

And my specific question is about how you assess community safety in the design of stations.

I'll give two examples at the Mount Baker station, which is elevated.

There are areas below the platform that are poorly lit, or that have kind of narrow corridors between the platform columns and some other structure.

And it's creating space right now where people are using drugs.

You know, it's dark in the evening.

People are finding bullets under the platform.

So I'm interested in understanding the process for incorporating safety elements into the plan for the folks who are going to be around there.

And then at the new Judkins Park station, as I mentioned before, you know, I know Sound Transit is working on some sidewalk improvements directly underneath the platform, but lighting, you know, street crossings within a a couple hundred feet of the platform.

Sidewalks leading to the platform also need improvements and safety.

Rainier Avenue is a fast street.

There's a highway entrance just a few feet away.

And so I'm interested in what the planning is for keeping folks who will be walking to the station safe in that space as well.

Would you like to speak briefly to slide 37?

Yes, sure.

Remind me slide 37. Yes, well, essentially here, I wanted to highlight the station planning work, which I think directly will address some of the concerns that Council Member Morales raised there.

And this is an effort that we've been undertaking with the city as well as Metro and other partners over the last number of years, really since the project conception, to really think about all of the things that are noted on the screen here from very early in project development so that we don't have some issues that you're highlighting.

By thinking about those things early in project development, we can account for those things and perhaps do a better job than perhaps has been done in the past in this regard.

And we have had a lot of work in terms of station neighborhood forums in phase one of the project that has informed our station agency workshops.

This is a noted an effort that we've undertaken with the city and others.

And we're really thinking about all of these things on the screen here, convenient for walking and biking connections, planning for good transit integration, accommodating public spaces, ensuring accessible and visible entries, speaking to your safety concerns, and then integrating with development in the area.

There's a lot that we could talk about in terms of what the work is, the work that has been done.

If perhaps you wouldn't mind moving to the next slide.

I'll skip over this in the interest of time.

But of course, this slide speaks to the different roles of Sound Transit in the city in this effort.

And move on to the next slide, please.

Really what you're talking about there is the station context.

As noted on this graphic, Sound Transit has been very focused on its role to focus on the station itself, as illustrated on the left here.

And we've been working in partnership with the city to think about the station area, the area, if you like, beyond the station.

But the focus of our work together with the city and others has really been on the station context, that area where the work of Sound Transit and the city interface, and trying to do a good job of thinking about all of those concerns, including safety, as you mentioned, and making sure that we consider that early in project development.

Next slide, please.

I appreciate that you're talking about how you are working together for future planning, but as you and Mr. Rogoff have mentioned, you know, There are mistakes that were made, planning that was not done this well in the existing track, which is where my district is.

The existing light rail tracks are in Southeast Seattle, where the planning did not incorporate these principles.

And so my question is, what are you going to be doing for the existing place to make sure that the Mount Baker station is safe to make sure that, you know, the Junkins Park area is designed with the safety of folks in mind.

And so that the stations that we do have in the city already, that the neighbors who are walking to and from the light rail station where there is poor lighting along, you know, getting to the Columbia City Station, getting to the Othello Station, that those areas that already exist can benefit from what you have learned in the past, from the past experience, and can get, access to the kind of safety improvements that they need.

Council Member Morales, if I might offer we'd be happy to come back and go into greater detail on the existing system.

One thing I would note that the ST3 plan includes a system access fund which is giving us the opportunity in fact to go back and look at some of our existing stations and partner with local jurisdictions to make improvements to address the types of things that you are raising.

And in fact, in our first round of grant awards out of that fund, the board did direct some funding to the city of Seattle.

to make improvements in Southeast Seattle.

And so we'd be happy to come back and speak to that.

And some of that funding, I believe, is also supporting the Judkins Park Station that will open in just a few years.

Thank you.

I will take you up on that and look forward to hearing more.

Thank you.

And I think we've got a final question from Council Member Herbold, if she's So.

Indeed, thank you so much.

I just want to get back to the cost savings work plan.

I'm not sure I got any answer to the question about the tunneling costs is decreasing, but let's just put that aside for a moment here.

I want to also ask whether or not we're that are not just focused on capital cost savings.

I would love to hear that we are scrubbing all of our budgets, administration and operations and maintenance as well to find those cost savings.

Thank you.

If Peter were here, I think he would really want to speak to that issue.

because there were a number of cost reductions that he directed on the administrative side of the agency.

And we also are looking very closely at those long range operations and maintenance costs of the system as well.

Almost all sound transit service is run by We have been working with other transit agencies on our behalf.

There has been a lot of ongoing engagement about how do we manage those costs over time.

You are absolutely correct they affect our overall financial plan as well.

I'm sure he would be happy to.

Yeah, I'm sure he'd be happy to follow up with you.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Well, I want to thank Sound Transit again for accepting our invitation to start this conversation on the Sound Transit 3 and all the complexity involved in terms of what you're trying to deal with right now in terms of changing revenues and costs, as well as the designing of the future stations.

Some of the things Council Member Morales mentioned about learning from previous iterations and want to have you back at our committee to talk about the environmental impact statement when there's a logical time to come back.

And then to take you up on your offer, I know individual council members are eager to meet with you to do a deeper dive, if they haven't already, on stations impacting their districts or stations they're very familiar with and are hearing about.

I hope you take to heart some of the themes you heard today from a majority of the council members and also from the public speakers today.

really appreciate your being here and continue to coordinate with our Seattle Department of Transportation.

Thank you, Director Zimbabwe, for your active engagement with Sound Transit on an ongoing basis, you and your team.

And of course, really indebted to our board members, Deborah Juarez and Mayor Durkin and the ongoing advice that they get from Anne Fennessy as well in the mayor's office.

So I want to thank everybody for staying extra time today.

And the presentation will be online shortly for folks to take a closer look at.

And again, thank you Sound Transit and thank you committee members.

With that, Thank you.

Members, this concludes the June 16, 2021 meeting of the Transportation Utilities Committee.

The committee plans to meet again on July 7. Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.