Seattle Park District Board Meeting Public Hearing 11/18/19

Okay, good afternoon everybody.

So I'm gonna do a call to order.

This is the Seattle Park District Board.

Today is Monday, November 18th.

My name is Deborah Juarez and I'm president of the board.

So clerk, can we call the roll?

Begshaw.

Here.

Harrell.

Here.

Herbal.

Here.

O'Brien.

Here.

Pacheco.

Here.

And board president Juarez.

Here.

Six present.

Thank you.

So we'll move into approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Do I sign that now?

No.

I'll sign that later.

Sorry about that.

I'm sorry.

I was looking at the wrong item.

I apologize.

So today we're going to have a presentation from the Department of Parks and Recreation on the 2019 Park District Activities and Financials.

I believe it's a seven-page PowerPoint.

This will be followed by public hearing to accept comments on revenue sources for the 2020 operations budget and a potential tax levy increase in 2020. This is separate from our traditional public comment period at the start of the committee related to General Parks issues and items on the agenda.

So with that, I will now go to approval of the minutes.

The minutes of the June 24th, 2019 Seattle Park District Board meeting have been reviewed.

If there's no objections, the minutes will be signed.

This is what I meant to say.

Hearing no objections, the minutes will be signed.

Got ahead of myself.

There you go.

Thank you.

So a friendly reminder.

We have an interesting agenda of how we're going to do this today based on the public hearing that we have coming up.

So, a friendly reminder to those who signed up, if you wish to comment specifically on revenue sources for the 2020 operations or a potential property tax levy, please sign in for the public hearing, which is different than public comment, which will convene at the end of the agenda.

How many people have signed up, Jodi?

I only have public hearings, so.

Okay, so there's no one signed up for public comment?

Okay.

It's on the wrong list.

Okay.

So we have one person signed up for public comment.

Two back there.

Two for public comment.

Okay.

She'll get us your list.

So I'll have Joe, do you want to call their names?

Gentleman?

Yeah.

I apologize for signing up on the wrong form.

That's okay.

So we have two minutes.

I think you know how it works and go ahead.

My name is Donald Harris and I recently retired from a 46-year career with Seattle Parks and Recreation where I directed staff in the development of hundreds of park facilities and managed the acquisition of over 850 acres of parkland.

You're here today as the Seattle Park District Board because people of Seattle love their parks.

five years ago, voted to approve a metropolitan park district to provide additional tax dollars to maintain and operate our parks and acquire more park land.

In 1967, citizens supported the King County forward thrust bond issue that resulted in $100 million for new parks and recreation facilities.

Since that time, they have voted or supported six initiatives that variously protected their parks.

No aquarium at Golden Gardens, no expansion of the zoo into Woodland Park, no golf course in Discovery Park, no fence around the Washington Park Arboretum, and no airport at Sandpoint, Magnuson Park.

And most significantly, in 1994, Initiative 42 protect our parks by prohibiting the non-park use of parkland.

And yet, there is currently a city departmental task force formed to consider the use of city-owned golf courses for, I quote, non-park uses, quote.

Exactly what I-42 and Ordinance I-118 477 was passed to prohibit.

Additionally, departments have been asked if they have potential needs that will require real estate.

Are our parklands now just real estate?

The 1989 King County Open Space Bond Issue, which provided $50 million for green belts, natural areas, and trails in Seattle, with a 72% favorable vote, having failed the year before when our elected leaders included funding for a development project instead of acquisition.

Most relevant to the issue at hand Today, my issue of use of parkland was the $198 million 2000 ProParks levy, which followed a major neighborhood planning effort, where for the first time, neighborhoods came to terms with the need to accommodate additional density, the struggle we have today.

If mitigated by the provision of additional parks and Oprah space, which that levy then funded.

Why now would we consider giving up park land while we are continuing to add that density?

I realize we have a housing crisis.

Seattle citizens will not let that happen, nor should you.

Never underestimate the impact of a poor decision.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Who's next, Jody?

Tom Harper.

Hi, Don Harper.

I'm on the Queen Anne Community Council where I've served as the chair of its Parks Committee now for 18 years.

I've been a citizen activist for parks for over 20 years.

One of my accomplishments was the purchase of Smith Cove Park.

I worked on that since 1997. and we finally accomplished that.

So I've been doing this for quite some time.

I'm incredibly disturbed that there is even a thought in this Seattle City Council's head that you are going to sell parks property.

If you feel like a park is underperforming, such as the golf course, I have an idea.

We have a crushing need for more sports fields.

We need a mountain bike court.

We need walking courts.

We need a pea patches that are huge.

We need an off-leash area.

that actually works for the 172,000 friggin' dogs out there and all the human beings that are holding on the other end of the leash.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

We do not have enough parks.

The reason I-42 and the ordinance that your past predecessors passed in order to protect parks was because the city of Seattle loves parks.

Should you proceed and try to sell or change the use of any of our parks, I will get involved in creating an initiative to make an amendment to the city charter that will permanently protect our parks from such foolishness.

So please, we need our parks.

We have a lot of uses for them.

Let's keep them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I believe that ends our public comment.

OK.

Thank you for people participating today.

And we'll move on to our items of business.

Joe, do you want to read the first item into the record?

Agenda item one, the 2019 Seattle Park District activities, financials, and cumulative financial update.

Okay, so I see our participants already at the table, and I'll let you introduce yourselves, including you, Nagin, and then we will go through your presentation.

Nagin Kamkar, staff to Councilmember Juarez.

Tracy Ratzliff, Council Central staff.

Jesus Aguirre, Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Donny Grabowski, Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Hi.

Well, thank you, board members.

And Donnie and I will sort of tag team.

I'm going to sort of begin with giving you an overview of some of our 2019 activities.

And just as a reminder, as your board meets twice a year in June and November, the last time we were before you, excuse me, we presented our 2018 final report of financials and as well as of our activities.

This is a year-to-date report for 2019. When we return in 2020 in June, we will then provide for you sort of our final numbers and our final activities for 2019. And the way we're going to go through the presentation is through sort of giving you some highlights of the four major categories that were outlined in the initial Park District Financial Plan.

And those categories are the Fix-It-First, Building for a Future, Maintaining Parks and Facilities, and Programs for People.

So we'll kind of jump into those.

The first slide talks about the Fix-It-First.

category, which really includes our major maintenance, asset management on the capital side, and then some small operating pieces for tree crew and zoo operation support.

And this is the bulk of the funding as part of the first six-year cycle in the park district.

This is where we were really tasked with trying to address some of the deferred maintenance in the system.

Some of the highlights in the major maintenance side of things, we've completed to date in 2019, 20 projects.

We've got 10 of them that are under construction, and these projects range in everything from irrigation work at Othello and Roanoke Parks.

We've done a play area renovation at Puget Ridge and Wallingford, did some pool renovations in Munger, Southwest, and Meadowbrook.

Part of this category also includes the removal of encroachments on Parks and Recreation property, and in 2019 we removed 11 of those.

And then we also brought in 21.4 new acres of the urban forest into restoration under the Green Seattle Partnership.

The maintaining parks and facilities category is really about things like pea patches or off-leash areas on the operating side and then some additional preventative maintenance programs and some enhanced programs for cleaning parks and community centers.

Some highlights I wanted to bring to your attention As you might recall in the past we've talked about a third shift that we added as part of the park district that allows some of our trades and other Maintenance crews to go into community centers over the span of a couple of weeks in the evening after the community centers are closed Allows us to maintain the operations going but allows us to do a lot of some of the deferred maintenance and so in 2019 we addressed those needs in 15 community centers and We also have an enhanced cleaning crew on the parks and the environment side that did work at 61 locations in 2019 so far.

In terms of our off-leash areas, the funding we have in the park district is really to address some of the major needs there from a facility standpoint.

We've got three off-leash area projects that were completed, and we've got planning and design for five of those, five additional sites.

And then finally, on this slide for peat patches, we have five gardens that have some planning and design work underway to continue to improve those properties.

Programs for People supports services such as our community center operations, lifelong recreation, special population programs, get moving, job readiness, a lot of our programs.

Some highlights here, in collaboration with the Office of Arts and Culture, we have a grant program called Arts in the Parks, and in 2019 we funded 27 events, including seven temporary art installations that were completed in our parks.

On our specialized programs, this initiative really supports additional programs for our specialized populations.

In 2019, we've offered 125 programs, roughly 6,600 hours of programming for over 2,700 participants.

And then in lifelong recreation, 780 programs with roughly 9,700 participants participating in over 7,000 hours of programming funded by the Park District.

And then finally on the building for the future category, which includes developing some of the land bank sites that were acquired through previous levies.

It includes the major projects challenge fund as well as our urban parks partnership, otherwise known as the GSP as well.

The Major Projects Challenge Fund completed a couple of feasibility studies to support work by some of our partners who are in our facilities and will continue to work with them.

Two of those were completed in 2019. And of the land bank sites, I'm happy to report that we completed and opened our two first new parks that were done under this initiative, one at Alice Ball Park in the Greenwood District, and then the Urban Triangle Park in the South Lake Union District, brand new parks that were brought into the inventory.

Of those land bank sites, we have three more that are under construction and four others that are in design that will be going into construction soon.

Can I ask you a quick question?

Just going back to land acquisition, the two parcels that we acquired, the one that I was really excited about, the one that we did at Thornton Creek.

Yes.

So where are we at on that?

We bought it.

We haven't done demolition or anything yet.

We just, you're still planning?

No, I don't believe we've done any demolition.

We're sort of, it's been acquired.

This is one we're doing in conjunction with SPU.

Right.

And we just signed the MOA to talk about who's doing what and we're moving forward with that.

Yeah.

Right.

Thank you.

And then the other one is Duwamish Waterway Park that's in the South Park area.

And then this initiative also funds many events and activities, and particularly the core of this was our Downtown Park Activation Program in partnership with the Downtown Seattle Association has continued their robust programming at both West, excuse me, West Lake and Occidental, as well as we continue to use and expanded these into 11 additional parks in the central area.

Okay, so this first slide, this table shows that for the Park District operating initiatives, the cumulative budget versus actuals from 2015 to 2018, as well as the 2019 budget to actuals through September.

And the Park District operating initiatives are mostly spent each year.

As you can see from the cumulative actuals total, 96% was spent from 2015 to 2018. Spending varies among initiatives based on what the initiative is funding.

So for example, Initiative 3.2, Recreation Opportunities for All under Programs for People, provides grants to community groups to provide culturally relevant free programs to communities of color, and more spending happens in the fourth quarter when the community groups receive their reimbursable-based funding.

Other factors could include vacancies for positions funded through the initiatives and also when the timing of bills occur.

So, for example, in Initiative 1.6, utility buildings, we receive those bills twice a year, so it's not a straightforward spend.

And we fully expect to spend most of the 2019 operating initiatives by the end of this year.

So the next slide shows our Park District financials for the capital side.

And we, so again, there are two parts to this table.

One shows the 2015 to 2018.

Can you go back to the previous slide for just a moment?

Thank you.

I was just operating.

On the restoring the community center operations, I know that there were plans and we had identified six community centers in our 2015 initial budget.

Can you give me just a quick capsule of where are those community center operations?

In terms of just the schedule, did we make those commitments?

You might be referring on the capital side.

We had funding in that pot of money.

There was some operating dollars that went to restoring the hours and hiring staff, and then there was some funding for capital improvements.

Will we get to that slide in the future here?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

No, that was my mistake.

Okay, no, sorry about that.

All right, so on the capital side, again, this table shows budget to actuals 2015 to 2018, as well as budget to actuals for 2019 through September.

And cumulative spending for the Park District on the capital side is approximately 50%.

And this comes from a total allocation of $142 million, which is comprised of this $114 million in the 2015 to 2018 column, as well as $28 million that was included in the 2019 adopted.

I should note too that the 2019 revised budget column that you see here includes both carry forward from 2015 to 2018 as well as the 2019 adopted budget.

Can you just slow down for one sec?

Sure.

So what was the total on that last one, the last column?

I'm sorry, I lost you on that.

Okay, so what I wanted to say here is that our total budget allocation thus far has been about $142 million.

And that's comprised of $114 million that we had in the 2015 to 2018 budget.

And then included in the 2019 revised budget, we have 28 million of 2019. So the 114 plus the 28 million equals the 142 million.

To date, we've spent, as you can see from the actuals columns, 49 million from 2015 to 2018, as well as 21 million for 2019. So those two add up to 70 million.

And if you take 70 million into the 142, you get about 50%.

So to highlight a few items in this slide, the first one I think is one of interest, which is the 1.1 major maintenance backlog and asset management.

And spending has been accelerating annually on this since 2016 with a planned spend this year of $22 million, the highest of all the years.

We are anticipating that a majority of the remaining major maintenance initiative will be mostly spent in 2020 with a small residual remaining in 2021. Large projects with anticipated completion in 2020 include athletic field renovations, synthetic turf replacements, pool renovations, and play renovations.

Another initiative to highlight here is 1.2 Community Center Rehabilitation and Development.

Yeah, and this is the one I think.

So this was initially on hold while we completed the Community Center Strategic Plan, which was in September of 2016. Stabilization work is underway for five of the six centers, including Hiawatha, Jefferson, Magnolia, Queen Anne, and South Park.

That was the community center assessment plan that we did?

Correct.

That was the call, okay.

So is there, may I just ask a quick question?

Yes, absolutely.

I know that all of these community centers are concerned that we're putting Band-Aids on something that really needs a much bigger investment.

Where are we in that sense of making the much bigger investment for all of these community centers, including the possibility that we've talked many times about being able to restore the center, but to build housing on top of some of them.

Yes.

No, that's a great question.

That is, so the answer to the question in terms of the Band-Aid question, you're exactly right.

That was our concern as well.

So when we did the original community center strategic plan, it was looking at how do we invest enough so they continue to operate?

Because this broader question is a longer term question, but that's what the stabilization concept is about.

In terms of the longer term investment, that's what we're in the middle of right now.

We've just finished our strategic planning process that we'll come back and share.

And then that strategic planning process will be sort of the foundation for the conversation for the next six to 12 years of the park district cycle.

So that a big part of that work is looking at all of our community center portfolio to get a sense of where we want these community centers to be from a minimum operational standpoint.

But then what, if anything, should be expanded, so it's beyond sort of the band-aid.

But again, those are still things that we're planning and the financial side of that we don't have.

But I know you know some of these buildings, that number could get very big very quickly.

So we have to be very thoughtful about how we're going to strategize where these centers go and where we make those investments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, another one to highlight is initiative 4.4, which is the develop 14 new parks at land bank sites.

And in this category, or in this initiative, spending reflects the work currently happening with the 14 land bank sites.

The current plan is that 10 of the 14 will be complete by the end of 2020 and four will be in construction.

And as was previously mentioned, the first completed project, Alice Ball, Park in Greenwood opened in June of this year and Urban Triangle was completed.

Then the last one that we want to highlight for you is Smith Cove Park Development.

And this one is currently in early design stages, which is reflected in the spending, the low spending.

Construction documentation is near 100% and the team is waiting for final permits.

The project will be bid in the fall or winter of fall of 19, winter 2020. and construction will begin in early 2020, and the second phase, which is the eastern portion, will be considered as part of the next cycle's financial plan.

Go to Councilor Baxter.

Yes, thank you on that.

And I know Don Harper has, like me, been working on Smith Cove Park for, it feels like, much of our lifetime now.

But it feels to me that the whole project is way more expensive than what we had initially And so the west side, we had the mod soccer fields, and then we had to do the construction for the, I think the overflow, or the pipes that were coming down off of the hillside.

And then there was something else that went on, and then we were digging it up again.

Do we have a schedule now for when that west side will be completed?

And then also, what I know the neighborhood has really been interested in the east side, because that touches water on certainly the east side, but also potentially right down to the water on the south side of that park.

What's the schedule about?

So the west side, we expect to go to construction early next year, 2020. I don't have a note on how long that construction is anticipated to take, but we should start construction.

And the second phase, as you said, is probably just as expensive as the first phase, but that hasn't been designed or costed out yet.

And that's why the anticipation is to look at it for the second round of the park.

So I know we've had many, many designs and charrettes and people in Magnolia and Queen Anne in particular have been looking at making that sort of a place where people can launch their kayaks but also do It's going to be and I think there was even some volleyball courts that were going to be included.

But primarily it was not going to be as actively scheduled as what was happening on the west side.

And I hear from colleagues and particularly Magnolia is like, hey, we've been working on this thing for 15 years, how come it's not moving forward?

So I hope in my absence that you will continue to have people that keep that one moving forward.

No, absolutely.

I think it does present a unique opportunity to have water access again.

And I think that's the exciting part of it.

But as you said, it's not yet funded.

And there's lots of exciting conceptual designs put together.

But our hope is to continue to move that forward.

And will we put more funding in?

Or is that the plan for the park district going forward so we can complete it?

So it is on our list of the things that, of the very long list of things that have asked us about in terms of potentially being funded in the second or the third round of the park district.

So it's definitely there.

Yeah.

Somewhere.

Council Member Ryan.

Just on the 2019 budget versus actuals, did the timeline slip from when we set the budget last year significantly or?

In terms of the spend rate?

Yeah, it says we're going to spend almost five and a half million dollars and we're at $60,000 to date.

Oh, I'm sorry, you're talking about Smith Cove?

Yes, I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, I think it's, I think the design and the bidding and all of that took a little longer than we anticipated.

So, those costs only reflect the early design piece.

So, I'm sure there's still some bills that are due to us for some of the final design and before we go out to bid.

And that's the, when I look across the board at actuals through September versus budget, you know, we're at 22% and so is that theme just consistent across them or?

Well, there's different reasons for each of these things, but holistically it's a broad theme that we're, I'm really concerned about looking at from the standpoint of just being able to get the information.

So for example, this table is, confusing in many ways, only because it's hard to put a lot of information.

So for example, for 2019, the $93 million in the third to last column includes carryover funds from 2015 to 2018, plus $28 million that are new for 2019. Those carryovers are harder because there are projects in various stages.

Some of those projects are still starting early.

Some of them are almost done.

So it's hard to track them unless we put together a gigantic spreadsheet for you.

But, you know, that being said, you know, and each project has the challenges with permits and with bidding and with the design and the community and all of that.

So we continue to work on that.

But then more broadly, when you look at the overall number, I think as Donnie alluded to, the 114, which is column one, plus the four, where did it go, 40?

50 plus 20, 70, yeah.

Yeah.

The total that we spent is about 50% of everything we've had allocated, which, Again, every project is different, some are completely done, some are delayed for different reasons.

You know, that's a number that I'm watching, we're watching very closely to make sure that we continue to stay on top of it and do better with reporting, but also just do better with our project management.

So a couple of things that we've done already is we've made significant changes with our planning and development division that oversees all these projects to just do a better job of that.

So we're adding a new process, for example, a stage gating process that at each stage in these projects, we have better information because often what will happen, project will go through and then when it's about to go to bid, we realize that our estimated bids are way higher than the budget.

So then that gets put on hold and then we have to figure out how to fund it.

We want to set it up so that at each stage of these, we have those conversations early so we have a better sense of what's happening.

And then frankly, we just added more capacity to that team.

This is a group that has been delivering roughly $70 million worth of projects every year, at least active projects.

We just didn't have enough project managers, enough architects.

We're ramping up.

In the last couple of months, we've added more staff there.

And then finally, there is, we're getting an outside consultant, PERC consultants that's coming in and just really digging into all of these and are giving us some recommendations, some of which we're already starting to implement.

But our hope is that as we close out, you know, this first six-year cycle, a lot of this, you know, we're doing better now in spending, but really have a solid plan to make sure that we are better at managing.

at presenting the information in a way that is easier to follow for folks to understand.

Yeah.

I'll just say that it seems like a similar parallel to some of the challenges SDOT's had with delivering some of their projects in Move Seattle, and it sounds like some of the responses you're making are similar to that, which is great.

Obviously, as we move towards this time next year when we'll be updating I think it's going to be really helpful to have as much clarity about where we're going on that.

You know, when a project takes four years instead of two years, there's probably some added costs.

Probably the biggest thing from my perspective is just that project's not available to be used for a couple years.

If the reality is that we're just too ambitious in our timelines and these projects are four-year projects, not two-year projects, and we just...

miss that when we first put it in, and that's fair.

Let's use that when we think about how much capacity we have next year with the cash flow that's coming in, and let's match the staff to that as soon as we can, too.

Absolutely, because not every project takes the same amount of time, so we just need to be much more specific about these individual projects, which will have some input in the way we budget, because right now the way we budget, we budget for every project having these three phases, and we say phase one is this year, phase two is this year, phase three is that year.

But if anything changes because the scope is different, then our budgeting is sort of out of whack.

So what we want to do is get better at each year updating that budget so we have a better sense of what's happening.

Yeah.

I think we meet so seldom as the parks district.

But the reporting, I know SDOT has struggled with how to accurately report the carryover money from last year to this year.

Are we on target?

Are we not?

And depending on how you look at the number.

And so, not the most important thing to work on.

Some way to report on that so we can just have ways to essentially hold you all accountable to say, okay I know we started off slow, but are we on pace now?

And so some way to deliver that information.

Yeah, and not to keep beating this to death, but the other complication in addition to the timing, there's all the different fund sources, right?

There's REIT money and other pieces, so that's where the transparency piece gets really important, complicated, but I do think it's really important.

And then maybe when we go into the next spending plan, we may want to think about our budgeting.

Because really what we have on the capital side is it's the appropriation.

It's not the spending plan.

And just exactly what Jesus is saying is the case.

For some of these projects, there are multiple years in which they're doing a lot of design.

They're not going to actually spend a lot of their budget until they get to construction.

But that's not what you see in front of you.

You see the appropriation.

That's much more true for the operating, where you get the appropriation in that one year, and you spend almost 99% of the money gets spent in that one year.

Yeah, and if that's the reality, then obviously all the questions are kind of moved.

But it sounds like there's a mix of things, so figure it out.

Yes, exactly.

Great.

Anything else?

Do you guys want to?

I think that's all we had, unless you have other questions.

Do you want to wrap up?

Anything else?

Any words of wisdom?

No, thank you.

I'm happy to add some if that'd be helpful.

Okay, thank you.

Chair, I have a question.

So we had a public hearing on three resolutions related to the revenue sources for the 2020 operations budget and the potential tax levy increase in 2020. Are these part of budget legislation that we're going to be voting on?

You'll actually vote on them next Monday after you vote on the entire budget.

Then we will go into the Park District meeting and we will adopt all of the resolutions that then adopt the parks district portion of funding and budgets.

So I'm just struggling a little bit with the fact that it appears that we're making some commitments for 2020, both on the operating and capital side.

And we didn't hear very much from the public today on that.

Could you maybe talk a little bit more about the public process that Parks has done that has led to these recommendations in these three resolutions?

We haven't had the public hearing yet, actually.

We have the hearing to have, and I think there's some people that are signed up to it.

We haven't had the public hearing yet on that.

But we are having it today.

We are going to have it, yes, this afternoon.

And these fine folks are going to be talking to us.

I'm just wondering, has there been other public process that has led to...

In terms of, and I apologize, I'm not sure you're talking about the resolutions that set the levy rate as part of the broader park for the, got it.

Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of our engagement, so certainly there'll be this hearing, you know, we have our regular park district and oversight committee meetings and our park board meetings and we talk a lot about these issues.

And then certainly through our engagement process that we just completed.

It wasn't specific to the 2020 budget, but it was really about what are the priorities, what are the things that the community cares about.

Those are certainly informing what we're going to do for 2020 and beyond.

But in terms of the current budget, we didn't do anything, any significant changes or anything specific to that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay, are we done?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

So that will end our presentation.

So with that, Council Member Herbold, you were correct, we are gonna go to public hearing.

So in regards to, we put out a notice for today starting at 2.30.

So we will now open the public hearing to accept comments on the budget and potential property tax levy increase for 2019. How many people have signed up, Jodi?

We have two people signed up for this hearing.

Yeah, you can still sign up.

Yeah, you can still sign up.

Do you want to?

So we have three people now.

Four.

You want to call the first two people for me?

The first two speakers are Tim Mozart and Pat Griffith.

My name is Tim Muelster.

I chair the Lake City Neighborhood Alliance, a group of over 25 Lake City organizations.

I'm here at your public hearing to support the Park District's Oversight Committee's recommendation provided at your June 24th meeting.

to retain the current 2019 Park District property tax of $0.22 through 2020. I am a little disappointed given your comment, Councilwoman Herbold, about the seed that Resolution 32 has that pegged at $0.21.

So I guess my question is, where's the consideration of your Oversight Committee's recommendation on that issue?

Excuse me.

After reviewing Resolution 30, which includes the Park District budget, I have a number of questions related to several line items.

Some of those questions have been answered.

The first one is Restore Community Center Ops has all the $1.4 million that was originally cut from this line item been restored since your 2018 budget action only restored $850,000 of those funds.

So that's a question.

Two, I'm aware that the community center operation line item was increased substantially in 2019. Was that $1.9 million increase to fund the community center positions that ARC, A-R-C, was no longer willing to fund.

Second area, community center rehab development.

Given the substantial reduction in the line items starting in 2019 and 2020 of $320,000 and $377,000 respectively, how much of that budget was actually spent?

I think the answer to that question was $2.5 million.

Did any of the six identified community centers get completed?

I didn't hear that any of them did.

It sounded like they're still all in progress.

and what kind of financial obligation against the next six year funding cycle will be created to finish those six community centers that were not completed.

I'd like to reiterate a recommendation I've made to you in the past several years and that is to revise the park district resolution to allow for mid-year corrections that would allow for increases in spending plan if needed.

This is flexibility is needed to allow changes to the spending plan to reflect major changes that occur that aren't anticipated.

Certainly the last six years we have seen some huge changes especially in the growth of the city.

I want to thank the City Council for consideration of these recommendations and questions as part of your 2020 Park District deliberations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Monster, we should also note that we met with the Park District Oversight Committee, Ms. McCaffrey and folks, and we also received a letter from them outlining the issues that you have brought up.

So I just want you to know that we had that.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Pat Griffith.

My original comments of the reason I came were made by Mr. Harris and Mr. Harper.

But my question is, we haven't received really any information on a tax increase and you intend to vote on it next week.

That does not seem quite kosher.

And I'm wondering why an increase is necessary if we have such an underspend.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Carol Burton.

Hi, I'm Carol Burton, and I wear a number of hats.

I'm a member of the Friends of Smith Cove Park that have been working, I think, half my lifetime on Smith Cove.

Sally's laughing.

You've been there too.

And we'd really like to see it done.

And it's been put off and put off and put off.

And people are very disappointed, very disappointed that you changed the whole community developed plan because you had this high-powered international company, GGN, that had never done public meetings and stuff like that.

I also want to echo, I'm with Green Seattle Partnership, too.

I have been a forest for, I was one of the original forest stewards, and I just recently found out that Green Seattle Partnership budget was cut in this last year.

That was kept pretty quiet.

And we do a lot of work.

And without all our volunteer hours, your parks, your forested parks would be in really bad shape.

And third thing I'd like to say is echo what Pat said.

You know, the reason you don't have anybody here is because nobody knows about it.

I mean, you get the notice, but there were no attaching documents to this agenda.

There was finally a link put on the Park District page, and then you had to go through five or six pages to find some actual numbers.

Why couldn't you put a link on the agenda, which is typical?

I've never seen a council agenda without a link to supporting documents.

And people are saying, well, what's happening?

It's like, I don't know, doesn't say.

They're going to vote next week on a budget, but they're not going to tell us what the budget is.

So you need to think about that if you want to include the public.

And I know you can do this tax increase without a vote, but people at least need to know.

I mean, Tim saying the $0.21 is the first thing I've heard.

And I know he follows it more than I do, but I follow a lot of your stuff.

So think about that if you want the community You know, we don't all have time to go to the oversight committee or the parks commissioners and that kind of thing.

Okay, Carol.

Carol, let me, before you, let me clear something up.

We have a little bit of confusion going here about when we posted the notice.

Do you want to respond, Tracy?

The attachments, the supporting documents, the link, my understanding is that they were all here.

And the taxes, yeah, those are, it's all.

I can show you on my phone with my email.

Okay, I don't want to get in an argument.

I just want, please just respond, and I will meet with you afterwards if you'd like.

They should have been live on Friday, because I think we got them all the materials to the clerks by Friday.

So they should be able to find them by going to the council webpage that then takes them to the park district, because we try to do a combined website that should have had all the links for all the documents.

Today is Monday.

Okay, so what we'll do is we've answered that, and I will follow up with you in a minute, Carol.

So who else do we have next?

Next speaker, Susan Casey.

Casey.

Casey.

My name is Susan Casey.

And before I actually start my remarks, I want to say it is very difficult for those in the audience to understand what you're saying.

If you turn away from your microphone, we can't hear you.

So we're struggling to hear what you're saying.

Many of the points I was going to make have already been made by Carol and the two Dons and so on, but I'm very concerned about that we not really have easy access to the 2020 proposed budget.

I'm also concerned that you've only met, you're only meeting twice a year as the Board of Commissioners to oversee parks work.

I think that is The the other thing and because I don't have a copy and I wasn't able to study the budget is that I'm very concerned about two things.

One, the the lack of apparent interest in really having neighborhood parks.

My daughter lives in Montreal and they are wonderful park.

It's a dense city and they have neighborhood parks that are just filled with people using them and they're every four or five blocks.

It's amazing.

and we need more of that here.

The other thing is that it seems to take so long to do things and we're always constantly studying and so on and so forth.

Let's be more realistic about what is being done and maybe perhaps the council or the new council should look at more performance of our audits.

Thank you.

All right.

Oh, Mr. Hines.

Mr. Hines, please state your name and what item you're speaking to.

David Haines about the parks.

I find it highly suspect that Mother Nature needs so much money to preserve parks and like to create parks without concrete or for like employees to move into a martin selling building while Parks and Rec has this huge trash truck used to throw people's stuff away with the cops yelling at homeless.

Do you want service?

What doesn't The Parks and Rec trash truck it used to pick up all the government and non-government partners trying to solve the homeless crisis.

Trash at ShareWheel, Tiny Home Villages, and other homeless non-profits getting shaken down by Wall Street owned trash and port-a-potty service.

And, you know, Sharon Lee still needs to be investigated because we need the same bathroom, shower, laundry as Shilshol Marina that the government built for a bunch of bourgeoisie wannabe yacht folks who come in from this into this country whenever the hell they feel like it.

And they get the most top shelf laundry, shower and, uh, you know, like the hygiene needs.

And the government built the whole thing for them.

And we don't have that for the homeless.

But you're using the parks and rec budget to conduct a war on the homeless while not even having the proper, like Scott Morrow with the cops saying, here, I got a van taking you to the homeless in Camden now.

He's nowhere to ever be found.

He sends his little minions that he pays.

But you cannot use the parks and rec, which is like the most expensive, to finance Martin Selig and all these shady buildings and all these people who don't get their hands dirty, but are really dirty in the government, who are running the parks and rec, who are allowing it to be used to conduct a war.

And I dare say it's mostly the gay people in this government is conducting a war on innocent poor people and having a good old time with it, judging people harshly.

Acting like they can finally found somebody they can kick down and the cops are allowing a whole bunch of predatory low-life Saturating drug pushers who are destroying people's lives and you all are using these people as wraparound more profitable services while innocent Sober are still being forsaken because you guys have nowhere to go except a freaking jail

All right, thank you.

Okay, so I think we have any more.

I was trying to tell you, Nageen, if we can speak to our friends over here about, I think people are getting a little bit confused, that Parks was doing a presentation which is separate than the Metropolitan Park District and what we are going to be voting on next week.

And when we're required to meet, which is twice a year, is that correct, for the Metropolitan Park District?

That's what's required of us.

That's when we put the notices out.

But we can get offline and explain that process.

Tracey, do you want to add something before we wrap up?

A couple comments.

First of all, just so people understand, We are going to be collecting more in terms of the revenue for the Park District next year, $53 million versus about $51 or $52 million this year.

The estimated assessed value is actually going to be $0.21 per $1,000 of assessed value, which is $0.01 less than what we collected last year.

Last year or this year, $0.22 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Why is that?

Because our AV has gone up and so we're able to reduce that assessed value.

So in case people think, oh, I'm gonna see this big, you know, increase in my taxes for this particular piece of the levy or the parks levy, that should not be the case this year.

I think Councilor O'Brien has something to add.

And does that, does the, sorry, like roughly 51 to 53 million, if I have that right, increase or shift, does that include new construction or?

I think part of the challenge too is that when the first six year park district budget was adopted, it was set at a dollar amount per year with an inflationary cost.

And that was all the projects that were in there.

So it does include new construction, but that's been set since it was adopted in 2015. 14 or 15. The reason it changes is because although that number stays, that budgeted number stays the same, as the property values go up, the millage rate changes.

So the millage rate will change, but our budget that's been approved isn't changing.

So it's the same amount of money that we said we were going to get six years ago.

It's the same money that's in there.

Yeah.

There's clearly a number of ways folks could choose to measure what we're doing one year over the next.

I think probably the most real way would be for an individual to look at their bill and see what they paid this year, what they're paid next year.

And that's going to fluctuate by a number of things.

One is your assessed value changes relative to everyone else's assessed value in the city.

Our rate, as you said, is actually going down from $0.22 per mil to $0.21.

The total amount we're collecting is going up slightly, a couple percentage points.

That also reflects the fact that there's a lot more value in the city to collect from, so that doesn't necessarily imply an individual will pay.

If you've done a major remodel that's been captured, that would improve it if your property value are going up a lot higher than your neighbors, because maybe it's zoned a certain way.

But there will be people on the other side who will see a lower payment next year too, and that's going to vary by individual.

I should add that, and thank you Council Member Ryan, because that's what we're going to look at and have much public comment and robust activity about the six-year plan.

Yeah, for the next, we got this next year to finish out, and then we're going to put together a plan for the next six years, but what we're trying to do is be true to what the voters asked for in 2014. about what, when we all voted yes for parks, we created a metropolitan park district.

I think that's where the confusion gets in.

People confuse that with the actual parks committee, which is separate, though integrated in that we talk to each other.

So it isn't that, it hasn't gone unnoticed that next year.

And when do we anticipate our six year plan coming out when we have all of our hearings?

When we're 21 and beyond?

So so that's the work of next year.

So it'll be part of next the mayor's next year's proposed budget will include the six-year financial plan and we'll be having Discussions through parks about that six-year plan in committee where people can come give public comment It'll be posted just like we've been doing for the last four years.

I just want people to be clear about that Okay, is there anything else?

All right.

So the Metropolitan Park District Board will stand adjourned.

Thank you.

I