Seattle Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development & Arts Committee 4/9/19

Good morning, and greetings.

Welcome to the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee.

It is April 9th, 2019, and it is now 9.38 a.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold.

I'm the council member who chairs this committee and also represents District 1 in West Seattle and South Park.

I'm joined by Council Member Shawna Sawant.

On our agenda today, we will start with public comment.

And then our items of business are as follows.

We will have our fourth discussion on a proposed piece of legislation related to public accommodations and closed captioning in places of business.

We will have an initial discussion on the proposed appointment of Mariko Lockhart as director of the Office of Civil Rights.

We'll receive a briefing from the Office of Economic Development about the Only in Seattle Neighborhood Business Districts program.

We'll hear from the Seattle Arts Commission on their 2019 work plan.

And then finally, also from the Arts Office, we'll hear an update on their Arts and Cultural Districts program.

So with that, let's move right into public comment.

Thank you, Newell.

We have four people signed in.

And Newell will be the timekeeper.

You have two minutes to speak, and the red flashing clock will let you know how much time you have, and Newell will also let you know when your time is up.

So we'll start with Cynthia Stewart, followed by Eric Scheer.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

My name is Cynthia Stewart.

I'm the president of the State Hearing Loss Association, Washington.

And I came here to support this bill.

We think it's extremely important.

The ADA was passed federally more than a quarter of a century ago.

And accommodations for people with hearing loss have not kept up with accommodations for other kinds of disabilities.

And this is an example of one where an additional step to accommodate people with hearing loss is extremely important.

As your bill notes, there are more than 20% of the population has hearing loss.

particularly in the older part of the population.

And secondly, we note also that other people, people with foreign languages, other kinds of situations where people cannot understand the oral part of the television, captions are extremely important.

So we applaud your action on this piece and I have reviewed the amendments and I support all of those as well.

So thank you again for your effort.

Next, we have Eric Scheer, be followed by Jenny Frankel.

Hello.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Eric Scheer.

I'm the co-chair for the Commission on People with Disabilities.

I'd like to speak for myself and my personal experience with working with Mariko Lockhart, who is the temporary director for the OCR.

I would like I would like to give my support for her selection to fill the permanent position as the director of the OCR.

She has done an excellent job.

She's been very focused with her time.

She's given to our commission whenever we had a need or any issues has arised.

She has come to our meetings whenever has been needed.

So we really do admire her dedication to our commission.

So thank you.

Jenny Frankel will be followed by Derek, I believe it's Lumjackie.

Hi, my name is Jenny Frankel, and I work with the Seattle Neighborhood Group on a project called Rainier Beach, a beautiful, safe place for youth.

I am here also to express my support for the confirmation of Mariko Lockhart as permanent director for the Seattle Office of Civil Rights.

I first shared a cubicle wall with Mariko back in the D.O.N. Office for Education days and then have had the opportunity to work on several work groups and now as a community member and community organization of an organization that she helped found, I get to see, I've gotten to see so many layers of her leadership.

The way that she's been able to gracefully put out flyers, deal with the politics inside and outside City Hall, and uplift her team to get the very best from them.

I've seen her do that in all of those capacities.

So I have full confidence that she's also able to do that for Seattle Office of Civil Rights.

Thank you so much.

Our last speaker that we have signed up is, again, it's Derek, I believe it's Lumjackie.

Hey there, council members.

My name is Derek.

I'm from the Human Rights Commission.

My name is Jackie Turner.

I'm from the Human Rights Commission.

Two people.

Three people.

And I'm Jessica Bouillon, also from the Human Rights Commission.

And we came today to express our excitement to work with Mariko in her soon-to-be new position as Director of the Office of Civil Rights.

We're just super excited to work with her as the Human Rights Commission.

Great.

All right, if nobody else is signed up to speak, I'll...

You can just take the mic, John.

Thank you, and introduce yourself.

Go ahead.

Sorry for the late arrival.

Madam Chair, committee members, my name is John Ingbern.

I'm the director of the Retail Industry Coalition of Seattle.

And first, I'd like to praise the chair and the committee for your work on this ordinance expanding access for all in the city to programming.

So thank you.

I'd also like to thank the chair for listening to the concerns of the coalition.

and in drafting the amendments that are before the committee today.

So thank you.

With that, we would be able to support this ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you for saying so.

I appreciate it.

All right.

Well, with that, let's move right into the business before us today.

We'll filibuster until...

Take a seat.

Read item one into the record.

Thank you.

Agenda item one is Council Bill 119487, an ordinance relating to public accommodations requiring persons owning or managing a place of public accommodations to activate closed captioning on television receivers and adding a new chapter 14.05 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

Thank you, Noel.

Introductions, please.

Hello, thank you Chair Herbold, Newell, members of the committee.

I am Eric Sund of your Council Central staff standing in for Asha Venkatraman.

I'm joining you at a relatively late date in this process, so thank you for your welcome here.

So it's my understanding that this legislation was discussed at least once in January in concept, and then subsequently a draft, and then some additional details about the bill that is before you were discussed in this committee on March 12th and then March 26th.

So I will be somewhat brief in my comments.

Council Bill 119487 would require that closed captioning be activated on televisions in public areas of accommodation.

The legislation requires that an owner or manager of such a place and the definition that is currently in the municipal code for a place of public accommodation is left unrevised in this legislation, would activate closed captioning in televisions in use in a public area during regular hours.

There are exceptions in the bill as before the committee and as introduced, and those are for those circumstances where there is no television, of course, and also where the only television in the location is just not technically capable of showing that closed captioning.

The bill also establishes technical standards for the closed captioning itself and specifies that responsibility for enforcement will belong with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights and will commence 180 days after the enactment of the legislation to allow time for education and outreach and technical assistance to be provided to the owners and managers in question.

There are four amendments that I'm aware of that were included in the Asha Venkatraman's central staff memo on this under attachment A.

Due to some late breaking advice from the office of the city attorney, we have a revised amendment four and so under revised attachment A.

If there are no questions about the background material, I can go ahead and speak to the amendments.

I believe they are all sponsored by you.

Yes, correct.

I just do want to give my appreciation for the work of the Commission for people's people with disabilities, in particular Eric Scheer, for bringing this issue to me and for the fact that they have identified this as a top priority in their work plan and actually adopted a resolution in November of 2018. to support development of this ordinance.

Also, I want to thank members of the business community who have engaged with their solutions and their suggestions, and it's helped me craft, I think, what will hopefully be an important addition to open access for folks here in Seattle.

So, yeah, let's just jump right into the amendments if we could.

Would you prefer that I address them one by one or walk through the four?

Well, if you're walking through the four, that's still going to be one by one.

That's true.

We perhaps take it one at a time then?

That'd be great, thanks.

So proposed amendment one, which is on page one of attachment A.

is basically just restructures a portion of the ordinance section one to put all of the requirements for the activation of closed captioning in one part of the subsection and similarly to collect some of the exceptions together in one place.

So this amendment, as you said, collects the exceptions into one place, and can you go over those exceptions?

Yes.

So the first exception, as of this point, is provided for locations where there is no television or no television programming being provided or is available in the place of public accommodation.

And the second is for those instances where the only television receiver is incapable of displaying closed captioning.

The technical requirements that are collected together are for the use of black background, white text of text size 24 point.

And this also specifies that the font shall be Ariel, Calibri, Helvetica, Tahoma or Verdana.

So technical amendment just rearranging the words on the page that were already there.

I see no change in policy or regulations in that section.

There are no objections.

I'd like to move proposed amendment one.

All those in favor vote aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

None abstaining.

We move on to 2A.

because we're not going to talk about 2B, correct?

That's correct.

There are two versions of Proposed Amendment 2, the idea being that depending on whether the First Amendment was adopted, there needs to be a different version.

And so, assuming...

The first one was pretty controversial, so it was good we planned that out.

I like to be cautious.

So option 2A, or proposed amendment 2A, this provides a third exemption to the requirements that are provided under this ordinance, which would exempt partially televisions that are display for sale in a public area.

And so this would require, rather than requiring that all televisions on display for sale have closed captioning activated, this would limit it to, if there are multiple examples of the same model of television, then at least one of each model, one example, must have the closed captioning activated.

So if there are three televisions of type A and three televisions of type B, you've got to have one type A television and one type B television with the closed captioning activated.

And so I appreciate this.

I think this seems reasonable.

I want to make sure that I understand it from the language.

If you walk into a Best Buy and they have 40 TVs displayed, I'm including the 22-inch Samsung, the 25-inch Samsung, the 29-inch Samsung, the 32-inch Samsung.

Those are all different models and would all need to have it.

But if they have the 32-inch Samsung, whatever model, in one place and another one next to it, as long as one of them has closed caption on, that meets it so that if someone wants to see it, they could say, oh, that one.

If you want to see the difference between the two, you can do that.

And if someone has 20 models displayed and all 20 are slightly different models, all 20 of them need to be shown in closed caption.

That's correct.

Good amendment.

Alright, well if no other questions then I'll move proposed amendment 2A.

All those in favor voting aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

And now on to amendment 3.

So Proposed Amendment 3 amends the recital section of the bill.

So the portion that sort of sets the background and makes statements about why and how the legislation is being adopted.

And so this notes in the recitals that there are kinds of programming that are not required to include closed captioning under state or federal laws.

And that basically identifies some of the types of programs that might be exempted, locally produced and distributed non-news programs without what's described here as repeat value.

So I think that's temporary transitory.

Primarily textual programming, so if what's being displayed is already written words.

And other video programming for which the requirement has been waived by an entity other than us.

And so it's, this is again is in the recitals and so, but it is recognizing that there are circumstances where there will not be closed captioning displayed even if the closed captioning feature of a television has been activated.

And the following amendment kind of goes hand in hand.

Yes, the more, the regulatory element of that is in Proposed Amendment 4. which I could speak to now, Proposed Amendment 4 just specifies that the requirements themselves don't apply when the programming itself is exempt from the closed captioning requirements.

Great.

Any questions?

So just to be clear, on the fourth one, it's just really, again, a technical cleanup.

If the TV's on and it's programmed to display it and there's nothing displaying it because the show doesn't have anything on it, that's clearly not a violation.

Yeah, provided that it's

Allowed to not have the in the case that it is.

I think it's sort of implied that that's also Probably not the fault of the of the manager or the owner, but ultimately is a matter for different regulatory bodies.

Yes Great.

All right with that.

I'll move proposed amendment three all those in favor vote aye aye none opposed none abstaining and proposed amendment for a second Thank you.

All in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed and none abstaining.

With that, I would like to move adoption of Council Bill 1194-87.

All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Do we get a chance for further comment?

Of course, absolutely.

I just want to thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I think you did an amazing job shepherding this through, something that I think has the potential to be Controversial, because it's going to require a fair amount of change.

You've taken time to do the outreach with community members.

There's been a lot of public press about this.

And frankly, I've only heard positive things.

And the couple cases where people have had some concerns, you've done a great job figuring out how to address that.

I also want to thank the leadership of the Commission on People with Disabilities, and in particular Eric, for his leadership.

It's been really amazing to, for me, to better understand some of the challenges that people face and how there's a path forward to make our community work better for everybody.

And this is a really great example of that.

So thank you, Eric.

Fantastic.

So I, too, am appreciative of all the folks that came together.

And it would be great post-vote if I think it would be useful for both folks in the civil rights community as well as folks with both the Restaurant Alliance, the Hotel Association, and the Retail Industry Coalition potentially to make a public statement.

I think it will help us with The outreach that is going to be necessary following the passage of this ordinance.

I believe there's six months of public outreach that is contemplated by the ordinance before it goes into effect.

And perhaps us joining together with a public announcement would be a good way to start that off.

So thanks again, everybody.

All those in favor, voting aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

This will move on to full council.

Thank you.

Agenda item two is appointment 01274, appointment of Mariko Lockhart as Director, Office for Civil Rights for a term to December 31, 2021. Greetings.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

All right.

Introductions, please.

Hi, I'm Mariko Lockhart, Interim Director for the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Good morning, I'm Shefali Ranganathan, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor, would you like to kick us off?

Yes, thank you Chair Herbold and Council Members O'Brien and so on.

It gives me great pleasure to to introduce, although she's not a stranger, introduce Monico Lockhart.

Monico has been serving in the capacity of the interim director of the Seattle Office of Civil Rights since January of 2018. And Monico brings to this position leadership and a long track record in community, as you can see from her professional experience.

Prior to this, she worked with the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative, where she was the national coordinator helping to bring supports and uplift young people.

Before that, as you heard with the public testimony, she managed the Seattle a Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative.

And the seeds of that program continue to thrive in our community from Rainier Beach and other places.

And Mariko, over the last year, has focused her leadership on stabilizing the department and making sure that they're continuing to advance the important, and especially in these times, the vital work that they are doing to advance civil rights and protect communities.

I cannot speak enough to Mariko's willingness to bring hard issues to the table and facilitate dialogue in a way that's respectful and her continued push to elevate community voices in our policy debates and discussions.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Mariko.

Thank you.

I have a few remarks.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Good morning, Committee Chair Herbold, Council Members O'Brien and Sawant.

It's truly humbling to be here for this hearing.

While I'm not new to the city, this is a special opportunity for me to serve the Seattle community.

Some of you I've known and worked with in my past city role at the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative, where we focused on youth and communities most impacted by violence and disproportionality in the criminal legal system.

Others I know through your support of our current and recent work, such as the Fair Chance Housing Ordinance, criminal justice reform, and support of Indigenous Peoples Day.

You also know that I've been in my current role for a year and a quarter now, starting in January of last year with a reset for SOCR, focusing on stabilization, healing, strengthening the office to carry out its core functions, civil rights enforcement, policy analysis and development, and the race and social justice initiative.

It continues to be a privilege to lead SOCR and our team of dedicated leaders striving for racial equity and the end to structural and institutional racism.

Even with the need for stabilization and healing over the past year, we've continued to achieve great strides.

Starting with the mayor's executive order 2017-13, we reviewed and assessed the state of RSJI and made recommendations to strengthen it, and we've been making progress.

We delivered foundational race equity and implicit bias training for all of the mayor's staff and every department director.

We continue to provide professional development in leading with racial equity to the city's top leadership.

That's a strategic lever to change institutional culture.

We relaunched the RSGI Directors Forum, a space for peer learning and growth for racially equitable leadership.

Along with SDHR, the Seattle Department for Human Resources, I co-convened the anti-harassment interdepartmental team that, over the course of several months, researched and developed a report with recommendations to address race and gender-based discriminations.

Those recommendations resulted in specific actions currently being implemented.

the Citywide Workforce Values and Expectations, the Central Investigations Unit, and the Office of the Employee Ombud, and a series of trainings which we'll be rolling out.

Albeit with limited resources, we support four commissions who represent a powerful voice for their constituents, the Seattle Women's Commission, the LGBTQ Commission, Commission for People with Disabilities, and the Human Rights Commission.

You've just moved on close to the COAS captioning ordinance championed by the Commission for People with Disabilities, an example of the power of these commissions.

The Women's Commission's powerful report, Finding Home, has sparked action both here and at the state level on evictions.

SOCR is now charged with coordinating eviction reform work as a result.

Over the past year, we've also increased fines and settlements for our civil rights enforcement.

to give our work more power.

Internally, we began the deep work of developing a strategic plan for the office to provide us with our North Star in an environment that can so often be impacted by pressing time-sensitive demands.

We established our values and our vision, a city of liberated people where communities historically impacted by racism, oppression, and colonization hold power and thrive.

And our mission, to end structural racism and discrimination through accountable community relationships and anti-racist organizing, policy development, and civil rights enforcement.

All of this is only possible with the remarkable efforts of a talented team.

I've heard numerous times since taking the position that our staff are standouts as anti-racist organizers, policy thought leaders, and committed champions of civil rights.

It's an honor to serve as acting director and now to be considered by this committee today for the permanent position.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you taking the time to address us and thank you Deputy Mayor for bringing this appointment forward.

We did put together some questions and we submitted them a couple weeks ago and appreciate the time and care.

that you have put in answering those questions.

We also worked with the commissions in soliciting questions from them to include.

Last year, the council passed an ordinance requiring that before we move forward with appointing a permanent director, that we involve the commissions in that selection process.

We also stated in that ordinance our interest in making sure that the department had completed a racial equity toolkit process that is designed to question, well, maybe answer some of the existing questions around the structure of the organization.

There have been longstanding questions about the ability, given the structure, not the individuals, but the structure, to serve as an independent voice, both as it relates to policy issues as well as enforcement issues.

and also just acting as a city watchdog on some of the things that the city does in the course of its business.

And so the council funded and asked for this racial equity toolkit and asked for recommendations.

This is referenced in the ordinance I mentioned earlier.

We did not, in that ordinance, require the RET results to come back to us before acting on this appointment.

So I really appreciate the fact that the mayor and Director Lockhart have worked with me in staging action on this appointment in such a way that it doesn't have what some feared would be chilling effect on the active engagement both of staff and community members in that RET.

and appreciate the conversations that I've had with you, Director Lockhart, for what you see as your role in that process now, as well as with what comes next.

I also wanna thank Council Member O'Brien, because some of the questions that we put forward were ones that you authored.

So thank you for your thoughtfulness.

Did you have folks, particular things that you wanted to touch on?

Yes, Council Member O'Brien?

I do.

Marco, thank you so much for, I didn't realize it's been a year and a quarter already, but time sure flies.

And I've had the pleasure of working with you for a number of years at the city.

I'm really thrilled about the opportunity to continue to work together, so that's great.

I have a couple questions following up on some of the stuff in your questionnaire.

You say, there's a question about what are some of the challenges the department faces by division and under the race and social justice initiative team.

You say holding the tension between leading anti-racist work and being part of a racist institution is one of the challenges, which I really appreciate.

Some of the times it's, I mean it's a challenge for a lot of us trying to do this work.

Some of the times I get the sense of the city that folks who hold power within the city, whether elected officials, department heads, other people that have power, don't actually acknowledge that this is a racist institution and have those outcomes.

And I imagine you see that and run into it more than I do.

But I'm just curious, how do you deal with that when folks that are in power don't actually even acknowledge that this is a racist institution?

Because it's pretty hard to make changes to making our institution less racist if you don't actually acknowledge that it is in the first place.

That's a great question.

Thank you, Council Member O'Brien.

I think there's a number of ways that we address that.

One, of course, is through training and education and bringing forward the history of our city and our country in the institutions that we're founded on and the history of racism and colonization in this country.

Another thing I think when you talk about people's resistance to acknowledging a racist history and racist outcomes is that as individuals, I think, None of us see ourselves as racist.

And so there's a sort of an individual approach to looking at, you know, that issue.

And I think what's important when we have those conversations is to say, even if we were not part of that history, we are part of the solution, and it's our responsibility going forward.

Because I think part of the resistance is in people feeling like I, as an individual, didn't have anything to do with why there's discrimination, discriminatory results in housing, economic opportunity, and many other things.

But anyone in public service has a responsibility to look at our role currently.

So it's an ongoing conversation for sure.

Structurally you mentioned trainings as an example, and that's certainly so I've benefited as a city employee for the last you know nearly 10 years having access to some amazing coaching and training that that your team and others in the city have Made available which is one of the greatest most powerful things that I've gotten out of working at the city and it's it's fairly straightforward when you know new employees are being hired to to required to do trainings, but department heads and elected officials and other folks with a lot of power, are there things that we can be doing as a council or where there are gaps you think that some folks may not be getting those trainings because there's very few people above them demanding that and it needs to happen?

Or maybe there aren't those gaps, I don't know.

Yeah, well, one thing I meant to mention before as well is the data.

So data is a critical tool in bringing those issues forward.

I think we've been in situations with departments where they're thoroughly convinced that they are not part of institutional racism and not producing racist outcomes.

And when we can collect that data, it's abundantly clear that that particular department is also contributing and has a role.

So I think, I don't know specifically about this body, but certainly ensuring that policies and legislation have a racial equity lens that we undergo, a racial equity toolkit analysis.

We go to those who are likely to be most impacted by our actions to get their input before we move forward.

That very often means moving slower than electeds typically like to move.

There's other things that put pressure on the need for rapid action.

In order to really take into account those who are going to be most impacted, we strongly recommend slowing that process down and using a racial equity toolkit analysis.

Can I keep going?

Just one more question, and I think that this segues well your response to that.

Data is really powerful for me, too, as I make policies and understand how we've had racist or racially disproportional outcomes in some of our policies and trying to figure out, okay, how do we shift policy to get better outcomes?

That exposes another challenge in a highly politicized environment and before your leadership at the office in the previous administration.

The Office of Civil Rights was charged with, initially charged with doing some kind of auditing work around sweeps of homeless encampments.

And it presented, from my perspective at least, a real challenge because the, I think there was a lot of data being gathered and a lot of observations being made and reports being drafted that often didn't get to council or didn't get to the public.

Because there's a tension there between the reality of what people are seeing on the ground and the desire to tell the public we're doing really good work and it's not having these bad outcomes.

And it gets a little bit to the racial equity toolkit and the structure of the office of how to deal with that pressure.

when an elected official like myself is balancing the desire to demonstrate good work and may want to be accountable, but at the moment it doesn't feel like being held accountable to some racially poor outcomes feels particularly good.

I'm not sure that that ever feels really good, but it's important.

And again, this was work that was before you tenured there, but I imagine that that type of data gathering and sharing can be controversial and can be hard for folks to take, and maybe sometimes people disbelieve it.

And I'm curious how you see it.

You've been there for over a year now.

Do you feel the office has enough authority and power to do that work?

Because there are obviously a lot bigger departments in the city.

Just as a clarification, were you talking about the work in general or referring back to that specific example?

The work in general.

You want to speak specifically to that, but I'm willing to set that one aside for now.

I think, I mean, it's a great question again.

It's on such a case-by-case basis because so often I think a challenge that we all have, and particularly decision makers, not having access to the data, and because we don't collect it, and we don't collect it in a disaggregated form or in a way that is going to give us an accurate picture.

Yes, I think we're in a position to do that work, but each situation would be different.

You know, do we have access to the data?

Is it good data?

I think what I would say based on that example that you gave, it's important that any reporting be transparent.

that reports be made accessible to the public.

I certainly would not expect that any of our reports would ever be shelved, you know, if we were to produce them.

So I think that's important, setting up the process from the beginning, that the process will be transparent, whatever data is available will be made accessible to us, and that any final report would be available to the public.

So I think those things are in place.

It's just we can be limited by, one, what data is available and the amount of resources and effort.

that sometimes it takes when we ask a department to produce data.

That means, you know, a number of people are going to be setting aside time and effort to do that and away from their jobs before that requirement was put on the table.

So there are complications to it, but absolutely I think the process and the foundation is there for us to do that work with transparency.

Councilmember Swan, I know you have some questions.

I just want a quick follow-up to Councilmember O'Brien's question.

When he was referencing reports and your response was really focused on the need for transparency about the process and access to data, I just want to make sure that you also believe that reports of this nature are not only Database, but that you have the authority to make recommendations As it relates to the activities of other departments Yes, thanks for that clarification.

I think that has generally been the reason that our offices asked to conduct reports is To get our analysis and our recommendations and that we see that as a critical role that we play in the city Thanks

Thank you, Mr. Lockhart, for obviously your seriousness in the work that you're already doing, but also for the emphasis you're placing on transparency and for using a scientific approach where, you know, you gave a good example where a department might think that are not problems, but it's important to actually conduct surveys and glean through a scientific methodology what's actually happening.

and that we have to have the commitment for that.

In order to ask a question, I wanted to share, this is a letter that I had sent to the Office of Civil Rights when one of your predecessors was leading the department.

And one, the letter, first of all, documents one of the things you mentioned, which is that the staff at the Office of Civil Rights are standouts in the work that they do.

That's one of the things that's documented in this letter because there were, and just to give a background, and this leads to my question as well, the background to when this letter happened was, The security officers that are employed by SIS, which is a company that Amazon contracts with, have been, and at that time particularly, were facing not only violations of their labor rights, and at the same time that we were in touch with OCR, we were also in touch with the Office of Labor Standards to talk about the enforcement of sick and safe leave, which wasn't being enforced and so on.

But one of the specific rights that was being violated was prayer rights of people following different religious persuasions, and that became a civil rights issue, obviously.

My staff member Adam Zimkowski actually sat with the SIS workers who were being interviewed by the civil rights, the OCR staff who were taking down the complaint.

And what Adam in my office reported was that was how impressed he was at the thoroughness and the dedication with which the staff were dealing with this complaint.

So that's one thing I wanted to mention and sort of just bring this letter from, you know, a few years ago, two years ago.

But also the other thing that this letter brings up, and this leads to my question to you is, Clearly when in the course of the Office of Civil Rights work in enforcing civil rights in various workplaces in the city, we will need to keep revamping the laws and make sure that we keep based on what we learned from what workers are facing in terms of civil rights violations, what innovations we need to make in terms of how the city deals with it.

This letter talks about some of the things that occurred to us at that time.

One, I would like to have a discussion with you about those things, you know, just sort of review what all those things are still valid and what we should pursue.

And then secondly, just also ask your viewpoint on how you see the office leading this work under your directorship on the question of on this big question of how do we stand up for the civil rights of all of Seattle's workers?

And that's not an easy thing.

It can't only be complaint-based.

So one of the things that the letter mentions is the idea of company-wide audit.

I know this committee, in this committee we've had many conversations about maybe the need to have the OCR be independent.

because they deal with so much of what needs sort of a lot of courage to confront.

So all of this is in the mix.

I just wanted to hear your thoughts in general.

I'm not expecting that you should answer every question, every detail right this moment, but I just wanted to share with you also my interest in pursuing these things with you.

Thank you.

And I know that we would welcome the opportunity to continue to explore that with you and your office.

One thing I would like to say about our Civil Rights Enforcement Unit is that we've been doing a lot of deep dive discussions and strategic planning and thinking about what are the limitations that we have.

because civil rights laws are aimed at addressing and creating equality, and our office aims and drives toward equity.

And there's a discrepancy there and a tension, and one of the things that we're exploring with our civil rights unit is the fact that we are complaint-based.

When we receive a complainant to our office, we have one tool, and that's the investigation.

And it's either yes, it meets the threshold for investigation, or no, it doesn't.

And that's frustrating not only for our office, but of course the complainant.

And so as we look to what are people looking for when they come to our office, they're looking for solutions and they're looking for restoration.

And so we're, as I said, in the middle of some strategic planning discussions and exploration to what other tools might we employ to address people's complaints.

Because mediation, restorative practices, healing circles, there are other tools available in the community that we have not incorporated in our office and And I know that there's strong interest in it.

So Those are some of the things that we're exploring in terms of sort of citywide or company wide audits I think we have not looked into those.

I mean when we talk about companies in particular that may be more of a function of the Office of Labor Standards, kind of depending on what the issue is.

But, you know, we're also trying to work within the capacity that we have, and so we don't currently have that kind of capacity.

I'd say one more thing in terms of elevating and driving civil rights enforcement in this city is the need for more outreach and education.

I think one thing that we find over and over again is that people just simply are not aware of what their rights are.

And so, particularly when you're a complaint-based organization, we're waiting for people who already know their rights and know that we're a resource to them to come and show up at our door.

And that's not a proactive approach, and we do as much outreach as we can with limited and sporadic resources.

And just again to juxtapose the resources that the Office of Civil Rights has for that proactive outreach and education, it's very different than, for instance, the Office of Labor Standards, which receives an annual disbursement of resources to educate both workers as well as employers.

And that has allowed them really to amplify their work, and I think it's done a, it's a great model.

If you want folks to know what their rights are, that I think we should consider as a city.

Right.

And I just wanted to emphasize also, yeah, I mean, it's definitely a resources issue.

But in the course of your work, it'll be really good if you also, just like you've done today, sort of, you know, give us recommendations on an ongoing basis on how the work of the Office of Civil Rights can be expanded.

And then in terms, you know, just to address the needs of the community and then commensurate with that, what resources will the city need to assign or should the city assign for the Office of Civil Rights, just as the Office of Labor Standards has been given resources to do some really important work.

And I agree with you, education is very important.

Thank you.

So I do want to get back to not just the work of the office day to day, but the potential for transformation towards greater Can you talk a little bit about how you've supported the RET process, how you plan to support the office after recommendations are made, and just in general, I don't know that the recommendations are going to involve big change, but if they are to, just how is your, how do you respond generally to big change?

Those were all great questions that I received.

First, I want to say that coming into the Office for Civil Rights, what I came to learn about the racial equity toolkit process is that, for me, the most important piece is the community engagement.

And I have, as you know from my history, a long history of working with community and in community engagement processes.

And for me, I have great trust in that type of a process.

So once we set up the structure, there's an RET team, There is a strategic advisor funded by council, and I know that you have staff as our consultants working on it.

Once that structure was in place, we really, I personally step back and let the process unfold with great trust in the kind of information that would be gathered and how it will be analyzed.

and to just allow that process to take place.

So we anticipate that the RET report will be completed by the end of next month and so our office has been, the people in it and the teams have been of course very interested and our the experts in what we do and what the needs are.

And so they've been tapped as well in sessions.

They attend both sessions in the community as well as there's a number of sort of informational and feedback sessions that are held in our office on a regular basis.

So they are...

involved in providing information and input into that process.

As far as change, I believe that I came into the office in a period of change and that it's been my role and my responsibility to shepherd our office through a transition from the day I got there, from a period before, under the last administration, to whatever will come in the future.

I think the most important thing or one of the most important things for me coming into the office was to create a sense of stability and that staff knew that There wouldn't be a lot of fluctuating Demands and priorities that and that's the reason we're focusing on developing a strategic plan that as much as the city is so often buffeted by emerging issues and emergencies and new demands and pressures, that for us to have our values established, our vision, our mission, and to align our work to it, that will create a plan and a roadmap so that as we're asked to participate in processes, as we are really on a weekly if not daily basis from different departments or organizations that we can measure that and compare it to like where is it that we're trying to go.

And does that align with our strategic plan?

Because at some point, we have to say that we can't get involved in everything.

And so that's been important for us.

And whatever changes are yet to come, I would continue to provide that kind of a space and stability for our employees to discuss and explore as we do really everything.

We do a lot of processing of our work and our goals and our frustrations on a regular basis and so I think of course with change there's going to be some some anxiety around it, but I think we'll work through that.

And that change may involve changes for us as personnel, including myself, but that's something that we'll take one step at a time.

Yeah.

One of the things that impressed me when we had this conversation earlier is that you see your role as shepherding the organization to the best version of itself.

And if that means changes, structural changes in order to both increase the quality of the service that the office provides to the city and to the public that you see yourself as having a role in making that happen.

So I really appreciate that.

And I appreciate you sharing those thoughts here in public too, because I think it's, while we are still in the RET process, I think it's reassuring to folks to hear that.

Right.

Council Member O'Brien, you're grabbing the mic.

I was grabbing the mic.

I just have a couple comments to make, if that's okay.

Marco, I think this is perhaps the most important and most challenging jobs at the city.

Well, you signed up for the last year and a quarter, and I'm looking forward to voting to appoint you.

I mean, the work we do about eliminating Racism in our city is something that has to be centered, and for all the things we care about, it's so critical.

And to do that job successfully, you need to have deep trust and relationships with people throughout the city.

Not just you, but your whole team, especially that RSGI team.

And at the same time, you have to be holding people accountable, which doesn't feel good.

and to balance those two things and do it successfully and move with the urgency with which we need to move as a city and take the time to do it right.

I mean, there's just so many tensions that are almost diametrically opposed that you get to navigate.

It's a huge commitment and I'm really grateful for your willingness to shepherd that work at the moment.

So thank you for stepping forward.

So I would like to close this conversation for now, but bring you back at our next committee meeting on the 23rd, where I anticipate we'll be voting in support of your nomination and moving it forward to full council on the first Monday of May.

Thank you.

All right.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

The next item on the agenda is agenda item three, only in Seattle neighborhood business districts program update.

Hello.

Can I come down here to the PowerPoint?

Greetings.

Thanks for joining us.

Let me start with introductions, please.

Good morning.

I'm Teresa Barreras from the Office of Economic Development.

Do you want to introduce yourself?

I'm Leon Garnett with Bird Bar Place.

We're a community action agency.

Great.

Who would like to kick us off?

Teresa, would that be you?

I will kick us off.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the Only in Seattle program.

I often get asked how long the program has been around, and officially since 2011 in its current form.

However, the Office of Economic Development has been supporting community development for many years, and over the years we've learned about how to do that better, and we've adapted the program over many, over all of that time.

Before you move on, that slide refers to a Main Street approach.

And I think that's a particular framework.

Can you just talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, actually, in the next slide, I'll talk more.

Can I wait till then?

OK.

Great.

So the vision of our program is to build an equitable and vibrant city by fostering neighborhood business districts that are centers of local commerce, community, and culture.

And we do that by supporting local businesses, property owners, and residents in a community to come together, develop a shared vision, and then work on making it happen.

Each business district shares common issues and needs, and these are the core areas that all districts, that help all districts, and this is based on the Main Street model.

Main Street just had a conference here in Seattle last month, and they've been around for decades and have established these areas as the core areas that all business districts need.

And so our program organizes districts to establish a vision, including many or all of these areas, including supporting businesses, doing marketing and events to bring customers into the neighborhoods, placemaking, clean and safe, and then an organization that holds it all together.

And a great example is the Mount Baker Hub Alliance.

They are a relatively new organization operating around the business district at the Mount Baker Hub light rail station.

And they recently sent out a newsletter and it incorporates a lot of these elements right in their newsletter where they're working on placemaking with some beautiful murals.

If you haven't seen them, you should check them out.

They are supporting local businesses by getting added to the Plate of Nations event that is going on right now in Rainier Valley.

And they also do volunteer cleanups to pick up garbage regularly in the business district.

So this is a great example of a comprehensive approach within a business district to address all of the many needs.

Our program provides both grants and services.

And the grants get most of the attention.

But we also provide a lot of services to business districts.

So we have grants to support action planning and also public space projects.

But we also do business improvement area support, racial equity training and outreach for business districts.

Commercial affordability workshops is new this year.

And we also do peer networks, where we bring business district leaders together to learn from each other and to learn new strategies.

We just announced our 2019 grants, and this year we are providing $1.3 million in 17 business districts.

This is the list.

I'll just flip through it quickly, though.

And one example of action plans is in Rainier Beach, the Merchants Association, as part of their action plan, they do an event every year called Light Up the Beach, and they have a contest within the businesses to put up lights, and they have photos with Santa, and they're drawing folks into the businesses during the holiday season.

A great example of a public space project is in Chinatown ID we funded a neighborhood lighting study to look at the lighting levels within the district to help improve safety and the attractive qualities at night, and now they have a great plan that they can use to fundraise.

And the Business Improvement Area Program is also part of our work.

We support 10 BIAs in Seattle that raised $22 million to provide enhanced services within those 10 areas.

And one example of this is our Business Improvement Area Advocate, Phillip Sitt, recently supported Soto BIA to expand and renew just last year.

This is our fifth, we had just held our fifth annual racial equity and business districts training.

And this is the cohort from this year.

We provide training to local volunteers and staff within business districts.

to improve their ability to address implicit bias and serve business owners of color.

And with this program, we also provide community liaisons from the Department of Neighborhoods to help the business districts improve their outreach to business owners of color and improve their relationships.

And then new this year, we added commercial affordability workshops, which we piloted in Chinatown ID last year, and they worked really well to provide training and resources to local businesses who are challenged with pressures to move.

And so we're offering this to more neighborhoods this year.

Can you talk a little bit more about the commercial affordability workshops?

What do businesses learn?

Depending on what their needs are, we have workshops on commercial leases.

We have them on how to build out a new space.

How do you finance it?

What are the costs?

And helping them think through, for many businesses who've been in place for a long time, have never actually had to do that, or it's been a while.

So helping them learn about what their leases are, how to improve their relationship with their property owner, as well as a lot of those moving challenges that they face.

And do those types of trainings produce outcomes as it relates specifically to the lease training?

Do you have even just anecdotal stories of how a lease training might have resulted in a more fair lease for a small business owner?

We probably do have some data on that.

The training so far we've had in Chinatown ID, we had a series, multiple trainings.

And many of the business owners learned both about their leases as well as moving costs.

And so I could provide more information on that.

But there were many businesses that have been faced with a lot of pressures and have have learned.

So I'm sorry, I don't have an example for you.

It's just, you know, as you know, it's a pretty hot issue.

And if least training isn't producing the kind of outcomes that are sufficient to address these challenges, I think we as policymakers need to understand that and look at other alternatives to assist small businesses in these what could be really power imbalance type of discussions with the property owners.

Yes, and we'll have more data after this year after we provide more of these trainings in more neighborhoods.

But we're also, it's not mentioned in this PowerPoint, but we are doing commercial affordability tenant improvement.

We have a small pot of money to provide some grants to businesses who are having to build out new space.

So this slide just shows our funding over time.

The green line has our overall grant funding.

And it went up in 2014, but has been coming down.

And likewise, we've increased the number of business districts in the program over time.

But this year, it is a little bit of a drop.

And this is specifically funding for Only in Seattle grants?

Yes.

And can you talk a little bit about how you make your decision making around who gets funding for those grants?

And we've had conversations with folks representing business districts, but I think it would be useful for the public to understand a little bit more.

We do an annual process request for applications.

And business districts come forward with their requests within all of these areas, our grants and our services.

And we ask for business districts to organize one request.

So the point of our program is to help districts come together and have a common vision and work together.

And so that's part of the application process as well.

And we do that every year.

And they come in and do a presentation to a granting committee that's made up of mostly city staff working in multiple departments.

And that's how we make our granting decisions.

This year, we're actually looking at doing a racial equity toolkit on our granting process.

So we've been doing it this way for a while and thought it might be good to take a look and see if any changes are needed.

And this shows our funding over time.

We have more than half of our funding is community development block grant federal funding, and it's been fairly stable.

That's the green bar at the bottom.

And then we have a few sources of general funds, a small amount of general and a small amount of general fund for our public space improvement program.

This has also been coming down over time.

And just as an example, I want to point out that the majority of our funding goes to districts that have large numbers of people of color, business owners of color in the neighborhood.

And I've sort of called that equity districts, the yellow.

In 2019, it's more than 75%, about a million dollars going to those neighborhoods.

And then also, over time, we provide sustained funding in these neighborhoods.

And we've increased the number of neighborhoods that we are supporting over time.

So more and more of our funds are directed to these neighborhoods.

And we believe that it takes sustained funding to build organizational and community capacity.

And so we are providing that sustained funding over many years.

And how do you define what an equity district is?

It's based on the percentages of communities of color, low-income residents, and business owners of color.

So I saw one in the previous slide that in my mind should be, but maybe it's too small of a business district, South Park in particular?

It looks like it's in the...

Oh, it is.

It is.

All right, it is yellow.

Okay, great.

And then the green are established.

What is that definition?

Blue is established.

Green is established.

So districts that have some sustainable funding sources or have pretty strong organizations that have been operating over many years.

And so the blue are, they haven't yet created a business district organization.

The blue, I call it organizing districts, and those are early in the stage of that organizing process, developing an action plan, and getting started with their action plan.

So earlier in our program.

Got it.

And so you're working with folks at the beginning to get organized so that they potentially could apply for other funding once they have sort of created a vision for themselves.

Right.

And oftentimes it's the creation of a business improvement area, but not always.

That's one way of developing their own revenue base.

Thank you.

Council Member Swan?

Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, I don't know that this applies only to the yellow neighborhoods, but because at this point, it's the entire region, but it's also the place, the neighborhoods where you're seeing gentrification at its most intense.

So in some sense, this is also, I mean, it's also, One of the things that the city needs to do to help stem that because, I mean, we call them equity districts, but already, for example, in the central area, so many black-owned and immigrant-owned businesses are getting pushed out.

And one of the things, obviously, not something that this program can do about in a direct way, but just to acknowledge in this discussion in terms of, commercial affordability, just the rents going up and buildings being torn down where the new space is not affordable.

There's no plan for where the business can go during construction even, even if the new space is affordable.

All of that is creating so much instability and flux.

I mean, my office is in touch with so many businesses that are facing that kind of crisis.

And they are actually businesses that are Maybe not in terms of, maybe already established in terms of qualifying for this program particularly, but in general facing the brunt of gentrification like Sabah Ethiopian Cuisine, which is one of the businesses we're working with.

Quite an institution in the neighborhood.

Everybody loves Sabah, but it's now, unless something is done immediately, It's the building where it exists is going to be demolished and the question of their future, you know, still remains.

So anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge that these are also high gentrification districts.

That's a very good point.

And we do look at the equitable development initiative component of the comprehensive plan as the districts that are at high risk of displacement of business owners of color.

That's another element that helps us.

On the point that Council Member Swamp made, does the Office of Economic Development have a role in those instances where a building that houses a small business is being redeveloped?

I know we have a really good example of at least one small business that happens to be an arts organization that was successful in relocating in the new structure after redevelopment, the Richard Hugo House.

But I'm wondering if there is the question of where you go during the construction aside, is there a role that the Office of Economic Development plays in brokering those discussions with property owners who are intending to redevelop?

Yes, definitely.

If any business owner or property owner is facing those challenges, you can contact our office.

We have both small business advocates and our Only in Seattle team.

You can contact any of us and we'll find the right person to help you.

So we do provide some technical assistants, consultants who can help work with the business owner and help them look at their lease or look at their options.

And we can also help broker some of those conversations, especially if there are challenges that are being faced with city departments or city permitting and that sort of thing.

We can definitely provide support to business owners and property owners.

So moving along, I think one of the biggest outcomes of our program is just harnessing all of the volunteer work.

We do provide staff capacity and we support for many districts to some extent a small amount.

But really it takes a lot of volunteer effort from the business owners, property owners, residents to make their communities better and to care for their communities.

So that's one of our biggest impacts as well as providing lots of events and leveraging other resources.

So here's our team.

Please contact us if you have any questions about our program or have challenges that you're facing with displacement, especially.

We have our newest member, Peter Block-Garcia, is here.

And then I also mentioned Phillip Sitt.

He's here, our business improvement area advocate.

But there are five of us.

And with that, I will turn it over to Leon to talk about the Central Area Collaborative and how they've used the Only in Seattle program.

Thank you, Teresa, for inviting me to speak about our neighborhood.

The Only in Seattle grant has been really transformative for the way we approach our work in the central area.

Back in 2015, we were one of those organizing neighborhoods.

We weren't used to working together as community groups and institutions.

And OED sponsored, I think it was six community meetings that brought together about 130 neighborhood stakeholders.

from the service and non-profit community, institutions, and businesses, and we developed the Central Area Revitalization Plan, which is five initiatives.

It's around aligning new development with community input, establishing, growing, and retaining small and micro businesses, increasing services for low-income populations, developing high-quality food ecosystem and emphasizing the importance of the Central District as an African-American cultural and arts district.

Out of those meetings, we had seven or eight organizations and business owners that stepped up to form the Central Area Collaborative.

And that has, you know, been amazing in the way that we've worked together.

We've created a collective impact model that has enabled us to not necessarily compete for funding, but to jointly apply for funding and share funding that supports economic development.

So everybody kind of gets a bite of the apple and we're supporting each other in ways that we haven't in a very long time.

As a governance model we've adopted the ecodistrict framework which you may have heard about on Capitol Hill and it's I want to say 18 other cities in the nation and four cities internationally and we're working towards certification for the ecodistrict but that means that we can align at the district level, neighborhood level on priorities that are identified in our central area revitalization plan.

But we can also share metrics with other neighborhoods as we are working towards the three core values in the protocol, which are equity, climate and resilience.

We've added a fourth piece around culture because we want to make that front and center of what we do in the Central District.

So that has also been really transformative in the way that we work because now we have a method for organizing and reporting on our work that we haven't had before.

And it's, you know, something that is standardized and we can compare ourselves with other neighborhoods and really set good metrics for what we're doing and the impacts that we're having.

And these are a few of our accomplishments from 2018. We hired a navigator, and that person has helped distribute mitigation funds for the construction along 23rd to the small businesses.

You know, in the past, we've had a hard time getting that money out, but we're putting checks in people's hands and helping with marketing and signage and everything that's hopefully helping them stay in business during the construction.

We've done the only lighting study that I know about in the central area that it will improve the walkability and safety of the neighborhood.

That came directly out of the 23rd Avenue Action Plan.

The central area neighborhood design guidelines were huge for us, put equity and power back in the neighborhood in terms of new commercial development that's coming in and the neighbors having a say in what goes up and making sure that it reflects the culture and tone of the neighborhood.

And we also got the design review board from that, which, you know, has been also really powerful in helping us.

We didn't have one before.

Helping us control what's happening in the neighborhood.

We have two new markets going in.

You know, Red Apple has gone away, but Vulcan is coming in and they are working with us and making sure that whomever occupies their site will have, businesses that are in the neighborhood that can sell products there.

We're also working with them to get small stalls for micro businesses, hopefully, at reduced rates.

And with new seasons, we have identified some vendors in the neighborhood who may be able to sell products in those stores.

So right now, I think it's 13 vendors that we're trying to get into those stores.

And is the development built in such a way that has smaller spaces for that purpose?

It will be, yes.

And one of the other things that we accomplished last year was we were able to give some money to the Historical Arts District to create markers that will go at the boundaries of the neighborhood.

So when people come into the central area, they know where they are, and it'll reflect The central district artistically and it's you know it's also an opportunity for us to work more closely with the arts and culture culture district.

So again you know this this funding this will be our third year receiving funding has been really transformative for the way we work and we're really appreciative to all the.

the support that we received from OED over these past couple of years because they've been really supportive in making sure that we understand what we can do with the money, how we can spend it, and giving us guidance where, you know, we were still learning at the time.

But this has been a really great opportunity and, you know, because of this funding we've been able to leverage probably an additional $600,000 over the last couple of years to the neighborhood just because of our ability to work together and be organized and deliver on the Central Area Revitalization Plan.

Thank you for sharing these experiences and it's really good to hear from folks on the ground how Office of Economic Development uses that model that you've described of helping people organize and come together and use the power from that to go to the next level.

So I really appreciate you coming down and telling us how you've done that.

And I think it's a great way to mentor and model the work that OED does for other communities who aren't quite where you're at yet.

Thank you.

I'm also really appreciative.

And as you talk through the work that you all have done over the last few years, You know, the city, when we're at our best, we make a commitment and follow through on how we can support communities and their businesses, but we can't do it by ourselves.

And so I think it's necessary that we're there showing up with this work, but without leadership from community, like you just walked through, there's no way we could ever be successful.

And so, you know, I'm proud that the city will hopefully continue to commit to this work And I'm really grateful for community members coming together to make that successful.

So thanks for your leadership there.

Thank you for taking time from your busy day to share.

Thank you.

Item four.

Agenda item four is a Seattle Arts Commission 2019 work plan.

Good morning.

I was going to say, Randy, you're not up for confirmation and you're bringing treats.

I don't know if you want to talk to Marco about her showing up.

On behalf of Marco?

No, it's just us now in the room.

So it's Matthew Richter's birthday today.

And there's nothing you want to do on your birthday more than present at the Crueda Committee of City Council.

So in honor of Matthew's sacrifice, we brought these cupcakes.

There's plenty for everyone.

Is Shama coming back?

You can leave one on her desk.

So there's cupcakes for you guys.

I'm pretty sure they're looking at you.

Happy birthday, Matthew.

That one says happy birthday.

That one's for Matthew.

We'll do that.

I'm going to put them down here.

Smell them.

So thank you for joining us to present your work plan.

I understand you guys held a retreat a couple weeks ago.

We could maybe do a quick round of introductions and then just jump right in.

Perfect.

I'm Randy Engstrom.

I'm the director of the Office of Arts and Culture.

Thank you so much for having us.

My name is Priya Frank, and I am the chair of the commission this year.

I've been on the commission since, like, 2015. And in my day job, I work at the Seattle Art Museum doing programming and partnerships and racial equity work.

And it's such an honor to get to chair the commission this year.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me as well.

My name is Sharon Nyree Williams.

I am the co-chair for the Seattle Arts Commission.

I am also the executive director for the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas, where we are in our 20th year of presenting black cultural work.

And I am also the chair of the Historic Central Area Arts and Cultural District.

Thank you, Sharon.

Thank you both for your work in the community as well as on the commission.

Thank you.

So just to give you a little bit of background on the commission, the commission represents a range of folks that are amazing leaders in the community, artists, arts professionals, advocates, and Really, our role is to be connectors and liaisons between the arts community and arts organizations and the city to advocate for resource and support for the arts community and support the mission of the arts office as well, and really to, you know, advocate for arts policy, creating access for equitable participation in the arts, and really centering racial equity within that.

So yeah, it's been, it's an incredible commission filled with amazing leaders, like I said, and probably my favorite part about the commission is just to be able to learn from each other, and I have grown so much as a result of learning from amazing people like Sharon.

Yes, and I'm excited about being on the Arts Commission.

This is my sixth year, and it's one of those opportunities where you as an artist and an arts administrator don't know how important it is to be at the table around conversations like this, to have access to council members like yourself.

to learn from mentors like Vivian Phillips and to really help promote the Office of Arts and Culture and the work we do.

And it's been a very exciting time this year as we have opened up King Street Station to a, I think it's already record breaking.

Is it record-breaking when you first start and there's already 600 people coming through?

And we are participating in conversations around the city, around space, access, transportation, housing, and we're starting to define creative economy and what that looks like closely working with the Office of Film and Music.

And in addition, we center our work around three committees, the Public Art Advisory Committee, the Cultural Investments Committee, and the Facilities and Equitable Development Committee, which we would not call by its name, FED.

We call it today because it freaks people out.

And the Public Art Advisory Committee is They work on a range of projects to express visual arts experiences to the residents of Seattle and the people visiting Seattle as well.

And they're working on expanding their understanding of the public realm and engaging them in civic dialogue.

What they're focusing on in their work plan this year that we just came up with in our retreat the following last couple weeks was they would like to go into performative.

They like to explore more of literary arts or other representations to cultural identity.

This will require some funding mechanisms, so the question on the table came, as you already know, that there is no admin tax on men's professional sports.

So maybe that's a possibility to help with this public arts initiative.

And then also they wanted to revisit the deaccession program and to be more fair to the artist as well as focus on art experience and public art to create greater transparency for the artist.

So one of the things that we've learned was that if we are deciding to deaccess a piece of art, that the art, the art cannot go back to the artist.

So how do we help change that process?

And that currently can't go back to the artist because of the prohibition against the gift of public funds.

Exactly.

Fascinating.

One of our newest committee that started like last year was the Cultural Investments Committee.

And this is comprised of arts arts commissioners, of arts staff, and community advocates.

And really it's around looking at how funding and resources are dispersed by the Office of Arts and Culture and examining sort of the data around that and the process by which organizations and individuals receive funding.

and how we can further center racial equity within those processes.

So really taking a look, examining the data and seeing how we can be even more effective and center communities of color within those processes and create more accessibility.

So that's really exciting.

You guys have done fantastic work on that already.

So it's good that you're kind of taking the next step.

I know you've made a lot of changes.

to your grant programs in order to encourage more access.

So thank you for that.

Yeah, for sure.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's really thinking about how do we value artists and the arts community, and how can we make sure that folks are being advocated for and that we're really centering need there.

And then the last committee is the FED, the Facilities and Equitable Development Committee.

Can you say that again?

And this is a powerhouse committee.

They're incredible.

They engage on broad policy solutions to advance cultural space in Seattle.

So really looking at those important issues with a special focus on equitable development.

in line with the Arts Commission's racial equity lens.

So things like supporting and helping to guide the public development authority, and then the base, the building arts space equitability projects.

And then, you know, really continued attention around things like cultural districts.

and making sure that that's being represented and supported.

And then policy advocacy around related areas of impact like affordability, commercial affordability, transportation, things like that.

It's exciting because we're being looped in and asked to be a part of conversations that go way beyond the arts, but are really, I think increasingly, we're being recognized as how important the arts are in other components of what builds a healthy community.

So, and then as Sharon mentioned a little bit earlier, we're starting to have these amazing conversations around creative economy and what that looks like and how we can really be supportive and entrenching that work within that.

And Randy's gonna speak a little bit more to that.

And as you know, we're undergoing a process in partnership with the Office of Film and Music, the Music Commission, the film industry, the nightlife community, at the very early stages of that process.

But we're working with Miss Vivian Phillips, who you'll hear from shortly, and she pulled a quote that really resonated when she presented this to the commission a few weeks ago at the retreat from Forrest Whitaker.

where he said a creative economy is an economy where imagination is the raw material and skills the main infrastructure.

So how are we imagining the future of work for our city through a lens of creativity and what does that mean for the industries and occupations that comprise that both now and in the future.

Really, our job for the next several months is to listen, to convene people, and to find out what we have, what we need, and what's possible.

We're grounding that process in the principles of affordability, economic opportunity, and racial equity.

And we're really excited to have the Arts Commission as partners, because they are sort of stewards of our work as the Music Commission is through the OFM lens, and increasingly the film and nightlife community as well.

So I can understand structurally how it's going to work around the conversations related to the Office of Film and Music.

This is a topic in the Arts Commission's work plan.

And you have a role in doing the convening.

Is the convening around sort of the all-encompassing topic of creative economies, and then the Office of Film and Music is a question, or is it sort of flipped the other way around?

Is it a conversation about the future of the Office of Film and Music and how they contribute to the creative economy?

I think it's a conversation about what the future of creative industries looks like and then what infrastructure best supports that.

I don't know that we've weighed in on one structural model or another.

I think that the Arts Commission, the Music Commission, Filmworks, Northwest Film Forum, CIFF, The nightlife community, these are all partners that we have to get around the table.

And we've been doing that both with city employees and our co-workers here around various departments, council, CBO, as well as with the commissions and stakeholders in the community.

And I think this summer is going to be sort of the balance of the broader external outreach.

We're working with the Arts Commission, the Music Commission, and others to identify who we need to have at that table.

So it's not really about the Arts Office inviting in OFM or OFM inviting in arts, it's more about where do we all want to go together.

It was great because at our retreat, we were able to really think through, because we got into groups within our committees and really thinking about the work that we're already doing around that and kind of thinking through it with like this lens of creative economy, engagement and advocacy and really being able to call out the work that's already being done and then how we can reflect on what that can look like and the goals for the future.

I have expressed my concern for the future of the Office of Film and Music.

It has historically in the city been that area of the creative economy has historically been an afterthought, and we only recently had an office of film and music.

And so I just think it's really important to recognize that history, but also recognize that because of that history, we have not adequately, I think, acknowledged the value of film and music in our creative economy.

So I'm hoping that the structure doesn't continue to sort of treat that segment of the creative economy as an add-on, but rather I think it would be really useful to center the conversation around how film and music fits into the creative economy.

I agree.

Today we're presenting about the Arts Commission's work plan.

We're not presenting about the creative economy strategy, but the Arts Commission is going to be helping to inform that because they're a critical stakeholder, as is the Music Commission.

And since they are going to be critical in informing that, I just wanted to take this opportunity to let folks know about what my concerns are and my hopes are.

I think that is all fair.

And what excites me about this process, because I'm also a filmmaker and I do poetry and stories to music, so I'm also straddling that line, is that when we came to the table for the first time, It was last week, correct?

And we were all there, and it was all in agreement that we were fighting for these different things, that we wanted to make a better place for Seattle as a whole.

And the thing that gives me hope with this is how the Office of Arts and Culture handled the King Street Station and all the research and focus groups and things of that nature that they convened in order to get what we believe is the right output, as well as going through the process for Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute as an arts commissioner.

I was on like four or five different task force leading up to that process, and the many focus groups that we had, and the very carefulness of getting everyone at the table to express their opinion.

So when we did reveal what the plan was, the community was already bought in, and we stressed that at the table as well, and knowing that we have a music commission, and we know that we have an arts commission, and we know we don't have a film commission, one of the first questions at the table was, how do we make sure that that body is represented?

Any more questions?

Council Member O'Brien, do you have any thoughts or questions?

You know, you two certainly bring a lot of energy to the table.

I can only imagine what the entire...

Cupcakes.

Cupcakes, yes.

We have a playlist, too, if you want to know how we really get down.

I really appreciate how the commission and the department is centering equity around the work around arts.

And I really appreciate how that's been integrated in ways throughout the city.

It's great to see.

And I really appreciate the energy you bring to this and the time commitment and passion to this work.

And I look forward to, you know, see what happens in the coming year.

So thank you.

Thank you.

One of the other things that the Arts Commission typically does every year is you send to the council your own budget recommendations letter.

And that is, I think, a unique structure from commissions that fall under the jurisdiction of other departments.

And I think my recollection, although I did not staff arts at the time when that was conceived, my recollection is that was intended to create some independence on the part of the commission to make recommendations that you felt reflect the Arts Committee without it having to go through the political filter and limited resources filter that we all have to deal with here at the city.

An earlier conversation that we had today with the Office of Civil Rights relates to some of the things that they're doing to explore how to become a more independent department of the city.

And it occurred to me that, you know, one of the things that they struggle with is budgeting.

And that commission has, I mean, that department has four of its own commissions.

And knowing that you folks were going to be coming up here, it made me wonder whether or not, I wanted to ask you whether or not that's, you find that opportunity to communicate directly with the council on what your budget priorities, does that, you feel like, does that enhance your ability to represent the communities that you're, on the commission to speak for because it might be a useful thing for us to consider doing with those commissions as well.

I mean, I think for me, you know, when going through the process of even like writing the letter and putting that together and collaborating on that really allows us to reiterate, you know, what our focuses are and really allow us to like tailor it of like, okay, here's our priorities and this is our, as advocates, this is our responsibility.

And so I think it's something that feels like it comes pretty naturally in, you know, in part of what we consider to be our jobs, you know, on this commission.

And so I think the budget letter is an example of that.

And I think we've done other things as well to really kind of put forward, you know, what we're hearing.

Because, you know, we are like the eyes and ears on the ground.

doing this work and being artists ourselves and things like that.

And so we do feel like it's our responsibility and part of our jobs to do that.

Great.

Well, thank you.

Food for thought, for sure.

So as we move forward in the year, I look forward to hearing more about the activities and implementation of your work plan as it relates to the Public Art Advisory Committee, the Cultural Investments Committee, and the Fed.

Everybody says the Fed.

So it would be great to have you come again.

Yes, please.

One other thing, I noticed in your comments when we were talking about funding that how men's professional sports are not contributing to the admission fees.

And I've done a little bit of looking into that, and I'm not exactly sure what that path would be.

Certainly interested in my time left on the council and working with the Arts Commission to see if there's a way to make that more equitable.

Awesome.

That would be amazing.

Not make it more equitable by eliminating all funding, but to make everyone contribute to funding.

That's not the kind of equitable we're advocating.

So if you have thoughts on that, I certainly would be receptive to strategies around that.

Awesome.

Thank you.

That'd be great.

Thank you so much.

And y'all are always welcome to attend our Arts Commission meetings.

They are on the second Tuesday of each month at King Street Station at four o'clock.

Thank you.

All righty.

Thank you.

Item five.

It's arts and cultural districts update.

We brought you something.

I'm not going to embarrass us by making everyone sing.

Maybe we can just take a moment of silence and sort of hear the song in our heads.

Hello.

Happy birthday.

Hello.

Thank you both for joining us.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Introductions for the viewing audience.

Matthew Richter, Cultural Space Liaison in the Office of Arts and Culture.

Vivian Phillips, consultant to the Office of Arts and Culture.

Former chair of the Seattle Arts Commission.

Former chair of the Seattle Arts Commission, and specifically here to talk about the arts and cultural districts.

A rock star from the folks who were here just a moment ago.

I'm so proud.

I mean, honestly.

to have had the opportunity to serve on the Arts Commission, to lead the Arts Commission, and to lead the Arts Commission in such capable hands makes me incredibly proud.

All that volunteer work, you know, it all pays off.

So.

A structure and leadership to fill that structure.

I just love it.

Yeah.

That's an amazing point because there's a lot of amazing people that do amazing things in our community.

And to do that and be able to move on from that work and the work continues to grow.

That is often a place where it doesn't work out well.

And so that is something to be really proud of.

So thank you.

That's always my goal.

So it just feels really good to see that happening.

Thank you.

I'm glad we were able to have you both here at the same time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'd like to start.

Happy birthday.

It's a running joke now.

It's Matthew's birthday.

I'm so shy about it too.

We're here to talk about the evolution of the Arts and Cultural Districts program in Seattle and the birth of a new entity that we're calling the Chamber of Culture.

Vivian, would you mind forwarding us one slide?

Just the forward button.

Let me slide over here.

Great.

The program was launched in 2014, and it launched in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, which helped us fund the creation of what we called the Creative Placemaking Toolkit, which we'll talk about in a second.

But it was essentially six or eight tools that districts could have access to that we would fund on their behalf.

The first district that we created was the Capitol Hill Arts District, followed very closely by the Historic Central Area Arts and Cultural District in the Central District.

followed by the Uptown Arts and Cultural Coalition in Uptown, and then the Columbian-Hillman Arts District, which is the most recent district to be added to the program.

We're currently in the process of, we're almost always in the process of conversations with different neighborhoods who are interested in the program, and we would expect that at some point this year or early next, we'd be adding the next district to the program.

Thank you.

The toolkit has really evolved, the program has really evolved around this whole idea of a toolkit.

When we first launched the toolkit, we were able to support programs around pop-up space activations, right-of-way district identifiers, which is the custom street signs that you saw on the previous slide, wayfinding cultural space markers, which are analogous to a barber pole.

unified or a repeated medallion that cultural spaces mount on the outsides of buildings, support for busking in the neighborhood, art historic markers, parklets.

What we found was that not all of these programs were of interest to the districts and that the districts had their own self-generated ideas of how they'd like to form up and what they'd like to see support of.

One is design guidelines.

You heard about that in the OED presentation.

We supported the creation of design guidelines for the neighborhood.

that process of reaching out into the neighborhood and creating that.

Affordable arts workforce housing has been a priority in the uptown neighborhood.

Cultural space incentives has been a high priority in Columbia-Hillman and also in Capitol Hill.

A lot of advocacy around different ideas in the CAP report has resulted from the district's program, and that has resulted in support at this body for different ideas in that program.

Public safety was an issue in Capitol Hill as we saw the rise of bias crime.

One of the issues that you were curious about in a previous presentation was around lease support, leasing support, and that's one of the things that we've gotten into in support of different organizations in the districts and have helped write extended leases and leverage our relationships with both property owners and arts organizations.

The example I was thinking of was Annex Theater, which had essentially a month-to-month relationship in their building.

In order to make them eligible for capital funding to improve the building, they had to have a certain length of site control, and we were able to help negotiate that with their property owner.

Next slide.

Back up one.

In those negotiations, obviously this is a topic I'm very interested in, are you able to make the property owner see that there's a benefit from those negotiations to them, or are they mostly just doing it because it's the right thing to do?

Often it's the latter.

We are ready to make the case for the presence of arts and culture being a generator of value, both to buildings and to neighborhoods.

That's a case that we make regularly.

The specific cases that I'm thinking of where we jumped in, honestly, it was more a matter of making the case in the right language, making sure that both parties were able to share their priorities and their needs, and it just turned out that they fit together in a way that neither the property owner nor the tenant assumed that it would, but once they're actually talking about the same issues, they realize that they both have the same goals.

This is a quote that came from a meeting up in Uptown that former Councilmember Licata said.

We had representatives from the Opera happen to be sitting next to the Executive Director of the Vera Project, which is a youth music and dance organization, and Councilmember Licata made the point that Often he hears about priorities of different arts organizations and that they hardly ever overlap, that it's difficult to deal with the priorities of each individual organization.

But if the opera and the Vera Project can agree on a shared priority, that's a no-brainer.

That's something that is easy for the city to support.

At the same time, we host a roughly annual cultural space conference called Square Feet Seattle and invite the public to generate ideas that we will then support.

And one of the ideas that got generated years ago was the idea of a chamber of culture, a citywide organization that could create and support a cultural platform for the city.

Next slide.

So just in this last year, we have begun to explore that and It's the sum total of what happens when the leadership of each district now sits together at the table.

So not only do you have an aligned platform within the geography of the district, but you have an aligned platform citywide based in culturally rich geographies.

We began a relationship and began a relationship.

We are continuing our relationship with Vivian Phillips.

to help us explore what this chamber of culture is, how to center it in equity, create citywide arts advocacy, both generated from the district, but also permeable enough that ideas from without the district can be a part of that platform as well.

Identifying the shared priorities, and again, those needs and opportunities that often, just because you're not putting them on the table, people don't realize how easily some of them fit together.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Vivian to talk about where she is at in her work creating that chamber of culture.

So the beauty of this for me is that I've gotten to work with not just my own arts and cultural district, but with all four of the existing arts and cultural districts.

And there are a lot of points of synergy across those districts.

And I think that what we're working toward is establishing a body that is a repository and then also can export kind of those shared priorities and alignments.

One of the things that's obviously important is that everything is being centered in equity.

And I can say that all four districts have in their possession and are using the city of Seattle's equity toolkit, which has been really rewarding.

My counsel to each of the districts is to not be overwhelmed by it, but to take small parts and do what you can, learn as you go and grow.

And that's being effective.

And so in addition to how they are centering their work in equity.

The areas that are of focus are preservation of ethnic legacies, which is really a priority in the central area, as you would probably imagine.

Identifying existing opportunities where they can embrace greater equity.

Moving from assumption to empirical evidence, and this is something that I think doesn't necessarily get covered in the equity toolkit, but there are so many stereotypes about what people can and cannot do that it flows into the assumptions of the work when you're trying to express yourself or involve more people.

So I'm encouraging folks to let's do some empirical data around that.

Let's test your assumptions and really reach out to communities in a wholehearted way.

And naming those that are not present and developing strategies for connecting.

That is an equitable strategy, obviously, but sometimes you just have to sit around the table and look at the table and say, who's not here?

And then actually develop strategies around how to get folks there.

So that's happening in each district as well.

Some of the functions that I think are of most significance to the arts and cultural districts have to do with the citywide advocacy.

Matthew is obviously only one person, even as he grows in years, he's still only one person.

Not splitting and dividing and reforming.

And so what I think is a point of synergy across districts is a desire to have the ability to share research and resources, an intentional focus on the creative economy, which has come up prior in the prior presentation.

And the beauty of getting to work on both of those things is that we can embed that work in what we're doing with bringing all of the arts and cultural districts together and using those as a resource for further informing the work that we're doing around jobs creation, affordability and livability.

And obviously sustaining arts and cultural spaces is a huge element because in every single district we've got the presence of higher development and the reduction of cultural spaces.

And so that is a shared identity that everyone can work together on.

And just to bullet point all of the shared priorities, this goes back to what I said previously.

increasing the capacity by having a centralized way of working together.

The centralized administration, everybody's trying to do the work on their own.

All of the arts and cultural districts are volunteer-led, so it's really important that they have additional support.

Relationship building across districts is something I'm really excited about because people get to come together and meet one another and talk.

So on April 17th, we're gonna have one of those opportunities for all four districts.

to come together and do some cross-visioning.

Shaping the built environment is obviously of interest in all four of the districts.

In the central area, of course, we know about all of the upzoning that's taking place.

How can the Arts and Cultural District inform that, not just through the design review process, but through continued advocacy, as an example?

and developing a sustainable model for growth and effectiveness.

You know, one of the things that I think we have as a goal is to create a national model for how we are working together across the city to really elevate the arts and cultural influences through the districts.

And this is the process.

So I mentioned on April 17th, we have our first, well, maybe it's not the first, but this will be the first all district meeting with a visioning agenda.

So we can all come together and really talk about what our big vision is for a Seattle Chamber of Commerce culture.

That generates commerce.

I'll be assessing all of the needs and opportunities across the districts, engage in shared visioning as I mentioned, and then our intention is to develop a shared proposal that comes to City Council by November.

Fantastic.

You know, I've often thought aloud to various folks in the arts office about how the arts district can, the older arts districts can mentor the newer arts districts.

And I think it's just brilliant that you've come up with a framework to do that and much, much more.

That is just, it's fantastic.

We think it's going to really lift the work that volunteers are doing in all of their communities to embrace and grow arts and cultural identities and influences.

And so by creating kind of a central point where all of that can move through, it helps not just one district.

It helps all districts.

It helps districts that come along in the future and ultimately as an asset to the city.

It also answers the question that I've heard people ask aloud.

Well, if we keep, we've got four arts districts, and if we keep adding more arts districts, is the moniker of being an arts district going to somehow lose meaning?

And I think you've just kind of flipped it.

Right, exactly, exactly.

It's not going to lose meaning, it's actually, you found a way to amplify it.

Right.

And recognizing that every district has different needs and different populations and people that they serve, but there are some things that are universal across all districts.

So to the extent that we can create greater tools to help people then go back in their communities and really be focused on the assets and the needs is our goal.

And I also appreciate the fact that this is a body that is going to be founded or grounded in the foundations of equity.

You think about other chambers, right?

the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce was originally founded to be an umbrella for the smaller neighborhood chambers, but it has now become less focused on small business, right?

And the way that you're starting, I think you're always going to be thinking about small arts as opposed to focusing your efforts and resources and your advocacy on the big arts organizations?

Well, I think one of the things that we are also able to do is to, while focusing on the small arts, Well, or the small and mid-sized arts entities, artists, and efforts, we can create a more direct connection to larger arts organizations and help them to see ways in which they can work with the smaller ones.

So it's kind of this...

big universal win-win, and it's a way in which I think we've been looking to work in arts and culture across the city for a number of years.

Personally, in my experience with the Arts Commission and working in organizations, there's a lot of duplicity that happens, and so now we can streamline, I think, so it makes everything more effective.

And I think that framing of small and large is also maybe reframed as along the spectrum of speed of growth.

There's the quickly growing and then a period where growth slows down as you institutionalize.

And the ability to share across that spectrum is important.

The other thing I wanted to say is make a point that I didn't make when there was the slide that was designed to make me make that point.

Which is that really the program started with what in retrospect might be a slightly paternalistic program of here's these six tools that will be good for you.

And really morphed over the years to evolve into a program that was much more about following the priorities of the neighborhoods.

and allowing those priorities to emerge organically from those groups and then putting resources behind those.

Nice.

Well, a way to, you know, not get stuck in a way of doing things just because it's the way you've done them.

Yeah.

That's fantastic.

Well, I really look forward to learning more.

You might want to consider figuring out a way to give us a preview before November?

Sure.

Like before September?

Sure.

Should any of your recommendations have budget implications?

You can.

Be assured that they will probably have some level of budget implication.

I can't imagine bringing forward a proposal to do something like this and it not having some financial implication.

We need it to have blood.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Happy birthday.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Are you all going to take some cupcakes?

Yes.

I'll take one.

All right.

Well, with that, it is 1138 a.m., and the meeting is adjourned.