Transportation Committee 6/3/2025

All right.

Good morning.

The June 3rd, 2025 meeting of the transportation committee will come to order.

It is 931 AM.

I am Rob Saka, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Council member Rink.

He's present.

Present.

Council member Strauss.

Present.

Vice chair Hollingsworth.

Present.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

All right, if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Seeing no objection, the agenda is hereby adopted.

All right, thank you colleagues, members of the public for joining us today to our Transportation Committee meeting.

We have a very full stacked agenda of exciting opportunities.

First and foremost on the agenda, we have the levy oversight committee.

Today's first few agenda items are gonna focus on this.

These are the remaining appointments, proposed appointees to the new levy oversight committee.

Recall colleagues that the voter approved transportation levy that passed in November, 2024 is the most accountable transportation levy in our city's history.

Part of that is ensuring that we have a very robust, comprehensive, well-resourced and well-empowered levy oversight committee.

And that is the thrust of the first agenda item today.

Today's appointments are council appointments to the committee from districts two, four, six and seven.

During our last transportation committee, we considered and ultimately approved appointments from the mayor's office, along with districts one, three, and five.

By law that we set last summer, the levy oversight committee will have 19 members, which includes seven appointees from each of the seven council districts, five appointees from the mayor's office, four appointees from each of our four advisory boards, the Seattle freight, bicycle, transit, and pedestrian, and the chair of the transportation committee, city budget director, and a youth get engaged member.

The levy is a transformational investment in our city's transportation infrastructure, but that transportation demands strong accountability.

Again, focus of agenda item number one.

So thank you again, colleagues for your engagement as we help bring to life this important oversight committee and help empower this committee to carry out, effectively carry out its important oversight mission for this new levy.

Our last agenda items will focus on vital legislation transmitted from SDOT.

The first piece of legislation relates to SDOT's state required commute trip reduction plan, which our understanding is that it is tied to a very important state imposed deadline.

So that's the first piece of proposed legislation.

The second piece of proposed legislation from SDOT relates to a deed of trust related to the arts.

So I'm looking forward to hearing about both of these pieces of legislation from the department.

That said, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have zero in person and one remote.

All right.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

Suppose we will start with the remote speakers first.

Can you please clerk read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers until the public comment period is ended.

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

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first speaker.

That speaker is David Haynes.

David Haynes, when I allow you to speak, remember to hit star six.

The Washington Clean Air Act started in 1991, years before WTO abuse of America and prolific toxic industrial trains began choking off the fresh air at Seattle waterfront.

Yet Democrats want to ignore Warren Buffett's toxic industrial trains and blame the car driver with more class war vitriol.

Out of all the people who work at City Hall, how many people drove their car today or bypassed the bus and train because it's unsafe, unreliable, inefficient, and unhealthy to take public transportation?

We still don't have proper public safety implementation because we don't have a trustworthy chief and mayor, and we still don't have the proper laws coming out of city hall.

Yet you all want a virtue signal how you're going to do other people with a car a favor and businesses relying on deliveries of goods by getting people off the road and into inefficient buses and loud, obnoxiously annoying trains.

Yet all of you all are driving, and if you're not driving, you're not exactly acknowledging the reality of what it takes What makes it unsafe to take public transportation?

And that there is still no bus stops on 3rd Ave, across from City Hall, and in between Pine and Pike and 12th and Jackson because the criminals have taken over, and you all have allowed it, always deferring to the mayor, who is by far another untrustworthy executive, getting a pass because he's always playing the race card, bullying counsel who capitulates while telling car drivers it cuts down on chronic diseases.

not driving your own car, which is a blatant liberal lie, kind of an evil thing to try and force people to reduce their commute time when it's impossible to rely on Metro and Sound League, given how racist and predatorily untrustworthy all the transit authority and security is, where they've got to get in your face if you're a hot white girl who's already paid her ticket while ignoring the pastel junkies on the bus and train and criminals lurking at the entrances, lying in wait when it comes to actually improving the services.

in the time it takes for a transfer from SoundLink to Metro, it's not worth taking public transportation because they purposely trip you up and make you consume more time on your transfer as if they're- Thank you, David.

Council Member, that is the, or Chair, that is the last of our registered speakers.

All right, thank you, Clerk.

Also privileged to be able to drive my daughter to her softball game later after work, so to speak.

So we'll now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read items one through four into the record.

Agenda items one through four.

Appointments 03167, 03171, 03173, and 03174. Appointments of Kyle Nolan, Linda Fury Oldroy, Lisa Bogardas, Lucy Carter-Sloman as members Transportation Levy Oversight Committee for terms to December 31, 2028.

Awesome, thank you.

Will our presenters please join us at the table and share your presentation?

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Thank you for having me and our LOC members here.

My name is Katie Olson and I'm the Levy Oversight Committee liaison with the Seattle Department of Transportation.

And as you mentioned earlier, the Transportation Levy Oversight Committee has been established in the levy ordinance to monitor revenues, expenditures, and program and project implementation.

Importantly, they're tasked with advising the City Council, the Mayor, and SDOT on the spending of levy proceeds and the performance of levy programs.

The LOC provides great value to the City of Seattle in many ways, including serving as a key partner in enhancing transparency and accountability to Seattle taxpayers and the broader community.

And as was mentioned earlier, the LLC is composed of 19 members representing a range of backgrounds and experiences citywide.

Many members were confirmed in the May 20th meeting, and today we are confirming the remaining members.

I will now introduce the committee members for confirmation today.

So first...

Hello, I'm Kyle Nolan.

It's very nice to meet all of you in person.

I moved to Seattle about two years ago, and I've really fallen in love with the city since moving here.

I work as a civil engineer.

I'm about three years into my career, so still pretty green, but I'm getting the opportunity to work on a lot of projects that I see improving my community every day, which is really cool.

And a lot of that is due to the funds that are passed in these levies.

And it's really important to me that these continue to get passed.

And I think that for them to continue to get passed, voters have to see that they're doing work.

And I'm really excited to get the opportunity to oversee and make sure that that work is getting done.

The next person on our agenda is Linda.

Hello, city councilmen, members, excuse me.

First of all, proud to say that I took the light rail here today.

So my name is Linda Fairey-Oldray in terms of full name, and I represent district number two.

32nd background, I served on executive roles at a lot of blue chip companies for years, companies like Pepsi, Levi's, Nordstrom, and Topgolf.

And at this point in my life, I'm shifting to volunteer work with two areas of focus.

So the first area of focus is making Seattle a more beautiful place to live as a master gardener.

Ask me anything about bugs, leaves, whatever, and I'm your girl.

Second is to make Seattle a more safe place to walk, bike, and drive.

Last year, I co-founded the Rainier Avenue South Traffic Safety Alliance, and we work very closely with SDOT, more specifically with Venu and his team.

We're instituting a series of safety actions on Rainier Avenue South, as well as the South Precinct.

We're averaging about two serious accidents on our one-and-a-half-mile stretch of the street per month.

And so what we're trying to do is reduce the number of accidents due to speeding, passing in the center lane, so on and so forth.

So my motivation for wanting to serve on the Transportation Levy Oversight Committee relates to my work in terms of traffic safety.

And my goal will be to ensure that a significant portion of the funds or a reasonable portion of the funds are really dedicated to making Seattle a safer place to walk, to bike, and to drive.

So thank you very much for the opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you, Linda.

And the next person is Lucy.

Oh, thank you.

Good morning, council members.

I, too, took light rail here.

My name is Lucy Sloman, and I'm a longtime resident of the University District.

Professionally, I've been an urban designer and planner for several decades, including 10 years managing planning and engineering municipal permitting for a local city.

I have dedicated my career to ensuring that quality urban design, multimodal mobility, and equitable access are integral and essential elements of the communities I have served.

I want to contribute to this historic opportunity of service on the Levy Oversight Committee to improve neighborhoods that have been overlooked, modernize the facilities the city has, and to maintain transportation infrastructure that neighborhoods depend on.

Thank you for this opportunity to bring my expertise and passion to the city where I live.

First time in my career.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lucy.

And our final appointment is Lisa.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you so much for having me back to consider my appointment to serve on the upcoming levy and oversight of the new projects.

I'm Lisa Bogardas.

I'm the Assistant Executive Secretary for the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Labor Council.

I'm also a resident of the Eastlake neighborhood and a member of the local 32 plumbers and pipefitters.

And I drove here today, but I bike, I walk, and I drive, and occasionally I take the bus.

And I think one of the things that came out of the levy oversight committee in the last for the Move Seattle levy was the importance of all of those modes of transportation.

to our community and how they all intersect and overlay each other and how important a working transportation system is, how important that is to the city.

So through that, my service on the last levy, I'd appreciate another opportunity to serve on the Future Oversight Committee and I'm grateful for my consideration, especially to Councilmember Strauss for putting my name forward.

As Assistant Executive Secretary for the Building and Construction Trades Labor Council since 2015 and an Oversight Committee member from 19 to 24, I have dedicated a significant amount of my time to transportation, both at the local and state level.

I also worked at the Port of Seattle in construction management for about six years prior to joining the Building Trades.

And part of my job has been ensuring that projects proceed efficiently and provide benefits to the community.

My experience in overseeing large, complex projects over the last 10 years as part of the Council has provided me with a significant expertise, which will help me assess the levy's impact and accountability for how the funds are allocated.

We had some challenges during the last levy, and so we look forward to coming right out the gate and starting strong this year, ensuring, as other...

potential members have already mentioned that our community needs to see projects and they need to see the value that's returned to them when they pass the levies, and that's part of a goal of the Oversight Committee.

I believe strongly in the committee's mission to provide transparency and oversight that the transportation improvements serve the diverse needs of our community.

And as a representative of the construction trades, I'm committed to fostering effective and equitable mobility solutions that benefit all of our residents.

Finally, it's important that labor continues to have a voice and a role on the Levy Oversight Committee and that members of the prior LOC continue the work going forward.

As a member of the Building Trades and the Seattle Building Trades Labor Council, which represents 20,000 construction members regionally, I appreciate your consideration to serve.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And really excited to have you all here today.

And thank you for your willingness to serve in such a manner.

And then with respect to Ms. Dugard, welcome.

Excited to consider you for this.

It was a pleasure working with you last time around.

For about a year we overlapped, so good that we have some continuity, I think it's important to blend a continuity with, it's a new levy, need new, fresh perspectives.

So thank you all for being here.

Colleagues, I know we have a few of you all reflect the proposed appointments of a few of my colleagues at this dais.

So colleagues, I welcome any, welcome any comments or questions at this time.

Yes, starting first with Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

I just wanted to first welcome all of you to chambers, to the table, and really thank you for volunteering.

I know it's a lot.

I've done that myself prior to volunteering myself to join the City Council, and it takes a lot of time and efforts.

It's also an impact on your families oftentimes, and so thank you for that.

I just wanted to note for the record right off the bat that my nomination of Mr. Nolan was not because he has a beard and a bald head.

I just wanted to be clear that is not the case.

In fact, what it is is one of the things that I wanted, because I know a number of the people already on the council and some of the names floating around.

But I think it's important to have different perspectives, and I've done this with my staff, my personal staff.

So having somebody relatively new out of school, out of that training with an engineering background was really important to me.

The fact that I have multiple nephews that have just recently graduated from Gonzaga, may have helped as well, but, you know.

Go Zags.

Go Zags.

And, yep, my nephews would be happy, yeah.

Go Zags.

And my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law.

I think that's important, but also important, as you stated in your note, in the background, saying that you wanted to see the results of the funding they approved last year, the voters, and then public trust.

I think that's really important, and you said it today.

I really appreciate that, so thank you.

As the D7 council member, I just want to say thank you for putting your name forward and then bringing your skill set to the table in volunteering, so thank you.

I guess my question is how to, you know, one of the things is what energy, this is what I look at in terms of the fresh eyes and what you're doing right now, what do you think you can bring to the table from that perspective in terms of work you're doing right now, your studies, all the above, that lane, that perspective that you bring to this body?

I think I bring the perspective of somebody who knows what it's like to implement a lot of these solutions, how long it takes to design them, what goes into them, and also the perspective of a young person, a renter, a transit taker, somebody that I think is grossly underrepresented in a lot of political proceedings.

OK, thank you.

Since I mentioned the Zags, I have to mention the SUNY school system in the state of New York.

I got the big smile from the person.

I'm from Western New York, between Buffalo and Rochester, New York.

And as I tell people, I married a local girl, and here I am.

But I'm happy to see somebody from the SUNY Stony Brook here.

My nephew on my side of the family just graduated from SUNY Cortland.

And the list is long of SUNY schools within my family.

there.

I'm really interested in your work at the Port of Seattle.

How would that work?

How do you see that informing your approach to this oversight committee?

Thank you for the question.

My family still lives in North Syracuse, so right around the same area.

go, instead of saying like Zags or whatever, go Cuse.

But that was the days of Leo Rottens and the early days of the Big East.

So not to date myself, but.

I think we're probably fairly close in age.

So you're not dating yourself.

You're still young.

So I think the thing that I think I bring in addition to my work at the Building Trades was at the Port of Seattle, one, I understand kind of the government perspective and permitting and process and how important all of the steps are.

So I think wearing that hat, also understanding project delivery, schedules, the impact that we have on the traveling public, So I think as my role as working at the Port of Seattle in construction management and overseeing project labor agreements there and understanding kind of the intersection of the labor need and all of the other project delivery stakeholders and things, when it all complates together, I think that bringing that perspective to the oversight committee is helpful.

And I think in addition to an understanding of the city's community workforce agreement through my job now with the building trades and understanding kind of all the labor components and needs, because without the workers, the projects don't get done.

And also I think the challenges that the contractors are under and then also all of the folks working.

behind the scenes to get the projects just to to get started.

So I think that bringing that perspective I think through the years that I've been working in construction and I think it will be valuable going forward in this next levy oversight.

Excellent and yes the building and trades very important to this very supportive of them.

One of the areas, last question, Chair, and it relates to the Chair.

The Chair and I, before this levy, we were doing a lot of work together to include in the area the freight program.

Somebody with your background, for current and previous jobs and assignments, that is something very important.

So my question slash ask of you is, with your background, you know, look at the freight program.

It's just part of the levy to ensure, you know, the different pieces on pedestrian safety, traffic safety are huge, but sometimes other areas get kind of glossed out for the freight program.

And because as your sponsor here points out, you know, if we want a 15-minute city, We have to have the logistics to get to those stores because, as I've often said, a neighborhood without a grocery store is a food desert.

Well, a neighborhood with a grocery store with empty shelves because it couldn't get refreshed, restocked, is also a food desert.

And so that's just my usual plug and my ask, given your background, to keep an eye on the freight program.

Definitely.

And I was excited to see that Jerry Poore from the freight mobility group, and also I worked with her at the Port of Seattle.

So I think she'll be a strong advocate for the freight program, freight mobility program going forward.

Excellent.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Colleagues, any other questions, comments?

Go ahead, Council Member Rank.

Thank you chair and council member Kettle, you know how excited I get when we talk about Syracuse, go Q's, go orange.

I'm an alum myself, so I've done my stint in central New York.

Um, very small world.

Um, thank you all for your willingness to serve on the levy oversight committee and thank you to each of you for the talents and expertise that you're going to bring to this oversight committee.

Um, I asked this question of our last string of appointments to this body.

And I'm curious, what's your favorite project from the last levy?

Or what is an upcoming project in this levy that you're excited about?

I'll go first.

Living in the U District, I'm one block off of the 11th, 12th upgrades that went through, and that was a fantastic improvement, but there are also a lot of lessons learned from being one block off of that and some of the challenges the neighborhood faced.

and the U District as an extremely diverse and transient neighborhood, often without cars, brings a lot of interesting perspectives to what we're doing to get people out of their cars, but I agree, sometimes cars are necessary, and the loading and services that neighborhood businesses, especially in a neighborhood that's over 100 years old, that was not designed, there are challenges we see.

There's no loading, as Council Member Kettle pointed out.

There's no loading for a lot of these businesses, and there's not ADA parking for a lot of these businesses.

And as someone who is currently impaired, from an incident on a Seattle street, I will add.

Just bringing that fine-grained information to the work that we're doing, which is important, and yet opportunities to learn from the past.

Thank you.

I think the thing that I connected with most was when the transportation levy was passed, Venu's team was more sufficiently staffed.

So we had a hard time getting a plan because there was no project manager for a long time.

And once the levy was passed, we now have a project manager, Jay.

We have a very comprehensive plan.

It's going to be done by the end of the summer, at least phase one.

And we're looking at much more visible traffic islands.

We're looking at more barriers in terms of the turn lane where people constantly pass and create huge, huge safety issues.

And so just enabling SDOT to do their job on a day-to-day basis to me was very exciting.

So it was less about a specific initiative.

It was more about giving them the freedom and the ability to do what they're supposed to do with better staffing.

Thank you.

Asphalt paving.

Better roads and bridges.

I think that that was a major focus of everybody that I personally know in the city that people wanted to see in the new levee, wanted to see.

I mean, the roads have become really deplorable in Seattle, and it affects everybody, whether you're walking, whether you're biking.

The buses, the bridges don't work.

Freight can't move.

People can't get around.

I live on East Lake, so the Rapid Ride J-Line is right in front of my condo building right now, so I'm really excited about that moving forward and getting done.

But I think just the focus on sort of the nuts and bolts of the transportation system of the new levy, I'm really excited about, and I'm hoping that we see a market improvement at the end of the levy in the overall transportation infrastructure.

Thank you.

I am slightly embarrassed to say that I'm not super familiar with all of the projects that were funded by the last levy, but I am a huge fan of all of the protected bike lanes and transit islands that I see going in all over the city.

The new protected intersection at Thomas and Dexter, fantastic.

Thank you all.

Really excited about our work together.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you, council member.

Thank you everyone.

So this levy includes bold new investments and new sidewalks.

That's probably what I'm the biggest fan of as one of the sort of co-architects of that effort.

that voters overwhelmingly approved.

This levy includes transformational new investments and adding new sidewalks.

And the district that you live in, Ms. Oldroyd, did I pronounce it correctly?

Fiery Oldroyd.

What's that?

Fiery Oldroyd is one of the most impacted.

We have a 27% missing sidewalk network across the whole city.

So 27% of neighborhoods don't have any sidewalks whatsoever.

My council district, along with the one that you live in and district five up north are the worst off and have the biggest opportunity and So we talk about the need and imperative to drive safety, and Vision Zero, that is one key way of doing that.

So you all are speaking my language in terms of safety, protections, and roads.

Oh, can we get an old-fashioned Arsenio Hall for roads?

Speaking my language, Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

In any event, as an aside, as part of this levy, there will also be a future transportation levy or transportation funding task force to help to focus on three key asset classes in particular, because the reality is, so this is a $1.55 billion levy, and the reality is we could have had a $3 billion levy focused solely on bridges, roads and new sidewalks and it still wouldn't have been enough And so there's gonna be a related kind of ancillary task force created to help look at funding how we can actually, what we can do as a policy matter and how we can creatively fund because our roads are not in the best condition, nor are our bridges and 27% missing sidewalk presents a huge opportunity.

And I'm proud that this transportation levy includes bold investments on all of those things and more.

but there's plenty more work to do.

And so another key feature of this transportation levy that you all are directly a part of and are really the tip of the spear is we wanted to make sure that the new levy oversight committee, unlike the last one, Ms. Bogart, includes express audit authority and audit powers.

So rather than beg the department asking for paperwork, there is an express right.

And we need to find, I say we because I look forward to joining you all as colleagues on that.

We need to find ways over the eight year life cycle to exercise that power.

Accountability demands that.

And one question though, this is probably the most serious question, most solemn one of all, Ms. Fiery Oldroyd, what is your favorite bug or insect, and what is your least favorite, bug or insect?

Oh my God.

Okay, probably my favorite is the butterfly, and just for context, there has been a 22% decline in butterflies over the past 20 years.

So creating habitats for butterflies is a really big deal.

My least favorite is the aphid, because they get all over my roses, they're really annoying.

But thank you for the question, I really appreciate that.

Thank you for your expertise, not only in safety and oversight, but gardening and insects.

Very, very much appreciated.

Do any of my colleagues have any final comments or questions?

Go ahead.

All right, thanks.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for your volunteer service to the City of Seattle.

Just kind of ticking down the line here.

Oh, for the record, I drove to the bus today.

Unfortunately, Metro cut my only bus that's near my house.

Kyle, in the few years that you've lived here, what are your reflections on the city and what have you learned about transportation in the city and how it can be improved?

My favorite aspect of the city is how, what's the word I'm looking for?

Ingrained it is with nature.

You see green and blue everywhere you look.

And I really tout the transit system that we have here to people that kind of look down on it or see, don't like taking the bus.

I've had an excellent experience with transit here in this city, and I take the G Line to work every day.

I'm really excited to see the J Line go in.

That kind of bus service, I think, is one of our strongest suits of our transportation system, and I'm looking forward to it continuing to improve.

Wonderful, thank you.

And Lucy, you shared a little bit about your experience with construction in the University District.

What were some of the good things that happened, but also what were some of the things that needed to be improved?

Thanks for that question.

Well, the good thing is that the University District has been really fortunate for the last 10 or 15 years to just have ongoing investments in the district.

50th was improved.

We got the station in the U District.

All the names keep changing.

We, you know, had bike lanes, protected bike lanes on Roosevelt, and now we have them on 11th, 12th.

And we now have, you know, curb ramps all the way up, which makes you see a lot of people rolling through the district with their suitcases heading to the train to go to the airports.

You know, all of that just at a, there's little things that make our neighborhood so much more livable and usable.

I touched on some of the challenges of, you know, like loading.

I see a lot of little restaurants that are, you know, either app-based or needing their groceries and supplies.

They don't have great places for those trucks to go.

And so they make do in ways that are sometimes not safe or not great.

And I think the other thing that we noticed as a challenge is that contractors, so I've worked with a lot of contractors in my career, and they are get it done, get it done right kind of people.

I don't think they're used to necessarily working in the kind of pedestrian, bike-heavy neighborhoods that are there.

And we would walk out our front door, and sometimes you don't have to walk blocks out of our way to get to the train station because the signage was only put at major intersections.

And that's just a little thing, and we can get around it, but it just also is an indication that having better coordination with SDOT, who knows these neighborhoods and knows sort of the nature of the neighborhoods, has an opportunity to improve the construction experience.

The neighborhoods want to see these improvements come in, and yet it is sometimes a challenge living through them.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

I'm looking forward to hearing more.

Lydia, this is a trick question.

Of the companies you listed that you worked for, which is your favorite?

Oh, goodness.

I'll answer.

I'll say Nordstrom.

I was going to say Levi Strauss would have been my favorite.

Sorry, that was the trick of the question.

I really appreciate what you shared in your packet, specifically talking about the Rainier Avenue South Traffic Safety Alliance, the fact that SDOT has verified, and I'm reading from your document here, verified that the average speed on Rainier is 40 miles an hour, and has identified 15 specific initiatives for Rainier Avenue South.

What needs to be done in, when I ask you that, what needs to be done yesterday, today, and in these next three months of this construction cycle?

Well, the three biggest problems are speed.

We have two dangerous curves.

And if you look at where the accidents are happening, there's two hotspots.

And I would say probably 40% of the accidents happen in the hotspots.

And then the third problem is short turns, not four.

So we need to create barriers so people are not passing in the center lane.

We need to manage speed.

We actually have, working with the South Precinct, we have a traffic policeman stationed there on our street about once a week, if they can, and they write more traffic tickets.

For context, you guys probably know this, but there's been a 92% decline in traffic tickets between 2010 and 2023. That was the last time I could get data, and the chart is dramatic.

In 2010, there were 50,000 traffic tickets written in Seattle.

In 2023, there were 4,500.

And that's because not only are we short-staffed in police, but we went from a generalist model to a specialist model.

And the only people that can write traffic tickets are traffic policemen, and there are five in Seattle.

And so traffic violations, I think, are related to enforcement.

So I think the other thing that we need is just traffic enforcement, speed enforcement on our street.

Because right now, it is just a free for all, honestly.

So that's the other.

And I'm not sure if the transportation levy is going to address that at all.

The cameras that were discussed in the last meeting, those are critical.

But I think that's the other problem we've got to solve as it relates to the stretch that I'm concerned about.

And by the way, I'm concerned about traffic safety in all of Seattle, but where I have the most experience and depth of knowledge is in my area.

Clearly, you have a very vast depth of knowledge if that was your 30-second reply.

Yeah, I'm a researcher by trade.

We're clearly lucky to have you.

And Lisa, we're excited to have you back.

You were able to step in for another levy oversight member in the last, so you didn't serve the full term.

Can you share a little bit about, you know, we're in a reset moment between the two levies.

What do we need to do in this reset moment?

What was working well before?

What were some things that we need to change?

How do we move forward today in the best way for Seattleites?

Well, thank you for the question.

I stepped into my role in the last committee right after the levy reset, where we had to reevaluate projects that could be delivered under the levy just because there was a variety of issues with getting the projects out of the gate.

I think that was very successful.

the reset, I think the partnership between the Oversight Committee and SDOT was really strengthened through that and that moving forward, the levy finished very strong.

We had just, I mean, I don't know, I'm sure we all noticed all the projects that seemed like in the last year that it just, it seemed like the whole city's under construction.

So I think the levy finished very strong.

A lot of those projects are still going today.

And I think that the, The work that the Levy Oversight Committee did together was very instructive to the Council, and I appreciate that.

I heard that more than once from folks at SDOT that said that the work that we were doing, I think the reporting out, sort of the annual reporting and then the frequent letters to the council as to what we were seeing.

I think that that was a very strong way to communicate and to stay in touch during the levy, especially after the reset so that we could stay in better communication.

So I think that type of reporting going forward, and I think having the auditing function, one of the challenges that we saw was that you have everyone's volunteers.

and people on the committee didn't necessarily have the expertise nor the time to really deep, to do a deep dive into a lot of the materials and sometimes we didn't even really know what questions to be asking and so, I think having the availability of the expertise will really be instructive and make our time more, we'll be using our time better because we'll have that somebody to go to to help us when we have questions or challenges come up because eight years is a long time and there will be challenges and we'll have to work And I appreciate it.

So thank you, Councilmember Saka and the rest of the committee for the rest of the council for listening to what we had asked for and the challenges and the final letter and report that we gave to the council, I think.

I think that was you were really Starting off on a very strong footing moving forward.

And everybody seems really excited about it, which is, I feel like it is a new day in Seattle.

I think there's a lot of excitement in the air and everybody is kind of ready.

How can we, you know, bring the shine back to the city?

And part of that is building up our infrastructure that's, I think it's not just here, but nationally has really been neglected.

I'm really looking forward to this next eight years.

I won't be here eight years, but looking forward to seeing what happens with the levy moving forward.

Yeah, wonderful.

And Katie, thank you for always organizing the Levy Oversight Committee and supporting our volunteers here in the city.

Lisa touched on something that I'll just expand on a little bit.

We expanded on it at the last committee meeting, which was in about 2018. Levy oversight members started raising the alarm bells about the delivery of projects not being fast enough, being over budget, et cetera.

We're not meeting our goals.

If not for the levy oversight committee, I don't think that we would have been able to have the reset in the way to set us up for success in the way that we did.

If we had not had that reset, we would have gone into the pandemic in a deficit that we would not have been able to get out of.

And so I ask you, I charge you as our volunteers of accountability here to let us know if things aren't going well and to ask the tough questions that your intuition is telling you to ask because you're all users of our transportation network.

You're all, I'm stunned and impressed here.

I wish we could spend the whole committee meeting talking, but please use that insight that you have, use your intuition, ask the tough questions, and let us know if things aren't going well.

So, thank you, Chair.

Awesome, thank you.

A lot of exciting investments in this levy, in this voter approved levy.

I mentioned sidewalks, bridges, Vision Zero, also call out Missing Link, thanks to the advocacy of Council Member Shrouse over here.

In addition to Areaways, little known feature that primarily in my council district in Pioneer Square, but these historic parts of the city underneath, underground, under the sidewalks.

So we were standing, thanks to the generosity of voters, we're standing up an areaways program to figure out how we can better maintain those site, just because they're site unseen to most with the exception of many of our tourists and some of the, small business owners and landlords of those historic spaces.

Doesn't mean they're not important.

And so I encourage you to dive deep into the nitty-gritty details of this levy.

And also, yes, with respect to the 2018 levy reset, we try to incorporate at the design phase, architecture phase of this is, you know, we're all sort of co-architects of this levy that voters generously approved.

We tried our best to incorporate some of the lessons learned from the last levy.

We did that a number of ways, including the levy reset.

We learned in large part through the advocacy of the former levy oversight committee that One of the reasons that happened is because SDOT wasn't fully staffed and therefore fully prepared to execute and deliver upon these big, massive, awesome, exciting projects.

And so we wanted to address that.

And also that was a specific recommendation Ms. Bougardas mentioned the reporting function.

I read every last one of those reports, but in that final report, there was a recommendation for the department to produce a, essentially a readiness report of some sort that should the levy pass, here is our plan to execute and deliver upon it.

And SDOT did that.

And in another report, which I read closely, fine-tuned comb, SDOT indicated that it plans to hire roughly 72, 77 new staff to help deliver on all of these commitments.

And so, very, very, very important.

Um, and that was ultimately a result of a specific learning that we had from the last levy.

Uh, so thank you again for your willingness to serve our city, uh, in such a manner.

I appreciate your leadership, your, your advocacy.

Uh, thank you for being willing to devote your talents and time on a hundred percent voluntary basis, um, for, for the, betterment of our entire city.

And it's a tall order, but I am confident in each and every one of you that you are up to the task.

And like I said, I personally, personally dive deep and read all the reports All of the reports, that last report that informed, that helped guide our work in shaping the contours of the eventual voter approved levy, I highly recommend digital copies everywhere.

made sure I incorporated as much of those recommendations into the levy as possible, or in the case where we as a council declined to do so, made sure we had a, it was intentional.

It was an intentional choice for whatever reason.

but the overwhelming majority of those were recommendations were adopted and it was because of your work.

So I read that work.

It is greatly appreciated.

It is valued.

It is treasured and it doesn't go unnoticed.

Very important.

So that said, and I note that I heard Jerry Poore mentioned as a, I think that's the freight's freight board, their appointee and Jerry Poore, is a past, I think the immediate past co-chair of the organization.

So not only did I read those reports, but I called up the co-chairs multiple times.

Hey, what do you think of this?

Here's how we're approaching.

It's important work, okay?

Can't emphasize that enough.

So thank you again.

And glad that we have a labor representative on this board as well.

And all right, cool.

Any final questions, comments from any of my colleagues?

Hearing none, seeing, what's that?

Hearing none, seeing none, besides a shout out for loading docks.

I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 03167, 03171, 03173 and 03174. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmations of the appointments.

Are there any final comments?

All right, hearing and seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council member Kettle?

Aye.

Council member Rink?

Council member Strauss?

Yes.

Vice chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Chair Saka?

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right.

Congratulations.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council confirm the appointments will be sent to the June 10th, 2025 city council meeting.

Congratulations again.

Look forward to working alongside you all.

We will now move on to our fifth item of business.

Will the clerk please read item five into the record?

Agenda item five, Council Bill 120984, an ordinance relating to Seattle's commute trip reduction CTR program, adopting an updated CTR plan, updating references to state law and amending sections 2502020, 2502030, 2502040, 2502050, 2502090, and 2502100 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

That's a lot of 2502s.

All right, thank you.

Will the presenters please join us at the table and share your presentations.

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin.

Good morning, council members.

Candida Lorenzana, Seattle Department of Transportation.

Pillow Board, Seattle Department of Transportation.

Matthew Treka, Seattle Department of Transportation.

Sarah Spicer, Seattle Department of Transportation.

Calvin Chow with Council Central Staff.

We have a bit of a technical issue, but I think the clerk's going to bring the presentation up on the screen, and unfortunately, the laptop's not working suddenly.

Okay.

Yeah.

We'll flex.

Whatever we got.

It's the same presentation that's published on our agenda, correct?

Yeah.

So, colleagues, if you, in the meantime, turn your attention to that or the shared screen.

Could you identify the street in the first slide?

The what?

The image, there's a picture of a street on the first slide.

Let me see, let me see, let me see.

Is that a District 1 street?

From Ballard Dan, it looks like Delridge to me, but...

I'm just putting extra pressure on the chair, that's all.

I'm just trying to stall, but it looks like the presentation's up, so we can keep going.

I'm pulling it up myself.

I'm directing y'all to go, like, let me...

On the...

Oh.

That's definitely my district, but...

When was it taken?

ESDOT, when was it taken?

Trivia.

We probably pulled it from our photo bank.

Probably Delridge, but what is it?

I think it's Delridge.

No, I can see the soccer field that I used to play in out there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, in the corner.

Sorry, this was not supposed to be a trick question that I was just trying to stall.

Sorry, Chair.

In the very corner there.

I see it.

Yep, yep, yep.

Awesome.

All right.

We got it up?

Yep.

Good to go.

Okay, I'm going to do a brief introduction and then I'll have Matt and Sarah kick us off.

For your consideration today, we have the city's four-year commute trip reduction plan.

The plan is a requirement for the city to continue to receive state funding for this important work.

The CTR program is one of the primary ways that we work with businesses and employers to shift trips to transit, walking, biking, or shared rides.

This program helps reduce congestion and supports the city towards making progress towards its environmental goals.

I'm gonna hand it off to Matt and Sarah to walk you through the proposed ordinance and plan.

All right, thank you, Candida.

Chair Saka, Vice Chair Hollingsworth, members of the committee, thanks for having us today.

As Candida mentioned, we're here to present the four-year commute trip production plan.

Our outline today is we'll be walking you through a background of what commute trip production is.

We'll be talking you through the update of the four-year plan and then legislation overview and next steps for consideration.

Next slide, please.

So today we'll be talking about Council Bill 120984. This is to adopt a four-year commute trip reduction plan, as Candida mentioned.

This is an administrative plan that's required by the state, by WSDOT, and the requirement is that we adopt a plan by June 30th of this year.

for the deadline or risk-losing funding.

In the past two-year cycle, this amounted to a little shy of $1.5 million.

We will also be considering updating our drive alone rate employer targets through 2029, which align with the Seattle Transportation Plan targets and goals as adopted by Council, and we'll be approving employers' available tactics to support commuter production compliance.

Next slide, please.

So an overview and a background of commuter production.

This is a law that is over 30 years old.

It is a Washington state law that was passed in 1991. The purpose was to reduce traffic in some of the most heavily trafficked jurisdictions here in the state, including Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland, communities up and down I-5, I-90, Spokane, Issaquah, and others.

And this requires that large employers with at least 100 employees, including us at the City of Seattle as a large employer, with at least 100 employees arriving between 6 and 9 a.m.

in the morning, develop a commuter production plan and participate in our program to reduce the number of people driving alone to work.

So we work really closely with large employers here in the city to offer alternatives to driving alone to work.

as part of this program through partnership and collaboration.

And WSDOT does require us to adopt an updated four-year plan by the end of June of this year.

Next slide, please.

So some of the benefits and why the state passed this law in the early 90s of commuter production, one major one is the reduction in traffic, reduction in congestion here in the city.

This is the primary tool in our toolkit to reduce traffic and congestion during peak hours here in the city of Seattle.

As I mentioned, we work with our major employers to reduce the number of people choosing to drive alone to work, getting them on transit, walking, biking, car sharing, carpooling.

And by shifting people out of single vehicle modes, we're able to do so.

There are also major environmental benefits.

As we know, here at the City of Seattle, over 50% of our emissions are from the transportation sector.

And then this also helps with economic efficiency, quality of life, public health, some of the things that members of the Levy Oversight Committee just mentioned that we want to address here in the city.

And this is really helpful as well.

Reducing traffic really helps freight, helps our emergency vehicles traverse our streets in the speed they need to, and all of the other things that help address quality of life, economic efficiency here in the city.

Next slide, please.

So some of the performance measures of our commuter production program here at the city of Seattle, we currently support over 240 large employers with over 225,000 employees represented between these employers throughout the city of Seattle.

Our program has continued to grow over time.

Here on the right, we have that trajectory since 2007, 2008. Through this program, we've measured our greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 46% since 2007, 2008. And since that timeframe, we've reduced drive alone commutes at these work sites to 32.1% from 37%.

In 2024, this would represent 11,000 vehicles removed from our roadways during peak hours, so during that rush hour time period.

Next slide, please.

So how commute trip production works today?

Our large employers here in the city of Seattle are required to submit two pieces of information during the course of these two-year program cycles.

One is an employee survey, which is where we find out how employees are getting to and from their work site, whether they're driving alone or doing other modes to get to and from work.

The other is a worksite program report.

This is where large employers let us know how they're supporting non-drive alone commute methods to and from the worksite, whether they're providing things like bus passes or bike cages or other options.

Within our program here at the City of Seattle, we have three categories of employer-provided commute support.

These are requirements.

Employers are required to select two strategies from each of these three categories to be compliant with our program here in the city.

One is employee information and amenities.

This is helping employees understand how to get to and from work, sharing information about bus schedules, or maybe where the bike cage is located on the work site.

Subsidies and modal support.

This can include things like providing a bus pass to employees and then parking management.

This relates to making sure that parking or driving alone is not the default for employees reaching the work site.

Next slide, please.

As part of the four year plan and part of the requirement for the state, we're also required to update our drive alone rate targets.

Here in the city of Seattle, we have different networks that we work with employers based on where they're located in the city.

We have the most stringent requirements or most stringent targets with those employers who are located near the most options.

So employers who have access to commuter train, light rail, ferries, a lot of different options, bike lanes, things like that will have more stringent targets than those located on the edge of the city.

This is a partnership target, so this is something that is not punitive.

It requires a good faith effort by the employers to try to meet these targets, which means as long as they're submitting those employer program reports and they're doing those employee surveys, they're compliant for the purposes of this state law and for this city ordinance.

And we worked really closely.

This is really driven through partnership, a program where we work closely with these major employers to support them and their needs to try to meet these targets and try to reduce the number of people driving alone to their different work sites.

Next slide, please.

So some of the next steps as required by the state for the adoption of our four-year plan is for City Council's consideration and approval of the adoption of our 2025 to 2029 commute trip reduction plan before the June 30th deadline.

After this, we would submit our finalized four-year plan to the state.

And finally, we would inform our commute trip reduction affected employers about updates to the program and updates in their network of the city for the next four years, their drive alone rate target that we'd be partnering with them closely on achieving.

And I will open it to the chair and to the committee for any questions.

All right.

Thank you for this presentation.

Very helpful.

Colleagues, I'll open up to you all for any comments or questions on this important proposed plan.

All right.

Uh, go ahead.

Council member Strauss.

Thanks chair.

No, this is just really straightforward legislation.

We took this up, I believe four years ago.

Um, It's a good bill.

We should all vote for it.

Unfortunately, there's not page numbers on the slides, but I would say on the benefits of trip reductions, another trivia question.

Councilmember Saka, what street is the lower photo?

I don't know what the upper photo is, just for the record.

Wait, which one?

The lower photo on those two.

It's Ballard Avenue.

But I can also tell you that it was taken quite a long time ago because that tree is not there and has not been there for quite some time.

There you are.

All right.

All right.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair, and I'm just wondering if Council Member Strauss can figure out where the picture is on slide 10, just to check and see if you got that.

Council Member Kettle, I think that's the Council Member Kettle's district office.

Yes, because unlike my colleague in District 6, I don't have a dedicated office.

But I bring this picture off.

Speaking of offices, you can see Council Member Strauss' office.

It's right there on the second floor on the corner there.

So you've got the best view.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Chao, for the presentation.

A central staff memo, as Council Member Strauss said, pretty straightforward.

Obviously, this is something that we need to move forward on.

There's a lot of influences.

I do note from a policy perspective, we do have some push and pull as the downtown, capital D downtown, and I'll point that out next.

Representative, we're trying to get people downtown.

to work in the offices downtown.

So on the memo, the first bullet, you know, supporting home office telecommute.

We do have that tension because in a lot of ways we need those folks, you know, working downtown for the activation and support of what we're doing on public safety.

That said, I recognize the importance of the, you know, the trip reduction.

And to include that part, I just wanted to note that, you know, we do have some policy tug and pull, particularly in that area.

Really appreciate, you know, part of this is, you know, making things available.

And this is where we're bringing on new things online.

It could be improved.

There's a lot of new improvements around Danny and Mercer on bike lanes, like heading into, from uptown to Queen Anne in that area, but also on the, you know, from uptown into downtown, you know, the Belltown in terms of Denny.

And so that's a huge improvement in terms of getting those type of trip reductions in terms of emitting and so forth.

So there's a lot of different pieces here.

One question I had is going through the slides and the memo and the like is what's going to be the impact of like, you know, I have Sound Transit 3 in my head now.

District 7's gonna be huge as it comes down Interbay and cutting across Uptown into South Lake Union.

That's gonna disrupt the ability to do these kind of, you know, pieces in terms of getting people to ride together and the like, because it's going to create complexity.

And I'm just curious, is there a mitigation?

We talk about mitigation plans a lot for businesses, like the impact of ST3 and so forth.

But in terms of what we're trying to do here, is there going to be mitigations to offset?

And so that natural north-south piece is going to be disrupted.

I can just see human behavior reacting maybe not in a positive way to that challenge and maybe at least not in a good way in terms of like what we're trying to achieve here.

And so I often think about mitigation in terms of support for businesses that are impacted, but is there a version of that in terms of like what you're trying to achieve here with what's happening with ST3?

I think what I would say council member Kettle to that point is one of the pieces of the ordinance that is not pointed out in this presentation is that each of these employers is required to have what's known as an employee transportation coordinator.

This is someone at the work site that's required to be the point person for their employer as a whole and help share the information that we need from SDOT to be shared with that employee population.

So one of the things we do do during construction, pre-construction, is we connect that employer with our project teams up front.

So we did that really closely with Rapid Ride J during the start of that project with Darrell Bomer and team to make sure that any employers up and down that corridor, major employers who are a part of this commuter production program, had the information they needed and had an opportunity to share any feedback around difficulty of accessing their work site.

And then during the process, we keep them in the loop with both the project team, but we also work really closely with our partners to share any alternatives for accessing that corridor or potentially getting around an impacted corridor, whether it's an alternative transportation mode, or whether or not there are ways to sign up for carpools or whatever it is, depending on obviously where in the city it is and the types of impacts and times of impacts.

But we work really closely both with the employer to share information internally, and then we as a team develop a lot of information unique to those projects to help share up the pathways there.

Councilmember, I'd add, maybe say the same thing in a Resourcing and the communications infrastructure with the large employers to be able to get that message out when those projects become impactful.

And then when we identify what the mitigations from the project are, from Sound Transit's project, then this becomes a pathway and resources to help address those issues.

So it's a secondary way to address those types of issues.

Okay, great, thank you.

That all makes sense.

And one thing, I'm gonna put my district hat on again on slide nine, and this is not really an SDOT thing, but Bill, Ms. Laborde, maybe we can engage whoever on the executive side, As you know, the council's working really hard for commercial to residential in the downtown and we're doing that.

And so downtown's become its own neighborhood.

That's why I said earlier, capital D downtown.

And so we need to work together to get rid of the commercial core designator because it's a misnomer and it doesn't really reflect today's Seattle and today's Seattle downtown, particularly in combination with Pioneer Square on one side, Belltown, South Lake Union, Denny Triangle, Uptown, and China CID.

And so just an aside, and it's obviously for another audience, office, but I think that's something that we could work on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you.

And I know this isn't in the order they appeared, but Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Mr. Chair, I want to defer.

I know Councilmember Rank had her hand.

No, okay, sorry.

You hadn't spoke yet, so I wanted to give you the right of first refusal.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I didn't want to cut the line.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rank.

Thank you all for the presentation.

I just had one quick question.

How do you all...

Sorry, I was going to sneeze.

My bad.

I didn't want to sneeze in the microphone and then become a meme.

And I also know not to hold up a blank piece of paper either.

So how do you all work in conjunction with Metro to ensure that, and where I'm getting with this, and I'll set the table for my question, When I'm looking at the numbers, I can see there's a massive drop targets, which is a really great goal for South Seattle to go from 61% or excuse me, 58% to 38%.

Like that's, you know, over 20%.

Same with North Seattle.

And just speaking with residents, and I know this is not my district.

understanding that the investments, you know, the metro service there in South Seattle is very different than what we have in District 3. And I know that SDOT has made a lot of infrastructure investments in some bike lanes and bus lanes, but I also know that some of the service in metro does not match some of the service that we have in District 3. So how do you all work with them to make sure that the infrastructure investments are just as important as the service investments as well?

I don't know if that makes sense, but...

Happy to answer that.

We work very closely with Metro.

They're one of our closest partners, both in getting infrastructure projects done.

We're often working very closely with them to deliver things like the linear bus lines and other pieces, and trying to really bring doing a better job together of bringing the service component.

I think what you're trying to recognize is bringing the service component together with the infrastructure available.

and making those things match.

And as you probably are all aware, through the levy, that was one of the things that we did a lot of delivery on, all the seven rapid ride and transit plus multimodal corridors.

So we've taken a lot of lessons from that to try to make sure that we're building out infrastructure that meets the service needs and that the service is available.

So a little bit of a if you build it, they will come approach to things.

That makes sense.

I think we're a little spoiled.

I know we're spoiled in District 3. The G line obviously being phenomenal because it comes so often and it's just super reliable and it's just you know on point every time and wanting those same similar investments in South Seattle I know the R line, I think it's the R line is coming on 23rd, or not 23rd, but Rainier, and just wanting the infrastructure investments to really match what the service is with Metro, because I think hitting those target goals, it's not only the infrastructure piece, it's the service piece, and it's the type of service.

South Seattle has a lot of older residents who not only take the bus, but they do the metro share, the van opportunities or the access bus.

You know, they do those different things.

And so it's just making sure that those service pieces, and I know that Council Member Sokka and I sit on the Regional Transit Committee.

And so, you know, we'll be advocating for a lot of those investments.

So thank you.

Council member, if I could just make one point.

Next year, likely the executive will be transmitting a proposal related to the Seattle transit measure, which will be up for expiry.

So this types of issue and what Seattle might want to fund will be coming before council.

And yeah, just wanted to plug that in your memory.

Thank you.

Oh, babies.

that council member Hollingsworth or was that?

I'm done.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

And I know in abundance of chivalry and inclusiveness in this room, I wanted to give you right of first refusal, then you pass it on to council member Ravink.

This is so Seattle nice here.

I love it.

There is so much chivalry here at the dais.

And I know we have some special guests.

What school are you all from?

Which elementary?

Bryant.

Bryant Elementary.

All right.

Shout out to Bryant Elementary and the students.

You guys in first or kindergarten?

Kindergarten.

All right.

All right.

Cool.

I got a young son in kindergarten at Fairmont Park Elementary.

But welcome, Bryant Elementary.

This is really literally why we're here, to support our youth in large part because they are our future.

All right.

Come to my ring.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Saka, and welcome to our guests today.

Thanks for coming to the Transportation Committee and welcome to City Hall.

And thank you to our presenters today for bringing this forward for us.

I don't have any questions, but rather just a couple of comments.

And with that, I wanna notice someone who does not own a car this program's focus on reducing traffic congestion and air pollution is a fantastic start to addressing some of the problems that so many folks who are commuting are facing and providing people with alternative options for commuter benefits is a great step towards addressing our climate trust our climate crisis and so chair I wanted to also voice my support if it's possible to take action today again I don't have any questions in this Legislation before us looks particularly straightforward and would voice support for moving forward and taking action today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And yeah, that's what I whispered in your ear about a moment ago is taking a vote on this particular thing today and making an exception, carving out a unique exception.

I ordinarily do not like to vote on as a standard practice on legislation, especially ordinances.

The very first time it's heard at committee because of the state imposed deadline, I think we could still comply with the if we heard it and voted on it, the next committee meeting in two weeks, but just out of abundance of caution, and I think because this is a fairly straightforward routine, I'm gonna deviate from my normal committee chair prerogative and practice and allow us to vote on this today.

So if there are no final questions or comments, oh, Council Member Kettle, go ahead.

Chair Saka, I support this move because I too, as chair of public safety, have the same challenge.

We're getting, last second kind of ask in order to get ahead of state deadlines.

So thank you for the precedent because we'll be using it again next week in public safety related to the EMS levy to which three of us are on that committee.

So thank you for setting the precedent.

Thank you, and let us all, certainly both, commit to using it sparingly though.

Agreed.

Because otherwise that delves into the area of rubber stamping.

I agree.

In which we are not a rubber stamper.

We partner with our executive departments, but we also exercise legislative oversight.

And so, in any event, let's see.

Okay, I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120984. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

All right, it is moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120984. Are there any further comments?

Hearing, seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to pass Council Bill 120984.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Member Strauss?

Yes.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Chair Saka?

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass council bill 120984 will be sent to the June 10th, 2025 city council meeting.

Thank you.

We will now move on to our sixth and final item of business.

Will the clerk please read item six into the record?

Agenda item six, Council Bill 120989, an ordinance relating to the Seattle Department of Transportation authorizing the director of transportation to execute and record a leasehold deed of trust, reflecting cultural space agencies leasehold estate rights created through the agreement it executed with the city of Seattle is authorized under ordinance 126916 and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

Thank you and thank you to our prior presenters leaving.

Thank you, great job.

And looks like we have a, well, a different group of the old presenters.

So please reintroduce yourselves and begin your presentations.

I'm Bill LaBoard from the Seattle Department of Transportation, and I'll be the executive presenter today.

Our co-presenter is not able to make it this morning.

And pardon me, Bill.

Brian Elementary, who's going to take my job one day?

Everyone.

You right there.

Pink shirt.

All right.

You got it.

All right.

Cool.

I want to see you.

Thank you, guys.

All right.

Sorry.

Thank you, Bill.

And Mr. Chow?

Thank you.

So if you could advance to the first slide.

So I'm just going to, these first two slides are more reference.

This legislation is related to a lease hold that the department manages for the second floor of King Street Station.

And just some background, the city, you can actually move on to the next slide, slide three.

In 2008, the city of Seattle acquired King Street Station from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

It's not a typo up there.

We actually purchased it for $10.

For some reason, law said that $1 was too little.

So it was modified to accept a $10 check.

and the city acquired it just in time to begin a major renovation project.

The state had done some work in King Street Station previous to 2008, but in 2008, we had a Our first transportation, I'm sorry, 2006, the first transportation levy for the city of Seattle had passed and $10 million of that funding was allocated towards a rehab, a seismic rehab and renovation of King Street Station.

Fortunately, we were able to acquire about another $40 million in federal money to match that 10 million.

And between 2010 and 2013, SDOT managed a rehab and restoration of the first floor and really the guts of the entire building, including the clock tower.

In 2013, the newly renovated station reopened.

We had space that had formerly been used by the NSF on the second and third floor.

We were originally, I think, We did actually two RFPs that got no takers, and we realized that the reason we weren't getting any takers is because there was still a lot of tenant improvements to do on the second and third floor, including extension of building systems, and the city just didn't have the cash to cover those tenant improvements.

a little bit unsure what to do with the building.

We started, um, we had the opportunity to host a couple, uh, pop arts pop-ups in conjunction with the Office of Arts and Culture, um, in 2015 and 2016. The, um, image on the lower, uh, uh, the bottom image on slide three there was, um, actually from the New York Times, uh, that had that picture on the front page of their arts section talking about this innovative arts fair that was happening at King Street Station back in 2015. That and the next one in 2016 were so successful that Office of Arts and Culture came up with the idea of moving their offices onto the third floor of King Street Station and carving out about two-thirds of that space for exhibition space.

And So for the next couple of years, they built out investing over $2 million and building out that second floor or third floor space and then moved in and 2019 and You know, except for a short break during the early part of the pandemic, they've been hosting, um, exhibits, uh, every two or three months.

Um, very successfully people who work for our office of arts and culture are really happy to have that as their office space.

Um, and around that time in 2019, the idea of, uh, creating a public development authority that would specialize in finding space, affordable space, for arts and cultural organizations emerged.

The city chartered the Cultural Space Agency Public Development Authority, and one of their first concepts was to develop the second floor as a space to host several arts organizations.

And that project where the CSA invested over $4 million in the second floor was built out between 2021 and 2023. And then if you go to the next slide, slide four, you could see all the current uses and agreements that govern the use of King Street stations.

So the first floor is the train station.

Amtrak does have a right to use that in perpetuity.

They inherited that right when the Federal Rail Act passed in 1971. And so they've increased the number of trips quite a bit in the last several years.

And I think they have maybe 11 trips in north and 11 trips south.

each day and so it's a very vibrant train station in the first floor second floor is cultural space agency hosting five different organizations there and the third floor is Office of Arts and Culture and you can see the ordinances that govern those lease agreements and development agreements um, uh, cited on, on page four and slide four.

Going to the next slide.

Um, so here we are today.

Um, we executed the lease with the Cultural Space Agency in 2023. It was adopted by council ordinance at that time.

Uh, the organizations moved in, uh, and had the ribbon cutting at the beginning of last year.

Um, After they moved in, they acquired a $4 million grant from the state of Washington, from the State Department of Commerce, to help cover their costs for that $400,000 is about 10% of what they invested into the second floor.

A condition of that grant, though, is that the city execute leasehold deed of trust.

And the reason is because if CSA was to default on their lease, the state could take over their lease rights under the existing lease conditions, so they would still have to use it as an arts venue, and if they did not use it as an arts venue, then the rent would go up $12 a square foot overnight if they had to use it for office space or something like that.

So that's what this legislation would allow is for the city to execute this deed of trust with CSA in the state of Washington.

And we carefully vetted this with the law department and very intentionally to assure that there'd be no financial risk to the city.

There is no financial risk in some ways.

It's actually sort of a guarantee that if CSA ever does default, that we'd have another tenant taking over automatically, and that would be the state of Washington.

That's the bill.

Happy to answer any questions or pass it along to Cal.

All right.

Cal, anything to offer from your perspective?

Staff's reviewed it and has no issues to raise.

All right.

Excellent.

Colleagues, any comments, questions from the dais?

Looking over, hearing, seeing none.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mr. Laborde, Mr. Chow.

Appreciate your expertise and another very important topic that we'll hear later, learn more about later.

All right.

Thank you again.

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Our next meeting is on June 17th at 9 30 AM.

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

Hearing and seeing no further business to come before the committee, we are hereby adjourned.

It is 11 a.m.

on the dot.