Seattle City Council Transportation & Seattle Public Utilities Committee 5/17/22

Good morning, the May 17, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will come to order.

The time is 9.31 a.m.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Peterson.

Present.

for present.

Thank you and Council Member Sawant is excused today.

Colleagues if there's no objection today's proposed agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good morning again.

Welcome back to the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

Today, we'll vote on four bills from the Seattle Department of Transportation.

These include renewal of permits for three existing tunnels downtown and the renewal of a permit for Skybridge for Swedish Cherry Hill.

We'll also vote on one new utility permit under the right-of-way of Latona Avenue Northeast near North Lakeway in the Wallingford neighborhood.

Then we'll have two presentations from Seattle Public Utilities.

First, we will hear from utility and their outside auditors concerning the conclusions of the 2021 financial audit of the utility.

Spoiler alert, the audits are clean with no material findings.

You'll find extensive financial information on each of SPU's lines of business attached to today's agenda.

sewer and drainage solid waste and drinking water.

Finally, Seattle Public Utilities will present their race and social justice report.

Looking forward.

It'll be three weeks until our next meeting on June 7th.

One item being considered at that meeting will be Mayor Harrell's nomination of Interim General Manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities, Andrew Lee, to serve in a permanent role.

All council members have been invited to participate in that discussion on June 7th.

Colleagues, at this time we'll move to public comment.

It looks like we have five speakers.

We will now open the remote general public comment period.

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

We are continuously looking for ways to fine tune this process, adding new features that will allow for additional means of public participation in our council meetings.

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

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

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

It'll be up to 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

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

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

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

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That is their turn to speak, and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

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

Please remember to press star six before speaking.

Good morning, Rachel.

First, we have Rachel Schaefer, followed by Gordon Padelford.

Go ahead, Rachel.

Good morning, transportation committee.

Thank you for letting me speak today.

My name is Rachel Schaefer, and I'm speaking on behalf of Cascade Bicycle Club.

I just wanted to call everyone's attention today to the person who died while biking in Soto last week at 4th and Holgate Street.

This is also a block away from where another person was killed while biking in January at 3rd and Holgate.

Preventable deaths are truly tragedies for their families and the communities, but they don't happen in a vacuum.

I think for years, the community members have called attention to the really wide and fast roads through Soto that have barely any sidewalks and no safe routes for biking.

And thanks to this pressure in 2019, a Georgetown to downtown bike route through Soto was added to the city's bike master plan.

Yet in three years, all we have to show right now is some very preliminary route designs So the city has to do better and act faster to build safe, protective lanes through here to keep these needless fatalities from occurring again.

So I just wanted to say as the Transportation Committee, you are tasked with providing oversight on transportation matters for everyone in the city, regardless of how they get around.

And so I urge you to please work with SDOT to get funding for and to build this project, because people will continue to walk and bike either to get to their jobs in Soto or to get between Georgetown South Park and downtown.

And we really can't afford to wait any longer to make it safer for them to do this.

So thank you for hearing me out and letting me speak today on this.

Thank you very much.

Next up we actually have Estella Ortega followed by Gordon Padelford.

Go ahead Estella.

Good morning, all.

My name is Estella Ortega, and I am the executive director of El Centro de la Raza, the Center for People of All Races.

As Latinos, we are mestizo, Afro-Latino, and Indigenous people.

We are in our 50th year providing essential services and programs, including early childhood development and affordable housing.

I am here today to add El Centro de la Raza support to a threefold renewal of the housing levy.

The Seattle housing levy is an essential means for increasing and reinforcing equity in our city.

We could not have built Plaza Maestas providing 112 units of affordable housing without the levy.

Housing is a home creating the conditions for a better future, stability, safety, health, graduation, and ultimately a place to thrive with dignity and happiness.

All families deserve this.

We are grateful for your commitment to affordable housing and for your work in increasing our affordable housing with Seattle, with the City Council's passage of Jumpstart in 2020. The times we live in calls for us to triple the housing levy to continue to build an inclusive, beloved community for all.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, and we do have several members on this committee who are on the housing committee.

So we'll move on to the next speaker, Gordon Padelford, followed by Michael Boyle.

Go ahead, Gordon.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Gordon Padelford with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

And like Rachel, I also want to highlight the recent fatalities on our streets, not only in Soto, but in West Seattle.

It's truly tragic, and it's also something we know people care about.

You know, in our poll last fall, we found safety was the top transportation priority for Seattle voters, but unfortunately, we aren't doing enough.

And there are really two important roles that I think this Transportation Committee can play to advance Vision Zero in Seattle, which I know you're all committed to.

And the first is around funding, and we need state and federal funding to really make the big investments in road redesigns like Aurora, and the citywide policy changes like they're right on red to really make some of these things happen.

And the Biden administration just announced $5 billion for local municipalities and I hope you all will support and encourage and push SDOT to put in really robust applications for that federal funding and the state dollars that are available.

And second and perhaps more important is the political will to make hard changes and make the call that Sometimes safety really needs to be the top priority on our streets in these conversations.

So I hope you will continue to support and push this administration to do more to make our streets safer for everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next, we have Michael Boyle, followed by our last speaker, David Haynes.

Go ahead, Michael.

Good morning, council members and Seattle Transportation Committee.

My name is Michael Boyle.

I'm here on behalf of 2016 LLC representing the tunnel permit that's on the docket today.

Just wanted to give some public comment on what that utility tunnel provides as it is a critical connection pathway between the Weston Building facility and the parking garage area.

The pathway and the tunnel carries a majority of the utility and generator power for the building as well as multiple regional, national, international communications networks or outside plant fiber between various entrance entry points in and around that property.

It also conveys cooling tower water and eco district condenser water that make up the cooling systems within the building.

Just wanted to let the council know that that tunnel is very critical to the communications activities that are conducted within the building to include most of the technology utilized in our daily lives, including the 911 systems.

So, thank you.

Thank you.

Our last speaker is David Haynes.

Go ahead, David.

Thank you.

Good morning.

David Haynes, District 7. City Council should step up and demand transit police and city police arrest all the participants in the open air drug markets that still operate throughout the bus corridor, especially before Memorial Day and the upcoming promotion of Ride Public Transit Month.

In fact, council is being slightly irresponsible promoting public transit when it's totally unsafe on 3rd Avenue between Cherry Street and James Street right now, where an encampment is operating an open drug and criminal market denying bus riders any safety.

Yet we have wait times of 20 minutes to 45 minutes throughout an abusive bus system with a union paid to get off shift 30 minutes early, making people miss important meetings and sometimes subjected to overcrowding amidst unmasked, diseased, spit-spraying customs violators with no security capable of maintaining safety without oppressive fair enforcement nor bus drivers ever helping notify security of unsafe situations that oppress and victimize.

People should boycott downtown till Seattle, City Hall, the police chief, council, and the prosecutor's office stop exempting low-level drug pushers from jail that are destroying lives daily.

They're listed nonviolent misdemeanor, yet they're committing crimes against humanity all throughout In every empty door entrance around transit stops and other buildings.

Yet the mayor, the chief thinks they're making it safer, shutting down a bus stop in between pine and Pike.

And looking the other way, when the same criminals move a block down third Avenue around the corner while allowing the same criminals to roam areas of transit while council is going to promote public transportation.

Thank you, colleagues.

That concludes our list of speakers from the general public, and we will now move on to our legislative items on the agenda.

Just as a reminder, the first three items are routine renewals of existing permits, and then we have a resolution that we're also going to vote on today.

So SDOT is the star of the show here going forward, and we're We'll hear from Amy Gray from SDOT and really appreciate the work of central staff who worked on memos for these renewals of these routine term permits.

And so we do have Lish Whitson here with us and then Calvin Chow worked on the fourth item.

So Lish, since you're here, did you want to introduce anything about these term permits or at least this first one that's downtown?

No, these are routine renewals.

You've seen a number of these already this year, and this is very similar to other renewals you've reviewed.

Okay, thank you, Lish.

And we know you'll be standing by if we have any questions, since we plan to vote on these today.

So, Amy, Greg, good morning, and anybody else from SDOT, welcome.

We know you're going to share a presentation.

Colleagues, we did email these presentations, and they will be posted later to the agenda.

The agenda, of course, has the legislation, the summary and fiscal note, and the central staff memo, and we will be publishing these brief PowerPoint presentations as well.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

My name is Amy Gray, and I work in the Seattle Department of Transportation on Council term permits, so you'll see me a lot this morning since I have four items on the agenda.

So the first of these is the 2001-6 LLC utility tunnel renewal.

Next slide, please.

So the applicant is seeking renewal of this permit for an existing utility tunnel in the alley between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue north of Virginia Street.

The utility tunnel provides a pathway for a major portion of the utility and generator power for the Weston building tenants from the parking garage.

The Weston building Tenants are tech servers.

It's where basically the internet lives in Seattle.

There's lots of connections that are of vital importance for the operation of the building that use the tunnel.

This permit was originally granted in 1999, and the renewal will be for 15 years if it is approved.

And SDOT is recommending renewal of the permit.

Next slide, please.

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to provide the council, because I don't think I have this to date, what the significant structures definition is in the Seattle Municipal Code.

And to meet the level for a term permit, the structure needs to be in the right of way for a long time.

It would impede the city's or public's flexibility of using the right of way.

And it is necessary for the functioning of the business.

The right of way is defined as not only the street service but the area above and below the surface.

And so, these connections below grade are considered part of the right of way, and that is why they need the council term permit.

Councilmember stress dicey your handle up.

No, thank you.

I'm just always so very excited about.

There's a lot of history on this why this is the Internet hotel that I can tell you about it another time because I always know that you're interested in wonky land use history of Seattle so just.

got it I love it the Internet hotel, did you say.

It's yeah, it's basically kind of where the Internet lives.

There's it's 34 floors of building and 70% is used for servers and exchanges and roughly 30% is still used as office space.

So I think that the governor's office in Seattle is located in the building as well.

So it has a it's got a lot of security so.

No, the Internet needs to pay the hotel tax.

I don't think so.

I think they just call it a hotel.

Sorry, Chair.

So at renewal, what we do is we look at the current use of the right of way to make sure it's consistent with the original terms and conditions of the authorizing ordinance and to make sure that there hasn't sort of been a scope creep or anything like that.

So we're really making sure that the intent of the original ordinance is being met and that the applicant continues to abide by those terms and conditions.

With the renewal ordinance, we update all kinds of information regarding inspection requirements, insurance language, indemnification language to protect the city from risk, the bond amount, and the fees.

So for this project, the bond is $10,000, and the 2022 fee is $3,340.

Next slide, please.

So as we noted, this project is downtown.

It's in this alley that also has two sky bridges in the alley under separate term permits.

And then there is a sky bridge over Virginia Street.

So this is a very busy location for term permits, but this is in the alley between 2016 building and the parking garage.

Next slide, please.

So here's an image of under the alley where the connection lives.

And these connections basically allow us to do business now in online world and access our phones and critical services as 9-1-1, participate in this Zoom meeting.

It's all through these connections that happen in this tunnel in the alley.

Next slide, please.

ESSAD is recommending approval of this renewal.

If the ordinance is approved, it will be renewed for 15 years up to 2037. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Amy.

I would like us to read the item into the record real quickly here and then we can see if there are any questions.

We'll have our clerk read it into the item 1 here, Council Bill 120300. Go ahead.

Agenda item one, council bill 120300, an ordinance granting permission to 2001 6 LLC to continue operating and maintaining a utility tunnel under the alley between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue, north of Virginia street, repealing section eight of ordinance 119437 and providing acceptance of the permit and conditions for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

And we already had the presentation and SDOT is recommending approval of this renewal.

Our central staff has identified no issues.

Again, it's a renewal.

So just want to ask council members if they do have any questions, otherwise I'll move for approval of this bill.

Okay.

Great, thank you, Councilor Strauss.

That's helpful to know.

So, colleagues, I will now move that the committee recommend approval of Council Bill 120300, item one on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded by Councilor Strauss to recommend passage of this bill.

Are there any final comments?

Okay, great.

Will the clerk please call the role on the committee recommendation that the council will be approved for forwarding to the full council.

Council Member her bold.

Yes.

Council Member her Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Peterson.

Yes.

For yes, no opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

And the committee recommendation is that the council will be sent for approval to the May 24th city council meeting.

And we'll have S.Enlish stay here.

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

Item two, agenda item two, council bill 120301, an ordinance granting King County permission to continue maintaining and operating two pedestrian tunnels under and across Ninth Avenue between Alder Street and Jefferson Street, repealing section eight of ordinance 123842 and providing for acceptance of the permit and conditions for briefing, discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

And again, we've got Lish Whitson and Amy Gray.

Lish, any opening remarks about this renewal, which is actually for two separate tunnels?

Okay.

All right.

And we've got your memo on the agenda as well, noting no issues with this.

So Amy Gray from SDOT, please.

I know you've got another presentation for us.

Thank you.

I do.

I'm just waiting for Bill to bring it up.

All right, so yes, King County operates Harborview Hospital and King County owns Harborview Hospital, but the UW Medicine operates the facility for them.

Next slide.

So they are seeking approval to renew to existing pedestrian tunnels under 9th Avenue between Alder Street and Jefferson Street, the North tunnel connects the Harborview Medical Center to the mailing building and the South tunnel connects the main building to the research and training building and the East clinic.

This renewal will be for 15 years as well.

The permit for the two tunnels was originally granted in 1956, although the original permit was for one tunnel to the hospital for housing for nursing students in 1930. So the one tunnel has been around for a long time.

The second tunnel has been around for a lot longer time.

And SDOT is recommending approval of this renewal as well.

Next slide, please.

So this meets the definition of a significant structure for the long duration and impeding the public's and the city's ability to use the right-of-way, and it is necessary for the functioning of the business.

Hospitals are required to have connections, continuous connections, to maintain levels of safety and machine operations and sanitation and for them to move supplies.

And if they didn't have these connect types of connections, they would have to duplicate these facilities in separate buildings.

So it really is necessary to the function of the operations.

Next slide, please.

Again, this is the process.

We look to make sure that the tunnels are operating as authorized from the original ordinance.

We update the fees, inspection requirements, indemnification language.

We don't require bonds for King County or other public entities.

So it does not have a bond.

But if at any point in time the ordinance allows SDOT and council to require a bond if the ownership of the hospital is transferred to another entity.

Council Member Morales, did I see your hand go up?

Okay, I'm sorry.

It's a little hard to read body language via the screen.

So the fee on this project for 2022 is $7,508.

Next slide.

Harborview is located upon First Hill.

It's the major trauma burn center for the Pacific Northwest.

It has vital importance to the health and safety of our community and the location of the two tunnels outlined there.

Next slide.

So here's pictures of the tunnels.

They're just functional operational tunnels.

They can be used by the public, but they're primarily used by visitor staff and patients using the hospital facilities.

Next slide, please.

SDOT is recommending approval for these renewals as well.

And like the previous ordinance, if the renewal is granted, it will be through 2037. And happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much.

Again, Council Members, we've got the central staff memo identifying no issues with this renewal and SDOT is recommending approval and just had the presentation.

So any questions before I move this out of committee?

Great.

Okay, Council Members, I now move that the committee recommend approval of Council Bill 120301, item two on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that Council Bill 120301 be approved for forwarding to the full council?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Did I hear a yes there?

Yes.

Council Chair Peterson.

Yes.

For yes, no nose.

Okay, the motion carries the committee recommendation is that the council they'll be sent for approval to the May 24 City Council meeting.

Thank you, colleagues.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item in the record.

Agenda item three, council bill 120302, an ordinance granting Swedish Health Services permission to continue maintaining and operating an existing pedestrian sky bridge over and across Cherry Street, west of Broadway and east of Minor Avenue.

Repealing section nine of ordinance 123048 and providing for the acceptance of the permit and conditions for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you, and this is a skybridge that's existing that will be approving the renewal of that permit.

Again, Lischwitzen had a memo, no issues with this, and Amy Gray is here from SDOT for a brief presentation.

Hello again, Amy.

Hello, council members.

So this is a skybridge that is up on First Hill, operated by the Swedish Health Services.

Next slide, please.

They are seeking renewal of this permit for the SkyBridge.

It was originally granted in 2009. It connects the First Hill campus with the Swedish Orthopedic Center across the street, and it would be for 15 years, and SDOT is recommending approval.

Next slide, please.

So just pointing out a slight difference between sky bridges and other significant structures sky bridges have their own section of the code 1564 there's when they're new and when they are at the end of their terms there's a higher threshold of review for them to be approved for make.

for council to make that decision.

And like the other hospitals, the SkyBridge is necessary to the functioning of Swedish Hospital so that they can meet the requirements that are required by the federal government for hospitals regarding sanitation and transfer of patients, et cetera.

Next slide, please.

So like we've done with the other ones, we made sure that Swedish hasn't added any uses, major utilities across the SkyBridge during the renewal period.

So they're still continuing to operate it as it was intended in 2009. We have updated the bond and fee language to include the bond of $150,000 in the event that SDOT needs to take the Skybridge out, which we don't anticipate ever happening, but Council does have that authority in the ordinance if Council chooses that this area is needed for transportation purposes.

The fee in 2022 is $22,809.

Next slide, please.

It's located in First Hill near the main Swedish campus.

Next slide.

Here's some images of the SkyBridge from the outside at ground level and from what you'd see from your bike, your car, or walking down the street.

And inside, you see a hospital worker using the SkyBridge to go between the facilities.

Next slide, please.

So we again are recommending approval of this renewal.

And if this ordinance is approved, it would be renewed through 2037 and it would reach the end of its original term.

And so it would require re-permitting at that point where we would make sure that the hospital continued to need it for the operations of the facility and any public benefit that would be required at that time would be evaluated and SDOT would make that recommendation to council as well.

So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, any questions about this renewal for the SkyBridge?

OK.

All right.

Well, thank you, Amy, for that presentation.

Thank you, Lish, again, for your memo on this.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend approval of Council Bill 120302, Item 3 on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

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

Are there any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that Council Bill 120302 be approved for forwarding to the full City Council?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson.

Yes.

For in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation is that the council bill be sent for approval to the May 24 City Council meeting.

Will the court please read the title of the next agenda item in the record items for

Agenda item four, resolution 32053, a resolution granting conceptual approval to construct, maintain and operate private communication conduit under and across Latona Avenue Northeast, north of Northeast North Lake Way as proposed by Dunn Lumber Company as part of the construction of a new lumber warehouse in the Wallingford neighborhood for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you, colleagues.

This new permit is for a project, as was mentioned, the Wallingford neighborhood of District 4 Dunlumber is constructing a new building across the street from its existing lumber yard and store and seeks to connect the buildings with an underground fiber optic cable running under Latona Avenue Northeast.

We do have a presentation here.

Calvin Chow, thank you for your memo on this as well.

And Amy's back to do the presentation, I believe.

Yes, I am.

So this, like Council Member Peterson noted, this is for a new permit by Dunlumber Company for private communication conduit under Latona Avenue Northeast.

Next slide, please.

So the communication conduit would connect the existing Dunlumber office with the new warehouse facility across the street.

To the right here, you see the proposed location Next slide, please.

This is a significant structure, and how we evaluated this is that it will be in the right-of-way for a long duration, and it's necessary for the functioning of the business.

For new permits, they have to meet the threshold of a compelling need for the long-term use of the right-of-way that cannot be accommodated on their private property.

And SDOT has, we've done this evaluation, and we agree that they have a compelling need for this long-term use of the right-of-way.

Next slide please.

So, for new permits it's a two step process.

The first step is Council adoption of a resolution that provides conceptual approval to the applicant so they know that council likes the project, is comfortable with it moving forward.

We work with our street improvement permit colleagues.

They determine whether it's not technically feasible.

We don't take something to you for a possible vote on conceptual approval unless the engineers have determined that this use can be accommodated in the right away from an engineering perspective.

The second step in the process is the ordinance, where it outlines the terms and conditions of the permit the obligations for payment of fees maintenance obligations during the time between resolution and.

ordinance, the engineers work through the final details, make sure that there's an approved project that is at 100% approval.

They don't issue the permit until council makes their vote because you have the authority to approve or deny an application.

So we would not issue a street improvement permit until we've got that okay from you.

But we do want to make sure that it's a real project that you are approving at that time.

Next slide, please.

So the conduit will carry private communications between the two facilities, and it will connect the two facility operations in a way that makes it operational for the business to function.

Next slide, please.

So here's a larger image showing the proposed location of where the conduit would go under Latona Avenue Northeast.

It's just a small communication conduit that would run fiber optics between the two facilities.

Next slide, please.

Here's just some images.

The upper right, it's a little hard to see.

The upper right-hand corner with the squiggly line shows the existing Dunlumber site, and then the image just to the left of it shows the new facility.

Next slide, please.

So this project is located in Wallingford at the Dunlumber facility off Latona Avenue Northeast, north of Northeast North Lake Way.

Next slide please.

So we are recommending Council provide conceptual approval by this resolution of the communication conduit.

If the resolution is adopted, we will prepare the term permit ordinance and work with our colleagues in the street improvement permit group to make sure it's They're meeting the obligations and addressing their concerns regarding the technical aspects of construction and long-term operation in the right of way.

If the ordinance is approved, it will be in place for 15 years, and it will have one renewable 15-year term.

And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

And thanks for the opportunity to speak to you.

Thank you very much.

And thank you for putting everything into context that today we're approving just the resolution, conceptual approval for that conduit pipe that would go underground across the street.

It's not the project as a whole.

And even for this pipe, this conduit pipe across the street, we're going to get another opportunity to decide whether to approve it via the council bill that you'll send to us in the future.

Okay, well, thank you to our central staff expert Calvin chow on this one for for your memo on this and it's my understanding no issues were identified with this particular resolution so.

Colleagues, are there any questions for central staff or s dot.

Okay.

All right, well, council members, I now move that the committee recommend approval of resolution 32053, item four on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the resolution.

Any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that resolution 32053 be approved for forwarding to the full council?

Excuse me, Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Peterson.

Yes.

That's four yes and no opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation is that the resolution be sent for approval to the May 24th City Council meeting.

Thank you, Amy, for all your hard work on this.

Appreciate it.

And thanks to central staff, Lish and Calvin.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate your time.

Okay, colleagues, those were the items we're voting on today.

We have two presentations now, both from Seattle Public Utilities.

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

Agenda item five, Seattle Public Utilities 2021 audit report for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

As we know Seattle Public Utilities is one of the city's largest departments that manages three major business lines wastewater drainage solid waste and drinking water.

Each of these business lines is managed separately for financial control purposes and.

The utility has to have its financial statements audited and the results of these audits are presented to the City Council through this committee.

So I'm very pleased that the auditors from the independent firm, Moss Adams, have essentially given Seattle Public Utilities a clean audit.

The independent auditors express no concerns regarding the numerous areas of their thorough review.

and we will get their presentation.

Now we've got several documents related to this attached to our agenda as well.

So welcome, Moss Adams.

Thank you so much.

I am here, Lori Tisch, a partner with Moss Adams, as well as Nicole Steekmeyer-Janes, who is the manager for the audit engagements.

And we do have a presentation for you.

This committee serves as our board governance or those charged with governance over the utilities.

So we do have some required communications as part of our auditing standards that we make to you upon the conclusion of our audits.

I will share my screen here for you all.

Thank you.

And for the viewing public and colleagues, we also do have the interim general manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities with us.

Andrew Lee, welcome.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

Just a minute.

Let me get the correct presentation up here.

And General Manager Lee, if you had introductory comments to the audit, we could hear those now.

Otherwise, we can just jump into the presentation.

Yeah, in short, just we're really pleased.

We obviously do these financial audits every single year related to revenues, expenses, cash flows, and I'm very pleased to report that we've received a clean audit.

So I'll just pass it back off to Lori.

Thank you.

Nicole, if you want to give me a heads up, if you are seeing the presentation, because I can't see the screen that you're seeing.

Yes.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Right.

Well, first, just to review, we do provide an audit for each of the three funds.

And a reminder that as part of that scope, we do not draft the financial statements.

Management is actually responsible for preparing and putting the financial statements together.

And then our responsibility is to come in and perform the audit to determine if the amounts are presented fairly.

And you'll see from my presentation that there are a number of systems of internal controls that we test as well, so it's not just a matter of looking at the ending financial statement amounts, but also the systems and processes that combine those numbers into the financial statements.

I also want to reassure the committee that our audits are not duplicated by the state auditor.

So the state auditor does rely on the work that we do for each of the funds.

They come into our office or it's actually done remotely now, but they used to come into our office in person and review our work papers to satisfy themselves that a proper audit has been done.

And then those financial statements roll up into the city's annual comprehensive financial report.

The other purpose for our audit reports is that the funds use them in the official statements for the bond issuances and, of course, the audit report and the financial statements are available to all of the cities and the utility stakeholders.

As Chair Peterson noted, we did issue a clean or unmodified opinion on each of the three separate sets of financial statements.

We did complete our audit as the deadline required by the end of April and the reports are all dated on April 29th.

The other piece of good news I'm bringing to the committee today is that we, as part of our audit, we do provide you with a report on internal controls.

And I am pleased to note that there were no material weaknesses noted and no significant deficiencies.

So again, another clean set of reports for all three sets of utilities with respect to the internal controls.

Now this slide just really lays out in graphic form our responsibilities.

So I already mentioned, we express an opinion.

We perform the audit in accordance with two different sets of auditing standards.

What I would call almost the regular set issued by the American Institute of CPAs, but also because SPU is part of the government of city of Seattle, we do perform the audit under government auditing standards.

which has a number of different increased procedures and standards that we abide by as CPAs relating to our independence, relating to our ability to perform additional procedures.

And that's also the reason that we provide that internal controls report.

It does require us to look at the internal controls at an elevated level.

I do want to mention, though, we didn't look at the internal controls for the purpose of opining on those internal controls, but rather because of their support and the rationale for those systems combining into the financial statements and behind the numbers that are in the financial statements.

And lastly, our responsibility, which we're carrying out this morning with you, is to communicate the findings and the status of our audit.

Now, the next couple slides, I just want to cover the areas that we particularly believe carry risk or that we really spend most of our time.

We, of course, look at the entire set of financial statements and all of the amounts and all of the aligned items.

But when we sit down to plan our audit and where are we going to spend most of our time, these are the accounts that rise to that level.

Really at the heart of the audit is your utility plant and the related accounts that feed into that and the systems that feed into that your work orders of your agenda so far this morning has related to these projects, so we take a very hard look at all of the projects, how they're accounted for.

all of the systems such as cash disbursements, payroll, overhead, any type of charges that go into those utility plants, those self-constructed assets.

And we look at those very closely.

And then on the other side of the coin is how are those projects financed through bonds, through your investments?

So again, we're looking at the side of how the projects are paid for and what is really making that utilities tick as far as the operations.

I mentioned already the internal controls that we look at the systems that are listed here are the primary systems that we do we put together samples of transactions to test or we look at the controls that are in place in those systems.

And some of those listed here, cash receipts and disbursements, payroll.

We look at all of the procedures that go into drafting those financial statements at year end.

Budgeting, of course, for a governmental entity is very important, as is your treasury, your investments.

I mentioned debt already.

And the last one is particularly important.

Each year, information technology and those general computer controls that are in place have increased importance.

So we do spend a lot of time.

In fact, I have an entire team of IT specialists that spend time diving into the IT and general computer controls at every audit that we perform.

And of course, the income statement is important as well, your retail and wholesale sales.

We look at your operating expenses and your non-operating expenses, and your equity, which is called for a governmental entity, net position.

Also this year, you did have, or in 2021, and it will be true again in 2022, you do have a lot of bond activity.

So we do look at the new bond issuances, any refundings or payments of old bonds, and defeasances that occur.

So again, the more active you are in the bond market, we do ramp up our procedures related to that.

And then, lastly, we do read the management discussion and analysis that precedes those financial statements to make sure that everything is consistent and that the dollar amounts tie.

And we do audit the note disclosures that are related to those financial statements.

Now, the next few slides I'm going to go through rather quickly.

These are the matters that we are required to communicate to you.

They're all fairly standard and routine.

And because you have them in your packets, I'll just do a high-level overview as we go through.

And then, of course, if you want to go back and have questions on any of them, or feel free to interrupt me as I go through if you'd like to stop and talk about any of them.

Essentially, the note one to your financial statements explain all of the significant accounting practices and policies in place.

We spend a lot of time looking at these policies and, as I mentioned, testing the internal controls that comprise those policies and procedures.

There were no changes to those policies.

They're very consistent with the prior year, and we believe that they are reasonable and in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

We had no difficulties performing the audit this year, and there were no disagreements with management.

There were no past adjustments.

And by that, I mean, oftentimes, if we see a small error in the financials, it's very small, we might post it, but it doesn't get posted until the following year, just because it's small.

But I'm here to tell you, we did not have any of those past adjustments.

In fact, the only one that was recorded was one reclassification entry for the Water Fund, which just impacted a couple of accounts on the balance sheet.

So no impact at all to the operations of the Water Fund.

We do obtain a representation letter from management every year that just really lists out their assumptions and their beliefs regarding a lot of the estimation that are in the financial statements, because of course a lot of the numbers do come from estimates such as environmental liabilities or potential litigation, allowance for doubtful accounts to the receivables or depreciation.

And the only other unusual item that was in that letter this year, there was a new accounting standard that was required to be adopted this year related to interest costs on construction projects.

And because the utilities adopted regulatory accounting, there's no change going forward with the utilities policies on this.

Interest costs will continue to be recorded in your construction projects each year.

We are not aware of management consulting with any other accountants.

And I did just want to point out that, as I mentioned earlier, SPU is subject to environmental liability claims or legal claims that come along in the ordinary course of business.

And we believe the utilities each properly dispose this exposure in the financial statements.

And again, this is an area that's covered in our letter of representation as well.

And then lastly, Moss Adams is independent, not only with respect to each of the utilities, but also to the city of Seattle as a whole.

And finally, I just want to say the audit went very, very well this year.

It's our second full year of doing it all remotely.

I sure hope we can be back in person at least partially going forward, but we're doing quite well in the remote environment.

We have status meetings, certainly almost on a daily basis with some men.

members of management, and then we have our formal weekly meetings where we really go through anything that's open, how are we on track with the deadlines, and having great communication between both parties.

So that continues to go very well.

I do want to just take a moment too and let the committee know, we spend a lot of time looking at internal controls and how to do those controls reverberate throughout the entire organization, not just the accounting department.

And I really truly believe there's just a great tone at the top amongst senior executives of Seattle Public Utilities.

They're very open to being audited and you're audited by a lot of parties, not just by us.

And everyone does seem to understand the benefit of that.

They're very open in their, Dealings with us and their communications with us they're very helpful when we asked for schedules or data to support the financial statements, it was always provided on a timely basis so the audits all went.

on time, even ahead of schedule in many phases, and couldn't have gone better, really, from our perspective.

So I do want to give a big thank you to the accounting and finance team, especially, because it is a lot of work and we're very intrusive when we're in there for audits.

So again, it went very, very well this year, and I do want to extend our thanks for that.

Thank you very much.

And I know Colleagues, we talk a lot with constituents and other partners about financial and fiscal accountability.

And here we have it in action.

Here's this $1 billion City of Seattle enterprise.

And it worked really hard to compile their financial statements, but then having them independently audited.

every year with these different lines of business and to have such good marks coming back from the independent auditor is very pleasing, I know, and normally we'd have a bunch of questions, but because the audit was clean with no material issues and thorough, and I know City Council Central staff reviewed this as well.

So I really want to thank Moss Adams for their independent work reviewing it and Colleagues, any questions for the independent auditor or for our interim general manager and CEO Andrew Lee about the financial statements?

Okay.

And for the viewing public, these are all published on our agenda if you're interested in seeing them.

But the bottom line is SPU got another clean audit this year, which we appreciate.

All right, well, thank you very much to those from Moss Adams.

And I know Andrew Lee will be staying for the next item.

And colleagues, the next item is our last item on the agenda.

So we'll have the clerk go ahead and read that into the record for public.

Agenda item six, Seattle Public Utilities Race and Social Justice Initiative Report for briefing and discussion.

Thank you and colleagues I, as you know, we're hearing from several departments, their race and social justice initiatives and accomplishments and plans for the future to do more.

So, we are doing this with Seattle Public Utilities and later this year with Seattle Department of Transportation.

And we have Andrew Lee here, our interim director, interim general manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities.

And he's joined by some others on his team at SPU.

But I'll go ahead and turn it over to Andrew Lee.

Welcome back.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, and thank you, Councilmembers.

I want to begin this presentation from a place of humility and self-reflection.

Despite the many years of focus on race and social justice within our city and in our department, the reality is that racism, bias, and injustice continue.

And we don't need to look any further than the senseless murders that took place this past weekend in Buffalo to know that racism is still alive in our country.

And no matter how much we want to believe that things are better, people are still losing their lives over this fight.

And yet in the midst of living in a country with a deeply rooted history of racism, we have examples of cities like Seattle and organizations like SPU who are standing up in this fight and saying enough is enough.

And I want to say I'm incredibly proud to be part of a city and an organization that are working to dismantle racism.

I'll be the first to say that we're far from perfect, but we are committed to this future where race and social justice are not the exception, but the norm.

Today, I'm joined by Monica Lewis from Customer Care, Niu Fuavai, who oversees recruiting within our Human Resources Division, Todd Snyder, who oversees our Apprenticeship Program, and Leslie Webster, who is our Planning Manager within our Drainage and Wastewater Line of Business.

Each of our presenters today will be sharing what advancing race and social justice looks like within their part of the organization.

And lastly, as I launch into this presentation, you'll hear me say repeatedly, that racial equity work is not the work of any one person or set of people in our organization, it's the work of our entire department.

And I want to say a big thank you to our environmental justice and service equity team, our change team, and many SPU staff who have made huge contributions to advancing RSJ at SPU.

Go to the next slide.

I'd like to start off by grounding us in our strategic business plan, which started last year and is part of our RSJ work.

Our mission, as you can see here, speaks explicitly about partnering with our community for equitable water and waste management.

This means that providing our services with a focus on racial equity and social justice is a part of our core mission.

This mission statement was approved by the City Council last spring in 2021. And I do consider this meaning having equity in our mission as an important accomplishment on its own.

Go to the next slide.

I'd also like to highlight one of our CARES principles.

These are shared values within SPU that guide all that we do.

And one of these principles is equity and empowerment.

It centers on dismantling institutional racism in our employees' work.

This principle, alongside our core mission together, exemplify how we're thinking about RSJ with an SPU.

We are increasing centering race and dismantling institutional racism in the work of our 1,400 plus employees.

And it's our shared values that guide us and help us individually understand our role in advancing RSJ with an SPU.

And that's the frame for today's presentation.

So SPU has been striving to lead with equity in the provision of utility services for the past 15 years.

And I'll be the first to say that my own personal journey of centering my professional career on racial equity started right here at SPU a little more than 15 years ago.

As I mentioned, the work of racial equity needs to be at all levels in the utility, which means that the employee in the contact center should feel empowered to advocate and provide resources for families who are struggling to pay their bills means the collection worker and drainage and wastewater should be empowered to point out the parts of our system where we have discrepancies in our level of service.

And the recruiter in HR should be empowered to pursue new ways of reaching out to community with job opportunities.

And so what's shown in this graphic are the structures that we have in place to empower all employees in SPU to do racial equity where they are at.

On the left-hand side, the teal side of the graphic, you can see that similar to many other departments, we have a change team.

We have affinity groups.

We have an anti-racist white allies group and the silence breakers.

We're also incredibly fortunate to have a dedicated team of individuals in our environmental justice and service equity team whose role it is to advance racial equity work across the entire department.

This EJSE team works on racial equity toolkits for our projects and programs.

They help us to achieve our utilization goals for women and minority business enterprises.

And they assist with focused efforts such as our language access program and our community connections program.

On the right-hand side in blue, we have teams that are embedded in specific parts of utility.

We call them the BETs or the Branch Equity Teams.

These teams establish work plans in partnership with branch leadership to address and advance the most pressing RSJ needs in their branch.

These branch equity teams provide critical on-the-ground work to grow RSJ at SPU.

And then just last year, we put together this new group called the Equity Bridge that is working to coordinate work across all the teams.

And so it has representatives from all the teams shown here and it works to amplify the collective impact of all our teams through prioritization, communication and coordination.

So I just like to end this slide by saying I want to specifically recognize all the SPU staff who work on these teams.

They are the engines that help us with our forwarded momentum and our accomplishments that we're presenting today are because of these teams.

So the structure that I referred to in the previous slide has been instrumental in advancing racial equity work across the utility in a decentralized employee-led fashion.

Last year, we collected a total of 49 racial equity action plans representing work that is done by the BETs, EJSC, the Change Team Affinity Groups, and other SPU leadership structures.

And I'm proud to say that SP's racial equity action plans made up nearly one-fifth or 20% of the racial equity plans that were submitted citywide to the Office of Civil Rights last year.

And this slide just shows that the distribution of action plans was across all the different branches in our utility.

So if I'm to summarize the work in these action plans, we are first working towards a community-centered relational culture by empowering community, building internal capacity, and promoting workplace equity.

Second, we're trying to embed racial equity into how we deliver our programs, projects, and essential services.

And then third, or lastly, we're applying race and social justice lenses to policies and planning to center racial equity and decision-making and advancing long-term systemic change.

And so of our 49 plans, 32 represent multi-year initiatives that we're continuing to work on in 2022. And later in this presentation, you'll have an opportunity to hear from four SPU employees who are working on three specific action plans.

So before we launch into three specific examples, I want to look at a few metrics to respond to the question of, are we making a difference?

The first area is on the demographics of our recruiting and hiring efforts.

The charts on this slide show two measures.

The first shown in the darker blue bars on the left is the percentage of new hires that are BIPOC employees.

The second shown in the lighter blue bars on the right is our overall employee demographics.

As you can see, over the past three years, our BIPOC hiring percentages, which were already high in 2019, have actually increased the last two years.

And in 2021, of our 364 hires, as you can see, more than 50% were BIPOC.

Not only have we increased our rate of hire for BIPOC employees, we've also provided growth opportunities for those employees.

As shown in the upper right green circle, more than half of our current leadership team are BIPOC employees.

This includes myself, our executive team, our division directors, and our senior executive assistants.

In terms of promotions, as shown on the bottom right circle, 70% of SPU's promotions in 2021 were BIPOC employees.

So these charts are good signs that we're making progress.

However, I don't want to overstate things.

As a large department, we still have parts of our organization where the diversity is not good, and there are barriers to advancement that still exist.

And that is where we're focusing our energy on making sure that this type of progress is visible in every part of our organization.

Going to the next slide.

Another measure of racial equity progress is our utilization of women and minority-owned business enterprises, or WIMBYs, with respect to consultant contracts, purchasing, and public works contracts.

Increased WIMBY utilization is a significant benefit to our city because it leads to wealth and capacity building in BIPOC communities.

As you are aware, so much of the money that we spend ends up going to businesses and profit centers outside of our region.

So when we can invest in minority and women-owned business enterprises, we're putting money back into community.

And as you can see from this chart in 2021, we exceeded our consultant and purchasing goals, both by 5%.

Not shown on this slide is the city's WIMBY utilization for contractors that is tracked by FAS.

In 2021, the utilization rate for SPU was at 11.9%, which is slightly less than the city's average of 15.1%.

So there is room to improve in that.

Achieving these goals involves a significant amount of work to remove barriers for Wembley firms, and this includes hosting networking events, other engagement activities, building relationships with our project managers, our procurement staff, our EJSC team, hosting pre-proposal, pre-bid meetings and identifying other ways to make contracting more accessible for minority women business enterprises.

Yes, we do have a question from Council Member for Boulder comment.

Thank you.

Yeah, go ahead.

So much.

I'm just wondering, could you remind us whether or not the consultant and purchasing goals for WMBIE engagements are citywide or if they're developed department by department?

I believe they're citywide.

And so, but I would need to confirm because I'm only familiar with our specific goals.

Sure.

And so the, those goals are given to you, not, you don't, the department doesn't develop them.

Yeah.

And typically I think we try to have stretch goals.

So we're trying to increase our goals every single year.

And you are fantastic.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

This last slide is just talking about our customer assistance programs.

And so, you know, at a high level, making sure our rates are affordable for our customers means that customer assistance programs are reaching those with the greatest financial needs.

And as you know, this was especially important during COVID when many of our customers were unable to pay for their utility bills.

Our work on providing customers with financial assistance has a significant intersection with racial equity since the single greatest determinant of wealth in our city is race.

And so we have different forms of customer assistance as shown on this slide.

We have our emergency assistance program, and I'll first talk about this.

This is a program designed to help households where they're having trouble paying for one or two bills.

As the name implies, it's to help people going through emergency situations, whether that be a temporary unemployment or unexpected medical bill.

And in 2020 we expanded our emergency assistance program to allow individuals to use that program twice, as opposed to just once a year, and that benefit was previously only available to households with children.

And so through this program in 2021, we were able to provide $1.5 million of assistance to 3,159 accounts.

So households were receiving up to $954 in assistance.

We were also able in 2021 to provide income eligible households with federal COVID rental assistance money.

And through this, SPU dispersed about a half a million dollars to 355 qualifying accounts.

The average assistance was around $1,400.

And then lastly, SPU currently has 9,779 accounts enrolled in our utility discount program.

And so through the UDP or the utility discount program, we reduced utility bills for income eligible households in half.

And based on our estimates, approximately 40% of eligible households in Seattle are currently signed up for this program.

Similar programs across the country typically have rates around 20 to 25%, with 30% considered to be a high number.

So SPU actually has one of the highest enrollments in the nation.

Even with our high enrollment, though, we're still pursuing additional measures to increase enrollment and make sure that these programs are even more accessible to all of our qualified residents.

That includes looking at comprehensive citywide or countywide income verification efforts, expanding our cross-enrollment efforts improving outreach and re-evaluating our eligibility requirements.

And so we're going to be partnering with Seattle City Light in the coming months to evaluate these potential improvement opportunities.

Thank you.

We do have a comment or question from Councilor Morales.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Dr. Lee, can you repeat what you said about the utility discount program?

You said there's 9,700 accounts And then you said 40% of households in Seattle participate?

Yeah.

So it's actually about 5% of the households.

But what this number represents, the 9779, is what we believe to be about 40% of the households that we believe are eligible.

I see.

OK.

Yeah.

Thank you for the clarification.

Sure.

OK.

I want to close my portion of the presentation by just emphasizing how racial equity work touches so many different parts of the organization.

I've touched on a few areas and highlighted the progress we've made, but there are so many other ways that we're seeking to dismantle systemic and institutional racism.

This slide is intended to capture the work of our 49 racial equity action plans.

I do want to highlight a few areas that I'm particularly excited about.

One is the work on our side sewer assistance program.

And so this is a program to help customers who are facing extremely costly repairs to fix their side sewers and have nowhere to turn typically to help them with these costs.

This program launched actually at the end of last year to provide financial assistance to income qualified households.

I also want to highlight our partnership with the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps and our stormwater programs.

And what's exceptional about both of these programs is that they were initiated by staff at the ground level of our organization.

As I hand things off to our three presenters who are going to dive deeper into how race and social justice is impacting their work, I do want to emphasize just a few points First, racial equity begins with a strong commitment to transform our culture and center our service delivery and equity.

And so this requires us to be all in.

Secondly, as I mentioned earlier, RSJ work really needs to be relational and community centered and we're striving to do that.

And then third, we are using tools such as equity mapping and performance metrics to see our service gaps.

And we believe that if we do this well, then ultimately our community will sense a shift in power dynamics.

SPU will be seen more as a partner and an advocate for helping community achieve their goals instead of as a barrier.

So with that, we have some amazing examples that are happening across the utility, and we'd just like to highlight three of those.

So I'm going to pass things off to Nuu and Todd, who will talk about SPU's apprenticeship program.

Thanks.

Thank you, Andrew.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Nhu Phuong Mai, Talent Acquisition Manager, overseeing recruiting and hiring.

SBU has two apprenticeship programs, registered with Washington State Department of Labor and Industries and the U.S.

Department of Labor.

Both programs require two years of on-the-job training and unpaid classroom instruction.

This is a great opportunity to start a career in the skilled trades and become a journeyman.

We took intentional steps to expand our recruitment efforts, targeting women and PIPOC communities, including outreach to organizations, groups, and partners that engage with these communities.

And through this work, we recruited a diverse cohort of apprentices, which is represented on this slide.

The apprenticeship program is just one of many ways that SGU is applying an RSG lens to our hiring and recruitment processes.

We are continuing to develop career pathways through our apprenticeships, internships, and other programs, including the Seattle Youth Employment Program to remove barriers and expand access to employment opportunities at the city.

Thank you, Nhu.

Good morning.

My name is Todd Snyder, and I'm the manager of SVU's Registered Apprenticeship Programs.

To provide some very brief background, after a several year hiatus, SBU did a top to bottom review of our apprenticeship programs.

And as a result, we implemented a redesign that replicated best practices from our building construction trades partners and then work to embed RSJ into our workforce development framework.

Perhaps the most critical component of the apprenticeship program redesign process was placing frontline workers at the forefront of our apprenticeship training efforts, utilizing both their subject matter expertise and passion for the respective crafts.

It also means field staff are not only our instructors and trainers, but are also empowered to lead internal change.

And this is not just for improving technical skills and accountability, but for promoting race and gender equity as well.

These efforts have expressed themselves in our recruitment efforts as you just described, but also into the incorporation of race and social justice into our field led curriculum development, promoting a culture of inclusion and a training I'm perhaps most proud of is our frontline staff both designed and delivered a training called the experience of women in the trades that helped illuminate the challenges women often experienced navigating extensively male dominated fields.

By incorporating our equity efforts and centering our frontline staff in the redesign, we were able to not only recruit the most diverse cohort of apprentices in the utility's entire history, we have worked to create a cultural framework to help us collectively move our city values forward, as well as providing high-skilled family wage careers for our residents, elevating the bar for existing journey-level staff, and meeting the utility's future workforce needs.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Monica Lewis and I'm pleased to be here to speak about the SBU's customer contact center within the customer care division.

I want to talk about how we support our how we're supporting our staff to empower them.

to provide high quality services for all of our customers.

The contact center has over 80 utility account representatives who interact with customers across multiple platforms.

This includes handling over 30,000 phone calls and 7,000 emails monthly.

We have an empowered and dedicated workforce that values the voice of the customer and they strive to deliver equitable high quality service to the customers, and this includes specifically meeting the customers where they're at.

One way we measure the voice of the customer is through our quality assurance program.

This program is focused on delivering a high-quality customer experience, and it ensures that we implement our established policies, processes, and procedures, that we identify successes and gaps, and that we develop recommendations for improvement.

In 2021, we realized that applying a racial equity toolkit to our quality assurance program could help both our staff who serve customers and our customers.

So we ended up applying a racial equity toolkit to our quality assurance scorecard reference guide.

The scorecard reference guide is specifically how contact center staff are scored on their customer interactions.

So a racial equity toolkit project team was put together, which was racially diverse, and it included staff that represented varied roles within the customer contact center.

We reviewed each of the competencies and behaviors within the scorecard, specifically looking at the required skills it took to pass an interaction evaluation.

And then we looked for and we discussed the scoring criteria that could perpetuate racial disparities and determine approaches to mitigate those impacts.

So some of the lessons that the team members mentioned that they learned through the process are as follows.

I have three examples.

One team member stated that it made them more aware of the cultural needs of their customers, so they learned to be more respectful of cultural practices, attitudes, and beliefs of others.

Another member stated that even programs that were built with the best intentions to make a positive impact can contain elements that are not completely equitable.

And another one stated that it was important to remember to engage those that are most impacted by proposed changes.

So with that being said, the Racial Equity Toolkit resulted in 10 recommendations that SPU's Contact Center is going to be implementing.

Two of the recommendations specifically focused on ways staff who engage directly with customers can build skills and competencies.

to improve our equitable service delivery.

One is a cultural communication awareness training, and the other one is develop training with specific focus on empathy, stress management, active listening, de-escalation, and other skills for customer engagement.

This toolkit that the Contact Center did on the Quality Assurance Program is just one of the ways that SPU embed racial equity into our work to improve services for all of our customers.

And good morning, my name is Leslie Webster and I'm the Planning Manager for Drainage and Wastewater at SPU.

I'm excited to be here today to share how equity is core to the Shape Our Water Project.

Shape Our Water is SPU's 50-year plan for Seattle's water resilience and Shape Our Water is identifying equitable and multi-benefit solutions for Seattle's complex and changing flooding and sewer challenges.

This plan will drive SPU's future capital and programmatic investments in our communities for decades into the future.

Today I'm going to highlight three ways that we centered equity in this project.

First is our approach to analysis.

In the past, SPU relied primarily on a complaint-based approach to identifying flooding and sewer system problems, which is inherently inequitable.

We shifted away from this by incorporating racial and social equity into how we identify and prioritize problems.

And this helps us make the drainage and wastewater problems that are facing historically underrepresented communities more visible and will lead to more equitable distribution of SPU investments in the future.

Second is the community co-created vision and goals for this project.

The Shape Our Water community vision was completed in 2021 and our community engagement focused on historically underrepresented groups, including youth, grassroots organizers, and BIPOC community advocates.

Some of our engagement activities are listed on this slide, and these activities were co-created with community members who we resourced to share their expertise and talents with this project.

Some of those fabulous co-creators are pictured on this slide as well.

And I'll note also that our consultant contract supporting this work was exclusively Wembe firms, 100% Wembe firms, and in addition to that, 10% of the total budget of our consultant contract was dedicated to funding this co-creation initiative.

Next slide, please.

The third highlight I want to share is our equity framework.

We created this equity framework to ground our planning team in a shared understanding and commitment to racial equity.

The framework is the key to centering SPU's equity values in the Shape Our Water plan.

The framework includes the equity principles that are shown in the graphic on this slide.

And these principles will drive planning and decision making throughout this process.

The framework was developed collaboratively with SPU staff and leadership and as a living document that will be revisited throughout the remainder of the planning process.

And the last thing I'll say is I want to note that none of this would have been possible without the living legacy of the people who created the race and social justice initiative for the city, as well as the partnership of SPU's environmental justice and service equity team.

or without the support of leaders within SPU like Andrew who understand that what's been done before is not enough and are willing to work differently to plan a more equitable water future for Seattle.

So with that, I'll turn it back over to Andrew.

Thank you.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, SPU is on a journey to dismantle racism in our organization, in our city.

And we've shared just a few highlights about the progress that we've made as a department.

And yet I still want to be in a place of humility.

There's a lot left to do.

We still have areas of our city that have service disparities, and that includes a higher likelihood of having sewer backups and surface flooding in neighborhoods like South Park.

We also have significant sediment pollution that remains to be cleaned up in our most polluted water body, the Duwamish.

Our rates are becoming more and more unaffordable for many customers and our customer assistance programs are not reaching the majority of the households who are in need.

And just on an internal focus within our department, I still get complaints of discrimination and harassment that should have no place in our workplace.

I share all this because despite the progress, as we've stated so many times in this presentation, there is so much more work to do.

Fortunately, SPU has an incredibly strong commitment to the city's RSJ initiative, and we're committed to eliminating racial disparities and achieving racial equity.

And that's true for me.

It's true for the folks in this presentation.

It's true for our executive and leadership team and so many of our employees.

So I just want to close by saying we're excited to continue tackling these challenges head on and being part of writing that story of what it means to dismantle racism in our city.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Really appreciate you highlighting all the work, the grassroots work within your organization that contributed to this, and that is an ongoing contribution.

I appreciate you also spending a lot of time in what you're doing in the community in terms of not doing the complaint base, but going beyond that to seeing what the disparate outcomes are and working to correct those.

Council members, Andrew Lee will be back at our committee on June 7th to discuss his nomination.

We do have some race and social justice questions that we'll be getting back, answers we'll be getting back from him as well.

Councillor Morales, please.

Thank you.

First I want to say thank you to the team for this presentation and for all the work you're doing.

We know that there will always be more work to do and I really appreciate you directly acknowledging that there is still some internal work that needs to happen in order for our city family to feel like they are in an environment that is safe for them.

And that our rate structure is such that a lot of our low-income families, probably at this point, even middle-income families might struggle.

So we'd certainly have more work to do.

But I appreciate all that you are presenting here about the ways that you're starting to move that direction.

In a couple different places, you mentioned training programs, so the internal customer contacts, training priorities that were identified, the Shape Our Water series of trainings that you're doing.

Can you talk a little bit about Who's doing those trainings?

Who's helping you to develop them?

Is this part of collaboration, for example, with OCR?

Do you have your own internal people?

Are you working with consultants on that piece?

Can you just talk a little bit about how the training development happens?

Yeah, you know, we've definitely worked with OCR as well as our Environmental Justice Service Equity Team to implement some of the trainings.

Citywide trainings, obviously Race to Power of Illusion had a powerful role in our department.

More recently, a number of our groups, especially our frontline groups, have taken another racial equity training, and I'm forgetting the name of it right now.

Leslie, do you remember what it is?

No, OK.

But that was one that was done also in partnership with the Office of Civil Rights.

In fact, some of the facilitators came from OCR and helped facilitate that, especially for frontline worker groups.

We have taken, in some cases, like I mentioned, a decentralized approach to training, and so acknowledging the fact that the training needs are different in different groups.

Monica obviously talked about specific training needs within the Customer Contact Center.

Within some of our frontline groups, they have had different training needs.

And so we've tried to tailor it to where each group is at and what they're expressing in terms of their needs.

And so all of this is, again, we're bringing in many, many different experts.

A number of our staff recently went to the Government Accountability and Racial Equity Conference, GARE.

And so that was a training that, again, a number of folks have accessed.

We also have folks that are tapping into other organizations that are providing similar training.

So it's pretty diverse.

And if you'd like, I'd be happy to kind of provide a little bit more of a detailed summary of what that entails.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Just going back to the Wembley goals, I understand that we previously spoke about the department exceeding its WMBIE goals, but I'm having a hard time understanding the narrative of the description in the report, which suggests a different conclusion, but I might be misunderstanding what I'm reading here.

It says that the bench did not meet its WMBIE vendor utilization goal.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

I apologize Council Member Herbold, I would need to crosswalk the two because the data that I'm familiar with is the fact that we've exceeded both utilization goals.

So if it's okay, can I follow up with you on that?

Yeah, it's on page six of the report.

Okay.

That accompanies the presentation.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

And we can circulate that response to the committee members.

I believe that may be the difference between the contracting or the consultant work, the purchasing and the construction.

And I think, uh, general manager Lee, you were noting that the, with the construction and engineering contracts, that's where you have more work to do.

Um, correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And it's an interesting note there because on the construction side, the city does not have goals.

On when the utilization from my understanding and so meaning on the contracting side so so those typically don't count towards you know whether we're meeting our exceeding goals are not meeting them and so so but I'd like to look into the data a little bit more to see what we were.

yeah to see what's what the confusion is.

Thanks.

And I have a second question, if I may, Chair?

Yes.

Thank you.

As it relates to the households that are involved or enrolled in UDP, I think it was you reported on the presentation somewhere around upwards of 9,000 households.

So that's 40% of the households that are eligible.

How does this, how does that compare to previous years, I'm not just seeing that number in a vacuum doesn't kind of.

Uh, convey a message of whether or not we are making gains and enrolling eligible households, or whether or not we've hit a plateau or yeah.

Yeah, again, I need to look at data that is from preceding years.

But my recollection is we were hovering around 30% enrollment for a number of years.

And then that started to increase in the last three to five years.

Interestingly, during COVID, we did start again, right around 2020, we started a program of no income verification.

for enrollment in the UDP.

Now, we had to obviously subsequently after people enrolled automatically without income verification and were able to receive the benefit, we did do subsequent income verification.

And in many cases, the households that automatically enrolled dropped off.

And so between 2020 and 2022, where we're at right now, the number is approximately the same, actually.

So we haven't seen a growth in the number of households that are in the program since in the last couple of years.

Thank you, Council Member Wald.

Colleagues, any other questions about this presentation?

And again, we will have Andrew Lee back here in our committee.

We'll look forward to his more detailed response to that one question about women and minority-owned vendors.

And there are some questions we asked, race and social justice questions we asked as part of our standard questions for Herald Administration nominees.

So we'll look forward to getting those and circulating those as well.

Well, thank you, Andrew Lee and your team for being here and all the time you've spent to put this together and all the time you will be spending to continue implementing and improving.

So I hope you all have a good rest of your day.

colleagues for our committee meeting.

That was our final agenda item.

So I will say that this concludes the May 17, 2022 meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

The committee plans to meet again in three weeks on June 7th.

Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.