Seattle City Council Civic Development, Public Assets, & Native Communities Committee 3619

Afternoon.

This is a meeting of the Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee.

The date is March 6. It's 2 p.m.

I'm Councilmember Juarez, the Chair, and I am joined by my two colleagues and Councilmembers, Councilmember Sally Bagshaw and Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez.

Thank you for being here.

Let's move right to the chair's report.

Today is going to be very interesting.

Today we have five appointments, the first being the reappointment of Mr. Robert Nillums for the director of Seattle Center, followed by four appointments to the Seattle Center Advisory Commission.

And before we begin, are our four appointees all here?

Can you raise your hands?

Oh, you're all in a row.

Okay, great.

So we'll start with, not right now, but I will first invite Director Nellems to the table.

But before we do that, well, let me just read what I'm going to do, and then I'll do it.

And also we want to recognize Deputy Mayor David Mosley, who will introduce Mr. Nellems for his appointment.

Thank you, Mr. Mosley, for being here.

Upon completion, I will then invite the four candidates to join us at the table, and Director Nellems will present these individuals.

We will also receive two informational presentations, the Office of the Waterfront regarding their 2019 work plan, and of course one from Parks regarding an update and next steps on the Recreation Hub programming.

In addition, we have two ordinances for discussion and vote.

One is the 2008 Levy Inflation Contingency Use for 2019, which basically just says we have a couple million left over that we wanna allocate somewhere else.

Can we choose?

Yes, no, but it's good.

It's for development, so we'll be okay.

And then we also have the Occidental Park Timber Pavilion Donation, where I understand that the, is it the Seattle Park, or not Seattle, the Seattle Parks Foundation, Yeah, and Alliance for Pioneer Square will be giving the Seattle Parks Department a timber pavilion.

So with that, we will move into public comment.

It appears that we have two people signed up for public comment.

When your name is called, please speak to the items on the agenda.

Today, as I said, we have nine matters on the agenda, and please limit your comments to two minutes.

And Nagin, you want to go ahead and call our first names?

We now have four people signed up.

The first, we have Alex Zimmerman.

Thank you very much.

Oh, microphone not working?

Microphone not working?

No, it's working.

It's working?

Where?

I don't hear this.

Microphone not working?

It's working?

Hi.

Yeah, you're still from me for 40 seconds.

It's okay.

Thank you very much, my lovely sugar console, so give me a chance to speak.

You still have time.

It's okay.

I want to speak about agenda number one.

about appointing this nice man, and I like him, who worked like a Seattle Center director for 20 years.

And I spoke with him five minutes ago, and for 20 years, he never had one Q&A.

It's exactly what is happening right now.

And Savant, a couple days ago, speak exactly in similar situation.

So, we have right now, it's supposed to be changed this rule, and I come to this place 100 times and talk about this.

We need Q&A in every director, because every director don't make a changes who this guy in house is working.

Only Q&A when people come in controlling can change situation.

In exactly right now, because situation what is we have right now, so unique.

Right now, all America from East Coast to West Coast recognize that Seattle is number one fascist city in America.

This very interesting situation, this exactly what is I talking about this for 10 year here, 2,200 times.

And number two, we have right now a council, what is in court, what is violate constitution.

This is exactly what has happened.

In this situation, for example, one council so heated this chamber, violate constitution five times.

So this is a pure crime.

So we need change situation.

How?

When this not matter whose will be a director, I demand what is every director have Q&A every month, like all businesses doing.

So please accept this because it's supposed to be.

Thank you very much.

All right, next we have Lisa Howard.

Hi, my name is Lisa Howard.

I'm the Executive Director of the Alliance for Pioneer Square.

Thank you for letting us make public comment today.

As many of you know from being in our park, Occidental is the heart of our neighborhood.

The Alliance has worked a really long time to do improvements over time to Occidental to make it a safer and more accessible place for all.

One of the keys to this improvement is our partnerships.

We've worked for a number of years now with Seattle Parks Foundation, DSA, and the City of Seattle, and even Friends of the Waterfront to make improvements in the neighborhood.

And this is a really exciting time as we come here today and you vote in the accepting the donation of the pavilion.

It's a really exciting asset to add to Occidental and it's going to support future programming.

So we thank you for your consideration and your role in this making this possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, go ahead, Council Member.

Lisa, thank you very much for all the work that you've done leading the alliance.

I think this is a really good first step, and I know that we have worked for years, not only to bring this, but potentially at some point getting a Portland loo or something else in that neck of the woods.

I realize there's still conflict about that, but if you want to talk about it in the next few weeks, I'd love to get an update on that.

The public toilets?

We can talk about that.

Very good.

Thank you.

Parts of the solutions.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Next, Jennifer Casillas.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jennifer Casillas.

I'm with the Downtown Seattle Association.

I oversee the operations and the management under the management agreement we have with the city to program and activate Occidental and Westlake Parks.

We're very appreciative of those at the city, the MPD board, and of course, Seattle Parks and Rec to support this urban parks partnership program.

Over the past three plus years, we've been able to make significant improvements to downtown parks in terms of staffing and programming, activations, events, safety, and we're thrilled with the addition of a new pavilion that will anchor Occidental Square, offering a welcoming beacon for visitors and park regulars alike.

Also, it will be much safer, clean, and an inviting space for our staffing, our park ambassadors who are there on a daily basis.

Again, just immense thanks to you for considering this project, the support of the council, the MPD board, and the city for supporting this and all the other work in the parks.

Thank you.

Thank you for all your work at DSA.

You guys have been great.

Thank you.

And then last we have Ryan Sparks.

My name is Ryan Sparks.

I work for the Downtown Seattle Association as well in Occidental Square as well as Westlake Park.

I just wanted to kind of underscore some of the things Ms. Casillas just mentioned in regards to the new pavilion.

And I think I speak for our whole team when I say that it would be a huge asset for us.

moving forward.

Currently, the space that we work out of the current kiosk is small, dark, and in disrepair.

And this new pavilion, in addition, again, to being safer just for us to work out of, it will be much more welcoming to the public.

And I find that just overall, It accents what's in the park already, as well as the neighbourhood.

The design, I think, is really well thought out, and it will be more welcoming to the public.

In addition, it provides additional space for the activations that we put on in the park space, and I think it will enhance their success.

Just overall, I want to say thank you for considering this project.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is that close for public comment?

Okay.

So we will close public comment and we'll go on to our items of business.

Item number one.

You want to read that into the record?

Appointment 01260. Reappointment of Robert L. Nellums as a director, Seattle Center for a term to January 1st, 2023.

Mr. Nillums and Mr. Mosley are here.

I'll let you introduce yourselves, and we'll let you speak, and then we'll take a vote, and we'll see where we go.

I don't know.

It's going to be close.

I just want you to know that.

I'm trying to bag shells out on your team, so.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sergeant of Arms.

I love that.

The floor is yours, sir.

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

I'm David Mosley.

I'm the Deputy Mayor in Seattle.

And I am, as you know, the Council has a process of reconfirming or not folks that have served their term.

Robert Nedlund's term as Seattle Center Director expires on March 23rd, and Mayor Durkan is extremely pleased to reappoint Robert to continue serving in this role.

decision by the mayor was really a no-brainer.

Robert is synonymous really with Seattle Center.

He has been the director since 2006, spent more than 20 years at Seattle Center in total, and he's provided great leadership in a number of areas at Seattle Center in terms of the relationship with the residents of Seattle Center, in terms of communication with the public about Seattle Center, and of course, the renegotiation of the arena and the bringing of a NHL team to a key arena.

We had a little something to do with that.

A lot of people had a lot of hands in that and we appreciate that.

In fact, I was at Seattle Center, what day was the retreat, Robert?

Thursday.

and spent a good part of the morning there with the advisory committee members and the Seattle Foundation members.

And folks were talking about, you know, kind of the strengths and weaknesses and what we need to do going forward at Seattle Center.

And when it came my turn to comment on that, I said, well, I think the first thing we need to do is recognize the treasure that we have at Seattle Center.

which is Robert Nellums.

And I think this may be the first standing ovation I got since being deputy mayor.

So we have no doubt that the future of Seattle Center is in very good hands with Robert, and we ask the council to reconfirm Robert Nellums as director of Seattle Center.

I'll just start with and I'll let my colleagues speak.

First of all, thank you for reapplying for this job and thank you for the mayor's confidence in Mr. Nellum's and this appointment.

Obviously, we've read the confirmation packet, but we've been working with you for years.

You've been there for 20 years.

I can't think of a better person to be at the helm, particularly with all the change in front of us.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Bagshaw, who I know, and Council Member Gonzalez, if they have any comments as well.

Thank you so much.

It's been a real pleasure, and I like to think back at the beginning of my first term, and Bruce Harrell was on my committee, and I think he harassed you every single time you came to the committee about wanting some kind of a running track around the entire Seattle Center.

So now you've brought him a hockey team.

I think that that ought to make him happy.

So one of the issues that I'm really interested in is how we deal with Memorial Stadium.

And I know that we have had two agreements with our school district.

You've been at the helm and the center of all of this.

And now that we had the rain leave with sort of, I don't wanna say they left in a huff, but what I heard was they left in no small part because the Memorial Stadium was in total disrepair, according to them.

So I'm wondering, what do we do with our school district?

We wanna be partners.

We've sent that signal at least 50 times each to say, we're here to be working with you, not against you.

We want you to get the revenues and more.

What do you see we need to do to make that move?

Well, as you know.

An easy question.

Of course, softball.

As you know, our style is basically to build relationships and partnerships.

And the only way that you're going to get to a deal with the school district on Memorial Stadium or anything else is to have the right relationship and the right partnership and the right deal in front of them.

So what we're doing now is we're working staff to staff on trying to come to some terms that we can take to the elected officials, the mayor and the council about, okay, maybe this is stage one or step one, this is step two, this is step three, this is how we actually get there.

I'm pleasantly optimistic.

I've spent a lot of my time trying to make this happen.

So if you'd have talked to me, you know, 18 months ago, I would have said, no, we're not doing anything.

But I actually believe we're actually going to get to something that we can all talk about and actually vote on.

and the way that that happens is not to try to do things out by saying this is what we have to have and this is what we need.

It's really to build that relationship that says, okay, this is what could enhance what we would like to see and this is what could address what your needs and what you need and come to an agreement with the school district on how we proceed with that on a timeline that makes sense to them.

They always tell us that their primary function is educating kids.

And what we're talking about is something that is ancillary to that.

And so we have to make sure that the timing that we approach them and the way that we approach them allows them the space and the options and the opportunity to say yes so that we can work on this together.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez?

Oh, sorry.

I was going to point out that at the retreat that I was at, it was interesting to have, to your question Council Member Bakshaw, it was interesting that the Chief Operating Officer of the School District for Epidesta, who we all know and have relationships with, spent the entire day at the retreat and I think that we have an opportunity working with him and others.

So I think there's a reason for Robert's cautious optimism that we may have a new conversation that we're able to have now.

Thank you.

I have a comment and before we do you go to a vote and you knew that I was going to bring this up.

So this is what I'm concerned about with the because we're going to go right into the potential appointments for the Seattle Center Advisory Commission which as you know is a 16 member board and we currently have nine people serving and if we pass today's four appointments we'll be up to 13. And then so that will leave three outstanding seats that we're going to look for replacement.

So what I'm really concerned about is that there's only one person from District 1. There's only two people from District 2. There's only one person from District 3. There's only one person from District 4. There's no one from District 5. there are 10 people from District 6, and there are no people in District 7. So I'm concerned that, nothing wrong with District 6, I understand, but if you have 10 members, and now we're at a 13-member board, we haven't gone to 16, I'm concerned about, this is, and when I go back and I read what the Seattle Advisory Commission shall, like it says, shall represent the interests of the people of Seattle by advising the Seattle Center staff, the mayor, and the city council on policy matters that may affects Seattle Center.

The Seattle Center Advisory Commission shall also provide the Seattle Center staff, the mayor, and the city council with ongoing assessment of operations, performances, plans, policies of the Seattle Center Department.

Now I bring this up not just for the sake of district representation, and it is glaring that there are 10 people from D6 on the commission, We have strived in this committee, as you know, and certainly through all the processes with revamping, rebuilding Seattle Center, that the Seattle Center is everybody's public property.

It is for all of Seattle, whether you live in Northgate, whether you live at Rainier Beach, whether you live in Lower Hearst, whether you live in Crown Hill.

And I'm not seeing that representation here.

And I don't always pitch for district representation just to pitch.

I only kind of pick where I think you need district representation, particularly in light, is it we're up to $1.2 billion in revamping.

CL Center, 1.2 billion.

And so I'm concerned, and I want to raise it for my colleagues, particularly since there's no one from District 7, and that's in their district, that we have, it's proportional, that we address any kind of disparities, because we know as we move forward, there's gonna be programs and policy and a lot of things going on, and I would like a more diversification of voices and also that district parity.

So can you respond to that for me?

Well, sure.

I think that as far as the commission goes, there They're split into three-year terms over three cycles of people, maybe four cycles of people, the way it actually works.

And so a lot of the structure and a lot of people that have been engaged in this were members or had been on the commission prior to us going into districts.

And so that's one thing.

Yeah, I know five people were up in 2019. So what we have done is we historically have focused on making sure that the commission was reflective from social justice, economical and racial makeup, gender makeup, etc.

We have recently added a filter to look at district participation.

And so as we go forward, we don't feel everything.

We actually need some help from people to say, okay, who would you like to see from District 5?

Or who would you like to see from District 7?

Or who would you like?

Because the people that express interest in being a member of the Seattle Center Advisory Commission, We don't necessarily start by saying, okay, which district are you from?

It's really about the passion that they bring, the expertise that they bring, and the way that they can help us think through the larger issues of the city.

I live in District 5, so you have a member there.

I agree with you on that, Robert.

I understand what you're saying.

You certainly want subject matter expertise to be the driving factor.

I get that.

But when you just have 10 people from one district where that's a voting bloc and making major decisions, that's where I get concerned.

That's all.

Yeah.

Like I said, we hadn't And you don't always do what I say, by the way, so I just want to point that out.

I try to please.

We had never looked at where people lived and how they would serve or what they would serve or who they would represent other than the larger city when we were looking at this.

We're having to look at that filter now.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Okay.

So we are going to go to a vote.

If there's anything else you want to add?

No.

Okay.

I thought you were going to vote no.

Well, Sally was going to, but I had to talk her out of it.

So let's go to a vote.

I move the committee pass the appointment of Mr. Robert Nellums, which is appointment number 01260. Second.

The motion has been moved and seconded.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, no.

The ayes have it.

Congratulations.

We'll transmit this to full council Monday.

Thank you.

Will you be here Monday?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thanks, Robert.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mosley.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So you're gonna stick around for the other.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, great.

So why don't we have our other appointees come on up?

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Unless John Scholes has moved.

No, I got the...

I think he's D1.

I mean, 7. Oh, I do have someone from 7. Who?

Well, John Scholes, unless he's...

I know, I know.

I was going to say, she lives in Queen Anne, so I think she might be in 7. See, I thought it was 7, too, Nagin.

Where are you?

Remember?

Remember I originally said she was in 7?

And she's Queen Anne, she's 7.

And John Scholes, unless he's moved, is 7.

Yeah.

Did you get the number wrong on this?

No.

I think he's saying that's not where they live.

It's the diversity column.

That's their side.

We are, I'm sorry.

What we're going to do is go ahead and again, why don't you read into the record?

I thought that was D7.

appointment 01240 appointment of Daniel Tam Claiborne as member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term to September 28, 2020 and appointment 01241 appointment of Jana Lehman as member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term to September 28, 2019 Appointment 01242, appointment of Elaine Fardella as member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term to September 28, 2020. And appointment 01243, the appointment of Raquel Russell as member Seattle Center Advisory Commission for a term September 28, 2020.

Great.

Mr. Nelms, you want to kick us off and we'll go through your potential appointees?

Okay.

Well, thank you.

I couldn't be more pleased about the four members, potential members of the commission that stand or that sit before you.

They bring a great diverse set of skills and they bring a passion for Seattle Center that is kind of the first hurdle that they have to get over.

But we have people who are committed to social justice and do this for a living.

We have former elementary school teachers that are now directors of extensive programs at the University of Washington.

We have the former president and CEO of the Seattle Times.

And we have the current vice president of government mental relations and public affairs from the Zillow Group.

I think that, you know, this is an outstanding group of appointees or potential appointees for the Seattle Center Advisory Commission.

And I will just say that I couldn't be more pleased with sitting here and letting you see the kind and caliber of people that would like to be engaged and involved in the future of Seattle Center.

Okay, so we can have everyone introduce themselves and maybe say a few words and then we'll move forward.

Hello.

I am Raquel Russell.

I currently serve as Vice President for Government Relations and Public Affairs at Zillow Group here in Seattle.

I moved to Seattle five years ago.

I was probably one of the newer Seattleites that would hopefully be serving on the commission.

I like to say, and I've told this to Robert before, that as a recent transplant, I think that my story is quite different than a lot of other transplants.

I did not move here for a job.

I moved here because I fell in love with Seattle, and I wanted to live here.

And the Seattle Center has always been an extension of my home.

I live in an apartment building, and my friends from the East Coast and family come to visit me often.

And when they come, one of the stops that we always take is to the Seattle Center.

A lot of them have young kids.

They're able to play on the grounds.

They're able to visit all of the different attractions that we have at the Seattle Center.

So it's constantly for the last five years or consistently been an extension of what I consider my home here in Seattle.

So really excited to hopefully serve on the advisory commission and help it move into the future.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Jana Lamon.

I am a Seattle native.

I was born and raised here in Seattle.

I was a public school teacher in Seattle Public Schools for eight years and now am Director of Outreach and Enrichment Programs at the Robinson Center at UW.

So I'm working to get underserved youth throughout Seattle and Seattle area at large into enrichment programs at UW.

in the Robinson Center.

I grew up going to the Seattle Center my entire life.

It was a family tradition to attend the Nutcracker and spend Winterfest there.

And I remember very, you know, some of my earliest memories were of the Seattle Center and the time I spent there as a family.

And so I'm honored to be considered for this and take part.

Thank you.

Dan.

Hi, everyone.

Good afternoon.

My name is Daniel Tim Claiborne.

It's a pleasure to be here in front of you.

I work as a consultant at a small firm called Forum Solutions.

We focus exclusively on Seattle clients, so working to improve the technology, healthcare, and nonprofit sectors here in Seattle.

So I've been very fortunate to be able to support folks from a ton of different industries.

I too moved to Seattle relatively recently and also similar to Raquel also moved not for a job but because I really the quality of life and the amazing opportunities afforded by Seattle.

I've been really grateful to be involved in civic life.

I think it's an incredible way to to learn a city and come to appreciate it all the more.

Seattle Center certainly kind of embellishes that for me and my experience here.

And I've been grateful for the work that I've been able to participate in so far and look forward to hopefully the opportunity to do more.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Elaine Fredella, and I'm delighted to be here today.

I also came to Seattle many years ago not for a job, just for the quality of life, because it is so beautiful.

We came for a visit and stayed.

I was born and raised in California, so we weren't quite sure when we came whether this would be our home, our final home.

And it was not too soon before 9-11, and we lost a family member in 9-11.

And as we were walking through the city, we ended up at the fountain and all the flowers around the fountain.

And my husband and I looked at each other and I started to cry and he had a couple of tears coming as well and said, yes, we have found home.

It was such an embracing moment.

We also live on Queen Anne and I'm just passionate about change.

And this is a moment of change, not only for Seattle Center, but for our city.

And I'm just desperate to be to be participating in how to ensure that we keep the heart in Seattle Center with all the changes that we'll be seeing in the next few years.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My colleagues want to add anything?

Thank you.

I just want to acknowledge, I mean, we've got some real high octane people here.

Thank you with your JD and your work in the public schools and coming out of Yale and global affairs, I believe.

and all your work at Seattle Times.

Thank you for your willingness to do this.

So if I can ask one question, which is, next year, if we were sitting at this table and we said, what have you accomplished that you wanted to accomplish, what would you see?

So I'll go first.

So I think for me, building off of something that Elaine said, is that for me, it would be that with all the change happening at the Seattle Center, that we are able to keep the character, and the inclusivity of the Seattle Center there as we go through that change, but also are able to, in keeping that character, because I don't think these are mutually exclusive, also be able to take the Seattle Center to the next level.

And in a lot of ways, we talk about bringing the 21st century in.

and bringing it into the 21st century.

We've had those conversations, Robert and I and other of the appointees.

And so for me, it'd be having those two parallel tracks, both keeping the character and specifically the inclusivity, as well as making sure that, you know, the Seattle Center is able to grow into the 21st century alongside some of the newer projects.

Thank you.

Thursday at the retreat was, it was an awesome day.

I mean, I don't know how else to say it, with all the groups together and, you know, being in Seattle Public Schools and now my kids are in Seattle Public Schools, I am really excited about the conversation around Memorial Stadium and I am also optimistic and I'm looking forward to being part of the conversation and part of the, you know, the progress and the success that I think will come.

Thank you.

Dan?

I would say two things.

The first is I think the arena represents an amazing opportunity for the Seattle Center, but I think it's also a potential a potential threat to feel like the Seattle Center might get overshadowed by it.

And so just making sure that Seattle Center retains its identity and its kind of full prominence throughout the change process that we're going through for the next couple of years.

The second thing I would say is getting the monorail on Sound Transit, I think, would be an incredible thing to work towards as well.

Thank you.

There's been a couple of references to Thursday's retreat and what was so amazing to me and impressive was the high octane, to use your phrase, of the folks in that room between the Seattle Foundation, the staff of Seattle Center, and the commissioners.

And I can't imagine there's very much that that group of 27 people can't accomplish.

And to see at the end of the day, a disparate group of people at the end of the day coming together and saying, we really want to go forward, to keep the heart, to ensure that we're providing the public access, the open space.

and the vibrancy of Seattle Center, not only when the arena is completed, but from here to there for the neighborhood, as well as looking at how we think about this being a sustainable financial model throughout.

So at the end of the day, that this is preserved as a gem of the city.

Thank you.

Is there anything else you want to add?

They're impressive, aren't they?

Yes, they are.

Well, we did look at the confirmation packet and Council Member Bagshaw is correct.

It was wonderful to see your resumes and the school.

And you came from D.C.

You worked for the Obama administration.

Dan, I understand you published a book.

I mean, you know, and I could go on and on, but it's just it's just you're right.

It's a great group.

So no one's doubting that.

That's all I bring you.

Elaine mentioned in her materials that she hiked 107 miles of the West Highland Way in Scotland.

Yeah.

Yeah, we want to know why.

Beautiful.

It really was amazing.

I wanted a physical.

You know, my whole career, I'd worked for 50 years.

My whole career has been mental challenges.

And so my first year in retirement, I wanted a physical challenge.

So we did it.

We did it with another couple and it was great.

Thank you.

So she can do that.

Yeah, I know you're looking at me.

We're going to get Memorial Stadium done.

Great.

That's a really good hearing.

And Councilor Baxter, thank you for bringing up the School District and Memorial Stadium.

We've been dealing with that for a couple of years.

And we love them.

And we love them.

And we appreciate how long everybody needs to come to the table.

And I would really hope that sometime in my lifetime, I'm going to see that work.

I believe in you.

You and me both.

So we will move for a vote then.

I move the committee pass all four appointments.

Do I need to say, can I just say all four appointments?

Okay.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Those opposed?

No.

Ayes have it.

Congratulations.

And we will transmit this to full council on Monday.

Will you all be attending Monday?

Because you don't have to, but it'd be nice if you wanted to.

You don't have to.

I'll be out of town.

I'll be there, but I told them they didn't have to.

Okay, good.

That's fine.

Thank you all.

Well, thank you.

Congratulations, and thank you for serving.

Thanks very much.

So our next item, Nagin, you want to read that into the records?

Item number six, it's the Waterfront 2019 Work Plan.

Go ahead and read it into the record.

Waterfront 2019 Work Plan.

No, I guess not.

I'm tired of looking at this map.

No, it's a good one.

We've only seen it for 10 years.

I'm happy with it.

Let's have introductions and look at this one map on page two one more time.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

One more time.

Go ahead and make introductions and we'll start with your, is it a seven page slide?

We try to keep it short.

I know you do.

Marshall Foster, Director of the Office of Waterfront and Civic Projects.

Dory Costa, Finance Manager for the Office of Waterfront and Civic Projects.

Floor is yours, sir.

All right, well, good afternoon, Chair Juarez and committee members.

It's great to be back.

What we'd like to do today is, first off, just do a quick reprise of what happened in 2018 in the first part of this year.

This has been an enormous few months for the waterfront endeavor, and we'll look at that, and then more importantly, we're gonna talk about what 2019 brings and the start of major construction activity to deliver on the vision for the new waterfront.

This is something we've done every year, our work plan assessment.

We'll also kind of identify where you're going to see legislation coming back to this committee as well.

Here's the map that you know and love.

I've been looking at it for three years.

Of all the waterfront elements, what's Particularly, I guess poignant for us at this point is that we've been talking about this as a plan and a vision for a long time.

This is now the picture of a fully funded and now moving into construction capital project.

So we are operating out of our construction office, watching the viaduct come down outside our front windows.

You're welcome to come down and visit and take it in.

And we'll be starting construction over the next period of months.

I won't go through all these elements.

They have not changed in a fundamental way except that With our adoption and formation of the LID and the funding commitments that were made, all these elements are part of the capital plan that will move forward.

2018 and the early part of 19, just to quickly recap, we executed a memorandum of understanding, excuse me, with the Seattle Aquarium Society to advance the Ocean Pavilion project.

That's an integrated element with the Overlook Walk, and we will obviously continue our work with them into this year and next.

We completed planning for the main corridor.

When we say main corridor, that means the replacement of Alaskan Way.

the construction of the new surface street connection up to Belltown, also the public promenade along the waterfront, and several of the kind of most direct east-west street connections, Columbia, Seneca being some of the key ones.

Thank you.

Before you move on to look ahead, I just, with the aquarium, I want to bring this up one more time.

that we have committed to $34 million to assist the aquarium.

We put that in the budget, at least made sure that it was really clear.

And I'm feeling, maybe I've got short-time or problems, but I don't want to lose sight of that.

I believe that we've made that commitment to the aquarium, to the folks that are raising money for the aquarium.

I just want to, one more time, underscore that we've got a commitment from the city of 34 million to the aquarium as part of this project.

Yes, thank you, Council Member.

That's absolutely the case.

This year's budget not only advanced design funding for the pavilion, for our portion of the pavilion design, but it also, as part of the budget that you adopted, put in place a significant portion of that $34 million commitment in terms of real hard dollar commitments in particular years.

And we'll be talking about a next step with them, project development agreement, much like what we did with the Pike Place Market at the market front, that will formalize all the final funding as well as the design.

That will be discussed over the course of this year.

We're still working out the exact timing for it to come to Council.

So as part of the main corridor plans, bids finalized, advertised in November, bid opening is actually happening this week.

So we'll be opening bids on that critical first phase of work.

Right-of-way acquisitions and permitting, the majority of those are also in place.

We did have some permanent acquisitions as well as some temporary construction easements that were completed and are necessary for the roadway construction.

Key early construction was advanced and completed on time and on budget this year.

So, and this is stuff that frankly happened relatively quietly, so I kind of take a no news is good news approach with this, because our team delivered this smoothly and successfully.

Early works, utility relocations, and area way modifications, we pulled utilities off the viaduct structure in preparation for the demolition that's underway now.

We improved some area ways that were at risk on Columbia Street primarily.

And we also are nearing completion.

We've got a good bit more work to do, but all the piles are in place.

All the structural elements, the fundamental core structural elements are in place for Pier 62. And we're nearing completion for the habitat enhancements in Pioneer Square.

That's what is otherwise known as a habitat beach at the foot of Washington Street next to Coleman Dock.

That's nearly complete.

at this point.

So those are some exciting milestones we've hit.

We formed a partnership agreement with Seattle Parks and Friends of Waterfront Seattle to advance our O&M partnership, and thank you again for the huge amount of leadership this committee provided in doing that, as well as forming the Waterfront Local Improvement District.

So looking ahead, what are some of the critical elements on our calendar as we look at the year?

Starting main corridor construction, we anticipate late July, early August that we will be in full scale, full swing construction of the main corridor.

One of the key things, this isn't a huge issue, but we just want to be clear about it, is that as part of the final schedule with the Viaduct Demolition Contractor, there's a lot of details that were worked out from the original plans we made with WSDOT and the agreements we made to the final contract with Kiewit who's doing that work.

We're essentially starting about three months later than was originally envisioned on the construction work.

That will have, not a significant, but we'll have a modest trickle down impact on our delivery schedule.

And I'm going to show you it in a moment.

I don't, it's not significant or a cause for major concern, but it is, we had originally anticipated starting in May. on early elements of that and just the reality of their means and methods to get the viaduct down.

We're not going to be able to start quite as early as we had anticipated.

And what will we be hearing from the waterfront businesses?

Well, this is actually, from their perspective, a benefit in a lot of ways because it means our work, which is heavy, A lot of equipment mobilization, closures will be happening after the summer months primarily.

The issue for us is we need those good weather work windows to deliver.

We also are very sensitive to fish window on the in water work and we're also very sensitive to the Port of Seattle's cruise ship season and when they have all their provisioning of the ships.

So our schedule has a lot of delicate Pieces to it and this kind of delay does trigger it does hit some of those windows So it's it will push off our completion of the whole waterfront by three to six months as a result Again nothing.

I don't think to be too concerned about but it's just an FYI.

I The local improvement district, the formation was not the last step.

We have a adoption of a final assessment role, which will be coming forward to council late this year for its initial, you know, submittal and consideration we believe into 2019. And that will be the individual, include the individual assessment hearing process where we'll talk about if there's any appeal or reconsideration of an individual properties assessment.

We also have some design work that's continuing to advance.

We're hard at work in the Pioneer Square community.

I saw Lisa here with some of her colleagues earlier on the design of several east-west street connections in Pioneer Square.

Maine, Washington are the key ones.

Also King and Yesler we're looking at.

And we're also continuing our partnership with the Downtown Seattle Association for the design of Pike and Pine streets to improve those from First Avenue all the way over the freeway to Capitol Hill.

Completion of the 60% design of the Overlook Walk is a really critical element that is starting up literally as we speak.

We wanted to get the Local Improvement District formed before we did that, but we're now advancing that work as well as moving forward on the pilot agreement with Friends for the management of Pier 62. And that will be something we'll be coming to brief you on later this year.

So later this year is this quarter or third quarter, fourth quarter?

I want to say third quarter is when we plan to do that.

Is that what the ordinance said?

I'll have to go back and look.

Okay.

It's shortly before the park opens, which is still TBD.

The project is to be completed by the end of the year.

We hope potentially a little earlier than that, but we can't promise.

Okay.

And we'll come to you well ahead of that opening with the pilot agreement.

Okay.

We're already in the process of developing it.

So let me talk a little bit about the construction side.

This is a schedule you've seen before as well.

It does reflect those adjustments to the schedule with the Viaduct demolition.

Like I said, it's not a significant change.

You're still going to see the surface street.

open in 2021. That's a really important milestone with the Seattle squeeze traffic, you know, constraints opening the new surface Alaskan way is a relief valve for all of our downtown streets that will open in 2021. And then you will see the full waterfront park completion mid 2023. So just a little bit about, I'm not going to go through all the detail of our construction plans.

We've done some of that in the past.

We're actually planning to come back in the summer and brief you all in more detail before work commences.

But what are some of our core values that we bring to this?

in terms of how we organize for construction, ensuring access for businesses and residents, really thinking about all modes of travel on the waterfront and in the adjacent community.

We're a very hands-on team in our office because we have the benefit of being a dedicated group that thinks about nothing but the waterfront.

We think about a few other things, but we're really laser focused on our community on the waterfront.

We support the operations of our major agency partners.

One that doesn't always get talked about but is really important to us is BNSF and the railroad mainline operation.

We will be constructing over the BNSF mainline, which is a really critical and very careful activity for us, as well as the port's cruise ship operations and the Coleman Dock day-to-day ferry operations.

So we literally coordinate on a daily basis.

Major utility services have to be maintained, much like what you saw with the seawall construction.

That's a critical element of keeping all the continuity of service.

supporting access to not only parking, which gets talked about a lot and is critical, but also transit access to the waterfront.

Things like extending our very successful waterfront shuttle system that has been a pilot here over the last few months, or rather over the last year, to continue to serve the waterfront during construction.

Providing not only the as you know, we've made a number of commitments to low-rate parking where we're actually investing in some adjacent parking lots and structures to buy down those parking rates so that people who are coming to shop or otherwise use the waterfront can access parking but wherever we have the opportunity within the construction zone itself if there's space not being used by the contractor if it's reasonable and We will try to make some of that available for short-term parking to support the community as well.

Two questions.

Are you almost done with your remarks on this particular slide?

Go for it.

Those are the key ones.

On the first bullet point around ensuring access for businesses, residents, and all modes of travel, what modes of travel are you referring to there?

The big ones, the heavy users in terms of ridership, transit operations.

So we're talking about King County, all of their rapid ride operation, all of their functionality for West Seattle commute traffic to downtown is a priority to get Columbia and Alaskan Way open for that, which is going to be a significant enhancement over the current kind of temporary condition that people are operating under, continuous surface street connection, two ways, two lanes of traffic in each direction to provide, you know, loading, service, vehicle access, and then the continuous bike connections on the waterfront.

There are other considerations, but those are the big ones for us.

You know, I think we continue to hear a lot of concerns about construction and the impacts on the ability to be able to walk around.

And so pedestrian access, is that something that you are accommodating as part of your plans?

Absolutely.

Does that include a lens of making sure that we are accommodating those who have disabilities or other mobility issues?

So I'll give you an example.

I mean that's absolutely a critical priority.

We worked hard with the state to ensure that the way that not only our work but also demolition is done is to ensure that we don't close the entire the extent of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and we break it up into segments so that we can keep safe, accessible, predictable pathways for all users and all abilities throughout the district.

We're using very much the same priority.

So for example, another example that we've done around some of the early construction is the Pike Street Hill Climb and the Union Street connection are too big.

pathways for pedestrians that get used, trying not to close both of those at the same time.

So lots of kind of on-the-ground work, as well as a lot of wayfinding that we've done through seawall construction.

We learned a lot about laying down what we call the blue carpet, which is a blue pathway we've used to move people comfortably around construction.

That's not only for the able-bodied, but for everyone else, you know, in terms of all users and all abilities, as well as the tourist community who don't know our city as well and need to be able to move around on the waterfront.

So we're thinking about all those things.

OK, that's really helpful.

I spend a lot of time down there because I'm one of these West Seattle potter taxi commuters.

So I'll make sure to send you pictures if it's not going well.

The last issue that I wanted to bring up is that you've spent a lot of time talking about parking and facilitating parking and subsidizing parking.

I just really am interested in hearing how we're going to provide similar benefits to those who are using transit to get into this corridor.

The two key things that from all of our community work and work with agency partners and others are the Waterfront Shuttle Service, which has been a, that's been basically an experiment, a pilot that we did initially supported by the state.

What we're looking at doing is expanding that service.

It's a low floor people mover that connects Seattle Center, the Waterfront, Pioneer Square, with our district and the transit access at those locations.

So it's kind of a last mile, what we call a last mile solution to help connect people to regional transit.

That service is something we're looking with DSA at how we can support its continuation during our construction.

And then the other key thing I mentioned earlier is we've worked really closely with King County Metro on how to accelerate all the construction associated with getting the transit corridor operating on the waterfront.

So that's literally first order of business for us with King County Metro is getting that rapid ride pathway through Alaskan Way and Columbia.

I guess my point is that we're subsidizing people's ability to drive into this area, so we're incentivizing people to drive into the area, but we're not offering the same, at least financial incentives.

for people to not drive a single occupancy vehicle into this area?

Well, I guess two things.

That's a fair point.

The waterfront shuttle support, that is a direct, I mean, that is something we're providing support for those types of transit operations.

At least for the last mile.

Correct.

You're talking in terms of like, yeah, in terms of mainline transit financing, we're not doing anything there.

The other issue with parking is, just bear in mind, this is focused on something I think is not unusual to do, focused on short term.

essentially short-term parking associated with getting to the district, getting to the market, getting to businesses.

We're not talking about commuter parking.

We're not talking about residential parking.

This is the kind of parking we tend to be supportive of.

It helps support business districts.

It supports people getting in and out on a short-term basis, not commuting downtown, which is what drives a lot of our concerns about mode share in the city.

I'm sorry, not trying to argue the point.

No, no, no, I know.

I just think that we miss opportunities to incentivize folks to get out of single occupancy vehicles if they don't have to be in one.

Obviously, everybody has different abilities, and based on those abilities, you should absolutely use the mode that you need to use in order to move around in the city, but I just get really And I think that's something that we're going to be concerned when we continue to just heavily subsidize people's ability to drive into these high traffic corridors already.

where we know we are going to be experiencing an incredible burden on our surface streets because of the various construction projects that are happening throughout the city.

And so I just want to challenge us a little bit more to think about how we can incentivize more people to use public transit, not just within the last mile, but to get in and out.

I mean, it's not only tourists go down to enjoy the waterfront, it's people from all over the city.

to chair Warris's point around why we need to make sure that, you know, our boards are representative of folks who are outside of the main core where capital projects are located.

So I just think it's a missed opportunity to not think about it more.

I think it is important for us to think creatively in that sense.

Thank you.

I want to flip that a little bit and give you a good news story.

A colleague of mine lives in West Seattle, not far away from my colleague to my right.

I don't know, his mid-20s.

He called me because he was having difficulty with the water taxi.

That there was an area where he couldn't get his chair into the water taxi.

They had that fixed within the next day.

And then when he was over on this side of things, one of the shuttles came around But the lift wasn't working.

And so as we are really focused on all ages and abilities and continual access, having the shuttle show up and not have the lift to get him into that particular shuttle was a bad news day for him.

The good news was he called me.

I was able to get a hold of DSA and they got me into the right people.

They sent another shuttle over, got him picked up, fixed that so that the next day he didn't have the same problems.

But what I want to acknowledge is the fact that because we had twice the number of water taxis, people were really responsive to him.

They got him where he needed to go.

And if we can continue that kind of focus on all ages and abilities, it's really going to help us.

So I tried to say thank you to everybody who went out of their way, but I wanted you to know that publicly that I appreciated it.

We have actually raised with the team who's running that system, who's been excellent, the prospect of low floor vehicles, which kind of gets rid of that whole barrier, if you will.

In our outreach with people, in terms of what keeps them from using transit to access the waterfront, what we've heard consistently is, we have a relatively robust regional system, spine on 3rd Avenue, ways to get downtown generally.

It's the topography.

And even though we all, you know, maybe we think it's only three or four blocks, it is quite an obstacle to a lot of people, especially if they're not used to using the core of Seattle maybe the way some of us are.

And so there's actually great data now that's come from DSA about the shuttle system.

And they're seeing far more ridership than was anticipated because people see it as a way to connect with the larger system.

And accessibility is a really important part of making that.

delivering on the, you know, the vision of that.

So we'll keep working on that.

Thank you, Marshall.

So last slide, just on construction as we move in, wanted you to know some of the tools we're using to make sure then the community writ large knows what's happening.

You know, one of the number one things is confusion out there.

We have a lot of people working on the waterfront.

We have the state, we have private entities, we have our team.

We have a whole set of things we do.

First is early briefings to all the most affected folks, the folks who are having access affected, folks whose businesses are affected, folks who are taking transit or other means through the district, the water taxi.

face-to-face briefings.

Something unique that we started with the seawall and we're continuing is we have a group we call the street team, which is on the ground on a daily basis and they're actually, you can call them, you know, there's a 24-hour cell number if there are issues with anything on the ground.

It could be something affecting a property, it could be someone walking or biking and there's a condition on the bike trail.

We actually dealt with a situation like that not too long ago and they're literally, you You know, wearing a jacket of a certain color so you know that's a street team member, and they can deal with things with the contractor in real time.

So we saw that really work well with CWOL, and we're going to continue that.

And then the last thing is we developed a multi-agency portal.

which gives you all the information about waterfront construction.

That's waterfrontconstruction.org, which basically is a clearinghouse.

So SDOT's there, WSDOT's there.

Yes.

If you're wondering, you know, I went through first in, or not, maybe not first in Columbia, no, Western and Columbia.

What's going on?

Who's doing it?

I wasn't happy with what I saw at the crosswalk there.

You can find out who's actually responsible for that and connect with them.

Was it a person?

There's a website as well as, you know, you can go directly to our 24-hour hotline as well.

So we've got, we're covering those bases in a couple different ways and it's been working quite well.

What's the number for the hotline?

I don't have it off the top of my head.

But we could get it.

I should have it.

I should have it tattooed on my arm.

No, you should just have it written down.

This is for the traveler's information.

Yeah, Council Member Gonzales is going to be needing that hotline when she gets off her water taxi.

I'm going to guess by that before I get off this table, it'll probably be texted to my phone here.

It's 206-499-8040.

Wait, thank you.

499 what?

8040.

Thank you, count.

That's why she's my sergeant of arms.

That's good.

499. Quick on the draw.

8040. Call now.

Thank you.

It'll be scrolling on the bottom of your screen.

Wait until you hear my Spanish radio voice.

That one's real good.

So that's a quick summary of what we have ahead.

Obviously, we're very excited to be moving into construction.

So thank you for all the support over many, many years.

Thank you.

And Dory, you have done a phenomenal job.

And if I could just add about the website, I was going to, I went on it because I wanted to see if this was in any language other than English.

And I don't know if this is just a feature of me using Google or if you actually put this widget in here, but there is a translation feature.

That's correct.

Okay.

Yeah.

So just so folks are aware, it's It is the information on this website for those folks who don't speak the English language.

There is a function to translate it into just about every language that exists.

on the planet.

So thank you for doing that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Maybe offline.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Dory.

Thank you, Marshall.

We'll see you again soon, I'm sure.

We see you all the time, so it's nothing new.

Nagin, read our next matter or ordinance into the record, and we'll have the people involved come on up.

Council bill one one nine four six zero an ordinance relating to the 2008 parks and green spaces levy Utilizing the resources provided by the taxpayers within the development category inflation adjustment and the neighborhood parks and playground subcategory increasing appropriations to the Department of Parks and Recreation in the 2019 adopted budget and amending the 2019 2024 Adopted capital improvement program all by a three-fourths vote of the City Council Thank you

Please make your introductions.

I'll make a few comments, and we'll just launch right into this and get it done.

Tracy Ratzlaff, Council of Central Staff.

And Christopher Williams, Seattle Parks.

Michael Shiosaki, Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Christopher, I'll let you go ahead and introduce it, but I have an idea, but go ahead.

Very good.

We're here to seek authorization to move roughly $2.4 million worth of inflation contingency from the Park and Green Spaces Levy, which was passed by the voters in roughly 2008. This has been the gift that has kept on giving over the years.

And by that, we mean that it continues to benefit projects.

And Michael has a great presentation that he's going to walk through.

But this funding will help a lot of those projects.

Great good afternoon everyone.

So just a little background so the 2008 parks and green spaces levy wisely contained an inflation contingency amount of money in three of the four categories that included development acquisition and the environment categories.

This is 2.4 million dollars of remaining money in in the development category and typically I'd say this would have been wrapped into the whole budget process.

There were some issues with projects and so it didn't go into the budget process.

That's why there's a piece of separate legislation before you today.

Let's see, I talked a little bit about that.

Let me just say that, so there was $14 million in this contingency pot.

There is $2.4 million remaining.

As you can imagine, over the last ten years, there has been significant construction inflation.

We just have a handful of remaining development projects to complete.

There's a couple of examples.

on the slide before you, an example of one that we recently completed is the Gas Works Park play area.

That project, because it's a historic site, the site is landmarked, there were many additional costs that came up that weren't anticipated when the $1.4 million budget was developed, and I'd say that was probably done in like 2007. A couple projects that we're about to get out to bid are Mara Desimone in South Park.

Another example is the Magnuson Park building 406 Ruth.

And one I think you know well about is Victor Steinbrook Park is another one of those remaining levy projects.

So really just a handful to complete, but you know, I would say in most cases, the construction will be significantly more than anticipated, you know, 11 or 12 years ago.

So Michael, in the 2008 levy, and then we had the four major funding categories, so we spent them or used them on acquisitions, right?

Correct.

And environment, but not the opportunity fund.

So what we're looking at now is just the development fund.

Correct.

And so did we build in inflation contingencies in all these agreements?

I was going to say the park district ballot measure for the new projects does not have this.

Could you ask that question again?

I was just getting that on the inflation contingencies.

Basically, we spent it all except for the development piece that we hadn't hit that and that's what the remainder is to perform.

Correct.

The acquisition pot is closed out as is the environment pot.

The opportunity fund, there's still a few projects left to complete, but there is not an inflation contingency amount in that category.

That's what I was getting at.

Thank you.

And you mentioned Victor Steinbrook.

Is there enough money in this development category to pay for the costs of Victor Steinbrook?

Or are you going to be coming back for budget?

You know, I think we're hopeful that the contingency pot ultimately aligns with what we need in these handful of remaining projects.

It's, you know, As we know, in this bidding environment, it is a little bit of a crapshoot at times, so I think we're hopeful.

Hopefully, the scope meets the budget, but there are only a handful of projects, and that's the good news.

So if, and I'm just focused on Victor Steinbrook at this minute, if the contingency doesn't cover it, what's your resource?

Do you have monies in the park budget currently to complete it?

Will you be coming back for general fund request or do you know yet?

So we don't know.

all of that question, typically we would do some value engineering.

We would look at surpluses to see where we have surpluses from other capital projects that could be moved in.

It really depends on the size of the gap.

So you'll be telling us sometime before October on this one?

I don't think the project will be bid before October.

I'm leaving that one up to you.

Tracy is mouthing what's going on over here.

There's more work to do there.

Thank you.

Sorry to put you on the spot.

I start looking at what I'm going to be able to finish and what's going to go on next year.

That's really of interest to me.

This time next year we know Councilmember Gonzales will be here for sure.

That's right.

I'll just leave it at that before I break any laws.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So are there any other questions for my colleagues?

Michael, are you wrapping up?

That's pretty much it.

Thank you.

All right.

So with that Tracy, you don't anything?

Nope.

Okay go.

All right So I move the committee pass council bill one one nine four six zero second those all in favor.

Say aye.

Aye Those opposed.

No the ayes have it The motion passes and we will for this to the full council on Monday and thank you very much I appreciate the the time that you took to do the PowerPoint in the ordinance in the fiscal note.

I Can I say one more thank you?

Yes, you can.

Thank you for your work on City Hall Park.

And I appreciate that you got me something a couple of weeks ago.

So we're looking at City Hall Park, Yesler Crescent, the work on Prefontaine Fountain.

Thank you.

I'm grateful that you're moving ahead and we can continue to work on that in the next few weeks.

Great.

Thanks.

Great.

Okay, we got one more matter coming in.

Our ordinance on our timber pavilion structure.

You want to read that into the record again?

Council Bill 119466, an ordinance relating to the Department of Parks and Recreation authorizing the acceptance of a gift of a timber pavilion structure from the Seattle Parks Foundation to be installed in Occidental Square Park for public use.

We have Mr. Thatcher with us.

Thatcher Bailey, good to see you.

Thatcher Bailey.

How are you, sir?

Good, thank you.

And before we get started, first of all, we have the ordinance in front of us, but also thank you for providing, I don't know if you did this, Tracy, but thank you for providing the July.

2018 letter from the Seattle Parks Foundation.

Phenomenal board, great people, we see the same people, but Friends of the Waterfront, all those folks, I appreciate all the hard work.

DSA, Alliance for Pioneer Square, all those folks, so thank you for your hard work.

I'm gonna let you go ahead and take it from there, Christopher, and move through here and talk to us about this lovely facility.

Okay, so as customary, we come here to seek authorization to accept large gifts.

And this gift is valued at about $2 million.

It's a gift from the Seattle Park Foundation and the Alliance for Pioneer Square.

And it is an elegant timber pavilion.

We'll have wonderful drawings for you to see.

But this timber pavilion will be sited in Occidental Square Park and will provide indoor spaces for enhanced park activation.

We're very fortunate to have partners like the Park Foundation.

the alliance and I'd like to ask Thatcher maybe to say a few words and turn it over to Michael for a presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you council members for this opportunity and in part we're talking about a simple transaction here but I want to just back up a little bit and reiterate some of what's been said before about the remarkable partnership that actually was authorized through the council back in the days at the beginning of the park district kind of made this whole thing happen.

Amazing working relationship with the Department of Parks and Rec, with the City Council, with the Alliance, with DSA, with Friends of the Waterfront, kind of experimenting on Occidental and Westlake to kind of see how do you turn spaces that were felt like no-go zones for pretty much everybody into places that were active, vibrant.

parks for all and I think in Occidental it had its own set of challenges and I point to it often as the place where it has worked really well because you have folks who are accessing social services playing ping-pong or basketball and folks who are working in the executive suite at Weyerhaeuser and it is exactly what our parks should be and when we started this whole project out we brought some you know, Dan Biederman from New York to kind of give us some expertise.

How do you do this?

How do you transform these urban spaces?

And his whole thing is, well, you know, there's some formulas here, but you've got to, you know, test things out, see what works, see what doesn't work.

And so we held off making or proposing major capital investments.

until such time as DSA really figured out the programming, figured out the audiences, figuring out what made people feel welcome and safe in that space.

And as it turns out, it's been very successful, too successful in some ways.

There's tents up everywhere.

There's games everywhere.

The space has become a little bit cluttered.

The information booth is too small.

All kind of good news.

So this pavilion is, and the, a terrific designer from Olson-Condiger actually here with us today, has been designed not only to meet the needs of the ever-expanding programming that's happening at the park, And to take care of, you know, folks on a rainy day who might want to be sitting there, who don't necessarily need to sit under temporary tents.

But it also has been very carefully designed to kind of fit in with the historic architecture, referencing the lines of that architecture and the scale of the architecture.

And we're in constant conversation, not quite yet finished with Pioneer Square Preservation Board to make sure that we are crossing all the T's and dotting the I's on that.

So it's really kind of a form follows function thing.

We did a lot of public outreach back in the spring of 2018 through online surveys, face-to-face discussions, community meetings, and outreach to residents and nearby businesses.

Again, Pioneer Square Preservation Board, we've had five different presentations with them.

We've got probably a couple more when we're looking at detailed construction documents.

A lot of vetting through Parks Department, pro view process, getting good advice from maintenance crew about how to take care of this facility, which is a It's called the Timber Pavilion because it is largely timber with a big glass roof on it, but it's referencing the history of the timber industry in Seattle and particularly that neighborhood.

And there's some special maintenance needs that need to be addressed with that kind of facility.

kudos to the Parks Department for stepping up and helping make this happen and the staff at DSA kind of helping us figure out what the requirements would be to make that space function effectively for them and all the users of the park.

Security is always an issue when you have a structure like this.

There was some concern you're going to have this big covered space and like what's going to happen just immediately becomes a new living room.

And DSA is responsible for coordinating security in both the parks now that it's running.

Overnight, an unsheltered population will be a priority.

DSA can use, we are using overnight security in both parks to make sure that that's kind of, that it's kind of under control.

Lighting will be a part of this facility.

We're going to be nimble and kind of try to figure out to what extent this is a, a barrier or a problem and figure out solutions that work given the constraints of the city's way that we can and can't respond to those kinds of issues.

But it's been always front of mind.

Scheduling, we've got, we want to submit to the city for permitting in the next month or so.

And construction will take place at the end of that permitting process, which as you know can take a serious amount of time.

As Christopher said, it's about a $2.25 million project.

All the dollars are coming in from private donations through the Parks Foundation.

So that's what's allowed us to do this gift way of getting this into the city inventory of properties.

So you're looking at construction this summer?

I'm not going to make any promises when construction starts, just because what's great is that the folks looking at how this thing gets built are doing a lot of kind of pre-construction, so the disruption to the park will be minimal when that happens, or kind of, you know, kind of just plop it down.

I just want to say that the foundation continues to be a great partner.

We are working on projects all over the city that probably just wouldn't come to fruition without Thatcher and his staff.

So we really appreciate that energy that we get from the foundation.

So some of the specifics as you look at the image on the screen.

So there's a relatively small structure.

It's about 13 feet by 17 feet.

You see it on the left side.

So this whole structure sits at the very south end of Occidental Square Park.

So the structure's small.

That's the concierge and information booth.

The larger glass canopy is about 30 by 70 feet in size, but has really been sized to fit kind of elegantly within the existing park.

Did you help draft the ordinance?

I cannot take credit for that.

I think there were some people back.

It's like Kimball.

Yes.

The ordinances where they use the word gracefully and beautiful.

I mean, it's always legal.

And so I was sitting there reading, who wrote this?

That must be the landscape architects back in our office.

Thank you.

Is this cross laminated timber?

So one of the things is to kind of test out the latest technology with timber and kind of demonstrate what is possible.

Nice.

So this is one of these horses that may be dead.

You can tell me to get off.

Okay.

I mean, seriously, for the last nine or ten years, and when Leslie Smith was there and Gary Johnson was with us, I cannot tell you the number of meetings I've had about people saying, we want to have a public restroom, a Portland Loo, something down there, right?

If you guys are telling me you're not going to do it, you don't care about it, it's too much trouble, whatever it is, let me know because I keep asking the questions and I feel like it was what people in Occidental Square and the businesses down there wanted and now I'm not sure because I don't know where it is.

So, I mean, as I say, if this equine is deceased and you don't want to do it, let me know.

Just tell me.

Not to put you on the spot.

Well, let me respond to that by saying it became clear, you know, this was originally a grandiose thing.

We'd have bathrooms and a cafe and we just started to vet this out in terms of like what would be feasible and what would actually work in that space.

And then I think we started having conversations about the bathroom across in the old fire station being a maybe a more appropriate site.

So we actually.

did not include a bathroom in this design because there was an enormous amount of nervousness about how successful we would be in maintaining the high quality of that space.

And if we couldn't do that, then the whole project would look like a failure.

So I think we haven't, we're not solving for that council member.

It's not completely off the table or is it?

Well, it is here.

No, no, absolutely not.

No, no, he said it's not.

For now.

For now.

It's not in this design.

Part of that.

And that if you want to do something, we still have the fire station as a possibility.

But I hear from businesses about like on game days, you know, we put up all the port-a-johns and it's like, really?

But if it's not something that's a high priority now.

I'm considering myself off that horse.

Well, I defer to Parkside.

The complications of bathrooms in parks is something that you can speak to more eloquently than I.

He basically went through the APT automatic pee toilet at Hing Hay Park that wasn't very successful here also.

And I think the business owners at the time said we would rather have our business bathrooms be available than to have more toilets in the park.

So we've kind of waned back and forth between that space.

So we also know in Portland that they're finding these Portland Lows to be quite successful.

We've got a couple of them up now in our parks, I think down in Rainier Beach.

Rainier Beach, and we're going to do one in Ballard.

Which is not built yet.

Genesee Park.

That's where they are, right?

In Genesee?

Rainier Beach.

Rainier Beach.

So I just think that, you know, it's better to do something publicly than have people peeing and doing other things in the alley.

But I'm officially off this horse for now, so thank you.

off this horse.

So I'm gonna gallop, gallop all I can.

The committee is like spectacular at these weird analogies.

So you know I think you know I I can appreciate the sensitivity around making sure that meeting people's needs to toilet is, you know, it's a complicated, more complicated than what it needs to be, I think, but I don't think that we should give up on trying to solve further problems simply because it's complicated.

I mean, if that was if that was a rubric for decision making, we'd be frozen in amber at this point.

Talk about metaphors.

Thank you.

Right.

Just whipping them all out.

So, I mean, I do think, I do, my hope is that we can look at, you know, some of the models in similarly situated areas.

to Occidental Park that could help us troubleshoot for this.

So Ballard Comet Park has similar issues.

They have way less activation than you all currently have in Occidental Park.

And so I think we should create a learning opportunity from that investment that hopefully will occur.

this summer and really figure out what we can extrapolate from that example that we could share with you all in Pioneer Square to see if it's adaptable to the needs of that particular neighborhood.

Because I recognize that all of our different parks located within the different Neighborhoods have different needs and circumstances, and a one-size-fits-all approach may not be the right thing to do, but I think that there are opportunities for us to learn, troubleshoot, and adapt some of the strategies that we're going to roll out this summer that might be helpful and palatable for the folks who live, work, and visit Pioneer Square.

And I just want to add again, and I'm going to keep going with the horsey thing.

You know, we've been activating parks, Occidental, Westlake.

We've been talking about restrooms, and I'm thinking that with activation coupled with just the basic need for, you know, Dr., this is for you guys, too.

I don't see this going away.

I see the shape of things to come is that we do have toilets in public spaces.

And that park should take care of that.

Washing hands, using the restroom.

That it's not just a mere amenity, but it's actually an essential governmental function, an essential governmental service.

And that conversation is not going to go away.

So we will keep pushing for that.

Council Member Gonzalez will continue if we're not here.

But that's my point.

It's not going away, and nor should it.

And the recent audit of the navigation team highlighted the complete lack of appropriate publicly available facilities for people to navigate.

to toilet, and that is a public health issue, and we need to figure out how we address it.

Yeah.

We did put money in the budget this last year for hand-washing facilities and that, maybe not associated with parts, it was Seattle Public Utilities, but this whole idea of it shouldn't be on your shoulders.

I mean, San Francisco, the work they did, it was their equivalent of SPU.

We will certainly look at this at Yesler Crescent Park as we redevelop that park as an opportunity to experiment and try some of these more innovative approaches at a park where we know we have funding, at least for design.

Well, if you're going to spend $2.2 or $2.4 million, I'm not asking for a $2 million toilet.

Sure.

I mean, it doesn't even have to be open every day, seven days, but something at some point.

So I'm just going to leave it at that.

Actually, I'm a huge toilet advocate.

Oh, good.

I do think there's a solution in Pioneer Square, and it is that unused back part of the fire station that is actually plumbed restroom, that there was just no city money to kind of help bring that to the front.

Well, actually, I think that there is city money, and Chief Scoggins was great about saying that he'd be willing to open the doors.

I think the concern was how long that building is going to be there, but you know, like everything else, temporary buildings are there for a long time.

But the amount of money that they were looking at to retrofit that for ADA access and for others to use was not out of the question.

And it was not any more than getting a Portland loo.

And the question was, who was going to maintain it?

When we talked with Jeff Lilly, Jeff said, we'll help.

So it just fell flat.

And we need a leader on this.

Okay, within the department.

Yeah, I mean, I would love to see that's ridiculous that there's I'm sorry, but that there's a Actual facility that can't be accessed and it's a you know, a half a block from the park and it's conserved the square So, okay, so Thatcher we will end this conversation and you will be our toilet czar Leave it at that and we move to a vote.

Okay Wow, okay I move the committee pass council bill 119466. Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

No.

The ayes have it.

Motion passes.

We will forward this to full council.

Thank you, Mr. Bailey, for being here, for everything and your hard work.

And go forth with your new title.

Do us proud.

Thank you, council members.

I'm very excited.

You have a scepter that is like a toilet plunger.

It's going to be great.

We're going to get you one.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tracy.

So let's...

oh, this is gonna be exciting.

So go ahead and read the next item into the record, and then we'll go through the PowerPoint.

Item 9, Community Center Strategic Plan Implementation Update.

So...

oh, you got the new people.

Great.

So you have a PowerPoint to walk us through, and I will let you introduce your folks, and we'll just launch right in.

Very good.

Christopher Williams.

Hi, Justin Helliers with the Recreation Division.

Moshe Hecht, one of the new senior coordinators.

Justin Cutler, Recreation Division Director.

Welcome.

All right.

And before we get started, I want to say a few words about Justin just joined our team.

He hails from Colorado by way of Issaquah.

He's the new Recreation Division Director for the Seattle Park and Recreation Department.

And he comes with a huge depth and breadth of knowledge around recreation and leisure sciences.

And we're really fortunate to have gotten him to join our team.

Great.

So we're here today to make a presentation on the implementation of the community center strategic plan.

As you know, the department's plan was largely funded by the council through the 2017 budget process.

I wanted to thank Council Chair Juarez for extending our ability to kind of come back here where we gave us time to polish this presentation and come back with what we think is a more comprehensive presentation.

So we appreciate that extra time.

In the past, we've examined and analyzed data and reviewed best practices and solicited input on our recreation programming.

And we've done that typically with a very thin margin of analytical capacity.

Since the Park District was adopted, we now have staff who are really dedicated to that analytical piece of the work, and you're going to meet them here shortly.

But the Park District has given us an opportunity to test, pilot, try out new things.

And part of this report is to share some of the experimentation and the results of where we think we've been successful, where we think we need to do more work, and how we overall are implementing the recreation strategic plan.

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

Great, thank you.

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to report.

Just to tell you where...

Just to tell you where we're headed today, we are going to start by giving you an overview of the strategic plan itself, kind of where it came from and the deliberations that went on.

And then we'll jump into some updates on exactly what we did.

So implementation updates on expanded operating hours, some of the other innovations we did.

The focus of today's presentation will be on one particular innovation, sort of hub programming, While our traditional and sort of mainstream model for how we do community center operations does a lot of great work, there's gaps in who it serves.

And we, the hub innovations was really a way to look at how can we kind of tailor our services, whether geographically or to specific communities or affinity groups to, and use innovation to fill those gaps.

So that's where we'll focus today, but I get the opportunity to kind of give you the bigger context.

So in 2016 we completed a community center strategic plan that was really intended to guide additional park district investment into community center operations.

It took about a year to do the plan informed by a major study of community demand, a whole lot of demographic research.

We did a pretty significant review of best practices from peer jurisdictions and also did a whole lot of staff and public outreach.

And the plan was transmitted through the mayor's office to council and large parts of that plan were adopted as part of the 2017 budget.

And most of that funding is still in our operating budget today.

So the plan itself has had a whole lot of really in-depth look into our history, how we got where we are, and what we're trying to accomplish today, but ended up with these specific kind of recommendations for where to go from here.

So first, in three big buckets, the first was around increasing staffing.

In some cases, that was really to right-size staff at really busy sites with an eye towards safety and better customer service.

And then in some cases, at six sites, which we'll talk about more, it was to add adding staffing in order to add operating hours.

We had a series of innovations and pilot projects that we proposed around really making sure we've got free programming in place for low income communities, expanding partnerships, some of them financial about bringing in resource from the outside and then some of them programming to make sure we're really having great collaboration and better programs through collaboration.

Some of them which we'll focus on today, that hub programming of how we kind of tailor our services.

And then finally, there was some system-wide improvements that we proposed and implemented.

So the first, and we'll talk about it today, is eliminating drop-in fees.

So just making it easier for folks to come into the center and have fun.

Simplifying the scholarship process, making sure that's accessible to everybody.

And then strengthening some of our performance management, you know, our ability to really understand our impact and plan with data.

And then strengthening staff professional development as well.

So I get to tell you about a few of those big picture updates.

So one of the first and biggest things we did was add staffing in order to expand operating hours.

And this happened at six sites.

So there's a lot on this slide, so I'll tell you about it one thing at a time.

So we made an investment.

through the strategic plan of 6.5 FTE.

And for the most part that was taking, you know, a front desk rec attendant whose position was .75 and moving them up to 40 hours a week in order to keep the building open longer.

So at these six sites, at the International District, Chinatown, Magnuson, Miller, Van Asselt, South Park, and Yesler, We added that 6.5 FTE across all those sites in order to increase the average weekly operating hours.

So that middle column shows the increase in average weekly operating hours since the strategic plan proposal.

And in some of those cases, it's a pretty significant increase.

At Magnuson, for example, it more than doubled the operating hours each week.

You know, when we make investments like this, we want to make sure that we measure impact and make sure we're making the right choices.

So the third column is really look at community utilization.

One of the ways we measure utilization is people counters.

So it's a technology that measures folks coming in the door of the building.

And so they might be coming in to go to a preschool program.

They might be coming in for yoga.

They might be coming in to play basketball or to sign up for a scholarship.

Any of those things that we consider legitimate uses that, you know, that we're open for.

So system-wide, those visits grew 2%, but then at each of these six centers that we added operating hours, you can see it grew significantly more than that, just about double digits for all of them, which to us was an indication that this was really, there was a community need for these hours and that, you know, when we opened the doors, folks were coming.

How did we pick, or how did you pick those six?

Yeah, so the three core filters were around social equity, and so that was around neighborhood income and kind of scholarship applications at those sites, and then safety and customer service.

So in the strategic plan, it sort of lays out exactly how each site came to be in the top six.

I think there's a variety of second-tier sites that we may have also wanted to add ours to, but with limited funding.

I vaguely remember when you were talking about.

So when will we get the 2018?

Yeah, so good question and I wish that I could bring it to you today.

So the technology was installed in 2011 and with the help of some of the folks at the table and it's actually since then kind of become pretty old and over the last two quarters of...

Over the last two quarters of this year, it's sort of started falling apart.

So it's a camera in the door that catches folks as they come in.

There's a sensor in it that sometimes goes out and we replace them.

Starting in about late summer last year, IT let us know that they actually can't purchase those sensors anymore.

And so each time a sensor goes out, that camera's kind of down for good.

Now luckily we knew this would happen at some point and in the 2019 budget there's funding to replace the whole system and we're doing that now.

So a little bit later this year we'll have that data back up and running.

Great, thank you.

I will say system-wide the numbers have gone up each year that we've been measuring and I'm sorry that we can't give you 18, I wish we could have it too.

I figured that's what was going on, thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, so, you know, to me that's a sign that increasing operating hours, that we put those in the right spot and there was really a community need for it and that that's succeeded.

Next, I get to tell you a little bit about some system-wide improvements.

You know, one innovation was eliminating drop-in fees system-wide.

And so just to give you some context, we have drop-in activities.

So that might be you can come in and play basketball, you can come in and bring your kid to a tot gym, you might be able to play a card game.

And as a part during the recession, we added sort of $2 and $3 fees to these things, kind of nominal fees to help offset the cost of providing programming in an era of budget cuts.

Now we found through our outreach that that was an actual cost barrier to some folks, and then we also found it was just kind of a psychological barrier that the idea to come in and just play a game with your neighbors, you had to pay money, right?

And so it was a high priority of ours to eliminate that, both to eliminate the real barrier to some folks, but also just that psychological barrier.

So that's one thing we did.

And so that created...

After doing that, we saw a 10% increase in drop-in attendance, and that's measured by kind of a point-of-sale button in our registration system.

So that's not a guess at what amount of the people counter numbers are this.

This is actual tracking of folks coming in for those specific activities.

Again, I would love to give you 2018 numbers, but as you know, we replaced our registration system that year, and it counts these numbers in slightly different ways, so we can't.

They're not apples to oranges.

They're not apples to apples.

So we also improved the scholarship process in a few different ways.

We simplified the application and we really doubled down on a commitment to multilingual outreach.

And then we also worked with other parts of the city to honor the utility discount program as a form of income verification.

And just to give you a sense of kind of some of the, what our scholarship picture looks like.

So in 2017, we had about 4,300 people receive scholarships, $2.1 million altogether.

So one and a half million of that is general fund money allocated for licensed school aged care scholarships.

400,000 is the, Park District Recreational Program Scholarships, which as you may remember, you also added, in this budget, added some Sweden Beverage Tax too, so that pot will be a little bigger next year, this year, which we're excited about.

And then we received supplemental donations and things like that, so about another $200,000.

I'm just looking at quick math here.

Let's just boil this down.

You had 4,000 people and $2 million.

Is that roughly $500?

Is what you're counting $500 a piece for the value?

I'll say there's two big buckets, which is child care, which is really expensive, right?

Because what they're getting a scholarship for is sort of four or five days a week of care.

over months, right, as opposed to, so that could be several thousand dollars, as opposed to someone getting a scholarship to their $100 ballet class, right?

So I wouldn't do the exact average by just dividing, you know, 2.1 by 4,000.

I'd look at it in those two buckets.

And I don't have those numbers on hand, but we could do that, yeah.

That's great.

And I'm sure that the three of us will bring up how important child care is.

Thank you.

The more the better.

Councilmember Baxhaw also just sort of remind us here that this is exactly the stuff we were talking about doing in 2012 when we went through the process of having to reduce hours and come up with new operating models and new approaches to how we run community centers.

We didn't have the staff capacity at the time to do the work that Justin and Moshe are doing today.

Great, thank you Christopher.

And so now I get to pass it over to the piece you actually asked for.

And just to sort of set the stage, so one of the innovations that we thought about was kind of realizing that our traditional and mainstream way of doing programming really does a lot of work for this community, but there's gaps.

And we wanted the opportunity to really think about tailored approaches, whether it's geographically tailored, whether it's tailored to specific cultural or affinity communities, to try and meet those gaps.

And so just so we're clear, what that investment was, was two positions, two kind of higher level positions for us, folks whose day-to-day job was not going to be to actually manage the building, but who could sort of step back, do some of the data analysis, planning, and incubation of these kind of innovations.

So that's what the hub investment was, was these two positions, no other funding.

And this is kind of a, Mo, my colleague Mo, gets to report on exactly how we went about that work.

Great, thank you.

So the first thing we did is we took the community center strategic plan that Justin referenced, and we wanted to come up with some goals for the hubs that we were going to work on.

And then we did a bunch of research looking at different park districts across the country.

We even looked at some park districts in Australia to see what kinds of models are different districts using to provide services to their community, specifically tailored services.

And then we did a bunch of data analysis.

So we really looked at our program data.

We used census data.

We used data from Seattle Public Schools, King County Public Health.

We also interviewed most of the recreation division to really kind of put together a needs assessment and a gap analysis.

We also really wanted to make sure that we utilized the Race and Social Justice Equity Toolkit to help inform our decision making.

And from there, we landed on three hubs that we thought we could implement in 2018. So the first one was really focused on a partnership model up at Lake City Community Center.

The second one is a specialty programming hub model at Garfield Community Center, which is supporting activity camps, what we call our Destination Summer Camp Program.

And then a matrix hub model, which is focused on adult sports.

But in 2018, we really focused on pickleball.

You look like you have a question.

Yeah, it is.

So at Lake City Community Center, this one is actually was made possible thanks to the funding from city council for us to be able to operate the community center.

And as many of you might know, there is a significant need for programming and services for seniors and for teens in that community.

Can I just interrupt you for a second?

Sure.

I know you're talking to the queen of D5 down here.

I know I am.

Yes.

Okay, very good.

That's why that's there.

I didn't know if you were sort of a new kid on the block.

I just wanted to alert you.

Anytime you say D5, Lake City, you get extra points around here.

I actually met you up there at Lake City when we opened it.

Yeah.

So that was great fun.

So the unique thing that we did up there actually is in the recreation division, we've actually been piloting the use of public benefit partnerships at that community center.

And this is something, thank you, this is something we've been doing in other parts of our division, but this is really the first time that we've tried to do this in recreation.

So this is really something new to us and we're really looking at utilizing these partnerships as to sort of see what we can learn from them, see what works, see what doesn't work.

And you know, Sound Generations and CMAR have been phenomenal.

They're amazing.

They've just come in and feed our elders, the CMAR health piece, and also the Lake City Lions.

These groups had already been doing it, but to give them that recognition was really, really important, so thank you.

Oh, sure.

My pleasure.

It's been really fun working with them.

One of the things, because I had an opportunity to meet with these folks as well as they were doing the work, and one of the things that I found really unique, particularly with CMAR, is they do a lot of intergenerational work, which is really, I mean, all of the literature says how spectacular intergenerational models are, both for the seniors and for youth, to have better health outcomes.

So, really appreciate the partnership with those organizations.

And I would say that one of the things that helped make this possible was that, you know, Lake City is sort of a unique community center for us.

And as some of you have mentioned, those partners have been there for a long time.

It really made sense for us to really engage with them in proactive ways and really support the work that they're doing.

And we wanted to continue.

So with that 25 hours a week that we're funded, we're operating that as a more traditional community center.

So we're doing sort of our traditional programs that we do.

senior fitness classes, dementia-friendly programs.

We have a...

We have salsa dancing now.

I think we have salsa dancing.

We had the special event, the Lucha Libre, which I think you helped fund.

Yes, we did.

I saw photos from that, that looked amazing.

That was me in the ring.

I'm sorry, I missed it.

We did, we had Lucha Libre.

We brought in a full...

I don't know what you call it, but it was quite something.

But then through these partnerships, we've actually been able to open up that facility an additional 19 hours a week on average.

And that's the sound generations that actually is opening the door and working with the other partners.

The Lake City Lions are continuing to do the fundraising and the flea markets that they do.

Through those partnerships, Hunger Intervention Program, for example, served over 10,000 meals last year.

Right.

I've eaten lunch there many times.

And Mark Mendez is phenomenal.

Yeah.

All those folks.

So that's some of that public benefit that we're quantifying and that we're sort of working with and learning how does this process work, how do we sort of capture that value that they bring to the community and to us.

And you've also captured all that traffic, because the New Lake City Library is right next door.

Yep.

So everybody goes there.

In fact, when they closed, we worked with them to do the team programming there at the community center so that they could continue to do their tutoring there.

So it's really been fun to operate that community center.

So thank you.

So before I get into the details of this next hub, I'd like to tell you about some of the core values of our department, or of the recreation division, which is really that we're really here for youth.

And we know that the recreation programming that we do really has the power to change lives by supporting youth development.

And we're also committed to equity, that it really should not matter your race, your gender, your neighborhood that you live in, your wealth, that all youth in our city really should have access to and be able to participate in our programming.

Last summer alone, we had over 37,000 registrations in our youth programs.

Two of our most popular programs include our licensed summer day camp and our activity camps.

Each of those programs had over 10,000 registrations.

Our licensed child care program, which offers the summer day camp, is supported by $1.5 million in scholarships.

And because it is licensed, we can also accept DSHS families, which means that it doesn't matter how much money you have.

You can participate in this program.

Our activity camps are not licensed.

They are typically half day, often with a morning option and an afternoon option.

Children can register for programs like geocaching, science, lacrosse, nature.

Clay, all kinds of programs that we offer in that program.

And according to the National Science Foundation, programs like these really help to curb the summer learning slide, which disproportionately impact lower income families.

So when we did the program analysis of our activity camps and we saw the lack of registrations in the Southeast Geographic District, which also includes community centers in the Central District, we knew that we had to do something differently.

We have offered activity camps in this geo time and again, and we've really struggled to get enough registration in those programs to make them sustainable.

And so our operating theory is that money is a barrier, that families simply cannot afford to register for these programs.

And so what did we do differently?

We selected a site actually in the Central District at Garfield Community Center.

We located it at the community center that traditionally has not had activity camps or couldn't sustain them.

We leveraged funding from our strategic program partner, the Associated Recreation Council.

And we also piloted offering scholarships for families who qualified for 80% or greater of full scholarship into the program.

We directly marketed the program to families that were wait-listed for summer day camp who did not receive funding.

We also use traditional and ethnic media sources to really try and target the community to really reach and get the word out.

And we offered free lunch and snacks to kids who, for many of whom, this might be their only meal of the day.

Who's helping you with the meals and snacks?

So this is part of our summer sack lunch program.

And then we also supplemented that with additional funding so that we could make sure that we had food available.

Yes.

That's what I thought.

But we leveraged that program there, so.

Yeah.

So the outcome.

So the impact was that we had 40 separate camps that we offered there at Garfield.

We got 582 registrations, and 80% of the families that participated in the program received a full scholarship.

Registrations as a percent of population increased more than fivefold.

From this data, we feel like we know that we can make an impact, and yet we're still not there.

We really need to figure out how can we actually level the playing field across the whole division so that everybody in our system has access to these programs.

So this next hub is really rooted in a matrix model.

Recreation is a large department.

And from the recreation demand study that we did a few years ago, we know that there's a growing demand for adult recreation in our city, and there's a growing population of young adults that's going to continue to grow in this city for a number of years.

This growing demand is not limited to traditional sports.

So there's a lot of non-traditional recreation sports that are flourishing.

And all of these activities, there's competing demands for our gyms, particularly at peak times.

So for example, during basketball season, we kick out a lot of programs so that our young people can actually practice and prepare for basketball games.

And as I mentioned earlier, we're a silo department, so our community centers typically are run by a coordinator.

We have managers over each of our geographic districts.

We have specialized work units, and we have different divisions.

So we have the recreation division, for example.

We have our facilities division.

And the gap in the programming is really, we had numerous people, particularly from Pickleball, requesting more access to drop-in time.

In 2010, I estimate that we had about 20 hours a week of drop-in pickleball at two locations.

And we offered, oh, I'm sorry.

And we have challenges also managing levels of play now because the demand has really increased.

So we have a lot of people who are interested in learning, are much more beginners, and we have more seasoned players who actually can be on the national scene.

These groups don't want to play together.

And sometimes in our just our drop-in time, there are challenges figuring out how do we regulate the play.

Who doesn't want to play together?

People who are competing on the national scene in pickleball, and then the folks who are just learning.

There is such a thing.

Yes.

Who are all those people?

Oh, that's one of our, I'll talk about them.

That's one of the groups that actually organized the competition there.

And so working through our silos, you're sort of preempting part of my slide here, but working through our silos, we actually worked with our, throughout our division to stripe our outdoor courts.

And so this group, because of the striping of the outdoor courts, did a competition out there.

And that's right out by Green Lake.

I have to tell you how funny this is to me, because goodness knows we have competition in everything.

When we tried to do space at Smith Cove, we had our outdoor volleyball players come and say they wanted space for nine different, whatever the pitch is called in volleyball.

And I'm looking at them saying, we might get one or two, but nine?

But I've heard a lot of competition, but not with adult pickleball.

I could probably tell you some stories that I've heard.

It got violent.

Yes, that's what the toddler said.

As I mentioned, sort of the innovation, so we identified some additional times inside of our community centers for drop-in play.

Because we made everything free, you know, all of our drop-in time free, we actually surveyed participants to see would they be willing to pay a little bit of money to actually participate outside of our operating hours so that we can cover the cost of that staff to open the building.

We piloted that at two locations.

One of the locations had enough interest to support that for a few months, and then interest slowly waned.

And I think they just probably went back to the free drop-in.

So that model proved to not be so successful.

But things like striping the outdoor courts, we actually issued our community centers pickleball nets that they can then check out to the public.

So a patron can come into the community center, assuming it's open, check out that pickleball net, go outside and play on a sunny day.

Simple things like that are pretty easy fixes to help satisfy the demand for this.

So moving forward, we're going to continue to be the incubation of change and look at ways that we can be more effective, more efficient, and address equity issues in our division.

At Lake City, we're going to continue to support and learn from those public benefit contracts.

Our teen leader up there recently received some funding from ARC and from Seattle Parks and Recreation that's really dedicated to help support the teen program up there at Lake City.

For activity camps, we're going to run our programs again this year.

We're going to continue to try and learn from them, see if we can be more efficient, see if we can try to expand the program.

We really want to figure out, how do we solve this problem?

How do we expand this opportunity to all youth across the city?

And at Magnuson Community Center, as you might know, Mercy Housing is scheduled to open up, so the first residents will be moving into Magnuson this May.

And so we're developing a strategic impact coalition in partnership with Seattle Public Schools, Mercy Housing, Solid Ground, YMCA, and a number of other partners there so that we can work as a real team to figure out how do we really address the needs of the residents that are going to be living there on campus and that are currently living there.

but not forgetting the residents of the whole greater community.

So how can we really work together to solve all of those needs and demands of the park?

It's going to be really exciting because we know we've been dealing with Council Member Johnson, because that's his district.

I've been dealing with it as the chair.

It's like every social economic indicator need all comes down to Magnuson Park.

From profit to non-profit, to off-leash dog, to pea patch, I mean everything.

Recreation, they need a grocery store.

And then we have all the affordable housing units down there.

So I'm going to be very excited to see what happens this spring.

Yeah, me too.

OK.

So just in closing, kind of lessons we learned from these couple years of innovation.

So first, for many of our programs and services, demand that we're getting from the community exceeds our capacity.

You know, thinking through things like the scholarship fund that we've spent down every year.

thinking about kind of where to slot in those aggressive pickleball players, thinking about the need for more operating hours and how much uptake there is of them by community.

And so to solve that puzzle, right, we need some innovation.

And we found over the course of this work that we can, with a real focus on innovation, we can do things that achieve results.

Some of those are really self-sustaining, right?

So once you stripe that outdoor pickleball court and set up a system for folks to use it, then it's good to go for a long time.

Some of them are going to require continued investment, right?

So if we want to dedicate scholarship funds to make sure a youth program is accessible, we're going to need those same funds every year to keep it alive.

We also learned, and we sort of knew this intuitively, but we've really been able to look at it in a much more granular way, that our fee-based model, right, our pay-to-play model does a lot to sustain significant programming all over the city.

But on its own, it's not going to deliver really equitable distribution, and there's going to be gaps in who we serve.

And we've always known that, but the capacity to have this extra analytical staff who can really dive into the numbers, find actually where the worst disparities and gaps are, and start to come up with a plan, a remedy that has been really, really wonderful.

People still pay to swim though, right?

Yes.

Yeah, that one hasn't been done, okay.

Yeah.

And then I think we think there are, you know, as Mo mentioned, continued opportunities for innovation in the system.

But it's a complicated system, right?

And it takes with a lot of stakeholders and it takes some really thoughtful analysis and planning.

And we've learned that can't come from, we want to keep our community center coordinators and assistant coordinators really focused on running an amazing building with a great set of programs in it, right?

And so we need that extra little bit of staffing to help us do that more complicated analytical work in planning, and that's what these hub investments have given us.

You know, I want to add on to this that part of this approach has been to be innovators and to be borrowers of innovation.

And I think to that end, we've asked Justin to look at how these trends are tracking for public recreation and public recreation participation for youth, adults, seniors, and where the trends are taking us for the next tranche of park district funding.

So we would like to at some time come back with an expose on what we've learned so far while we continue to innovate.

The learning is also part of that and being able to plan for the future through that learning.

Christopher, this is our 10th year working together, and I want to acknowledge how far we've come.

And as our city has grown as fast as it has, 100,000 more people during this decade plus, we know that the parks and the access to the community centers is more critical than ever.

So I want to acknowledge that and thank you Justin Moe and Justin for your work here.

But I also want to say three very special thank yous.

Bitter Lake and Garfield during the snow that you worked on that so hard and fast.

I heard today from Some folks that were working with Mary's Place, they couldn't have done that without you.

A lot of people stepped up, but I want to acknowledge that and say thank you.

Also, the six acres that are going to be an active play field up at Fort Lawton.

It is probably one of the few things that people can point to that they agree up there.

We're going to get housing up there, and it's important, but that six acres has made a big difference.

And then also I want to acknowledge the support you've given market to MOHAI.

I met with John Pearson yesterday.

Things are moving forward.

That man has raised a million dollars himself.

And the next objective is to help figure out how do we maintain that going forward.

But he just sang your praises, and I want to say thank you myself.

Thank you very much.

Okay, with that, is there anything else?

Okay, well, thank you guys so much, and we'll see you all again.

Thank you, Christopher, just all of you.

I can remember Justin and Christopher, I forgot your, and I should know your names by now.

Mo, Justin.

Thank you guys.

Okay, so with that, before we adjourn, let me make one more announcement and then we will adjourn.

The next meeting of the Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee will be Wednesday, March 20th at 2 o'clock.

And with that, we stand adjourned.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Baggio and Gonzalez.