Seattle City Council Transportation & Utilities Committee 12121

Thank you.

A quick update on our committee agenda.

One of the Transit Advisory Board appointees is no longer available to serve.

So if there's no objection, we will remove agenda item 4, which was appointment 2075. So we'll remove that agenda item.

OK, removing agenda item 4, hearing no objection, item 4 is removed.

and if there's no objection, we'll adopt the amended agenda.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Chair's report.

Good morning.

Welcome to the second-to-last meeting of the Transportation Utilities Committee of 2021. This is also the last meeting from which items voted out of this committee will be able to go to full council before the end of the year.

That's because the last full council meeting of this year will be on December 13, but our next committee meeting is not until December 15. Today's agenda includes four mayoral appointments to transportation boards, a presentation on councilmember Mosqueda's proposal to waive street vacation fees for publicly funded affordable housing projects.

It's item six on the agenda.

And councilmember Mosqueda might join us for that.

We'll also have legislation from Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light.

So at this time, we will open the remote general public comment period for Transportation Utilities Committee.

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

We are continuously looking for ways to fine-tune this process of public participation.

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

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

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

Public comment period for this meeting will be up to 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

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

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

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

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone, and an automatic prompt of, you have been unmuted, will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak, and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Press star six.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda.

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

Once you hear the chime, we'll ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, you can do so via Seattle Channel or the listing options listed on the agenda.

If you are calling about Council Bill 120320 or Resolution 32030, please wait until later in the agenda for the public hearings on those two items.

They each have their own public hearing.

The regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open.

And we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Actually, we have just one speaker so far.

That is Max Baker.

Please press star 6 and go ahead, Max Baker.

Hi.

Hi.

I apologize.

I don't have an item related to today's agenda.

But I wanted to speak generally to the proposed transportation plan and a bit about the Vision Zero plan in the past.

So I'll hop right into it.

10 years ago, as I was biking to my job in Delridge, I came upon a dead cyclist on the road who had been hit by a truck just minutes before.

And that image sticks with me to today, especially now that I've made Delridge my home and I bike these streets with my toddler every day.

When Delridge first showed up in the Bike Master Plan as a protected bike lane priority, I was excited to think this area would finally become safe.

I voted strongly in favor of the Moose-Seattle levy because of this.

But quickly, the Delridge plans removed bike lanes, even as advocacy groups and residents pushed back.

Then the pandemic came along and the bridge closed, bike sales skyrocketed, and SIS residents could bike instead of drive, with a 1,500% increase in bike trips as a goal.

But nothing actually changed to the plans themselves.

Delridge is done, and what we have is a lot of street parking per street where nearly every business and home has off-street parking, and dedicated turn lanes from one block to the other.

We were provided with a bike lane for a stretch south of Juneau, but it only goes one way.

Without a return option, it's essentially useless.

Every day, I still see bikers being angry, passed, and honked at by cars.

I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before someone would say, why are they still biking here?

Because this is the one flat route, and everything for locals is here on the street, the school, the daycare, the library, the community center.

We'll just go bike on the greenway, my one friend told by an engineer.

You mean the greenway where last summer I witnessed a car turn onto without slowing, smashed into parked cars, and rolled over?

Had someone been in that street riding their bike, they surely would have been killed.

I do not exaggerate when I say this.

Every friend we've had or made on Delridge Way has moved.

One told me that the moment they were moving the northbound bike lane in front of her house was the moment she decided to move.

It tells me that a city dedicated to reducing its dependence on cars and to increasing the health of its residents

Thank you very much for those comments and please send the rest of your comments to the council.

You can send it to council at Seattle.gov or you can send it to me as the chair, Alex.Peterson at Seattle.gov.

Thank you.

This concludes the list of speakers from the general public.

Let me just double check that.

Yes.

Yes, that concludes the list of speakers from the general public.

Now we will move on to the first legislative item on the agenda.

Will the clerk please read the title of the first two agenda items into the record?

Agenda Items 1 and 2. Appointments 2072 and 2073. Appointments of Jose Ulysses Nino Rivera and Diane Temai Walsh as members, Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board, for terms to August 31st, 2023, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Yes, these are two mayoral appointments, the Seattle Bike Board.

We appreciate their willingness to serve.

We're gonna turn it over to Simon Blensky from SDOT to tell us about the board and these two new members and their appointment packets are obviously on the agenda.

And if they're here with us, we'll get to hear from them.

Hi, Simon, good morning.

Hi, good morning.

Yeah, Jose and Diane are both here.

Again, my name is Simon Blensky.

I'm a transportation planner with SDOT, and I'm also the staff liaison for the Bicycle Advisory Board.

The Bicycle Advisory Board advises the mayor, city council, and city departments on projects, policies, and programs that improve or affect bicycling conditions in Seattle.

The board has 12 members, including one Get Engaged member, and I'm here today to recommend the appointment of two new members for two-year terms through August of 2023. And I will hand it over next to Jose to say a few words and introduce himself and then followed by Diane.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Hi all.

Can you hear me.

Yes.

Great.

My name is Jose Ulises Nino Rivera and I am being appointed for my first full term to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board where I was the Get Engaged member this past year.

This term I.

hope to focus on ensuring bike infrastructure is designed and built to encourage people from all ages and abilities to mode shift as much of the transportation needs as possible to biking.

Mode shifting is one of the best avenues we have in reducing carbon emissions in the personal transportation sector, something we gravely need to accomplish if we want to combat the existential threat of climate change.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to serve the city.

Thank you, and thanks for serving as a Getting Engaged member originally.

Diane, welcome.

Sorry.

Hi, my name is Diane Walsh.

A little bit of background about myself.

I've been in Seattle for the past 10 years, where I moved up here for a Master's of Landscape Architecture.

at UW and then moved on to work at SDOT in the public space management program where I worked on programs to activate the right of way.

I view bicycling and good bicycle infrastructure as an integral part of our functioning transportation system and a way to make the city more vibrant and people-centered.

I personally bike as my primary form of transportation when I can.

because of the personal and social and environmental benefits.

But I realized that not everybody has access to biking in this way.

I would like to reduce some of those barriers to entry.

I have two kids who are now of biking age where they can ride in the road and it's terrifying.

I think that I would like to help advocate for and imagine a city where a four or five-year-old could safely and comfortably bike through any part of the city.

So I'm very excited about the prospect of being on the board.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Council members, any questions for these two mayoral appointees to the Seattle Bike Advisory Board?

I know you've all read the packets and sometimes we don't have any questions and that's fine.

I certainly appreciate your willingness to serve and, Jose, continuing to serve.

And I look forward to hearing from the bike board directly, as well as they have a liaison to the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee, which is helpful to sort of integrate when we're talking about all modes of transportation to have the cycling advocates at the table there as well to implement those investments.

All right.

Well, council members, I would like to move that the committee recommend approval of appointments 2072 and 2073, items one and two on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval of these appointments.

Any final comments?

OK.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to approve appointments 2072 and 2073?

Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herboldt?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the December 6 City Council meeting.

Congratulations to our appointees for moving to the next step.

Thank you for joining us today as well.

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

Agenda item three, appointment 2074, appointment of Amin Amos as member, Seattle Transit Advisory Board for a term to August 2nd, 2023, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Great.

And we have Nico from SDOT here with us.

And as I mentioned before, the other appointment that is no longer available to serve.

But I really appreciate the appointee who's here this morning with us.

And we'll hear from Nico from SDOT first.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you for having us here today.

Yes, I wanted to first pass along Autumn's sincere apologies for not being able to serve.

She was very excited, but some family circumstances got in the way.

By way of some quick background, the Transit Advisory Board was created by the City Council back in 2015 after passage of the 2014 Seattle Transportation Benefit District Proposition 1. The Transit Advisory Board has two main charges.

First, advising the city and our partners on transit and transit issues within Seattle.

and more specifically, providing oversight of funds collected and spent under the 2020 Seattle Transportation Benefit District Proposition 1. The board is made up of 12 members, six mayoral appointees, five council appointees, and one Get Engaged member.

And as mentioned, we have just one appointment in front of the committee for consideration today, and I will hand it off to Amin to tell us a little about himself.

Hi, everyone, thank you for having me here today.

My name is Amin Amos, and I'm a lifelong transit user.

I'm excited to look forward to using both established and fresh methods to make using transit a more enjoyable experience in Seattle.

I love the work that's been done so far with everyone involved, and I'm looking forward to being part of it.

Thank you very much.

I've got my Prop 1 sign here, so we're excited that Seattle voters chose to renew that, and we obviously put various categories in it.

A lot of things, a lot of concerns with West Seattle Bridge closed, and we're excited about the new light rail stations opening up in King County Metro, trying to coordinate with those light rail stations to get people out of their cars, riding these new transit investments.

And the bus system is so important to that as well.

So appreciate your willingness to serve on this so we can get more people to ride transit.

Colleagues, any questions for our appointee here?

OK, well, we've all looked at your packet.

I really appreciate your willingness to serve.

Thank you.

colleagues, I'd like to move that the committee recommend approval of 2074 item 3 on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval of the appointment.

Are there any final comments?

OK.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to approve appointment 2074?

Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Morales?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointment be confirmed will be sent to the December 6th City Council meeting.

Congratulations on advancing.

Appreciate your time, your willingness to serve and for being here this morning.

Thank you.

All right.

We removed item four from the agenda, so next we're gonna go to item five.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item, item five, and then direct it.

Agenda item five, appointment 2076, appointment of Robin Schwartz as member, Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee, for a term to March 31st, 2023, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, and we have another mayoral appointment, and this is to the School Traffic Safety Committee.

Appreciate willingness to serve.

We've got Jennifer here from SDOT who will tell us about this particular committee, and then we'll hear from our appointee.

Good morning, Jennifer.

Good morning.

Thank you.

So I'm a transportation planner with SDOT, and I'm also the SDOT liaison to the School Traffic Safety Committee.

The School Traffic Safety Committee was created by ordinance in 1975 to bring together Seattle Public Schools, the city, and parents to improve safe routes to schools.

And the committee works closely with SDOT, the SDOT Safe Routes to School Program, to make it safer for students to walk and bike to school.

The committee has 11 board members, including representatives from Seattle Public Schools, Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Police Department, King County Metro, and five volunteer positions.

Robin, who's here today, would serve one of the volunteer positions, and I will give Robin a few minutes to introduce herself.

Thanks, everyone.

My name is Robin Schwartz.

Thanks for having me today.

I'm a community member in South Park in the Duwamish Valley, and my younger kid goes to school down here, and that's how I got interested in this, making sure you know, are doing what we can to make sure that pedestrian safety is kind of foremost, especially in the last year and a half with the bridge.

I also am really invested in the idea of Title One schools organizing together, you know, high poverty communities find it hard to organize a lot of times.

And this is when we also have, I think, more safety pedestrian issues than in other communities.

And so that's why I'm excited to serve.

have kind of a network of especially Southwest Title I community members.

So I'm looking forward to working with them and work with the Safety Committee to make things easier for our kids to get to school.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

I know that the Safety Committee did a lot of work on their annual report and it's really heartening to see the Seattle Public Schools working with SDOT and working with community members.

And one of their proposals was to have the city council fund GPS software for school buses.

And there was a lot of support for that.

We just, because the revenue, the revenues on the city side went down, we were not able to fund that particular item, but we tried to do that.

We'll we'll take another look at that in 2022 and then and then hear what else the what other priorities there are I know there are lots of important issues with st. Bronx to school and crossing guards and other issues so Councilmember Herbold

Thank you so much.

I just want to add my really strong support for Robyn's candidacy.

When she says she has a network of folks that she organizes with, she's not kidding.

She's just really somebody that the community finds to be the go-to person on so many issues in South Park and in the surrounding neighborhoods.

And she's been so involved in particular at Concord Elementary and on road and pedestrian safety issues.

She's a really excellent fit for this position.

I'm really excited to see that her effective and passionate advocacy is being elevated to a leadership role here.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Committee members, any other comments or questions?

All right.

Well, I would like to move that the committee recommend approval of appointment 2076, item 5 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval of the appointment.

Any final comments?

OK.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to approve appointment 2076?

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

All right, the motion carries.

And the committee recommendation that the appointment be confirmed will be sent to the December 6 City Council meeting.

Congratulations, and thank you for serving.

All right.

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

Agenda item six, proposal to waive street vacation fees for affordable housing projects for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

And I want to thank Councillor Mosqueda for sponsoring this legislation.

It impacts Seattle Department of Transportation because it's the fees that are paid for the vacating of streets or alleyways.

And it also affects the Office of Housing because if it's structured up front, they can benefit, Office of Housing can have more funds available for a project to increase affordable housing, for example, which is a priority of ours.

So we're hearing this item in both committees.

In this committee, we're hearing it just as a briefing and discussion, and the real action will take place next week, Tuesday, in the Finance and Housing Committee.

But we wanted committee members to hear about this, and Council Member Skate has been very open to input on this bill.

And she may join us here as well.

We will reach out and let her know we're getting started on this one.

But we do have some staff here is with us.

Thank you very much for your work on this bill.

And why don't we turn it over to you for a presentation and we can ask some questions.

Good morning.

Lish Whitson, Council Central staff.

Council Bill 120227 would amend Seattle Municipal Code Section 1562090 to exempt affordable housing projects from the requirement to pay the value of the vacated right-of-way when a street or alley vacation is granted by the council.

State law allows, but in most cases doesn't require the city to require payment of the appraised value of the right-of-way before street vacations are finalized.

One exception is shoreline street ends where the city must receive the appraised value of the right of way.

The city currently exempts city, state, and federal agencies from paying these costs.

This bill would also exempt projects that receive city, state, county, or federal funding and provide affordable housing at rents and income levels consistent with the city's housing funding policies.

Funds from street vacations under state law are required to be allocated to transportation or open space projects.

Consequently, the effect of the bill would be to reduce transportation funding and reduce costs to build affordable housing when a street vacation is required.

And as mentioned, the bill will be discussed and potentially voted on at the next Finance and Housing Committee meeting.

And that's all I have.

Thank you.

Committee members, I'll have a few questions here about the bill, but wanted to see if anybody else wanted to go first.

I'll talk very slowly in case Councilman Mosqueda wants to join us.

So I'll go ahead and ask a few questions to get us started on this.

And again, the voting on this will actually take place at the Finance Committee next Tuesday.

So if there are amendments, I think Lish is a fair to say that you would want to receive them this week so that you can revise them and get them approved by city attorney's office, et cetera, and then publication potentially on the agenda.

Council Member Herbold, go ahead.

Sorry, I didn't mean to, with my hand raising, interrupt your line of questioning or Lish's response.

No, it's okay.

Alish, is that correct?

You'd like to get them this week, if there are any amendments?

Yeah, amendments this week would be very helpful.

Thank you.

Okay.

And Captain Hurrell, you can go first with your questions.

get a very deep background in low-income housing.

Thank you.

Just in English, you may have already addressed this, and I might have missed it, but the language here refers to the affordability levels for rents as consistent with the housing's funding policies as adopted by Ordinance 1253-08.

I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about those affordability levels, but also if you could then do what the expectations are as it relates specifically to percentage of affordable housing units that would be required.

Sure.

The bill is silent on the percentage of units in the project that would need to be affordable.

The housing funding policies currently, and they're updated frequently by council, approximately every two years.

They currently require housing to be affordable at 60% or below of area median income for rental housing.

So that's the reference in the legislation to ordinance 12-5308.

That's where the 60% MI is identified.

Yeah, the most recent amendment was adopted in 2019 and there is a statement of legislative intent that the council passed last month asking for Office of Housing to recommend some changes to those policies.

So they're updated fairly frequently and the idea is to allow for these regulations to change along with those changes to city policy without requiring amendments every couple of years.

But those same city policies are silent on the number or percentage of units that are expected for purposes of, I guess, this would be sort of a performance requirement?

Correct.

And so if we wanted to specify that expectation, we need to offer an amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold.

I appreciate that.

I know we all want to have more affordable housing and the details like that matter tremendously.

Like you mentioned, the percentage of AMI or the affordability level.

The percentage of units, I agree that that's, I don't see that in the bill, and Lish, thanks for confirming that.

And maybe that was the intent to have something like that or to reference something, but if it's not ironclad, I would support an amendment to specify that.

the percentage of units basically suit for those listening in the public i guess that the concept here as i understand is we are uh...

we want to encourage affordable housing the uh...

there is something to be a real estate developers asking for uh...

to get the street vacated for free essentially are the alleyway free an exchange that we have to public benefit public that's for housing but that's like devil's in the details, how affordable is it?

And we don't want a project that sets aside 5% of its units for affordable housing and it gets a free, you know, we vacate the street for no cost.

So as I understand it, in the mandatory housing affordability ordinance, one of the main ordinances from 29, the latest one, I believe it has, Lish, is it correct, there's a 40% at least 40% of the units need to be affordable for it to be exempt from MHA fees?

Yes, and under the mandatory housing affordability program, a project is exempt from paying the affordable housing fees if they have 40% or more of their units affordable at or below 60% of the area median income.

And I think we recently I think the council recently granted an exemption from the vacation fees of an alleyway for Grand Street Commons in the Mount Baker neighborhood I think that had a 47% of the units were were set aside and As I understand it the low-income housing tax credit program, which is a popular program used by real estate developers that it has a one of the criteria is 40% of the units must be set aside at 60% AMI.

So 40% seems like it would seem to be a logical minimum threshold.

So, and Council Member Herbold, if you're willing to work on it together, happy to put forward an amendment like that with you.

Council President Bogart.

I was just saying, I see Council President Gonzales has her hand up.

I had one other thought on this, but I'll hold it to hear from Council President Gonzales.

Council President.

Thanks so much.

Lish, on this conversation related to imposing a percentage, what would the effect be of such a requirement in terms of the underlying legislation and the in the overall overarching goal of wanting to make it less burdensome to create affordable housing.

Yeah, so a project that, for example, has 30% of units at 60% AMI and receives public funding for that to subsidize those units wouldn't have to pay the street vacation fees or compensate the city for the value of the right of way that's being vacated.

So it would increase the cost for those projects.

but a project that has over 40% of units affordable under the terms of this legislation would not have to pay those costs.

Okay, so in effect, could that result in individuals who are sort of below that threshold because it doesn't pencil out for them to just forego creating any affordable housing on site?

You know, I don't know how many projects we receive or are built that includes a mix like that, but it would weigh into the developer's decision of whether or not to pursue public funding for affordable units in that project.

I mean, it would be a project-specific decision.

Lish, is there a way for you to get information about projects in the historic data on the kinds of projects that we received that could have or would have been impacted if this legislation included a threshold?

Yeah, for street vacation projects generally, I know that we have only seen projects where 100% of the units were affordable within the structure that was receiving the vacation.

But I will check with the Office of Housing on whether they are funding projects that include, for example, 25 or 30% of units affordable.

I think that would be helpful just to get a better understanding if the amendment that is currently the potential amendment that is currently being discussed would create an unintended consequence in terms of Forgoing the construction of affordable housing, of any affordable housing units, I think it's important for the council to understand what the cost effectively in terms of additional affordable housing units, even if it's just a handful of them, would be if there is an amendment brought forward that is successful that would require a minimum number.

I think I understand the motivation behind that minimum number.

But I think it's important for us to have a full understanding of what the potential consequence would be in terms of potential projects that we're seeing coming through the pipeline that would be negatively impacted by such an amendment.

But it would be helpful to me if you could gather some of that information, Lish.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold, did you have a follow-up question?

I think it's complementary to the line of questioning from Council President Gonzalez.

It's sort of the flip side of the question, which is the issue of how much is the city foregoing with an ordinance like this?

Is the city not collecting in these fees?

And I think that's a.

for an average project, that's an important thing to potentially take a look at in considering what our expectation is in exchange.

So if a project is, as a result of an ordinance like this, not going to be contributing to the general fund, X number of of dollars, and we are getting a single unit of affordable housing in exchange.

That's, I think, something that we need to consider whether or not that is a sufficient value.

So having a little bit more granular detail about how much funding the city would forego on an average that project that would be qualifying under this proposed ordinance would be super helpful.

Yeah.

So we have examples of two affordable housing projects that have recently come before the council and been approved.

Grand Street Commons, which the council approved last month.

We don't have an appraisal of the right of way there, but an estimate based on the assessed value of the property that was granted to be vacated, was between $400,000 and $500,000 for that alley and the Willow Crossing project, which was approved at the end of 2019. They have done an appraisal, and that looks like it's in the same ballpark.

So I can imagine one project every two years and approximately $400,000 to $500,000 per project.

And so that about $500,000.

And in those instances, the percentage of units that are affordable in those projects were 40%?

100% of the units in both of those projects were.

Oh, 100%.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

The Grand Street project is a bigger project that includes three different sites, but the Mount Baker housing project is 100% affordable, and that's the block where the alley is being vacated.

How does that, Council Member, Chair Peterson mentioned the MHA regulatory standards for expanded development capacity in exchange for affordable housing development and the ability to be exempt from those fees for affordable housing development.

How does that value to benefit ratio compare for MHA compared to a 40% for $500,000 project in this instance?

I do not know.

I will try and see if we can figure that out.

Alright, thank you so much.

Thank you for those questions and appreciate the sponsor bringing this forward and I think we can.

I think it sounds like there's support for the spirit of this.

It's just that there are some details that need to be to make sure there are no polls.

And we do value those street vacation fees.

I mean, we use those for Vision Zero projects and other things.

But we also want that affordable housing.

So this is the fun part of the job, is making that policy choice and the trade-offs and considering those.

So I appreciate the sponsor lending us here and in this committee.

And then again, it'll be up to you.

the Tuesday at the Finance and Housing Committee where they will actually vote on this.

So we'll get amendments to central staff this week.

And I don't think Dr. Mosqueda has joined us, so I know she'll be speaking to it at length on Tuesday.

All right.

Appreciate it.

Any final questions before we move on?

All right.

Thank you very much, Lesh.

Appreciate it.

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

Agenda item 7, resolution 32031, a resolution ratifying the 2021 update to the Green Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed or Water Resource Inventory Area Salmon Habitat Plan for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

I have introductory remarks to this, but I think there will be similar ones to what our central staff analyst will be saying.

So I'll let him go first.

I do want to thank Council Member Herbold, however, for her leadership working on this issue.

As we know, there are several advisory boards that we staff ourselves, both staff from the departments, as well as council members serving on these boards, transportation, and also environmental boards, et cetera, and this is one of them.

And so, Brian, good night.

Why don't you go ahead and let us know a little bit about this resolution before we turn it over to Seattle Public Utilities.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

Good morning, Council Members.

For the record, Brian, good night, Council Central staff.

My comments are very, very brief.

I was just going to mention that the City of Seattle is one of 17 jurisdictions that partner through the Interlocal Agreement.

for watershed planning and salmon recovery actions in the Green Duwamish and Central Puget Sound watershed.

This resolution would ratify the 2021 update to the Salmon Habitat Plan, which was originally ratified by Council in 2005. And that was the extent of my remarks since Andrew and Martha and Matt are here and they know a whole lot more about this than I do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you, Brian.

I think we do have a few people from Seattle Public Utilities here.

Appreciate Interim Director Lee being here, as well as his team.

So Interim Director Lee, would you like to start us off?

Thank you, Chair Peterson, and thank you, members of the committee.

I've met most of you in my capacity leading SPU's drainage and wastewater line of business.

And in September, I was deeply honored to be selected by Mayor Durkin to serve as SPU's interim CEO following Mami Hara's departure a month and a half ago.

Just by way of introduction, I first joined SPU in 2006, actually, as a manager of the Drainage and Wastewater line of business.

And I was involved in the negotiation of the city's consent decree, which led to the ramp up of our CSO program.

And I recently rejoined SPU after a brief stint with Bellevue in 2019 as the Deputy Director for the Drainage and Wastewater line of business.

All that to say I'm very honored to be here.

With me today is Martha Newman, who is our SPU's government relations, part of our SPU government relations team, and then Matt Goering, who is our Salmon Recovery Manager for the Green Duwamish River Watershed.

And like Councilmember Peterson, I would like to recognize and thank Councilmember Herbold, who is co-chair of the Green Duwamish Watershed Ecosystem Forum, for her work on salmon recovery over these many years.

This resolution before you ratifies the Habitat Plan for the Green Duwamish Watershed, also known as Water Resources Recovery Area 9. The Habitat Plan identifies an array of recovery strategies and more than 100 capital projects developed among the government jurisdictions in the entire basin.

The other city councils in this watershed are approving similar resolutions to support this plan.

And so with that, I'd like to turn it over to Martha and Matt, who have a short presentation about the action we're hoping the committee will take this morning.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council.

I'm here.

Thank you very much for having us here today.

I'm sharing my screen.

Okay, can everybody see my slides?

Not yet.

Not yet.

Okay, hang on.

I practiced this this morning.

Okay.

Oh, I didn't share correctly.

Share.

Yes.

Yes.

Bingo.

Okay, great.

So I'm Martha Newman.

I'm with SPU's Government Relations Team.

I'm here with Matt Goring from King County, who is the Salmon Recovery Planning Manager.

So we'll give a quick presentation on why we're here today, a little bit of overview about the salmon recovery work in the Green Duwamish, and a little bit about the plan.

Okay.

Okay, so I think everybody has covered this well.

The ratification is an update to the plan that was adopted in 2005. That plan serves as the blueprint for salmon recovery in the Green Duwamish.

And as Brian said, it will be updated by all the partners who participate in this work.

OK, quick context about recovery.

So this is about Chinook recovery.

Salmon recovery in Washington state is organized by very large river basins, so the Puget Sound being one.

And within that, there are these water resource inventory areas.

The city participates.

So for Chinook, you can see this map here.

The city participates in three of these.

I'll just use the shorthand, WIRA 7, that's the Snohomish.

Our interest there is in the TOLT.

Both Seattle Public Utilities and City Light have an interest.

The Lake Washington Cedar Sammamish, which is WIRA 8, and then WIRA 9 here, which is the Green Duwamish.

So this is kind of a busy slide.

What you see here on the right-hand side is the Chinook salmon, you know, the long decline starting in the late 1800s.

And you can see the low levels of population that we have been experiencing for quite some time.

What you see on the left-hand side is the listing and the recovery work.

So, in 1999, Chinook salmon were listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

Shortly after that, the local government started working together, which I'll cover in a little bit, and have been working together since that time till now.

In 2005, the first recovery plan was put together for the Green Duwamish.

And then that plan, as well as plans for each of those other basins in Puget Sound, were rolled up into what's called the Puget Sound Recovery Plan for Chinook, and that was approved in 2007. So here we are in 2021, and we're doing an update to the plan for the Green Duwamish.

A quick slide about the numbers of fish that we see.

So this is a little bit busy here again.

So you see these buff dash lines down near the bottom of the slide.

That's what's called the viable salmon in population goal.

Those are a variety of factors that add set by NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service that would lead to a viable Chinook population.

The green line, those are the number of natural returning spawners.

So those are the non-hatchery fish.

You can see that those numbers are pretty low.

They've remained low.

And then the blue line shows all of the returning spawners coming back, including the hatchery fish.

And Matt can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think these numbers look pretty similar to what we see in Puget Sound.

We just haven't seen a lot of change over time since the listing.

OK, so a few facts about the Green Duwamish Watershed.

We are the most urban watershed in Puget Sound.

Let's see, there are 17 local governments who participate in this effort.

And one of the reasons to work together is it really It's not each jurisdiction going it alone.

So Seattle can't say, hey, we've got this great project, but other people don't.

Everybody is working together to agree on what are the most important actions to take for salmon recovery.

So working together in this partnership, here's a couple of things that we have, big things that we have accomplished over the last 20 years.

So over $200 million in investments from local, state, and federal monies.

So levy realignments to reconnect floodplains and restore the shoreline.

Marine shoreline restoration is very important in our areas, revegetation, and estuary shallow habitat.

Seattle is a major partner in the interlocal agreement with the other jurisdictions and we contribute, we've contributed almost $2 million since 2001 and our annual contribution to that effort is about $120,000.

Okay, so the update.

The update, you can see here the list of what's in there, updates the current status, incorporates new and updated science, updated habitat goals, refines the recovery strategies.

There's an updated capital project list and an updated monitoring and adaptive management plan.

I think one of the main points is that this plan has validated that the update has validated the original plan.

So there is are more tweaks and modifications rather than changes.

This slide is an example, talks about the things that are important in the portions of the Green Duwamish Watershed that are within Seattle.

These areas in the Duwamish and the nearshore are very important, are critical for juvenile fish.

Those are the small, kind of 3 to 5 centimeter fish.

So protecting and restoring and enhancing the marine shorelines.

Same for estuarine habitat, improving sediment and water quality, and revegetating the riparian corridors.

Then there's an updated capital project list.

So this is really where the dollars should be focused.

So you can see 39 nearshore projects are included and 19 projects in the Duwamish.

Some of these are city responsibilities, including City Way, SPU, and parks.

The projects range from things like Loman Beach that you see down here on the left, which is in, Matt informs me, this is in construction right now, and Ham Creek, which is still a conceptual project.

Still, people still thinking about what is the right thing to do there.

So what the, by ratifying this plan, we are, the city of Seattle is affirming that this is a collaborative watershed-based approach to implementation that we wanna keep doing.

This is a multi-benefit approach to salmon recovery.

So salmon recovery is not a standalone action.

So for example, some of the recovery actions also might do things to alleviate local flooding.

Recognizing the plan as the best available source of science together and using the plan to drive the actions.

And that is my speedy presentation.

And Matt and I would be happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much.

We do have a question or comment from Council Member Herbold.

Thanks.

I first just want to say how much I've enjoyed serving on this committee since I think 2016 now.

It's just a really great group of folks working together, and I feel like we've really been able to do some great things, particularly as it relates to, Martha mentioned, the focus on investments that are multi-benefit investments that in supporting habitat restoration, salmon habitat restoration, we can also support the goals around mitigating flood risks.

And I'm happy to see that sort of our The, the values of why we're 9 and trying to do that are now being considered by other.

Regional committees, like our flood control district, and now they to have, I think, begun to think more of.

their investments, when focused on flood control, can also have an additional benefit of protecting salmon habitat or restoring salmon habitat.

So that's just been a very gratifying sort of collaboration and evolution of the thinking around significant investments in the in the watershed but the the question I have is related to the frequency of the plan update and I should probably know the answer to this but if if I knew I'm not remembering right now why don't we update the plan more frequently.

I think this is the last time we have updated this plan.

I think it was like something like 15 years ago.

Maybe it's because there are so many jurisdictions that are involved, but it just seems like there might be a benefit in a more frequent update if it would allow us to be able to to be more effective and be able to respond in a more real-time way to changing conditions associated with climate.

Matt, you want to take that?

Yeah, I can take that.

So yeah, it's a great question.

So the original plan was expected to have about a 10-year lifespan.

What we found was that we ended up not achieving are implementing the number of projects that we had originally hoped at the pace we would.

So in fact, many of the projects still in the update were conceptual ideas in the 2005 plan.

That being said, while it has a 10, 15-year expected lifespan, it's been a living document.

So all along, there's been amendments made by the Watershed Ecosystem Forum, which is kind of governing body of RAD9 and where should a new project come to light that was not in the plan that we can update it.

If a given policy is seen to be either a new policy that we need to put in place we've also made changes to policies and a good one being temperature.

In about 2018 we started to see that water temperature was increasing increasingly becoming a significant issue with temperatures occasionally getting into the lethal, above the lethal threshold.

And so the committee took action to actually update a policy related to that and focus additional investments along with repairing and revegetation.

So it is a living document.

We get more projects, we adjust policies as we move, but the reality is given the investment needed to actually turn the dial on fish returns.

Making any kind of large-scale plan changes in the shorter time frame, we just aren't going to see the responses.

So that's kind of why the scale is more 10 to 15 years.

And that scale is seen across Puget Sound.

Thanks for that.

I have a question in terms of will necessitate these capital projects.

Are these capital projects that are mentioned here, are they already in the capital budget that we approved or will they be put forward, costed out and put forward in the next capital improvement program that the city council approves next fall?

I think it's it can be a mix.

So those capital projects are not just Seattle's project.

So the plan is the capital projects, some of them might they would belong to King County, they would belong to other jurisdictions.

So some of them.

They can be in the current CIP.

They could be moving forward through a CIP process, some of them not yet.

So some could already be in the CIP from SPU or from parks, for example.

The other thing is some of the recovery actions are policy-oriented, so around water quality, not just capital.

So it's not a super linear one-for-one kind of thing.

Okay, thank you for that.

And I was referring to slide nine, capital projects.

It says nine Seattle projects, four Seattle and City Light projects.

And it would be great to get that information on what's already in the capital improvement program that we just approved and then what needs to be approved going forward, especially as we're changing administrations.

That'll be really helpful to make sure we keep this commitment moving forward so we have tangible projects funded to actually address the habitat concerns.

That's great, we really appreciate that support and we can get you that information.

Okay, great, thank you.

Well, council members, I think we're, if we don't have any further questions on this resolution, I would move to vote on ratifying this update to the plan.

Okay.

All right.

Oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

I just want to do before we vote, really thank both Martha for staffing me on on this this body and and also thank Matt for his for his leadership.

Really enjoy working with both of them.

And as mentioned earlier, serving on the on Y9 has been quite quite gratifying but I have not been able to to really express my appreciation to to Martha and and and Matt so really wanted to do so.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nice.

Nice.

Thank you.

All right, council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of this resolution 32031, item seven on our agenda.

Is there a second?

That was a second from council member.

Thank you, thank you.

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

Any final comments?

Oh, council member Herbold.

Sorry, one other thing, too.

I should have noted this earlier.

I note that there is a mention in the plan for the Y09 stewardship position.

And I think the language might be a little out of date there because it refers, I believe, to exploring funding for it.

And I think we're a little bit ahead of the stage of just exploring funding.

And we've gotten, I believe, a firm agreement from the parties to contribute to that position.

But do wanna recognize that that is included in the plan.

And again, thank Seattle Public Utilities for advocating for it and the partners for supporting it as well.

Thank you, Councilmember, for giving that clarification on the record.

So it's been moved and seconded.

Any other final comments?

OK.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that the resolution be approved for forwarding to the full council?

Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and the committee recommendation that the resolution pass will be sent to the December 6 City Council meeting.

Thank you, everybody, from SPU, and thank you, Brian.

Thank you so much.

All right, will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda Item 8, Council Bill 120230, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department, the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Seattle Department of Transportation, declaring certain real property rights to be surplused to the needs of City Light for public hearing, briefing, and discussion.

Thank you.

So very pleased that we're bringing this bill forward.

As you may recall, there have been many council actions to clean up the title and access to facilitate the Georgetown to South Park pedestrian and bike trail.

And today's bill's final action needed for all the involved departments to proceed with that project.

The project is funded by prior city council budget actions It's really gratifying to see Seattle City Lights, Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle Parks and Rec, and our Seattle Department of Transportation all work together to bring this project forward.

The two utilities involvement included the vacation of a dead-end street nearby at Seattle City Lights South Service Center.

And that includes significant public benefits along the trails right away, including a new dog park.

And we can do this a couple different ways.

It's a public hearing.

So I think we'll go ahead and the items on the agenda, I'll go ahead and open and close the public hearing.

I just want to check on the speakers here to see if anybody has signed up for this public hearing.

I still want to go through the process of opening and closing the public hearing.

But if Seattle IT can confirm, they're not seeing any speakers for this either.

Legislative IT sees no public hearing registrants.

Thank you, okay.

Colleagues, I'm gonna go through the process here of opening and closing this public hearing as required.

The public hearing on Council Bill 120230 is now open.

However, there are no speakers signed up, so we've confirmed that.

So I am now closing the public hearing on Council Bill 120230. And we will hear from Seattle City Light and then ask some questions.

But first, before we turn it over to General Manager Smith, I want to give an opportunity to our central staff, Eric McConaughey, if you have any opening remarks on this item.

Thank you.

Good morning, Eric McConaughey, Council of Central Staff.

Thanks for asking, Chair Peterson.

I don't have any remarks to add.

You did, I think, covered all the points that I would have made absent you hitting it.

The committee is, I'm sure, familiar with it.

It's been to the committee several times.

There have been interesting presentations, and we're about to hear the wrap-up.

So I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to our general manager CEO, Debra Smith.

Hi, thank you so much.

Deborah Smith, Seattle City Light.

Again, thank you for having us.

You're going to see a bunch of us today and in the next week or so.

And we're excited to move a number of important initiatives forward here as we bring this year to a close.

And I don't have anything to add either, Council Member.

I think you did a great job.

And really, most folks are probably saying, wow, didn't we already do this?

And the answer is no.

But this is the exciting part.

So I'll turn it over to staff for a short presentation, and then we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

I think I'll proceed then, Council Member, if you're ready for that.

So this is about transferring a piece of our Georgetown flume property to parks and to SDOT.

Next slide, please, Maura.

So council members might be thinking, again, General Manager Smith said, haven't we done this already?

There's been previous legislative action.

You authorized basically what amounts to an easement for SPU storm drain on the property.

You authorized a temporary easement to resolve a piece of building that's from the airport Boeing field that's encroaching on the property.

And then you approved, gave traditional approval for our street vacation requests, which creates this obligation for City Light to make the public benefit as you're familiar with for street vacations.

And that was in August.

Next slide, please.

So this is a final council action, and what's it do?

It declares the property surplus to our needs, which is a necessary step.

We're making a minor correction to King County's temporary easement.

We need to make an adjustment there.

It transfers the jurisdiction of the two portions of the property to Parks and to SDOT.

It checks the box for one of the major requirements for our what you approved as our street vacations.

So this will be a big part of the public benefit.

And our funding with the other departments of the development would be the other main part.

And then this allows Parks and SDOT to go ahead and finish design and construct.

And that's projected for construction in the middle of next year on this property.

And then I think that's it.

Next slide.

Oh, yeah.

No.

Next slide.

Yes.

And there's just a reminder of the location.

We're at the northwest corner of Boeing Field in between Myrtle and East Marginal Way South in the Georgetown neighborhood.

Next, please.

And those are the two parcels, the skinny part going to SDOT for the trail and the larger portion going to parks for the off-leash area.

I think that's it.

Next, please.

Oh, and then just to remind you, this is kind of a conceptual view of what's going to be developed there on a, it's basically an unused vacant industrial lot right now.

Next, please.

That's it.

We're glad to take any questions of council members.

Council Member, if I might, just to comment.

This is something that the community is really excited about.

And I wanna just say it's been a real pleasure.

Staff has done an amazing job working together.

I think SDOT, Parks, City Light, this was important to all of us that we find a way to make this happen for community.

This is, I think, one of the first parts of the Duwamish Valley Action Plan that will be fully implemented.

And we're just so pleased that despite 2020 the challenges that we face that we were able to pull this together in a way that together with the Georgetown steam plant, we're starting to make a difference in an area where making a difference really matters.

How about that?

So thank you very much for your time and your consideration of this item.

Thank you.

From our perspective, it's been flawless collaboration among the different departments.

So appreciate all your hard work to move this forward.

And I know I'm sure council members Morales and Herbold are also excited about this one.

And I hope I can bring my dog down to this park when it's done.

So council members, any questions?

We're actually going to vote on it because we just had a public hearing.

We're going to vote on it next meeting on December 15. But if there are no final questions, we can just move on to the next item.

All right.

I do not see any questions at this time.

So we will vote this out of the committee, I imagine, on December 15. All right, thank you everybody for being here from City Light.

We've got an item for you next as well.

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

Agenda Item 9, Council Bill 120233, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department, directing the transfer of certain funds in the light fund into the rate stabilization account in 2021. For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

I'm really impressed with this ordinance.

I think when we hear about it, it'll be obvious what a great proactive job City Light did here in getting ahead of this and protecting rate payers to keep rates as affordable as possible.

I do want to open it up to our central staff, Eric McConaughey, if you have any opening remarks about this.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm just to say just very light background because I'm sure that Chris and the other folks from City of Light will give a great presentation.

The key thing for the folks watching to understand that this is about the rate stabilization account.

It was set up in 2004. It's in the city's municipal code and it serves to smooth out fluctuations for revenues coming into the City of Light fund from the sale of power.

City Light, as folks I think know, sells retail power to folks that run gas stations, grocery stores, people at home, but they also sell wholesale power to other utilities.

And those revenues can go up or down compared to what's planned for.

The RSA hopes to smooth that out.

There's a structure To do that, it's in the code.

You'll hear about some proposals to make some adjustments there.

But the primary thing, I think the real thing that brought this to council today is a permission for the utility to make a transfer of some funds from the light fund to the RSA before the end of the year to prevent a surcharge from being put on customers' bills.

That would be consistent with The council utility and the mayor's goal to keep things stable for customers.

So, with that, hopefully, without stealing too much fire from the presenters, I will I'll be done.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Excellent summary.

We'll turn it over to a general manager CEO.

So you like to ever spent.

Thanks again, Council Member.

So I'll keep my comments very short as well and may make some additional ones afterwards.

I just want to recognize and appreciate Eric for his help in making this happen and bringing this home.

I want to appreciate the City Budget Office who worked with us very closely in developing the concept.

And I really want to just introduce to you again Kirstie Granger, who's our CFO.

and Chris Ruffini, who's the finance director.

And they are really the brainchilds here.

So we hope that you'll be open to this option.

We're here to answer questions.

And as Eric mentioned, I think the one thing I want to be clear about is that we need to take action on this prior to year end in order to keep the surcharge from triggering.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Kirstie and Chris.

Good morning.

Thank you for your time today.

Council members, I'll be doing the presentation and Kirstie will keep me in line if I say anything incorrect.

Next slide, please.

The legislation we're presenting today pertains to the rate stabilization counter RSA.

As Eric indicated earlier, the RSA is a restricted cash reserve that City Light uses to ensure we have enough revenue to fund our operations, despite uncertainties in hydro conditions and the wholesale power market.

The way the RSA mechanism works is that if it gets depleted, meaning we're not selling as much wholesale power as we expected, automatic rate surcharges come on and refill it.

Those rules are set by ordinance and that is in SMC 2149.86 for anybody who is interested in that.

As you may remember, we were in front of you earlier this year in March regarding the RSA and 21 and 2022 rates.

With your approval, City Light replaced a 3% RSA surcharge that was due to roll off earlier this year with a 3% rate increase, resulting in no change to customer bills in 2021. We did this to ensure some rate stability between 2021 and 2022, so we didn't see a large increase.

Customers didn't see a large increase in their bill for 2020. We'll cover it in a little more detail in the next slide, but since we were here in March, there have been some changes to City Light's financial picture, and that is actually why we're here.

As Eric indicated, the legislation proposes two amendments to the RSA.

First, it authorizes a cash deposit from the operating fund into the RSA to avoid triggering a surcharge.

And secondly, it would authorize changes to the rules of operations for the RSA that will make it a little more customer friendly from our perspective.

If passed, it will enable us also to keep our promise to our customers that City Light made earlier, which is that we wouldn't raise rates in 2021. Next slide, Maura.

Thank you.

Orienting you to the slide, the bar chart on the slide shows City Lights revenues from surplus power sales.

Everything above the X axis is where the value of the energy we sell is greater than the cost of the energy we buy.

Under normal hydro conditions, City Light produces more power than we need to serve our retail customers.

And we sell that surplus on the wholesale market.

This extra revenue helps us keep our rates low.

You can see the yellow bars, our budget, are all positive.

The blue bars are the actuals, as well as our forecast for the rest of the year.

And you can see from the blue bars, we had strong revenue January through March.

which was when we lifted that RSA surcharge earlier this year.

But from April through August, the revenue came in well short of our budget, and there were two reasons for this.

The first, 2021 has been a really unusual weather year, and spring and summer brought drought conditions as well as heat waves.

For City Light, the drought meant low hydroelectric generation, and the heat meant higher electricity demand.

Through the summer, City Light was in the market, Rather than selling, we were buying supplemental energy at a time when the region was in short supply and prices were very expensive.

The other contributing factor to our low wholesale revenues is kind of a good news, bad news thing.

Besides weather, our retail demand has actually been higher than we planned for.

This is good news.

Higher demand for electricity from our businesses and residents is an indicator of economic recovery.

And it helps City Light's bottom line, which we'll discuss next.

But we had less energy available to sell in the wholesale market because our own customers were using more than we anticipated.

Combination of these two things means that City Light expects to come in about $35 million short on our $60 million budget for 2021 for wholesale revenue.

To make up for this revenue, a shortfall each month, the RSA has been drawn down.

And it's been drawn down pretty quickly.

Even though the RSA was full at 100 million in March, by the end of September, it is down to 82 million, which, per the operating rules of the RSA, would trigger the first 1.5% surcharge.

However, we don't believe the surcharge is necessary, which is why we're bringing this legislation to you today.

Next slide, please.

While the wholesale revenue scenario for 2021 is not good, our overall picture is excellent.

We've had nearly $27 million more in retail revenue than we planned due to that higher demand I mentioned.

We've had some favorable purchase power costs from our bulk power sources at Lucky Peak and Bonneville.

And we also had some help from low interest rates and some long-term debt refinancing we did earlier this year.

Our bottom line financial target is to have a debt service coverage ratio of 1.8 times, and we are currently forecasted to be well above that.

In short, what this means is that we actually have enough operating cash to deposit some of that, some of those funds back into RSA and to avoid triggering a surcharge and still exceed our financial targets.

Next slide, Mark, please.

So the proposed legislation allows City Light to transfer operating cash to avoid that surcharge.

So long as we maintain a 1.85 times debt service coverage ratio, which is actually a little bit better than our policy, the legislation also modifies the rules of the operation of the RSA to be a little more customer friendly.

Our customers repeatedly tell us that one of the most important things to them is stability in their bills.

This legislation actually proposes to allow City Light to only trigger surcharges twice a year, whereas currently into the rules in operation today, we could do it quarterly.

So someone could have a rate change four times a year.

We're proposing at most two.

This legislation also proposes fewer surcharge steps and leaves those surcharges in place until the RSA fully refills.

In the past, they a new surcharge, an incremental surcharge, would be triggered every time we're $10 million worse than we thought before.

So they would trigger at 90, 80, 70. We're proposing that they trigger at a little lower, at a slightly higher rate, a slightly higher percentage, and stay on until the RSA refills.

So again, really driving home that rate stability.

With this legislation, I just want to say the cash transfer is reactive, and we really need to take that action to forestall a rate increase in 2021. The proposed rule amendments are really proactive and they reflect what we've learned over the decade of observing the RSA in action.

It's mainly that we can make the RSA less dynamic and have it still be very effective.

These changes will make our rates more stable while still providing City Light with the financial resilience we need to keep our rates low and sustainable for years to come.

So that's the end of this presentation and happy to take any questions you may have.

and hopefully I didn't talk to Beth.

This was excellent.

Council members, this is one of my favorite PowerPoint presentations of the year.

This is why utilities are so exciting.

Because they were proactive, they're literally saving hundreds of thousands of rate payers.

money and not only just a one-time fix for this challenge but also changing the baseline legislation to smooth it out, like you said, to learn from the past decade of the RSA in action.

So I just want to commend everybody at City Light involved with this and also central staff for bringing this forward and I definitely support getting this done this year so that we can have it put into action to benefit ratepayers.

Council members, any questions about this rate stabilization ordinance?

Okay, well I'll go ahead and I'll go ahead and move this forward.

Council members, I'd like to move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120233, item nine on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

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

Are there any final comments?

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

Councilmember Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the December 6th City Council meeting.

Council Member, before you move on, I just wanted to take a minute to thank Council, both for your support today, which we really appreciate, and we appreciated the opportunity to go through this with both you, Chair Peterson, and with Council Member Strauss in advance.

But I really want to appreciate the fact that this is a mechanism that Council helped us put in place all these years ago.

And I think what we are experiencing right now is the ability to use it truly to benefit our customers, which was the intent.

And so I just want to appreciate past councils who helped get us to a place where we could, in fact, mitigate for this rate action through use of the funds transfer.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, well, we passed it.

So I appreciate.

We've got one more item for you that's very important, item 10 on our agenda.

So will the clerk please read the title of the final agenda item?

Agenda item 10, resolution 32030, a resolution relating to the City Light Department, acknowledging and approving the City Light Department's adoption of a biennial energy conservation target for 2022-2023 and 10-year conservation potential for public hearing, briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Council members, this resolution, as I understand it, state law, originally initiative 937, adopted in 2006, requires CLC Light to establish renewable energy and energy efficient targets based on all available conservation information.

And it's cost effective, reliable, and feasible.

and the utility must report the conservation target biannually to the State Department of Commerce.

And this resolution 32030 would approve City Light's targets.

And this is a public hearing, and so I'll go ahead and open and close the public hearing.

and I will also be making a motion to suspend the rules so that we can vote on this resolution today to move it forward because there is a state requirement to get this moving.

And before I open the public hearing, I just want to confirm with our Seattle Information Technology team that there are no public hearing speakers for this item.

Legislative IT reports no public hearing registrants.

Thank you.

So I'll officially open the public hearing for Resolution 32030. And as we heard, we've confirmed that there are no public hearing speakers for this resolution.

So I will now close the public hearing on Resolution 32030. And now we can hear from our presenters again.

Seattle City Light is here.

And Eric McConaughey from Central Staff.

Do you have any opening remarks?

I would welcome that.

Thanks for recognizing me.

I don't.

Both the title of this legislation and your description, I think, cover it.

And we'll see this now.

But as it's an ongoing requirement, we'll be back in two years for an update.

So it's part of the ongoing work of the utility in this in conservation and in keeping with a lot of the other work that they do.

We'll be seeing some other work at the top of next year that's related to this in terms of conservation and energy, but that's another day.

So for now, that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

General Manager Smith, again, welcome.

Thank you chair Pearson and again it's a pleasure to be here.

I want to just introduce what I'll call the dream team here because Kaylee and Jennifer are going to be your presenters today and they really know this material inside and out and The one thing Craig Smith of course is here with me as well, but I do want to call out Robert Cromwell because many of you may have seen Robert in different roles and Robert is one of my very favorite pinch hitters.

He is currently serving as our director.

in charge of customer energy solutions, which is why he's here leading this team.

And Robert, in the past, as some might recall, led our power planning team.

He led customer operations.

He's really a very, very well-rounded utility executive.

And I think what is really important about the work that he is doing with the team now is while Seattle has always been a leader among well some some in the industry Seattle is the grandfather of energy efficiency.

And which is something to be very, very proud of.

But what we're seeing now is with as we move into electrification, we move into demand response, we move into really how do we use energy efficiency and savings as a way of creating and creating capacity versus pure energy.

And Robert's history on the power side brings that perspective directly to CES.

And I think what is a very very critical time.

So that's not the nature of today's conversation.

But I just wanted to take the opportunity to introduce him in his new role.

and help create that connection to the future.

As we talk about utility of the future and we look at the funding opportunities that are becoming available both through infrastructure and through the continuing resolution, we are going to see a lot of money becoming available for expanded types of energy efficiency.

And Robert's smiling because he knows that he's tasked me with trying to find the resources he needs to deliver that money to our community.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to the team.

And thank you very much again.

Good morning Council Members.

I'm Jennifer Finnegan and I'm presenting today with my colleague Kaylee Hollenhorst.

We are here to present on the 22-23 conservation target.

Next slide please.

So Kaylee and I believe in putting our ask right up front, and so here it is.

The reason why we are here today is to seek your approval of City Light's conservation target for 2022 and 23. As you heard, every two years, Seattle City Light presents our conservation targets to City Council, and we gain your approval.

This is the seventh time that we have done this.

So wait a second, what's a conservation target?

A conservation target is the amount of conservation that Seattle City Light will acquire.

This is by offering rebates, incentives, and market interventions.

And this is what we, the amount of conservation we will acquire in a two-year and 10-year period.

So, our recommended target is, for two years, is 18.7 average megawatts.

And And this is equivalent to 23,000 homes, the average energy use of 23,000 Seattle residential homes.

The recommended tenure target is 76.9 average megawatts.

Initiative 937, passed in 2006, requires governing bodies like you to approve utilities conservation targets every two years.

So before I go on to the next slide, there are a couple notes.

One is that our later slides are going to go into more detail.

This is just our ask right up front.

And so we will be explaining how we got to these numbers in just a little bit.

And the other thing that I wanted to say before I go on to the next slide is that Kaylee and I are going to use the terms conservation and energy efficiency interchangeably.

And so just know that those mean the same things in this presentation.

Next slide, please.

So we have nine slides for you, and we have three sections.

The first section is an introduction to conservation.

This is why we offer it.

This is what we offer.

And this is a conservation at City Light 101. The second section is the reason why we're here today.

And this is the conservation target for 2022 and 23. This is what we're asking you to approve.

And in this section, we'll be discussing how we calculated these targets, what this entails, and what it is.

And then lastly, this third section is an explanation about what the target means for City Light.

So I'm now going to hand the microphone to my colleague, Kaylee.

Great.

Thanks, Jennifer.

So I thought that I would just start off by giving some background on conservation at Seattle City Light.

Seattle City Light has a longstanding commitment to conservation.

It is really foundational to how we run our utility.

We have a long history of conservation at Seattle City Light.

We started running our programs back in 1977. And this makes us one of the longest running utility conservation programs in the country.

We offer savings across a portfolio of services and offerings that are offered to all of our customer classes.

And conservation projects have been installed in residential, commercial, and industrial facilities throughout our service territory.

So Seattle City Light views conservation as a resource and we value conservation for several reasons, but including because it's a low cost resource, it's a low risk resource, and because it has low environmental impacts, but including no greenhouse gas emissions.

And so by prioritizing the conservation, we have successfully deferred the acquisition of new resources.

And conservation helps us to maintain our status as a greenhouse gas neutral utility, which we all know will become increasingly important in the future.

Next slide, please, Maura.

So what is a potential assessment and why do we do them?

So a potential assessment is a year-long study that identifies the amount, the timing, and the cost of energy conservation within the Seattle City Light Service Territory across the next 20 years.

And it is ultimately used to inform and set our conservation goals.

And as has been mentioned before, the I-937 requires that utilities identify and pursue all available conservation that is cost effective, and then set two and 10 year targets on two year cycles.

And then in addition, the Clean Energy Transformation Act, or CEDA, commits Washington to an a supply of greenhouse gas-free power by 2045 and requires that utility set four-year targets for conservation.

And so although we are required by Washington state law to do potential assessments, we also use them as inputs to our integrated resource plan, our load forecast, and also it helps to inform what we offer to our customers.

So next slide, please.

Great, thanks.

So Jennifer showed these numbers before, but this table shows the two and 10-year targets that we are required to share for I-9 by 37. So our two-year target is 18.7 average megawatts, and our 10-year target is 76.9.

But as Jennifer mentioned, this is our seventh CPA or potential assessment.

So before I compare these numbers, to what we presented to you last time, I thought it would be helpful to kind of review what has changed since 2020. Next slide, please.

So there are a few things that has changed and are making the potential go up and go down.

First, we're seeing lower potential in the CPA than we are in, than compared to the prior CPA.

Or safe state in other ways, there's just less savings out there for us to go and get.

And some of the main drivers for this include our long history but of conservation, the huge transformation but in the lighting market that we've seen across the past 10 to 15 years.

And also because we can claim savings just for those savings above code.

stricter codes and standards, but are making it harder for us to go and get savings.

The second point I want to make on this slide is that of the savings that remain, they tend to be more costly, but then the savings we were seeing in the prior CEPA.

And the reason for this is in part because much of the low-hanging fruit or the cheaper savings, like those associated with lighting, has already been done or is captured through codes and standards.

And then the last point is that the Washington state law lays out two methodologies to identify potential.

And the first approach, which we used in the last CPA, is done at a slightly higher level and is less detailed than the second approach, which we shifted to in the CPA.

And the second approach evaluates conservation within city lights in an integrated resource plan.

And it predated to a slightly more nuanced model and is better able to reflect the benefits of conservation.

And so what we saw is that with the second model, we were actually seeing high amounts of conservation than with the first model because we could better capture all of the benefits of conservation.

So with this context, Let's compare the results of this CPA with the last CPA that we shared with you in 2020. If you go to the next slide, Maura, please.

Thank you.

So this slide is looking at the two-year targets of this study, but on the right-hand side to the previous study, which we presented to you back in 2020. The first thing to note is that the total potential has decreased from the 2020 CPA by about 12% for the reasons that I just discussed.

But however, the breakup between the sectors, between the two CPAs is roughly the same.

And so we are continuing to see commercial savings continue to be the most potential.

So with that, I think I'm going to pass the mic back to Jennifer to wrap us up and talk a little bit about what these results mean for us going forward.

Thank you.

So from Kaylee, we just heard that Seattle City Light is recommending a two-year conservation target of 18.7 average megawatts.

And at the very beginning, we heard Deborah say that conservation at City Light, we are a grandfather.

We've been doing this for a very long time.

From Kaylee, we heard that we've been doing this since 1977. So we have a long, strong, proud history of conservation at City Light.

And our commitment to conservation remains strong.

We will continue to deliver innovative programs like pay for performance, energy efficiency as a service.

We will offerings for small business and for low income multifamily customers.

But the world is changing and we're changing too.

And so that means that in the future, we will be increasingly offering conservation programs and incentives that are targeted seasonally In earlier presentations, you saw Chris talk about how we had to pay more for energy in summer and in winter.

And there are ways that we can offer targeted incentives for energy efficiency in December and January and in July and August.

We will also be offering targeted incentives geographically too, particularly to those communities and areas that haven't been able to participate as often.

We will also be bundling conservation with demand response and electrification.

Deborah mentioned the need to be focusing on capacity early on.

And a way of talking about that, what demand response is, is that we can offer incentives for people to turn down their thermostats and their hot water heaters when the grid is in big need.

And essentially there's a way for us to be offering incentives called demand response at those times and lump those together with energy efficiency incentives.

So we can provide incentives for those smart thermostats and those smart water heaters.

Of course, we will also be developing customer tools to manage energy use.

You've heard a lot in the past about advanced metering infrastructure.

AMI or smart meters.

That means that we're collecting a lot of data about how customers use their energy.

And we are developing tools that will enable and educate customers in their energy use and how they can best make the most of it by saving money and by using energy at times that are most beneficial to them and to the grid.

And lastly, but not leastly, this is what we want to end our note on, is that we are listening to customer and community voices.

especially as we define and refine our programs.

We are a public utility, and we are focused on our community.

Our mission is to partner with customers to meet their energy needs in whatever ways they choose.

And that means improving customer experience by talking with community members as we design and refine our programs.

So with that, we thank you, and we'd love to entertain your questions.

Thank you very much.

for that presentation.

Thanks for explaining.

I appreciate the transparency in explaining the targets trending down because you've already got the low-hanging fruit there.

But I want to see if colleagues have any questions for Seattle City Light on this resolution.

Oh, yes, General Manager Smith.

Thanks.

I just wanted to make one more comment and I want to acknowledge something really big that happened this week that probably isn't on your radar and then connected to this work.

Last weekend over Thanksgiving weekend, Seattle IT, Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities worked all weekend to complete an upgrade to our customer care and billing system, and what we call our meter data management system, which now has a different acronym because it's actually in the cloud, and that was the big change.

That is the two first components of what we call Fusion.

The third, which will happen in Q1, end of Q1, beginning of Q2 of 2022, is to complete the integration of Seattle City Light's AMI system.

to the CCB system.

So again, this was a huge project that was really hard to get over the finish line.

And in the end, the conversion was flawless.

And many folks said that it was the best large system conversion that the city's done in a long time.

So kudos to everyone that was involved in that.

That's relevant here because to Jennifer's point, What that's going to do for us when we get to next spring is we're going to have the ability to offer those time of day prices.

And we talked about this.

I talked about this with with council members.

I know Council Member Herbold and others.

You know, gosh, when I first got here three years ago and it's been a hard slog to get there.

But we are at the point where very soon, probably January 1 of 2023, we will be in a position to offer new pricing models that provide the kinds of incentives that Jennifer was just talking about.

So I just wanted to make you aware of what had happened over Thanksgiving weekend and also let you know how that connects to this again.

A lot of what we're doing is about a utility next 2.0 and how we become a utility of the future.

And this is a big, big piece of it.

Thank you.

Thank you for mentioning that and thanks to everybody who's worked on that.

Appreciate that.

Colleagues, any questions about this resolution on the conservation targets?

Okay, because this is a resolution, it happens every two years, and it's a state requirement, and we are here at the end of the year, I would like to, I know City Light would like us to do this, would like us to pass it out of committee today, because it's a public hearing, and we had a public hearing today that requires suspension of our rules, public hearing legislation, the same day it's heard.

So if there is no objection, colleagues, He would vote on this legislation the same day we had a public hearing.

We'll go ahead and suspend the vote.

Okay, hearing no objection, this council will suspend and the committee will proceed to a vote on this resolution.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of resolution 32030, item 10, the last item on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval.

Will the clerk please call the roll on recommendation that resolution pass.

Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and the committee recommendation of the resolution passed will be sent directly to the December 6th City Council meeting.

Okay.

General Manager Smith, you have your hand up.

Did you have anything else?

No, I forgot to take it down.

Thank you.

Okay, sure.

Well, colleagues, this concludes the December 1st, 2021 meeting of the Transportation and Utilities Committee.

The committee plans to meet again on December 15. Our agenda at that time will be shorter.

Thank you for attending, and we are adjourned.

Thank you.