Seattle Park District Board meeting - 62623

The June 26, 2023 meeting of the Seattle Park District Board will come to order.

I am Andrew Lewis, President of the Board.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Board Member Juarez.

Board Member Morales.

Board Member Nelson.

Present.

Board Member Peterson.

Board Member Sawant.

Board member Strauss.

Present.

Board member Herbold.

Here.

Board member Peterson.

I see him, I cannot hear him.

We'll come back.

Board president Lewis.

Present.

And board member Peterson.

We might wanna hold off a minute until we get confirmation that we do have a quorum.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, I see him.

I'm here, I couldn't hear you.

Thank you, I thought so.

Thank you, five present.

Sorry, I can hear you now.

I'm here.

Excellent.

Board member Mosqueda is excused from today's meeting and I will announce additional board members as they enter the meeting.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Minutes of April 3rd, 2023, Seattle Park District Board Meeting.

These minutes have been reviewed.

If there is no objection to these minutes, they will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes?

At this time, we will open the hybrid public comment period, though I've been informed by the clerks that there are no people signed up for public comment.

I am doing a final perusal of the gallery, no one in the gallery indicating an interest in commenting, so I will close the public comment session.

Moving on to items of business, we will now move on to agenda item one.

Will the clerk please read agenda item one into the record?

Agenda Item 1, Resolution 58, a resolution changing the meeting dates for a Seattle Park District Board meeting in 2023.

Thank you.

We are joined by presenter Tracy Ratzlaff from our Council Central staff.

And do we need to hear from parks on this item, Tracy?

Not at all.

This is totally our business, yeah.

Yeah, go ahead and cue it up and then I'll see if there's questions from board members.

So council members, you have resolution 58 in front of you today.

A version D2 will actually be moved to correct a typographical error that I included in the resolution.

Third time is a charm on these apparently for me.

So what this resolution does is it changes the currently scheduled meeting of the Park District Board of in November 21st after full council, which is the full council where you adopt the final budget document for 2024. We are proposing to move that meeting of the party board Monday, the 20th of November at 1030, right after the budget committee takes its final vote and basically seals the final deal on the 2024 budget.

Council members have expressed to me over the years that it could be a very long day to meet after the full council adopts the Budget Committee.

And so taking that part, I talked with law and determined that there was actually no reason that they couldn't actually meet after the Budget Committee takes its final votes on the 2024 budget.

So what this resolution does is schedule that meeting right after the Budget Committee meeting, on the 20th, thereby freeing you up after the 21st, after that adoption of the 2024 budget happens at full council.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much, Tracy.

Are there any questions on the legislation in front of the board from board members?

board member Nelson, did you raise your hand?

No.

Okay, excellent.

All right, well, given that it doesn't look like, oh, sorry, board member Herbold, yeah, please.

All right, it's hard to see that yellow hand on the orange background.

So Eagle Eye, Christina Katsubos found an errant date.

Is that something that we're prepared to address today?

Correct, that's what the movement of version d2 of the resolution will accomplish is to correct that date from 2013 to 2023 And thank you christina for finding that Yes, absolutely Yep, really good Okay, uh, well given chair louis, I just want to let you know i'm here Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um and let the record reflect the board members who want has joined the meeting Okay, seeing no other questions from board members regarding agenda item one, I move to amend resolution 58, section one by striking the date of Tuesday, November 21st, 2023, and replacing it with the date of Tuesday, oh, sorry, of Tuesday, 21st, 2013, and replacing it with the date of Tuesday, 21st, November 21st of 2023. Is there a second?

Second.

Moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the amendment?

Board Member Juarez?

Board Member Morales?

Yes.

Board Member Nelson?

Aye.

Board Member Peterson?

Yes.

Board Member Sawant?

Yes.

Board Member Strauss?

Yes.

Board Member Herbold?

Yes.

Board President Lewis?

Yes.

That would be seven in favor, none opposed.

Excellent, the amendment passes and will be incorporated into the resolution.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the resolution as amended, or I should first say, I move passage of amended resolution, or resolution 58 as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll on adopting the resolution as amended?

Board Member Juarez?

Board Member Morales?

Yes.

Board Member Nelson?

Aye.

Board Member Peterson?

Aye.

Board Member Sawant?

Yes.

Board Member Strauss?

Yes.

Board Member Herbold?

Yes.

Board President Lewis?

Yes.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

The resolution is adopted as amended and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

I am being alerted by the clerks that there was potentially a mistake and that it should be November 20th and not November 21st.

Is this the case?

No.

Can I?

we are changing the date from the November 21st, which was put in the resolution erroneously as 2013, now amending it to say November 21st, 2023, but we're changing the date to Monday, November 20th, 2023. That part was all correct.

So we had to- It was just the reference.

The reference to the original date was incorrect.

I'd rather have it be incorrect by 10 years on our original resolution.

We'd rather have it be correct.

Correct.

Okay.

Excellent.

Just, just making sure.

So the, the amendment that we passed, um, does reflect, um, what our intention was to reflect it in the resolution.

Sorry.

There was some, um, a little bit of confusion from the clerks.

No worries.

Oh, or there was, or there wasn't, or I've been misinformed.

No worries.

Thank you so much.

Just as long as the resolution reflects what we needed to.

Thank you so much.

Um, uh, now moving on to agenda item two, will the clerk please read agenda item two into the record.

Agenda item two, the 2022 Seattle Park District activities and spending for briefing and discussion.

So this is the presentation that we have from our parks panel, and we are joined by Christopher Williams and Michelle Finnegan from Seattle Parks and Recreation, as well as Tracy Ressler from our Council of Central Staff.

We can go ahead and start the presentation if the panel is ready.

Great.

Christopher, if you don't mind, I just the presentation covers both items one or two and three.

So I don't know if that if you want us to pause before we move to the second part of the presentation.

Would you prefer I read both items into the record and then you can just move into the third one easily?

If that works, I think that'd be great.

Sure.

So we're doing agenda item two and agenda item three, which is the update on the 2023 Park District activities.

Also for a briefing and discussion.

Great.

Thank you, Michelle.

Good day, council members.

Thank you for your time today.

Thank you for the opportunity to update you on what we accomplished in 2022, and then to provide you with some ramp-up updates for 2023 activities.

Next slide.

We'll first cover some highlights from 2022. That's the first part of this briefing.

and then we'll want to get into some highlights from 2023. I also want to point out that the park district annual report is available per the link you see below.

So that's a very interesting report there.

Next slide.

Okay a lot of you have seen this information before so it won't come as a surprise.

In 2022 the park district comprise about 20% of the department's budget.

Of the park district funding, 39% supported capital investments and 61% supported operations and maintenance.

Our other primary fund source includes REIT on the capital side and the general fund side for operating.

The park fund and other smaller funding sources make up the rest.

The rest of the slides will focus on park district funding versus those other categories of funding.

Next slide.

Okay, beautiful pie chart here.

You can see that in 2022, the park district funding is broken out by cycle one categories, which included maintaining parks and facilities.

a fix it first category and programs for people and building for the future.

Just quickly, fix it first, of course, was our commitment to maintaining our assets and maintaining parks and facilities as our basic commitment to basic maintenance.

and then building for the future included some grant opportunities and property acquisition and then programs for people as our whole public recreation area of programming.

Next slide.

This slide shows the 2022 budget in the green bar versus our actual spending categorized by the blue bar.

The building for the future and fix it first categories primarily highlight capital activities.

As capital project spending often spans multiple years, Park District capital appropriation carries forward.

Projects supported by carry forward appropriation from 2022 to 2023 range from redevelopment of the waterfront to the play area renovation of Spruce Street Mini Park to our ongoing program for roof repairs.

In our next slides, we will cover some of the 2022 accomplishments for each of these categories.

And as I said, there's more detail in the annual report.

Next slide.

Okay, so in addition to bringing our third maintenance team back online, this is a team that works in the evening to renovate community centers so the building doesn't have to be closed and the public can still use it.

Two years of staff vacancies and diverting resources to emergency responses during COVID-19 took a toll on our ability to operate the screw and upkeep our parks.

Beginning in the summer of 2022, the department began to staff up.

We hired 50 additional staff by July 1st and significantly increased levels of service and parks throughout the city, especially basic maintenance, such as mowing, cleaning restrooms, removing graffiti, power washing, and picking up litter and trash.

In addition, we completed off-leash area improvement projects at West Crest Park in West Seattle, Genesee Park, and Peapatch renovation projects at Beacon Bluff, Mara Farms, and Delridge.

The West Crest off-leash area project shown here improved stormwater conveyance as well as improved the off-leash area.

And this occurred in D1 in West Seattle.

The Beacon Bluff pea patch project shown here, was supported by the Seattle Conservation Corps and cleaned up slope shady garden plot and created a new community working gathering terrace with seating spaces.

A four by six shed and compost bin were added.

The new terrace with seating height, retaining wall, overlooking lower garden terrace with natural areas as a backdrop, and this project occurred in D2.

That's the picture on the lower right corner there.

While we're covering off-leash areas, I wanted to remind you that we're in the midst of an off-leash area expansion study, which will inform the location of two new off-leash areas funded in Cycle 2 Park District.

Materials and online surveys are available through July 31. We encourage as many people as possible to provide feedback for themselves and their dogs as appropriate.

So that information is available on our website.

Next slide.

As I mentioned, the Fix-It First category funds asset management, major maintenance projects, as well as supports the Zoo, the Aquarium, and the Green Seattle Partnership.

In 2022, SVR completed 14 major maintenance projects, including the three shown here.

What you see here is a before and after of the Fairmont play area renovation pictured as both the before and after.

That's the picture, the smaller picture on the right and above is the after picture and that occurred in D1.

And then we had a Ballard Playfield Lighting Improvement Project.

Here we replaced the old wood poles and installed more efficient LED lights with less spillage for the neighbors.

And then the Jefferson Community Center renovation improvements included electrical repairs, kitchen upgrades, ADA improvements, elevator installation, roof repairs, and more.

The lighting, rather the lighter, brighter lobby is shown here.

So quite a transformation to the entranceway to what is easily a 50 or 60 year old facility, makes it look brand new.

Next slide.

A key highlight related to our recreation programming in 2022 is that COVID restrictions were finally removed in April 2022. This allowed us to restart activity camps, youth sports programming, transporting teens to field trips and hosting special events, including our spring track program and fall basketball programs.

High Point basketball bash event is shown here.

By the way, our track and field program is one of the largest youth sports programs in the region.

Last summer, we piloted a new youth at work program in partnership with the NAACP and the Urban League as part of our team programming.

You see one of our cohorts celebrating completing the program at the bottom of the screen.

The Park District sustains an increase in this program and capacity going forward.

and this year's cohort start July 10th.

We're going to have an unprecedented number of youth, teens working throughout the park system as a result of the park district.

And the park district funding continues to fully support specialized programs and lifelong recreation programs.

Last year we had over 1,500 enrollments in specialized programs and over 7,000 lifelong programs.

Also, the above photo here in the center is our summer 2022 lifeguard training team.

In addition to running this important program in 2022, our aquatic staff ran 21 lifeguard training classes with 161 participants.

And as you know, with the lifeguard shortage, this work is really important.

Next slide.

We want to highlight building for the future.

Building for the future highlights include completion of the volunteer park amphitheater, a major project challenge fund project.

This occurred in D3.

And then program supporting Seattle Center City Park activation shown here as a summer movie night at the expanded Hing Hay Park.

And then and this is in D7.

And then the opening of a new park in Lake City.

That was a beautiful opening this past summer.

And that occurred in D5.

Next slide.

Okay, so we want to talk for a little bit about this cycle to ramp up.

And of course, this is the funding recently appropriated in the current tranche of Park District funding, we want to cover Park rangers, conversations, uh, trees and develop parks, decarbonization, and the equitable park development fund.

Next slide.

We're happy to report that we've hired and onboarded our first new cohort of park rangers in a very long time.

Each employee completed their training are in the field way ahead of the June 30th goal.

Uh, the training Academy concluded on June 7th.

And in addition to all of the important City of Seattle training Park Rangers received, the Rangers also received independent certifications and things like crisis intervention training, criminal justice training, management of aggressive behavior, we refer to that as MOHAB, flagging and defensive driving training from the Evergreen Safety Council.

And then they were all trained and FEMA's incident command system training, which included ICS 100, 200, and 700 level training.

And that is a picture of our new cohort of park rangers in the lower left there and right.

Next slide.

Conversations has been a big focus of of our work.

And here you can see on the slide that we're expanding services.

We started at the beginning of this year.

Evening and seven-day coverage has expanded to year-round cleaning services.

Conversations are cleaned one to three times per day, depending on season.

We are making an effort to keep our conversations open year-round.

We are also pushing to renovate more comfort stations.

So 19 of 27 planned capital renovation projects are named and continue to work on improving the look and feel of our comfort stations.

Next slide.

The tree inventory in Seattle has been a hot topic of discussion.

Another new investment for cycle two is to support planting and maintaining trees and develop parks.

As the team assesses planning locations, they are considering equity impacts, climate impacts, and the history of tree loss across the city.

While the focus is often on tree planting, it is sustained funding for five years of tree care that staff say is a game changer.

This includes funding for watering, which will be the largest task so that trees don't just get planted, but they get maintained and an opportunity to thrive and survive.

They've already been planning in Beersheba Park, Genesee, Othello, and along Lake Washington Boulevard, but the bulk of the plantings will occur in Q4 and Q1 of each year.

That's when we get most of our rain and it helps those new saplings to be planted during the cooler, wetter months.

Next slide.

Decarbonization.

We also wanted to provide an update on our decarbonization work as the Park District set forth the strong goal of decarbonizing half of our community centers during cycle two.

In addition, the city has put forth strong policy direction related to electrifying fleet vehicles and equipment such as leaf blowers.

And this is an area we're really leaning into.

SPR's planning team has initiated two studies to inform climate resiliency work in relationship to our park facilities.

A crew quarters upgrade decarbonization resiliency study which will look at the necessary infrastructure space improvements at crew headquarters to accommodate the triple lift decarbonization of equipment vehicle and HVAC systems.

A solar feasibility study in response to resolution 51 is being undertaken that will identify the best candidates among currently planned renovation and decarbonization projects for the implementation of solar power.

A consultant selection process for these studies should be concluded by the end of July.

We are also implementing decarbonization projects Uh, other places, um, and expanded Magnuson community center just reopened with the lobby, uh, multipurpose rooms and other.

Offices heated and cool with electrical heat pumps at this location.

The upcoming project at Hiawatha community center will convert, uh, to fossil fuel free operations, uh, as well as South park.

which will also provide HVAC cooling as well.

So those are some updates on decarbonization.

And as I mentioned earlier, I really wanted to highlight that we have taken the heart or rather taken to heart the resolution to do away with gas powered leaf blowers.

So that work is underway in our system.

Next slide.

We are ramping up the equitable development fund.

We're also making good progress transitioning from cycle one major project challenge fund to one we're referring to as the equitable development fund.

As you'll recall, the uh major project challenge fund had a match up to like 1.6 million dollars which very few communities could generate a match for and we thought it prudent to go back and take a look at equity and come up with a grant opportunity that depending on the part of town you're in doesn't even require a match.

So as the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners has a specific role to identify in the interlocal agreement.

Staff briefed the board earlier this month.

Basically, the summary of the June 8th park board meeting was they agreed to establish a board subcommittee to support the program.

They recommended a name change calling it the Park Community Highlighting Unity Fund.

and then they're recommending two tiers of funding up to $150,000.

They agreed to evaluate the process.

I'm sorry, let me back up.

They recommended two tiers of funding up to $150,000 and up to $1.5 million in funding.

They agreed to evaluate the process after the first cycle of awards.

The next steps are to establish a subcommittee of the board of park and recreation commissioners to do this work.

Uh, we're going to reconvene with staff and develop evaluation criteria.

And we plan to roll this out to the community in the fourth quarter of this year.

Okay.

So, uh, that was a lot of breaths.

And I think that brings me to a conclusion.

And thank you, Michelle, for working the clicker.

So I'll pause right there to see if there are any questions.

Thank you so much, Deputy Superintendent.

I do have a couple of questions.

I'm going to start initially with a comment from the 2020 annual report regarding the maintenance surge you alluded to in the fall, late summer, early fall of 2022. And just want to state how appreciated that maintenance surge was.

I think it was very helpful.

For our deliberations and our process in crafting the new investment cycle for the park district.

It led to visible changes that were noticed and feedback that was relayed by constituencies who work a lot with parks.

You know, I continue to notice the increased tempo of maintenance being done by parks personnel when I'm out and about in the district and interacting with parks employees.

So I just want to lift up that work that was highlighted.

It made a really significant difference and continues to make a difference.

So I want to just start by saying that and thank you for your leadership and putting that together.

when you were in the interim leadership role at the time.

So I just want to start by acknowledging that.

Thank you so much.

And that work is continuing.

We like to recognize that not everybody goes to a community center, but pretty much 100% of the public goes to a park.

So it's important that the parks look cared for and maintained.

Thank you.

So getting into a couple of other areas.

There was a brief mention of the lifeguard training team in the 2022 report.

And I want to take a moment to talk about aquatics and talk about lifeguards here at the beginning of my presentation.

questions because it's something I didn't really see emphasized in the scaling up portion, but it is something that continues to be a struggle both here and nationally to adequately staff our aquatics programming.

We have a number of swimming beaches who have had delayed openings or indefinite closures throughout the year.

There are inconsistent hours due to inconsistent staffing.

And I do want to just check in here since I don't really see it completely fleshed out in the presentation, what the department's plans are to respond and mitigate to make sure that we are solving this ongoing challenge post-COVID with aquatic staffing.

Thank you for raising that.

And so we've done a couple of things behind the scenes.

I think we had talked to you earlier this year about potentially going to the labor committee.

We had a situation where we got authorization to pay new incoming lifeguards a higher wage than existing lifeguards.

That actually had a chilling effect on people who've been here as lifeguards for a long time.

We were able to negotiate with Local 117 and our labor partners at SDHR to be able to elevate the compensation for existing staff so that it matches what new staff are being paid a kind of slightly higher rate that they were recruited at.

So that was a big help because retention is a big part of this equation.

The other thing that we're doing is we're talking to King County, the city of Bellevue, the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club, other partners in the community, and asking, trying to glean anything any other partner has learned from this.

One of the things that Seattle Parks and Recreation has knock on wood is that we haven't had a drowning at a lifeguarded beach, thank God, in years.

I mean, it's probably been 50 years.

Um, our challenge is to maintain that track record.

Uh, we could probably hire more lifeguards if we lowered our standard for what it takes to be a lifeguard and open water.

And we're kind of committed to that high standard.

Um, but our work to this point is to ramp up the lifeguard training program, because that includes.

13, 14, 15 years old, young people, and that gets them in the pipeline by the time they are 18 to have a great full-time job as a lifeguard.

So we didn't have the ability to do that lifeguard training program during COVID, but now that we've ramped that up, we think we're building a pipeline of future lifeguards.

So We're hopeful that by next year or the year after, or hopefully next year, we'll be in a much better place.

I will say that we are not in a worse place than we were last year.

We still have eight public swim beaches open this year.

That is, however, coming at the cost of two closed pools.

So your point is well taken.

Thank you for that update, definitely something we'll continue to monitor, and hopefully in summer of 2024 we, we are in a stronger position to use a to use an appropriate metaphor that we're not just treading water but we're actually moving forward in closing this gap that we're experiencing with aquatics.

I have one last question, and then I'm going to go ahead and open this up to colleagues.

Last question.

When we were talking about the Rangers, you mentioned that they received flagging training.

And I'm curious the extent to which Well, first off, does that give them a certification as a result of completing that training as flaggers?

And what is the extent of their ability to, with that flagging training, engage in more broad, as required, traffic control responsibilities as may be required in the city?

Yeah, so that's a great question.

Of course, we wanted them to have this training because and incidental to their work, there could be the opportunity or the need to manage traffic in a right of way, and thought it was essential for their safety and for their relationship with the public to have this training.

I suppose, with 12 people now having flagger certification cards.

They are a pool of people, I suppose, who could be used, although our priority for them would be to have the flagging certification be incidental to their work versus farming them out for flagging other places.

All right, well, we'll stay in touch on that for sure.

Thanks for that update.

You bet.

So we have two board members in the queue here.

So board member Nelson and then board member Morales.

Thanks for bringing up the aquatics program, because I did have a question about that, you know, we we did double the parks district spending plan last year and last year we had beaches that were closed for lack of lifeguards and that was a big deal.

And then we provided more money this year.

So I do want to know how is the spending going in that department?

I understand that you're looking at best practices for what other cities are doing, but what I have heard is that people have to go to a class to take training.

Now, I'm not talking about the youth that you just mentioned, but if somebody just wants to be a lifeguard, take that training for it.

So one of my other questions was what how are we doing on the spending plan for 2023?

And I do want to know that those answers and if you have that information handy, not right now, but later, but why don't we just pay for people's training?

Because I'm thinking if, if we haven't spent the money, is that a possibility to provide that training or do whatever it takes to to staff up on lifeguards because we know this was a problem.

And it was it was difficult for me to pass that thing last year because it was a doubling of the tax burden.

And I just want to make sure that as we're collecting this tax, it is being used for what we identified.

Great.

I mean, Green Lake is closed and help me out council member Strauss but that I think is the most used park in the city I could be wrong but but Green Lake East swimming area is, I don't know if it's the most use but it does serve an extremely diverse community, and, you know, it's a big one to keep closed.

Thank you for that question.

I think on your broader question about the overall spending plan, we'd be happy to get back to you with more detailed information on that.

And I'm gonna ask Michelle maybe to jump in and help me here, but I think we did just work with our labor partners to allow us to reimburse people for lifeguard training.

Is that correct, Michelle?

I would have to check on that specific part.

I know some of these trainings that we have offered that we referenced even last year were free to participate.

So I don't know that all of them are, but we can certainly get you more information on that.

Council member Nelson is, I think we would agree that recruiting and training people is important.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but so do I understand correctly that the reason we weren't, is the labor dispute or the labor, is the labor issue the reason why we don't have more lifeguards now?

I thought that was just identifying differences in pay scale for existing, but I'm talking about actually going out and getting more.

Yeah, I think the, so the lifeguard job used to be a very well paying job for a 21, 22 year old young person when they were in school.

And there is the question of compensation right now in that body of work.

So, and then there are other labor issues that go along with that.

So it's kind of a mixed bag, but we think that sort of the salary range for lifeguards probably ought to change, which is outside of our pay grade.

We're working with SDHR on that to do a wage compensation study on lifeguards around the region.

But more work needs to be done clearly on how we attract lifeguards.

Thank you.

And yeah, I'll ask my second question later around the yeah, if you could get me the spending plan up to now, because because one of my questions is.

Sort of how much have we not spent and then what are we going to do with that money?

So anyway, those just putting it all on the table, thanks.

Thank you.

Council member or board member Morales.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for this update.

I have a question, and I will say it's about a specific program, the Swim Seattle program, so forgive me if I should be asking this in the context of our committee meeting, but while you're here, and while we're talking about summertime and aquatics and the importance of making sure that people understand how to swim and how to lifeguard.

We have received a lot of questions from parents and PTSA members from South Shore Elementary about the Swim Seattle program.

Folks may recall the mayor announced this partnership fairly recently and it's an exciting opportunity for particularly for kids of color to get access to swim lessons.

But we're hearing a lot from folks that signing up for the process is really hard because it's all online it's all in English and a lot of the families particularly at this school are Somali, and don't.

they received some financial aid information about how to get a scholarship to the program, and that was in Somali.

But then they're directed to go online to register, and that has proved really challenging.

So I'm wondering if you are contemplating other processes for getting folks signed up, particularly folks who don't speak English, and if there is some alternative way for people to register so that then they can do the subsequent step of trying to get the scholarships into the program.

Thank you for that question.

So one of the areas we received funding for in the Park District, I believe, was for more translation services.

and more staff to go out and maybe do some tabling at a community center in Amherst or whatever the language is that are needed to be able to work with folks.

So we'll go back and take a look at where we have interest and see if we can't get our, I'm sorry, Michelle, do you recall what those positions were called?

Yes, the Community Engagement Ambassadors.

The Community Engagement Ambassadors that do interpretation services.

That's what they were created for and we will deploy them in neighborhoods like Rainier Beach and South Park and other areas where people want to learn more about Swim Seattle.

But will that help them actually register?

Because people are aware of the program.

That's not what they need.

What they need is assistance actually trying to get into a class.

Yeah, so that will actually at this point help get their name on a list.

We had a finite level of scholarship subsidy when we rolled this program out.

So at this point, we can help people get enrolled and get their names on a list.

Uh, we've had an, uh, excess demand for this program more than we had actual funding, uh, which is a good sign.

Uh, we are continuing the fundraise and work with the Park Foundation and ARC.

And, um, I'm thinking we're going to have some good news on the horizon that might result in an infusion in additional outside capital for, uh, the Swim Seattle program.

Okay, thank you.

I think as a city surrounded by water, we might need to really think about how we prioritize where obviously limited funding goes.

And if we're really focused on keeping people safe, I think access to lifeguards and swim lessons is really important.

So thank you for the work you're doing to try to make sure we are able to source scale up the sourcing for that work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Board Member Morales.

Are there other questions?

I believe Board Member Nelson indicated she may have another question.

And this might be a good time, Board Member Nelson, if there was something else you wanted to ask the panel.

Well, I hinted at it.

Thank you.

So are we on track to spend the money that we allocated for 2023?

And if not, is there...

I mean, have we hired all the people?

I know that we had to hire to staff up to meet the extended hours of community centers.

I understand that park rangers have been hired.

Just wondering if they're all on board.

I don't know if if there are if hiring is still going on, just things like that.

I'm just wondering.

So real quickly, we hired about 50 percent of the park rangers.

I think we were funded for twenty eight.

We have about twelve or fourteen on board right now.

We are ramping up hiring on the capital development side of the operation.

This is all of our capital project delivery community centers.

Boy, you name it, anything that is on the construction side, we are still ramping up hiring in that area.

We are slated to move into expanded hours of operation of community centers this fall.

So we think we're making pretty good progress on the 2023 commitments, but would love to get you more detailed information.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Board member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

Just want to have questions and a couple of thank yous.

As it relates to slide five, where we see that there is a $4 million underspend in 2022. and that those $4 million did roll over to 2023. Could you give us a little bit more information about which projects were not completed in 2022 and whether or not you anticipated that all of the 2022 work will be completed this year in 2023?

That's my, my main question, and I have a lot of comments I just wanted in there.

Before I answer my question, really want to thank you for addressing the.

climate resiliency, the carbon free additions in the two district one community center work that's going on, really appreciate that you're taking advantage of work that's already happening at those two community centers at South Park and Hiawatha.

Those community centers, Hiawatha has been closed since COVID.

And it would be very difficult to incorporate an additional closure after the planned work is done.

And as you've heard me say before, as it relates to South Park, the closure for South Park coming up this fall is going to be very challenging for that community.

Again, appreciate that you're wrapping in climate change investments as well, that planned work.

And then also want to thank you as well for your commitment to winterizing all comfort stations by 2026, so that we'll have 100% of restrooms staying open year-round.

And I request that as it relates to the equitable development fund, that we look at all the resources that we have to do extensive community outreach as we develop the process and the criteria, including a board of parks and rec commissioners who represent different parts of the city.

This is a new fund source, and it is intended to assist I think we need to look at.

Folks in.

I'm I'm funding folks who are less connected and have maybe less inherently to fund And so given our state purpose.

For these funds.

I think we also need to in order to get the word out to the folks that we want to benefit from these funds.

Thank you.

Thank you for that question.

So Michelle Finnegan is not only our clicker, but she is our Deputy Superintendent of Finance and Policy here at the department.

And Michelle, can you say anything about where that underspend is in the Fix It First category?

Sure, I think, as you know, Council Member Herbold, the carry forward every year comes through the council process.

So we didn't get to in the details here.

We can work with Tracy to try to summarize that for you.

But in any particular year, we program our budget and then on the capital side, we work with with council to determine what carries forward.

So the carry forward That we were highlighting today were things like the waterfront redevelopment, which was about $3 million that carry forward related to that there's play area projects, but there's also continuing appropriation that goes, you know, from previous challenge fund awards for the South Park.

project and the Green Lake project which is midway right now so it can get really complicated really quick so we try to keep it relatively high level for the annual report but we certainly can dive deeper into that with with you all and with Tracy as you see fit.

Any follow-up board member Herbold?

No, I'm on that topic.

Thank you.

Somebody maybe address my my hopes for an equitable outreach process for the equitable development initiative thing.

Yes.

So so we actually went through quite a bit of I guess, program architecture to design a process that was truly going to be equitable, that will include a subcommittee of park board members paired with community representatives from across the city that represents some of these underserved communities will also serve as project proposal reviewers.

along with their park board members.

So it will include things like going out to community centers and community meetings, actually helping underserved communities develop and write grant proposals, interfacing with people in a way so that this whole grant application process is about as painless as it can possibly be, recognizing that different communities have different levels of energy and capacity.

We want everyone to have access to this funding.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate that.

And Mr. Chair, can I sneak in one other question?

I forgot.

Yes, please go ahead so much as it relates to the park Rangers.

Understand that there is a process for determining whether to expand the Rangers to other areas of the city.

And I would love whether or not there's a sort of a best estimate for the timeline for this decision.

And then secondly, I understand that like many of our forward-facing city employees, park rangers are also equipped with Naloxone.

We are doing more to document and collect data on use of naloxone for overdose reversals.

The fire department has begun to document that, as has the police department, and wondering whether or not the intention is for the Parks Rangers to also document their naloxone use and their their use of it for successful overdose reversals as well as when, unfortunately, it's not as successful.

Thank you.

Yes.

Well, park rangers and staff at community centers have had access to minoxidil for a while.

When they have that kind of intervention, those interventions are documented through what we call an incident report.

probably several file cabinets full of incident reports.

I can't tell you right off hand the frequency of the Knox Loan use, but it has been used in our system a few times, and we will continue to document that use.

I think one of the challenges that I've learned about from working with the fire department and the police department is it's usually in notes.

So it's not something that you can quantify without going through laboriously all of the incident reports.

And so it's helpful to have a code or something that is easily sortable.

Okay.

We will go back and take a look at how to do that.

Thank you.

I'm a board member herbals questions led to another thing I am.

I think I'll just ask in this hearing, but I mean, it's early, but I'm willing to predict that our park ranger expansion is going to be popular and that the park rangers are going to really have a good rapport with park patrons and with stakeholders immediately surrounding our parks and people taking advantage of their services and their presence.

In addition to expanding service area, I would be curious in getting from the department the scalability of how we might consider adding additional rangers to meet demand for service.

Because I'm sure that while there's a lot we can do with 28 rangers and the background of these rangers, As people can tell from the picture you shared earlier, where the mayor and I are with the cohort, and Mayor Harrell and I got an opportunity to spend some time and talk on the day of service in May with this cohort of Rangers, you have a very diverse array of backgrounds related to parks and recreation, but also lots of former members of the armed services and people who have worked in social services, people who have worked in, you know, faith-based charitable organizations and what have you.

You know, I imagine that we're going to be in a position where going more citywide and making it a more comprehensive service is probably going to require having more than 28. So I would be curious in terms of given the work that we've done this year to scale up pretty quickly.

I mean, I'm very impressed that by, I think our, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong on this when answering this question, But my understanding is that by mid-August, all 28 Rangers will be hired, trained, and deployed is my understanding.

And that's a pretty, I mean, that's a pretty impressive turnaround just to have this first cohort like out there, you know, this month in June from when we started the program.

But I would just be curious in terms of like, how many Rangers the department thinks, you know, per hiring cohort, you know, is scalable.

What the, what the cost per FTE is estimated to be going forward.

and what the department might anticipate demand for increasing the ranger service might be based on our current experience.

Those would be report backs I would be very interested in for future, not just Metropolitan Park District, but the general committee, especially as we go into budget discussions and everything else.

So that's a lot to put out there to the panel, but I'd be curious in your answers to those questions.

Sure.

Well, just real quickly and high level here, So we hired the first tranche of park rangers and I think we agreed to hire 14 this year and we were gonna wait till the end of the year to reassess if we needed more for downtown.

We think 14 for downtown may be sufficient and we wanna get some experience under our belt before we bring on an additional 14. I think the deployment we use for park rangers, assuming they can be deployed across the city, will help us decide how many we need.

Some of the deployment strategies may include emphasis patrols, where we're not trying to staff a ranger at every single park, but we're trying to hit known hotspots.

And again, deploying rangers in a zone format, so currently in downtown we have rangers deployed in a north and south zone.

So, you know, recognizing that not every single park in our system is a problem park, what is the best strategy if we had more rangers to deploy them in the most efficient way and ways that make sense to the public?

So we would need to go through that kind of exercise.

And I imagine in every district, there are parks that maybe have more of a need for park rangers than others.

And we would certainly want to assess that.

But we do think this program is scalable and can be ramped up.

The current limitation is with an agreement the city made with SPOG a few years ago, which limits park rangers to working downtown.

So we'd love to come back and have more conversation with you about the scalability of park rangers.

Thank you.

I look forward to that in a future meeting, and I'm sure it's been noted by Tracy, given me flagging my interest.

Okay, I don't have any additional questions.

Appreciate colleagues being so generous with their time, given that this comes after briefing and a couple executive sessions.

Are there any final questions from board members?

Okay, I don't see any.

So that puts us at the end of today's meeting.

It is 4.40 p.m., and I am going to adjourn the Seattle Park District Board meeting.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Recording stopped.