Seattle Park District Board Meeting 101821

you.

Good afternoon or good evening.

Afternoon.

It's October 18th 2021 meeting of the Seattle Park District Board.

It will now come to order.

It is now 533. I'm Deborah Juarez president of the board.

Clerk can you please call the roll.

Gonzalez.

Herbold.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Mosqueda.

Present.

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Present.

Strauss.

Present.

President Juarez.

Here.

Eight present.

Thank you.

We'll move on to approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection the agenda is adopted.

We'll move on to approval of the minutes.

The minutes of the June 21, 2021 Seattle Park District Board meeting have been reviewed.

If there is no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are being signed.

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

At this time, we're going to go on our agenda into public comment.

We will open the remote public comment period.

It remains the strong intent of the Seattle City Council and the Seattle Park District Board to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, the Seattle Park District Board reserves the right to end or eliminate the public comment period at any point if we deem that this 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.

There is also a separate public hearing on the revenue sources for the 2022 operations in capital budget and a potential property tax increase in 2022, which will begin as the last item on this agenda, which is item number two.

So item number one is a presentation and item number two is a public hearing.

Our city clerk will moderate this general public comment period, so I'll now hand it off to our wonderful clerk.

Jodi, you want to go ahead and read in and start the public comment period?

I will.

The public comment period for this meeting is up to 20 minutes, and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

The clerk will call on two speakers at a time, and in the order in which registered on the online sign-up list, If you have not yet registered to speak but would like to you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at Seattle.gov slash council.

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

Once a speaker's name is called 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.

The speaker must also touch star six on their phone to unmute themselves after their name is called.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that 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 ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment If speakers do not end their public 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 have completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting please do so via Seattle Channel or on the listening options listed on the agenda.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first two speakers signed up on the list for our regular public comment.

Those speakers are Rebecca Baer and Muriel Lati.

Rebecca?

And Rebecca, if you've heard that you've been unmuted, you'll also need to hit star six.

And Rebecca has dropped off.

So we will move on to Muriel Lati unless Rebecca calls back.

Muriel Lati.

I see your name.

OK.

This is Muriel Lawthy.

Hi.

So I wrote this out because I'm having difficulty speaking.

So I'll try to read it to you.

And I also send it by email in case I lose the connection here.

So this is about the general comments and about budgeting for community centers.

This is about the New Lake City Community Center.

I'm 77 years old.

I have health problems, but I prefer to be active working on improving our community to sitting around and complaining.

So I prefer to thank people, especially officials like yourself.

I want to thank, especially thank you for discussing things in advance and for listening to me today.

I also want to thank Council Member Juarez and her staff for helping us get our plans for the New Lake City Community Center going.

I know they'll continue to work with us to get things moving forward.

But right now, it seems plans for the new center are at a standstill.

$5 million of our promised $16,500,000 appears to be deferred to next year's funding cycle.

And looking at the city parks website for McCity's community center, there's no mention of our efforts, our community neighborhood groups made to get things going.

Were we wasting our time when we got all those letters and petitions signed?

When I signed up for parks newsletters, there's mention of Green Lake redevelopment, but no mention of Lake City redevelopment.

So we have no way of knowing exactly what's planned for us.

I'm again working with community members to find out what has been done so far and how to move things forward.

Excuse me.

I don't need to remind you that Lake City is one of the most underserved communities in the city.

We've been neglected, and we feel like this is continuing.

So I want you to discuss this and vote to put that $5 million back into this year's budget and help us find out what has been so far and what's being planned for our community centers.

Thank you, Muriel.

Hey, Muriel, we got your email, and we've been in contact with you.

So we'll talk to you offline about that, OK?

Muriel?

Okay.

Jodi, is there anyone else?

It looks like the next, Rebecca Bear is back.

So the next speaker will be Rebecca Bear followed by Sarah Jane Siegfried.

Okay.

Hello, this is Rebecca Bear.

I'm hoping you can hear me.

I got cut off.

Good evening Park District and President Juarez.

Thank you very much for taking the time.

I am the CEO of the Seattle Parks Foundation and I'm here representing over 80 community neighborhood based organizations that care deeply about our public parks.

I'd like to start by thanking the Mayor Superintendent Aguirre and for the significant return of investment into our parks for 2022. In particular we'd like to support the return of baseline funding of the interlocal agreement with the Seattle Park District.

We're also particularly excited by park district funding for land bank sites and development of new parks and the additional funds for the Lake City Community Center.

We also support a strong focus on equity in this budget in particular the one million dollar shift from the land bank sites to support equity staffing the transition of the major project challenge fund to a community response and equitable development fund and the additional funding for community recreation and activation.

We have concern however that the MPD is being used to address a shortfall in the general fund to address average wage increases.

The current budget proposes a $4.1 million redirect from the major maintenance backlog to cover the compound cost of salaries.

We encourage the council and the Park District Board to consider that we need to fund these both.

Major maintenance and asset management had a significant impact during the pandemic and it is showing in our parks every day.

Major maintenance lost $11.4 million from their budget last year.

the largest reduction in the entire budget.

That is a lot of broken park assets and unfulfilled commitments in 2021. By tying the average wage intakes to this fund we're setting a bad precedent for future years and not fulfilling the original intent of the park district.

The general fund should should fund our average wage increases across the board.

We are recommending that we keep the $4.1 million for major maintenance and increase the $1.4 million in the general fund to address wage increases.

Thank you for your consideration.

The next speaker is Sarah Jane Siegfried followed by Beth Purcell.

And Sarah Jane is not present so we'll move on to Beth Purcell.

Good evening Seattle Park District Board.

My name is Beth Purcell and I'm speaking on behalf of the Park and Recreation Budget.

I want to thank you for this opportunity and want to thank the superintendent for developing a budget for 2022 that will go a long way in restoring the funding challenges for the Department of Parks and Recreation.

As you know our parks and public spaces are vital for the health and well-being of everyone in our city.

Years of investment and planning have gone into making our urban outdoor spaces a safe and welcoming as possible for all.

Unfortunately the parks and public spaces in Pioneer Square are experiencing spiraling public health and public safety crises that require urgent action.

As a board member of the Seattle Parks Foundation we work closely with partners such as the Alliance for Pioneer Square for the betterment of the Pioneer Square Historic District.

And I'm writing to show support for the following items currently under consideration in the City of Seattle Parks and Recreation budget proposal with a focus on increased funding and staff capacity to maintain safe and clean spaces in both park and right-of-way areas.

The clean city funding continuation through the end of 2022 the restoration of park district resources to the initiatives to the initiatives from which the savings were realized including full restoration of funds for the urban parks partnership.

Funds to support city efforts to maintain clean and accessible parks and rights of way.

The obstruction removals expenditures and the one time funding for site restoration.

While these expenditures focus on addressing the public health and safety in our parks I also support restoration of the COVID-19 reductions to the general fund the REIT funding and park district funds as proposed in the 2022 budget for parks and recreation.

Thank you for your time.

The next speaker is Sean McCorkle, followed by Sylvie Reynolds.

Hello, my name is Sean McCorkle.

I'm president of the Green Lake Rowing Advisory Council.

I'm here to speak on behalf of the new Green Lake Community Boathouse.

We have spoken in the past that our eight year effort to replace the public boating facilities on the lake had stalled.

and had warned that without decisive action, we were at risk of losing the project altogether.

I'm pleased to report that a path to the finish has been defined finally.

And with your support, we can begin a long overdue process of correcting so many safety issues that have plagued our facility, expanding our capacity to further reach underserved youth, and of helping to launch the city's first para and adaptive rowing and paddling program that will ensure opportunities for all youth.

I first want to thank Superintendent Aguirre for proposing usage of 2022 MPCF dollars for the project, currently in the budget before the council.

I also want to thank Councilmember Dan Strauss for proposing a $250,000 budget amendment to be matched dollar for dollar by additional new private funds.

I also want to recognize Councilmembers Juarez and Lewis for co-sponsoring this vital budget amendment.

We also want to go on record thanking the State of Washington RCO and State Senator David Frock along with King County and especially Council Member Jeannie Colwell for their support of this project over the years.

And finally I want to thank the many patient private donors large and small who have generously gifted to this project and the city over two and a half million dollars towards seeing this vision to completion.

This truly has been a community effort leveraging private and public funding.

The Green Lake Community Boathouse will be a center for all youth regardless of background circumstance or physical ability to thrive on Seattle's blue space.

We ask for your support of both Superintendent Edgar A's budget now before you and your unified support of the proposed budget amendment co-sponsored by Strauss Juarez and Lewis.

Thank you.

The last speaker for public comment is listed as Sylvie Reynolds.

They're listed as not present.

And I can ask to confirm that with IT.

Sylvie Reynolds.

That is correct.

That's correct.

There are no further.

Caller number six has returned, though.

OK.

Sylvie's back?

No.

Oh.

Caller number six, Sarah Jane Siegfried.

Oh, Sarah Jane.

Thank you, Sarah Jane.

Star six, Sarah Jane.

Hi, this is Sarah Jane Siegfried.

I'm a community advocate in Lake City.

And the building that we know as the Lake City Community Center was built in 1947. And it was not operated as a community center for many years.

In other words, there really was no city programming until just before the pandemic.

So in the meanwhile, Lake City has changed.

In the 2010 census, it was 25%.

And in 2015, it was 50% BIPOC.

And it's only continued in that direction.

We have many more people of color and especially immigrant communities here.

We're the pocket of poverty in North Seattle, especially with Eritrean and Ethiopian immigrants.

We also have no senior center here in Lake City.

And we have both HUD and SHAG projects.

We have a veterans project here.

And they site here in Lake City because of the low cost of land, but there's no place for these folks to go.

What we need are meals and activities for seniors and our youth.

The array apartments on 143rd and Lake City Way have lots of kids and is especially in need of teen programming at a community center.

So the city has funded about half of this project, as Muriel said earlier, with help from the legislature, which we appreciate greatly.

But for some reason, our project has taken a backseat to the Green Lake Community Center.

And they already have a fully functional community center.

Well, we don't.

It's closed.

And again, it's been pushed off.

the extra $5 million for when we pushed off to 2023. So what we need is an updated needs assessment in 2022, and we're asking you to put that in the budget so that we can look at this fast-changing community and figure out what's really needed here.

Thank you.

And it looks like our last speaker, Sylvie Reynolds, is now present.

Sylvie?

Hi, thank you.

This is Sylvie Reynolds.

I'm calling to advocate for a look at the budget and how it's been, especially in regards to Green Lake Keep Moving Street, which is, according to SDOT's RSJ, is in a highly not underserved community and The Parks Department may have plans to add more bike lanes to the Keep Moving Street with a budget of upwards of $1 million.

And I'm asking them to please consider the equity of this investment.

As we've heard from many other people on this call, there are many other needs in the city and underserved areas.

Thank you very much for your time and your consideration.

How are we doing, Jodi?

President Juarez, we have no further speakers for general public comment.

Okay.

So since we have no further speakers, we will close public comment.

Now, that's different.

We'll come back later for the public hearing piece.

Thank you for your comments here today.

And like I shared earlier, a couple of you have emailed us and we have your email addresses and your email comments as well, which we'll respond to again.

Let's go to items of business and clerk, can you please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, Seattle Park District proposed 2022 budget for briefing and discussion.

Let's have our presenters go ahead and introduce themselves for the record, and then I have a few remarks I need to make before Jesus launches into his ATH PowerPoint.

Go ahead, Jesus.

Thank you, Council Member Jesus Aguirre.

I am superintendent of Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Michelle Finnegan, policy director with Seattle Parks and Recreation.

That's all you brought with you today, Jesus?

Amy Williams is here as well.

Is Tracy here?

OK.

I think Tracy Ratcliffe is having some technical problems, but she'll be with us in a moment.

That's what I'm hearing offline.

Jesus, before we get started, I wanted to just for the viewing public, because the last 20 months we've been interrupted with the six year plan because of COVID.

So I just want to contextualize and kind of orient us before we actually get going.

Before us today, we have resolutions that we're looking at that are already posted online.

Number 44, which is regarding the adoption of the.

I don't know if you can hear me.

Yes, we can.

We'll start again.

Sorry.

OK, so we have adoption Resolution 44, which is adoption of the budget.

This is the interim one year.

It's the bridge year and with Resolution 44 there are two attachments.

A is a summary of the operating capital budget and attachment B is a more detailed account of the operation and management in capital.

budget from 2015 to 2022. Resolution 45 talks about the increase.

If there is going to be an increase, we vote on that on the taxes from 2021. And Resolution 46 is, of course, fixing the rates.

And Resolution 47 is more technical.

It'll just be about us going forward about the next park board meeting details, which would be in June 2022. But for today's purposes, the focus is on resolutions 44, 45, and 46, and the attachments which are posted online for those of you viewing.

Some of the questions and some of the comments that were made during public comment can actually, if you look at those documents, you'll see the answers to some of the issues, particularly the Lake City Community Center and a few other items.

But in order to kind of give you a little legislative history, which we'll have another handout when we actually go to have our vote, Um, we started back in, um, November of 2020. We passed Resolution 36, and that was our original legal authority to delay the six year planning because of COVID.

And then we did it again in November, where we had the same in November 2020 Resolution 37, which, of course, delayed the start of the six year plan.

And then in June 2021, we passed resolution 42 which delayed the start of the six-year plan from 2022 to 2027. Now I share that with you so and we'll have a another slide at some other point so we can not only have the legislative history but to understand why we have the delay and now what we're going to put in place is this bridge year and this one-year budget and that's what we'll be discussing I'm guessing that's what our PowerPoint is going to go over today.

And we're not voting today.

So I don't want people to think that today is the day that we are actually passing the budget and the spending plan and all of that.

We're getting it all online.

We had public comment.

We're going to have another public hearing after this.

I want to give parks the opportunity to go through the proposed 2022 budget.

So with that, did I miss anything, superintendent?

No, thank you, Board President Juarez and members of the governing board.

As you said, Council Member Juarez, we're going to go through and give you an overview of our 2022 proposed budget.

Of course, back on October 1st, we provided you all with a detailed update on the Mayor's proposed 2022 budget.

budget for the entire department, which of course includes many fund sources, including the Park District, which is obviously a critical part of our funding.

So again, today we're going to talk about just this one fund source and give you some key takeaways here.

So next slide, please.

So overall, and this slide gives you a little bit of context again to the various funding sources.

The Mayor's 22 proposed budget for Seattle Parks and Recreation, as we discussed previously, really focuses on this economic recovery, restoring some of the pandemic related reductions that were made.

as part of our 2021 budget across all of our funds, again, including the park district.

Our mayor's budget also realigns resources to support our commitment to equity, to support how we're addressing rising costs that are due to inflation and our challenging bid climate, as well as increasing our investments to provide safe and welcoming parks and open spaces for everyone.

So as we look at total resources here, I'd like to point out that the general fund now is providing $109 million to our total budget, which unlike the last couple of years of the pandemic, this proposed budget restores the general fund resources to align with the parameters that are set forth in the interlocal agreement between the city and the park district.

Of course, you can also, by this graph, you can also see how important our park district is to our total parks and recreation budget, which represents about one-fifth of our total resources across all operations and capital.

Next slide, please.

And here you can see that both again on the operating side, as well as on the capital side, the Park District plays a significant role.

On the operating side, it represents roughly 18% of our total operating budget.

And on the capital side, it represents 22% of our total capital project budget.

Next slide, please.

So that gave you a context for all of the other funds.

So looking just at the Park District, as you mentioned, Council President, Council Member Juarez, Board President Juarez, our 22 proposed budget is yet another bridge year between the cycle one six-year financial plan and then the next cycle financial plan, which will begin in 2023. This interim year, we're using the planning assumptions for the first cycle in terms of how we're budgeting revenues and expenditures.

And specifically, the property tax revenues were increased in each of those six years by 2.5%, and we did that during these bridge years as well.

And based on this, the property tax rate has gone from 21.34 cents down, per $1,000 of assessed value, down to 20.7 cents because, of course, the estimated assessed value of properties in Seattle has gone up.

And to compare that to the tax rate for the first year of our spending plan in 2016, which was at 29.27 cents per mil, our 22 spending plan continues to be well below this amount for next year as proposed.

And as with the revenue side, the 2.5% increase, we're also increasing our expenditures at 2.5%.

And as you look at this chart here, I also want to note that the revenues do exceed our expenditures by the $1.5 million plug here that you see, which is there to meet the CBO planning reserve, which is related to pending labor negotiations.

Next slide, please.

So this is a much more detailed version than the previous slide.

And you'll see an even more detailed version in November as an attachment to the budget legislation.

So as we mentioned, excuse me, our 22 proposed park district budget inflates at two and a half percent, both on the revenue and the expenditure side.

Again, consistent with the practice that we did in the entire first cycle of the park district.

It's important to note that some of the, you know, we'll go through some of these changes, but it's important to note that in some of these initiatives, you'll see that they're inflating at an amount different than the overall 2.5%.

So some of them are higher, some of them are lower.

So for example, you'll see Initiative 1.6 here, the third line here, which is ongoing utility funding, that increases about $1.3 million, which is the actual increase in our water and sewer costs, which is well above the 2.5% increase each year.

Another example, you'll see the zoo support was significantly decreased as an expenditure from the NPD as the general fund was restored and those expenditures were moved over to the general fund.

And so if you've got any specific questions after today on the details in terms of this, the inflationary piece, we're happy to follow up and answer any questions there.

Next slide, please.

So as we can pivot to the detail changes, and as we discussed on our October 1 briefing, part of our budget here was obviously to restore some of the cuts that were made in our budget before.

And we're really grateful that we had the Seattle Park District that supported our base operations during this incredibly difficult time when the general fund resources and our own park fund resources were significantly impacted.

And, excuse me, as, as we mentioned the last time, we're happy to report that there was a $7.7 million restoration of the, from the general fund back into the park district resources.

As part of our capital budget, and these, these are.

put back into the original activities, the Parkland Acquisition Fund, the Major Project Challenge Fund, and then, of course, Major Maintenance Backlog and Asset Management.

Now, as we discussed previously, our proposed budget reallocates the $5.4 million of that 7.7 in ways that are supporting our activities here, as shown on the next slide here.

Hey, Jesus, I thought that the general fund owed us $10 million, not $7.

It was, you're correct, it was actually a $10 million, or actually $11 million reduction.

7.7 was general fund, and the rest we made up with just cost savings and efficiencies from within the department.

So the spending freezes and hiring freezes as well cover the rest.

Okay, got it.

All right, that's where I was.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

So on this slide, showing some of the realignments.

Again, the proposed budget realigns $5.4 million of the NPD capital funding that was reinstated, really just support our equity goals to cover some of these inflationary costs as well.

And these include investments in line two here talks about our workforce equity investments.

This really allows us to increase our support to our staff within the Human Resources Department, both to give us more support for our staff and also allow us to focus on workforce equity, on training and meeting the demands and the needs of our operating divisions.

Line three here helps us reallocate some funding to help support our overall equity work.

So it creates a centralized equity team in support of our pathway to equity work.

And of course, this is our commitment to the race and social justice initiative and really calls on the department to continue to challenge ourselves and change the institutional barriers that perpetuate harm.

And so the department recognizes that we've got We have a ton of work to do on this as we position ourselves to be a learning organization and continuing to be in a state of action and for that we need additional resources.

This work requires, excuse me, this work allows us to bring, to bear additional resources.

It establishes a base budget for example for our equity team and our change team.

And the proposed change you see here, the proposed budget here is a $600,000 change, which includes 300,000 of the reallocation from the Park District acquisitions budget.

But it also includes an additional $300,000 from other operating costs as we as we continue to focus resources on this incredibly important part of our work.

Line item four here talks about our equitable park development fund, and this is our way of evolving the major projects challenge fund that was part of the first six year cycle of the park district.

We got lots of feedback and learned a lot during the implementation of the program.

Particularly from a task force that included oversight committee members and other representatives.

And this new framing for this important initiative is really going to focus on our ability to partner with communities and community groups to make improvements, still to parks and recreation facilities, but really to focus on on neighborhoods that have had a history of racial disparities and access to green space and so.

The change for 2022 creates two positions that will build capacity so that as we launch into the next six-year cycle of the Park District, which will begin in 2023, we'll have the capacity and the infrastructure to continue with that work forward.

And then finally online here, five, one thing that we talked a lot about so far has inflation.

And as I stated, the first funding cycle of the park district had the 2.5% increase, but 2021 and 2022 were these bridge years and, excuse me, In those years, because the costs were higher than anticipated, we used one-time resources, including appropriating interest earnings, using fund balance, delaying repayment of intrafund loans to cover some of these costs, which include our annual wage increases and utilities, as I talked about earlier.

But obviously, these one-time strategies are not sustainable, but we still wanted to keep the property tax revenue at the planned 2.5 percent inflationary cap.

So our 2022 proposed budget includes the ongoing redirection of some of the MPD resources to right-size these budgets to cover the actual inflationary costs that go beyond the 2.5 percent, includes the base costs that we compounded over time, including utility rate increases, etc.

So The net change you see here on the slide is $1 million for the utility cost increases that's covered by the major maintenance reallocated funding.

The remaining $3.1 million that are required to cover the operating costs are included already in our base expenditures and they're already appropriated and will now just be backed by the redirection of the capital, the NPD capital resources.

And with that, I think that was my last slide.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

We have Amy Williams, who's our budget director, as well as Michelle Fittigan, who can help answer questions, too.

So let me see.

Do I have any questions from my colleagues?

Not seeing any.

The only thing I want to focus on, and I said this earlier, but I think it's really helpful.

And I want to thank you.

Nagini and I had a chance to go through all four of the resolutions, but in particular, resolution 44. So with the two attachments that you provided to that resolution, attachment A is the general one.

Thank you so much for that.

I wish we had a slide for that.

Because the fact that you broke it up into operating in capital And the total amount for this budget for this is 54 million.

I think that's what it is for the MPD.

That's correct?

Yeah, it's 54. On the expenditure side, it's 54 million on both.

Remember, there's a CBO planning reserve of $1.5 million.

So it's right at 54 million.

Yeah, right about there.

So the attachment A is great because it's a great summary to tell you how we got to 54, 535. And attachment B, which is for you more wonkier people, does the line by line from 2015 to 2020 and then of course the 2021 and 2022 bridge years.

So some of the questions I think my colleagues may, I think they're just gonna need some time to kind of wrap their head around how these two things work and how they can respond to their constituents and some of the people that called in today.

And like I was sharing with on council briefing this morning, We have five weeks to get to that.

So we have a lot of homework to do and to go through that.

But I want to thank you and your team for making it so easy for us to go through it and working with Tracy and your staff and Nageen to put it together so we could understand it.

And I think we're still just kind of going through it.

Is that fair to say?

OK, well, not hearing anything since I am the president.

Is there anything else you want to add, superintendent?

I just want to thank you and the rest of the board and I don't want to pass up any opportunity that I can in a public setting to thank all of our staff at Seattle Parks and Recreation for the great work they do day in day out and for all the tremendous amount of work that they've done over the last 22 some months as we all responded to this just unprecedented set of crises.

Thank you to them.

And we responded to some emails today and one of them was to the park board folks and they sent a great letter and I think the last paragraph of that letter which is online and you can look at it and if you want a copy we'll get it to everybody.

But they really emphasize what we have been talking about for the last 20 months with the Clean Cities Initiative and how parks and SDOT and SP but particularly parks for our purposes today have gone above and beyond what's normally required of park employees.

And I don't know if people out there really understand what that means with the community centers, the clean cities initiative, the ambassador program, cleaning up the encampments, picking up needles, picking up garbage, the community centers for childcare, for showers, for food.

I mean, not that I know your team pulled it together.

And I really want to thank you for that on your leadership pieces, our superintendent.

Thank you.

Okay, so with that, now that we're done with item number one, let's go into item number two.

Jodi, do I just say it or do you say it or do we just say the magic words public hearing and then I read my script or how do we do this?

I'm going to read the title and then you can read your script and then I'll call names.

Great.

Okay, agenda item two, a public hearing to accept comment on revenue sources for the 2022 operations and capital budget and a potential property tax increase in 2022.

See, that whole title was not in my script.

So anyway, I'm just gonna blame that on the dean.

Okay, so with that, as presiding officer, I am now opening the public hearing on the revenue sources for the Seattle Park District's 2022 operations and capital budget and a potential property tax increase in 2022. The online registration to sign up to speak at this hearing opened at 3.30 today and I will call on speakers in the order of registration.

Online registration will remain open until the conclusion of this public hearing.

The rules applied to the public comment period also apply to this public hearing.

Each speaker will be provided two minutes and a 10 second warning to wrap up comments.

Please honor the 10 second warning people.

Speakers' mics will be muted at the end of the allotted public comment time.

Speakers are asked to begin their comments by stating their name.

And now I will hand it off back over to Jodi.

And Jodi will tell us how many people are signed up and she will call the names.

Jodi?

Yes, we have five signed up.

Our first two speakers for the public hearing are Tim Mozart and Rebecca Baer.

Tim?

Tim?

And if you're unmuted on our end, then for your end, just hit star six and give it a couple seconds.

If we can't get Tim, we can come back to Tim, because I know he won't.

Let's move on.

Rebecca Bear.

Oh, here's Tim.

OK.

I'm sorry, Rebecca.

Here's Tim.

Thank you.

We can.

Can you hear me?

Hey, Tim.

Hello.

OK.

My name is Tim Mozart.

I'm here at your meeting today.

concerned Lake City residents about the $5 million of funding needed for our aging community center.

Here are my reasons why you should fund this in 2022. This allocation would not increase what our community thought was our current city funding commitment of $16.5 million.

Secondly, Mayor Durkin promised Lake City community she would restore the $5 million allocation, which has been deferred three times from 2021 to 2022, and now to 2023 when she will no longer be in office.

Three, one of the reasons for the mayor's deferral is that there are more urgent needs requiring funding in 2022. The fact is she has recommended only $396,000 in Park District Property Tax Fund in 2022, and it's recommending less than $300,000 annually through 2027. Funding our $5 million in 2022 for our Lake City Community Center seems more than appropriate.

Four, the mayor's deferral implies that funding the $5 million in 2023 will be easier than in 2022. This assumption is not supported by the following.

The new spending cycle will require more funding since first cycle underfunded the need.

Increased demands for park facilities and services due to impact the growth has not been addressed.

And the loss of over $10 million in park district revenue due to COVID-19 will be needed to be replaced.

And last item, the property tax rate is being reduced in 2022 from 21.3 cents to 20.7 cents.

This tax rate reduction in conjunction with the projected $11 billion increase in property tax would allow the $5 million allocation with a minimal property tax increase from 21.3 cents to 22.5.

I am confident that I provided the Park District Commission with enough reasons to change the mayor's recommendation and fund the $5 million allocation for the Lake City Community Center in 2022. I want to thank the Board of Park Commissioners for considering my comments and making this change to the 2022 Park District Budget.

Thank you.

Thank you Jim.

Our next speaker is Rebecca Baer.

Hello.

Thank you again for the opportunity to comment.

While we recognize that this is Rebecca Baer from the Seattle Parks Foundation.

While we recognize that two and a half percent inflation cap on the Parks District clearly as Superintendent McGuire mentioned it is not enough.

While the Seattle Parks Foundation appreciates the significant rebound in the budget we are concerned that the Parks District levy continues to decline over time as assessed value increases beyond 1 percent.

In 2016 the tax rate was 30 cents per 1,000 assessed property.

In 2020 it dropped to 21 cents per thousand average value.

And in 2021 the rate slightly increased it.

But then this year the proposal is to decrease it to 20 20.7 percent 20.7 cents per thousand dollars average value.

If the original voter approved rate which was 33 cents per thousand dollar average assessed property value had been implemented there would have been an additional $30 million annually to support parks.

Given the large amount of backlog and capital project needs some of which Tim just mentioned the unprecedented disinvestment over the last year due to the pandemic it seems wise for the Park District Board to consider a larger increase to address this need.

Our citizens have overwhelmingly asked for investment in and attention to our parks.

We encourage the Park District Board to consider this moment as an opportunity to respond.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay our last three speakers are registered but listed as not present.

I'm going to call out their name and we'll just double check.

I show Susan Health Elizabeth Riggs and Sylvie Reynolds.

Again they're all registered.

I do not see.

that any of those three individuals are present.

What was Susan's last name?

Health, H-E-L-F as in Frank.

Okay, health.

Okay, so.

So we have no further public hearing speakers.

Right, so we don't have Susan, Elizabeth or Sylvie.

Correct.

All right.

OK, so if there are no more speakers, then I will move that we have no more.

What?

Yes, I know that.

Thank you.

So since we have no more speakers, as Nagina is sharing with me, I must close the hearing.

Thank you, Nagina.

So with that, I will now close the public hearing on this matter.

Hearing is now closed.

Thank you.

Before we move on and before I adjourn, let me So the public hearing is now closed.

Public comment will be accepted via email at council at seattle.gov.

The Seattle Park District Board is scheduled to take action on adoption of the final 2022 Seattle Park District Budget at the November 22nd board meeting, which is basically right after the full city council meeting after we vote on the budget.

The next meeting of the Park District Governing Board will be held on November 22nd.

Are there any final questions?

I'm guessing not.

I don't see any.

I don't see any hands raised.

OK.

With that, being no further business, thank you, everybody.

We stand adjourned.