Good morning.
I mean, is it a beautiful morning or what?
You're at a beautiful building called Brighton.
I mean, how much better can it get than that?
In the penthouse. In the penthouse.
Thank you. Who said that? All right.
Anyway, my name is Estrada Colón, and I'm the chief
operating officer here at Brighton Communities.
It's an honor to welcome
you to the building decarbonization
grantees announcement with Mayor Bruce Harrell.
Today we celebrate progress,
reducing emissions,
improving energy efficiency,
and investing in a healthier, more resilient community.
Thank you to our city partners, our community organizations,
and all the grantees who are leading this vital work.
Together, we're making Seattle a cleaner,
greener, and stronger place to live.
At this time, I'd like to introduce
Curtis Brown, who is our executive director here at the Brighton.
He will be introducing Mayor Harrell.
Let me tell you a little bit about Curtis, though.
Curtis Brown.
People hear that name and they're like football player.
But he's been here for 15 years as our executive director.
And I have to say, he's one of the best bosses I've ever had.
We are on opposite end of the spectrum, but we always come together
to make things happen, and that's what we're going to do in the future.
He brings over 30 years of nonprofit management experience.
He has led the development of multiple social enterprises and trained
more than 500 nonprofits in innovative and entrepreneurial practices.
Please join me in welcoming Curtis Brown.
I probably should leave
all my notes because, I'm not going to be using them.
But, you know, welcome to Brighton communities.
Our one of our taglines is buy, build and own a neighborhood.
We believe that if we're going to stop displacement
the way you do that is you buy as much property and as buildings
and you develop that with with community ownership.
But owning a neighborhood is difficult, too.
And that means you make it robust and lively.
And to do that you need high level
technology, green technology,
internet of things, broadband, Wi-Fi.
And with that, I just want to thank the mayor and Michelle over.
And then the team for us being
an initial recipient of one of these grants.
It's open the world for us.
I just want to give a special thank you to Amy Fowler
out of out of office, Amy, where you raise your hand.
All of you grantees get to work with her.
And it's been a pleasure.
And it really has launched for us
the ability to for us
to kind of announce today, though, my IT team is not allowing me to actually,
I want to copies for everybody, but this is our plan
for the nation's first renovated smart neighborhood.
Our plan is to connect the whole neighborhood
through Wi-Fi, charging stations, shared cars, scooters,
smart smart blocks.
We are going to create a full, robust.
We already have brought in top partners
in biz tech, Nvidia, the top companies in the world.
Hitachi.
We are talking about bringing
in the top internet of things and connecting this whole neighborhood.
So it is sustainable, Lee, and allows our neighbors to own the neighborhood
in a way where they will not be displaced and live their lives at their fullest.
That other goal, I will be more happy to share this with, with anybody.
And I just think, and, and I just want to say that
it's part of a full plan to buy, build and own this neighborhood.
One of our partners, Leslie Byrd, here of Alpha Sharp, the northwest...
block development firm, is a partner that actually shares an office here.
We're about partnership here, and partnership is about everything.
With that, though.
Our partnership with the city of Seattle has been amazing.
And, someone that has,
Mayor Harold, your leadership has been awesome.
We are a global leader.
He's, I don't have my notes, but I know in December of 23, the,
the emission performance standards for large buildings in Seattle.
And this grant and our grants is just showing his commitment
to making sure that we're all involved in this process.
It's a grassroots, powerful process that this mayor is committed to.
Now that I've said the perfunctory things, I want to tell you that,
his leadership has been amazing.
It's been an inspiration, which he doesn't know.
But my whole life as a Garfield grad myself, he preceded me
by a few years at, at Garfield.
And, he's always been here.
And what I present to you
the 1978 Rose Bowl.
And Bruce Harrell actually has great hair.
You actually do have great hair.
And so as a young man playing football at Garfield, following
Bruce is something that I seems like, like I always seem to be doing.
Then as we started doing projects as council Member Harrell,
we would be meeting at the Rainier Community Center
and we'd be all over the place talking about how we can
how we can stop doing displacement.
Mayor Harrell has always been there. And,
when I coached my son at Cleveland
High School and our kids went to school together.
Guess who was on the sidelines?
And even though he wasn't on the coaching staff
for some weird reason, he was always next to me.
Finding his way there
to root on my son Zach and and the whole Cleveland team.
And now is mayor.
I shouldn't be surprised.
Thank you.
You're here again.
So with that, with that gift and also, a new member of our Brighton community team.
And a shirt.
I want to introduce a leader
who's been a leader for me since I was in high school at Garfield.
Our mayor, Bruce Harrell. Wow.
Thank you.
Curtis.
I really was not expecting that.
I did not pay Curtis to say that.
I am showing remarkable
discipline in not looking at this right now.
I have to, you know, we're so resilient
because we're in mourning from what happened last night, by the way.
My goodness gracious.
You know.
We woke up and were the proverbial words.
Maybe next year.
I mean, right.
But we made history, and we had a lot of fun.
And now we will focus on the Seahawks and the Huskies.
But, what a loss.
But it's sort of funny that, the next day after the Mariners, lost game seven,
that we're back in the fight,
we're back in the fight for something more important than at World Series.
I'm not sure it's more important the World Series, but hey, back up.
But I want to ground us in a quote.
And Curtis, once again, thank you for your warm introduction, my friend.
Here's a quote that I want to, ground and said
before I say a few words and you hear our next speaker.
Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty.
Advancing economic growth.
These are one and the same fight.
We must connect the dots between issues like climate change and water
scarcity and energy shortages and global health and food security,
because solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.
And that was, Ban Ki-moon, a former secretary general
of the United Nations who helped create the Paris climate agreement.
And so when I look at this particular room here at 98118
and go a little further than 98178 or a little north at 98144, it's
very appropriate that we're here right now in an area that historically,
one could argue has been underrepresented.
One could argue that they've had challenges
in our different school systems.
But the good news is, in our school systems, for example,
is that every kid that goes to Seattle Public Schools now
be able to go to college two years for free next year.
So we are doing some good things here.
This climate fight that all of you are in.
This is a unifying element.
There's a lot of diversity. And what I see,
I see,
however you define diversity is in this room right now.
And we're united to fight for our planet.
But more importantly, to uplift all of our communities.
And I've been absolutely honored
to be a partner with all of you community leaders.
I do want to recognize that the Green New Deal Oversight Board members are here.
Michelle, your leadership has been amazing.
Seattle City Light is here.
Our Office of Housing is here.
And I want to thank all of you for being part of this community.
We can't do this work without you.
Let me start pushing out our policies.
And we're spending budget moneys that are very scarce these days.
We've had budget deficits every year that I've been in office.
We can't do it without your voices because we know we're doing the right thing.
You know, it's expected.
The legislation we passed is expected to reduce emissions by 27%.
And that's sort of the functional equivalent of 72,000
gasoline cars off of the road for a year.
And I hit my staff, pull together some interesting statistics
about how in Seattle and many of you are old like me,
that's supposed to generate some laughter when I see.
That in our lifetime, in the last five or 6 or 7 years,
our car ownership is actually going down like 100 hundred and 20,000.
The younger generation are doing more ridesharing and more Uber
and of course, transit.
What we're trying to get people to use and and light rail with our biggest.
So this is a good thing.
So this this kind of climate policy we're doing through
our emissions performance standards and where we're heading.
Very consciously, the northwest is going to be a great thing for everyone here.
With the
craziness that we see in our federal government right now
with a president's son calling this beautiful city
a crap hole, with immigrant and refugees
being treated,
in a less than humane function.
A person with violations
of due process seen unlike anything we've seen in recent history.
I remind you, just like we are here today after the Mariners loss,
we are resilient.
We are strong. We know who we are.
We've been through this kind of stuff before.
If you look at our country, you look at the Jim
Crow laws, you look at the middle passage, you look at the incarceration.
9066 executive order to put Japanese in concentration camps.
You look at what we've come through.
We are resilient.
We find strength in one another.
That's the beauty of Seattle.
I believe the answers in this country found here.
I believe every person that doesn't identify as being a racial minority cares
as passionately about race and social justice as I do as a biracial black man.
I know that because I know this city. The answers are here.
This legislation has put in the context of what we're trying to do in this country.
This maniacal president denies climate change.
We know that the science is there.
So I get excited again.
Even after a mariner loss, I get excited for what we're doing here in Seattle.
And the awardees, in this particular round includes
childcare providers, schools, houses of worship, senior living facilities.
We want to go where the
action is and action over where people are gathering,
having great discussions.
And we have to uplift them and we have to show them our partnership.
So in closing, Seattle continue to lead with climate change, climate action.
Our tangible support will be there for you and and all of you here.
Everyone around here in this room.
Thank you.
Thank you for being stewards, leaders, committed folks.
And as I said, we are resilient and with with respect to baseball...
Maybe next year.
Thank you, Mayor Bruce Harrell.
Very inspirational.
Thank you.
Okay, so next
we have, Johnny Otto.
Johnny has been the executive director of Small
Faces Child Development Centers since 2009, rising to the role
after spending five years as a teacher and administrator at Small Faces.
He'll talk about the emissions reduction projects.
Small Faces Child Development Center will get started
as a 2025 Building Decarbonization Grant recipient.
Please help me welcome Johnny Otto.
Thank you so much.
I'm so excited to be here to, talk about this project and getting started.
I'm excited to be in the room with so many people who are doing such
good work on green energy in the city and sustainability.
Sustainability, I think, is a big theme for myself.
Small Faces is started.
We're celebrating our 50th year of being in existence this year.
And, we want to be able to be around for 50 more.
So, like a lot of child care providers,
you know, child care providers are scrappy.
They're they come up from their neighborhoods,
they figure out how to operate out of what buildings are available.
There's a lot of people operating out of old buildings, out of,
church basements, out of any place that they can find.
Our building itself is 106 years old.
It was a former elementary school, a beautiful building, but it's 106 years old.
And it has all of those problems.
When we purchased the building in 2009, our assessor told us that it was,
the building was worth -$200,000.
And that's been about right.
As you can also know, when you're a child care provider,
you don't have the margins to have millions of dollars
in your back pocket just waiting to do upgrades to your system.
So we've got, an 85 year old steam boiler system.
It's an amazing piece of energy.
Engineering, but it is hitting the end of its life.
There are several days out of the year where we just have to close the center
because of the heater is not working for some reason.
We have to tell.
Working parents with no notice.
You don't have care today.
And that's not sustainable for them.
That's not sustainable for us.
So we're really excited both to be able to,
be replacing that boiler system
with, efficient heat pump system that's going to be in by 2028.
That's our goal.
This funding is going to be a huge cornerstone
piece of us being able to start and finish that project.
So I'm so excited to be able to do that.
It's going to allow us to serve the 200 children that we serve every day
consistently, sustainably, to support those working families.
It's going to allow the arts organizations that also share our home
theater groups, dance groups, to be able
to also continue to operate.
And it's also going to allow us to operate during the high heat.
Right? The summers are not like they used to be.
Climate change is really making that, noticeable.
And we've had to close because of high heat, unsustainable in our building.
We've had to close for wildfire smoke.
That was something new in the last ten years
that I did not know I was going to be dealing with as a leader.
But it's exciting to me that we can combine this dedication
to sustainability and to the environment with serving
working families, with serving our communities like they go hand in hand.
And that sustainability, that ability for us to all continue
to serve the children and the families in our neighborhood
for another 50 years is what's got me really exciting.
And so I am very honored to have my organization chosen this year.
And I think Mayor Harrell, for making this a, possibility and the budget.
And thank you all very much.
Thank you.
Johnny.
I learned a lot about your organization just through that.
So thank you for sharing.
Okay.
Next we have Emily Pinckney.
Thank you. Okay.
Emily is co-chair of the city's Green New Deal Oversight Board,
which is a 19 member advisory board helping the city
to implement policies and programs that reduce emissions,
advanced climate justice, and build green economy.
Emily uses science and community organizing
to make policy more equitable and inclusive.
Please help me welcome Emily.
Right.
Good morning everyone.
Thank you so much for having me.
So I will say I also work in decarbonization.
So please indulge me
as I evangelize with you all today because this is a beautiful day.
But I want to talk to you
about something really powerful happening right here in Seattle.
Something that is giving us a glimpse into the future that we all deserve.
The 2025 Building Decarbonization grant is not just a program,
but it's proof that in the face of uncertainty, in a time
when national climate leadership
feels fragile, communities can still rise and lead with courage.
This grant represents more than $4 million in city investment to help communities
serving buildings decarbonize buildings like this, places like affordable
housing, senior centers, nonprofit hubs.
It's more than upgrading our buildings.
It's about creating cleaner air, healthier homes, and more resilient neighborhoods,
especially for those who've been left out of the environmental progress for
far too long.
At a moment when climate action at federal levels
feels uneven and politics sometimes seems to cloud our future.
Seattle is lighting a different path,
a path grounded in justice and determination.
This program says that we don't have to wait for permission
to build a better world.
We can start right here and right now.
And today, I want to take a moment to celebrate the Brighton Community Project.
This is one of the beautiful examples supported through this initiative.
Brighton's work is transforming an affordable housing community
into a model of what equitable climate action looks like.
Replacing these old polluting systems with clean energy solutions
that will keep residents comfortable, healthy and safe.
That's more than infrastructure.
That's climate justice in motion.
It's a promise kept to the families who deserve warmth without worry.
Clean air without compromise, and homes that reflect their worth and their dignity.
When we talk about
decarbonization, it's really easy to focus on the technology.
When we talk about heat pumps.
You know, the retrofits, all the metrics.
But at its core, at its heart, it's about people.
It's about children growing up in homes that no longer make them sick.
It's about elders breathing easier in community centers that finally run clean.
It's about bolstering the clean economy by creating healthy jobs
for those impacted first and worst by climate change.
It's about ensuring that every building that serves the public
is truly serving the public good.
So yes, the challenges are real.
This isn't easy.
This is something that we have to do together.
The national picture can feel uncertain, but like, look at what's happening here.
Look at this room in Seattle, in Brighton,
in every community that's daring to dream different in this city.
This is what leadership looks like.
This is what hope looks like when it's put to work.
Every building that we transform is a declaration
that progress belongs to all of us.
Not just the wealthy, not just the powerful,
but every resident who calls this city home.
So let's keep going.
Let's celebrate the victories that we've already achieved.
Like Brighton communities.
And let's see them as a blueprint for what comes next.
Together, we can create a city where every building is
part of the solution, where every neighborhood is a climate champion
and every person has a stake and a cleaner and more resilient Seattle.
Because the future isn't waiting for us.
We are building it right now together.
Thank you very much.
And I thank you for recognizing the work that we're doing here.
We truly appreciate that.
Okay.
Next, I'd like to introduce Michelle Caulfield.
Michelle is Interim Director of the Office of Sustainability and Environment.
Before stepping into the role as interim director of the City
of Seattle's Office of Sustainability and Environment earlier this year.
Oh, I see, it's okay to.
Okay.
Thank you for the clarity.
Michelle served as deputy director since 2016.
She's passionate about working at the intersection of government
and community, and has been a leader in advancing climate action,
urban greening, healthy and local food and environmental justice
for more than a decade.
Please help me in welcoming Michelle.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, everyone.
Note to self don't ever follow me.
Emily Pinckney, when you speak.
I mean, that was a total mic drop moment.
Thank you so much.
It's really great to be here.
I want to thank Emily. I want to thank all the speakers.
I want to thank our hosts for having us here today.
I also want to thank you, Mayor Harrell, for your outstanding leadership.
Everyone's done this, but I want to do this as well as our mayor.
As a council member,
you've been a long standing champion of equitable climate action.
And I just really want to thank you for your leadership.
I also want to give a shout out to the amazing staff
at the Office of Sustainability and Environment.
Many of you are here, raise your hand
if you're with OSE, raise your hand.
Let's see ‘em.
There's probably more people back there.
But, I really want to call out Amy Fowler, who's already been.
Shout it out. Many of you in this room know her.
Sandra Mallory and also Kyle Birbal, who have been really instrumental
in making this program and executing this program that we're talking about today.
And I know we already talked about Seattle City Light and the office of Housing,
but I do want to say your one Seattle partnership is so critical
in how we help these building owners and tenants,
weatherize make their buildings more efficient and trans,
and do that transformation to clean energy.
So thank you. Thank you for that partnership.
You know, the work that
we are all doing here today benefits so many people.
And we've heard about this through the stories
of each of these individual speakers.
But it's improving indoor air quality.
It's providing that year
round heating and cooling that we need, especially in these changing times.
It's helping to save energy and also to save money.
It's helping to modernize these building systems, which are clearly infrastructure
to support all of us. Right.
And also reducing climate pollution.
As we at the Office of Sustainability and Environment
have been working to reduce climate pollution in our buildings.
We've heard directly from many of you in this office, from our building owners,
from our building operators, about how difficult this can be
and what you all need to support this process.
And so I want to talk a little bit about more about why
we've established the Building Emissions Navigator program.
And this is really the program that Emily, that, Amy is leading.
It's a suite of services that are free.
It's coaching.
It's training.
It's those services
that help building owners take that first step to get on the path
to comply with the building emission performance standards.
And, you know, the grants that we're here to celebrate
today are a key element of that navigator program.
And these grants are really geared towards many of you in this room
nonprofits, affordable housing owners and developers and operators,
owners of historic buildings which face really significant challenges,
as well as others that face a lot of challenges.
They're trying to upgrade
old infrastructure, deferred maintenance in these buildings.
And I'm really pleased to learn that half of the award funds
that we're talking about
today are supporting projects at affordable housing, like this building.
So this is enabling us to do something that the mayor talked about,
how we integrate these issues.
We are supporting Seattle's housing crisis
while we're supporting the climate crisis.
And we're doing that together.
And this is an integrated systems approach that we're going to need to all take.
The awards that we're talking about today
are also addressing unique challenges of historic buildings across the board,
and they're supporting those critical services that we heard folks talk about.
But I just want to underscore it's supporting places of worship.
It's supporting child development and daycare.
Children's medical research,
senior services and the arts.
And so I want to just congratulate the 17
awardees of the 2025 decarbonization grant funds.
And I want to commit that OSE is really here
to help support you on this journey to decarbonization.
And we're actually really excited next year to share some of your successes,
like Brighton Communities is doing here with us today.
So before I close, I want to give a shout out
if you haven't met Amy Fowler and you're a tech and
hey. Amy, all right.
And if you're a building owner, if you're a building operator,
if you're a, a service provider of a building and it's a multifamily building,
it's a commercial building that's large commercial,
that's part of the building and mission performance requirements.
Find the Amy.
She can tell you about the services that we're that we're providing
access to, kind of financing as well as future grants.
So, I am going to close us with the formal program.
I understand and I want to thank you all for being here.
I understand we have press in the room, so I want to open it up to see
if there's any questions from the press.
All right.
The never fish for questions. Never.
They told me to.
And by the way, I was going to turn the questions over to the mayor.
So I would like to pass it back to our gracious host, Estrada.
Thank you.
Peter.
Okay.
First of all, I want to say thank you.
This has been amazing. And we were so honored to host this.
And there's so many people here.
I see people in the back, too.
Sorry we didn't have enough seats for you guys.
But anyway, I digress.
I just want to say that Brighton community is really committed
to investing in a healthier, more resilient community.
Thank you so much for being here.
All the speakers, you guys did an amazing job,
and I guess we're going to have two tours from what Curtis Brown says.
Do you want to explain what those terms are going to be?
So we're going to have a, tour with the mayor real quick.
And then all those that want to go on a tour, I would love
our team, would love to show you around what we're doing here,
not only on the green side, but how we're building a whole neighborhood
and how we're fighting displacement with economic power and not words.
And we'd love to take you on a tour and show you around.
But first.
But so there's talk about economic power.
There's donuts over there.
Yeah.
And I was shout out to King Donut, the best donuts in Seattle.
We need to support King Donuts.
So we support everybody here.
Have a King donut. It will hurt you, but you'll love yourself.
But but
but I after the tour, I'll come back and I'll take you on a tour and answer
all your all your questions on how we're building a smart,
sustainable, exciting neighborhood that's owned by the community.
All right, mayor, let's go on to it.