SPR Boardroom: That we would want.
SPR Boardroom: Hi! Welcome everyone. This is our May 20. Second meeting of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners
SPR Boardroom: Whitney, Nakamura, Co. Chair. We are going to start with introductions. Why don't we do folks online? And then we'll go around the room next.
John Flinn: I can start. Hi, everybody! This is John Flynn, Commissioner from District 3. I will hand it off to Philip.
Phillip Meng: Done
Phillip Meng: wait, one.
SPR Boardroom: We lost you a little bit there, if you wanna maybe introduce yourself again. I don't know if it's connection issue.
John Flinn: Alright! Scratch that tricia.
Tricia Diamond: Okay. Hi, hello! I am Tricia diamond. I live in Ravenna. However, I am a mayoral mayoral appointee boards, general Boards and Commission.
Tricia Diamond: and should I pass? Hand it off or no?
SPR Boardroom: Go ahead, Maya, are you available to do an introduction? Or should we move to the room.
John Flinn: Online is tough tonight.
Phillip Meng: I can. I can give it another shot if folks can hear me.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, I can hear you now.
Phillip Meng: I could. I could hear all of you. But I think the I think the Internet went went out for a bit Philip Meng from District 7. It's great to see everyone.
SPR Boardroom: You too, thanks, no.
Amaiya Leonor: Hi, there! I'm so sorry I was taking my dog out really fast, so I did not get to hear you. I am Amaya Lenore. I'm from District 4, and I am in the get engaged seat.
SPR Boardroom: Thanks. Why don't we move to everyone in the room? District 5.
SPR Boardroom: Stafford Bay's district 7. I'm Christopher Williams and Chief of staff, Seattle Parks and recreation.
SPR Boardroom: Whitney, Nakamora Board and Commission Seat.
SPR Boardroom: I am Elise Chaisenclair, Commissioner of the District 4.
SPR Boardroom: Commissioner. Sorry.
SPR Boardroom: Seattle Park and recreation.
SPR Boardroom: Thanks.
SPR Boardroom: Let's see next, I'm going to do our land acknowledgement, and then we'll go over the consent items.
SPR Boardroom: Seattle parks and recreation acknowledges and affirms the indigenous coast salish people as the original caretakers of our waters and landscape
SPR Boardroom: who nurtured and shaped today's parkland.
SPR Boardroom: We honor their legacy with gratitude and appreciation, and will safeguard their knowledge and stewardship, as enduring treasures to promote community welfare, cultivate inclusive expressions of nature and recreation, and commit to land acknowledgement for each ensuing generation
SPR Boardroom: alright. So next, we have our consent items. We have the meeting minutes from our April 10th meeting meeting, minutes from our April 24th meeting, and then today, the 20 second meeting agenda.
SPR Boardroom: Sarah Motion to approve the consent. Items.
SPR Boardroom: See.
Phillip Meng: Second.
SPR Boardroom: Thanks all those in favor.
SPR Boardroom: I.
Tricia Diamond: Bye, bye.
Amaiya Leonor: Bye.
Tricia Diamond: Bye.
SPR Boardroom: Great thanks. Everyone.
SPR Boardroom: Great. Well, then, next on our agenda is public comment.
SPR Boardroom: when that moves fast. Alright. So we have
SPR Boardroom: 4 people so far ready for public comment. I believe, 3 are online. And so we're gonna start in the order that everyone reach out to me. We will be providing 2 min for public comment. So when I call your name, if you are online, I will give you permission to unmute yourself. You will still need to unmute yourself. After that I can't do that for you, and then you will have 2 min to speak. And so we're gonna start with Don Schlosser
SPR Boardroom: done you have permission to unmute yourself, and then go ahead. We'll start your 2 min.
Don Schlosser: Sure. Hi! My name is Don Schlosser. I'm speaking as a board member of friends of Discovery Park, and I'm not sure if I have a comment or a request, but it's primarily around the status of the Environmental Learning Center building.
Don Schlosser: That building has you folks probably well appreciate is the cornerstone of roughly 1 million visitors that come to the Park every year, and what they see is nothing. Everything's closed. If they're lucky there's a Porta Potty available to it. And I'm really speaking to the Board in an attempt to continue what I imagine are your ongoing efforts to get City Council to
Don Schlosser: or Parks department, as it may be to come through with a plan of how that building is going to be put back into service. I have a particular interest in that, because when that building was constructed umpteen years ago, for instance, Discovery Park raised a substantial amount of money towards the construction of that building, and we feel on a second point that it is core to our environmental education program, which is a whole nother
Don Schlosser: can of worms. I suppose we understand that of the 9 people, 8 or 9 people that were told that their jobs would be gone as of January. The mayor's office has requested something like 4 of them to be
Don Schlosser: funded through the fepp, but it's not at all clear whether that is, in fact, the case, and 4 people, in any event, is not enough to provide environmental education and coordinate with the schools. We help provide transportation for school kids coming from all over the city to use that. That's not a magnolia thing. It's a something that is service to the entire city.
Don Schlosser: And we feel that shutting down this environmental education program is, in fact, a a strike directly against the most disadvantaged people and users of the park. So that's kind of my 2 bets.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, great alright. Thank you so much.
SPR Boardroom: Next up is Philip Olgastein.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, Philip, go ahead and unmute yourself, and you'll have 2 min.
Philip Vogelzang: Okay, thank you very much. I
Philip Vogelzang: 1st of all, I want to acknowledge Don Schlosser, great board member. There are 15 of us. We meet every month and discuss for 2 h every month discovery park issues. We are a wide, representative body across the city. These remarks of mine will be more extemporaneous. We have 2 issues, you know. I have to. As president of friends of Discovery Park. I've got to really confront the thing that's happening to us, and that is an enormous.
Philip Vogelzang: a construction project on the very margin of Discovery Park. And it's you know it troubles me a great deal. We all. I have a dear friend who's about to become homeless. We have other Board members who have homeless family people who have been, you know, helped in the past.
Philip Vogelzang: But this project is going to cost a hundred 1 million dollars.
Philip Vogelzang: This, this is not free land. Okay. So to my housing advocates, friends, I would say, is this where you want to spend your 100
Philip Vogelzang: 1 million dollars
Philip Vogelzang: on property? Now I know it's a lot more complicated. I apologize for the background noise. It's more complicated. But that's what we are spending Danny Westneed in a Seattle Times article, basically said these mega projects, which this is, you know, you dig a hole, and you put money in there
Philip Vogelzang: now, so can't we find a different place for it? Secondly, this is going to happen. I recognize it's going to happen? I would ask all involved, all listening, that please help us make this. If this is going to happen, make this place work in Discovery Park. Our the loss of our Elc is tragic.
Philip Vogelzang: I mean, it's 600 acres, and we have no place where people can gather and talk about and learn about Discovery Park. I don't have any answers for you. I just would ask for your understanding and your consultation with friends of Discovery Park. As we move through this for what is us?
Philip Vogelzang: A pretty painful process?
Philip Vogelzang: So thank you very much for your time. I appreciate all of you.
SPR Boardroom: All right. Thank you so much, Philip. Next up we have Joyce Erickson.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, Joyce, you have permission to unmute yourself.
joyceerickson: Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Go ahead!
joyceerickson: Can you hear me?
joyceerickson: I am Joyce Erickson. I also serve on the board of the Friends of Discovery Park, a nonprofit, all volunteer organization. I live in Ballard
joyceerickson: tonight. You're going to hear from the office of housing, explaining the city's plan to build affordable housing on the last remaining parcel of Fort Lawton
joyceerickson: affordable housing. That's something all of us want. All of us support affordable housing, and our city needs it. It's the location of this housing that's the issue.
joyceerickson: This plan would cause great damage to an adjacent environmentally sensitive area discovery park
joyceerickson: Discovery Park has more species of birds than any other site in Washington State, and that includes 2 national parks and the Billy Frank Nisqually wildlife refuge. It has a wildlife corridor that connects Discovery Park to the adjacent Kiwanis ravine and down to the railroad tracks below, and those railroad rights of way go all the way to the Cascades.
joyceerickson: The city's housing project would be located right on the lip of this environmentally sensitive park, and it would sit virtually atop the wildlife corridor. It would ruin the park.
joyceerickson: which is now full of abundant wildlife.
joyceerickson: We need to hold our city to a higher standard than this house. People, yes, but don't kill a park in the process. Build affordable housing anywhere in Magnolia, the North End Ballard, where I live. But don't kill a park.
joyceerickson: Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, thank you alright. Next up Carrie Christensen.
SPR Boardroom: and they'll give you the option of taking your daughter out of the room if you like to, because what I'm gonna talk about is fairly explicit, and I have to see it. But your daughter doesn't need to see it. So
SPR Boardroom: Denny Blaine Park. I always comment on new things that happen at this park. 4, 27 on King 5. News. Debs is the co-leader of the Community group, friends of Denny Blaine, the group partners with the city's Parks Department to ensure the park is welcoming and maintained.
SPR Boardroom: What exactly are they doing to maintain this park?
SPR Boardroom: The face. Tattoo masturbator is back in the park.
SPR Boardroom: The red truck masturbator is in the park.
SPR Boardroom: There were 2 males in the park simulating anal sex and slapping buttocks.
SPR Boardroom: beachgoers cheering them on and taking pictures of them. Nobody intervening. Spv. Never arrived.
SPR Boardroom: Vandalism in the park by in multiple places, by park supporters.
SPR Boardroom: I sent an email to you about this.
SPR Boardroom: multiple incidents of people openly smoking marijuana in the park same day 2 different incidents
SPR Boardroom: I called 9 1 1 about amplified music and alcohol in the park. Nothing happened to this person, only showed up an hour and a half after I called.
SPR Boardroom: There's a baby in the park with their naked parents.
SPR Boardroom: There's a lot of creepers in this park. Spd never arrived. Okay, I'm going to go over because some people go over all the time I'm taking a little extra
SPR Boardroom: in my workplace. Missionaries responded to an ad that the homeowner requested them to come to the house to learn about Lds church. 2 people unknowingly subjected to naked people at this park, due to a person's idea of a prank
SPR Boardroom: today the other half of the Black Bmw. Masturbation Club showed up to the Park. He left before I could call 9 1 1.
SPR Boardroom: A spare silence about this park is deafening. Do something, please.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you, Bill Farmer, I'm good, which is 15,
SPR Boardroom: and every meeting I come to she talks about getting blank consumption is done.
SPR Boardroom: so I'm here to talk about the pickleball at Magnussen, at least. I hopefully, you got the email and update the whole board to get the info about Magnussen.
SPR Boardroom: Master plan was done 2,004 6 in that timeframe, as Christopher will remember. Field users were
SPR Boardroom: a big proponent behind that and push help push back on a lot of opposition to the Wetlands and Athletic Field Project getting done. If you look at the map.
SPR Boardroom: the pickleball, I don't know anything against pickleball. Pickleball is great, but pickleball facility is right on top of the baseball field. That's an improved baseball field, and field users were not invited to any of these discussions. I know there were public meetings, but
SPR Boardroom: you'd think the people that are most directly affected would have been invited, and there could have been some conversation there. But as it is. Baseball's not happy.
SPR Boardroom: There are very few full sized baseball diamonds, and we need more fields, not fewer fields. So
SPR Boardroom: Just want to make sure I know there's a eis. It's gonna come out in July, I think. Maybe, Christopher, that's what you're alluding to for the public process to me. I've talked to Mortesa, the Pm. And
SPR Boardroom: he said that you gotta do a certain amount of design. So once you get into free design.
SPR Boardroom: things are kind of locked in and you get yes, maybe we tweak it a little bit. But
SPR Boardroom: I don't. Something. We need some conversation and
SPR Boardroom: talk about some other options or something
SPR Boardroom: right now. Field users have been left out. So thanks.
SPR Boardroom: Alright. Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: What is it for public comment, like
SPR Boardroom: great thanks. Thanks everyone. And thanks for sending in stuff as well. We received that beforehand.
SPR Boardroom: I will pass it over to you, Christine. Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: and thank you. Everyone for showing up on what is a relatively nice meeting? It's a great way to spend your being here.
SPR Boardroom: so I'll respond to some of the public comment we just heard, Dr. Phil, it's good to
SPR Boardroom: hear from you again, and
SPR Boardroom: Dan Slauser and Joyce. So all the folks who spoke about Discovery Park. We're in the process of launching the Eis, and that is really important.
SPR Boardroom: It's the 1st opportunity for people to have some substantive input and to
SPR Boardroom: the public comment part in a really documented way. So I want to call that out also affordable housing.
SPR Boardroom: There are never any good decisions or good locations for where to site affordable housing. That's just a challenge we have. One of the things we.
SPR Boardroom: I think are sensitive to is how we can do this and mitigate your concerns, and I think we'll get to a point
SPR Boardroom: where we will be having more of an open discussion with the neighbors about what makes this work right?
SPR Boardroom: You know what are the alternatives to not doing it. But if we do it, how do we do it? Well.
SPR Boardroom: with the least of the least amount of impacts. We're also very sensitive to the reality that the Environmental Education building is still closed.
SPR Boardroom: We had a catastrophic
SPR Boardroom: water intrusion, rain event that got to the interior of that building that compromised all of the electrical panel boards and utilities that is very costly to repair and mitigate. And, Paula, if you could
SPR Boardroom: help us. Remember, the next time Ap. Is in front of the park board. Let's highlight
SPR Boardroom: some of the steps that Carson and his team are taking to reopen the Environmental Education Center there.
SPR Boardroom: I now want to turn to Carrie Christensen. Thank you, Carrie, for coming. We are engaged in some litigation that you probably have seen on the news regarding Danny Blaine Park, and we are really prohibited now from making any comments about Danny Blaine Park as tough as those issues are.
SPR Boardroom: but we will have more to report on this at some point in the future.
SPR Boardroom: We have a lot of meetings with a lot of department. We don't dispute any of the concerns you have. We just have kind of this kind of silence once things
SPR Boardroom: get into the legal realm. So
SPR Boardroom: and then, Bill, could I just suggest, you guys come visit the park tomorrow because it's gonna be crazy tomorrow you get time to visit. So
SPR Boardroom: thank you, you bet and Bill.
SPR Boardroom: I am. Gonna suggest to Andy and
SPR Boardroom: Paula that we get a briefing
SPR Boardroom: here on the madness of our pickleball proposal.
SPR Boardroom: So we can have a a briefing and reach out to the athletic user groups and may wanna
SPR Boardroom: have some strategy discussion about how not to have $550 here but have some equal representation
SPR Boardroom: from the athletic field user group community. So
SPR Boardroom: we need to have ongoing conversation about that. So
SPR Boardroom: with that, I will get into the superintendent's report.
SPR Boardroom: So while we get that on the screen.
SPR Boardroom: okay, so we are definitely gearing up for spring.
SPR Boardroom: why don't we get to the next slide So
SPR Boardroom: we have 171 picnic reservations in our system just for this weekend, which, really
SPR Boardroom: highlights the kickoff to summer rather of summer around the park system. We've got a beach fire program at Alkai Beach and Golden Gardens that we've been preparing for
SPR Boardroom: the crowds there on a summer evening, spring, summer evening are just huge.
SPR Boardroom: We also are engaged in a park beautification effort.
SPR Boardroom: On this slide. You see various parts in our system where we're really trying to pay attention to what we call the horticultural imperative. This is the idea that there are a lot of people that live in apartments with urban density around here people should have the opportunity to enjoy a well-maintained landscape in the park system.
SPR Boardroom: Everything can't be green belt in natural areas. Flowers are okay. And we are making an effort to make
SPR Boardroom: 5 parts in each of the geographic areas. Beautiful. We're calling this the park beautification surge. Before we get into summer. We want people to
SPR Boardroom: be able to drive by park near their home and see a well manicured, well maintained park.
SPR Boardroom: on the other. On the other side of the whole maintenance equation we are experiencing a huge spike in vandalism that mostly resembles copper wire, theft.
SPR Boardroom: iron theft, any kind of precious metal that someone can take and monetize has become a big deal for our department.
SPR Boardroom: and we are working with local law enforcement on that and
SPR Boardroom: trying to mitigate the impact of I'm accounting
SPR Boardroom: normal damage to buildings, ie. Discovery Park, where we have water intrusion on top of that, dealing with just the surge in vandalism across the city is a big deal next slide.
SPR Boardroom: Okay? So one of the big programs we have in the department is our tree program. And on the left side of that screen are year to date metrics that we track and report on weekly to the mayor's office. Stephanie Shelton is our natural resources, manager or department, and the tree crew does an absolutely amazing job
SPR Boardroom: alright maintaining our inventory of freeze
SPR Boardroom: through the year. On some of those metrics. They have cleaned up
SPR Boardroom: 183 tree failures.
SPR Boardroom: They have conducted 57 stump grindings.
SPR Boardroom: a big part of good tree
SPR Boardroom: maintenance practices are inspections and they are conducting various tiered levels of inspections.
SPR Boardroom: And we're actually removing
SPR Boardroom: trees. We've removed 137 trees. We have a 2 to one replacement policy. So for every tree we take out we plant 2 more next slide.
SPR Boardroom: I think that that chart on the hub was just an example of what?
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, month or 2 months. Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: okay. Another big recreational problem for the summer is our summer aquatics program on Saturday, May 24, th West Green Lake and the Toronto beaches will be open from noon till 7 Pm.
SPR Boardroom: On weekdays and 11 Am. To 7 Pm. On weekend holidays. This is quite a bit earlier than we normally start our summer aquatics programs. These facilities will.
SPR Boardroom: I'd be open from May 24th through
SPR Boardroom: through Labor day weekend and whether
SPR Boardroom: dependent our spray parks and beaches. And
SPR Boardroom: I think that's Coleman Pool, or only outdoor salt water pool these these facilities are well used. So
SPR Boardroom: next slide
SPR Boardroom: youth appreciation week. So we just had spring break not too long ago, and during spring break we offer what is called Youth Appreciation Week. And this is the idea that young people should have a place to go
SPR Boardroom: during their out of school time, and there are lots of activities for young people to go on field trips to the aquarium just kind of hang out with adult supervision. And it's a good way to spend their day. We served 150 sack lunches
SPR Boardroom: every day for a lot of kids in this program. But it it really is a great way for you to connect with each other in a positive setting outside of school time. So
SPR Boardroom: that change, Tim, I believe.
SPR Boardroom: Next slide, please.
SPR Boardroom: One of our big programs in the department is our, okay, hold on.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, let me get to the next slide. There we go. Okay, so this is our youth track and field program.
SPR Boardroom: We serve over 10,000 kids over the
SPR Boardroom: 8 weeks of track and field. We had our big end of season
SPR Boardroom: all citywide track and field competition at West Seattle Stadium.
SPR Boardroom: Over 800 kids participated in that event, and there were probably 1,500
SPR Boardroom: people there, including families and friends and grandmas and grandpas. And following this event, we received so much email from families that either didn't know we did this. And we're impressed by just the community being created on the sideline of the track and field event at West Seattle. So we're really proud of that. Johnny Williams on our staff manages that program.
SPR Boardroom: He does a fine job with that next slide
SPR Boardroom: capital development. So we just did
SPR Boardroom: openings of the Bitter Lake Clay area and the South Park Plaza opening. These are huge projects that
SPR Boardroom: we've been working on for years. We welcome the community on April 26.th The River Gateway park design. It offers a play area. Large plaza seatwalls, lighting, landscaping, and many cultural elements have been embedded throughout the
SPR Boardroom: Lucha seed language etching of riverwalk.
SPR Boardroom: This is just on the south side of the
SPR Boardroom: 1st Avenue, South Bridge, or the 16th Avenue, South Bridge, in South Park.
SPR Boardroom: and it was well attended that day, and then there, you see, Ap Diaz, they're celebrating a
SPR Boardroom: grand opening of the better Lake play area, and if you ever want to be blown away
SPR Boardroom: by a neighborhood that has, like a thousand kids in it, all recreating at a local park. Go there on a sunny day, and you will be amazed at the number of families and kids in this park that park was closed for a little while. So those families are really glad to have that play area opportunity back for the start of the summer
SPR Boardroom: and hats off to Andy and his team making that happen.
SPR Boardroom: Garfield Super block this project recently went out to bid
SPR Boardroom: with a bid-based budget of 6.5 million dollars. The community initiated Garfield Super block project will enhance the central areas community gathering place by providing renovations such as a new restroom building, renovated playground, the addition of basketball courts to the existing tennis courts, and an accessible 3 quarter mile walking loop trail.
SPR Boardroom: a new accessible Ada Ramp will be installed to enter the site on the southeast corner. Along with these renovations
SPR Boardroom: of other existing accessible routes already on site. Other improvements include a nature play pocket, a climate adaptive garden as well as updated plannings and site lighting throughout the site, and our partners at the Park Foundation who you're going to hear from later today. Also work closely with us in the community on this project.
SPR Boardroom: Alright. Next slide, please.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, so upcoming events. We are celebrating arts 50 year anniversary
SPR Boardroom: next Thursday, I believe, and art has a wonderful sort of creation story. Dave Town, who was a superintendent in our department back in 1973, through 1977
SPR Boardroom: was responsible for creating art.
SPR Boardroom: And arc was created to have bees from park
SPR Boardroom: recreational activities that were otherwise going into the city's general fund.
SPR Boardroom: This system was set up so that those fees could be recovered and reinvested into our recreation program. So we're going to celebrate that. And I think Dave Town will be at that celebration. It's a wonderful opportunity if you are interested, to come out and learn a lot more about Park.
SPR Boardroom: and then the annual.
SPR Boardroom: I'm sorry. Let's see Beacon Hill Festival
SPR Boardroom: is also occurring the weekend of June 7.th So that is a big community festival. And we have those all summer long dotted across the community that we will highlight. The park department frequently has a role.
SPR Boardroom: those community festivals. So I think that's it. I will pause right, David. Is there any questions?
SPR Boardroom: Where does the swimming pools.
SPR Boardroom: the outdoor swimming pools like this magnolia pool. When do they open? They normally open the 1st weekend
SPR Boardroom: after school lets out. So if school gets out, I think on the 23rd this year they would be open the following weekend.
SPR Boardroom: So why, you said the summer aquatics season is starting earlier this year, starting much earlier. And why is that? Well, normally summer warm weather each year has been occurring
SPR Boardroom: earlier and earlier every year.
SPR Boardroom: For the last, maybe 5 or 10 years. Mother's days have been 80 degrees or more, and we've had huge requests from the public to have supervised access to our pools, beaches, and water. This year is kind of an anomaly. It's been a lot cooler. But we plan to respond to all of the requests we received earlier this year. We're actually gonna make that. Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: Christopher, do you know how lifeguard staffing is looking for the summer? At this point? I know there have been challenges in the past. There have been a lot of challenges with lifeguard staffing resulting
SPR Boardroom: from the pandemic. And
SPR Boardroom: a couple of things have happened in our system. A, we're paying lifeguards more so. We are retaining the lifeguarding staff that we have. I'm paying them more, and we are
SPR Boardroom: in the past a lifeguard, a person who wanted to be a lifeguard, had to cover the cost of all of their own training, and the department is picking that up. All the licensing and certification it takes to become a lifeguard once you get hired, the department
SPR Boardroom: is agreeing to reimburse people for those costs. So some big changes. That's brand new. Yeah. Yeah. So we know we knew we had a retention problem, and we knew we had an attraction problem. So
SPR Boardroom: we think we've abated all those concerns and we'll have adequate lifeguards out. Finally.
John Flinn: Ben. I had one good to go
John Flinn: cool, hey? Thank you so much for that report. Mine's more of a comment. I just wanted to note that Garfield Super Block also has a community group associated with it. They've been very persistent in in continuing to kind of push for this. These improvements, and I believe they're funding a number of multicultural art installations that will join the improvements that Christopher already went over. So
John Flinn: just wanted to call out that the importance of that I think they're supported by Spf. Maybe Rachel can confirm later. But they're an all volunteer group and have really put a lot of effort into the Garfield Super Block. So amazing to see that come to pass. Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Absolutely right.
SPR Boardroom: Oh, Paula is reminding me that I missed an important
SPR Boardroom: talking point about a lifeguard rescue.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, that's what that slide was. So we had 2 Lifeguards
SPR Boardroom: who were recognized by King County public health as a result of a life saving event that occurred in one of our pools. We haven't lost a person in a public pool or public, and these are like 21 and 22 year old. Young people who received this recognition. It was televised. We are very proud of them.
SPR Boardroom: Lifeguarding is one of the jobs in our department.
SPR Boardroom: Well, it pays really well, if you're a young person, but you have a lot of responsibility supervising a beach supervising indoor pool.
SPR Boardroom: And you are literally engaged in life saving work. So that slide earlier in the presentation. Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, it was valid.
SPR Boardroom: Now we're cool. Yeah. So that's a big deal.
SPR Boardroom: Good practice, though.
SPR Boardroom: Apologize. Close that presentation.
SPR Boardroom: all right. Well, back to you. Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Well, looks like next on the agenda is the Fort Lawton update.
SPR Boardroom: Yep.
SPR Boardroom: I'm in Shepard sound parts, and with me is Jessica Gomez office of housing. We're here to present Fort Lawton development. But I want to highlight 1 point, and that is that we are working with office of housing
SPR Boardroom: projects. We're one city. We work together really well, and I'm really proud of that part of the reason I work for the city of Seattle. I want to highlight. What a tight team office of housing has! It is honestly a privilege to work with office of housing. And we're going to be working together on Lake City Community Center soon as well. And I'm sure there'll be future community centers with housing in the next decade. So
SPR Boardroom: want to point that out. Seattle parks and recreation is fortunate to be expanding our open space portfolio by 22 acres out Fort Lawton, and I'll let Jessica take it from there. Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Great, thank you, Jeffrey Gomez. From the office of housing. I've been working on the 4 line project now for about 6 and a half years, almost 7. This is a very groundbreaking project for us, because or for the city, just because it is
SPR Boardroom: in a location where the office of housing has never had the opportunity to build housing. Typically, the way that office of housing does our work is an affordable housing developer comes in with a competitive application. And then we look at all these applications, and this developer has their own land. This is not the Seattle housing authority, so it is a very different transaction. We are a lender.
SPR Boardroom: with other, maybe 2 to 4 other lenders, King County, the State Department of Commerce, and then we come together with a package of the vision for this developer.
SPR Boardroom: This, however, is an opportunity for us to have city owned lands where 3 different types of housing would be there, permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless housing, for individuals, affordable rental for families, and then affordable 1st time home buyer opportunities.
SPR Boardroom: See, we've done our yesterday we had our public comment session during our seis process, and that is at Daybreak Center, Cultural Indian Cultural Center at Discovery Park. And so this is a really important land acknowledgement that happens here, acknowledging the ancestral lands specifically also at Fort Lawton, because of the occupation that happened.
SPR Boardroom: and also the history of just land in general, that we are on so acknowledging the 1st peoples of Seattle coast salish peoples, including the Duwamish Soquamish, Muckleshoe, and other indigenous people, and we honor with gratitude the land itself and the original stewards of this land, past, present, and future. And what I want to say is that the Daybreak Center is this wonderful collaboration with Fpr. And the United Indians of all tribes which is their wonderful partner in this project as well.
SPR Boardroom: You can go one Seattle. Here we go all the agencies that are participating
SPR Boardroom: 34 acres in magnolia. This is Us. Army owned land 34 acres, some of it a lot of it is paved, and the a big portion of it is green. However.
SPR Boardroom: it is not part of discovery part.
SPR Boardroom: It has always been adjacent to it. So I just wanna clarify that you can go on
SPR Boardroom: like I mentioned. This is a huge opportunity for us to get into a neighborhood that we have not had the opportunity of building housing, and magnolia, as many of you all know, has a high barrier for building, so our affordable housing providers would not actually have access to purchasing the land in the neighborhood because of its price.
SPR Boardroom: And then, on top of that, it's 34 acres. We're not going to find 34 acres, as you all know, in any part of the city to build in that affordable housing, and then we'll move forward for the significant amount of discount that this land comes in at
SPR Boardroom: so overall vision is family size housing. And this is really important for folks to know is that we build all permanent supportive housing and family size housing.
SPR Boardroom: However, it is more expensive to build 2, 3, and 4 bedroom units. That's what families need in the city, especially when we're looking at the folks that are being displaced at higher rates in different parts of the city, and they choose to live outside of the borders of the city, because they can't afford to purchase a home. So this is really important for our families, and also considering
SPR Boardroom: the school dynamic is low enrollment. It's also because we have high rate of displacement, right families that are trying to stay in the city and also have their children go to the local public schools have been really pushed out because they can't purchase a home
SPR Boardroom: launch trajectory. We started this process in 2,005,
SPR Boardroom: where the Federal Government highlighted or designated 4 line as a surplus property, because they knew that they weren't going to be utilizing it. These were officers offices, and so this was not a quarter. So people were not living on there, and there was no testing on the site. So the land is actually really clean, which is beautiful, 34 acres, all the red here.
SPR Boardroom: but in 22,008, when we submitted a plan it was litigated, and it was pushed out to say there was a problem with ses, and it was like held in litigation for a really long time. In 2018 we revived. We got the okay that we could
SPR Boardroom: resubmit a revised plan in 2019. And I'll just quickly come over here was, this is a general feasibility. So we have permanent supportive housing over here, affordable rental here and then homeownership with these, like little squares over here, affordable rental and permanent supportive housing, was with our partner Catholic housing services and habitat for humanity. Where these small squares townhomes it was. I'll go in the next slide. I'll probably show you where
SPR Boardroom: this is. It was originally 85 homes for formerly homeless folks, which now, with this revised plan, and there was many reasons why it has grown the way it has is 85 to 100 units of permanent supportive housing. We understand that this is a concern for the community to have that many folks who are coming out of homelessness
SPR Boardroom: be in a large development, and we understand that all the services that are provided there security, a psychiatric
SPR Boardroom: nurses, case managers, social workers. This is all in house, and so all of our permanent supportive housing buildings always have the bottom floor dedicated to the services that are needed for that population.
SPR Boardroom: And also this is about 2 acres of land for the square, that is, for permanent supportive housing, which is huge for 85 to 100 units. That means there's going to be plenty of space for folks to have their therapies walk around and really build with the nature that's around them
SPR Boardroom: that has been dedicated through a competitive process to Chief Seattle Club, and that was a competitive process. They have done wonders with their permanent supportive housing developments. They have 5 in the city, they also do 10. What do you call this tiny home villages? And they also have shelters, so they are very well experienced in this world.
SPR Boardroom: And then we have affordable rental housing, which is regular low income working families up to 60% ami, meaning for a family of 4 they earn up to $77,000 a year. This is working folks just trying to make it right. They're trying to make sure that their kids are going to a good school. They're working every day as anything. You know. AI is working.
SPR Boardroom: I'm just giving you an idea. Folks are working in our public school systems, people who are assisting our doctors and our healthcare physicians. These are these folks.
SPR Boardroom: And so that goes from 100 units up to 200 homes and then affordable homeownership habitat for humanity has stayed on with this project for 52 homes going up to 200 homes. So why the increase. And I'm sorry. Am I on a timer? And
SPR Boardroom: how long do I have for this?
SPR Boardroom: About 20 min? Oh, okay, we're good. We're we're we're moving. Good. Okay? So why the increase? A lot of articles have been out there? Is that what is the infrastructure cost?
SPR Boardroom: Because the land is clean and because it hasn't been touched in over maybe about 100 years. All the infrastructure underground is extremely old, so all of that has to be dealt with, because obviously, you want it up to code. You want to make sure people are going to have clean water and the infrastructure. That amount of units needs water, sewage, electric roads, all that we need to make sure that there's fire access, police access, all that. And so that costs money
SPR Boardroom: and the original back of the envelope estimate was 120 million dollars, and a lot of people are remembering that, and they can't shut it off and get it. That is scary. Where is that money coming from the housing levy was passed, and that money hopefully should not go to infrastructure. So what are we doing? We have a financial fundraising consultant who's working to find philanthropic and state funds to be able to do the infrastructure.
SPR Boardroom: But 120 million dollars was a huge margin of error that they've also included. So we got another consultant to review that, and it went from 120 million dollars to estimating 30 million dollars. That was a huge gap to say, Well, is that really like what? Which back of the envelope estimate? Am I really working with.
SPR Boardroom: and 30 million dollars. We felt that was a little too cheap.
SPR Boardroom: and so we bumped it up to 60 million dollars to say, well, we need to meet these in the middle. We need to have. And we need to think about cost escalators. Now, tariffs, all these things are coming up. And we need to really estimate this where we're we're not sold on.
SPR Boardroom: We understand this is not designed.
SPR Boardroom: We are doing and going through this path to ensure that we can get the lands first.st So the 1st thing is.
SPR Boardroom: can we get the land, and then should we then invest and be responsible stewards of our funds and then designing. We don't want to put up front the 1 million 2 million dollars to invest in the planning for infrastructure and designing right now.
SPR Boardroom: So that is 237 units for 60 million dollars
SPR Boardroom: for infrastructure, just infrastructure, not housing because the housing dollars have already been allocated. We've already said this is what oh, is planning for? This is what we want to do. Affordable housing in a place where we know folks are going to have a hard time getting into the rental or the ownership market in Magnolia.
SPR Boardroom: And so, with the guidance of HUD and our mayor. Reviewing this, we said, increasing the capacity to almost 500 units is wonderful. Could it be more sure?
SPR Boardroom: That is not what we want? We want to make sure that these are families, and so we cannot put 500 studios there, and so we wanted to make sure. 2, 3, and 4 bedroom apartments were going to be there, and that's where we got up to the 500. There'll be a mix of studios and one bedrooms, of course, but this is kind of the idea of the capacity for the rezoning.
SPR Boardroom: the rezoned lot for housing that happened in 2019. This is the capacity, and that's why we feel like this is a good investment for the infrastructure to get up to 500 homes.
SPR Boardroom: Hit the wrong button.
SPR Boardroom: Hello, I know.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, so what is, could it look like? This is a feasibility map. It is not one for design. Just making sure we highlight. These are up to 4 story buildings, no commercial space. When I say commercial space for permanent supportive housing. That means safe community space for that developer to serve their residents.
SPR Boardroom: So Catholic housing services habitat for Humanity Seattle Club. And then we're looking at the parks facility all the way at the top, at Number 6, and then this, which was the school's lot for multi-purpose fields, which is now going to be parks fields. That's an additional 4 acres going back to parks that will not be active play fields, but will be beautiful. Parks
SPR Boardroom: and Andy will talk with them.
SPR Boardroom: Yep.
SPR Boardroom: this is a 3D. Rendering. It's not up to scale, because townhomes look exactly like the buildings that will not happen. 4 stories of buildings. This is just a configuration of being like, what would these buildings look like? They could be chopped up. They don't have to be. They don't have to be continuous. And why we put the townhomes here is because there's a beautiful layer of trees on this right hand side. Sorry for these folks
SPR Boardroom: trees over here that bump up against like across the street from 36th Avenue, and we thought that that would be a good setback. So that way. These buildings weren't going to create a shadow on those homes and on those trees. There is no design. Backyards are setbacks for the homes. None of that that still has to be very much designed and invested in.
SPR Boardroom: So I already said this. But who are these folks that are living here? I've been getting a lot of questions about all these folks need services. These folks may or may not be on snap benefits.
SPR Boardroom: This is not. These are working folks here that are going to be living in the 400 units that will be outside of the permanent supportive housing. I get a lot of questions about, where will they go shopping? They're just like me and you, where they're trying to make rent. They're trying to make their mortgage payment. These will be 200 families who are just getting into their homeownership opportunity, and calling habitat for humanity if, like.
SPR Boardroom: they want to work with their hoa, you know, in this particular way, or they want to be able to get some financial counseling, or they might be starting their own business and also intergenerational homes. This is about grandma being able to live with you. You thinking about how your childcare is. There are services in the neighborhoods that they may not want to, and they want to go back to their other neighborhoods. That is a choice.
SPR Boardroom: This is fair housing, and as a houser, I'm going to say housing choice, which is what our levy said, that you all graciously voted for. It is about creating opportunities for people to expand, have access to schools, green space, and other opportunities that typically would not be available.
SPR Boardroom: permanent supportive housing, case management, life skills, healthcare, employment, assistance, financial literacy, substance, abuse and family reunification.
SPR Boardroom: This population, where we would put into and give opportunities to live in a stable, safe, permanent home is permanent supportive housing. It has a 90% success rate across the country and 95% rate success rate in Seattle. What does success rate mean is that they live in a home.
SPR Boardroom: They have services downstairs. Do things happen. Yes, people are people just like they happen in middle class neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods. They happen here, too. However, they have services available right away. This means that veterans will get access. This building specifically will have an inclusion, specific inclusion for veterans and seniors.
SPR Boardroom: So folks will have access to their medication right away. They will have the case manager who has the insight to the way that the Va. Works to give them the services that they need. This is extremely important and people will stay housed. That means emergency services will go down typically of the use of emergency services when people are living on the street
SPR Boardroom: and then affordable homeownership habitat for humanity. Wonderful partner, has had a huge success rate throughout this the city and across the country and the world. This will probably be one of the largest projects they will handle throughout the country. If all of this will be done in phases. This does not mean that there will be a construction Crane
SPR Boardroom: 24 HA day for the next 5 to 7 years at Portland, but it will be phased in gradually, and so that is concerning, and we want to make sure that all of this will be phased in. But we can't really do anything until the land is ours.
SPR Boardroom: One other thing that before I hand it over to Andy is that these homes stay affordable in perpetuity.
SPR Boardroom: So this means I purchased a home affordable. Then I sell it. The next person will have an affordable home at that point, because my equity doesn't grow.
SPR Boardroom: and it's interesting for folks to think about. Well, your cash equity doesn't grow, but that means I have stable home a stable home. My rent did not increase by the new 7 to 10% that was just passed by the State, and also I have a savings account.
SPR Boardroom: Will I have the equity that I would have at a 30 year fixed rate? Mortgage? No, in a regular market rate house. No, but that means that I did have a savings account, and I can retire. I can buy a condo somewhere else and then say, Great! I can send my child to college. That is generational wealth building.
SPR Boardroom: Can I ask just a quick question, Jessica. What about
SPR Boardroom: people with disabilities. Do you have a small portion of homes where they will reside? And the other second question is, roads. I know exactly where that is. Not a lot of roads come in and out.
SPR Boardroom: Yes, which can be a little bit of heavy thinking. Yes.
SPR Boardroom: Should so question. Do you want to answer? Want me to answer questions now or
SPR Boardroom: so all part, most so. All of our developments have to be Ada compliant. And so that is a foremost. The townhomes that might be tricky, and that will have to be accommodated in maybe a different way. They will have driveways for cars and garages. There will be condos with the homeownership, because it will be up to 200. That means everything will have to be with elevator and Ada access for those.
SPR Boardroom: the roads. So within the seis there is an analysis on roads, traffic, pollution, noise, all that, and that is taken into account. Will there be a little more congestion on that one intersection when you're getting out of the finger of the park. Most likely. Yes, that. And so I want to be careful with this, because my partners at Si we love them, and
SPR Boardroom: we will eventually have to have a conversation. And they know this like this is a priority of the Mayor, but we can't get to that phase until we actually have the land in hands
SPR Boardroom: just for total transparency. We're paying a million dollars.
SPR Boardroom: and this is, I'm not sure if you all know this for operation and maintenance on this land that is not ours. There's 24 h security. There's maintenance happening constantly, and there's also vandalism going into these buildings that we constantly have to just always keep boarding up and protect and take care of because they could be a liability right? So super expensive.
SPR Boardroom: What ends up happening is that we can't do the planning right now to figure out what is the best way to mitigate all the, all, the.
SPR Boardroom: all the effects and impacts of this
SPR Boardroom: until after we know that the land is
SPR Boardroom: going to be hours right where there's so much more investment that's happening now that we would be like, let's get the land, and let's also work on it like we would do for any development within the city we will have to work on. And, Metro, we want to make sure that the bus service is going to be a little more frequent
SPR Boardroom: because it does pass, but not as frequent for having a population that's going to be more using it right? People will have their own cars. There are all these things that have to be done, Texas way will have to be a bit widened. There will be a sidewalk put in. There will be a road within the development that will have fire and safety access. Because that is it. But
SPR Boardroom: the coming in from 36 Avenue can't happen. It won't be wide enough for a fire truck because of the homes and how wide that road is, and because of the trees. One of the reasons why the infrastructure costs went from 120 million to 30 or 60 million was because we said, we can't take out all those trees.
SPR Boardroom: And the 1st analysis was completely grade everything, take out the trees and then move the soil away.
SPR Boardroom: which had a huge carbon footprint, and on top of that we were just like, why would you take that soil away? 1st of all, it's clean. So this was a huge savings. And and just to kind of like help answer this question, so I don't have a full answer yet. However, we know that as a 1 city Seattle plan, it is something we'll have to tackle. Thank you?
SPR Boardroom: Are those units going to be? For people like this is the way works in our, you can have buildings that are for specifically single adults or families. And I was wondering if this is going to be. It's going to be single person. Yeah, with families you don't want to include. You don't want to kind of like mix the 2 heavily, because the services that they need are just really different. Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: Patricia also had a question on. If you wanted to take.
Tricia Diamond: Hi.
SPR Boardroom: Yes, I had.
Tricia Diamond: Oh, I'm sorry I questions. I think once you part, you did partially address in terms of
Tricia Diamond: my oldest son, who is on the spectrum, he affectionately refers to Magnolia as Middle earth, because it's so difficult to get to because of the bus service and stuff. So I'm wondering if you're coordinating
Tricia Diamond: with King County in terms of the bus service and Metro. And but it sounds like you answered that partially. The second thing I wanted to ask about is, will you be using trauma? Informed architectural design? Or have you already started
Tricia Diamond: in those efforts? And I'll mute for that response? Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Sure. Thank you. So for the 1st one is coordination with metro, which is always it's our commitment, just like, and the other utilities. But that won't happen until we actually know that we are planning for a real project.
SPR Boardroom: The second one is that the trauma informed architecture. Architect piece it. So
SPR Boardroom: we have the land, and we will hold the land. But the design and specs of it happen with the developer.
SPR Boardroom: So the developer has a particular. We have a certain like expectation of vision. Chief Seattle Club had a vision, and we
SPR Boardroom: they were competitive, and they went into the round. They submitted something, and they said, This is what we plan to do. It has trauma informed basis of the way that they do their architecture, and they work really closely with other like an indigenous architecture firm that thinks about that. And also just because of the disparate impact of homelessness on the indigenous community, they're taking all that into account.
SPR Boardroom: I do like. I just want to say that we are a lender.
SPR Boardroom: but because it's owned on city land, because it's on city land. We want to know why, how, and how people will thrive in place. So it is very important for us, and we stay continuously in looking and inspecting compliance with these buildings, but how they design, and why it is really about this organization coming through with their plan. So it is their vision.
SPR Boardroom: It is about their community. It's about how and how the community has asked them to participate. So I just want to say, like, we're a little bit removed. However, it's on our land, and we're kind of like. Tell us a little bit more. We have less of the connection. When a building is just, you know, a developer comes in and say
SPR Boardroom: plans. We want to build a Psh building on here. And this is the way it's going to look. We're kind of a little more removed because now they're putting in their vision, I mean it. I'm answering it. But I'm not. But 95% of their affordable housing. Providers are not for profit service providers. It's just giving you an idea. Sorry. Go ahead.
Tricia Diamond: So it's it's not that we're or you're putting out the Rfp. Or notice of funding available. They're coming to the city or to you with the proposals of what they'll have, because I don't know if that would be possible to write in as a requirement that, particularly for those you know, impacted that are unhoused, that there's some sort of requirement for trauma, informed
Tricia Diamond: architecture or design. But it sounds like that's out of your purview. So you wouldn't also be putting out like the I don't know funding mechanism that would be used, but not putting out like a notice of funding availability or an Rfp. That's something that perhaps the city would include as a requirement.
SPR Boardroom: So that's correct. So we wouldn't normally do that. But with this particular application they did submit an application, proposing just that.
SPR Boardroom: so they will include it.
Tricia Diamond: Right.
SPR Boardroom: But not in our in our typical one. It's up to the developer to do it. So some want murals on their buildings. Some don't like giving you a perspective of like how they kind of can choose or not, but because we own the land, there's a little more. Say that we have in it.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, I'll I'll let you do it, and then we can take more questions.
SPR Boardroom: Slide, please. That was recorded.
SPR Boardroom: So tail parks and recreation is grateful to be increasing our open space portfolio. But we're
SPR Boardroom: even more importantly, a regional park will be directly serving underserved communities. That's 1 of the big hurdles with our
SPR Boardroom: regional parks is accessibility transportation. The parkland is divided into 4 buckets. We've got forested woodlands that will be incorporated into Discovery Park. We got a passive recreation area around our crew quarters. The crew quarters is our only building that serves the United Care team
SPR Boardroom: and then and then we, the last bucket, is what was formerly Seattle public schools, grass, athletic fields, Seattle public schools. We've been working with Seattle public schools
SPR Boardroom: on strategizing fields associated with Wallingford and Magnolia. They've agreed to develop to convert the Catherine Blaine elementary fields, the North magnolia fields to synthetic
SPR Boardroom: with lights which increases utilization of those fields to a much greater extent than introducing grass fields which are unusable in the winter.
SPR Boardroom: And it's better use frankly of open space.
SPR Boardroom: Next slide, please. The
SPR Boardroom: we'll be decreasing it amount of building footprints throughout the site. We're going to be demolishing all the structures on the parkland and all the parking lots de paving and that demolition is part of the base project, and we have opportunity on that Sbs property to develop a
SPR Boardroom: wildlife corridor with a neighborhood park tucked inside it. Which would serve both the environment neighborhood and the needs of the neighborhood. In the short term. We're going to have a park, you know. The site's going to be demolished. It's going to be hydro seated. There's nice trees there. It will serve
SPR Boardroom: the community. And then we anticipate there'll be interest in a community initiated project to develop, to develop that project and make a connection between the Heron rookery, discovery park and kind of a park for everyone type deal again, though, we are decreasing all the impervious services, despite all the housing going in, and we're increasing previous
SPR Boardroom: by the payment next slide, please. And as I mentioned
SPR Boardroom: for the parks, and we'll have you know there'll be lots of engagement if there's public interest in developing, particularly that one parcel that was formerly Sps grass fields. That's all I have.
SPR Boardroom: We've done a lot of community engagement. I think we've done. So far we've done about 11. This is, I think, our 12th one, or something like that. I'm not sure we have about 2 more scheduled we're meeting with Magnolia Community Council on the 17th and the Renters Commission on June second. So we've done a lot of work to just make sure that people have all their questions answered. I think we can only go so much with all the details around design. But I think that we know a lot
SPR Boardroom: really. So. Yeah, let's go to the next one. I think that I can get into like the big.
SPR Boardroom: the big deals, so infrastructure design and plan Year one. Why do I say? Year 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 is because this is all based on when we will go when we go to council. That's when the clock starts ticking for something like this.
SPR Boardroom: What prevents us from going to council right away is, if there's an appeal an appeal can delay this project 3 to 12 months, maybe or so. So this is federally owned land. And the reason why I'm pointing this out is because during this, you know in this this political climate is that we have seen the list of Federal lands go up for sale.
SPR Boardroom: and this is affordable housing and park space. This is the public benefit conveyance that would go through the army who is excited to let go of this land. We've been working on this for over 17 or so years, and we hope that there are no delays. That is, the ultimate hope is that we can move on this very equitable development as soon as possible.
SPR Boardroom: and so infrastructure, design and phase that that would have an Rfp. Go to go out and we'd have to say, What is how long can this? Can this happen? We have to grade the land, put the infrastructure. All that. What pre-development means is
SPR Boardroom: people have to get funding. Then they have to get permits. They have to do any of the engagement thinking about design and all that. All of that goes into the pre-development, and then we go into construction. So there's a pre-development phase for everything, and then you move into construction. That's more of a housing. Speak
SPR Boardroom: thing.
SPR Boardroom: And why is this so important.
SPR Boardroom: beautiful parks come to transfer into the city for $0. This is a $0 cost transfer, which is why we think this is a huge deal. Not only is that $0, but the permanent supportive housing is at $0. HUD gave us the approval on January 16, th
SPR Boardroom: and said, Yes, move forward on this Psh project because it meets the public benefit definition, and you will get that for $0. From the army.
SPR Boardroom: We get 50% discount for the affordable rental and 75% discount for the homeownership. This is
SPR Boardroom: based on assessed land value, which at 34 acres, with that amount of land, going back, coming back to the city for $0 and these levels of discount, we would not be able to purchase land at this rate anywhere else in the city.
SPR Boardroom: and so giving perspective about space, the amount of acreage, and on top of that, the land, the cost of land.
SPR Boardroom: This is what the estimate is for savings, and so we estimate that the cost of land would be at 60 million, which would be the office of housing dollar amount.
SPR Boardroom: which is an equivalent for all the things that magnolia offers. We think that equivalent. And this is not Jessica. Putting in these numbers. This is by an economic development consultant that we hired at 53 million dollars to find an equivalent alternative, a cost savings of 37 million dollars.
SPR Boardroom: What is true is that there is infrastructure costs to that. And so people will say, well, this is really going to be expensive. The reality is that the potential of putting in infrastructure, and the long term positive effects for the families moving in to have green space have great access to school schools, to have access to safe and affordable housing is years beyond the cost of that infrastructure.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, one moment.
SPR Boardroom: timeline. We had our ses coming out on April 20 second. We're currently within the 30 Day Comment period, which is about 40 days, we extended it, and then we will be collecting comment till May 30, th putting it all together in the final ses. And then hopefully, we get to transmit to city council.
SPR Boardroom: I think there's 1 more. So if you're interested in submitting comment, that is the email address, and those were the tables to visit yesterday. But we can always connect those, and you can ask any questions now or not. I don't know. We are a little over time, so I'm hoping we can.
SPR Boardroom: I don't know if these are questions in the chat, but I hope we can address that later
SPR Boardroom: previous Federal administration. And then question from Tricia, do they still have to approve this? Or can we move forward based on the previous approval?
SPR Boardroom: This new plan has to be approved by the Us. Army, which they've kind of been very excited to approve.
SPR Boardroom: They're waiting for our city council to approve so that they could just hit the ground running.
Tricia Diamond: That's good news. Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Great. Thank you so much.
SPR Boardroom: Alright. So up. Next, we have our partnership spotlight.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you for your patience.
SPR Boardroom: Okay.
SPR Boardroom: okay, showing properly. It is okay.
SPR Boardroom: I'm glad you're doing. Okay.
SPR Boardroom: Hi, everybody. I'm Rebecca Baer. I'm the CEO of the Seattle Parks Foundation, really grateful to be here. Thank you for taking the time hopefully. I can leave you at the end of the day with a little inspiration. So the Parks Foundation is 25 years old this year, and I'll talk a little bit about our history. But our mission is to partner with community to create thriving and equitable public spaces.
SPR Boardroom: Let me go to the next slide. So this is a video that we recently did as part of our
SPR Boardroom: our 25th anniversary. So you'll see some familiar faces so hopefully it'll play.
SPR Boardroom: That's fine. I can show you on my website.
SPR Boardroom: Tell your baby now, there we go at night.
SPR Boardroom: I reflect back on what John Charles Olmsted said, about the city of Seattle. Seattle is unique. There's no other city that has the natural beauty, the grand landscapes, the views.
SPR Boardroom: and great photography.
SPR Boardroom: It's got ken bounds in it very frustrating. We're in the Ken Bounds room. So Video
SPR Boardroom: was a superintendent or well, Holly actually, Holly Miller was a superintendent. When it was 1st initiated 25 years ago, Mayor Paul Schell, the Parks Foundation came about as a result of the loss of the Seattle Commons for those of you who were around in the nineties. There were a bunch of votes right here. It would have been right over there all Southley Union would have been a giant park.
SPR Boardroom: And and so oh, is that it?
SPR Boardroom: I hope so?
SPR Boardroom: Oh.
SPR Boardroom: I reflect back on what John Charles said about the city of Seattle. Seattle is unique. There's no other city that has the natural beauty, the grand land
SPR Boardroom: that's fine. It's a very nice photography of the city of Seattle. But you know, talking about the history of the Parks Foundation came about so fundamentally
SPR Boardroom: we were built as a result of you know there was a sense of loss when we lost the Seattle Commons, and a desire to find a way forward with community to really elevate the community's engagement in parks and public spaces. And so we were founded in Mayor Shell? Asked Holly Miller at the time, and then eventually inbounds came in with superintendent at the time
SPR Boardroom: to help create this Parks foundation. It was created as a separate 501 c. 3 nonprofit entity, so that we could be independent from the park system to ensure that we can both advocate for the parks independently, and we can also
SPR Boardroom: raise funds to provide funding for from private philanthropy and other, you know, other ways to bring in money to the parks.
SPR Boardroom: So
SPR Boardroom: so you know, over the last 25 years we've really worked to build our, the community groups. The Parks Foundation was fundamental in the creation of the park levy, the metropolitan Parks district which this body has is engaged in, and we've had to. We're in the second cycle now.
SPR Boardroom: and the Parks Foundation will be leading the charge when it comes to the next cycle in terms of advocacy and getting out to public and ensuring that really passes. The other piece we do with community is we actually are a fiscal sponsor.
SPR Boardroom: That means we work with over 120 community groups and community partners. John Flynn is one of those and work with, we support them with nonprofit structure and support, so that they can be doing work, and a lot of the friends groups are underneath the umbrella of the Parks foundation. So keep going.
SPR Boardroom: So this is just a little bit of the history of our time, you know. Fiscal sponsorship. You can see it's grown tremendously over the last little while. And you know we keep going. So this is we have you can. Each of those dots is the locations of various groups that we work with. The ones that are sitting out there in Puget Sound or
SPR Boardroom: region wide. But 40% of our partners are either led by people of color or rooted in the community of communities of color and focused on justice, accessibility, and equity. So it's a big focus of our mission when we create thriving and equitable public spaces.
SPR Boardroom: So how will we do our work? We we have really these 4 areas of work. We partner with community groups, we help catalyze and support them. So we spoke a little bit earlier about Garfin Superblock. That was a community group that we helped raise funds for and support in order to do the work.
SPR Boardroom: We also support activation in public spaces. So we have groups that are doing like Alki Beach, Pride Festival, or the Martin Luther, King Day, March, or Othello Park, International Festival. Those are all things that we support in terms of activating spaces as well.
SPR Boardroom: We. I spoke a little bit about our advocacy. We advocate for both, for those groups to do the work that they need to do, but also for the system, and for like right now
SPR Boardroom: next week. And so we're helping King County in terms of ensuring that lending passes really important for funding for parks. And then, finally, we really look at mobilizing resources. So there's a lot of people that love parks, and they want to contribute to their public spaces. And so we want to give them the opportunity to do that. And so whether that's financial or volunteering time or other ways, they can connect.
SPR Boardroom: we try to create space for people to be able to connect, to, to share their resources with our public spaces.
SPR Boardroom: So here's a couple of examples of our advocacy work. The top 3 are ones we're working on right now. So you've probably heard that there's an effort nationally around taking away our public lands. We're giving people an opportunity. We have a platform advocacy platform, and people can write letters to Congress while that's not necessarily within our city.
SPR Boardroom: It's still something, you know. We stand for public lands. And we want to make sure we do that. We've formed this network we call the tree equity network. And that's a group grassroots groups that are focused on tree canopy and tree planting throughout Seattle, King County,
SPR Boardroom: Then they're advocating for tree work tree policies. And then I just mentioned the King County Levy. And so these are just some of the things. This was the passing of the some work we did around the metropolitan Parks district. The Love Parks campaign was the original campaign for the Parks district. And then, just recently, we were in Olympia, rallying for Rto. Funding Recreation Conservation Office. That's 120 million dollars that goes towards
SPR Boardroom: parks wildlands throughout the State. And there's really important funding that Rco. You know, both the Parks department and sometimes we? And most of it goes to the Parks department. But we advocate for that to come to parks projects when we're doing capital projects.
SPR Boardroom: So I'm going to give you a little few examples of some capital projects that we've worked on over the course of the last 5 to 7 years Rainier Ridge, Urban farm and wetlands that lovely building there. There's a nice classroom and kitchen that was a Parks Foundation led project in partnership with the friends of Brainer Beach Urban farm.
SPR Boardroom: You just kind of go through this.
SPR Boardroom: Maybe I can. Maybe you can. There you go right. During the pandemic we built the Occidental Pavilion. This is a nice designed by Olson Krundig. It's a beautiful pavilion that harkens back to the historic nature of Occidental Park.
SPR Boardroom: Keep going the Sewer Park Tory. So this was a Tory that was taken down in like the eighties.
SPR Boardroom: and we rebuilt it as a recognition for the relationship between the city of Seattle and Japan. This was quite a project also done during the pandemic.
SPR Boardroom: That's all. One tree at the top and these are big giant basalt columns. So it's not gonna fall down like the last
SPR Boardroom: volunteer Park amphitheater. This was a project John Flynn was involved in. But it's a great, beautiful new amphitheater, great concert series coming this summer, if you haven't heard about it. This is an example of it, you know. Jazz in the park so really great
SPR Boardroom: a new asset for for that for the community.
SPR Boardroom: Duwamish Waterway Park. This is a park that we helped work with the city on in terms of right along and South Park. It's along the river, and this will. There's a second second phase of this that will come hopefully in the next decade.
SPR Boardroom: And this is a really important. There's not a lot of green space in South Park, and it's part of
SPR Boardroom: about 15 years ago we worked with the city on the South Park and Georgetown vision plans around how to create more green spaces in in that area of the city. This was one of the pieces of that South Park Plaza, which just opened, was also on that list South Park Community Center, which is under construction. Now, that was also in as part of that plan so really excited to see this this vision plan come to life now.
SPR Boardroom: Cheese trails and bike park. If you happen to be in cheese, you know a decade ago is not a place you want to hang out. And now there's this thriving trail system that's almost complete. The north trails are going to be completed hopefully here in the next month. So really exciting to have this kind of biking in this heart of the city and in close in in the south part of the city as well. So
SPR Boardroom: And we just opened Pathways Park, near Magson, northeast. It's 1 of the most fully inclusive play spaces in the city. I often talk about it as I think it's probably one of the most in the West Coast, perhaps in the country, just in terms of the way that the design is done. It's really remarkable. It's not just about Ada accessibility. It's also about.
SPR Boardroom: you know, it's there's places for autistic kids to play. There's, you know, design for you know, different kinds of the blind kids. So it's really just a remarkable park.
SPR Boardroom: Just go there. You're on the board of Parks by commissioners, you should go check out pathways.
SPR Boardroom: It's a great example that we want to replicate some of the pieces of that more places. So
SPR Boardroom: it's
SPR Boardroom: so we also work with other agencies. Just so that we work with S stop, we work with spu. We work with offices sustainability. We also work in county. So I just looked at the port. This is River City Skate Park. It's also in South Park. But it's actually on. It's actually a private property that is now public. So
SPR Boardroom: keep going.
SPR Boardroom: Detective Cookie, Chess Park. This is on estop property. It's in Rainier beach, a cool little park on a corner, that where there's a bunch of chess tables where kids can play
SPR Boardroom: So we also just come on the activation piece a little bit about some of the activation we've been doing over the course of the years. So
SPR Boardroom: we've been working on climate issues. That's 1 of our priorities and restaurant to garden is a community group, and there's a did that is working on at the Danny Woo garden, bringing restaurant food, putting in a big giant Biodigester composter, creating great soil. And then the gardeners at Danny Woo are using that soil for compost.
SPR Boardroom: They're building and growing. This there's going to be lots of compost available for future gardens in this Eid
SPR Boardroom: The Green Seattle partnership, which is a part of the Parks department, is actually we do. We're the fundraising arm for. So we've been partnering with them just over the last year, and we have lots lots more opportunity there to do than to grow.
SPR Boardroom: This is just a a great group at Benefit Park, where he was doing Tai, Chi, and we're helping support them on their activities.
SPR Boardroom: here's a friends of Lincoln Park. So this is an example kind of the traditional friends groups that care for parks. This is a project by the troll
SPR Boardroom: and and then we have some non-traditional groups that don't really associate with parks, but they move through the parks. So this is friends on bikes. This is a Lgbtqia group that is really trying to embrace and help more people get into bicycling.
SPR Boardroom: We work with a dirt corps which is a service corps like a conservation corps that is focused also on connecting Lgbtq Bipoc community in South Seattle into projects along the particularly in the Duwamish River. So, and in the Duwamish River area. So they do a lot of tree planting. They work with the parks department sdot spu, you know, down there there's a lot of different landowners.
SPR Boardroom: And then we've this is actually right there. This is in Denny Park. Just a couple of weeks ago we worked with Amazon. We also work with companies to bring them out to parks to do projects in partnership with Parks team, and we've had several every week for the last Amazon's global month of volunteering is the month of May. So we've got one or 2 projects a week, the whole month of May.
SPR Boardroom: I'm going to one tomorrow.
SPR Boardroom: So so some things underway in this year.
SPR Boardroom: we're working on building a new playfield at Concord Elementary School, which is in South Park. It's also part of that South Park Vision plan. It'll be a great new site. It's also going to be available as a community space after school hours. So this is the part of the town of the city where there's not a lot of public space. So and
SPR Boardroom: and currently South Park play field is closed. So there's this need to. This will be closed this summer for construction, but there'll be
SPR Boardroom: access afterwards. Garfield Superblock has already been mentioned, and yes, we did raise about a million and a half dollar 2 million dollars for art pedestals that are represented culturally representative of the 7 cultures of the central district. Those are. Those are getting built, and they're going to be all along the walkways.
SPR Boardroom: The problem not around the park.
SPR Boardroom: And then, right now, we're working there's on a couple of World cup projects, one of which is Westlake Park, and doing some improvements in Westlake Park. We're gonna be taking out
SPR Boardroom: pavement adding more green, which will help the the space be a lot more friendly and lively, with more seating, more lighting, trying to address the safety issues. And then there's also going to be some barriers. Crash barriers put in to the park along the roadway.
SPR Boardroom: and then we're working down with sdot. Also a 2026 project what we call Occidental promenade. This is a project that started in 2014 as part of the waterfront and stadium district, but it kind of got left behind, and Occidental Street, right next to the stadium, is going to eventually transform into a
SPR Boardroom: festival street. So it'll be a promenade that you know, when there's big events everything will shut down, and it'll feel like a plaza park. We're doing some testing down there and some improvements and interim improvements prior to the World Cup and during the World Cup will be testing so. And then this project is probably
SPR Boardroom: 7 year, 10 years. There's a lot of infrastructure underneath the ground. And that's fine, you know, Pioneer Square. So there's it's a little complicated, but it will. It will be really cool when it's done.
SPR Boardroom: So our priorities, just as an organization, we've taken a look over the last at like what's happening in the world. And we really focus in on nature-based climate solutions like really trying to help support climate solutions that are going to help in. You know whether that's our parks, public spaces, increasing tree canopy.
SPR Boardroom: and then also continuing our work on equity in public spaces. And we're thinking about the parts of the city that need
SPR Boardroom: attention and investment. So and so
SPR Boardroom: you know, our our big goal is by 2030 that we will work with our partners including the Parks department, to advance
SPR Boardroom: transformational projects, both large and small, that ensure shared spaces that are welcoming, accessible to all and built as climate. Resilient
SPR Boardroom: investments in our parks will shift the trajectory of our future as a city and shape the legacy of our region.
SPR Boardroom: Those are those are our big, carry audacious goals.
SPR Boardroom: That's it.
SPR Boardroom: ambassador to partnership the foundation.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah. And we we love working with the parks department. You know. I think I talked to Andy probably twice a week. And others in the department as well. So, you know, we have a good partnership with Park Department.
SPR Boardroom: Don was letting us know that they could hear and see online. So I was just in the room. I'll send a link. Yeah, no, that's fine. It was a. It was a risk. Any questions from you guys.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you for coming? Yeah, no problem. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Okay, thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Alrighty. Thanks, Justin.
SPR Boardroom: So I get to talk to you about our 2024 annual report.
SPR Boardroom: I probably shouldn't show you the unfinished version. It's full of notes and need some work, so I'm not going to pass it around, but it's almost ready. But so let's jump in. So what we'll talk about today is kind of the background. Annual report is one piece of our broader accountability structure to the public. So we'll start there, and then we'll just tell you a little bit about the report. And then finally.
SPR Boardroom: traditionally, the board kind of introduces the report with a letter. We worked with your performance oversight Subcommittee to develop a letter sent it to you a couple of weeks ago, and just want to get your kind of informal.
SPR Boardroom: You love it. You hate it
SPR Boardroom: ranking today. So let's jump in.
SPR Boardroom: So cycle to the park district right? This 6 Year financial plan that corresponds with a big increase in
SPR Boardroom: park district tax that helps fund our parks. That was a really big increase in resources to our work. And so we wanted to have a corresponding increase in kind of monitoring, reporting, and accountability.
SPR Boardroom: So the big picture of how we do that right? It's not just you all, although you all are critical part of it. And you've got a oversight subcommittee who spends a lot of time looking at our performance measures.
SPR Boardroom: But you know the bigger picture of the whole accountability ecosystem that the mayor's office kind of appoints the leadership and sets our general direction. The City Council and City Council, acting as the Park District Board, provide kind of policy, guidance as well, and evaluation as you saw a few weeks ago. The auditor sometimes checks in on us and has has some thoughts. So there's a broader group of people in addition to yourselves, whose job is really to hold us accountable to our commitments.
SPR Boardroom: So how we think about accountability and our approach to reporting is after after the Partnership Board passed the 6 Year Financial Plan. We, a few months later, came back with a reporting plan that that by individual lines of business within the department said, Here's the funding we've got.
SPR Boardroom: Here's what we aim to produce with that. And here's how we'll report on that, you know. Here's a measure that we'll we'll tell you about. So that report informs kind of online financial performance dashboards. It informs the annual reports we put out
SPR Boardroom: and over the course of the 6 year cycle. We'll do a mid cycle evaluation and an end of the cycle report.
SPR Boardroom: So today we are here to talk on the next slide about the annual report. So
SPR Boardroom: the requirement to do this comes from the interlocal agreement between this I gotta get more interesting than your local agreement at 8 pm. But so
SPR Boardroom: basically the agreement between the City Council and the City Council acting as Park District Board
SPR Boardroom: said, we do an annual report, so we write it both for those for those folks on the Park District Board. We write it for yourselves, and also for the general public. Some things to know is, we write, you know a pretty
SPR Boardroom: report that tells a bunch of success stories, and it's really beautiful. But we also do have a detailed appendix that goes by every chunk of the organization. Kind of what was your budget? What did you actually spend? What were you? What were your performance goals you were trying to reach? And where did you actually get?
SPR Boardroom: We don't just report on Park district money, because, as you, as you may know, as you know, I hope our so many, so many of our operations are funded by a Park District general Fund earned revenue grants that partners bring in right. All sorts of things may be a part of our budget. And so it doesn't really make sense to artificially pull out one funding source and report on that. So we, though the requirement to do. This report comes out of our park district accountabilities. We report across all our funding streams.
SPR Boardroom: and just because we we made a bunch of commitments as a part of Cycle 2. We tend to focus on. Where are we at in those cycle? 2 commitments
SPR Boardroom: keep going. So you may remember this lovely moment your performance oversight. Subcommittee
SPR Boardroom: was super helpful in helping us get here. So you know we we John, gave you a pretty thorough orientation a meeting or 2 ago about exactly how we got here, so I'll just skip that, and we'll keep going
SPR Boardroom: to. We can go to the next slide to tell you about what's in the this year's report. So keep going. I wanted to start. Actually, one thing we're doing
SPR Boardroom: fun this year is some staff profiles. So I'm just going to share 3 folks from the report. So this is Jensen Yun, who began as a volunteer with Spr. He was helping teach swim lessons in 2010. From then he's gone to volunteer, to lifeguard, to Senior Lifeguard, and he's currently acting in an interim capacity as the Assistant Coordinator of Meadowbrook Pool.
SPR Boardroom: all of those jobs in Meadowbrook Pool which is where he himself learned to swim. So just a really awesome example of our of our Lifeguards. Good question.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah. He's he's taught all 3 of my kids awesome.
SPR Boardroom: We can keep going. So Emily Hansen is part of our urban forestry team
SPR Boardroom: managing the program to plant trees and develop parks. So we've already mentioned the Green Seattle partnership. But as a part of Cycle 2, we also added a pretty robust program to plant larger trees in developed parks for shade, canopy, and things like that.
SPR Boardroom: and Emily and their team have planted more than 500 trees in 2023, and 2024 alone
SPR Boardroom: next go next. So Laura Wilburn has started with Spr. 1999, as a temporary Rec. Leader with late night.
SPR Boardroom: and has held many roles since doing, planning and coordinating programming for the public, but especially for young people. I think several generations of West Seattle. Youth will remember her most fondly, for teen treks kind of big, ambitious, outdoor adventures, taking young people out into wild lands long before that was popular. Yeah, Laura Wilburn.
SPR Boardroom: So okay, let's talk about 2024. And these were kind of the key themes. We felt them. But also your subcommittee helped us identify them that really, we're in the second year of this big
SPR Boardroom: investment of new resource, right? So some things we really hit the ground running. And they're they're operating at the level we hope to. Some things are still kind of getting up there 2 years into the 6 Year Financial Plan. They're still getting there, and then some things we had some real challenges.
SPR Boardroom: One of the challenges that we had was related to kind of broader, citywide financial uncertainty resulting in a partial citywide hierarchy. So many of the kind of places where we missed the mark are really attributable to that right to spr just doing its part to help the broader citywide issues around around the budget
SPR Boardroom: next slide. So this is some of the themes we cover in the annual report. So we, you know, we go over the capital projects we've completed. We have a, we celebrate our custodians. There's a special section on kind of a broader effort to decarbonize or electrify our facilities.
SPR Boardroom: We jumped into green Seattle partnership and ecosystem restoration. Our mobile Rec. Unit Rec. In the streets. The Park Community Fund.
SPR Boardroom: There's a whole spread about 3 kind of. We opened a lot of parks last year, but there's 3, I think, that really stand out in terms of being really awesome examples of partnering in a really meaningful way with community groups to help to help kind of vision, envision, and and develop the park. I think 2 of those were partners with Seattle Parks Foundation. So there's really something about that. We talked about park Rangers.
SPR Boardroom: Play areas. I won't read them all. But I'm gonna tell you briefly tonight about the things in green.
SPR Boardroom: So let's keep going.
SPR Boardroom: So you've heard this before, but just wanted to give you kind of a flavor of what we're reporting on. So our Park Rangers as a part of Cycle 2, right. We made a commitment to reboot and expand the Park Ranger program to promote voluntary compliance with the Park code.
SPR Boardroom: Some of the key things that happened in 2024 is we lifted the geographic restriction. So for the 1st time.
SPR Boardroom: rangers are not just limited to working in downtown parks, but can work citywide. So we developed a citywide deployment strategy. We hired and trained a second cohort of Rangers, and they really got out there all over the place
SPR Boardroom: the Park Community Fund, which you all had a big hand in. But our cycle. 2 commitment was, you know, really to partner with communities to expand equitable access to quality parks and facilities.
SPR Boardroom: So what we did in 2024 was run the process for the 1st time in a really big and open way
SPR Boardroom: to to allocate the 2024, and 2025 funding
SPR Boardroom: so, as you can see, we ended up, and, as you well know, because you recommended the slate of projects, we ended with 15 projects all over the city that are now in various stages of planning.
SPR Boardroom: And finally, Seattle mentors. Was kind of the the biggest new
SPR Boardroom: thing in cycle, 2. Right with really the mayor's push to promote mentorship, social, emotional health and career exposure for youth by caring adults. So this program spent 2023, the 1st year of cycle, 2. Kind of figuring out its program model, doing research, bringing staff on board, training our staff and mentoring best practices, and then really hit its stride in 2024, through partnerships and other
SPR Boardroom: other programs.
SPR Boardroom: So I feel like I talked very fast. So please let me know if you have any questions. But the next thing I'm going to ask is how you feel about the letter. But any any questions or thoughts before we do that.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you for the presentation. Regarding the Park Rangers. Do you know just ballpark, how many rangers we're up to now with this?
SPR Boardroom: Think that the full cohort is like 27. Something like that.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, yeah.
SPR Boardroom: Anyway, just I. Since I think some of them are on the phone, just definitely wanted to thank our performance oversight Subcommittee for sitting with us through line by line, review of budget and performance to get here.
SPR Boardroom: So with that, said traditionally, you all as a body and your chairs, especially as this signatories put a letter introducing the report we worked with your subcommittee to and with with your co-chairs to develop kind of a draft. We sent that out a few weeks ago, and just wanted to make sure you felt good about that, or if you if you don't, now's the time to tell me.
SPR Boardroom: let me share for time.
SPR Boardroom: And just to confirm this is, we did receive the letter, and this is just discussion or feedback. There, we don't. We don't need a formal vote, and I know everyone has had a chance to review it. Yeah, you do not need a formal vote, you are certainly welcome to make you all feel more comfortable with it.
SPR Boardroom: I know the the letter touches on the audit report about bathrooms and stuff about graffiti. Is that in the annual report
SPR Boardroom: information? Yes, so there is. On this page we
SPR Boardroom: so the audit is, you know, initiated in 2,024, and then kind of really
SPR Boardroom: culminated this year. So our kind of official receipt of the findings and all that happened this year, and we really try and stick to
SPR Boardroom: just focus on this year. But there, yes, there is kind of an accountability section that speaks to various. That speaks to that. There's at least a paragraph in there that says, Hey, we want to acknowledge this. This happened, and we're working with the auditor and working with with our staff to on those improvements.
SPR Boardroom: Just wanna make sure it was connected. Actually, let me check real quick. Is the letter representing the board, or is it representing Ryan and Whitney as the chairs?
SPR Boardroom: I don't know how to answer that.
SPR Boardroom: Believe.
John Flinn: Justin. I think the language is.
John Flinn: Well, I have to look at it, too. I think it, says we, as the board signed by Justin and Whitney, so I think it represents the Board.
SPR Boardroom: If it represents the board. Oh, okay.
SPR Boardroom: we do. Yeah. And and sorry just to clarify. I know Ryan's not here. But ryan did also review and and provide input and and was in support of it. So sorry. Sorry he's not here, but
SPR Boardroom: but yeah. So so co-chairs did have that involvement as well.
SPR Boardroom: Well, if that's the case, then I just wanna open it one more time. If there was any more discussion or questions. Otherwise I would entertain a motion to approve the drop that we received last week.
SPR Boardroom: Second, if somebody has to make the motion of it
SPR Boardroom: great thanks. All those in favor.
John Flinn: I.
SPR Boardroom: Hi.
Tricia Diamond: Hi.
SPR Boardroom: Thanks, and if we could get
SPR Boardroom: thumbs up, if- if the remaining folks
SPR Boardroom: or for information, if you abstain or are opposed.
SPR Boardroom: if you're fine as you want.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, perfect, great. Thank you. Awesome. Well, thank you all for that. And so so you know the report we coincided coming out. We're not stages. We're going now, and it coincides with. On June 23rd we present before the City Council, acting as purpose report just kind of present 2024 year, and review, and do a few other things. So I'll share that with the board. Kind of a link on the Seattle channel to that.
SPR Boardroom: and otherwise that's when the report will be available. We'll bring some physical copies to you at your next meeting.
Tricia Diamond: Right.
SPR Boardroom: I know we are a little behind schedule. We did have a couple of items for old and new business.
SPR Boardroom: sorry. What is this summer is summer schedule separate? Yeah? Yeah. So we just wanted to to just give everyone a reminder that you know, this isn't super different from previous years. But we are only having the one meeting per month in June, July, and August.
SPR Boardroom: so we'll make sure that that gets communicated out. But that's generally the second meeting. Well, we'll I'll reach out and make sure everyone has that.
SPR Boardroom: And then the the other remaining piece. I know that. This was initially brought up last meeting, but there weren't as many folks we wanted to move to today with with a bigger presence.
SPR Boardroom: The communication had gone out previously about kind of pulling folks, availability and interest to adjust the meeting time.
SPR Boardroom: so I did want to discuss now that there's more of us the potential of shifting the the meetings to a 6 o'clock start.
SPR Boardroom: I know some folks
SPR Boardroom: we're strongly in favor of a earlier start, and some folks weren't. So I did wanna make space to kinda
SPR Boardroom: talk as a larger group about that proposal.
SPR Boardroom: What was the result of the quote
SPR Boardroom: it was about? I think it was 6 to 4 most. The the slight majority was in favor of preserving 6, 30.
SPR Boardroom: I don't know who voted for what, so.
Tricia Diamond: You know, I'm probably in favor of 6 30 more in terms of traffic, and being able to coordinate that
Tricia Diamond: because I'd like to be able to attend in person.
SPR Boardroom: Make 6 work the earliest that I probably could comfortably do come in.
SPR Boardroom: Well, it's so beautiful.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, I was gonna ask if we piloted. I know that there's discussion past about different times. Are folks open to piloting a 6 o'clock during the summer, as as we're on that summer schedule.
SPR Boardroom: We cannot be virtual.
SPR Boardroom: There's no way I can give us this.
SPR Boardroom: Did did anybody else?
SPR Boardroom: And and I know ryan was also interested in 6 o'clock. I know he's not here, and I was as well. I
SPR Boardroom: if it's 6 o'clock, I can attend in person more often.
SPR Boardroom: I live in Raven, too. I know the traffic can be tricky. I just take the light rail down here and go to the Westlake. Stop because I don't want to battle with that traffic. Sometimes I join remotely, too, for that reason, but
SPR Boardroom: especially in the summer, you know, it's laid out later. So like a 1 off.
Tricia Diamond: I think it's even worse.
SPR Boardroom: I'm sorry, Tricia, what was that?
Tricia Diamond: Oh, no, you're right, I mean, I live right by the light rail station.
SPR Boardroom: That would.
Tricia Diamond: But also close to the entrance of 5, and I was fully planning on leaving or attending in person today at 5 30, when I was in traffic just on the line to get on to 5, and I know it's because of the holiday on Monday. I guess everyone leaves on Thursday, but it just feels like every single time that I want to try and go in. The traffic tells me. No, you're doing this online. And that's with 6 30. I don't know. Maybe it's better at 6.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, driving is tough, but I just have an observation that the times I've been here we've never had
SPR Boardroom: the full complement of Park Board members in the room at one time, about 50% of participation is virtual, you know. I'm not sure you'd be missing
SPR Boardroom: a lot, you know, since that about 50% of the participation is already virtual.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: we wanna try it once and see how it works. And we're
SPR Boardroom: maybe we can try. And also we should watch to see if it impacts public comment.
SPR Boardroom: It'll probably take a couple of meetings because people will mentally be conditioned to show up at 6 30
SPR Boardroom: issue.
SPR Boardroom: That's a good extra, an extra reminder. Yeah, for everybody there.
SPR Boardroom: But yeah, just just let us know what to do, and we'll do it. So for a schedule adjustment is that something we formally would vote to approve, or especially if it's something
SPR Boardroom: coming back to the Executive Committee, have a discussion about it.
SPR Boardroom: Okay? Okay. Awesome.
SPR Boardroom: Alrighty. Thanks. Everyone.
SPR Boardroom: Okay.
SPR Boardroom: Productive meeting for you guys. Oh, sorry.