SPR Boardroom: I'm really using it here.
SPR Boardroom: Oh, great, thanks. Hi, welcome everyone. Thank you so much for being here. This is our September 11th meeting of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners. So we will start with introductions of,
SPR Boardroom: Okay, we'll start with introductions of members and staff.
SPR Boardroom: Maybe… Start at the end. My name is Brian Bacher. I am the Get Engaged Commissioner.
SPR Boardroom: It's good to be here.
SPR Boardroom: And I am Christopher Williams, our Chief of Staff and Senior Deputy Superintendent.
SPR Boardroom: See you all.
SPR Boardroom: Whitney Nakamura, co-chair, and, Parks for, Commission and Boards.
SPR Boardroom: Brian Baum, co-chair, at Lodge.
SPR Boardroom: Elise Chisholm Clare, Commissioner for District 4.
SPR Boardroom: Hi, I'm Daya Zong, I'm one of the new…
SPR Boardroom: Three… sorry, one of the three new commissioners,
SPR Boardroom: Nice to meet you, everyone. Nice to meet you.
SPR Boardroom: My name is Aman Hailey Wu, I'm District 5.
SPR Boardroom: I'm John Flynn, District 3.
SPR Boardroom: Seems that are at large.
SPR Boardroom: And I know you're District 2. I'm District 2.
SPR Boardroom: I think, do we have one panelist on, or no, that's us, I guess.
SPR Boardroom: Oh, sorry. Oh, Paula Hopp, I'm staff with Enterprise Snack Nation. And Ben Bert says with Seattle Parks and Recreation.
SPR Boardroom: Everyone, I'm gonna… Start with our land acknowledgement.
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 program.
SPR Boardroom: We honor their legacy with gratitude and appreciation. We'll safeguard their knowledge… Community welfare.
SPR Boardroom: Cultivate and business expressions of nature and recreation.
SPR Boardroom: And commit to land acknowledgement for each institution.
SPR Boardroom: Alright, so we have a couple items on our consent…
SPR Boardroom: package, so that includes the August 14th meeting minutes, as well as tonight's meeting webinar.
SPR Boardroom: Probable motion to approve the second release.
SPR Boardroom: Excellent.
SPR Boardroom: All those in favor?
SPR Boardroom: Is that the sound wrong? Any opposed?
SPR Boardroom: Exceptions?
SPR Boardroom: Great performances.
SPR Boardroom: And then next, we will move to public comment.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, great. We only have one sign up for public comment today, and that is Thomas Kelly, who I just saw pop up online.
SPR Boardroom: And so, Thomas, I'm going to go ahead and give you permission to unmute yourself. You will still need to do that, I cannot do that for you. And then once you start talking, you'll have 2 minutes, and we will give you a little 10-second, warning there.
Thomas Kelly: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ben.
Thomas Kelly: I am the president of the Magnuson Environmental Stewardship Alliance, and I'm speaking on behalf of them today. The first thing I want to, though you may be somewhat of a surprise, I'm speaking in favor of pickleball at Magnuson Park. However.
Thomas Kelly: That's for a specific location.
Thomas Kelly: And that is near the Big Hainer that's now known as Arena Sports, near the North Shore area of the park. It's an ideal location for pickleball. This would be on the east side of the facility. It's really a winner for the park department. It probably would not need a
Thomas Kelly: Environmental impact statement certainly would not need a supplemental environmental impact statement.
Thomas Kelly: And the noise would be no problem there, because it's not near residents or natural areas or things like that. So, just want you to be aware that our group is very much in favor of that location, and I'm sure you'll hear from other people about that, too.
Thomas Kelly: Also, I want to say I was pleased to hear that the Park Department is,
Thomas Kelly: taking some measures on pickleball noise at places. that may… you may hear that in one of your later reports, but it's not too clear from the news exactly what
Thomas Kelly: measure how much they measured and how they interpreted the code. But please pay attention to that. And also, as things continue on the Magnuson pickleball issue, I want to encourage yourselves to get, educated on how noise is measured. It's very, very complex.
Thomas Kelly: And the question of what noise is acceptable is, there's various sciences, there's studies from other communities that give good explanations, communities in Massachusetts and Colorado, and you can look at the standards, what Victoria, Vancouver, British Columbia does, and things like that. So,
Thomas Kelly: I hope you really pay attention to that. The thing is.
Thomas Kelly: You have to be careful how you're measuring, because the impulse of the pickleball noise… a lot of the noise comes right at the first part of the noise, and if you average over a longer period, you don't capture it at all.
Thomas Kelly: The other thing is, when you get into the impact on wetland.
Thomas Kelly: The measures they call DBA are,
Thomas Kelly: adjusted for the human ear. So, you gotta remember that for wildlife,
SPR Boardroom: pick up.
Thomas Kelly: Okay, they can hear a lot of things than us, so let's… he'll think of a dog whistle.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, thank you very much, Thomas. And if you have additional comments, feel free to email those to the pks underscore BPRC email address that's on the agenda, and that is all of the public comment for today.
SPR Boardroom: Alright, next we have our superintendent's report.
SPR Boardroom: Brave.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you, and I wanted to, do two things. I wanted to announce that this is probably my very last Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners. We'll be retiring after 33 years of service to the department.
SPR Boardroom: And I really want to, acknowledge and appreciate the commitment and dedication that our board members, commit to.
SPR Boardroom: being at these meetings and serving as Park Board Commissioners, you are investing your most valuable asset, which is your time.
SPR Boardroom: And, the department and the community really appreciates that, so…
SPR Boardroom: You have been a pleasure to work with, and boards like you follow wholesomely.
SPR Boardroom: reporting.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you for your service as well.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you, Christopher. Perfectly.
SPR Boardroom: I failed to mention that you've spent over 10 years, actually, as acting superintendent, of various… many, many instances, helping guide the department, and of course, helping work directly with the board here as well, and…
SPR Boardroom: He's just been a wonderful resource for helping, onboard myself, and for all of the support members. Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, well, maybe I'll get into some updates.
SPR Boardroom: So, one of the best things we can do for employees is to provide them with continuous, ongoing training, and
SPR Boardroom: opportunities for employee development. Our Recreation Division will be undertaking
SPR Boardroom: An all-staff training, where we will close everything from, community centers.
SPR Boardroom: teen life centers, indoor swimming pools, the Amy E. Tennis Center. It really is to provide a full day of uninterrupted training and, really access to the training.
SPR Boardroom: It's tough to provide training opportunities when you have to straddle
SPR Boardroom: Keeping doors open. So, that's gonna happen.
SPR Boardroom: On September 25th, at the same time, parks will be open. Volunteer Park Conservancy, or Conservatory and the Japanese gardens will remain open.
SPR Boardroom: Our golf courses will continue to be open, but this is an important employee development opportunity, so…
SPR Boardroom: There will be a closure that day, and it will be wisely publicized.
SPR Boardroom: But one caveat, our child care programs will continue to operate because those are staffed by the association.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, and it's one of the…
SPR Boardroom: Public commenters, was just commenting
SPR Boardroom: About Pickleball, and we have fielded quite a few complaints about noise,
SPR Boardroom: Coming from pickleball court activities, and…
SPR Boardroom: I thought initially that the noise was the byproduct of the ball.
SPR Boardroom: hitting the ground. The noise is actually…
SPR Boardroom: The ball's contact with the paddle.
SPR Boardroom: making the noise. So, we have modified pickleball hours at 3 locations, at Gilman Playground.
SPR Boardroom: Laurelhurst Plateville, and Mount Baker Park, and this is done in…
SPR Boardroom: compliance… rather, to be in compliance… to be in compliance with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, which monitors noise levels and
SPR Boardroom: Noise compliance in the city.
SPR Boardroom: Under the new schedule, courts at all three locations will be open for play, From 7 a.m.
SPR Boardroom: excuse me, until 10 p.m. on weekdays, and from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays in city-observed holidays. These courts were selected because of their adjacency and proximity to residential homes.
SPR Boardroom: A lot of the courts, i.e. Green Lake, is in the center of the park, and there's less noise travel.
SPR Boardroom: From that inner court to residential neighbors, so…
SPR Boardroom: Always making the effort to be a good neighbor, and that change will be taking place fairly soon.
SPR Boardroom: One of the mayor's priorities is program called Seattle Mentors.
SPR Boardroom: And, we're excited to announce that we're seeking opportunities for local professionals and industry leaders to make a difference in the lives of our youth.
SPR Boardroom: And the Seattle Mentors Program is, launching a program called the Empowerment Exchange.
SPR Boardroom: Receiving qualified mentors for the 2025
SPR Boardroom: 2026 school year to guide and inspire young people
SPR Boardroom: at designated park and recreation sites, and we're really looking for professionals and industry leaders to apply. Actually, no one will be used as a mentor who is willing to provide some valuable adult leadership inspiration.
SPR Boardroom: to a young person. So, this is an important program. It is core to what we do, transforming and changing the lives of young people.
SPR Boardroom: And the mentoring program ceased.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, there's been a ton of Summer Park activity
SPR Boardroom: Activation activity, and some of the numbers
SPR Boardroom: attendance numbers are just through the roof. You would think this was, like, a Ticketmaster kind of ticketed event when I rattle off some of these numbers. We have partnered with Green Stage for 36 years.
SPR Boardroom: our local live theater company. They have provided 53 performances and 73
SPR Boardroom: Rather, in 17 parks, with an overall attendance of 11,600 people enjoying free live theater in our parks over the course of the summer.
SPR Boardroom: We've also had our own park activation series where we do movies in the park, and have likewise served over 10,000 people over the 11 weeks of summer.
SPR Boardroom: For, theater and parks.
SPR Boardroom: We have the Twilight Movie Night at Discovery Park, still going on. This occurred in collaboration with United Indians for All Tribes, and kicked off the first of five Twilight Movie Nights on August 27th at Discovery Park.
SPR Boardroom: And so far, we've attracted 800 attendees, and I believe this series wraps up, the middle of September, so…
SPR Boardroom: Just huge numbers, and communities really look forward to, spending this kind of evening with their families.
SPR Boardroom: Let's see, moving on here… Westlake Park Improvements coming soon.
SPR Boardroom: So, there's a big effort underway called the Downtown Park Activation.
SPR Boardroom: Strategy, which is, strategy…
SPR Boardroom: to improve downtown Seattle and make the core of downtown more enlivened and more welcoming to the public during the FIFA World Cup.
SPR Boardroom: We are undertaking a transformational capital project in Westlake Park that will really,
SPR Boardroom: change how that park looks. There's some hostile architecture in the park, lots of concrete,
SPR Boardroom: We're masquerading as public art.
SPR Boardroom: That we want to remove to create more plaza area in the park. And, we have contracted with the Park Foundation
SPR Boardroom: To do that work, because they don't have to follow the same public work requirements as a city, which means they can move much faster to complete this project.
SPR Boardroom: With the goal of having the park be open and accessible in time for the FIFA World Cup.
SPR Boardroom: So, construction launches October 1st, and they will be done by April of that.
SPR Boardroom: We're excited about that.
SPR Boardroom: This next slide is,
SPR Boardroom: really a focus on Occidental square cleaning. You know, one of the most important things we do
SPR Boardroom: Is, the invisible work of park maintenance.
SPR Boardroom: I frequently characterize this work as consumptive work, keeping things clean.
SPR Boardroom: requires us to come back and engage in that same activity frequently the next day. This is an image of the staff really, doing a good job. They're cleaning the glass structure, pressure washing it.
SPR Boardroom: And, keeping that area Pressure washed and cleaned.
SPR Boardroom: There's some transient use that still happens around there, and that activity of deep cleaning Occidental Square Park is really important for continued public use, particularly as we get into football season, and families.
SPR Boardroom: Transiting through the park, through the stadium. It's really important to have those areas cleaned.
SPR Boardroom: All right. Upcoming events.
SPR Boardroom: Okay, so we've got bicycle weekends on Lake Washington Boulevard. There's still time to enjoy this popular program. It will run through Saturday… it runs through Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
SPR Boardroom: The last day of, bicycle weekends will occur on September 21st.
SPR Boardroom: Camp-long movie night.
SPR Boardroom: That is continuing, on September 19th, at 7.30pm, we will be featuring Shumanji.
SPR Boardroom: This will be a first-come, first-served,
SPR Boardroom: movie event from 5 to 7 p.m. And again, this is a venue where we have probably a thousand people show up to watch movies.
SPR Boardroom: And this is important because you're aware that we had a fire there, and there was a lot of views about… around… a lot of questions around how the public
SPR Boardroom: It's going to maintain use of this park, given the facility burned and has been closed and stopped. So, these movies really provide… have provided an opportunity for the community
SPR Boardroom: To make use of their local Wild Park,
SPR Boardroom: And that's a good thing, because, I think without that, there would not have been a lot to do at Camp Long with the closure.
SPR Boardroom: There is an art exhibit titled Making the World a Little Less Horrible Art Gala, tomorrow night at the Miller Community Center from 5.30 to 7.30 p.m.
SPR Boardroom: Miller and Motley Community Centers will be hosting an art gala, silent auction, and community fundraiser. This delightfully offbeat silent art auction will feature fun and quirky pieces.
SPR Boardroom: From local and aspiring artists to raise money for brand new drum kits, or our music lesson program at those locations, there will be art, food, and raffle prizes.
SPR Boardroom: And last, we are billing, free
SPR Boardroom: Board and Park and Recreation Commissioner vacancy, so you will have 3 new colleagues joining you.
SPR Boardroom: They will be going to full council next week, and we're excited to bring them on board.
SPR Boardroom: What's happening?
SPR Boardroom: I will pause right there for any questions.
SPR Boardroom: anyone, the…
SPR Boardroom: Comments that were submitted in advance, I think it was a batch of letters today, included some questions about, Magnolia Playfield pickleball reservations, and
SPR Boardroom: some difficulty of the community getting reservations because of, apparently, like, sequential booking by a for-profit organization. I thought that was interesting, and just, I wanted to make sure that it went to Lisa. Is Lisa Nielsen still the charge of that department? And we had a great presentation. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure she saw that as well.
SPR Boardroom: I'm sure she has a better answer than I could… Yes. You know, and you have just identified one of the challenges with pickleball. We're kind of at the pre-dawn era of pickleball, before there are, sort of,
SPR Boardroom: lots of organized pickleball leagues, like athletic field leagues, you know, have gotten in the queue on the scheduling system, and I don't think it'll be very long before we are requiring the same formal
SPR Boardroom: Process for organized leagues, which can monopolize local courts and
SPR Boardroom: Prevent the community from using their local courts, because they just book it up, not stop.
SPR Boardroom: To follow John's comment, there's an opportunity where we've had, because of the historical use policy, right, there's an opportunity, hopefully, to… Yes.
SPR Boardroom: Changed some thinking there. Some lessons learned. Yes, correct.
SPR Boardroom: Oh, I just had one other challenge I just saw, actually, I guess it was 6 hours ago, but I saw this afternoon that, for human being, it is going to be starting next week. So, I know that's been a common source of polling comment, so… Yeah. Appreciate it.
SPR Boardroom: As a cyclist on the boat, and I know we've had many other people coming on it. Appreciate that for, starting off. Awesome.
SPR Boardroom: that… that work is important, and unfortunately will impact a lot of people on their daily care. That's part of the trade-off. And this is anecdotal, but,
SPR Boardroom: as someone whose spouse works in Occidental Square, she and many of her coworkers, unprompted asked, noticed that it was much nicer, enjoyable experience. She asked me, like, what is…
SPR Boardroom: What is Parks… what is Parks doing? And I said, I don't know. Now I know.
SPR Boardroom: Biallergic blade, come from Pleiades and allergic to blood right now.
SPR Boardroom: Should I introduce this next?
SPR Boardroom: Topic…
SPR Boardroom: Okay, so, we've got some briefings for you, and…
SPR Boardroom: Is Aphrodite supposed to be here? Oh, okay, you, okay, you, okay, you guys are doing it. Okay, so, this next briefing is, kind of a review of our
SPR Boardroom: Successful summer program offerings.
SPR Boardroom: We serve thousands of kids and families over the course of the summer, usually 11 or 12 weeks, in everything from aquatics programs, to summer day camp programs, to various sport camps, and Mike Clempton is probably going to lead us off
SPR Boardroom: on, a presentation on the Recreation Division. Thank you, Mike.
SPR Boardroom: Oh, that
SPR Boardroom: Daryl. I'm Clinton, I'm the audit manager. Daryl Look, I'm the Adequacy.
SPR Boardroom: Fair enough. Good to give you the highlights, the summary.
SPR Boardroom: Alright, so this… we can… we can… Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPR Boardroom: Big Day of Play, everybody's probably heard of Big Day of Play. That happened this summer. This year, Big Day of Play was a tremendous success.
SPR Boardroom: Thousands of community members celebrated diversity, community connection, and active lifestyles. The event featured more than 85 vendors, live cultural performances, as well as youth sports tournaments and community sports competitions.
SPR Boardroom: Free water activities at Mt. Baker Rolling and Sailing, the second annual Big Day of Play Fun Drive. So we had appearances from four local Seattle sports teams, and a wide range of family-friendly activities that welcomed people of all ages, backgrounds.
SPR Boardroom: Thought we were gonna face some challenges with weather, but we're silly. It was a rough day for weather.
SPR Boardroom: Notably, this year was a record-breaking year with, milestones for partnership engagement, and sponsor investment, as we welcome our first title sponsor since 2017 with King County Metro.
SPR Boardroom: You can then not only highlight the power of recreation to connect communities, but also showcase our team's ability to deliver large-scale, inclusive aging experiences.
SPR Boardroom: These are some of the highlights as well. Pre-event sponsorship secured $41,000, $750,000, as well as a show, and Rainier, community center and credit. We had to showcase Seattle Late Night Spook League. They had a tournament there as well, and things that we added to it was a tennis and pickleball competition.
SPR Boardroom: So, it was featured on various media outlets, private news, and they scale across 13, so there's our coverage this year. And just kind of by the numbers, we have, areas of growth.
SPR Boardroom: It was called the 24th, 2025. I definitely saw an uptick in participation, as well as folks that engaged in the surveys.
SPR Boardroom: My jackets are distributed, and, attended to various areas of the city.
SPR Boardroom: This year, we're also celebrating 25 years of the Teen Summer Preschool.
SPR Boardroom: That was a huge success this year as well. I'll talk about some of the youth hiring components of that later on in the presentation. The Teen Summer Musical was held, August 22nd through the 24th. Veneroya Hall, continued its transcendent tradition of community uplift.
SPR Boardroom: With dynamic dance, songs, and meaningful messages.
SPR Boardroom: Wrapped in a magical music theater. The program brought together 79 talented young performers, with appointed interns and numerous volunteers to reimagine the class of classical soul storytelling and vibrant image.
SPR Boardroom: The youth employment interns learned a vast array of skills associated with putting on production.
SPR Boardroom: And, this provided multiple career development opportunities for the performing arts.
SPR Boardroom: So I'll talk a little bit more about, like, that for the month part later on, but the four performances, had attendance over 3,000.
SPR Boardroom: It was produced by Axon on Stage, and directed by a long-time production director, Holly Gobars.
SPR Boardroom: Isaiah Anderson.
SPR Boardroom: Another highlight this year was AMA Utena Center Legacy Clinic.
SPR Boardroom: Amy Legacy Clinic launched on June 7th at Amy Tennis Center, bringing together 140 kids, dozens of volunteers to celebrate and earn the game of tennis.
SPR Boardroom: This is a collaboration between Amy Tennis Center and our Amy Tennis Foundation. Amy's legacy traces back to the 1960s, when she shared the other one.
SPR Boardroom: Offering free lessons at local parks.
SPR Boardroom: She survived in the 1995 Southern Border.
SPR Boardroom: These clinics continue to inspire new generations. Many participants from Amy's original clinics while residents now volunteered at this event for their family members to experience the joy of tennis for the first time.
SPR Boardroom: This event was raised by Amesian children Joyce, Linda, and Gary. Their own children Jamie, Chyna, and Chuck traveled across the country to honor her witness. The clinics ran every Saturday in June from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the outdoor clothes.
SPR Boardroom: We'll give it a ring from me for a second?
SPR Boardroom: I used to.
SPR Boardroom: There we go.
SPR Boardroom: Just some… some photos, you know, just look at me. So we're gonna talk a little bit about our aquatic programs. Obviously, we love summer, summer beaches, we have 8 indoor pools, a couple outdoor pools, our small craft centers.
SPR Boardroom: motorized boat ramps, a waiting pool program, spray parks, and our lifeguarded swimming beaches. So, I guess, starting off with just a few data points, we had 140,000 visitors to our beach program this summer.
SPR Boardroom: One of the… one of the things that's kind of all over the news, there's been changes in King County's testing protocols for water quality, so I think there was a big rumor that water had really gotten a lot worse. That is not the case, it's not more polluted, there's not more bacteria issues, it's just that the testing protocols that the county's going with caused a lot more closures.
SPR Boardroom: It also allows us to reopen sooner, so we're working with King County, we're anticipating probably getting a better spot, sponsorship and more testing or whatnot to be able to get those reopenings happening.
SPR Boardroom: a little bit more quickly, just also to create less public. Is that currently a week, if it's closed for, bacteria? Yeah, it's currently a week. It used to be that they would test
SPR Boardroom: that if a site is closed, they test more regularly throughout the week. So King County, a local lab, and there's two different groups in King County to handle it. They have…
SPR Boardroom: you know, due to budget cuts, they aren't able to do as much, so we're going to be looking at what parks can do as a smaller thing. Yeah. On Thursday or something to try to open it for the weekend.
SPR Boardroom: Absolutely. You know, and that's kind of the nature of that testing, is they do a test.
SPR Boardroom: And it can… the water… just due to water flow and whatnot, it can ebb and flow, and it can be better by the time it's actually closed. So, it's not perfect science, and it's not, you know, not the best, but we're gonna try to do better next year. That's our hope.
SPR Boardroom: Just in terms of usage, you know, that 140,000 that were there, we had a total of…
SPR Boardroom: 62 rescues, which was an actual in-water rescue, 29 assists, which was kind of a preventative action, I think 16 first aid contacts. So, there's a fair amount of activity despite all of that, despite a pleasure.
SPR Boardroom: All in all, this was the third season, and we were able to plan to get 8 of the 9 guarded beaches built, so this has been a big growth point since building.
SPR Boardroom: We're looking at our waiting pool program this year. We had a total of 81,000 attendees. We had a total of 19 sites open.
SPR Boardroom: there are, I think, as of a change of this year, we had,
SPR Boardroom: South Park. South Park went through the spray park. We had a couple sites that were closed due to capital improvement, had a couple had some safety concerns around town.
SPR Boardroom: So we've had, we've had some big, big movement, it was very well loved. The community loves coming out, you know, just due to the proximity to all the neighborhoods. So, great summer, we didn't close much. While the weather wasn't the hottest, it's still reasonably… reasonably good.
SPR Boardroom: Just in terms of some highlights, so this year, we had a growth, you know, since
SPR Boardroom: Since COVID, we were back in our Summer Swim League program.
SPR Boardroom: And then we're up.
SPR Boardroom: From, like, 400 participants last year to a little over 700 this year. Every pool hosted a Summer Swim League location, All City Championships had 300 swimmers participating, so it was a…
SPR Boardroom: This is a huge feeder program, it's an introductory swim program, and it really serves to kind of bring folks along from the swim lesson program, either into competitive swimming or into future employment. So it's a great program the community really likes, and it's cool to get that amount of growth back into this year.
SPR Boardroom: Some other things that we saw with our voting programs, we saw a 40% uptick in maybe registrations, so we had a total of…
SPR Boardroom: 1,900 registrations between our two voting centers this year, which is… that includes camps, classes, you know, ongoing learn-to-go programs, and competitive programs. So, some great growth from last year within our voting programs. We're looking at some specific things. Green Lake hosted two regattas, Green Lake Rone Sailing, the new building.
SPR Boardroom: They host two regattas, one in rowing, and one in, you know, pack this year.
SPR Boardroom: And in that, we had adaptive events at both of those. So, we had the first with the rowing on, the first time that we've hosted adaptive rowing at Admin. So, this is… this is a huge step, gonna be there moving forward.
SPR Boardroom: And it's really just a move in the right direction, and one of the testaments to the work that was done with getting that new facility on the ground. And then Mott Baker, since COVID, was able to bring back sailing programs, and is now moving toward its first sailing team since 2017.
SPR Boardroom: A great, you know, it's a small community, it's hard to kind of get that moving.
SPR Boardroom: And to just maintain staff and all that. So it's a huge step forward. As far as our swim lesson program, we have a 30% growth from 2024, so we have 8,454 enrollments.
SPR Boardroom: From the 6000s last year.
SPR Boardroom: With that, that includes, pretty significant growth, two to three lessons being given away for Swim Seattle, the BIPOC open swims that are hosted through Swim Seattle.
SPR Boardroom: extended to a monthly swim this year, and we had one against some kind of called Poland and Water Pools. So, those are both well attended, with well over 100 people at each of the events. It's a successful summer, so…
SPR Boardroom: That's all I got. I'm gonna hand it back to Daryl.
SPR Boardroom: Unless there's any questions.
SPR Boardroom: A big part of what we do in the summer is summer camps, our children an opportunity to participate in things, as well as giving parents a chance to work, right? School-aged care camps, we have 5,146 single.
SPR Boardroom: And you know, it's a collaboration between us and our colleagues at AHRQ,
SPR Boardroom: the radiation division who make these camps possible. And these, to differentiate between activity camps and school-care camps, school daycare camps are, like, the all-day camps. That's what, like, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. The online activity camps, that's looking more of a part of the camps, which are more specialized and involved,
SPR Boardroom: you know, to that, category, exiting camps, and 3,345 involved, and those are things like pottery, engineering, sports.
SPR Boardroom: There's theater camps going on across the city, so those are more huge camps trying to differentiate between the two. With the preschool, we had 277 enrolled at two locations, and that includes a nature preschool camp.
SPR Boardroom: And the 252 enrolled that were specifically distributed SEP standards for program supplies.
SPR Boardroom: Nature camp, kind of right on our targets. I helped support nature camps last year from an admin perspective, got some of my team involved.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, we usually project around 900 registrations, and about 869 in the last year at Car Creek and Discovery Park. And those registrations go quick. Honestly, as soon as registration starts, you're near 900 on the first day, so parents really want to start.
SPR Boardroom: One of the biggest areas of growth this year, we catch the citywide youth athletics exams. Last year, we had 3, we had 24.
SPR Boardroom: So we had 24 youth athletic camps, just got down to 829 enrolled, and, a lot of work from Jenna Williams, who leads our athletics, just to create partnerships
SPR Boardroom: He's gonna create those world-house camps and really expand those across the city. One of his biggest partnerships is the Sugar White Boxing Organization. They did 3 weeks of boxing camp, at Rainer Community Center, Del Ridge Community Center at Magnuson.
SPR Boardroom: And also, one of the bigger partnerships, the Planet and the Seattle Run Club.
SPR Boardroom: They did a lot of run-run programs at West Yamo Stadium.
SPR Boardroom: Specialized programs are also, utilizing Camp Hong as districts and challenges they were building, but still getting used by specialized programs. They did overnight camps, 4 weeks, start at 70, and then enrolled.
SPR Boardroom: They provide access to both day and overnight camps for participants with disabilities. They experience adaptive rock climbing, scavenger hunts, games, music, crafts, and natural discovery.
SPR Boardroom: Bye.
SPR Boardroom: That was a lot of numbers.
SPR Boardroom: I just say, Wednesday out of campus, I mentioned this at the previous meeting, it's awesome to see enrollment.
SPR Boardroom: I would continue to encourage, thinking about how to get a schedule out in Paris.
SPR Boardroom: earlier. Seattle Parks, if you look at all the private camps, the Seattle Parks and Recrems were the last ones to announce
SPR Boardroom: their camps, the times, the dates, so the sign-ups later, that, that's fine, but not even knowing what they're gonna be. I think they're… it's a wonderful program. It frequently, you know, it's got great diversity programs. It's all a low-cost provider for parents, which is just great for affordability, but…
SPR Boardroom: When you're struggling for summer daycare.
SPR Boardroom: And you've got silence and deadlines and everything starting way earlier. It's hard to… it's hard to wait for what the park's programs are going to be.
SPR Boardroom: What has been the timing for announcing the parks programs? April. April, yeah, okay. April, I think? Yeah. I know personally, I start that process in December. Because you have to start registering in January for that, yeah, so… It's like Christmas tree for parents, it's terrible, but…
SPR Boardroom: I'm wrapping up something about cancer this summer. It's madness, so, yeah, just feedback there for future.
SPR Boardroom: I know we're doing a lot of work on our program scheduling. We're doing, just taking a look at, like, those due dates and aligning our brochure times.
SPR Boardroom: really trying to streamline the process. Yeah, I think one of the things that's being done behind the scenes are the look at the scholarship programming, and I think there's been a shift as a pilot to a two-year scholarship cycle, and the goal behind that is, with the previous… with a one-year cycle.
SPR Boardroom: The shift happens with the school year, so oftentimes that paperwork isn't in, so in order to serve that community and not leave them out, there's that need. I think the shift to the two-year cycle is rare.
SPR Boardroom: It's a positive move, so it's gonna allow us to have that equity service, but also keep with
SPR Boardroom: what's going on, right? You know, having two kids myself, I'd always had to… that's a scary time, you know, having it. Yeah. Yeah, you can't announce everything, right? I know there's a lot of staffing, a lot of logistics, and you're puzzles to get this out, but the more you're able to communicate when you have it.
SPR Boardroom: goes a long way, and I know you…
SPR Boardroom: You have a lot of parents who'd love to enroll.
SPR Boardroom: part's broken down. If the calendar's not already full, unfortunately.
SPR Boardroom: The Community Hub Pilot is something that I'm really excited about, something that I've definitely worked on the product inside a ton of this. This is a partnership between Field Arts and Seattle Parks and Recreation.
SPR Boardroom: So this is a part of the Mayor's Youth Mental Health Initiative. This pilot aims to offer accessible and culturally responsive mental health and wellness services focused on social wellness, enrichment, social-emotional learning.
SPR Boardroom: As well as increased access to clinical courses that are used during high school time that are reflected a diverse identified needs, particularly those furthest from race and social justice.
SPR Boardroom: Like I said, the pilot is a partnership between those, those three, city teams of, Peel Arts and Seattle Parks and Recreation. So this summer, we had, our pilot took place at 7 more locations. Rain Beach, Rainier, the Art Fields.
SPR Boardroom: Magnuson, Bitter Lake, and Ben Assel. I was just looking at the raw data before I came here, because a lot of our summer data is talking
SPR Boardroom: filtered and processed. But roughly 250 unduplicated participants participated in this study. 89 youth completed a feedback survey, 92% agreed.
SPR Boardroom: The program gave them a chance to express their ideas of creativity. 86% agreed that they could be themselves in the community that session participated in.
SPR Boardroom: Some of the feedback that we got in focus groups that we've ran at those, those sites was,
SPR Boardroom: Kids felt comfortable in a different way than they would at school in expressing themselves. So we're creating an opportunity for kids to engage with arts instructors through music.
SPR Boardroom: Painting through poetry, for them to really be able to express themselves and build that self-confidence.
SPR Boardroom: Going into, middle school and high school.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, I really love this program, and we're looking forward to, continuing in the fall. So, programming should be starting in October, and I know we're still just, working on some minute details and arts, but I'm looking forward to this program continuing, and this partnership, continuing between arts.
SPR Boardroom: as I alluded to earlier, we have some, some,
SPR Boardroom: Career explorations, Polish Independence, we have 38
SPR Boardroom: College and high school interns, 5,979 hours worth of 11 locations. No career work explorations is more closely aligned with our…
SPR Boardroom: outdoor activation unit, and they get those outdoor recreation skills. They learn skills to, that honestly can help them
SPR Boardroom: Those folks still come back, when we're doing hiring processes, we're able to hire them on to help us run those programs in the future.
SPR Boardroom: Community learning centers, 4 college interns that will go over the summer, 893 hours worth.
SPR Boardroom: Late nights, I had high school interns as well.
SPR Boardroom: With 200… 2,160 hours for 7 years.
SPR Boardroom: Youth at work, also U.S. high school interns, 48 youth.
SPR Boardroom: 11,326 hours for us.
SPR Boardroom: Teaching Summer Musical, as I talked about earlier. They were tied to a paid partnership with art.
SPR Boardroom: 25 interns from 6 to 18 years old.
SPR Boardroom: That estimate of 9,000 hours worth.
SPR Boardroom: Osprey is part of a specialized programming unit. That's part of, like, the, we'll talk a little bit more about what they do later on when we talk about specialized programming highlights, but 15 teens with disabilities from 16 to 22. I have the hours, I'll talk about all the practices.
SPR Boardroom: They do, actually can't go on as well.
SPR Boardroom: And then environmental education also has interns, pre-insterns from 18 to 21.
SPR Boardroom: 492 options.
SPR Boardroom: There's a lot happening across all the units. You can engage, whether it's in programming or employment, really listening to what the youth wants to park in the summer, so…
SPR Boardroom: Oh, sorry, guys. I had a question about this, and…
SPR Boardroom: Kind of goes back to, the summer camps as well. Do you have data on
SPR Boardroom: the capacity, or what the target was, because I see a lot of, like, numbers and hours and how many people are at things, but for example, right, for the four youth interns, college interns, were we looking for four? We maxed out on all of these, target for the future, and same with the summer camps, like, we talk about opening up early, but if all of our camps are at capacity.
SPR Boardroom: Like, are we going, or can we open up whenever, but we're at capacity, okay? We're serving a need in the community that…
SPR Boardroom: We don't need more people. Since we've got members in the community alone, so I guess it would be interesting to me to see, like, did that 2,800, is that 95% capacity for that?
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, like, that means more to me about, are we hitting our targets, or do we need to do more work to get more people in the program? One of the, I think, interesting observations about summer day camp programs is we have the same families year over year using those programs.
SPR Boardroom: They have financial challenges, we know they want to sign up.
SPR Boardroom: they may not have their registration money in December, and we are trying to create the most opportunity for people to access the program. I think the last thing we want is a family that lives two blocks away.
SPR Boardroom: not to be able to use the program they've been using for the last 3 years. So, it's kind of a balance of, you know, sort of publicly advertising the availability of those camps. Daycare, we are pretty maxed out.
SPR Boardroom: We were just having a discussion with Jackie Hillseth about where the opportunities are for growing ARC revenue.
SPR Boardroom: It's gotta come from some other place beyond childcare.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, I think we're probably…
SPR Boardroom: it would be a lot of work for what gain at that point, and I've noticed, specifically in camps, you know, some of the places we've gone in the past are not building in the way that I've seen before. And so I feel like some families have found alternatives, and this is an opportunity for families who need it.
SPR Boardroom: Setting up scholarship.
SPR Boardroom: He's also a big magician, part of our work, and something that's continually talked about.
SPR Boardroom: strategies on that front, we're still working through, but I think, you know, the cost of things growing, the cost of things have gone up.
SPR Boardroom: And, the scholarship probably needs to be proportional. I've seen that, so we're definitely doing work on trying to find those families.
SPR Boardroom: And in regards, I could get contact information from Paula and get that maximum data for, say, summer youth employment. Honestly, from just anecdotally, I know that most of these things are happening.
SPR Boardroom: Right. She starts recruiting, and so, yeah, from my experience, I want to look at that.
SPR Boardroom: Awesome.
SPR Boardroom: So are all these paid internships, or are they a mix of paid and volunteer? A mix of paid and styled.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, we don't have any volunteer internships. That's nice.
SPR Boardroom: activation, Summer Meals, and Summer of Safety.
SPR Boardroom: But these programs are kind of tied together. Obviously, that they support each other in the way of having, like, programming at sites while also offering lunch.
SPR Boardroom: Taking advantage of that opportunity when we've got his out in the park.
SPR Boardroom: Summer meals at playgrounds and community centers, there was 3 meals at 9 community centers and 7 parks. It's down from River Team Parks last summer due to federal funding cuts was a big challenge when we were planning this summer this year.
SPR Boardroom: And, as well as other free recreation activities at those parks. Summer of Safety is, I was in the inaugural group of Summer of Safety many, many years ago, running that program, but it's a pre-drop-in program.
SPR Boardroom: That provides structured activities, and it's education. We're not connected to NF-supervised programs over the summer. The program is geared towards diverse users of tweens and teens, ages from 12
SPR Boardroom: blown up, from those neighborhoods where, they need those opportunities the most. Sos operated at 9 community centers.
SPR Boardroom: and some teen life centers, locations based throughout the summer. Most sites provide a few lunch at the city's, summer fruits and such program.
SPR Boardroom: And, regular activities include arts and crafts, sports, athletics, as well as field trips, and also collaboration with mental health.
SPR Boardroom: that I talked about earlier, that, the participants and analysts were also offered them 100%.
SPR Boardroom: community learning centers. These are CLCs, they also operate in the summer. They operate out of Seattle Public Schools, in partnership with Seattle Public Schools, and we see funding through our department, Seattle Public Schools, and additional grants. This summer's program took place in the fall on CLCs. Hockey for Jose, Denny.
SPR Boardroom: Professor Washington and James Baldwin. Programs are registration-based, and Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
SPR Boardroom: During the summer, during the summer programs, they aim to create a safe, supportive environment for students during the summer, mitigate summer learning loss, provide space for students to make new friends, but also create opportunities for students to have free meals daily, and engage with staff to create a visual support.
SPR Boardroom: throughout their elementary and middle school year. Students will provide educational support in math, English, as well as STEM classes each morning taught by certified staff.
SPR Boardroom: Then, late-in-the-day transitions to recreational enrichment-based programming, and additional support was provided to Spanish, and multilingual students, as well as small group ministry. Field trips were also highlighted for students as a reward for their hard work.
SPR Boardroom: In particular, 39 students from the College and Career Readiness Program, the CLCs, took a trip to the University of Oregon. University firsthand and check that out. There's, 8th graders that are heading to the high school for hockey.
SPR Boardroom: I wanted to add here, this is probably one of the best, summer recreation programs in the United States. School district gave up summer school probably 10 years ago, and Seattle Park stepped into that void and has been providing, essentially, summer school, to prevent loss of park.
SPR Boardroom: What's the, interviews this middle school? Yeah, yeah, middle school, elementary and middle school. I don't know if there's a mixture of elementary and middle school, I think, okay, because,
SPR Boardroom: And I think I'm buried in pretty much box, but it says 700… Yeah, geez, okay. Yeah, that's fine.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, no, I love that program, especially, Mike Brown, that has been done that program for last year. He's amazing at what he does, getting opportunities to kids, and really structuring things, and
SPR Boardroom: Making sure that everything's mapped out, so…
SPR Boardroom: Your photographer's awesome, too. Give that person props. They find the color everywhere.
SPR Boardroom: Environmental Education, there's Summer in the Parks, Garfield Family Garden Series.
SPR Boardroom: As well as meet your community naturalists, multiple partnerships, and Wonder Wednesdays. Our environmental team, we talked about some of the challenges earlier with, came along, but also Discovery Park. The facility is not usable due to flooding.
SPR Boardroom: Despite these challenges, the staff implemented a wide array of nature-based programs, which is serving high-equity communities.
SPR Boardroom: Summer programs for environmental unit is a summer in the Parks, nature learning activity booths adjacent to the Summer Free Meals Programs. Talked about kind of collaborating between these programs. Three parks this summer, South Park Plaza, as well as, Local Acres Park.
SPR Boardroom: The Garfield Family Gardening Series is a partnership between Environmental Education and Girl CC. It's ran once a week, all summer, teaching families to grow harvests and eat produce of the garden, of the Garfield Garden, and it also goes on throughout the year. So they have programming that goes on.
SPR Boardroom: various times of the year. The whole World School Partnership.
SPR Boardroom: This summer was our 21st year, Seattle Wolves.
SPR Boardroom: Summer School Partnership, does organize field trips around Seattle, learn about the area, as well as make sure that
SPR Boardroom: Wonder Wednesdays is a partnership with Seattle Public Library and High Point SHA. Advances around High Point SHA are able to come to Camp Long for fun nature activities, hiking, and storage funnel.
SPR Boardroom: Nature field trips.
SPR Boardroom: host summer programs for community-cent camps, talking about with our, school-based care camps, all-day camps. Collaboration between that program, as well as the naturalists, getting them out to the campus and, drive them around.
SPR Boardroom: So, as we talked about earlier, nature camps, 869 campers were provided with nature day camp experience this summer at Carkey in December. There are 8 weeks of programming in July and August. Many of our campers return week after week.
SPR Boardroom: our camp for 4-6 year olds, we actually ended up having a second classroom at Discovery.
SPR Boardroom: In the summer for the first time. So instead of serving 16 children a week, we're serving around an average of 25.
SPR Boardroom: And also a footnote is the Discovery Park Shuttle provided rides in the park for around 3,629 riders across 13 Saturdays.
SPR Boardroom: Oh, if I'm eating up too much time.
SPR Boardroom: Alright, this is just a testimonial from one of our youth participants.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you for being one of our naturalists. I had a great time at the beach. It was probably the best field trip of my entire life. My favorite part of the trip was when we saw a giant octopus, a jellfish shining.
SPR Boardroom: I enjoy crabs, starfish, and learning and finding the dead crabs. And I learned that even if you can't see creatures, there are creatures hiding in the sand. That's really true. Nice.
SPR Boardroom: So, Daryl, so we probably started about 5 minutes early, so you probably have till about 5 after.
SPR Boardroom: Alex program can actually talk a little bit about these when it came to, employment.
SPR Boardroom: For camps this year, we had, 270 youth enrolled, as well as 60 adults.
SPR Boardroom: There are overnight camp staff, 17 counselors, 15 high school interns, 4 supervisors, 1 nurse, and 1 chef.
SPR Boardroom: This summer's camp… specialized programs camp serve 270 youth with disabilities on ages from 4 to 21.
SPR Boardroom: Both day camp and overnight camp, over a period of 90s.
SPR Boardroom: The adult programs, 164 adults with disabilities attended one of the outdoor-based programs.
SPR Boardroom: 60 adults with disabilities enrolled in day camp at Camp Long, 11 adults with disabilities utilize scholarship program, 34 adults with disabilities utilize ESC as a scholars.
SPR Boardroom: Offering high school internship program for about 15 interns who became tens of millions, who worked for a total of 1,278 hours, and valuable experience while supporting campus.
SPR Boardroom: We've had 3 other volunteers as well dedicated 148 hours of their time in the internship program.
SPR Boardroom: Another highlight this summer is Lifelong Recreation is celebrating the 50th anniversary.
SPR Boardroom: by farm recreation.
SPR Boardroom: serving people 50 and older. This past June, I had a party at Garfield Communities.
SPR Boardroom: In 1975, Seattle Parks and Recreation created a unit specifically to serve older adults called Senior Adult Programs, which was born as a school program involved a city of…
SPR Boardroom: programs, The program is funded by our grant.
SPR Boardroom: This party at Garfield Community Center will still cheer past and present staff, arriving council members, participants, and volunteers.
SPR Boardroom: About 128 people were in attendance, which I honored to success the lifetime recreation program over the years. The celebration consisted of a performance that still sounds, entertaining the audience.
SPR Boardroom: performance group, and a program of lifelong Recreation providing a variety of acts, songs, skits, and a lot of singer.
SPR Boardroom: There's a rolling photo montage that reminded people of all the memories.
SPR Boardroom: Lifelong recreations provide a courteous and meaningful social activities that bring people out of their homes, into the world, and experiencing the abyss of leaders.
SPR Boardroom: Making new friends and connections. Making people feel a little less alone.
SPR Boardroom: Knowing that aging in a healthy environment is critical, we can provide affordable fitness programs, exceptional social activities for people together.
SPR Boardroom: Lifelong Recreation has been focused on increasing equity to serve those in need of our programs the most. A few examples of this work? Increasing career programming, a limited scholarships in high demand. Southeast sector has sponsorship of Aero Living to cover the cost of the lower class for a year.
SPR Boardroom: And they've been using our whole lives.
SPR Boardroom: IFT regulator helps to provide free fitness classes.
SPR Boardroom: These classes have been very successful, with about 15 to 20 people attending each night.
SPR Boardroom: There's also a partnership with UW Memory Hub, a solar hiking program.
SPR Boardroom: to check out our hiking programs for adults, number onset Alzheimer's.
SPR Boardroom: This partnership is entering its fourth year.
SPR Boardroom: Exactly.
SPR Boardroom: Alright, great job. Thank you guys so much.
SPR Boardroom: questions, I'm still in work mode, but,
SPR Boardroom: Based on everything you learned, and you can say we'll get back to you, but, like, based on your experience this summer, do you have some thoughts on, like, strategic opportunities for 2026? I imagine, like, increasing scholarships to 2 years, are there other
SPR Boardroom: like, learning opportunities? Yeah, one of these strategic groups we automate is looking at the scholarship buckets themselves, and how they're broken out, and trying to create more equity through,
SPR Boardroom: I find the way that you're doing scholarships as far, like.
SPR Boardroom: private lessons versus activity camps, and where's the lead? Like, how do we… how do we get those buckets that really have the need to expand, and also these buckets were, like,
SPR Boardroom: everybody not meeting the need, right? Just trying to create a balance between that. I know that's ongoing work. We piloted that, I would call it a pilot last year, but we have ongoing work where we're evaluating
SPR Boardroom: Did that work? Is this a strategy of working scholarships? And, actually, this next week, I have a series of meetings. It's gonna kind of debrief some of them.
SPR Boardroom: We'll make adjustments as needed to try and balance out the scholarship. The most utilization of it.
SPR Boardroom: Well, I mean, you know, and kind of what Claire was talking about, so where we're pursuing grants, you know, part of the Swim Seattle work this year was funded through a federal grant that we got.
SPR Boardroom: The consumer…
SPR Boardroom: CPSC, I can't remember what all the letters mean, so I apologize for that. One of the things Daryl's talking about, looking at the…
SPR Boardroom: The allocations and the way spent.
SPR Boardroom: you know, basically park trying to align with the priorities. Our…
SPR Boardroom: I mean, that align with city morals, or the morals of the department, really, to make sure that the money is going as far as it can, serving as many people as it can.
SPR Boardroom: And we're stretching the dollars. So, there's always going to be a need for more with all that.
SPR Boardroom: you know, pursuing.
SPR Boardroom: pursuing grants in a lot of different areas, and that's part of our new division director's main goal, is really how we can get out there and get some more doctors, right?
SPR Boardroom: Try to make this stuff go further, and just looking at how we're structuring about funding solutions.
SPR Boardroom: And if we look at our biggest areas of growth this year, that's a partnership.
SPR Boardroom: looking across the city to expand our reach, partner with those people who may be needing before we're at. So, you know, huge growth in citywide athletics programming, that's really been able to work with Johnny getting out and create partnerships with those organizations and expanding our reach, as well as, like, working with GEO and, you know, the city internally, providing funding for a program.
SPR Boardroom: Wellness. That's a huge opportunity for us that I don't want to understate. It's providing a fair amount of money for us by programming, and I'm looking forward to us expanding our programming.
SPR Boardroom: responds. Strategic planning, we'll be debriefing most of the summer. I would say, like, starting kind of right now, having scholarship talks, but I'm willing to come back at any time to talk about,
SPR Boardroom: I ran Drew into the fourth quarter, so I think I had the conversation four times.
SPR Boardroom: Where are we? Where are we, where are we going? Give me that picture, and I think that's helpful. I mean, as Daryl mentioned, it's deal, you know, they're also providing, you know, one of the things that many of our folks are going to be going through, my team, actually, is going to be doing it on the 25th in our in-service, is the mental health.
SPR Boardroom: first aid trade. Which is really… it's a day-long…
SPR Boardroom: thing that really looks at supporting youth and young people with mental health challenges. You know, for service providers, more folks that work with young folks all the time. So, they're doing a lot to support that. You guys might want to tell them what DL stands for, in case some people aren't familiar with it. Department of Education and Early Learning.
SPR Boardroom: That's right. It's been a pleasure working with them, you guys.
SPR Boardroom: even moved over there, so… like I said, meetings, but…
SPR Boardroom: Making sure that, you know, he's politely staying in our schools. You know, as he's got…
SPR Boardroom: What's hard to present in a presentation like this
SPR Boardroom: It's just how much effort goes into making these programs unique and tailored to a neighborhood and a community. Like, they might all be titled the same program, but they are unique in serving the kids and the families in those neighborhoods.
SPR Boardroom: There's a lot of work that goes into customizing that. You can never really get that out of the presentation.
SPR Boardroom: Great work. I wanted to circle back on capacity, really quickly. Are there areas that just kind of stand out to you where demand is far exceeding supply?
SPR Boardroom: I've heard about this in the past on, like, the SWINS program, but I don't know if they're still…
SPR Boardroom: You know, so we've seen, I mean, swim program.
SPR Boardroom: We did see a bit of a plateau. I think that's… it's kind of a false plateau in my mind, because what we're looking at, I believe, is because of the…
SPR Boardroom: the challenges we have with the number of staff. A lot of private swim schools have sprung up. I think a lot of folks would resource have gone elsewhere for a period of time. I think they'll come back. You know, I do pretty honestly believe because of the value we provide.
SPR Boardroom: So, you know, in response to that, in the fall, we're shifting back to providing a little bit more private swim instruction, which was something we'd done prior to COVID, but we've held off on so that we could really focus all our resources on getting as many kids that really needed it.
SPR Boardroom: in the water, if possible. So, we're looking at that, you know, that's part of our analysis, part of that kind of moving forward. We're,
SPR Boardroom: from a community center, you know, from the outside perspective, you talked about, yeah, we're… I would say, I would say,
SPR Boardroom: We're following trends, in red data and research that you've done on our own department, that people are really attaching themselves to, like, the outdoor programs.
SPR Boardroom: I think there's… there is, you know, like I said, like, there's literally 900 registrations on the first day. I think… I think it's… we need to, continue to support outdoor recreation programs and expand those. I think there's a lot of room for us to expand those.
SPR Boardroom: Are the waitlists, like, massive? There are waitlists for that. I don't have the exact number on that, but I think we should continue to support those programs and get our ways to expand, because of branding…
SPR Boardroom: looking at non-traditional spaces.
SPR Boardroom: One sec.
SPR Boardroom: And I mean, I think it's kind of Daryl's talking about the waitlist thing. The waitlist is… it's a blessing and a curse. You get good data from it, and the data turns into garbage at a certain point, depending on how… what the registration currents are. You know, at one point, last year, within our aquatic programs.
SPR Boardroom: We were ending up with, we have a waitlist that was longer than capacity in the program.
SPR Boardroom: And… but then when you actually start pulling people off, it's really hard to kind of make those adjustments, because someone might have signed themselves up for a whole bunch of different things, right? And so it's a… it's a… it's a good indicator, and it's not a good indicator.
SPR Boardroom: So we're kind of… we're balancing it, and I think we're… as we grow, we're seeing kind of where
SPR Boardroom: where things balance out, and that's happening on… both… all over the department.
SPR Boardroom: youth employment as well.
SPR Boardroom: it always… More demand.
SPR Boardroom: It's great to see there… to learn there are so many interesting and special programs, especially for the youth and the seniors. But just as a curious adult, I'm wondering if there are any, like, educational programs for
SPR Boardroom: for people like… like me, and, I mean, or, like, curious adults. And say, for example, the environmental education, maybe some… some programs for, like, about climate change, like, how that is reflected in the park system.
SPR Boardroom: I guess, I'm a parent of a toddler, and if I learn more, then I will be more willing to sign up for my kids for all those camps. So, I guess education for
SPR Boardroom: Adults might also be a good one to think about in the future. Also, like, a bonding… bonding? Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: Yes.
SPR Boardroom: That's absolutely where the new sources of revenue are gonna come in our system.
SPR Boardroom: sort of this need to serve new and different groups of people in the community. We're a very youth-centric, youth-focused organization.
SPR Boardroom: And I think if AHRQ is going to survive having a discussion about just needing to serve more people, different interests, different age groups.
SPR Boardroom: Somewhere between, summer day camp participant, and the 80-year-old in our senior programs, right?
SPR Boardroom: A partnership with the community college system or something like that could be really cool.
SPR Boardroom: And no, it's an issue that's not a custom project definitely needs to create a barrier for programs and expand that program.
SPR Boardroom: That's a sign, definitely, that we're looking at.
SPR Boardroom: I just had a fun week. Yeah, hey, I just had a quick comment, I just wanted to…
SPR Boardroom: give you guys some appreciation for all the work that you guys do, and I can see how all the summer programming really activates a community around, like, a community center specifically, like, all the… all the different… and, like, to Christopher's…
SPR Boardroom: point of how all these different programs interact. Like, you watch kids start off in the community waiting pool, and then end up as, like, a team intern.
SPR Boardroom: working at late night, or whatever, the basketball league, all these different things. I watch in my neighborhood and my community around Bitter Lake, watch the kids, like, grow through all these programs, and it's amazing to see the way people interact, and then they end up becoming
SPR Boardroom: parts of Beck employees and working at the community center for a long period of time, so… I just wanted to say. I'll educate myself. Currently at Meadow.
SPR Boardroom: We've got a gentleman that's working on us as a coordinator, began teaching there, began working there as a 16-year-old back in the late 90s.
SPR Boardroom: And the person that was working as the assistant coordinator out of class was, you know, a lot of movement this summer.
SPR Boardroom: what you taught him how to swim.
SPR Boardroom: Very nice. Yeah. Presentation. Yeah, just hit the end of summer, too, that was quick, turn around.
SPR Boardroom: And we would love for you to come back later with the data and the strategy. Yeah, yeah.
SPR Boardroom: Maybe I'll introduce this next topic.
SPR Boardroom: So, this is our Green Seattle Partnership Strategic Plan Update. The Green Seattle Partnership Initiative.
SPR Boardroom: It's an effort to ensure that our green belts, natural areas remain conifer forest versus
SPR Boardroom: Being overgrown with alders, blackberries, and ivy.
SPR Boardroom: So it's a really, a real intentional effort, to keep our urban parkland florist.
SPR Boardroom: Good morning, or good afternoon, everybody. I feel like I've been denied for a day.
SPR Boardroom: I'm, like, blown away. It's really nice to be in the room with each of you and have a chance to hear about the broader parks preference updates.
SPR Boardroom: I work in a… what feels like an in the real world, I am the Ecology Team Manager.
SPR Boardroom: Stephanie Shelton here is the Natural Resource Unit Manager. And yeah, excited today to talk a little bit about,
SPR Boardroom: This program is… No, no. I wonder if you just click.
SPR Boardroom: 2020. So, I wanted to start with a little bit of…
SPR Boardroom: And then jump into a little bit more detail about where we started 20 years ago. In 2004, this literary strategic dynamics were, through a partnership between City of Seattle and Porterra, as well as other partner organizations, Porterra and the Hasky Bank Conservancy.
SPR Boardroom: And, along with the 2017 updated strategic plan,
SPR Boardroom: We have held these two overarching goals. One is to restore and maintain the course of our lands to end as an international area scale, and then the other is to really expand and galvanize and work involved and active…
SPR Boardroom: This feels, like, so aligned with recreation, really a key pillar of our success, right? It's definitely, like, the right environment work, but also about diverse communities and healthy people.
SPR Boardroom: So, I'm excited to share a little bit more about the… the… where we are, 20 years in.
SPR Boardroom: I want to start, again, like, backing up a little bit. So this is the view from the Guamish Basin. You've got downtown Seattle, on the upper right-hand corner, and then, like, really dominating the view on the left. Oh, which is a phenomenal forest in our city that offers…
SPR Boardroom: huge amount of benefits. So retail partnership works in big chunks of forests like this, as well as smaller revenues forest, shorelines and carrying areas.
SPR Boardroom: And… This is really, you know, the work…
SPR Boardroom: That we do, to care for these natural areas, really is rooted in acknowledging that these spaces are… provide important cultural and ecological values. They have an important role in our community's health and well-being, that mental health piece happens with these forests as well.
SPR Boardroom: They support biodiversity, obviously, and they buffer urban heat, and so much more. Very important space, especially.
SPR Boardroom: So, kind of the flat version of this, we work across the park system in about 40% of the land use.
SPR Boardroom: And again, I mentioned, big chunks of forest, but also, smaller remnant forest for, natural areas adjacent to developed parts along our creek corridors, and, you know, even along places like the Washington Boulevard.
SPR Boardroom: So… the,
SPR Boardroom: partnership model is really foundational to our success, so I wanted to spend a little bit of time explaining, like, what is a partnership? Some folks are like, oh, is it a standalone nonprofit? It's not. It, this is really developed as a public-private
SPR Boardroom: partnership, between, Seattle Parks Administration as a lead agency, the support from Seattle Park Utilities and the Office of Sustainability and Environment.
SPR Boardroom: And then we have, community members that come to the program, as participants, as, as often as volunteers, but also
SPR Boardroom: And then the four stewards in particular are a really special group of folks who lead inspiration, with other volunteers, I think.
SPR Boardroom: Important team members that join our work.
SPR Boardroom: Partner organizations, are also really critical to this work, in that they,
SPR Boardroom: provide, focused programming, around job training and sales development programming, non-English engagement, and also volunteer events.
SPR Boardroom: And then, of course, a lot of this work happens through professional crews, very technical restoration, and so we've got both an in-house national area crew, and then a,
SPR Boardroom: About 5 additional contractors that we work with on an annual basis.
SPR Boardroom: So here's a list of the current, partner organizations. I think, get a sense of
SPR Boardroom: From this list, the variety of organizations that are really, bringing their mission work to worship our families into this, to the community connection. It's an awesome group of people, and individuals that I feel… I see.
SPR Boardroom: And this work has really been transformative across the last year. So, we have,
SPR Boardroom: Moved into active reservation on 2032.
SPR Boardroom: acres. They are… Continuing to see ongoing heat management and planting.
SPR Boardroom: We've had,
SPR Boardroom: move that number up again by the end of the year, but about 1.5 million hours of volunteer service since 2005, and a very similar amount of data plants, actually, all across the state.
SPR Boardroom: We also marked, just this last year, 50,000 trees free from pinely vines, like Ivy.
SPR Boardroom: Mattis, and, you know, it's a… it's a mark of a tree saved. We like to celebrate.
SPR Boardroom: We also have 171 apps.
SPR Boardroom: And we're able to onboard 25 people first.
SPR Boardroom: In 2024, We had 210 paid and stiphon participants, that were able to access programming as well.
SPR Boardroom: this table is maybe not the best to share, but I wanted to give kind of a picture of the, type of work that, we do, especially, the work that we need in environmental critical areas. So, steep slopes.
SPR Boardroom: Super steep slopes, riparian areas, wetlands, are all areas where we're active with restoration.
SPR Boardroom: There's about, 2,700 acres that, we can continue to grow in.
SPR Boardroom: And this work has really positioned Seattle Parks and Recreation as a leader regionally, so… regionally, nationally, and internationally. So, Seattle was the first, regional network of 14 municipalities to support this model in 2005.
SPR Boardroom: expanded. We also participate in Forest and Cities Network, which is the national network that has produced, research, and really, developed a practice of care that's really specific to natural areas.
SPR Boardroom: pretty unique.
SPR Boardroom: And then into 2023, we joined an international cohort of 19 cities as part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, recognizes as well as coal partnership.
SPR Boardroom: So, turning 20 offers us
SPR Boardroom: It offers us a really important chance to make space for reflection, and to look at improvements and to really
SPR Boardroom: Kind of set our, our charter path forward and identify as well.
SPR Boardroom: So with that, we are undertaking three, kind of, simultaneous bodies of work this year. We are producing a three-year action plan revision for the next 10 years. We are creating branding to reflect the values and messaging priorities of the partnership at this point.
SPR Boardroom: And we're celebrating, the first, 12 years of partnership together.
SPR Boardroom: We started in spring 2025, doing a lot of
SPR Boardroom: Engagement, early engagement and evaluation. And we are now somewhere in the middle there.
SPR Boardroom: So…
SPR Boardroom: Like I mentioned, in spring, we did early engagement work to go out to community stakeholders and try and understand, how… how our, how our programming was, received.
SPR Boardroom: We did this for briefing meetings, focus groups, public surveys, individual interviews, and then also looked at a lot of the other City of Seattle, community engagement work to make sure that we were capturing, what we needed.
SPR Boardroom: And, heard a lot of amazing takeaways. I think, we heard really loudly that people, enjoy participating programming. That's a really important way to get to know community, and to be on and with the land. So I think
SPR Boardroom: Similar to some of the recreation programming, this chance to be outdoors, to learn new skills, and to engage in your neighborhood really stands out to all of us.
SPR Boardroom: I also really appreciated the open, flexible format. So we host annually, 1,500 volunteer events, but those folks that are leading those events are really needing them in their own way, and so they can, they can become lots of different
SPR Boardroom: More students in particular have a lot of, depends on how many students develop in their, in their program.
SPR Boardroom: The folks also really appreciate the collaborative spirit, and the emphasis on relationships.
SPR Boardroom: Some of the takeaways from community barrier, in that first set of engagement was really, a desire to see more meaningful incentives for participation, folks that volunteer use a barrier.
SPR Boardroom: They also really wanted to continue to see, us diversify language access and support cultural navigation.
SPR Boardroom: They also talked a lot about increasing access to community and Native leadership and programming, and of course, really wanted to continue to prioritize climate change and resilience as part of our planning efforts.
SPR Boardroom: As much as they are going to help us, be responsible to climate change in the DAD, but also
SPR Boardroom: So, the next stage after that early engagement that we have moved into a much deeper dive. We have three pillars of the, the, strategic planning process. Partnership development.
SPR Boardroom: community programming, and then parent stewardship. And with those three pillars, we ran four groups for each.
SPR Boardroom: About 10 participants representing a really broad range of stakeholders in the partnership.
SPR Boardroom: And then, for each of those three pillar work groups, we ran 3 workshops. So, 36 hours in August spent in this room, with all those post-it notes, doing a ton of race marketing and thinking about where we have come, and where we want to spend it further.
SPR Boardroom: Really exciting for me, and I'm excited to share, probably the next screen.
SPR Boardroom: So ER, like I mentioned, you're kind of wrapping up summer.
SPR Boardroom: Oh, this morning, I was like.
SPR Boardroom: And, so we're synthesizing results from those workshops, and, had a chance this morning to speak with the executive team and the Parks Department and share out some of those results.
SPR Boardroom: We'll go back to stakeholders that we engaged in the first, part of the effort to make sure that they feel like their views are reflected in the outcomes that have been produced so far. And then…
SPR Boardroom: I did want to throw out, before we wrap up, a couple upcoming opportunities. Seattle Forest Week is an annual event, held in the fall.
SPR Boardroom: Even PC LA kicking it off this year on October 25th at 15 sites across the city. And this is really our kickoff to the season.
SPR Boardroom: there's lots of opportunities to plant every year. This is our big show, so definitely welcome participation there. And then, as I mentioned, we're celebrating birthdays.
SPR Boardroom: Sorry.
SPR Boardroom: as well.
SPR Boardroom: There's also a lot of information on our website at, hotel.org, and then, of course, following along online social media, but, you know, a chance to look at more detail, get to find an event, to look at personal resources, and, additional information.
SPR Boardroom: That?
SPR Boardroom: Yep. Any questions?
SPR Boardroom: Really quickly, we had this on a slide. What's the funding process?
SPR Boardroom: Great question. Yeah, so, we have sales progress district, landing. We've got to have real estate at the next month.
SPR Boardroom: And then a handful of other groups.
SPR Boardroom: It's pretty incredible.
SPR Boardroom: The information reduction.
SPR Boardroom: Oh, because I saw utilities. Yeah, so Seattle Public Utilities does provide annual funding.
SPR Boardroom: Hold on a small comparison, but, yeah.
SPR Boardroom: So, are you… are you an employee of Parks, or you're… that really isn't… yes, okay. separate URLs, not on the, like, saddleback.whack.
SPR Boardroom: Exactly, yeah, so this has always been, alright, good.
SPR Boardroom: You need to take.
SPR Boardroom: I had a question that, for a suite that you mentioned, I was just looking at your events section. Are those activities just found under the typical events, or is there a separate
SPR Boardroom: There's, like, a little day, web page. It might not be there yet, because we're really early on in recruitment. And then there'll be a Salesforce.
SPR Boardroom: I got one.
SPR Boardroom: Okay.
SPR Boardroom: Great.
SPR Boardroom: Perfections?
SPR Boardroom: Great job.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Have you guys had a chance to meet Jessica Merck?
SPR Boardroom: Oh, no! Yeah, so Jessica comes to us from the… Office of the Waterfront.
SPR Boardroom: Seattle Waterfront, huge undertaking. We have been massively fortunate and blessed to have Jessica join our team.
SPR Boardroom: A very capable leader in the area of capital planning and development.
SPR Boardroom: And, Oliver and Jessica are gonna give the kind of standard
SPR Boardroom: Update on where we are with capital project delivery.
SPR Boardroom: Also, Oliver is one of our… Stars in this organization.
SPR Boardroom: We appreciate him so much as well.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, well, thanks for the introduction. We're gonna tag-team for you today, so I'll…
SPR Boardroom: I'll just tell you what our…
SPR Boardroom: I'll go through our agenda, and then we'll go through some of our key performance indicators, and then we'll highlight a few projects, and we'll be ready to ask questions.
SPR Boardroom: But first of all, Christopher gave that introduction of me. I hope to get to know you better, and I thought I'd just share a few things about myself, so you can know me better. As Christopher mentioned, I come from, most recently, about a dozen or so years within the Heart on the Waterfront. So, the last 6 years.
SPR Boardroom: pretty much 24 hours a day, it felt like instruction, and I'm a 20-year S daughter. And just to make the recreation loop, I learned to swim at community in pool. I did a summer swim program, was a lifeguard at Coleman pool,
SPR Boardroom: Did spend, you know, 20 years at STOP, but when I got home…
SPR Boardroom: So that, yeah, just to give you a little bit more about me, so happy to answer any questions about me, my background, my past life, or, you know, you've been driving, of course, I'm only a month.
SPR Boardroom: So today, like I said, we'll do some, some of our tracking. Oliver's gonna go through that. So, with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Oliver.
SPR Boardroom: To me, they have this, the goodness. Like, all of them. You guys are setting the bar on the car. I know, I was saying, alright.
SPR Boardroom: So, yeah, I'm Tom, I'm a strategic advisor on a couple of branch,
SPR Boardroom: And I do a lot of work keeping track of our budget, on various projects.
SPR Boardroom: I'm gonna start with the cuddle programs, in which we've seen a lot of progress already in 2025. We have been pressing the gas questions. I think we started, I mean.
SPR Boardroom: We've always been doing these projects, but, we've heard loud and clear, kind of the engagement for the park district funding and people
SPR Boardroom: Want to see more innovations in restaurants.
SPR Boardroom: So, I think we're starting to see those
SPR Boardroom: our projects can have a runway, right? So we're starting to see those projects come to fruition. So, we've already completed 6 restroom renovations in 2025. We have
SPR Boardroom: 8 projects that are in construction right now, so,
SPR Boardroom: So, there's a lot of work getting done.
SPR Boardroom: And in that area, we have a goal of 27 restroom renovations, by the end of 2028, and, we have actually 21 planning and design right now as well, so…
SPR Boardroom: New York.
SPR Boardroom: We're well on track to meet that goal, and we've got more in the hopper.
SPR Boardroom: A reminder of CMA, I guess.
SPR Boardroom: Another thing that we're doing for restrooms this year, is starting another round of restroom assessments to help us understand which priority restrooms
SPR Boardroom: For the next round, we're reaching, kind of.
SPR Boardroom: last prioritized list. We're evaluating a
SPR Boardroom: design standards for restaurants, handle proof, and also kind of to understand, like, what's working and what's not.
SPR Boardroom: You know, some of our recent projects and the changes
SPR Boardroom: And also, one thing that actually started this week, our team…
SPR Boardroom: work to help start the restroom attendant program at Cal Anderson. So we got funding from participatory budget programs.
SPR Boardroom: Start a restroom attendant there, and if it's working well, once we can do the renovations.
SPR Boardroom: Awesome.
SPR Boardroom: Is that open now? I saw them, like, power washing it and stuff the other day. It looked like maybe it was still under pressure. Yup, I think they… I think they opened it up yesterday with the restroom.
SPR Boardroom: Cool.
SPR Boardroom: That hurt?
SPR Boardroom: We also had a big year in Newport Development.
SPR Boardroom: So we're able to open 3 new parks in 2025.
SPR Boardroom: We also are now in construction phase, at Smith Cove and Georgetown Plume. We have the pre-construction meeting
SPR Boardroom: at Cedco, actually, yesterday, as well. So, that project, after those have been…
SPR Boardroom: run with us for a while. It's been long, long in the making, so it's really, really exciting.
SPR Boardroom: And… yeah, so these are kind of two areas that I feel like, you know, we…
SPR Boardroom: Really seeing a lot of exciting progress this year, but we have a whole host of other programs that we're accountable for. And, a lot of these are… a lot of goals that we established with our park district cycle, are based on this idea of
SPR Boardroom: You know, constantly keeping up with our asset renewals.
SPR Boardroom: Alright, so,
SPR Boardroom: We were exceeding, you know, the goals that we set for actually looking at revising people's upwards for accessibility compliance.
SPR Boardroom: As well as synthetic turf replacements.
SPR Boardroom: We've been making a lot of progress on infrastructure projects.
SPR Boardroom: you know…
SPR Boardroom: I think one thing to note about these is that the progress isn't always linear, right, because of the long runway that we have on certain types of projects, and where we've decided to kind of bundle them, what I call facility electrification. You know, we have one package of five locations that we're working on design together, so…
SPR Boardroom: That number is going to be small, small, small, but it's going to jump once they're in this direction.
SPR Boardroom: So that's kind of one thing to note, as we look at.
SPR Boardroom: And then we talked a little bit about restaurants.
SPR Boardroom: So, this, whoa.
SPR Boardroom: progress scorecard, and I think we've actually opened one more restroom.
SPR Boardroom: It should be 10. 10 restrooms.
SPR Boardroom: So, yeah, this is… this is kind of a scorecard that we kind of keep updating as we go each quarter, as we do quarterly monitoring, so…
SPR Boardroom: Let me come back.
SPR Boardroom: If we start to worry about certain programs, we'll… To change the course.
SPR Boardroom: These are all by 2028. These are all by 2028, because a lot of our goals… Yeah. Yeah, there's some that we,
SPR Boardroom: We have a lot of projects kind of in the hopper towards the beginning, that we're able to go through pretty quickly.
SPR Boardroom: That work will likely taper off. Our synthetic turf replacements, for example, there were a lot of fields that were installed, like, between 2008 and 2010.
SPR Boardroom: And so we have this gigantic group of them that we just basically finished. We're just doing the last of them right now, replacing them for that cycle. So, toward the end of this cycle, we'll be starting
SPR Boardroom: Again, noticing,
SPR Boardroom: This one… so this again, these are also…
SPR Boardroom: asset renewal type programs. One of our really big programs.
SPR Boardroom: A lot of people are very interested in prayer accommodations.
SPR Boardroom: So, we… We have a goal of 33,
SPR Boardroom: By the end of the cycle, which we're working hard on.
SPR Boardroom: This is kind of an example of one that's like a regular… relatively new program. We don't have any
SPR Boardroom: our district in this cycle to do trail major maintenance, and so we now have a couple projects in our design. I think one of those is going to come out to the
SPR Boardroom: And we're also working on projects at Skyward Park.
SPR Boardroom: And then a few other starters. So that's kind of an example of one.
SPR Boardroom: We'll probably see a big jump later on in this cycle.
SPR Boardroom: There are a few special park projects that were, you know, allocated funding.
SPR Boardroom: The district as well.
SPR Boardroom: Little Brook, and…
SPR Boardroom: art of yeshiva, and then some planning work at Komoda Garden. Planning work at Komoda Garden is done.
SPR Boardroom: As a mirror.
SPR Boardroom: Shiva… We are just getting into construction, I think that's…
SPR Boardroom: And then we're getting very close to…
SPR Boardroom: And then the pool major maintenance, that's another one where we kind of have a really large…
SPR Boardroom: Hi, it's, of four pool projects that we're bringing through planning meetings.
SPR Boardroom: I was working our design right now.
SPR Boardroom: Autumn.
SPR Boardroom: And, yeah, they should.
SPR Boardroom: Of course, oh.
SPR Boardroom: Mike will be really happy. Logan will be really happy.
SPR Boardroom: We'll just start with the, courts.
SPR Boardroom: The corner renovations, that's gonna be bulky?
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, and that one is… that's, like, a huge…
SPR Boardroom: we got a lot more resources in this park district for resurfacing than we had before, so we've been… I guess this is my question, what is management… is resurfacing, or are you actually pairing up those labs?
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, so that's the difference between restorative kind of thing. The restoration is more resurfacing and fencing work, but the restoration is…
SPR Boardroom: Or permitted work.
SPR Boardroom: Slap.
SPR Boardroom: Design public.
SPR Boardroom: Sorry, I'm a registered architect, so I'm super interested in those stuff. When you do the renovation.
SPR Boardroom: and the new construction, how do you address, like, sustainability? Like, for example, for the pool, do you… like, when you do the renovation, do you take the opportunity to, like, save water?
SPR Boardroom: Because I heard…
SPR Boardroom: if it took a lot of water for the… to run in the pool. And also, maybe how do you address, like, saving energy when you… or, like, a material selection, do you pick the one,
SPR Boardroom: have less of gas, like, those type of things? Yeah, we generally will look at those things
SPR Boardroom: Our design process, our design review process, and our standards.
SPR Boardroom: We worked,
SPR Boardroom: We have a department that works really closely with the Office of Sustainability and Environment. They've actually had a funding
SPR Boardroom: I call it the Municipal Energy Efficiency Program, so we have installed
SPR Boardroom: heat recovery units at a lot of our pools to try to capture some of the ice heat, and use it to reheat the water.
SPR Boardroom: And then, I mean, one day…
SPR Boardroom: Push that we are doing in general right now is decarbonization.
SPR Boardroom: We're just taking our community centers and readily reports, we'll be doing it at
SPR Boardroom: at Green Lake, right? We built a new aquatic facility there so that they're heated entirely.
SPR Boardroom: With electricity.
SPR Boardroom: So, speaking of freedom, it would belong in this kind of category of…
SPR Boardroom: Development and improvement, so these are, like, kind of the…
SPR Boardroom: the exciting new, parks. I talked a lot about our new park
SPR Boardroom: development sites, or I talked a bit about them before. As many of you may know, there were a few parks that, forgot to put on hold during the pandemic, and some that kind of carried forward from last cycle, so we're committed to completing those, in this cycle. And then, we have a handful of other
SPR Boardroom: New projects that we've been working on as well.
SPR Boardroom: And then our cuts.
SPR Boardroom: special named community center projects, as we call them, Oil Lakes, Lake City, Green Lake, and… Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: Our various stages of… planning and design right now.
SPR Boardroom: Or, there's a lot of time and effort and thought being put into those projects.
SPR Boardroom: We will be building two new off-leash areas, for funding that we received specifically for that, but in addition to the two off-leash areas.
SPR Boardroom: at West Seattle Stadium in Othello, there will be new off-leash areas at South Park.
SPR Boardroom: Community Center, the Georgetown Bloom, and Step Cove, those projects, too.
SPR Boardroom: Actually, you could just buy it for the price of two? Yeah. And then, actually, one thing that's really exciting to happen, we completed our first project for the Park Community Funds.
SPR Boardroom: This year, so we did the Southeast basketball group.
SPR Boardroom: Retrofit projects.
SPR Boardroom: I've probably taken more than my time. I will…
SPR Boardroom: You have all the important widgets, I get the fun, I get the fun pictures. Thanks, Oliver.
SPR Boardroom: On the project updates, is there a third color that we're not seeing, Tricia? Nothing to reach that? Nothing to reach that. We used to, like, red, yellow, green, right? The first slide, there was an orange.
SPR Boardroom: There is an orange? I think so.
SPR Boardroom: There's nothing in… there is another color. There's another color.
SPR Boardroom: It was not, sorry, yeah.
SPR Boardroom: That was my wonder. This blew a huge range. Exactly. So I was just gonna highlight a couple of projects on photos.
SPR Boardroom: So this is our, South… South Park, which is getting… the field is getting ready to open in November, and the whole community center in January, and…
SPR Boardroom: This, I got a little bit of everything, to all those numbers, you know, it's getting flights, and basketball court upgrades, pickleball, off-leash dog area, spring park, restrooms, fair nights, like.
SPR Boardroom: It's, like, one of everything for the… for rid of this one, so it's…
SPR Boardroom: This is a great project to get open to the community.
SPR Boardroom: A couple more. We have our Soundview Playfield, which has just started construction. We had a groundbreaking in May, and it's supposed to be completed before the spring use.
SPR Boardroom: sometime this summer, and just because I like to put projects in here, pictures of projects that sometimes make the news, the Victor Steinberg Totems are getting restored, or, you know, that whole project is going on in Nia Bay, and they are going to get reinstalled sometime this winter, and there will be a community event to celebrate that.
SPR Boardroom: Thank you for the update on that. Well, I'm like, you know, things people read in their phone highlights come to these meetings. I've been around the city long enough to know that.
SPR Boardroom: Also, just recently started a construction at the Garfield block, the play area, the restroom, and the pathways is just starting construction. This is a real community-led project, so lots of people excited to see that.
SPR Boardroom: That finally breaks some ground, and coming soon is the Ranger Beach State Park, also very community-driven, in its design, and it's opened last month, and it will get started later this fall.
SPR Boardroom: And, all of them mentioned are community centers, which is a big focus of mine. It's kind of the next phase of the big community center projects being in, and,
SPR Boardroom: Queen and Lake City are featured here. Lake City is that unique partnership with Offer Our Papa's Housing and Mercy Housing, so, they are driving, driving that, and delivering it on the construction side. But we're, you know, participating all along the way, and I have all over the green light.
SPR Boardroom: early cases of how we're doing…
SPR Boardroom: We're doing a GCCM procurement for that.
SPR Boardroom: Collaborative from the contractor on during design.
SPR Boardroom: This is, you know, we don't do a lot of that. One of our DCARP practices is also GCCM, so, I… I do… I bring expertise in that from my past day, so I'm looking forward to delivering those projects. Quick question on Greenlake. I knew that that project was, like, initiated a long time ago, and stopped, and now it's back.
SPR Boardroom: Is there a target date for completion, or…
SPR Boardroom: a little bit to what the income we're looking. Yeah, in construction in 2027.
SPR Boardroom: I'd have to… I mean, it's probably late 2020 is the earliest.
SPR Boardroom: We can, we can get back. And, and you know that, that project will…
SPR Boardroom: since we will have this collaboration with the contractor, we'll learn a lot more about the construction schedule and phasing during the design, and be able to communicate that out. For example, if we want to build the aquatics facility first, and get that up and running. Maybe that has an earlier date. You know, the…
SPR Boardroom: pool area and other… other upgrades comes later, so we'll… we'll be able to… never… that work never happened previously when it was initially going to. We are…
SPR Boardroom: We're at the…
SPR Boardroom: you know, approaching 30%, and we're not actually by state law allowed for us to have that until you bring on your GCC contractor, so you have to provide that opportunity for the contractor to use that contractor pathology. Okay, so the community will still have a chance to weigh in, and we'll go through all those steps before.
SPR Boardroom: Yes, I don't have any, I don't have a community engagement skittle on that committed to memory.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, I was just curious if we were going to go through that exercise again.
SPR Boardroom: I will come, I will come better prepared with that. No worries.
SPR Boardroom: It's an earmark it.
SPR Boardroom: Two more things, Oliver mentioned our community project, which is our Revive the Court of Othello playground, so this is one of…
SPR Boardroom: for partnership program… partnership projects we did this year. This photo is a mural in progress, and we had a bunch of volunteers, and it was a great day out there, and…
SPR Boardroom: I'm super excited at the end of it. We did one… we have one on the Kraken and Hubbard Homestead and Inclusion Matters at Miller Community Center.
SPR Boardroom: And, we have a smattering of public events coming up. Really excited about our
SPR Boardroom: And I want to highlight our ribbon cuttings. I wanted to just mention, we'll… I'll be working with Paula to make sure you hear about our ribbon cutting event, so we can invite you all and welcome you to come and
SPR Boardroom: give you a shout-out if it's there, so, that's always fun. And then the school district is leading some engagement on a couple of efforts related to Lincoln High School, so…
SPR Boardroom: Also, things you may have already heard about.
SPR Boardroom: And one last brag before I go, our grants team has just done amazing work. I am so, awed by the almost $10 million in 2025 we've brought in in grants, so I'm a powerhouse over there.
SPR Boardroom: secret weapon I'm thrilled to have, and I hope to do more of that in the future.
SPR Boardroom: And… That is the end, and we're happy to answer any questions.
SPR Boardroom: Welcome.
SPR Boardroom: In District 3 at Madison Park, I've gone to a few of the community organization meetings where they're
SPR Boardroom: Trying to raise interest and funds, and then they have initial planning for renovating the bathhouse there.
SPR Boardroom: Is that… would that fall under…
SPR Boardroom: like a… where would that fall? It's not a community center, really. It's more than a restroom.
SPR Boardroom: like, what… how would you guys consider that project? And I don't know if they've actually… if you've agreed to work with the community group on it, or is that still pending?
SPR Boardroom: Maybe you don't know, that's totally fine. Oliver may know, but we do have a process for that. Yeah, yeah, and that's one we're…
SPR Boardroom: We have parameters that are assigned.
SPR Boardroom: So, kind of community time.
SPR Boardroom: Where the district is to get it out there.
SPR Boardroom: The process of scoping the project, seeing
SPR Boardroom: where it might fall in that strategy plan, if it does, right?
SPR Boardroom: or… I'll provide guidance on how to fundraise.
SPR Boardroom: Here, thanks.
SPR Boardroom: Maybe one last question.
SPR Boardroom: She's gonna always be nice.
SPR Boardroom: Bring it next time. Thank you.
SPR Boardroom: Alright, the last thing on our agenda, old and new business, Our favorite topic… Yes.
SPR Boardroom: Our meeting time. So, we previously began this meeting at FedEx30
SPR Boardroom: We've been piloting a 6 o'clock start, the past couple months for the summer.
SPR Boardroom: And I don't…
SPR Boardroom: I know you sent an email out, I'm not sure how much of a response… Not as helpful as you might think. So, I got 9 responses.
SPR Boardroom: 3, said 6, 3 said 630, and 3 said they don't care. Those I don't cares are like, well… So, unfortunately, unfortunately, you are all going to have to make a decision about this.
SPR Boardroom: No, I mean, I don't care, so… Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: So I'm going to have to leave this up to you eventually.
SPR Boardroom: I'll phrase it differently. I know, and I probably don't want to totally get into it, but, like, I know there are some people who feel like they couldn't make 6 o'clock. They really need 6.30, and I guess if you voted for 6, maybe just let Ben know if it…
SPR Boardroom: Like, you really need to be done by 8, like, it would make a… it would be a hardship for you to go to 8.30, and maybe that helps sway a little bit, because if…
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, if there's people who can't make 6, but nobody's bothered by going 8.30, then maybe we just do 6.30 because…
SPR Boardroom: we don't exclude anybody that way, but I don't know what people's circumstances are. So just think about that, and maybe weigh in.
SPR Boardroom: Whitney and Ben, maybe that's a better way of phrasing it. If it would be prohibitive in some way, then please let me know. Otherwise, I… I'm not going to be sending out another poll. I don't think that's been productive, so… It hasn't changed. I think it's…
SPR Boardroom: You have to exert shares wrong, and I think that will have to be what we will need to do.
SPR Boardroom: I would say the one consideration I might have is, has attendance changed? Actually, attendance has not changed. Okay.
SPR Boardroom: So, it's… yeah, I don't know that we can rely on it. Yeah, I think the other…
SPR Boardroom: Questions are, is it what's most, convenient and convenient to get the best?
SPR Boardroom: Like, presentations, people able to come here, but also, does the time change impact?
SPR Boardroom: This is the first meeting we have one. This is the lightest it's been. We have had quite a bit of public comment, but I tend to think of that as being… Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: 6 is a challenge. Yeah, I think, I think, ultimately, it's gonna, you know, people will adapt, including staff, and so…
SPR Boardroom: It may end up being something that the chairs ultimately may end up having to put their foot down one way or another on, but…
SPR Boardroom: And we also… we always have remote, too, if it, you know… But yeah, if something is genuinely prohibitive, obviously let Paul and I know, and we can weigh that, you know, as it is, but if it is just an issue of preference, then, you know…
SPR Boardroom: maybe that… maybe set this one out, I guess. This round out. But we can… we will… we will try to have a definite answer, I guess, for the next meeting and moving forward, and try to… try to have that.
SPR Boardroom: I think we have enough data to collect.
SPR Boardroom: Yeah, I mean, I would… I would suggest, why don't we…
SPR Boardroom: Leave it at 6, but put a question out, like.
SPR Boardroom: Hey, do you know that U19 minutes cannot make this?
SPR Boardroom: Right.
SPR Boardroom: That's the only thing. I think that's… I think that's a reasonable way to phrase it. There is no…
SPR Boardroom: It's been for months, right? There's no clear consensus, it's not possible, so…
SPR Boardroom: who are never in accumulated or participate, right, because of ongoing conflict. That's a real issue. For sure. Yeah.
SPR Boardroom: President Whitney has had a… challenge with 6.30.
SPR Boardroom: On my basis.
SPR Boardroom: And we want to make sure that we're, you know, staff will adjust.
SPR Boardroom: One more question. This is only totally a throwback. It came up from the last presentation, just seeing a lot of named
SPR Boardroom: places. I remember, like, a year ago, there was a bunch of public comment about renaming the field at Maple Leaf.
SPR Boardroom: I don't know if there's… That got done. Did I miss that? Did I miss that meeting? Probably.
SPR Boardroom: It doesn't… it doesn't happen at the board meetings, usually. We… we would do it… we…
SPR Boardroom: Technically, once we name a park, it's permanent, but there are situations where we will rename them.
SPR Boardroom: It's kind of a high bar, because otherwise, you know, every time someone thinks of a new name that they might think is better, then they want it renamed. So, but we do have a process for that. You can request that, and we… if we change the name, you'll likely hear about it, but it's not… it's not really available.
SPR Boardroom: We have a naming subcommittee, right? Yeah, I think I would like to just have the loop closed as well on those. Yeah, I just didn't know. That's also part of our getting more members on the board who will revisit the subcommittees and have another opportunity to…
SPR Boardroom: Make your preferences known, like we did before, because we have lost some people, so we need to reorganize those.
SPR Boardroom: Thanks.
SPR Boardroom: Bonjour.
SPR Boardroom: Hey, Martin, thank you, everyone. Thank you.