Whitney… Whitney is joining, so I know… I know a lot for him in just a moment, so as soon as I get started recording… I just want to make sure that we can actually proven this.
All right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the February 26th.
Meeting of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners. I'm Ryan Baum, one of the co-chairs.
And commissioners at large on the board, I'm going to ask the other Commissioners just to take a moment to introduce themselves.
A large Christian. John Flynn, District 3.
Elise Chisholm Claire for District 4. James Stonecipher at large.
Stafford Mays District 7, and would the members of South Parks and Rec staff who are here today, please? Also.
introduce themselves. Michelle Finnegan, Interim Superintendent. I'm Ben Burtzos.
Parks concessions Coordinator with Seattle Parks. Thank you. Welcome everyone.
and read a brief land acknowledgement. Oh, Whitney, would you please just, we just introduction. So if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself.
Sorry. You're right in there.
Yeah.
Seattle Parks and Recreation acknowledges and affirms the Indigenous Coast Salish people as original caretakers of our waters and landscape.
nurtured and shaped today's parkland, we honor their legacy with gratitude and appreciation and will safeguard their knowledge and stewardship as enduring treasures to promote community welfare.
Cultivate inclusive expressions of nature and recreation and commit to land acknowledgement, breach, consuming generation.
Um, just we have two items on the consent agenda. We have meeting minutes from January 22nd meeting, and our meeting agenda for today.
If no one has any concerns or objections, we'll just move forward with the agenda, but I'll just pause for a minute. If anyone wants to raise any items to the Senate agenda.
Hearing none, the consent agenda is adopted, and we'll move to our 1st item of business public comment.
Paul, would you, or Ben walk through the rules for public comment, and.
We'll get stickers off here. Yes, you have 2 minutes when I call your name, and Ben will unmute you to speak and unmute you again after 2 minutes, and I'll give you a warning before your two minutes is up. First up, Dawn.
Sir? Don, I'm going to lower everyone's hands real quick. Don Schlosser, if that is you in the waiting room under Don SC, please raise your hand so I can identify you.
Okay, perfect. I'm gonna give you permission to unmute yourself, and you'll have 2 minutes.
Okay, thanks. I'm Don Schlosser. I'm a member of the Magnolia Community Council and also Friends of Discovery Park, and I wanted to just convey to the board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, convey to the board our concerns about the Environmental Learning Center building, and it's welcoming to visitors at Discovery Park.
Discovery Park is one of the top visitor destinations that's flagged on all the websites that people should do when they visit when they visit Seattle. And in the current situation, the visitor center damage and various prior.
Situations have caused the visitor center to be closed for something like 4 out of the last 6 years, and under the current plans, we're delighted that staffing has been found to staff the Environmental Learning Programs, and to some extent, as I understand it, for staff.
Developing the plans for repairing the building, but there's not likely to be any open visitor center for at least 2 years. Our concern is that there be something there that provides ADA accessible restrooms other than the porta-potties, which are quite often blocked by vehicles.
And that there also be a more welcoming environment when we have FIFA coming through here this summer between 500 and a million visitors. A lot of those people are going to head for Discovery Park, and they're going to wonder what the heck's going on.
So we would suggest that it would be a great idea to do some, if only temporary, some pop-up welcoming, providing information to visitors there as somebody who's done that myself, I would say they want to know 2 things. One is, where are the bathrooms and how to get to the lighthouse and the beach.
Hang on.
And we hope as well that the Park Department will be able to provide the beach shuttles as they have in the past. For instance, Discovery Park helps to fund shuttles from Title I schools to the park, and we hope to be able to continue to do that as well.
Thank you. Next up, Clay Packer. I stand up here.
Forever. More right there, whatever you're comfortable.
Thank you. Good evening. My name is Clay Packard, and I'm the head football coach at Lincoln High School. Thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of our student athletes.
More than 15 years ago, long before I was a parent in the attendance area of Lincoln, or the head football coach, I read about Seattle's plan to reopen Lincoln to support a growing student population.
When I looked at the location, I asked a couple simple questions.
Where are the fields? And where will these students practice?
Tonight, I stand here as both a coach and a parent of two future links to say.
Those questions still haven't been answered. The temporary fixes have run their course.
And it's time for a long-term solution. Let me share what this means in real terms.
Our players spend 50 to 60 hours each season just commuting to and from practice.
For the first two weeks of the season, there are no buses because school hasn't started.
That means 12 practice days, 17 total practices, where families must find their own transportation 90 blocks from campus. On a typical day, our athletes don't return to school until 9 p.m.
And they still have to get home, eat, and complete their homework.
Think about that. We are asking teenagers to travel 90 blocks just to practice.
To their credit, our students and families have persevered through an environment that is far from guatible.
And despite every obstacle, Lincoln football earned the seventh highest GPA in the state amongst their peer schools.
I could not be more proud of their grade.
But Pride does not make this sustainable. It does not make it acceptable.
We talk about safe spaces. We talk about mental health. We talk about equity right now. Those values are not being met for Lincoln student athletes.
It's been long enough, the time for action is now. Lincoln students deserve special treatment. I'm sorry, they do not deserve special treatment. They just… they do not… they deserve the same access and opportunity as every other Seattle public school. Thank you for your time.
Perfect 2 minutes there. Um, Tim Randall. It'd be awesome.
Thank you for letting me speak tonight. I'm thinking I'm here to talk about project 2 on the I chair the athletic committee for the Ptsa, and I've done that for a few years. So I've been doing quite involved in this whole field.
acquisition for a long time, and here you hopefully have heard emails, and you're going to hear from coaches about that personal attack, but I just want to give you a little context about what's happening. So 2019, that school opened.
1700 kids, biggest public sale, public school. We've got almost a thousand kids in varsity sports, so we've got more kids playing sports than the other field public school. Next up, we have Hamilton, another almost 1,000 kids. No space there for those kids.
Um, 2022, we passed the BTNA levy, which set aside $4.4 million for us to build practice. 2022. 2024, we thought we added them.
The community pushed back on the local Parker Wandsburg, and here we are two years later.
Still with nothing. So I want to talk a little bit about what you heard about last time option C. We looked at that two years ago.
114 parking spaces need to be eliminated. 17 trees. Some of those are big canopy, 4 foot retaining walls built in that space. You don't get a regulation size soccer field, and we have 4.4 million dollars.
It was a non-starter. We didn't think it would get past anyways. So we have talked about that option before. I liked it, but it's just not going to work. So what we're.
really counting on MTL to be. option forward and get shovels in the ground this summer, so these kids, we don't have to spend as taxpayers if a bus shows up $1,000 to take kids up to Ingram which is what we need to pay.
So, thank you for, uh, hearing me out, and I'm looking forward to it.
Next up, Dawn. Hey guys, thanks for having me, my name's John O'Neill. I've done the show for 20 years, called the Ron and Don Show at Chiro Radio, and now 2 million people listen, uh, online. I do cause radio, so when the Lakewood Four got shot, I made sure that all of those kids went to college. In fact, we raised over $3 million.
No, also a landslide happened. I sent $120,000 up there and 17 machines to build that road.
Cleveland. Remember Cleveland High School? You remember Cleveland High School. Remember when the money was in the account for seven years in Cleveland High School didn't get billed? I went and found Larry. Larry's no longer with us. There's a reason why Larry's no longer with us. In 9 months, we were able to make sure that Cleveland High School got built.
Right? When you look at the money that is in the account right now, to build that… it's not even a stadium, but when we look at what was built in Ballard, same timeframe with the levy.
Ballard was already almost built. And what we're doing right now in these meetings, I brought a prop. It's not full. We are picking the can on kids.
That's what we're doing. We're kicking the can on kids, and with a little different for me, is I'm one of those parents now, because my son goes to Lincoln, and I'm one of those parents that drive. When I can't drive, I'm paying for buses, because nobody pays for the buses. I wrote a check last year for 20.
$5,000 to make sure that those kids went back and forth on buses. When you look at 1,019 schools, here in the Great Pacific Northwest, my son likes to say, we rank number 5 for an education here in Seattle. We need your help.
And the community right now there is fighting, but the bottom line is this. The taxpayers have decided that the money would be spent. We have a fiduciary duty to make sure that this field and these fields are built. I'll end with this. Lincoln was one.
He was a unifier, but he also wasn't afraid of the Civil War. I wasn't afraid of the civil war when it came to building that field in Cleveland, especially for black and brown children. Now, I'm not afraid of a civil war for making sure that we get this field built and it must be built right now. I appreciate your time. Thank you for listening.
And, uh, let's stop. kicking the can on kids. Thank you.
Don O'Neill? Oh, that's right. I can go again. Bill Farmer is online. So Bill, you have permission to unmute yourself.
All right. Can you hear me? Can you see me? I can't see.
Yes. No, it's okay.
I want to take a good time. We recognize everybody.
I see Whitney. Yeah, you don't want to see me. All right, uh… Uh, that's good. Uh, so, um, glad to see Tilth is on the agenda tonight.
Food and parks is a good thing. I know when I was on the Legacy Committee, gosh, when was that 12 years ago?
I propose the initiatives to fund the pea patches and also the off leach areas, which.
Two good partners. I'm here to actually talk about Playfield, because… Active Rec is a huge partner with the Parks department. I think you all give a lot of focus to partners that have contracts with.
buildings and other… places on the ground. Sports leagues don't have that.
Uh, we rent fields. I think I think field rentals for.
For sports leagues, I think they bring in about 4 million bucks, which is, you know, that's not chump change. So I've talked to Ryan Whitney. We've talked about getting playfield folks in front of the board.
I don't know how much the board even knows about Playfields. I've been doing this for advocacy for 20 years, 25 years. I know a lot about play fields. I've been around probably longer.
than most of the park staff, not to toot my horn, but.
We need a conversation. You know, this… doing two minutes at the beginning of this meeting… meeting. You can't get a whole lot across. I'd like to talk to you all.
bring some sports leagues folks in, tell you what our challenges are, what the challenges are within your system, what the handcuffs are on the heavy turf crew, and uh… grass fields are in terrible shape. What's that been?
5 seconds, Bill. That was 5 seconds.
Um, so, and I've emailed you all numerous times. Ben's really good at getting back to me when I ask about meetings, but Whitney, Ryan, I know we've talked, can, uh, I'd really appreciate a response sometimes when I email the board, it kind of goes into this black hole, and I don't know if anybody even.
Thank you, Bill. Bill, we can say we received all your communication.
Okay. Paige Phillips. I see. a page online? Paige, if you are just under the first name page, Lee, raise your hand. Thank you.
And I will give you permission to unmute yourself.
Go ahead. Yes.
Okay, can you? Okay, awesome. Um, I'm a senior at Lincoln High School, and I have participated in soccer and track all the years that I have attended, and I've experienced firsthand many issues with the lack of field and track space.
Um, for soccer, we have a very limited time when we can, um, use the field, so we have to be there on time and leave, and we don't have extra time to practice. As well, we have 3 teams, um, for girls soccer, which means some people have to, um, practice in the morning.
And as student athletes, so you need, um, you need sleep in order to do well in school and in athletics. And for track, we do not have a track currently, and so we're using Ingram's track, and this requires at least an hour or more time on the bus just getting to practice and coming home.
which limits time for homework and other essential activities to daily life. And because we're using Ingram's track, we… it's at a very odd time where dinner is, like, right in the middle, and so you have very limited time before and after when you can actually get things done, which is very hard.
As well, we spend money on buses, which is money wasted, um, and people who can't drive rely on parents, and that's really hard on their schedules, um, as well as having a field would mean, uh, having a better community as a sports team, and you can also charge money for entry.
at, like, state level and district-level games, which would bring income into the school. And, um, going here all four years has really had an impact on me seeing no change with expanding fields and track space, and I would love to see that for future generations, a change.
And we are a 4A school, which means we have more than almost 2000 students, and there are schools around us that have less students, but they have multiple fields. And so I would just love to see that change and improvement.
One sec.
Okay, thank you so much. Thanks, Sabash. Hi, my name is Ben Savage, and I'm a PE teacher at Lincoln, and I'm the head cross-country track coach at Lincoln High School. I'm here to address the fields. Um, the city of Seattle does not have enough tracks for all the people that run in this town. It's one of the best running communities in the country.
Um, and… Just on behalf of the students with our 1,800 students at Lincoln and being the top five public school in the state, we're putting a lot of pressure on these kids to, like, they want to be in sports, but then they're stuck with this. Okay. For football, they want to play football, but do they want to give up that all that time to play where other schools get to walk out of their building and go to their field.
We're getting on buses, and it's just not… we're losing a lot of kids, and for me, as a PE teacher, I'm all about, like, how can we get more kids playing outside? We all played outside, you all played outside. Kids don't play outside anymore. They don't do it. So, they need organized sports, and I coach two no-cup sports at Lincoln.
across the country and track, we don't want to cut anybody. But by not having a track, we are cutting.
We are… I have 260 kids sign up for track that starts on Monday, which is amazing. I love it. Track is for everyone. Big, small, fast, slow, we got it all.
But we're gonna have 100 kids, probably, that don't do track, because they are realizing the schedule's not… does not work. They're not getting back the link until 8 30 at the earliest, because we have to bus back to practice at 8 o'clock, then someone has to pick them up, they gotta get home, they gotta eat, they have to.
Do their homework, and it's just not a it's it's not does not promote activity.
These kids have all kinds of pressures. They're on their phones all the time. This is an opportunity for them to be off their phones, to be doing a score with their peers, to be out getting exercise, to finding lifelong activity, and people aren't talking a lot about the track. That track is going to be used by thousands of.
people every day. Every day. I see it all the time. Clubs are on it, everything.
So, I just really hope we stop taking that can and invest in the future.
Yes. Eric, I'm gonna give you permission to unmute yourself.
Yes.
Great. Can you hear me? Hi, I'm a 27-year neighbor, Lincoln parent and daily user of Lower Woodland Park. For adding a field to the park, I want to ask that you reject option A and advance option C.
Okay.
Our petition in favor of that now has over 450 specific endorsements, and about 170 people specifically providing comments on to why option C is better. It builds on the strong community testimony you heard at the last meeting. There's been no public process regarding Lincoln Field at Lower Woodland Park before or since the public meeting on November 6th of last year.
So we're relying on the Parks Board to be the one and only voice of the public.
We also believe option C is the choice that aligns with the Seattle Park strategic plan. Option A contradicts the Healthy People pillar by creating a high density conflict zone that forces athletes, BMX riders, skateboarders, and pedestrians into an overlapping footprint. It eliminates all seating and prevents Lincoln from hosting games.
And then we'll create a fenced athletic compound that severs pedestrian access to the park from Tangletown. Meanwhile, Option C adds a grandstand so students can have a true home field while using intentional spacing to keep different park users safe.
Option A violates the healthy environment pillar by destroying 7 to 9 large historic trees that provide vital shade and screen the street from the fields.
Option C preserves these legacy assets and transforms a neglected gravel lot into a functional tree-lined green space.
Organizational excellence requires fiscal and legal foresight. Option A destroys recently built soccer field number two turf, lighting and concrete to build two new fields from scratch. Intense community opposition and significant adverse impacts are going to trigger major SEPA risks.
In contrast, Option C has broad public support as it upgrades existing assets without demolition and activates a high-risk gravel lot into a safe, functional field.
5 seconds, Eric.
We want Lincoln Field, we want Lincoln students to have a great field, and that's why we have proposed option C instead of turning to the courts to block option A. We've had several meetings in the park and are flexible on where to place the soccer field on the west side of Lower Woodland Park. We ask the board to have SBS engage with the community on option C.
Rather than letting them force through a terrible mistake, there will be option A.
Okay, thank you so much. And Carrie Christensen.
Jenny Lane Park. If Denny Blaine Park has historically been a new queer park. Why is this the photo that represents the park on Spr's website?
The chronic masturbator violating his no-contact order for Denny Blainpark the day before his pretrial hearing.
It's been over a year since he was arrested at the park for invasive exposure, masturbation. There's no trial date yet.
Uh, this is Juan, a friend of Betty Blaine. He takes explicit photos of women at Denny Blaine.
Not the first time anyone at the top of the north staircase could see this.
Officer Hopper at SPD said, this police report will be filed as a disturbance.
Man and woman have a consensual contract. What happens below the fence is okay, as long as it's not sex.
Let them do it. Life safety takes priority over this.
low on priority for SPD. a summary of a summary. Rcw9.68.130.
sexually explicit material, as that term is used in this section, means any pictorial material displaying or emphasizing the depiction of adult human genitals.
a dog finish date at Jenny Blaine Park.
Mayor Wilson, at her State of the City address, quote, enjoy our parks and public spaces, unquote.
How are people to enjoy a car when this happens on a regular basis?
That concludes our public comment. All right. Thank you. Just before we move to the next item, I just want to ask Philip and Kevin came on during public comment.
Um, to introduce themselves as commissioners.
Sure. Hi, everybody. Um, good evening, uh, Philip Meng, District 7.
All right. Thank you, commissioners. And thank you for everyone who came and provided public comment today. Michelle, turn it over to you. Great.
We'll talk. Quick update on our woodland and that. I appreciate.
Don's comments about Discovery Park, and I don't have an answer, but I will go back and talk to the staff about the summer plans. I didn't have that one prepared, so I'll get back to John on that.
All good comments.
I've got a few updates today. I'm gonna… start with an exciting… that we had last weekend at Hiawatha, where we finally, I think it's the appropriate word there, finally got that facility.
Back open, we had, um, lots of… Great attendance, even though it was a rainy and cold morning, and uh… I wish we had the picture. There was like the pre-picture of all the tots.
Play cars lined up, just begging for some tots, and then 30 minutes later, they were all being ridden around the gym, and I was saying… It's really a good time had by all. So, um… We are kind of soft opening it with reduced hours for a couple weeks as we work through some of the growing pains, and we're still trying to get the.
Elevator back online, but we will start the full operations, I think.
March 9th is that date. Next time you're in the neighborhood, stop by and say hi to the staff, and… Have a good time. It is now the first all electrified.
building in our inventory, which is pretty great, since it's also our oldest community center. So Mayor Wilson did a great job of tying together the… Because they're historic spaces and go into our new goals of climate action.
That was a great day. We also have the lower pictures are from Maplewood Playfield and the playground is updated. Slightly less exciting because we're still getting the turf to grow in, so it's there's still the.
orange fencing and all of that, but it too was getting prepared for the summer season to serve our community, and we're excited to welcome people back to that.
Players? Next slide, uh, topic du jour. So with lower woodlands, we, uh.
Did meet with SPS following the last meeting, and have agreed to continue the public engagement for our agreement with them, and they are planning to hold second public meeting specific to lower Woodland based on.
the feedback they got, and how design changes are and can be made to that feedback. We don't have the exact date yet. That will be provided by SPS and Parks and Rec will amplify that on.
our social media. As soon as we get that date.
Seven Hills Park. I think we talked about this last time. This today is actually the day that the latest emergency rule that closed that park expired, so we did remove the fencing today.
We have a team here to talk about that that park as it relates to the other South Capitol Hill park. So I won't go into that beyond just letting folks know that, um.
That is reopened, and I'll hear more about that evening.
Um, park and facilities maintenance is in full swing as we get ready for.
Just warmer, drier, hopefully sunny weather, uh, lots of activity at Coleman Pool. Recently they have drained the pool and are doing a full deep cleaning of the shell.
Um, they gotta remove residues and build up from walls, floors, gutters, fittings, um, paying close attention to.
special areas of that aging infrastructure. In order to get ready to refill and set us up for a good… a busy summer season there. We also our grounds maintenance crews are focused on ball fields, shrub bed pruning, pressure washing.
to get some trail maintenance happening in those photos, too. So lots of great maintenance updates.
Rainier Beach pool. We… we have a very innovative staff, and we are having some issues moving the air around, um.
And so our electricians got out there and figured out if we actually install them on the wall, as opposed to the ceiling, we get a good, uh… A good response to what we were hoping for. So this, um, this is just one example of how you.
Adjust facility to. To keep it in operation and meet some other goals, including the energy use intensity.
criteria of the Washington State Clean Building Performance Standards. That five times past.
So good work to Ryan, Carrie, and the rest of the team out there programming. We had a great program at the conservatory. Here you see my right page.
um, a lunar tea tasting event last… two weekends ago, and the gardeners helped decorate that event.
We also had the park rangers out both at the beaches and at supporting SPD at the Seahawks.
And we partnered with the fire department to do a CPR class at Northgate.
was well attended. Did both CPR and AED training. So, um… Next slide.
This is a really cool project that we should have you be briefed on, because it's… science, and I don't understand all of the science, but the Roxhill bog, um… recently passed a major milestone. The community's been doing some grant funding and working with our Greensail Partnership and Natural Resources team, and just try. We're trying to rehydrate Seattle's last remaining peak wetlands.
It's been drying out, and they, um… figured out a way, and we're able to celebrate recently.
Um… actually getting the water to stay in one of the bogs, and so they are exploring how to expand on the lessons learned and the.
success of that most recent project. So. Very cool. Daisy Katagi was up there.
At that event a couple weeks ago. Last time you asked, we should hope to provide some things that people want to. They can participate in a couple things happening in the next few weeks. Actually, it looks like March 7th is a big day in the Parks department, but before that next weekend we have our Loyal Heights people.
Breakfast nearby, and then we have 3… uh, engagements on projects, too, for play areas at Roanoke and Verla on the 7th, as well as in partnership with.
United Indians. At Daybreak Star, there's some path improvements that are being planned in partnership with them that will be doing an engagement.
With them on the 7th, so just a few of the things coming up.
Next week…
Thank you. Oh, and that's just a reminder we talked last time. Oh, that's right.
Yeah, I'll look at Japanese garden opens again. Commissioners, do you have any questions from Michelle and the staff?
A few to kick us off. Um, it's good to hear there's going to be another public meeting.
Feels like there wasn't enough, honestly. It feels too slow, so it's really disappointing. We don't have a date tonight. I just think that would build a lot of trust. We're having another meeting and it's biscuit.
Uh, so I would just say, like, please push SPS to get a date, and let us know what it is. I'd love to go do more.
It also seems like, with the options, like, we are making some short-term sacrifices. I think I was mystified by was the lack of bleachers and seating.
you know, it's great. They have a field, but nobody can attend the games. I don't know. It just seems like we're racing down another path that's been only halfway solve the problem. So I don't have a solution. And I know the 2 solutions on the table are contentious, but.
I think just, you know, make… push the staff to really make sure this is solving, you know, long-term solving problem.
It still feels a little half there. That's all I'll do today, but it was great to see that there is probably, you know, I appreciate the progress. I know when you're partnering with another large institution like SPS, it's going to be, you know, not as nimble as you wish.
Thank you.
Whitney, Philip, Kevin, Green. Questions or comments online?
Oh, uh, thanks as always for the… for the report.
Okay. Um, I guess I'll mention that I was pleased to see Councilmember Collinsworth doing a shout out for parks, um, as part of her social media.
And she was pushing the find it, fix it app and really trying to promote that to the community. And, you know, you and I started to talk a little bit about, you know, just understanding what sorts of reports that the community was making on that line, and.
you know, just kind of understanding where the hot buttons are, and so just like to elevate that question for some future meeting.
Yeah, that'd be a great deal. And we are fully integrated now between our asset management system, work order system and find it, fix it, so… It used to be that we would have to take that and key it in ourselves, and so we've done a…
I don't know what they've done, but let's just say it talks to each other now, so it's more automated, and it's… that's been a big improvement. But yeah, we can… we can definitely do it.
A maintenance… Hot topic update. I would just chime in on that, I would love to hear that several meetings go, we talked about another integration that would allow you to, you know, drop a pin at a specific location you were reporting on.
I think it has asked you to provide street coordinates, which is not very practical on larger parks, right? So… Yeah. So there was talk about a solution that would allow you to get specific ordinance in there.
I would love to hear about that, too, related to that.
I think it does that, but yeah, I think it… doing straight coordinates? Yeah, you just drag the map where you are, and it even shows you where you are, I think. Yeah, it would pop in… I'm thinking about Ravenna Park, it would pop in straight coordinates, but those are not very relevant, because it's, like, such a big place.
I've seen it do, like, maybe it got soft. Maybe. We'll include that in the update now. I haven't submitted it in a little bit. Okay, good. I think, Jane had a good question. Shannon and I discussed it as well about.
Uh, just trying to understand the sources of safety data.
Um, and how that data is used, right? So it's great to hear Splungary Asset Management System.
Um, just where those concerns are being reported. If there's any kind of.
helpful to understand what you and the staff look at to say we're succeeding, we're hitting our targets. We're able to use that feedback and make it actionable. So I mean, I see people out in parks responding all the time to understand a little bit more about how it works. And so we can help advocate in the community for.
Using that and expecting this would be great. Okay. Um, and then I just had, uh, one small comment just to sort of.
Build on John's point on around speed on Lower Woodland. It was the 1st time that the field had come before this board.
Um, and, uh, we'd really like to see where… SPS is engaged with community and that there's really clear on here's what's been done to address and here's what can't be done. And then move forward. Right. The nice thing is the feedback is pretty consistent around. We would like APL to happen.
Are there some folks who are concerned, right, uh, a lot of questions, and I would just love to see a way to try and say, here's the things that can be addressed.
Here's what can't be addressed, um, and then I'd love to see it come back.
Um, here as well, to try and move it forward. I understand the community's concerned. I've had Lincoln students lobby me personally as well. So I appreciate their advocacy and it's I understand the community's frustration that was voted on improvements in a long time.
We'd like to see it move forward. We also want to see that there's the right solution and that the community feedback is at a minimum heard, addressed and sort of clarified about what can and can't be done.
Um, and uh, we heard enough from the community feedback that felt they hadn't been really engaged.
So I appreciate that they're doing another SPS meeting. We've been meeting for four years. If they don't come to a meeting, I don't know what. And now they can now our gym is full like everyone's a lot of years ago. Our gym was full at the last minute, and the community is now yelling at each other.
And we need to come together. We need your help to come together. We need that. We need to be a unifier. And I'm not here for my son. He'll never play on that field.
We're here for this is this has got to be ongoing situation. People are advocating for it right now. Yes. Um, we'd like to see this move forward, too. They're linked to the game.
The people who came and presented soon. Already met about this. Whether… There are a number of pieces of update that SBS has been able to make to the proposal that addressed some concerns, and my understanding is something still open. I would like to see.
SPS representatives, lay that out, be clear about it, and then in.
We'll be much more comfortable, I think, as a board, being able to endorse a let's go ahead and move forward with this. If that feedback's able to address and it's not stop.
Um, I'd like to see this come back and move forward quickly. Yeah. Um, I… I understand, right, came before the first time.
Last month. It's not just for Lincoln. Oh, it's going to benefit. There will be a wide number of users in demand for that field gun. Thank you for hearing us. Appreciate that.
We can, to your point on timing, they're going to have a meeting in April, I'd like to say we launch it back in May, then.
Like, if your meeting is not within our April meeting, have you on the agenda for May.
How do we get that to happen faster? I think the public meeting was in November.
It was two months later. December, that seems actually pretty fast, so… Put that in place.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for your advocacy.
All right, uh, totally different topic. Our next item is Partnership Spotlights. Melissa.
The presenter today? Melissa in the parking lot.
Hi! I'm Melissa Spears. I have been Executive Director for, it'll be 8 years in November.
And a large part. I started the organization. Just after we're gonna feature the Harvard Languages and Rune Beach, South Seattle, had.
finished a large renovation project there, so I've sort of seen over 8 years how much the site has been sort of improved. You know, it's kind of there was a lot of great improvements, but it was sort of left.
in a state where it continued to be work and investment and, you know, what a site looks like after that was a serious renovation. And it is an amazing site right now.
I'm gonna start just by, um, Health Alliance is actually a 50-year-old organization. We were founded back in 1974 as sort of a movement in support of organic farming.
Um, in 1977, Seattle was established in Shepherd Center, which was an organization devoted to supporting organic gardeners in the city of Seattle and providing garden education.
system education, and we have sort of morphed now into an organization, which is really focused on food system work across the entire system, whether it's growing food or eating food and everything in between.
So we can go to the next slide. And this, um, complicated little slide here just basically shows all of the programs that we currently operate. And you can see we have done is sort of considered not necessarily a program, but it is one of our.
the major… a site where a lot of different things happen, and then most almost all of our other programs have operate programs at our gov. And then we also operate gardens at the Shepherd Center, where programs take place.
there as well. And I'll go through what these are all of the different activities or sub programs that that we are engaged with. All of them are focused on getting people to understand where their food comes from, and sort of, I think.
I think of the work we do, um, you know, we really believe in sort of the saying that eating is a political act, and that every food choice that you make has consequences, whether they're social consequences, environmental consequences, economic consequences, and so understanding whether.
consequences of your choices are is very important. Health consequences. And so all of our work is engaging people around food, whether it's growing food.
cooking food, eating food, um, it's to help them understand the importance of food and the consequences of their food choices.
Next slide. You get there. This I actually can you go beyond this slide? I'm gonna actually talk a little bit about Mr. I'm wondering how many of you actually?
I've ridden past it many times on a bike. I know exactly where this is. I'm like, I've never been there.
It is actually, you know, it is amazing the number of people who kind of stumble across the site, and then.
I, you know, I'll ask them, like, you know, have you ever been here before? And it's like, oh my god, I did not know this place existed. Like, I live 3 blocks away, and I did book this. It really is sort of… hidden a little bit of the history, this whole peninsula was actually underwater until 1917.
built the shift canal. It was the Atlantic City nursery for many years. It closed in 2010, and then Tilth Alliance, or at that time Seattle Tilt, entered into a manager.
operating programs there, and it was in partnership with friends of our future partners in managing this site.
And then, after that, so we began working at the Atlantic, what was the Atlantic retreat in 2011.
Just for brief history was a nursery leasing from parks, or was it turn could become a park at that time?
Atlantic City Inertia was actually us. It was Parks. Oh, that was the… you know, Parks, sorry. Like to have on beacon. Okay, got it. Thank you for clarifying.
Um, so a little bit about the terms of this agreement. Um, we are responsible under the term for all the park maintenance, except for the primary utility lines and building envelopes. So we really do operate the site almost.
entirely. The Parks Department will come in and help with certain things, like, especially if there are issues with trees. Some of those larger issues. We also have a lot of issues with fencing. This park is unusual because it is.
completely fenced. And we are allowed to close the gates. We are required if you go to the next slide.
We are required to have the park remain open for a minimum of 25 hours a week.
Um, and that normally the park is open. 6 days a week. Um… usually not, you know, on the weekends, it may not be an entire day, but it's often open on Saturdays to friends, every other Saturday, they have a volunteer event during your Saturday there.
Um, the reason that we had to be really negotiated with taxpart to allow it to remain close was because.
It has operated as an urban farm, which means we have a lot of equipment on site. And if it were open that quickly would all disappear. We've already had issues with multiple break-ins on the site. We have lost a lot of equipment.
And so it's been really critical in order to really operate it as production is taking place and where we're teaching people how to produce food that we're allowed to close the gates.
We pay a $40,000 annual use fee. But this is offset by we have to submit a public benefit report on an annual basis, demonstrating that we have.
basically created the public benefit of $20,000 in their terms for what each volunteer hour is worth, and.
we generally are up in the 4 to $500 to $600,000 range in terms of the public benefit that we're able to demonstrate.
Next slide. Um… So then, moving on from there in 2014, 2015. The friends and self alliance helped the parks department and the Salem Parks Foundation to raise a significant amount of money.
to renovate the site. A new building was built, which included which you can sort of see here in the picture on the side that included bathrooms, a large classroom and a commercial kitchen, and then the office.
were also renovated. And then a bunch of the landscaping was taken care of on the site.
The project began in 2016, completed in 2017. That's more or less when I showed up on site.
Um, and then in 2022, the management operations agreement was set for five years, so it's going to continue until November of 2027.
We hope to, you know, we expect that we will engage Parks department in negotiating hopefully another five-year project is comfortable.
Um, in terms of that agreement. And now, do you mind going back to that slide that we… So this was the original plan for the renovation of the site. Um, it's slightly different from what you see here, but it does include.
in-ground crops in this area. The entrance is here off of Cloverdale, and at 51st Street is just a little bit down here. The entrances here. You have to come around to the exit.
Offices are here, in this building. We do operate a farm stand here. We have a large crop field, which is where most of the.
production takes place. A big children's garden, which is gardens where we have our summer camps and vacation camps where kids can really engage with.
Um, uh, you know, growing food and learning about soil and learning about worms and all the things getting dirty, which is what the pumpkins do when they're in a park.
Um, this actually is now an orchard, so we have a large orchard that produces plums and apples.
We do… these greenhouses are operational. This one has been given to the community and they use that. It's a number of community groups use that greenhouse to grow starts.
Um, for edible plants that are then distributed throughout.
Seattle, and it includes, like, Black Farmers Collective, northern Roots, a variety of communities use that greenhouse for plant stars.
Um, this is our hot house, so this is like potatoes and stuff like that.
And then, this is a wetland. Um, you know, our dream someday would actually be able to have, like, a boardwalk out here and have, like, bird lines.
We have put some game cameras up along as well, and we've seen. We have beavers that have come in. We've seen river otters that have come on site. We have all the folks that are nesting there.
Um, so it is among, you know, ducks, some of the more normal things, but it really is an interesting integration of, you know, organic food production in a wildlife sanctuary. It's open to the public. And that has.
tons of programming available for the public. pretty much year-round.
Um, please. Right, and so we do have a bunch of music gardens, which they use to, which basically people can come and pick their own food out of those gardens. We just mark like you can pick from this row, because this is.
harvestable, it's ready to be harvest, ask them to weigh their food and tell us how much they've taken, so that we can keep track of, um.
how much food is actually being produced and distributed to the public. And all of our… all of our food, some of our food on the farm stand operates 13 weeks out of the year, and we haven't been able to raise funds so that on an annual basis.
Actually, $60,000 worth of produce is given away free from just our farm stand. They are allowed to get $20 and it is. It is the honor system. So they just have to say.
that they would like to use. So we'll roll through. I've been talking about a lot of the programs, but you can go ahead and scroll through scroll through this one.
So for this one… And I will say that we have some of the significant investments we've made in the site since we've been there. We electrified.
Um, 3 of the greenhouses on the roll-up sides on them, so they really are functional. We added a cool bot, which is basically a walk-in refrigeration system so that we can store our produce. It has storage sheds that we put in, we build farm stem structure.
We expanded both cropland and orchard in the UPIDS, and we funded. We got grant funding to put signage on the site, and we've done all of this in collaboration with the Parks Department.
And I want to call out Pamela Wilson, who is our liaison who I adore. She's fabulous.
I just want to give her a kudos for being as wonderful as she is. I second that. Next slide.
Um, so this is basically all of the things that go on at our book dev. We produce about 6,000 pounds of produce a year, and we were hoping just our hired a farm, a field manager who is is a professional.
farmer to come. We really like to see the production increase. We have our farm stand 13 weeks a year. We use the big greenhouse to pack the good food bags. We distribute between 18 and 20,000 bags.
produce to low income families in the community. Those we procure from local farmers, all organic food produce for those bags.
And all of the packing of those bags, the storage of the produce, the packing of those bags takes place at our bookshelf.
Um, we employ about 40 youth, most of them from South Seattle a year where they're given paid internships, and they work on wetland restoration and food production as they learn.
you know, soft skills for future employment, social-emotional skills, it's a basic skills development program.
And I do want to mention the wet restoration, you know, it is a wetland, and we spent a lot of time and effort into restoring those wetlands, which is one of the reasons that we do have wildlife starting to turn up onto the property.
how we run our summer camp, we run field trips, and we have a couple. One of the things that we're obligated to do, which we do anyway is have at least one large community event that attracts 200 people.
Um, the main event we have is our Farm Fest, and last year we had over 2,000 people come to Farm Fest. It was somewhat overwhelming. We actually got in trouble with the neighbors because of the, you know.
Like, we just did not expect that many people.
And so we're working with them to address parking issues. We have a great plan. We're renting.
The parking lot at River High School, so that people can park there. But it's been interesting to see how this the site has just gotten.
very popular. And we can, I'm going to probably go very quickly through some of these next ones because it's going into.
Quite a bit of detail, but you can go… I had it scroll. This is just some of the statistics.
Um… Let's go ahead and go through… I want to… I do want to talk a little bit… I do want to just say.
that the children's programs are actually really that we run through actually very, very important, and.
Um, this is actually… I actually corrected on my slides here. It's actually 2,000 children have come to that's both our book and Good Shepherd Center in Hollandburg to the garden we run there.
on school field trips. We have, you know, a curriculum designed for students from staff public schools to visit our site.
And it's about… between 400 and 500 children that attend our summer camp and GSD each year to learn about growing food, cooking, caring for the environment.
Next slide, please. This is our youth stewards, 14 youth are between 14 and 18.
where they spend, their cohorts, one in all, one is summer, one in spring. If they're with us helping us with all of the work that we do on site.
Next slide. Um, we also do have adult education. We have an average of 60 classes a year that are.
In Italy, you name it, a lot of those classes do take place in our book because of the.
Commercial kitchen, because we have gardens where people can actually have hands-on experience.
also take place at our Learning Garden, uh, at GSC as well. And then the the host.
a senior meals program, some generation operates senior meals program that serves.
bunch, uh… twice a week.
to East African seniors. When I first came, there were maybe 20, 25 seniors attending.
100, and Sue actually did work to bring more of the women, um, to these lunches. When I first started, there were no women attending, and so we did a lot of work sort of got a grant recruiting, so now it is actually a co-ed luncheon program, and they not only come to eat lunch, but they're very engaged on site with.
in the gardens, exercising, doing all the things that we have given them their own plot to grow culturally relevant food on site that is often used in the meals that have generations.
And so, very quickly, I'll touch on, um, as I said.
Pardon. That's okay. Meridian Park. We did enter into an agreement in 1977 to operate a learning garden in Meridian Park and then a children's garden. This is an aerial view of the children's garden, which is adjacent to the Shepherd Center.
The Good Shepherd Center, you know, is operated by the Seattle Historic, but that's where our main offices are as well.
And we operate many of the same programs here as we do at our job, but just on a much smaller scale.
There are 2 events you just talked about things to, you know, see or do.
We have a big plant sale on March 21st at Arbuck. We're known for our plant sales.
We… so we have sort of the spring plant sale on March 21st, and then our big plant sale, which takes place in Meridian Park, is on May 18th.
Somewhere in that area, we can… The weekend. And then on April 18th, we have a very large volunteer event happening in which is… Um, sponsored by Tito's Vodka, believe it or not. They have become endowment of Art of the Dove, and every year they sponsor a very large volunteer event where we can get a lot of this stuff done to.
care for the summer that needs to get done. So you're welcome to. Thank you.
Yeah. That's in September of 2011. We have, like, tried transit. I know we're running a little bit over, but if any commissioners had any quick questions, I just want to make sure we had a.
A few minutes, just one. Is that 100% organic? All the growth you see everything.
Absolutely. You can come and walk around the farm anytime. Well, they're not always. Okay.
I don't have a question, but just a comment. My kids have participated in your programming. It's great. Thank you for all the work you do.
And thanks for… This is wonderful. We appreciate learning more about these types of partnerships.
quite pass that. What? So we for 20 years at home. I had never made one turn. Even I was there.
Wonderful. They're wonderful partners, so thank you for all that you do down there to make that site alive.
All right. I think next item is business. We're just 4 minutes over. So we're doing pretty well. Andy's gonna talk to us about reopening plans for the South Capitol Hill.
Parks. Yeah, I'm actually going to introduce any in my planning manager, senior planner, and 1st and foremost, they have done an excellent job of engaging community. I went to community meeting.
And, you know, as a parks employee. We're very sensitive about all things parks, and we see something that's awry with maintenance, it affects us to get on the phone. If something arrives at a capital project.
And when something goes well, you just feel great about it. That's the way I felt at the end of the meeting. And the reason they were so successful is they listened, they didn't just talk it.
They took the information and said how they're going to integrate it.
And so I applaud you both for that. A lot of humility is being a very productive Phoenix. And the second thing I'm very excited about, they're gonna.
present is a more systematic approach to parks. When we have issues at parks, looking at parks systematically, we have 500 parks. If you look at every park individually.
Gonna have a harder time achieving our goals. And if you look at parks.
I think we can offer greater opportunity to publish all about. One last thing. I was out there this morning, looked fabulous. I was just checking on the status, the fences were done, it looked like they were never up.
wonderful. The users that I witnessed five minutes of walking their dogs.
They were playing with their dogs to the green space on leashes. Um, but that's kind of the reason. Thank you so much for having us. I'm going to give a presentation, but I also want to be here, um.
It's done so much work, and if we want to dig into any specific maintenance questions or anything, uh, he's really the only doing coordinate that effort with, uh, cross-divisional activation with our activation team as well. Um, so I wanted to have him here. But yes, since, you know, November.
We've been working on coordinating with the public and figuring out how to kind of look at this. And you mentioned like systemic issue that's going on, and as much as we put into the engagement, people showed up.
And they've opened it, and we pass it to the last groups, organizing around these parks and owning them and wanting to lead the path forward, and just knocking down our door to get involved, so I want to recognize that as well. Um… Uh, so we're calling it our 7-point reopening plan, and you'll notice if you see any communications around the reopening, uh, and as well throughout this presentation, yes, 7 Hills was the park that was closed, but we learned very quickly that.
You know, what happens at 7 Hills immediately affects what happens when this place, and it carries over to Broadway Hill. It affects what happens in Cal Anderson, and there's this neighborhood, the system of neighborhood parks, we saw the same thing in Lake City, that, you know, they're interrelated.
Um, the way they're used, the way that the changes happen at one impact to the other, um, so we… when we started approaching, like, we want to reopen this park, we want to get people back out there, we wanted to look at it on a system level, this neighborhood level, um, and that's why it wasn't.
The solution didn't just focus on 7 months apart, it focused on these larger sites. And I'm going to dive into each of these in a little bit more detail, but we focused on the D7 areas.
of, um, reopening that involve all of our divisions, including security, which includes like our unified care team and the business that they'll be conducting immediately starting, you know, today.
continues for the next 90 days. The park rangers will be visiting daily, and our unified care team members weekly, or on an as-needed basis in kind of crisis or need identified by the park rangers or the community.
Our maintenance team has been doing a quite impressive site mic refresh. We'll go into a little bit more detail, um, and interestingly, at 7 Hills, uh, the trees have become quite an issue, maintenance issue, so they'll be doing a site-wide assessment of those different sites.
Right away, um, to kind of figure out how to improve the conditions there signage became a big piece here and some of the other parts that we're looking at in terms of placemaking and communicating the connection spaces. So that became a big part that we'll dive into.
I think the connecting feature that we're gonna most focus on today is what we proposed as this walking loop, um, and I'm going to pause to add later. But the walking loop is tying together the human activation and the dog activation.
Go to Capitol Hill, there's dogs everywhere, and they want to be more places, and they want them to not… and I'm one of those people. I am a caterpillar, and I'm a woman, and I never have the wealthiest. Um, so we want to like recognize.
support that and, like, make that happen. And it's also focused on like tying that activation to health like our mission of our our goal or strategic plan of like like healthy active neighborhoods and people and getting people outside welcome to her tonight.
Um, and then finally, we'll get into activation and stuff, which is the programming.
Uh, so, maintenance, uh, we're actually… this is a sign from, I think, last week when there were some of the new rainbow site at the site. Um, but they did a… Very intensive deep cleaning around the site. We have the new rainbow signs, which is something that they have immediately identified that they kind of missed their rainbow sign. It's called new code of conduct sign. Sorry, I realize I had this here.
Uh, the pressure wash all of the existing surfaces, did pretty abatement, litter removal, mulch refresh, like every, there were some concerns about like any kind of remaining or.
like risk of biohazards, and so it was, like, a full site-wide refresh, like.
The closure actually gave us the opportunity to catch up and do some of this like herd names that we haven't really a while. So this was a good opportunity for that. As I mentioned, there were some trees on site that had become.
uh, issues for electricity, there were some outages caused by them for visibility, um, for function of the key patch that's there. So you're.
currently conducting an assessment site-wide from the right-of-way to see how we can do that safely and not lose any trees. That's underway. There's been some natural features installed. These are for… four-legged friends, and for 10 two-legged friends, uh…
you know, things take a little bit longer to implement, but we have some great natural features in our yards. Uh, our SPR yards, like boulders and logs and everything that people can that in smaller creatures can climb on and enjoy. So we went out to pull some of those and install them in the space as we're.
Looking towards some of our long-term activation things that people are interested in, like majors, and of course the pins came down.
In the long run, we will be doing daily maintenance checks and, uh.
the arborist assessment will be implemented once it's completed. There's some bollard lighting there that needs to be replaced. It's actually very specific use. It's going to take some time, and we're going to be working on aerating issues as well.
For programming, uh, as I mentioned, like, Seven Hills itself had a very active also neighborhood response, um, to what's going on there. They were appreciative of the actions took, and that.
ways that we were trying to communicate and build community around the space there. So we have a friends of group that is almost formed and I would say has about a dozen people already involved.
And it involves folks from different organizations in the area, as well as immediate neighbors and members of the UPass there, so that's being built. They're applying for NMF applications for park features, and they're looking for long-term activation.
We're actually working with the 15th Avenue Business Improvement Association, who wants to fund the materials for the Friends of the group to help with maintenance on the site. They're very excited, and they also want to see if they can get some support with Williams Place similarly, because.
We are working prior to 2020, the site was heavily used by child care facilities nearby. So we're working on getting a NAC box there supplies so that they can have access to those play toys to use them.
in agreement with them, get a key, but it's in progress.
Um, and movie nights were a big ask, so we're looking at getting, um, a vendor getting that set up, and we think we should be able to get that set up.
But immediately, uh, we have already coordinated and set up daytime concerts through March and April and into May so we can get to by the time we think that the friendship group themselves will be able to start hosting activation and holding.
Um, that is in the space. And additionally, our SBR SoundStep program will be supporting walking loop and moving through the walking loop, getting people to the site, doing memory walks.
Starting said in the next couple of weeks.
So this, like I said, one of the things, and I'll get a little bit more into this at the very end, but that we're doing is we're trying to look at active parks, and we want to make sure that we're providing, you know, maximizing the service that we're providing.
parks that we have in the budget that we have, so that we are getting the most people access to what like within like a decent walking distance, um.
all of the different kind of assets that we have. And this healthy capital hill hike idea is that.
The concentration of parks here is great. They kind of have very similar features right now. You might not typically bounce from one to the other. But if you spread out the features, and you activated them, and you had a reason to bounce from one to the other, and you connected them.
It actually creates a 5k. And what we've developed is this is actually an image from the virtual guide. This is phase one. We're going to be rolling out a phase 2, but it's live now. We took the parts in the area, and we have recommended body weight exercises using.
features in the park, and they include both human and hound.
And there are also courageous challenges. But basically guide you through these walks for both upper body workout, 1.6 miles in the blue, and then 1.5 miles for lower body workout in the red.
And the only reason that it's not ugly yet is because procurement takes a bit of time. As you might know, to buy and install fitness equipment. That is what my plan is this summer. We'll be installing a fitness equipment and agility equipment for humans in the house. But.
Right now, people can use it. We… If you click on the site when you're on the virtual guide, a little blurb pops up. You have photos demonstrating the use of the feature. It describes how you do the workout and fees for it, and then you click it by mid-March.
These will be installed along the route, and then you need to show people where the route is. It's a QR code, so you can scan it and pull it up, and they'll also be at each of the locations where the equipment will be going, so that you can have the guide there. Um, and then people will have this.
to follow up throughout. And I think that covers it. But yeah, the idea is trying to, because, I mean, we typically would put this equipment in, put everything all in one spot, and that's what this park gets. So now we're trying to look at, like, what if every park got a little bit, you can bind it together.
And kind of created this more social, like… And, uh, I think I heard all this.
Yes, oh, we are adding some additional like natural agility features. Again, we have some great, um.
stuff in our yards, and we wanted to, like, be responsible with the resources that we had available, really kind of be conscientious of the fact that this kind of work wasn't budgeted for. Um, so there's… we found some cool, actually, like, a meeting exercise that you can do with, or a step exercise.
So we implementing those in some of the parks, for example, like Thomas Street Mini that wasn't subject of this.
of this exact effort, but it ended up being part of the overall move, and… I still don't understand that. I sent an email, and I'm like, I'm gonna ask her tonight, what is that picture? Like, the whole thing? Yeah, no, right here, you can actually, like, that, and step back and forth and do quick steps. Yeah, there's no room, it doesn't look like it's from this angle.
Yeah. There's actually more room than you'd think there. It's probably, like, two and a half, three feet between here and there.
Yeah. Um, and people climb all over skateboarding, I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Most of the other features are natural and concrete. This is the only one that's a little… But it's it, right? Okay.
So, and this is just kind of an example to show how we're combining with the natural features of Node.
all features, so, like, Summit Slope, we have the step-ups involving, like, this has a ton of grade changes that have the adventures, but we also have, like, more challenges to hear really good step-ups. Um, but we'll have, like, dog leads, whereas Tashkan's gonna get, like, formal, like.
Okay, Vanessa would then have, like, natural logs, um, for dogs to jump over. Um, so we're kind of combining it in strategic discovery part against that.
Where is that going? Oh, there's a grassy sat on Hashkin. Yeah. Because it's only mud right now. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah, this is kind of just a summary to show off the parks that are getting on the loop that are getting the investment, and some of the work has been done. The water access and repair and securing. This is a key thing that you had just wanted to see, and there's some additional landscaping that's going to be done. We have subtest walks happening today.
tomorrow with SPD. Um, they're gonna be giving us some feedback on those, which is the earliest we can schedule them when there may be availability. We'll be doing some additional landscaping to… based off of the set timeline.
This is just my plug, so I want you all to get excited for and be involved in. We're doing a comprehensive update of our participant this year. Uh, we are very excited because we're taking this kind of global looking at our our systems approach to our citywide.
our neighborhood, our community level planning, um, to try to fill gaps in these systems by looking at like yes, we have X number of basketball courts, but are they all in the Northwest, and they're not. There's none in the Southwest, for example, and like, how do we make sure that we fill those gaps? And so.
We've been doing this work over the past few years, and it's really focused on equitable service for everyone. Like, does everyone have it? You know, 95% of the population maybe within a 10 minute walk apart, but are they within an X-minute walk? Let's go for it?
And so we've been doing a lot of analysis for the past 3 years, and really decided to go involved with that.
Part of that effort we've been doing. That's it. Awesome.
I have a few questions. Oh, I have a quick one related to the hiking markers. Is that an output of the way finding study that Ben Johnson was working on? I know he was looking at signage. Sounds like something similar. Yeah, yeah, those were my folks. Yeah. He.
That's… that's only for our specific trail program, so, like, socks are, like, they had to go, like.
It's regulatory, so soft surface, hard surface trails, and greenways. That's not… they're actually going on a sidewalk, and we work with SDOT, which they have a some… a neighbor healthy neighborhood plan. They're going to come out there in a couple years, and we're kind of laying the groundwork to support that.
Um, and so it's connected to that. They're temporary. They're, if you know you've seen the things that people stick like on store grains to say this to the sound, you know, that's exactly what it is. I mean, we can… we have enough to replace them.
Um, so it's just something we're gonna know that the walk's there, and, uh, but it's it's a step to the next thing. Okay.
I'm District 3, so I have a couple. Are you increasing gardening staff, or are gardeners and senior gardeners from the existing large park volunteer and challenges and being asked to.
Extended to the new landscape? How's that going to work? So, for Toshkin and Seven Hills, we have friends of groups forming, and they… they've… Watasha kind of already started, um, some of their own, uh, upkeep, and they're… we have friends that move off and help with my name.
regular maintenance, and that's one of two places that we've increased it for the smaller parks, we are trying to do the kind of the same thing instead of similar front zone group, we're going to keep pursuing those. Um, but otherwise, we're not shifting anything. I mean, Cal Anderson does has had some resources shifted over the past year. I don't know.
Other than that. We have district gardeners that aren't specific to like volunteers. Okay, good. And then who drives the activations and programming? Is that like a central events team at parks, or is that have you had to drive a lot of it just because this is… unscheduled and, you know, kind of short-term. It's like this whole thing has been very collaborative, um, with our activation person was involved in this was Tom Diamond.
Cool. And then more just to comment, are you planning or are you planning to do any promotion at the farmers market on Sunday? That seems like a great opportunity to get in front of a lot of people to promote the new everything and everything. Yeah, yeah. So I think we wanted to get the markers installed. Yeah, yeah. So I think that was the one thing. Yeah, I think that'd be great. I mean, I'm there every Sunday. Sunday anyway, so I might as well do it.
Okay, okay. Thank you so much. It looks great. Yeah, I have one more quick follow up. Are the park rangers committed indefinitely to monitoring? Just for right. I mean, yes, they'll be monitoring, but the frequency won't be as much. I think it was one to three times a week after that, depending on like.
I mean, I think from our… we feel pretty confident that the situation's gonna improve with our plan that we have, um, but I think the plan after 90 days is one or three times a week considering.
encouraging the people who are already out there with their dogs and playing around, because it's a big part of it. I know you know this, but… Walking and walking is the number one recreation element.
country and if we can collaborate with us on.
More walk moves to neighborhoods. Not only, of course, mission supports public open space thinking about public right-of-way is an extension of the park.
And also alleviates a dog issue. You know, we're getting so much pressure off the shoes.
So could this be a pressure relief? Two dogs.
We try to promote people walking their dogs instead of being a social element of that, right?
I just had one brief one. It's a more comment about.
That's two projects, but that sort of systematic approach in general. I love the thinking and appreciate. You know, how do we get as many.
People using the park and using it well, and finding those consistencies, and try and string them together.
Um, and I'm really optimistic that this will work out. I'm curious, though, how you're going to be tracking.
is the sort of features and design actually being used. I'm a little because I would be a little bit concerned about awareness. How are people going to discover this? It's something new. It's a little bit different.
and sort of, how are you approach that, and how are you going to be able to sort of say, yes, we're getting… It's not that, you know, X number of people did exactly, but, like, our forgetting dog users were going to multiple parks and using features and things like that. Yeah, so, um, we've been using a data source that's called Placer AI, and we can have metrics like.
the baseline metrics before any intervention was done, and then while intervention in post. And it actually tells you usership data and we're looking at from and how long they were there to tell you who they were. Yeah. It takes some time for those so that they the way they protect you.
Both, uh, privacy is by not really telling you, but after some time, so that's… that's what we're using. Okay. And it will provide that. And then from a marketing standpoint, how are people going to find out about this? Yeah, so, um, segue to our concept. I know!
But go ahead. We were… I forgot to mention it, it's up there, um, we wanted to have all the… Sure. Yeah, so we're going to be doing a promotional marketing plan between now and the time before it's installed. Like, we want to just have everything.
But we want to get it fully inactivated. By mid-March, all the markers will be in, so it'll start that, but the promotion, I wanted to line up.
Yeah. Thank you all. Thank you. Hi, Christina. So next order of business is communications update on 2025 communications.
Alright.
All right. Hello, I am Christina. I am the Public Affairs Manager as of last month, and I am very excited to be here this evening to share a little bit about what the communication unit does and how we support the department, and then to highlight also some of our 2025.
accomplishments. So, communication really touches on everything that we do at Seattle Parks and Recreation, whether it's supporting staff behind the scenes or connecting with community up front. We cross all of those touch points.
So, what exactly do we do? At a high level, we oversee media, so this includes answering questions from reporters, coordinating interviews, helping with press events, and sending out press releases.
We support graphic design and photography. Externally, we oversee our website, our blog, our newsletter. We manage all of our social media accounts. We help lead digital accessibility, so making sure all of our digital content is accessible and inclusive.
We manage our PKS info email that sees hundreds of emails every month.
Internally, we oversee our SharePoint site, as well as our daily all-staff emails. And then we support the superintendent's office with event memos and speaking points for the various carbon cuttings and other speaking engagements that they attend.
And then reporting, we help report both upwards and outwards through the mayor's weekly report. And then we also gather all of the information that we hear from our various channels and funnel that up to leadership so that they have a pulse on what the community is talking about.
It doesn't sound like you have a big staff. This is where we get all the stuff first. So, our website is really our main touch point with the public.
over 3 million page views last year. Um, a lot of that traffic is driven by different seasons, and especially, obviously, summertime is when it really peaks. Um, people come to our page wanting to learn all about our amazing aquatics opportunities, so this is where people will go if they want to know.
Is the pool open? Where are the waiting pools located? Which beaches have lifeguards? Um, so really, it's important for us to make sure that the website is accurate, that it's clear, and that it's up-to-date, since this is really the first spot that people will go to if they have a question or are looking for information.
Okay, so social media, we, uh, have a presence across 7 different social media platforms. We are on Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, uh… X, blue sky, LinkedIn, TikTok. I think I got them all. So we have a very large presence for Facebook. We have around 30,000 followers on our main page. And then we also help oversee 56 other.
uh, Facebook pages across our community centers, our pools, and our program. So it's always interesting to see what type of content performs really well on social media, and these were our 3 top posts last year, and maintenance.
is really, um, something that resonates with our audience consistently. So, folks love seeing these before and after photos. They like seeing us out in the field, getting the job done, cleaning bathrooms, planting trees, fixing trails.
Um, that kind of content performs really well. And then, of course, uh, park openings are always a big deal, so our number one post was about, um, Pier 58 and the new playground that is there.
For Instagram, this is our fastest growing platform, so we have almost 40,000 followers now, so we gained almost half of those followers just in the last year. The type of content that performs well here, uh, is primarily our alert messaging, so this is messaging around.
Staying safe in parks, weather advisories, wind advisories, stay out from under trees. We have… and things like this, the beach closures. This one got almost 5,000 likes, over 100 comments. Um, we also had a post last year that went somewhat viral, all about warning.
our visitors about an owl that was dive bombing and attacking people in Lincoln Park. So people really like this safety messaging in terms of social media to get that content.
other type of content that we do is a little more in the creative vein. So, for the past few years, we have had this Where's Edward series, where we have an actual Edward Cullen doll from the Twilight series that we take to different parts, and we film little videos and put them on Instagram.
and ask people, guess where Edward is? And they… have loved this, and so this has just become this, like, really, um, interactive thing with our audience, um, even been liked and followed by the official Twilight in the account, so, like, this has grown up pretty big. Um, but last year, our park activation.
folks, um, put on an actual outdoor screening of the movie Twilight, and so, of course, we had to capitalize on that, whereas Edwards, audience and drive engagement, and so this actually ended up being, I think, one of our most well-attended outdoor movies. There were over 1,200 people there.
Um, and our staff were telling us that a lot of people were like, we came just to see the Edward doll, and we called the Edward series, that's why we're here. So it was a really cool example of seeing how social media can actually have, like, a real-world impact in driving attendance, driving participation.
Um, our, uh, all the events that we, uh, do during summertime are also very popular, and of course we pair it with, like, beautiful visuals like this poster that, um, we produced last year that also helped.
And then just, like, uh, Facebook, our maintenance, uh, content also does really well on Instagram.
Okay, we also help with graphic design across the department. So we put together signs, maps, flyers, posters, brochures. If you have seen it on the wall or at a community center, or at an event, or online. There's a good chance our.
office had some hands in helping to create those materials.
Um, okay, so photography is obviously very important for us, as they say in the communications world of photo is worth a thousand words, and so we have our team that has nice fancy DSLR cameras. We kind of serve as like probing photographers, and there's important events. We will go out and take.
photos to make sure that we have this great, you know, repository of awesome photos whenever we need a picture for a report cover, or a flyer, or a social media post, or the website. So our Flickr account has, I think, over 40,000 pictures. All of them are tagged and labeled, so we need to find.
a photo for, um, a presentation or any outlet, that's where we can go to get that.
Okay, our blog is called Parkways. It gets about half a million views per year, and our newsletter Explore More was opened by over 93,000 times last year. The blog and the newsletter are really nice channels because they allow us to go a little deeper.
And social media does, so when we have longer form content, we'll go up on the blog and in the newsletter. Um… And the type of content that performs really well here is usually our seasonal events and our recreation program brochures.
Okay, our PKS… info, uh, email address gets just incredible volume of emails. Um, 350 to 500 emails a month, and we respond to all of them. We really pride ourselves on that responsiveness and getting back to people within 5 to 10 minutes.
This email sees every question imaginable under the sun. You know, we get our standard questions about what are our policies on pesticide use or e-bikes. We also get questions asking are mermaid tails allowed at our pool? So, we see it all.
And this really gives us a great way to keep, like, a pulse on what is the community talking about, what are the emerging trends, what are the concerns that are out there, and like I mentioned before, we summarize this all on a weekly basis, present it to leadership so they can really, you know, keep an eye on any emerging.
issues. So, Christina, LWV. Lwb. What does that stand for? Lake Washington Boulevard. Oh, yes.
Okay, so we send out, uh, several press releases per month. We also get about one to three media inquiries per day, so as you can imagine, this generates a lot of media coverage for our department. Um, we get covered by every outlet from.
Seattle Times, to the West Seattle blog, and no matter the outlet, our goal is to be responsive, to be accurate, and when possible, to be proactive and to get ahead of any stories that we can.
Again, responsiveness is really at the core of what we're about in the communications unit. We hear from the community via email, phone, social media, by comments or DMs, Find a Fix It app.
And we respond with information, an apology when needed, and thanks when needed, a service request. We really make sure to be thoughtful in our response, and this takes a coordinated effort between our teams who all manage different aspects of these channels.
Do you file service requests on people's, like, Commoner's behalf, or are you redirecting them to… So we would do it, like, through our, like, um, if we need to get something done through our maintenance team, we would submit something, uh, to them to make sure we get a report via to fix it, that there's a lease somewhere or something's broken.
about it through our staff. That all comes to you first, not to them. Is that right? Well, that is climate fix emissions come to Europe. They don't come directly to us. They go to the city, and the city will funnel, um, them to us.
by department. And Christina usually gets stuff that isn't identifiable. Yeah, when they're trying to figure it out, or somebody doesn't want to use the app.
And so, they'll try to encourage them that it's a usable app, but we'll submit that work order for you. Okay.
Okay, so now changing gears a little bit, I want to highlight some of our 2025 communications accomplishments.
So digital accessibility continues to be a big focus. We've been working to ensure that we're meeting federal requirements around digital accessibility, not just because it's the law, but it's the right thing to do, and it really matters and really makes a difference.
Last year, we actually had a staff member who dedicated, um, a large portion of her time to going through our blog, going through our website to make them more compliant. So she ended up remediating 150 PDFs.
made it so that these PDFs could be, you know, readable by screen readers. Um, deleted thousands of uncompliant documents we're not using, added alt text, hundreds of images, and also helped educate staff about how to make their digital content compliant. And is this just.
Uh, screen reader accessibility, or is it low contrast? What are the aspects of… For the website, contrast also is a requirement, um, by IT, so that is definitely there.
We are moving more into that type of thing, and making sure contrast, sizing, font, etc. Our printed materials, so that's kind of the next phase of this.
Okay, and so language access is also a big lift for us last year. We submitted our language access plan to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs. So one in 5 Seattle residents speak the language other than English at home. So it's really important for us that we are.
planning for and budgeting for interpretation, translation, and language community outreach to make sure that our programs truly are accessible.
And then we created this lovely brochure. So, our old brochure was getting to be really out of date, so we refreshed this new one. This has been a great resource at tabling events, community events. Um, it just provides a real nice overview of who we are, what we do, what we believe.
And the amenities that we have. Are you in the annual report?
They put brochure on the back end? No, I don't think we have, no.
Good, yeah? Okay, trending content. So this 1st photo shows our former Olympus manager and myself at the Washington.
Uh, recreation Park Association Conference last year, we were invited to present on how we were able to grow our Instagram presence through the use of trending content and memes. So in the middle here, you can see.
following Kendrick Moore's performance at the Super Bowl halftime, um, we created a post about a classic Seattle phenomenon, which is, you know, even if it is freezing outside, if it's sunny, people are going to be out and about in our parks, and so we paired that photo with Amoebe of.
Kendrick singing, you know, they not like us, because nobody else is like us. We're Seattleites, we're unique. Um, and it really helps this type of content, um, helps not to just, um, you know, we don't only want to inform people, we also want to, like, build a community that's fun and that's engaging, and people want to go to our page because they like it, and they see.
cool stuff, and so this helps us kind of tick some of those boxes. Parks and recreation is joyful, and so we also want our social media to be joyful and to be fun. Um, we did another one where we were imagining our parks as real housewives with both intro taglines. This came about because we started seeing the Real Housewives trending across all of our social media feeds.
Turned out there was a rumor that people thought they were gonna film the next season of The Real Housewives in Seattle, and so this was, like, blowing up and just very, very of-the-moments, and so, of course, we had to, like, um, uh, take advantage of that. And then we also did one where we were matching heavy red carpet looks.
Um, to different Seattle parks. Oh, I thought that was a who wore it best.
Um, so yeah, so it's lighthearted, but it's also strategic. Like, we're helping to build an audience, make people feel part, make them want to keep coming back to our pages.
Okay, and then last year, I also worked on putting together a short form video series that was optimized for Instagram, so film vertically for Instagram reels, you know, just one to two minutes, really short. We covered all of these topics in different videos.
Our most popular one was about community centers, and I am hoping we can play it with some sound. Hoping, too. Okay.
If you've never been to a community center, this is the space to be. There are community centers all over the city of Seattle. We do have, for example, swim classes, dance classes. We also have a workout facility. Workout classes in the pool. Fitness classes.
a great team program and team late night. Basketball, pickleball, we just have a little bit of everything. Community Center is for everyone. We have to continue to create spaces like this so that young people can continue to thrive and be the best versions of themselves. You get to.
you know, discover new talents that you never knew you had. Please, find a community center near you, and I guarantee you, you will have a great time. We take pride in making sure that our community centers stay community-centered.
Boom, there you go.
If you've never been to a community center, this is the space to be.
Oh, he's good, he's good. So, what's next for 2026? Obviously, World Cup FIFA is going to be a huge thing. You know, this is an incredible opportunity. Our department is going to be supporting various activation events, like watch parties and.
soccer clinics, and so it's really important for my office to make sure that all of the promotional materials that we're putting out are multilingual. It's written in plain English, um, that they're accessible, since we will be having people from all over the world coming here, and we want to be able to also connect them with.
All the great programming we're doing. The next thing that we have is this next move campaign. So this is an initiative from the city's innovation and performance team, where we are trying to connect young people.
two more city services, get them more involved in programs, internships, stipend opportunities, volunteering. And so we're going to be launching a dedicated Instagram page, um, and we're going to be using things like influencers for the very first time, and the industry has.
used to influencers before, so we're gonna be testing that out to see if we can meet you where they're at, and get them more involved with all of the great programs our city and our partners offer. And then the third thing that we're really excited about is that we're going to be launching, um, a.
department rebrand, um, so this is going to include new colors, new fonts, new design elements that will help give a more cohesive look to our materials.
When… and when is that? That is in the works right now, yeah, so I'm probably in the next few months, we'll start really some of that out. So definitely next year you'll see a new PowerPoint template, for example, with colors, different formats. But this will be used.
For all of our, you know, external communication, digital graphics, etc.
All right, so that that was a little recap, and I'm happy to take any questions. Can you just pop some comments in chat? Yeah.
Oh, the question. There you go. Okay.
Same question, yeah, sorry answered. Thanks, folks.
acronyms will get you every time. Christina, did you say you guys do all of that work in-house, or do you have agency partners that you work with? We do all this in-house, except for some of the graphic design, like, um, the Dancing Till Dusk poster. We worked with a professional graphic designer on that one.
It all looks great. Everything else is us, yeah. Impressive. I love the social. I follow. It's great. Yeah. I know the superintendent made reference to your size of your staff. How many people are doing on this? How big is your staff? So, we have the public affairs.
unit, uh, that I manage that also includes our volunteer team. We're looking just at our comps folks, we have Samantha Burton, who manages that inbox. We have Cooper Moore, who launches the website. Um, we have me managing the whole team, and we have Daniel, who, um, assists with language access and community engagement.
And you're gonna have an outcast. Just one comment on, uh, influencer. Yeah.
Awesome to see someone in the city going down that path. Be really interesting to think about how to leverage very sort of smaller scale people who want to be aspiring and make it very local, rather than.
Someone who might be more known for a topic, so hopefully this is a way to help celebrate some people who are out there trying to get it. Yes. Um, in the city as well. We are working with an agency, and they have, like, a whole tiered system of, you know, like, the big time, like, and I mean, first of all.
costs to the… I lost some of the first influential marketing. Okay. So we're going for, like, the bottom tier, very, very hyper-lobal. Hyper-lobal, yes. Yeah, hyperlocal, yes. Yeah, um… If you do it right, they'll be excited to try and get their name out there in the city, so… Yeah.
Great. Thank you. We're two minutes ahead of time? Um, we do have… we do have a couple of, uh, items, uh, business. First of all, um, retreat. Uh, a number of questions.
come up about retreat scheduling. There was a doodle poll. I have the exciting results, and it says that.
It's worse than that. Over the 3 days, pretty much equal availability on March 12th, April 9th, and May 14th. The staff has recommended April 9th, since there wasn't any strong consensus, so I think we're gonna try and.
Shoot for that, and uh… apologies if folks weren't able to make it. It looks like there's some folks who weren't able to make every single one of them, so we just have to pick one. But pretty good numbers. Yeah, 11, 10, and 10 for the three days, so… And it's a good day for us, because it gives us time to do what we need to do. You were saying is probably a little tight for you, right? Okay.
Um, but excited to have that, um, and have some more of a discussion, um, and also learn more about the zoo.
They're looking at doing a tour that would start earlier, so that the animals aren't all asleep, but could be optional. When the animals go to bed at, like, 4.35. Well, that's why we're doing internally, because they said if you just come here.
That'll all be dark. You confirm the timing again? So, uh… We're still gonna confirm the exact time, but there'll be a tour that starts a little bit early, but if people can't make that for their workday, we'll have it. Probably, like, 2, 3-ish start? I would say 3.
But the idea was that that was optional. If you can make it great experience, and then we'll have a regular league.
Schedule meeting closer to our regular time, right? I have to miss you, sorry, I'll be out of town, then I brought you guys back today.
I will catch you up. One other item, uh, just, uh, because we were talking about park rangers, we had asked for, uh, more of an update on the Ranger program at some point, if you get that.
Um, on the schedule. Um, we'd love to hear more about how the users being used, and then, um, what are sort of the ongoing and long-term plans and sort of strategy, and what we've learned so far, and how we think it's going forward this year.
sort of consistent topic of interest on the board, so I just wanted to call that out. See that at some point soon.
Yeah, that's also was thinking about. Um, and then I'm excited to see the camp brochure finally come out. I've been trying to hold a couple weeks open. Still have a couple of them in slots. Try to go with us, please. So, um, yeah, it's crazy how much the camps are going for, but excited to see that out, and.
that offering for. Have anybody anything else? I do have one question. I should have probably asked it during your other report. Uh, so we had a HR update, I think, before, um, before the holidays, and just curious, you know, as we start to head into spring, how does hiring look? How does, you know, staffing look for.
Um, you know, the maintenance cleaning crews, etc. So they just finished… Um, as you can imagine, our grounds maintenance, it's… It's like a promotional… Yeah, so they just finished the maintenance, labor, hiring. I don't know if they've finished operating jobs, but the whole… they do working tests.
oral tests and the whole thing, you know, so they just finished that, and they had 60 people participating, and then… People that are utility or laborers get promoted, and then you start the next. So they're trying to get that whole thing so that for summer season, we've got all the positions filled events happening.
Our skilled crafts are advertised, we still struggle to always get enough.
fill those jobs, but they're out. Recreation staff are.
on their timeline, aquatics is doing all their temp hiring for summer, so it's a lot, but there are… if you ask me right now, there's still too many backeys.
Um, but there's many, many people working on.
Yes. I run into both a parks plumber and electrician.
and what's the other park? Yeah, I know they're rare creatures. I was asking, are you on staff for your contact? So it was great to see them. Yeah. Um, so, uh, yeah, wish you best of luck with hiring from the streets, uh, for the summer.
at least doesn't sound like we're behind on previous years.
No, I would say we're actually doing. It's a huge ramp up. Yeah.
I have one more distance. We have a minute. One of the pieces of correspondence that came in this month was around from a small business owner.
Asking about and protesting the 10% of sales fee that we charge. And it it.
struck a bell with me, partly because my other hat is with Volunteer Park Trust and logistically it is so difficult when you're an event owner, event manager just pieced together all these 10% because the event managers in charge of getting it to parks, right?
You can't just tell the vendor, oh, you have to make sure you follow up on that, as the permit owner, you have to coordinate it. A lot of them don't have Venmo, they don't have. I mean, it's just a mess. So I would just ask, like, is that a meaningful source of revenue?
You're saying yes because I was hoping it wasn't. Those vendors, it's an important part of most events. Food trucks. If it's a pet event, you want, you know, local pet store owners there. It's part of the event, usually.
Um, and so to have a hurdle for them is. But that one just struck out stuck out at me, and I think it'll be worth exploring. But obviously, you know, it's hard to turn down revenue in a.
In this environment understand that. Yes. It is a.
Honor system? Like, we don't require lots of documentation behind for every 10, you know, for every table, or whenever to try to not make it too difficult.
But yes, it does brings in some money. Okay.
Have you considered flat fee offerings for like very tiny businesses?
Well, I mean, we have lots of different things, like you saw tonight with public benefit offsets and all different approaches, certain things. If you're not charging a fee, you don't obviously you don't pay 10%.
Yeah, yeah. So there are different ways to not have those burdens.
But most of the… for-profit things, too.
Well, thank you. So much, everyone, uh, in March, and let's get the retreat on the calendar.
Thank you.