Alright, hi, welcome everyone.
This is our July 9th meeting. We will start with introductions of all the members and staff in the room, and then we'll turn it over to online folks.
I guess we'll start
Are you okay being first? Can we start on your end and we'll work this way? Sure, just
Sure. I'm James Williams. I live in Magnolia and this is my first time being present here
Hi everyone, Steve Blair at large.
Jane Stone Cipher at large.
Whitney Nakamura, Boards and Commissioners
Michelle Finnegan, interim superintendent.
Elise Chisholm-Clair for District 4.
Recreation staff
Ben Burton, Seattle Parks and Recreation.
And then if we can turn it over to folks online.
Stafford Mays District 7
Let's see
Trisha. Oh, go in. Tricia Diamond, boards and commissions
Brad Kahn, District 6.
Philip Meng, District 7.
Tiazang, District 2.
Aman highway law district five
Hi, I'm Rebecca Rash, district one
Thanks, everyone. Thanks for being here.
I am going to start with our land acknowledgement, and then we'll go into our consent items.
Seattle Parks and Recreation acknowledges and affirms the Indigenous Coast Salish people as the original caretakers of our waters and landscape.
who nurtured and shaped today's parkland
We honor their legacy with gratitude and appreciation and will safeguard their knowledge, stewardship as enduring treasures to promote community welfare, cultivate inclusive expressions of nature and recreation
And commit to land acknowledgement for each ensuing generation.
All right, so our consent items, I'm hoping we can just vote on the full package. It includes our May 28th meeting minutes
Our June 11th meeting minutes, and then today's July 9th meeting agenda
Motion to approve. Great. Second.
All right, all those in favor.
Right?
I think that was anyone opposed?
Any abstentions? I think that was everyone. Great. Great. That is approved.
All right, then we will turn it over to public comment
Great. I'm going to read off your name for public comment, and we'll have two minutes, and I'm going to time it just make sure we get through everybody. So first on our list is
Dorothy Graham
Okay, I do not see Dorothy online either. Okay, next up, Clay.
Okay.
Luis Johnson
Okay, Ben Savage. How are you? Great. Hi, my name is Ben Savage and I am a Lincoln High School's cross country coach
And the track code
And I'm a PE teacher at Lincoln High School. I'm a lifelong runner and I'm just here on behalf of the Lincoln students
And to me, this is all about investing in the future.
Because I'm tired of this country, we don't want to invest in our future, because it costs money, and it costs… sometimes it's not comfortable.
Today I play golf in Jefferson Golf Course. I'm so glad somebody invested in that 100 years ago. Yesterday, I ran around Greenland. I'm so glad somebody invested in that. And yeah, trees got taken down so that we could run around, but it's the second most running park in the country in Central Park
So, yes, it is gonna be uncomfortable
for us to build this field up at Lower Woodland. I get it. As a cross-country coach, our course runs right through them. I know that the Rain City Flyer is an amazing running club for the kids in this area. Their course is going to be effective
And that's not great, but our Lincoln High School students, the biggest high school in Seattle
Also, the, like, top 5 academic schools in all of the state for public school, we take a lot of pride in that. We don't have facilities for our football team, and we don't have facilities for our tracks
So we practice from 6.30 to 8.30 at night. That's when we practice. Those kids get home at 9 o'clock at night's best case scenario.
When do they dinner? Maybe before practice, my track runners, they can't do that. They'll show up during the
Okay, so we're not gonna… not everybody's gonna agree on this. The best case scenario was Wallyfield, and that got shot down by 7 really loud people
But that would have been as a PE teacher for us, perfect for Hamilton, thousands of people who were being affected would have been
Affected by it. So I'm just saying
This field in Upper Woodland is not going to make up… it's not perfect. I get it. But we have to invest in the future. We all want these kids to be off their phones. We want them to be out exercising. We want healthy kids. 10 seconds left. Okay.
We gotta get this going. These kids need to be able to have this opportunity to practice after school, and we can't lose our numbers. Kids don't do tracking, don't do football because they don't want to practice 63830 night
It's okay if it's uncomfortable, let's please get this going and get it. Thank you.
Nancy
Same last name, I think. Hello, my name is Nancy BrightHoodle. I'm a resident of Northeast Seattle. I am a recreational cyclist who prefers riding on trails
Or I can enjoy the natural surroundings, the scenery, and ride in a safe, non-motorized environment.
Today, the first Gilman Trail serves as both a crucial transportation corridor, as I evidenced on the ride down here today
Daily commuters and a cherished recreational space for cyclists, runners, walkers, you name it, throughout the region. However, after five decades of heavy use, our trail spaces significant maintenance challenges that require funding.
You know that when the proper facilities are provided, many people will choose healthy pollution free, non-motorized modes of travel and recreation
The Burke-Riddleman Trail is an extremely successful rail-to-trail conversion. In 2008, it was inducted into the Rails to Trails Conservancy's Hall of Fame.
We need to make the trail wider, safer, drier, and ADA compliant.
Standards for bicycle trails have changed over the last 50 years, and the traffic levels on the Burke Buildman are higher
faster and more varied than ever before. It is a valuable asset
Connecting people to the beautiful nature of the city. We need to be good guardians of this gem and address the maintenance issues it needs and deserves
They have the funding and resources to make this happen.
Thank you.
Thank you. Peter
Good evening, members of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners. We were here two years ago, and really nothing much has happened since the repair work. We got to meet the new board that time. Hopefully the new board members here will close last night
My name is Peter Braifel, I'm the president of viewer Chambert and husband, leader of the Pittsburgh Gilman partner body of the Seattle Parks Foundation. We're trying to raise funds to the whole event and to also help increase the trail forward.
Here's data type on the Burke Elmer Trail, local, regional, and nationally significant part of the National Bike Rub managed by the Seattle Parks and Recreation
The Burke trail is one of the first river rail trails through version 50 years ago
So, and that's actually the acquisition land was 55 years ago this year
Unfortunately, has not received the capital improvement funding for the northernmost 4 miles yet.
It's got some compares, but the stuff there is currently controlled out of scope of location repair
It's critical for mile stretch suffers from years of deferred maintenance, facing drainage issues, severe root intrusions, crumbling asphalt, inadequate width
Sound Parks knows about this. There's reports internal that have been put in there, but Mike will talk about the saving part, not the part that's not
Israel becomes unsafe, we went from the pooling black ice and just the fact that actually trail has full rain of water, too
Agentic is overrun by vegetation, is slippery, and it's masked a deep, hidden ditch kind of weeks.
The password maintenance that's being done is no longer enough. Just needs it for your guys' terminology redevelop for repaving moderate barriers, structural range fixes to save images with demarcation
Channel Productivity is the responsibility and resource to fund the capital equipment project for repent.
Houston offensive endless historic trail deteriorate further
The current repayment service do need to continue
But they have to be supplemented by capital fusions. Also, please join us on the 55th anniversary of the ICAN at the Matthews Peach on the 12th of September. We had it moved by, I think, last month. You're very welcome to come there
Thank you. Erica Bigelow
Thanks for allowing the public permit. My name is Erica Bingelo. I'm a Wallingford resident and public schools, and we have been I've been following closely, of course, the Lincoln Field
Situation for years and years now. I'm really excited that there's been a decision made on a location, and it's going to be great. One thing that the neighborhood is asking is that the Parks Department provide a public point of contact going forward. Part of the issue, I think, with the project to this point, at least for the neighborhood and for parks, is that
Seattle Public Schools, their client is the schools, and that's who they've been communicating with like entirely. And so when information comes out to the neighborhood, it's not always complete, and it's not… and there isn't any opportunity for feedback from the neighbors or the residents of the area to provide
Any influence over any of the designs that may be going forward. So as we proceed and build this field, which like I said, we're all very excited about, we're excited for Lincoln to have this space and for the parks to be able to have too is that we have this point of
contact to represent the interest for, the neighborhood and the public and the parks and the environment, as well as for the schools. As long as they can work in tandem, I think it's really successful
Thank you.
Erin
So first, I want to thank all of you for the meeting in January when you said there should be one more opportunity for the Halloween
That was hugely consequential. The location is much more appropriate. And to reimbush. The real problem is the only outlet for the public for hard users for hard grandma, environmental access, for all of us that are concerned about the park is to come here
That's not how it should be. There should be somebody
And then it's not the case. And SPS has said you're accountable to the superintendent. The project team has said we are explicitly accountable to the superintendent's credits as I explicitly accountable to my students. So therefore
We'll try to accommodate you after we design the field. We'll tell you what's happening
There's no process. The Seattle Soccer League then came out of that position. They didn't even know this process until we reached out parts department needs to step up and provide a public project
So, on behalf of the 800 people who signed the petition to move field to the gravel lot, thank you. We love the location
You put forward a plan that we think is very low impact. Preserves called large evergreens travel a lot. It takes out fewer than 20 trees. They're all either damaged, deciduous, native, badly leaving trees. It's not great. 20 trees or up to
But it's a lot better than
We also minimize the impacts on cross-country cyclocross and summer camp operational the whole time the field is being built.
And
The mitigate impacts on the neighborhood and trees by oriented north, which connects it most top one to the which is 17 miles. So the design is specifically
specified to minimize required compromises on the part of SMS by a secondary. So no new parking, no drive up access to the field that is narrower than those are the limits
So, you don't know who's going to do that Parks board
Carrie Christensen
If you don't want to see graphic things, don't look. Denny Blaine Park
A park thrower yells, shame, shame, shame at me as I left for
I said, why should I have shame for reporting masturbation and sex acts to SPE
Judge Samuel Chung has yet to issue a ruling on the court case
So this continues to happen on a regular basis at any Wayne Park
A couple of urination, this guy was in the park five different days out of the week running around without hands on, masculating, smoking
Yeah.
Come down to Denver conceal what happens.
So hearts are supposed to be for everybody
This perk is currently not
available for everybody, based upon what happens
This is Olympia
Yes, there's people who come and do nothing
That's great. There's also regulars who say nothing to things like this that happen on a regular basis.
This was on Tuesday morning. Him and his friends got high and smoked me on the beach and SPD
said they showed up and they couldn't find them, 4 hours after I called, and SP actually showed up
10 minutes prior to them leaving.
Next up, Hans.
Hi everyone, I'm Hans Jordah. Thanks for all your efforts on behalf of Parks. I'm one of those 800 that signed up the field of the gravel by here, and I recognize that the forest has to meet the needs of several constituencies, right? Not just high school athletics
any other constituencies as well.
I just wanted to express, that with a view into the decision as a neighborhood park, I think the Seattle Public Schools decision to move that recommended location to activate the double line was really thoughtful and well
You know, a voice of concern, I'd like to make a voice of support for forging a path forward and the balancing the needs of all the constituents to make that happen. And even though I'm not in that constituency right in high school athletics, I support it right as
Shoulder to shoulder constituency groups in the park along with all its other uses, and just wanted to add my voice to support for this overall project
Sarah
I'm Sarah Lapis. I'm an SPS parent, and I'm a project director for the Robert Gates Staff Middle School Meeting Forest, which is the first in Seattle Public Schools. I'm an SDK student and
Also with triage to Seattle, you can follow the project really closely. We've gotten the most recent arborist report for this new location
And so I'm confident we have most up-to-date training stats for removals and not including trees in poor air condition. There are 79 tree removals associated
Some of them very large native trees that are very healthy. One of them is 57 DSHEAR. It's a huge, even the chop on this tree is a tier two tree. You were talking about
comfort for the community, I'm worried about discomfort for the athletes
Because when we remove 79 trees, it's immediately so much hotter.
That arborist report didn't include a stand of trees that would remain with just 15 feet in between the fields and the highway.
And so we're going to get the off fastening from the artificial turf. We're going to get all the exhaust from the highway.
and that canopy loss. I don't think the sustainable plan for the kids in the community, for the environment
The last three years from the hottest dog record. So I understand that there's a lot of concern about the cost going up since it was first approved, but the environmental cost of removing mature trees
has gone up precipitously. Last thing I'll say is that people think, oh, trees just grow, you can replace them. We can't replace our mature canopy. 3 trees planted for that one cedar wouldn't achieve the same benefits in our lifetime
And that's just
So that's my current information. Thank you for your time.
Wow. Regardless for public comment
Next, we're doing a new member introduction
I think we'll do brief introductions now and then go into the superintendent's reports. I know we're doing a bit of that later as well. Is that okay to
Again, I think we'll start in the room and then move online, but
But as we know, we have some new folks and a very sad transition that I'm not prepared for, but we'll start with the exciting new folks joining
So yeah, if you're comfortable giving a little more of a
Introduction to yourself, a woman to other new folks as well
Hi, everyone. I'm James Williams. I live in Magnolia with two young kids
I worked in the technology for about four years.
and
where we live in Magnolia, we basically spend
some portion of every game, it's every part. I think I saw the annual report description is like
Everyone's backyard makes me work is deserved here
Can we turn it over to folks online or are folks comfortable doing kind of a brief introduction as we welcome you on to the board?
Rebecca?
Yeah, sure. Hi. Yeah, happy to be here. I hope you can hear me. I'm having a little bit of a hard time hearing some of the folks in the room and some of the public comments were hard to hear, but I'm not sure if that's just on my end, but
Just wanted to throw that out there with the audio. I live in West Seattle. I am also a very frequent park goer with my six and nine year old Hiawatho is pretty much where we hang out every day
My kids are also currently at the YMCA program at Lincoln Park, which they love. So I'm super grateful to have those great resources. I'm a social scientist by trade, currently with the Department of the Interior and really excited to just learn more about the process.
Thanks so much for letting me join this exciting group
Thanks, welcome.
I'll go ahead if it's my turn. I'm Brad Kahn. I'm
Really excited to be joining the board. I've been a parks volunteer for many years with different nonprofits. I was very active in the Parks District campaign a few years back to get our parks funded. And so I'm excited to join the Parks Board of Commissioners to
sort of see how I can help out from this point of view. I work on climate change mitigation in my day job, and live on Finney Ridge, and I'm at West Woodland Park, or no, Woodland Park on
daily basis. And when my kids were younger was a regular zoo visitor, although they've sort of lost interest now that they're older.
Other than Zoom tunes
Thanks, welcome.
And then we thank you all for joining us. We also have Philip Meng changing seats. He is sticking with us for another term. Thank you, Philip, now representing District 7. We'll see if he remembers that one
Will you introduce yourself?
Do I need to make an introduction? Well, hi, everyone. I'm thrilled to be continuing on the board.
For those who are new to the board, I was a Get Engaged member and then a Boards and commissions member. This is really such a special group of people, and welcome to you all, too.
Thanks for staying with us.
The rest of the board. Well, I was thinking for the end yeah okay
Yeah, let's move to this… Can we just pick on Stafford? Yeah, I know, I do!
Stephan, are you going to stay for the whole meeting that we can embarrass you later, or do I have to do it now? Embarrass you now
I didn't know Philip got District 7. What?
He kicked you out of your chair.
Right. No, I'll be on till the end
Okay. Oh, good. I'll embarrass you later.
Thank you. Thanks
Mr. Supes report
All right, thanks everyone. We'll move to the superintendent's report.
Before we get into the whole report, I do want to thank new members. We'll catch you up on some of this public comment. It's like coming into the middle of a movie, right? So
Thank you for your patience and for joining our esteemed group here. It is a great group of volunteers. We appreciate the efforts and time that you
commit to our our parks and Recreation system.
I'm going to cover Lincoln or Lincoln High School stuff
And a couple slides, but I did want to just… our Burt Gilman friends left, but just so people know
They are right. We have a small
ongoing program to support
paving improvements on the Burg Gilman funds about a thousand linear feet a year. So given that it's a very long trail, you can understand why they can be frustrated. But I think any sort of large investment that they're asking for is probably something that will be in front of you as we work on the cycle three
Park District because it would be a significant investment. So
You'll see that again probably, but
They will probably be frustrated for another year or so if we won't be into that process.
Yet, but the team
Giving away Jessica in the corner, Jessica's team has done a lot of work to get new paving contractors under our blanket contract authority and they will be doing some of the
a more
patching work still this year. So
So next slide.
Start you out with some project updates, and we'll talk about it again later. But Green Lake
community center and pool has and play area are all related, has their next public meetings coming up later in the month
It's an exciting time because they do have the GCCM contractors on board, so they're really diving in and I think we're going to see a lot of progress in that project coming up here quickly. So this is the time to encourage anybody you know that is interested in that project
come out this
This month to give feedback to the team
It's Wednesday night, the 15th at 5.30 PM, and then the Saturday morning, 10am both at
at the community center.
We also have two projects that are actually beginning construction this month. The Hiawatha Playfield is
kicking
A couple weeks. That one's nice because it actually isn't impacting the current play area while they're renovating
Well, they're building a new one. And then Rainier.
Things started this week.
That's what my notes say. And then another I'm going to highlight for two reasons. One, because it was
fun, again, not to give Jessica away, but we spent a very lovely, very wet, very, very wet Saturday morning together a couple weeks ago at the Georgetown flume that rolls off your tongue, which makes you all want
participate in our naming process. So we are seeking names for a new
A new name for the one is historically known as the Georgetown bloom, a city light property that we
acquired through a street vacation and ESDA has done a great additional trail connection down there. So it's a great place to visit and see the effort you have dog, bring your dog. Lots of happy dogs. And I was surprised
Tree comment. They planted 89 trees along the corridor there, so, it's gonna be pretty great, because it's all that matures and
And the dogs can run wild. When the puddles dry. They were shaking. I was speechifying and they were like shaking. I'm like, I'm going quick. Let's get these dogs running.
Also, I just want to give… it's summer, summer in the park system, so we all caught the World Cup fever here in Parks and Recreation had lots of
Watch parties, lots of people visiting. We had
Just that our watch parties that we hosted more in the neighborhoods. We had over 3,000
Attendees through July 7th, total of 16 watch parties and 2 jamborees slash clinics
Or also you'll see in the next slide supporting lots of other people's watch parties in our parks. So
had a good summer with that
Of course, we're also doing
All our normal parks and rec programs and are very, very busy.
This is some shots of our… of our parks crews, mainly downtown.
Obviously, our crews across
System supported all those local events, watch parties. We also had a special team that was constituted to support the downtown crew so that they could have
A focused group that was really focused on their watch parties. John McKinney took a special assignment to lead that crew. I saw him yesterday gave me some feedback on how
How that all went from their perspective. They were… some days they were down there 16 hours
Take my notes say like 9.5 tons of garbage just in our packers.
And but they were
He was still positive, he was still smiling, he said it was pretty amazing to be down there. We had
Thankfully, on the other end of the park, Occidental, our power went out. One of the early watch parties
And because the roads were cordoned off
Our electrician took his tools out of his truck and huffed it in to try to figure out how to get the
It was more the Canton area lights, but he did it, and it just shows that the commitment that people will make to help people have fun in our park system.
Rangers were everywhere as well, as you can imagine.
And the next slide, the other side of
Celebrating in our park sometimes crosses the line and gets to, vandalism or damage. We… the two major
Impacts Bobby Morris play field up at Cal Anderson
was a site of a lime bike
Bonfire
So that is synthetic turf. It was
Very heavily damaged, we don't have… we haven't had a an estimate from the vendor on what it will take. So we're still working through that. In the meantime, the scheduling team is working with the
Permitted users to try to relocate activities, but that that's going to be
A little bit longer and a little bit more expensive, and then
Madrona
I thought people like to blow up toilets. So the men's restroom at Madrona
bathhouse wasn't locked. I think we think it should have been, but the replacing the fixtures there, they're sanding cans in the interim and then
Right. Jefferson Park. So there was some sort of parties in the skate
bowl
The path is just kind of what our teams find in the mornings when they come back. So shout out again to the maintenance teams that come in.
get Gasworks Park all tidy back up, and all the other parks across the system. So
That's the latest on that, and then the next one's probably most interesting.
fans in the audience. So, as
As you know, we've been working with the school district to
Bring a recommendation to this body. We are scheduling a special
Our board meeting in two weeks we did a team we did a
survey of who is going to be around on what stage, so that we could try to make sure we're going to have a quorum and potentially win the most people are actually here, so that people that hear the public hearing can also be here for a potential vote
So while there's been frustration maybe about when those are happening, that was the intent of us making sure they could be successfully implemented. So
There's a special meeting on the 23rd in order to support that we'll have a staff recommendation from Andy Sheffer, who is our deputy superintendent of planning and capital development, who's been leading this with the school district
He will present the staff recommendation and then hold the public hearing
Because I believe there will be a larger turnout than this room is comfortable for. We'll be holding that Miller Community Center. We will take both
In-person and Zoom
testimony, assuming we don't have a technical glitch. And we're going to work really hard on. But just so people know we also and you guys know this
We take
Feedback and writing, testimony and writing as seriously as any verbal feedback. So there's also the
The email that Ben manages, you all get
So that's going to be on the 23rd, and then depending on
If you guys have lots of other questions you want us to answer before you're ready for a possible vote.
May or may not do the 13th, but that would be the next meeting where we would
Potentially have an update based on the public hearing and your questions
And then you could consider a possible vote that night to make a recommendation to me. And we're planning to also hold that
Meeting at Miller
And just for transparency to the board, we may also hold if that goes well, we may also hold our September meeting at Miller because we're doing some renovations to this room, including getting some updated tech to Rebecca's point.
So, we may do all 3 meetings, but just to not have people confused about where we're going. So, that is the plan
We appreciate Emily and Eric's comments. We have not had a project manager assigned because we don't have a decision from the Parks department side yet. So Andy's been the contact with the school district and depending on the next steps, we would then assign a project
Manager code.
That's where we are on that project. A couple other
items to note in the next slide.
And Aman, I'm so glad you're here for this one.
We proposed
And I meant to check right before this if it
Oh my gosh, I spelled records. I'm going to get yelled at by that
We proposed… we had some
There is, as you guys know, there was a hiring freeze and some other requests saved some funding last year, which was primarily focused on the general fund, but the way our funding sources work, if you do that in the general fund, you tend to get a little bit of savings with the park district
Fun into because many of our positions are all multi-funded
And so we're propo we proposed to the both the Mpd board at our June meeting and them wearing their city council hats to
Re-appropriate $2 million of underspend from last year on the operating side to
Mainly to pool renovations project and that is recognizing the additional expenses that we've had related to Queen Anne and Medgar Evers.
So we're basically replenishing that
Project
In 2024, I don't know if you guys remember the bomb cyclone emergency events
We had just recently reopened Berezheva Park and
Boom, a tree hits a stage
It's operational, but it no longer has its beautiful cover.
So through this process where we proposed to reallocate 200,000 to bring the cover back to the stage.
Not those kind of rackets bracket sports where proposed $600,000
As you know, that we don't have a new strategy yet, but we do know
Investing and doing some relining and reconfiguring will be a desired outcome of whatever we end up
Approving and so we put some more seed money into that project. It goes into our sport court resurfacing project. So it's not a new project, but just helping
Those efforts and then the state of Washington licenses are child care sites
And they updated their requirements
or voice-activated fire alarm systems. It gets triggered when there's either a South Park community center upgrade type you know code upgrades, or if we're going to add a new
A new site or some of our preschool programs are operated by different operators. And so if a different operator came in, we would have that triggers an update. And so
We are trying to get both South Park and Hiawatha
upgraded from those projects. We're also looking at Magnuson, both the community center and the building 406, the old Brig building
And then Yesler is a preschool site that we are rotating
partners there, so we're hoping
This will fund all that. May not get all of those sites, but we added funding to meet that need.
And then, as Aman reminds me regularly, we run out of recreational scholarship funds
Very early in the year, and
So we have about $450,000 a year for that. So we're putting an additional 200,000. So
Hopefully we'll get some more access and affordability this fall through that investment.
Quick question before you move on. So when there's a mid-year change like this, is there any sort of time threshold about when the money needs to be spent?
So the first one, two, three, four of those items are in our capital program so that those carry forward automatically. Scholarship fund goes into our operating side, and that would
need to be reappropriated again if we didn't spend it. But
Given everything I'm hearing from the team, that will not be our problem. So pretty confident
Thank you.
And then in front of you, if you're not online, sorry, team online, we'll save copies for you, but we did the last meeting, we had our annual reports at the printer, but they were not here.
We have hard copies for you, and I'll get the rest of the
REST W next time. And then just for tracking nothing updating, but just see, I spelled Rakut over there. Yeah, but just a list of the ongoing things that we're planning to bring
To you, or you've requested. So next slide. Oh, opportunity to engage. So
Just repeating Green Lake Evans School project. There's a Duwamish River Festival that the community is putting on it
Our parks in Southwest Seattle, August 8th
That's the same weekend, if you recall, ARC was here last month, two months ago. I can't remember to talk about the summer street sports showdown, and that's actually happening weekend of
August 8th, they are taking registration now. Young ones, I think it's 7 to 14 year olds. So there's
soccer, basket
Basketball and street hockey. That one
The big day at play is kind of our signature. Come one, come all event that is August 15th this year, again, down at Rainier Playfield in Mount Baker Roy and Sailing Center
And then the
Skate park ribbon cutting for Rainier Beach is happening at the end of that month. So all good things and then dancing till dusk and Center City Cinema say that three times have all kicked off
week, so
Check our website.
To come dance
And we'll send this list to you. It's a lot.
And…
That's it
If you have questions for me?
There's a check
Oh, thank you, Phil. I know, I like I'm really happy with that.
Graphics
Did anyone have questions?
I guess I'll ask one more question. So the July 23rd meeting is
Can you talk a little bit about like the Seattle Public Schools versus parks and kind of how that's coming together or not for some of these meetings?
Yes, so up until this point in the
I think the letter that you got from the school superintendent, this
SPS run
Meeting engagements proposal. We were supporting alongside as we were looking at parks locations and
And now it's kind of transitioning to
A parks staff recommendation to you all.
That the presentation will be supported by the school district, but it will be Andy leading the presentation to give you guys a park staff recommendation on what
They're proposing and then you would consider that and
make a recommendation to me. So
It'll be a slightly different meeting in that we won't have regular public comment. It'll be a it'll be a briefing, a public hearing
Any questions or comments you want to ask of the team before you get
We make the recommendation in August and then
How long after that do you expect the final decision will be made or final plans or
Ready to go.
Well, Andy will show a little bit of a timeline because
This is really the beginning of creating a project, right? It's not the end of creating a project. If it was to be approved.
So my guess is probably by your September meeting, if you make a recommendation in August.
Next one.
And we'll catch you up with a preview on how we got here that'll be part of Andy's
Briefing memos of background and
We also have offline conversations for the new folks.
Come on, did you have a question?
Yeah, I didn't have a question, just a comment I just wanted to show appreciation for that bump in the recreation scholarships. That's amazing. Michelle. You made my day. So I'm so excited
Yeah, for the youth in our community, but definitely just to see that being pushed forward, you know, very appreciative. So I just wanted to say that.
Thanks for your advocacy. I'm glad
Glad to hear that.
The good news, looking forward to having people actually get the notice that their scholarships approved.
I had a question about
Not as much in the report, but to the public comment around Park Gilman.
I might be misremembering, but I thought recently, was it SDOT, some other recent Burke Gilman communications for going out. Is that unrelated to
The general maintenance that you were talking about assuming it is
Yeah, because we haven't started the general maintenance. But I did see something recently. It must have been check. Okay, I'll look for it. Yeah. Okay.
Somebody needs to work for SDK now
They're sharing custom
Okay, is that what it was? Okay, sorry, I knew there was something happening and I wasn't sure how it overlapped or not. Okay. So that's the Ballard side. So that's different, different end. Okay, thank you.
Good segue, though.
On that note
Welcome!
Hi, welcome. I don't think the people on screen can see, but I am pretty loud, so I'm pretty sure they'll hear me. It's been a bit of
So, I'm Jessica Murphy, I'm the Director of Planning and Capital Development at Parks, and I'm going to give you an update about some of the things in our work portfolio. So for those of you who are new, we have kind of the life cycle of all things projects from asset management
planning to design, to construction, and talking about it
And, you know, what we do, and that includes
All of our assets from our fall fields to our Docs to our community centers, our spray parks, all the things. So
That also means that, you know, there's about 500 projects on my portfolio list, so if you ask me a question, I may or may not know the answer always. There's a lot in there, but I do my best to give you a good overview. I'm happy to answer any questions you guys might have today.
All right, so
So that was my introductions. Welcome. We're going to go over our key performance indicators. So if you're new here, we do measurables against our MPD. So I've got graphics and status updates and reports on progress on those things
We're gonna do a little deeper dive update on our park development project sites or land bank sites as a lot is starting to happen on those and it's cool
have some select project updates. A few of them, and upcoming events and other updates that is largely Michelle scoop to be on those same again
So, we're excited about it. So without going here.
So this is starting our key performance indicators and our highlights. I've got three slides. This one is the one where the numbers change the most since we were here earlier this year
This year alone, we've completed 6 player renovations this year. So South Park, Maplewood, Hubbard, Bryant Park, Ward, Springs Pew Ridge, and we have any more already in construction or just about to be construction. Michelle mentioned Hiawatha is just getting ready to start right after your West Seattle resident with somebody here
Right after the launch tree fair there is happening in just getting ready and then
Docs along the Duwamish, and rejoice as we saw South Park, Dockfish area open, and the Georgetown plume open. So there's lots of healthy recreating dogs along the Duwamish. You know, we've got Smith Cove in construction
Also, like, it's just a lot of recent progress in those. And if you didn't know on the Georgetown about Seattle, you know that was actually a flume is kind of a fancy word for drainage of a long piece of drainage that used to drain
required to river from the jurisdiction.
plants, the power plant there, and there's actually still a little notch in the Delamish River. So if you're super in the Seattle history like I am, check that out when
I came with your dog the trail.
Go to the next one. Yeah, I'm not going to read all the docs, but more dots. I want to highlight a couple of things. One is we made a lot of progress in our accessibility and compliance this year. A ton of accessibility barriers
at our major accreditation is highland and South Parks and go west, right? We're working on the synthetic curve replacements worth mentioning Cal Anderson is actually already in our cycle for replacing, not soon enough to fix the hole, but it's in design mode between that
Cheers.
And then, green means good, all pretty familiar with that. Blue means we're kind of watching it, we're finding Decurve is hard decarb meaning changing our power to sustainable sources of electricity
We are progressing forward in design with five sites right now, and
And those… that's a market that's hard and volatile and pretty intensive, and we don't love about it, so because of all, we can take care of it's hard. It's also one of our great projects that we're using our different contracting mechanism
So, we're trying to get earlier estimates.
Real tested market estimates much sooner, so that's allowing us to design the budget to maximize our dollars.
I'm really excited about that.
And let's see
Now go to the next one
Again, lots of green. Green is good. We're very excited about that. A couple of notes about the dedicated football court development. We've been working on and turns out trying to cite a whole lot of proposal boards on the former
federal government and property, and lots of things with wetlands and federal uses is hard. So we've been having some trouble sort of nailing down which side of the thing we had to move it one because noise concerns one because of not clearance enough from the federal uses
Working through that, so it will
We spent more money in planning and design plan to, but
I can report more progress on that at the next update.
Michelle already mentioned our rapid growth strategy.
Somebody's notice, we've released that and we're talking about it. And we'll have more of these later on this month or early August on that one
full major maintenance, I will just highlight we're on track to touch and
two improvements at 6 pools in our next round of that pool package. We did… that's the one we shoved the Queen Anne fixes into. So that's going well, and that's progressing on schedule. I know that was something that people were closely monitoring
And then we did emergency work
All right, keep going here.
I touch it all
Here, really wanted to note the new
New park development sites will have more slides with pretty pictures about those. The off-peache areas, along with it, the docs along the Duwamish are also working on Othello in West Seattle art in design right now, so we will spread the love for the dogs
And on her community fund up the 15 Round 1 projects through a complete 9 are in design
I know the subcommittee is getting ready to meet later this month with staff
Round up in our community.
All right. We never go into things, so I just want to take a minute to really highlight these
I like to say really hard projects on very small percentage stamps are really important to our communities. And we have
Four projects that are either in construction or about heat construction. Smith Cove is in construction, AB Ernst literally starting next month. Lescio Junction next week. It's also
And Terry pit us a little bit later on this year, so the pictures I've got A.B. Really a nice design and what this flat picture doesn't do justice to the very steep topography at that location, which is always extra fun
Challenge, and then there's the rendering at West Skeletal trend. Jessica, you want to say where A.V. Ernst is, just in case somebody doesn't find the line?
Right, right there. It's super cool. We can all go there.
The next one
Oh, and resistance, go check that out. It's going to be done later this year.
Has an easy site to work out, but we're making great progress.
The projects that are also making great progress but will not hit the ground as soon as in 2027 and 2028, Wedgwood
So that's very good.
Morgan Street Junction, which has the state feature in it a lot of support around
Is also making good progress. That's one of our bigger sites. We have two parcels across
Right away, we'll have a transfer of jurisdiction on a bigger part than some of our other landing sites.
And Lake City
The next one
Now, moving off of the landmade place to a few project highlights of many, many great ideas and I play area. It also has the fitness component that is part of the ground one community fund
We are mentioned we're out at this park soon, and we're doing outreach about the project there. We also have an upcoming meeting on our plant and playfield renovation, which is unique
Because we are converting a big field on the right, and there is a partnership with Queen Anne Little League
They are trying to raise funds to put her on the smaller field.
That's a unique… that's a unique partnership with the local lead
I also wanted to mention
things that I couldn't do endlessly about
Other projects be
you know, finished…
We'll go to the next
Now we're talking about projects in construction
Magnuson, Clay area, restaurant, Community Clay Area
If you were at, you notice when you put the pen tiles in for the restroom so it doesn't sink into the ground out there. But we can get that done, so that was great, and we've been hitting utilities in. It doesn't look like much when we started. This is the really important stuff.
This is also
This is what takes projects
a long time to get right in design. We all think about the project at the end of the things we can see, but the things we can't see under the ground, that stuff is very detailed and highly engineered and very detailed reviewed, and so if anybody ever wonders
Why take so long? It's because we wanted to make sure that the restroom didn't sink into the ground. We want to make sure the water closed. We want to make sure we want to make sure we're doing good to our environment and all the right safety standards are met.
Those things take time, and we like to lament them
I think they're just a pain, but we choose those things because we want our kids
That's a whole lot of message. But I
And in more fun reach state park is getting ready to open next month, and it looks like, I don't know, a lunar landing on there and it's a really unique skate park others.
On a couple other notes, Soundview
Playfield. We've recently mostly opened it, last minute right before the 4th of July, trying to hustle and get some things all the way open out there, which is great. The restroom isn't open, but the field's been open to permanent users for a little while
And then another little project people
heard a lot about earlier this year is we're going to restart our work on our Lesci doc and utility project down
down on lush eye around businesses, that's going to be tough work when we restart it, no matter how it goes, it's going to be tough work, so just thought it was worthwhile mentioning. These are things that need to get done
And
Almost last but not least
Our next community center. So we're kind of high off our pre openings in the past
In 6 or 8 months, account magnolia last year in South Park and Iowapa this year. But we are deep in it on 4 more. Lake City is well under design. They're all kind of the same and broad brush, kind of same schedule
Lake City, you'll see us in legislation, later on this month, dealing with some of the property things. Greenlight's been mentioned a bunch of times with public meetings next Wednesday and next Saturday.
We're really excited to share progress on that one.
Hey, Dan, also, same story, and Loyal Heights. We are a public event that they have public tasty treat there up there in the
oil lights and Green Lake both have just like Decarb have our contractors on board early. We literally just had the kickoff meeting with our Loyal Heights contractor yesterday. So but again
trying to dial down our risk and our bigger projects by bringing on 400 years early. It's a great tool
We're loving it already. And then
Lastly, I have a similar
That's fun
PCD in the neighborhood. We talked about
A lot of these
It's not tasty treat.
Sounds cool, no matter what. And Dr. Jose Rizal area jazz Festival, and I have TP funds. When I wrote the slide, we haven't nailed on the date.
And then I just wanted a couple notes that aren't on the slide, that
you know, these are all the things we do, and the things people see, what people don't see is the work we're doing behind the scenes to make
To get better, you know, who doesn't want to always get better, and we're kind of continuous improvement. So one of those things I've mentioned is
I'm being strategic about our use of alternative
Increases our process our risk
I like to say we can have our shock and awe moments. The other thing is we've been undertaking an 18 month effort called Capital Projects University, which was
Basically writing down everything we do in our project delivery from start to finish and getting all those processes standardized written out.
common language for everything, common milestones, and just did that, and you know by the time you sit down with something like that sort of restart on some of the target areas that were
Revisiting key areas
opportunity
And the other one is just a bunch of systematizing
Okay.
Let's do… let's spend less time talking about how we're gonna do this, and more time doing the doing, so let's create a system for that. So, we're looking at external communications.
systematizing how and when we talk kind of externally, especially on our projects as they approach construction and during construction.
defined at points and intentional messaging
So we are clear about where we are and what we're doing.
And just intentionality about decision points and driving decisions on the churn. So these are areas of our focus in the slide.
And so with that, I will turn it over to any kind of questions you might have.
It does a lot, right?
I had a question I just wanted to say that the playground construction is amazing to see happen. I live in the Northeast, and so we've seen Bryant, U Ridge come up rapidly. My kids are like, we're just going to get on the bus and go to Bryant. By
And now they're asking to go and target runs to the new airplane park. So it's really been noticeable how fast stuff is turning over really
Great. I'm so glad
I'll tell our teams. You can pass along some positive feedback to you on Magnuson. I think those changes are very needed, especially sports fields right there. So I'm really excited to see that happening.
Could you give a little more background or maybe this is a Michelle question about the land buying sites, like how does that come about? Does it typically come with any funding or
that need to come out of MPD or other capital funds? And if you could just talk about how those come together
Yeah, so we have an acquisition program
And they focus primarily on, well, right now they're focused primarily on
What we call park expansion, so like the AB Ernst right there was a parcel available next to A.B. Ernst, so they looked for things like that. They look at our green spaces to try to fill in gaps
And then opportunistic
You know.
They will go after
Some exciting projects like up on Beacon Hill, they just
put together a pretty big parcel. So those come into our system. We call them land banks. So
They don't come with money. They come with this. This is the moment we have willing sellers. And then we tend to look
to the next funding cycle, whether back in the day it was a levy, or now with Park District to say, okay, of these land bank sites, which are priority to develop
How much do we think it would cost to develop? What is a basic scope that we would then go out to community with? And so the
first round of the Park District there were 14
That were funded
and plus Smith Cove.
Actually, 15, but it was a big enough project. It was kind of named separately. So
The 14
We're underway towards the end of the first cycle.
Which was
Supposed to be renewed in 2020.
That year means anything to anybody here, we have some financial problems that year, and so we kept
We kept the the funding for construction for the
The one in the lower served neighborhood, so the South Park Plaza, can't remember the other ones, but they were Caton Corner.
Yeah.
Thank you. Together we can answer questions. And so the second cycle of the Park District refunded the ones that were unfunded. So the wedge was
West Seattle ones, those are so those neighborhoods are very excited and somewhat frustrated with us for how long it's been taking to get those
And then we go on from there. So, a couple other things we're learning with land bank sites. Our property team is kind of in the continuous improvement
They're working as we buy new parcels to get authority
Until we actually have funding to
Develop that we we have authority to do interim uses. so that they can stay more active, you know. So
There's one in Southwest Seattle that we're talking to a neighboring business to see if they want to use it as like a lay down yard. So to make that commitment beyond a year needs council approval to get council approval that takes a lot, you know.
Like, how can we get some authority to have some more ability to keep it active in in the interim period and the the 14 from the first
First cycle, you think about the 2008 green spaces levy that purchased a lot of land, but it didn't have development money, so that's
That was a big push
But we still have quite a few parcels in our
And then you put the
arboretum expansion and other things in that kind of same land bank.
Conversation that gets to be pretty big.
Thank you.
Two questions that I guess, like, I'm comfortable with, like, the answer is related to coming up to speed. But you showed a slide a few slides on KPIs, which are great. All the green is good, but I wanted to understand, like, how the
Yeah, I said, is there anything
learn about that process. Oh, we have a subcommittee for you, James.
I guess, the second question is, like, we mentioned communication and external communication. And so just wanted to learn
What are those touch points
What are the channels used to…
Yeah, well, I actually want to really based on what we just talked about with these landmade sites
It's really sometimes our communities think that that came with money. Well, you bought that 15 years ago. What kind of hot mess are you running that you don't have it turned into a park yet? Well.
So, like, how can we tell that… tell that message and be more intentional?
our users on what we're doing and what we're not doing those communication is HR
Or in the expectations
And
Just making sure the very basics, right? We're updating our websites. We're giving people notice when we start construction. A lot of times in our parks, there's a lot of engagement around everybody wants to talk about what their playground
Kids get to, like, pick, I want the pirate one, or I want that dinosaur one. And then it takes a very long time before that dinosaur actually gets built out there, or that pirate ship, whatever it is. Like, how do we make sure we're
continuing that thread of
what we're doing, and it is hard, the cycle to do a project is several years, and so families who had
5-year-olds, and they engaged may not be engaging with that thing by the time it gets built. So I think it's just talking about that and
Acknowledging it and getting the right messages out.
So we had this great
I've got one of our projects.
It was a thing, but when we opened it, there was such a community that felt I still have memories.
collaboration, our communications with them.
Shared understanding
I don't know if that answers your question.
We're thinking about, right? Because it turns out everybody talks about what everybody does now. You can't just like get money and build a project
And then on the KPIs, and very little font in that lovely report, there's something referencing appendices
And we have for each of our lines of business, we have metrics that
We're funded, too, so if you take all of our funding sources, our general fund, our park district
different capital funds. We have X amount of money, and with that money, we're committing to be able to provide numbers, but 1,200 swim lessons, or
40,000 hours of community center public hours or
And the capital side, we do them in six-year cycles with the park district. So
25 play areas will be renovated.
During this cycle. So Jessica's
You think about like the fundraising goals where you have the little thermometer, Jessica's moving towards the thermometer of how far we're getting towards that goal. And then if something happens budgetarily and
She's really making things up again. None of this is true, but if 50% of that funding is real estate excise tax, and we know the housing market's not doing what it's doing, so that we don't have as much real estate excise tax, then we would say, oh, well, if we had
25% cut in real estate excise tax, but you can only do 20 play areas, not 25. So we're trying to use those metrics to describe the impacts of financial things or
Sometimes it's we
Didn't realize how complicated Decarb is going to be, and therefore we put this out there and
Now we have to be honest and say we can't do what we thought we could do. And so there's a subcommittee on the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners that is our performance subcommittee that we talk to about that
those metrics along the way that serves that kind of oversight goal for
For us and the elected officials.
I'm sure you knew folks will be asked which subcommittee you might want to join. We'll be reaching out. That's interesting.
Philip and some others happily welcome you to the team.
And it is
Thanks for the heads up
Yeah, it's
Are you doing what you said you did?
I used to call it counting bridges.
They have a certain number of widgets.
I like to overly simple, I think.
Yeah, more questions? Rebecca has a question.
Yeah, I wasn't sure what the protocol is, if I should raise my Zoom hand or not. But yeah, I was just curious about in the park design and development process, how like the public safety issues are taken into account. I was just thinking about the West Seattle Stadium and the dog park, and I just got a dog, and I love that idea. But to be honest, I would never feel
comfortable at this point going to that area just alone. My dog's only 25 pounds. And just with the recent, like, overdose deaths and the violence there, it just doesn't seem like a good spot for me. So
I guess just also kind of a general question how public safety kind of plays into these processes. I'd love to get a little bit more clarity on. Thanks.
Yeah, really, really good question and really relevant to lots of our projects. Sorry, it's hard to look at you and look at the room. So I don't want to have my back to you. That's a great question. It's a factor and a consideration through
all by planning, our development, our design, and even our construction, we're thinking about
things we can do through design to either
To help create engaged and active spaces that sometimes you can do that and create activations in spaces that can keep out things you don't want. So those are some of design and activation
knew that, and sometimes it's
designing the thing to be easily replaceable to vandalism and vandal Resistance. So it can kind of take on many forms, and we also have to recognize
We're building parks for our generations to come. We can't just not do things because
It's our curtain situations are hard. Those change and evolve over time, and we're building our hearts in our play areas, our restrooms for the long haul. But
that there's a bunch of design principles that we take into consideration in that.
People, which is, like, a great book about these spaces to create
community, right? And then people feel ownership over their spaces create a behavior change around so it's a little bit of idyllic, but I guess the short answer is yes.
And we can do something
Great, thank you.
Just that we also think about it on the operating side, too.
All right, thanks so much.
Okay, our last item
is celebrating and saying goodbye to Stafford
I guess… I guess we'll do this now, and then we'll formally adjourn and probably keep it going.
I'm not going far
And I'm supposed to be that what did you say, Paula.
Ebertith
board member. Yeah, I like that.
Yeah. Yeah
We'll get you a special shirt or something.
Thank you. I appreciate it. I will
It'll have a big mark on it, it'll say, ask me.
I gotta say, though, I've had the best time these last, I think it's 5 years, learned a lot
learn how things work, and working with smart people. I remember
My first meeting, Michelle, you, Paula, and Ben
helped onboard me, and I appreciate that, because that got me going and got my legs under the desk to do some work. So I appreciate all that
Absolutely
Stanford was
Joined us
Well, we were still all on little boxes and squares during COVID where we had finally moving forward with the second cycle of the park district and he's
He and some other colleagues that joined kind of like you guys will cohort of
3 or 4 new folks jumped in and
co-chaired subcommittees and worked through spreadsheets and all the things to try to help us prioritize what we would take to the mayor and the city council, and
I think just A, that attention and your bigger picture perspective on
the evolution of Seattle and play and youth development and partnership and
Athletics. Athletics and just
Engagement and your positive spirit has just been an honor to be around for these five years
Thank you. I will say this. Math isn't my strong suit, but when we had to work on that budget
God, I wish AI would have been around right at
Had a good time now.
Awesome. Sorry you're not here in public or in person, so we can't toast you appropriately.
Well, thank you very much
I
Right
Don't be a stranger. We have working committees. Stafford, you were confirmed by council on February 22nd of 2022. A lot of twos
All right
Which means that you came to parks 3 weeks before I started here. And so very possibly. Yes, that was your 1st meeting very well might have been my 1st
Right on
Thank you
And so it's gonna feel very different not having you with us here, and I appreciate… I appreciate everything that you've given to this department, to the city. I really will miss seeing you in every couple weeks.
Thank you, thank you.
Stay in touch
I will
Might be tagging you for something
I will
Big shoes that fell there, and D7 fell up. But I know you're up for the sailing
Pictures indeed
And I will be lurking. Let Philip know I will be lurking around, because I know my way around Magnolia.
Yeah, yeah. Did you make note of all those states, all those upcoming dates, too? We'll see you around.
Awesome. Well, I think we will kind of officially formally adjourn. But for folks who are able to stay on and say hello or stay around, that would be great.
So I'm gonna officially… And unless anyone else has anything for for the good order, any anything to add at this last point.
And thanks, Brad, for participating, even though you're not in Seattle right now.
I'm sorry, the ferry came in late, so I couldn't get
That's why
Oh, gosh!
Yeah.
All right
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you all
Okay. We'll eat your cookie story. All right, well, I'm gonna formally adjourn. Thank you so much, everyone, and hopefully, Stafford, if you can stay a little longer, we can toast you or something
All right
Alright, thanks everyone.