does not apply to a sport like mine. It only applies to baseball and softball.
Uh, despite ranking the same field. in an email it was communicated that quote current policy for rainouts only applies to infield diamonds and does not apply to.
grass fields, unless that district crew officially closes the grass view.
I was also told that the only way to get a refund.
or credit would be due to severe weather conditions.
This contradicts section 4.22 of the products policy, which states that rain is a condition to render a facility.
Uh, and say… Despite the level of being extremely dangerous to play in wet grass.
As a sport requires jumping for accession to not refund us or credit us.
When the Greens put business owners like myself in quite a predicament.
Uh, because we have to decide, or I have to decide whether to cancel and upset for financial losses or risk players getting injured.
So I'm just here to ask that you please ensure that the policy is applied fairly to all supports. Thank you.
Thank you. And next up, Emily. All right, Emily, I see that you are online. I'm going to give you permission to unmute yourself. You will still need to do that on your end, and then you'll have 2 min to speak.
Yes.
Can you hear me? Okay. My name is Emily Morishida. I'm a board member for the Seattle Play Garden, a nonprofit serving children with disabilities, and I'm here to voice my support for the adaptive play field project at Coleman Playground.
Coleman Playground is an underused sports field in the Central District near the Northwest African American Museum.
Of the 207 sports fields in Seattle, none are physically adapted to meet the needs of athletes with disabilities. The Seattle Play Garden and the Seattle Parks Foundation are leading the effort to change that.
The proposed design includes an adaptive baseball diamond, soccer fields, and an adaptive track.
As a design professional with commitment to accessible public spaces. I see so much potential in the underutilized Coleman playground.
which is adjacent to the Seattle Play Garden. This project provides much needed athletic and recreational space for the underserved disability community and programming opportunities for them.
Your support will advance the adaptive Playfield project at a crucial time.
Our team has introduced the project to the disability community through outreach to a university positive response.
Organizations such as Special Olympics, Washington, Seattle Adaptive Sports, the Seattle Girls School, and Open Doors for Multicultural families support this project fully, because more adapted facilities equal more opportunities for children to belong, participate, learn and grow.
I'm asking for your support to prioritize this project. It aligns with the values of the 2020 to 2032 Parks and Recreation strategic plan, equity, opportunity, access, and sustainability.
In order to move forward, the project needs official approval from Seattle Parks.
5 seconds, Emily.
Okay, uh, the Seattle Parks Foundation has submitted an OPI form to request official support from Seattle Parks. This could become a shining example of when an accessible public park and play field can be. Thank you.
Alright, thank you so much. Next up, Nick. Nick and Neil. I'll give you permission to unmute yourself.
Yep. Yep.
Hi there! Can you everybody hear me? Awesome, okay. My name is Nick Weiss. I'm a Seattle local, a wheelchair basketball coach, and I happen to be at the National Wheelchair Basketball Tournament in Monroe, Louisiana right now, along with the best teams in the country representing our region. Um, I am also here to voice my support for the development of the Coleman Adaptive Playfield.
Uh, from an athlete perspective, the playfield will establish a hub for young individuals to train regularly, connect with their disabled friends, and grow their skills. Families of children with disabilities of all ages will be connected with a community.
that fundamentally understands their personal circumstances and steers them towards success. I was definitely one of those kids training in Seattle that would have benefited greatly from a playfield growing up.
Um, I've witnessed the impact of accessible spaces like the Seattle Play Garden as a coach and as an athlete, um, and how they improve training variety, create social opportunities, and improve the lives of athletes with disabilities. We ask that the board recommend approval of the Coleman Adaptive Playfield.
Thank you. Next up, we've got Rick Jones. Rick, you have permission to unmute yourself as well.
The little box popped up and said it was okay. My name is Rick Jones. I am a founding member of the Seattle Children's Play Garden and a longtime parent of disabled kids trying to navigate physically disabled kids trying to navigate youth sports and all the other great things that we.
try to offer for kids. We are working in conjunction with the Seattle Foundation to try to get the project moving forward to develop the Coleman Playfield, which, as my colleague mentioned, is an underutilized.
space. As a field, it's definitely ready for renovation, drainage remediation, other things of that type.
Um, we've got a plan, and we feel like we have a great track history with parks. We've occupied the space that we're on for almost 20 years. We've rehabbed it.
Um, it's a beautiful, and it is a uniquely public-private offering.
catering to the disability community. There's nothing else like it in North America, something Seattle should be very proud of.
Um, and sadly, a lot of people don't even know we're there. Anyway, I'd like to ask your support as we try to advance our proposal to Seattle Parks to give serious consideration to our use of the space.
Our co-development of the space and turning it over to the public for the use of folks with disabilities and their families to be able to participate fully in sports.
Thank you. Sean Power.
Except that we're kind of. You want to go ahead and combine it? Yeah, that's fine. Thanks.
Hello, I'm Sean Power. And we come today to ask that it really this is because in the last few years, folks creating deaths.
And it's just been really concerning. And you mentioned those reasons why I kind of thought, Okay, probably not good. But I've learned.
learning more about it, but it's actually very helpful for the health, and… The brand that people often conducts is, like, but it's just high carbs. It can lead to these special when they're young, lead to the place of their wings have to build correctly. It's called Angel syndrome. Now they can't fly. And also for ducks in general, it bleeding, like, soft bone.
And the general thing is that an animal will survive on the ground. They don't need food. When you feed them more artificially.
overpopulated areas, bad ways to more fetal matter in the water. So it's just this cycle that's not going to change.
Yeah, so in terms of signs, City of Seattle used to have a sign up. I don't know how long ago.
Um, it is no longer there. And we did some research on the internet and the city of Both has a great website.
There's a great sign right at the top. So let's put down that thread for reasons to stop feeding the ducks. And, you know, we don't want to say that this is not important, obviously, for State of Seattle. It is. You have a lot on your plate.
Um, but we just want to offer the possibility of some collaboration between, um, CDCL involved, because they have a website that's just full of educational information. And to us, like, we just see this as grabbing some reasons.
who has probably best intentions to do these stacks and something like this that really makes you think about their actions, which I might be really effective that quickly was like seven reasons that includes what Sean just stated.
Um, including a QR code for additional information. We just feel like it's it's important because it's it's to me. It's like an epidemic like every time we go there, folks are feeding the ducks.
They're feeding the baby ducks to get to them and also birds. And, you know, it is an important show.
I mean, the only thing is, like, the main place is, like, around wherever. Yeah, that's a nice spot, is a woodlands, is it just to get signs throughout the park, but that's one of the key areas.
Yeah. Thank you. Um, next up we have Terry Christensen.
Jenny Blaine Park, 319, the chronic masturbator's lawyer asked for another 30-day continuance.
Granted, it's been over a year since he was arrested at the park.
They met on the beach. He was masturbating, she waved, walked over, and helped him finish while he fondled her breasts.
Juan, a friend of Jenny Blaine, showed up with a client of his on March 15th to take erotic photos on the beach.
Park rangers just happened to arrive before his client did. Juan and client went to Howell Park instead.
I suggested to rangers that they head over to Howell Park and take a look.
male masturbating on the beach in the afternoon. A male and female have oral sex and intercourse that night.
male and female… at the park taking erotic photos.
male and females who were at the park on June 11th brought their friends alcohol and a large bong.
Male and female taking their photos 51 degrees. That feels like 39. This is real. If you guys want to show up in the park, it's it happens.
you know, I wish I could laugh. So, yeah.
The majority of these people, I've never seen before. Nuna's clubs have strict codes of conduct, require an ID, or require a background check.
SPR and the City of Seattle have authorized people to be naked at Denny Lane Park with minimal oversight or regulation.
Summer of Safety? I can only hope to close the park. Thank you.
That concludes our public comment. And I saw a Susan Moore. She was not able to take a shower.
All right, thank you to everybody. All right, we'll turn it over.
Thank you. I'm pulling that up, I… I will probably unwell respond to some of the public comments. I don't know a lot of the details. Well, thank you for coming tonight. I do know you're in conversation with athletic field scheduling, and…
I have a call in to learn more, but… And the play garden folks, I totally agree with what Rick said. It is a true treasure in this city. I don't know the specifics about the.
the proposal. I do have a meeting with Rebecca Park Foundation on Friday, and I'll check in with the Pcd folks to learn more. But we do have a great long term public private partnership there, and they do amazing things, so I'm excited to learn.
More, um, we can circle back with the board the next meeting.
Um, and… on our duck sign proposal. I find that.
borrowing good ideas from other cities is the greatest form of flattery, so I'm happy to… take that back to the team.
explore more, so thanks for sharing not only an idea, but an easy way to accomplish it. So we will, um… Back on that.
I could. I just want to also note, I don't know if there's a friends of group GreenLake. But it's like there is head nodding might reach out to your friends, though.
group and see… sometimes they can work with parks to do some temporary sign-ins, like the art signs that politicians put up. We've done that in Volunteer Park a few times where we have something that public should be aware of that's.
seasonal or not… I mean, it doesn't mean a full-time sign. So anyway, that could be a good interim step.
Thanks. And I gave the chair the heads up that we had some kind of a big news about Queen Pool. So I want to see most of my time to some team members that are here tonight to update on you.
Uh, on that, but I just thought I would highlight some key dates, just so everybody has awareness of some things coming up. We have the Park Board Retreat on the 9th.
I think more is coming on agenda and details.
I'll have that hosted up at the zoo. Youth Appreciation Week is spring break, otherwise known as spring break for Seattle Public Schools. And there's lots of activities for our.
Youth and teens, so there's a teen website there, but just letting you all know that.
Those programs are out there, folks. You may have seen in the news that we are doing a park renaming.
process and, uh… collaboration with King County. We have a.
park down in South Park. That's actually King County Wastewater land and with the recent news about Cesar Chavez, the Kansas City and County and decided to rename that park.
We're accepting, uh, naming ideas until the… well, till the 14th is our current timeline. They are going to… Park Board email and kind of putting them off to the side for the park naming committee, which is one of the subcommittees on the park board, so they won't go to all of you during that time frame. It'll come through that subcommittee.
hear anything about we sent you an email about, you know, that's that's how that's being managed either by the mail here to the to the building.
Um, and then following up from the last two meetings, uh, the Seattle Public Schools has scheduled their community forum on the.
Lincoln High School. field next steps, and it'll be Saturday, April 15th, from 10 to 11 30 at Lincoln High School, and they're going to talk 2 options, a lower woodland option and a.
Option up along 50th. So. I know some of you may want to attend and just want to make sure we don't have a quorum. So maybe you could let Ben know if you're interested in attending, that would be.
Great. And with that, I would like to invite Carson Jones, our Facility Parks and Facilities Maintenance Director and Mike here to tag team on a.
Not very fun, just telling you to get into the punchline here, and not very fun update of Queen Anne's pool.
Thank you both for being here today. Alright, close the right time.
And thanks to Jessica Murphy, our. own capital development directory slideshow together.
and collaborating on this issue. Can we let her keep her opening day tickets. Yeah. Um… So, background. Um… early, I guess, spring, uh, we started to realize we had a problem going on at Queen Anne Pool. We noticed that our water use was climbing in.
you don't find that out until a month or two afterwards, make sure the water bill is cut high.
Y'all know we're gonna pull up. Um, so this is a chart that just kind of shows water use over the past decade or so.
And, um, so we typically do a…
uh, refill, train and refill? Oh, boy. Don't touch it.
Uh, in the spring, so you can see that spike in water use. So that means with that spike ratio is like a 100%.
You can see by later that summer, we were using 4 times the normal amount.
Um, we're tracking on this, and… there was one bill that had a lag in it, so there was… One bill that was inconsistent when we got the next bill, it was part of that.
The problem was just getting worse. So we scheduled to shut operations down, and uh… That makes perfect sense, right? Go to the next slide. I won't touch it.
So when we drain Greenland pool, what we find out is that Panam Pool has 10 inlets.
Two major outflows. This is how we get good circulation of hot water and fresh water.
So we did, um… We did testing, we brought in a company to help us do some leak testing, and basically what they could tell us was, you know, where is the loudest.
Where's the worst case? So we found it. Go to the next slide. The worst week is right here. It's underneath that.
and we brought in a company. We could see a crack in the line. So this this line… So this is what we call the supply map. So it comes in as an eight inch and goes six and then four. So this is near the end of that line, is where our, uh.
where our leak is. What we really discover… so we tried to fix, basically. We hired a company that does pipelining.
And the problem is, this line feeds into the pool shell branches out, and then it goes up, right? The only section of it that we can lying is that little vertical section.
Before it comes down, takes an ID. That's actually an inch and a half by all of those.
So we did some research, we found there's like one company in the area that could do that kind of work.
We lined the pipe. We found out the deep end, basically.
back down into the mouth. So, uh, this whole structure is, like, under the pool shell, under about 18 inches of concrete.
And then the details. The definition of inaccessible.
So, um, we did do some more testing and poking around to see if there was any way we could see there might be other leaks.
kind of called endoscope testing, which is where we just took a camera and fished it down as far as we could with the leaves.
Um, but the problem really is… This is a 50-year-old pipe.
I think it's like Swiss cheese, right? We don't know. We actually don't know how many of us might have, or how large they have.
And there's kind of no way to discover that without.
So, um… So we did, uh, refill it. We said, well, maybe we fixed the link, maybe it's leaking less water.
I was briefly filled it up and ran it just so we could test it. We monitored it for a week and it's leaking at the same rate. So it's leaking at six and a half pounds a minute.
That's about 400,000 gallons.
So… it's a sad tale. Um… Go to the next slide.
So we're recommending that we close can. to help me.
Okay. Any questions about any of that?
I think before Mike talks about the, um… We're going to do programmatically support our community.
The one good news story, I would say, and finding any sort of right.
Lights in the middle of this is that we are actually at the beginning stages of our citywide pool package, and they're in design right now. So we have already added this project to.
that capital program and Jessica's world. They started to do design kind of working with Carson's team on what he was talking about before, and we've now begun a full plan to repair.
This, um, but it's a capital project now. It's gonna be design, bid, built. And so we're looking right. So summer 2027 is kind of that earliest possible.
Yes. That's… and for our economy, that's really screaming fast to, you know, get a package together, and… figure out what we're gonna do. Just programming. But you know, if I looked at that diagram of where the pools are one of the nearest is Medgar Rivers, which is also closed due to structural problems.
any I mean, there's is there any flexibility between those 2 projects? Try to.
Get a bedroom and equipped more quickly to try to open up new lessons, etc, or… So, Medgar Evers is actually scheduled, um, the work's getting… It's almost underway, and the expectation is that we're going to be open by…
They're anticipating mid-July is the. It's a fair… I think they're fairly confident in that, so we're planning to reopen Mega Rivers, have programming beginning this summer. The challenge being, obviously.
Had some staffing loss during that time, but we're ready to make it happen. That's good.
looking at possibilities. And what is the scope of the proposed?
Is that known yet? Not 100% known. You know, more modern.
Design has these lines coming in down the sides.
So, you know, there… That design is coming together.
We don't have all the details, and I believe it's a package. There are other pools. I mean, we get the best economy when we do packages, so they're working to get that out.
Is this, like, we're gonna have to demo as much as possible?
like, rebuild the plumbing and fix it, or is this like, no, we're actually we gotta replace the entire.
Cool. It's not a full replacement. It's a repair. Okay. You know, that's that's part of why we can't like jackhammer. It's it's got a structural shape and the design.
So, I would think they're gonna try and preserve that, and like I said, tear up the sites and re-pipe it from the sides. So the.
Sonos engineers don't believe that there's cavitation, large cavitation. That was my next question. In part because of the.
how, uh, sanding those soils are at damage available. But that is one of the things that we'll also assess.
Just to ensure it's structural integrity before we carry on.
And we are grass pool. Which we are starting to look at. Yeah. And we do a good job of maintaining service all the year after rebuild the lanes.
We do everything we can to avoid it. Unplanned, uh, closure.
But this is something that you can't cut out.
So, I think it'll, uh… Our team will start looking at how often they…
And we already had the liner as part of the citywide. So we're not as wide as we would normally be about like drying out the liner and things like that. So there's… We have a couple more questions maybe.
to come up with solutions not only fairness. kind of upgrade to.
This is one of my…
Yeah. And if we leave aside planning siding, permitting, once construction is underway, how roughly how long does a project take?
I think we're hoping it's by fall of 27 we'd be open.
So may not be right when school starts or whatever.
A few months. It's not, like, an 18-month. Yeah.
Talk about pivoting and what we have planned to mitigate.
Yeah. So obviously community impact, reduced capacity. I mean, it's hard to get on and off. You know, we're really looking at what we can do to support the community and that community area as much as we're able to.
travel on off the hill there a few times, which is really that for us, that immediately post-rush hour time period. The good news. There is good news. We're here for the positive spend.
Um, cleaning and programming actually does slow down in the summertime, as does Battle due to longer pool.
come online, huge capacity there. Now, you know, as a part of that, you have a huge expansion going into the summer compared to last year. And we'll talk about that at longer.
Um, just in terms of getting… getting to a really high capacity that should mitigate as much of that as we really can within our system.
For an additional public swim times, huge increase to swimming lessons, more capacity in the summer swimming at both longer and hour.
So, we've got some good stuff coming with that.
So we're looking at, you know, this chart here shows, you know, last year we ran about 483 registrations in the swim lesson program.
Whereas we're adding, you know, that was at Queen Anne. This year we're adding 3 times that many. So we're going to have significantly more available than Magnolia, and that that sort of section of the city.
that, you know, is hopefully going to take the sick.
We're doing our best to grow that. And again, as part of that we're adding 60 additional spots 15 longer, which is hugely in demand.
It should absorb a lot of that, and Ballard is also adding additional stuff, which is really the two closest facilities to make that.
Yeah. So that is sort of a summer plan. You want to.
Excellent. This just kind of shows detail if you're interested, you know, we're kind of running through the expansion we've done, and all the.
the entire age range programs run, parent-to-child products, three-year-olds, preschool, and then sort of the age six and up lessons.
As well as change. So… a pretty big expansion, um… And Mike, is that just part of finally ramping up after COVID and training? You know, it's getting back to really what was sort of a pre-2020 level.
And then, really, just gonna… with the focus on making sure that we're.
We're growing it in a way that's going to support folks.
You can't make it on top of me. But… We're trying to… trying to make the… give people the best experience that they can at all.
Um, so as we move into fall, obviously things get a little… A little more difficult. Monger is obviously outdoors. So we're going to start to.
Once it gets cold, the feasibility of doing any kind of splitting method falls off. What we are looking at is we're looking at expanding all the nearby facilities, adding a weekend day.
Evans Pool on Sundays, as well as Benger Evers pool on Sundays, so adding a full weekend or a weekend day of operation and expanding our learning operates 7 days a week when you add in.
an afternoon operation, right? Swimming lesson capacity, increase water fitness classes, which really.
help, uh, support senior communities in that area, as well as public funds. Yeah.
So this is… all in all, we're looking at about, uh, 4 hours of additional lab spend a week, trying to provide support, um.
public family spend. 3 of those a week, and a couple additional exercise programs.
Take it to the next one, we'll talk about swimming lessons.
So, with that, you know, we're adding an additional time and be adding a couple hours.
So a couple sessions serving about 158 kids in that approximately 260.
kids or people. So all in all, 678 slots per week of additional swimming capacity, which is… more than what we needed.
So, we're hopeful that, you know, this moving forward, and this is going to move forward and be there, at least at that level until… for the expansion.
And I forgot. You've told me this, but I didn't check it on the deck. Could you say something about the SPS swim team? Oh, yeah. So one of our things. So obviously the joint use agreement will support public schools. We fully have capacity.
you know, we'll schedule through their athletic office for… For the swim teams, right? And we offer times, we have slots available at all the sites to make make space for the public teams. We also have capacity for swimming that happen on Fridays. We can move all that, and we… the one team that was there is actually.
So that's what an SPS team was there. We could accommodate them either at Evans Pool, Middlebrook pool, or something. Actually, it's honestly probably closer to.
school is. And while… You know, so that's something that we can still accommodate all the swim meets that occur. We're meeting that contractual obligation.
Not leaving those fans out. Yeah. Does the University of Washington have a swimming pool at the intramural? They have. Yeah, they have a couple of the IMA.
We do a pro bono and just let us know. Who do you know? Yeah.
Thank you. Is there any other potential accommodation that's being considered in terms of, you know, like.
prioritizing registration, if, you know, folks have to travel further, or financial support or anything, or does that all financial support. So we continue at this point, we prioritize registration for all scholarship families in an addition.
week of registration basically before it opens to the general public.
prioritizing based on location isn't something that we've really done, and going into, I mean, I think things that we would want to consider, right? We've got potential closure and rebuild and pool coming up. We've got this pool package, which may result in some closures.
So, really, what we're trying to focus on is what can we do to increase our capacity?
And getting the word out. He's getting the word out.
So we do have a list already of, um… of people who signed up for updates on the Queen Ample issues, and so we'll be getting this information out tomorrow and Monday at the latest.
It's gonna be real targeted. And we're also coming out of the shortage that was there during COVID, right, that ultimately.
That created this feeding frenzy. We're seeing that lessening, right? You know, there was the horror stories of registration, all that stuff. It is getting better. We're seeing that start flattening out, especially across the North area of this area.
So, hoping that it's… One last slightly awkward question, but other than the cost of water and the waste of water.
Um, are there other risks to running it for a couple more months, trying to get to summer program? You've got an incredible plan.
Once you hit the summer. We looked at that. But there's no mitigate… but there's no mitigation from we looked at it. It's heating all that water. It's having it go into the ground underneath the pool and risk of damage, yeah.
Our environmental stewardship hats. It's you know, it's treated. The water is treated. It just once it was.
I was almost there financially, and then I'm like, okay, but I'm a… I'm a… I'm a whatever algebra person, not a geometry person, and once they're like, it's four full pools of water a month, and like… Thanks for considering it. Pretty robust plans.
Yeah, it's great, great best attempt you can make to mitigate.
Do we have a sense of in the last couple of years, what either wait lists or constraints have been like to what extent is this increase?
going to, like, meet demand in that part of the city.
Well, mongers are always a popular song. Um, I can… I don't have the wheat… all the waitlist stuff pulled up, but they have gone down.
Right, to the point where you know, during Covid we're seeing waitlists that were 3 times the length of what we had now with a wait list and just kind of how that stuff works, people get people that will sign up for 25 things and really only want to.
But we are starting to see vacancies that are more, you know, we are seeing vacancy and not fill spots in our more popular programs, which means we're hitting that target. You know, we're.
They're all running pretty close. to a capacity right with with some of those so you know and that wasn't happening when we weren't happening. So we're really it's really trying to fill that capacity out throughout the system to make sure that we're able to.
And we also know that getting around Seattle is hard. And so I think trying to do some stuff on the weekends, doing lessons.
Doing it, and it's gonna be that experiment.
I think it's there.
So that concludes my superintendent. Thank you.
All right. Stacy is going to bring us up.
Yeah, you gotta go.
All right, have some positivity here.
Hello, I'm Katie Bang. I'm the Senior Director of Facilities. I'm also mentor.
Um, I just want to quickly do some introductions. We have our Zoom internal working group here.
As well as Dave Gulford from Vision Architects. Here today to present the long range facilities plan. We also online have CLR. So this plan consultant team includes.
Worldwide, two experts, TLR, and then our amazing local architects are amazing.
Um, so let's go to the next slide. Quickly just want to talk about the relationship of parks and the zoo in case folks don't know. But in 2022.
Parks and the zoo split a little bit, and uh… The zoo became, uh… a non-profit, like, they are working as a zoological society, and then the Parks Department still owns the property and the land. In 2022, we then re-upped that 20-year agreement, which is what we're in at.
And as a result of that, within that agreement was the zoo was to present a long range utilities plan to be delivered to you all, to the park superintendent specifically on December 15th, 2026, no later than.
So, we're about, like, halfway through this process. We came, um, a few months back. This is our second presentation. We will again in September.
Um, so it gives you a little bit of a lay of the land of where we're at. Um, we just finished our third kind of workshop, and we're going to be getting into our fourth of 6. So about halfway there.
So, this Long Range Facilities Plan is really about the next 20 years of the zoo, and looking at it as an inspirational piece, but also as a facility to have making sure that we can be visionary, but also can deliver on our community ideas.
And here we can see the strategic, um, kind of drivers that we have for this plan. And what this is is it really showed our program, and then what we kind of heard from community and showed the intersections that we have here. So the strategic plan really is focused on wellness.
conservation, sustainability, extraordinary experiences, and accessibility and inclusion. Okay, I'm going to let Greg take it from here. Greg, are you there?
I'm here. I I have to ask, can you hear me okay?
We can hear you just fine.
Okay, perfect. Thanks, Katie. Okay, yeah, happy to just take a few minutes and provide a little context of where we are. As Katie said, we're.
Believe it or not, we're about halfway through the process. Hopefully this plan looks very familiar to you all as existing conditions. This is really just here for context, but did want to say that, you know, as I think we reported on back during our last meeting, you know, our team collectively and the zoo.
even before we started, did a lot of digging and research and and analysis on existing conditions. So all the color-coded items you see here, including animal habitats and and animal support spaces and visitor spaces and guest spaces, and parking and edges.
Um, so we've got a really great sort of backup of data that is helping inform.
A lot of the ideas that we'll share with you today. So we go to the next slide.
And sort of, if you kind of squint at the plan again, this is looking at the overall sort of site organization still is existing conditions.
But we're looking very carefully at all sorts of things. You know the main zoo loop. Is that serving us well today? Is that is that going to serve us well and support our visitors long term looking very careful at the edges of the campus, and how we connect or don't connect to the neighborhood, which we'll talk a little bit more about.
We're looking very carefully at all the green zones and understanding where the zoo wants to be in the future with modern progressive healthy animal habitats, and then strategically looking very careful at things like our entries serving us well? How's parking working?
Our admin spaces and and general sort of workspaces working efficiently for the zoo team. And then even sort of some great community programs like education. Are they working well enough? So a lot of depth kind of going into the existing conditions. And if we go to the next slide.
You can see, you know, months and months of work to kind of get to this point. But this is where we're tracking it kind of a 30,000 foot level. You know, we're at that stage now in the planning process where.
with Dave and Methune and our CLR team and Karima as well, we're really kind of dipping in and out of detail, um, looking carefully at long-range collection planning objectives that support the zoo's mission.
We're looking really careful at circulation again, just to make sure that we're setting the zoo up for success in the future, even if projects are built incrementally over, you know, over the next 20 years plus. We're also at this. We have a workshop coming up in about 3 weeks, where.
We're actually starting to talk about prioritization and and implementation logistics and everything, you know, from how do we best do this with existing conditions? And how do we do it in a way that best creates a unique.
comprehensive experience that's Woodland Park Zoo unique. And supports the mission. So we're looking at all those things at at this stage.
Um, we'll talk more about the Greenway coming up here. So circulation, you know, is just absolutely key.
So overall, a similar sort of model is is where the team is heading. But being much more strategic with placement of what we call hubs. So you know, 2 of them hopefully look.
familiar to you all looking at the West Hub and really leveraging the entry that was built not too long ago, and making it even better in terms of services and and clarity of decisions on your journey.
Um, but then really going much further with an East Hub, and with all of these red circles, it's about.
strategic clustering of great food options and retail and guest amenities like restrooms, also providing long range flexibility for events or special groups to come in and tour the zoo. And then.
What's also important to talk about are these what we're calling activation points.
The one thing that we think will look quite different when the plan is done is is having this great sort of pulsing of energy around the the the circulation plan. So rather than having long stretches where there's simply nothing to do or nothing to look at. Not that those passive moments are are negative things, but.
Just being more strategic where there's pulsing of activity and choices and lots of fun things like sculpture and art and beautiful landscapes and choices into your gateways, into various experiential zones. So circulation's been a big area of study. We can go to the next slide.
Um, what's been kind of interesting, too. just as this next one's coming up is we've.
you know, looking at a bunch of double moves, right? So if um.
If we can be so good to not only clarify circulation choices, but then look at opportunities for maybe, let's just say, for 3-4 months of the year, where it's wet and it's cooler.
Could we really leverage some of the great things that exist today with winter or cool, cold, hardy animals?
And really lean into that even more, and could there be a condensed, call it an hour and a half, two hour tour where you can see some great hardy animals that time of the year, but then also pop into.
Some of the larger indoor facilities that will be climate controlled and could be great sort of tropical forest realms. So thinking very carefully and strategically about how these things can be placed and then support seasonally how the how the zoo can work.
And then the next slide, if you think about the warmer summer months and and longer days. Wow, wouldn't it be incredible to expand and enhance the current Savannah dramatically?
And this could be a great new sort of opportunity for, I'll say after hours, but, you know, kind of still sundowner experiences maybe into the early evening hours.
with special tours or, you know, beer garden has come up as a concept.
But really sort of leveraging the self access and then the great sort of unique Savannah, just a very unique landscape and environment in Seattle.
and creating something very unique for your community. So circulation has been a big area of study. You can go to the next slide.
Um, and then this is just kind of gives a breadth of all of the sort of really cool ideas that the zoo team has been dreaming up, and we're starting to test and realize. And in the end, you know, what the long reach plan is is also about is.
Making sure that all these color-coded areas with all these great ideas are right-sized, and they're in the right place within the campus, and they're they're working off of each other and synergizing with each other, and then also allowing for the other objectives of, you know, in terms of sustainability initiatives that.
These things can be implemented in a logical way and allow for sustainable infrastructure to be built along with these as we go.
So a great breadth of ideas, as you'll see a theme here if you're reading some of the labels here, there's a lot of detailed pictures, but… There is a forest sort of theme with most of these zones and.
What's really cool about that is it supports the mission long term. But it's really kind of setting you all up for a very unique zoo within the Us. In the world, really sort of focusing on these these biomes. And then how the experience.
And itself can be unique in each of these colored areas. So.
So some cool progress so far. Go to the next slide.
And then so we wanted to talk a little more and present to you all for feedback, a little more on the the West Edge Finney Edge.
And this notion of a green way. So. the more and more our teams start to think about this, it… We have such a unique location of our zoo, really tucked into a wonderful neighborhood and some already some nice corner parks kind of bookending parts of the campus.
But what could we do to go even further? Right now, I think, admittedly, the West Edge.
is a bit of a wall. There's parking, obviously, there's a sidewalk, but there isn't much literal and sort of mission transparency, if you will. It's very much the neighborhood and the edge of the zoo. And so the concept to test is, could there be a wonderful thread that kind of links.
the neighborhood and the parks. Um, to the zoo, and to the arrival space, particularly the west entry. And what if that greenway had just one, you know, great sort of amenities, a consistent thread of probably some type of paving of a certain width that could allow for.
for biking or jogging or walking. And we'll talk about, you know, some of the other amenities that everyone's kind of thinking about. So and then when it comes to to the entry, and then some other programmatic areas like education.
If designed right, and if done right and placed right within the campus where we've got nicer buffers off of Finney. But what if we we change that edge a bit more to be a little more intentional with.
showcasing the zoo and some of the conservation programs and other happenings that are there. And that can be done through landscape, that can be done through architecture. And so that's the test, and we'll have some other visuals here. We can go to the next slide.
and I'm going to cover a couple more things and flip it back to Katie. But you know, again, this green dash line, as you can see, is kind of dipping out in and out of the edge of the zoo. Of course, we think the perimeter sidewalk is still there, but this could be a great sort of recreation link and and park link.
for the neighborhood, and then provide these great sort of access points into the south and west entries.
We'll talk more about education in terms of that program and and one of the main moves here is to.
enhance the flamingo a lot really to. help create a safer drop-off area and bus flow. So we'll we'll point that out in in a later slide here. But if we go to the next slide.
Just wanted to point out, you know, if we look look at the overall thread, if you will, again, lots of consistencies. But what's what we're all sort of intrigued with, too, is there's a lot of little moments along the way that could offer a different experience.
You know, of course, the the green are linking to existing parks that we think even could could be enhanced. The red, if you will, links to the east and to a larger, you know, expanded part of Woodland Park.
These blue areas are going to, again, continue to support the current entryways, but we think can be enhanced considerably just to make it much more pedestrian friendly.
A new link into Education Plaza. I'm bouncing around here a little bit, but you can see how all these moments could be are going to offer something a little bit different, have slightly different look and feels and and views.
And then if you go to the next slide, you can see just some of the imagery that we're as a team, we're starting to test.
you know, with the trail. And this is still really just at a very high level, you know, but but is it is it wide enough for for bikes and for pedestrians to move back and forth safely? We think the answer is yes, but that's one that we need to continue to develop.
and continue to look at ways of how it can link into the neighborhood. The zoo access area. So when you start to move into the yellow zones.
You know, it's much more transparency into what the zoo is about.
Probably introducing some really cool sculpture and environmental graphics that can help tell that story. From the sort of yellow areas, and really probably true of all these, but in particular as you get into the green zones is where.
There could be great little pocket gardens, native gardens.
little sort of nature-based little play or adventure zones and just imagine imagine if you're, you know, you live in this neighborhood and you follow this Greenway along all the little fun sort of artifacts and things you can discover along the way. And if you have kids, you know, great little spots where.
Probably not large playgrounds, but but little moments where there could be a little passive play or a little little adventure play that would that would better support kind of what the zoo is about.
The Education Plaza. Again, making that a little more forward, or a lot more forward facing and with better connectivity to Finney, and and same is true with the expanded West arrival.
And so if you go to the next slide.
Graphically, I probably have to pause because there's a lot going on here, but just wanted to say.
really what this is about is just creating an incredibly rich setting along this edge.
and the entry is still positioned where it is today with expanded gift opportunities. Education in a way is kind of expanding off to the the south and west of the Zumasium kind of leveraging that great facility, but expanding even more, providing more indoor space.
and program space for education. But in the middle, we'll talk about this a little bit more. You'll see a red box that says cafe.
The thought is, well, in addition to the great Greenway and all the recreation you can do and fun you can do, what if there's a little moment where you could grab a coffee or maybe grab a cocktail or something?
And then if you go to the next slide, you can see.
Well, if done right, that could be incredibly cool. I mean, imagine you can, this is open in evening hours or early in the morning, and you're walking your dogs, you get great little seating area outside, just like any great cafe. But if you pop in, wow, you can have some really cool views into the zoo, quite literally. I mean, imagine there's a big sort of.
perpetarium or or aquatic exhibit, or even a deeper view into the zoo, if done right.
and then all of a sudden there's this better synergy between the zoo and the and the neighborhood. So this is one we were kind of excited about, I think, collectively, you know, exactly how it's operated in exactly the right size. Those are those are ideas that need to be.
continue to be developed. from a business and strategic standpoint, but I think as a concept and the sort of interface with the neighborhood and sort of really looking at weaving and melding these things much more than they are today.
It's something that I think we're all pretty excited about.
So… Sure.
Thanks, Greg. Just to go back to this a little bit from a land use perspective.
It's really interesting the way that the zoo really has kind of turned its back on the neighborhood, and this is really opening up, as Greg had mentioned, that greenway and that interface of Finney, as we know, Finney across the street has been upzoned, so it's going to continue to get denser.
within the fabric of things. And so that's really what this is doing.
Right now, if you've been in the Zoom, it's really unsafe.
None of the entries and exits to the parking lots align these streets. It's very odd. So, um, in our proposal, you know, we would have that alignment. That would be really important. And then, as Greg mentioned, um, we have some issues in the zoo with field trips and education, and, like, in the, you know, crazy summer when it's really, really busy.
Yeah, buses and everything, and kids and field trips, stuff, all the way on the landline. It's really bad. So, um, we're proposing that we actually change that, and uh… and have kind of a loop drop-off area.
I mentioned that we had our first management agreement, we had our second management agreement, and in that management agreement, we've taken on a little more responsibility of the perimeter parks. And so here we're proposing that we actually change the War Garden Park. The war garden is a huge park.
You guys know it's great. It's very passive, and… We know that like there's a lot of passive things that are going along Finney and by the activation through these things will also make it safer. We've had some issues with safety. So we're thinking that we would have a more formal playground in that park. We do some improvements.
We have safety issues in that park. It was designed to have desire like pathways and everything go north, south. North is actually this way, and the desired line is east. So we have a lot of issues with the way that that's proposed that.
Also, we want to talk about this road. So looking back at aerial photos, it made sense in the 30s that there was this 57 total because that was kind of part of the city was changed. But it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Uh, let's see… Um, this is just kind of showing what Perimeter was… is now, and kind of what we're proposing. It's around the same. Just kind of moving things around a little bit. So.
But again, getting that connectivity, um, getting kind of pedestrians, bikes, and making that greenway for the community, and kind of removing cars as much as possible.
Okay, so 57. Um… 57th is this interesting little road that… I guess go back really quick.
Um, there's this interesting, I'm not gonna touch it. There's an interesting road that, like, bisects.
It comes down this way along the bear lot, and then out through the neighborhood, so people actually come from the neighborhood in, and then around the bear lot, and then out. It's very weird, and it made sense in the 30s. Okay, next slide.
It doesn't make sense anymore. And so it really creates this unsafe condition. It's kind of hard to see, but there's this crosswalk here, and then there's an intersection here, and people are coming in kind of 3 directions, and then pressing kids and buses and all the things that it's not… So, um, one thing I'd like to consider is to change that road into a pikeway, a pedestrian way. Master plan that they're working on has a connection from Ballard over to Greenwink, and that's the way.
Um, that goes through there. So it makes sense, I think, from that standpoint, but not from a car standpoint. Also interesting. This is the survey done by your own Tom Barger and Parks Department actually owns.
That property. Um, it's not a stock. Everything that I've seen, it's actually your property there, so it's your decision to make.
Um, so, just want you all to consider that.
Next slide. We would consider we are proposing that we would add some additional parking to the lot again because of the circulation and getting buses in there. Adding that really helps us with the safety and provides more, um.
dedicated parking for the kids and the field trips and everything like that. So we are considering that as well.
Yeah. All right. So… uh, former Parks employee alum, Kareema. Um, are you there? We're gonna talk about community engagement.
Thanks, Katie. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Awesome. So the beginning process, which you all might already be aware of, was a very early and intentional front end engagement process.
And three themes came out of that, and those were connect, access, and community. So what we heard is that people want to connect with the zoo animals and with nature. They want the zoo to be more accessible, both with transportation and affordability.
And they also want to see programming at the zoo that's reflective of themselves, you know, the communities that they represent.
So as part of this process, we're going to still go back to the communities that we visited before. We want to make sure that we like continue that that feedback loop. So we'll go back to the farmer's markets. We'll be partnering with the Seattle Public Library, and we also did some engagement with the barbershop that will continue as well.
Something we also want to do this time around is look at some creative methods, like, you know, doing some things on social media just to get people excited.
And engage with both current zoo visitors, but also those people who haven't visited the zoo yet or ever before. Most importantly, we'll continue to center those communities that not that have not been represented as zoo visitors. So we did a lot of work this time.
Last time in the South End, because we know that access has been an issue, especially for folks that are on the south end. So we'll continue to do that and go back and engage with those communities. We're also excited about being able to partner with parks, so we're looking at doing some engagement that's, um.
you know, syncing up with an event that you all are having as well.
So back to you, Katie.
All right. Um, so our next steps, as I mentioned, we're about halfway through this. We're really getting some great momentum. We're working with our partner here, David Graves, and Hoda Gray, who is on speak right now. We've got some great momentum with Pestock. We brought them in. They were so excited, they want to have a short ride with us, actually, in a few weeks to kind of bring their engineers to talk about these alignments and these issues.
Really excited for that. Workshop four is happening in mid-April. And as mentioned, we will.
Really… Preparing this final presentation in September to bring to you before our official, you know, submittal in December.
Um, that's where we're at, and that's where we're going.
Are you talking to the water and stakeholders? The war garden? We will, yeah, yeah.
We wanted to see what you all thought about that before we did that.
I really like the idea of making the community making it more open to the community and creating areas to go to the zoo for experience that may not be the full zoo. I think that's a great way to get different age people.
I think, and I see more, like, business… Opportunities to bring up. I get a little nervous like not all businesses succeed. So I think it's important to have a plan B of like, what could be this really cool cafe? But if nobody goes, it could also be our library.
Just because… You know your business is a zoo, you don't know your business has a bar. And it also, like, anything that takes away space from the zoo experience. But I do think there's room to have both. So I I mean, I like we have. We have a lot of study actually on our events.
And there's a lot of room for growth there, so at least currently.
Thank you. I think the renderings of the four pictures that inspired the Greenway are really interesting. How are you thinking right now about?
having a cohesive green way that is among the parking lots.
Um, so if you can go back to the slides, we're really trying to, um, we're basically trying to go on that side parking lots and then the greenway. We are bringing that greenway up to Finney, but that.
in that area, it's not… It's not reporting. Oh, cool.
So we don't have parking here. We're engaging directly. And then we're trying to bring that greenway along here away from the parking lot. And what the proposal to kind of less than this would also.
give that sense of arrival and reduce the amount of cars that are coming this way, right? They would come in here and then out there a lot this way, so this is kind of separate. And so that's kind of.
So we're not going to completely solve it, but we're trying to separate it as much as possible. We also know that s dots master plan, their byte has protected bike lanes along 50th and along any. So we know that those serious commuters on their bikes are going to use that.
And then, you know, this will be a morning.
Ted, um, I really appreciated the thinking about what does a two hour or a shorter visit, a four hour visit look like?
I was a little nervous about the sort of, I remember the winter programming idea would be and where to show more animals in winter.
Um, but I was a little nervous about the idea of, like, no, we're gonna close down a lot of the zoo. Yeah, we weren't… we aren't gonna close it, we're just gonna really kind of advertise and focus that you can come to the zoo for a two-hour experience that is comfortable, and you have those, like, you know, serious Dialites that'll get in their rain forever. But, you know, we know that we can't.
in July, when everyone wants to come. Yeah. Um, so how do we manage those… Yeah, got it.
And this is, um, one… I want to spend time with it, but as you're thinking about loops and walking loops, try and think about ways to create multiple walking loops, right? You're designed to go one main loop, um, and cut off the southern path around the spatum.
I think it's in the southern side, um, because we're expanding the hospital. We're doing that for a lot of reasons. One is wayfinding right now. When you go along that's weird. I know, it's really weird to say. And then also for activations, like, if you do that, then you have exhibits going along, so those are the thoughts. I would try to think about ways you could have, within a pattern.
Multiple loops and circles. We do, we just… Okay, cool, great, thanks. It's exciting to see. I appreciate the folks at the thinking about how do we make this more part of the community, rather than.
this space that well, when you pay when you pay, you can enter. The winter loop feels very logical, right? If you added up all of the covered or indirect, it has a lot to do when it's pouring. Same for the fact that you have to walk outside.
Some of our newer buildings that are inside are all on that edge, so it's really kind of leveraging what we're out in the building.
That's a great idea. Don't lose, like, uh… So I think driving is the only way for me to drive my toddler to zoo have a membership since last summer. They're only weds.
This is a little bit far away. I probably need to spend 2 hours away. Yeah. And I don't know if it's my monthly activity or quarterly activity.
And I grew up in China, and the public transportation is really great when I grew up there. So when I was in elementary school, I'm able to take a class myself, and my parents felt very safe.
So I can just go through that Keith Palace or those type of… how to get amenities by myself and explore. It's like parents always want to… Uh, they're the kids born themselves instead of are the kids every time they go anywhere.
So I feel Diano is not the lack of… attractions of interest. We have a lot of great places to go, but the connections like transportation or whatever like that is not that great.
Um, uh, so it also… To run our parents' time to take the kids.
work around the city. Yeah, as Karina mentioned, access is one of the things we're hearing from the community. Like, it's not just about the dollars, it's about getting there. So we really want your support to get more leverage with Metro to create more access with Sound Transit.
Roosevelt Station is not that far. We had a shuttle or like a more regular bus route that would work really well. The Ballard link is not going to be that far, and so it's about, like, you know, that convenience.
Um, right now we have a number 5. We have the E line, but they're far away, and they're not… really regular, and so they're good for folks that live close by, but those folks that are not, it's difficult, and we recognize that, and we're trying to do what we can to increase that to build our conservation. We don't want you driving to the city.
For folks to get in there, so… We appreciate your support there.
As a follow-up, like, have you guys ideated any of the solutions to make it more accessible for people that are on transit? I know you were saying generally like.
my idea. Do you guys have any plans for that? Um, we're working with like the mayor on their board revision project, and with SD to try to, you know, leverage a more convenient bus stop. Unfortunately, grade really.
prohibits a lot of things on Aurora on that side. So that's an issue. We've been speaking with Metro, and we're hoping that we'll get more response from them on those things.
Could you, like, do what the big companies do, and your own shuttles? You run them? Don't rely on Metro like have the zoo network. We would love to do that if we could. We are a nonprofit. So we've talked about it. We try to find sponsors.
It's not worked that well. We do have free bus tickets that we're getting right now for transit. But again, because of how convenient it is, we're not seeing, like, a huge return on that.
Dude, should I add anything else? And so hopefully they will come and be a part of this work.
Alright, thank you.
All right. Oh, no, this is good stuff.
I have the pleasure. Those are two great things to you all tonight. Yeah. I'm really excited. I know our team is doing a lot of work to just get us to work summer. Just in general.
So my first briefing for y'all tonight is gonna be around summer safety. We had this conversation last year when it was around ours. So what I wanted to share with you all today was really what that continuous improvement looks like and what we can do.
Okay, thanks. Yeah, got it. Alright, so, um, again, just as a reminder, summer of safety is an annual rollout. We do this every summer. Last year was really our first space that really kind of just solidifying.
Hours changes in a plan really in collaboration with the police department. And so this continues to move into summer 2026. What we learned is we really just grounded the plan around four key strategic.
methods seen here on the screen. What I will say is one of the course corrections we did coming into the summer was revisit the timeframe of summer safety.
So, last summer, we did Summer of Safety, where it really aligned with the Beach Wire programs. It was Memorial Day weekend, and it ended until Labor Day weekend. What we learned from both parties and the community is we need something a little bit earlier. Summer starts a little bit before.
Memorial, and then sometimes in Seattle in summer day, right? So what we want to do is start summer safety May first, and then run until the end of September. With that being said, the beach fires will still retain its duration of time, but what this.
provides some extra space at the beginning to really educate the community about.
reinforcing our codes of conduct, our quantum behaviors in our space, and also just hours in.
what the adjustment looks like as we come into the summer. So, wanted to just highlight that with this team, if that's something that we learned last summer. I'm really excited about moving into this year. So, as you all know, we're not that far away from May 1st.
Next slide. All right, so this just again is just highlighting the different ways of how we went about.
our park selections and things of that sort. Again, it's driven by, um, prior experience, again, and like I mentioned, that's how that Golden Gardens and Alki.
particularly over there in that space. We work very closely last summer with collecting data. Spr, we really worked on our data from what we collect ranges and also from our grounds team. Um, a lot of that is also shared with community feedback from what we were hearing in regards to the different issues and areas of.
You know, the good things we're doing and some of the things that needed some work. Spd did a deep dive with just like 911 calls. That really kind of gave us a better idea of what was happening in the neighborhoods and what kind of calls they were getting. So what we're hoping to do is keep that level of data coming into the summer, so we can capture decreases or increases in regards to how.
Our strategies are working. One of the things I also just want to share is, you know, hotspots.
can change, um, you know, last summer, Magnuson and Golden Gottz and Donner meetings were probably the three big parks that had some of the just really noise amplifying concerns, um, and happening after parks hours. And so, again, that was another just.
emerging thing around the hot spots coming into 2026. We're going to continue to monitor that, but also create space for us to adjust if needed.
Next slide. So, these are just some examples of some of the unwanted behaviors beginning with summer safety. I will say some of these we also just deal with all year long like that sort. But again, a lot of these things, particularly in that summer duration, is really occurring during that after hours.
Um, and so really working in partnership with SPD is important as they need to respond to the neighbors are coming in in the community boom parties. This is what we were talking about. This is the amplify music. I mean, there's I'm not personally seen when I've heard one, but here they are vehicles. I literally have.
Um, and you've seen a lot of these really showing up at the three parts I had mentioned, particularly around our programs.
Um, and then container. We also learned that Clevel beach fires were happening at Discovery Park. Um, you know, they're… it's a little bit beyond some of our other parks, but our park rangers have been really good at monitoring that.
So… And just some of the examples of the behaviors that we're just trying to reinforce people in regards to how we want them to come enjoy our parking escape.
Alright, so this really is sharing with you all the strategies that we're really pointing into for this summer. In addition to the hour change that we did. We are going to focus on education and engagement with the community. So we are doing a really fun social media campaign.
Our one and only interrupt. Along with, uh, Mayor Wilson and, uh, Chief Barnes. And so we want to work in partnership and one of our rangers.
The payers we want. So it's I don't know how long the the scene is going to be, but once this video takes place we're just going to do a social media blast. And the hope is really to just educate people that we want you to come out and enjoy our parks.
And our boat ramps, and things of the sort, and these are how the ways you can do that. And, um, also, again, finding a way to amplify our hours and of that nature. So that would be a huge thing coming up this summer. Um, we also learned, um, that we needed to just do some upgrading with our gates.
And our signs. As you can see, we've got signs all over our parks, so when summer safety comes, we need to literally do, like, take out the ones that the hours don't apply for our off-season. Put new signs up. And one of the recommendations you got.
was actually making larger signs, but only putting larger signs at our hot spots, which are the ones related to our program. So it's clear when people are entering and they're parking that they can literally see you cannot do X, Y, and Z.
Um, so that's also a motion. We will ensure that we're working with high quality service vendors to ensure that gates and our restaurants are getting blocked on a timely fashion. Last summer, we learned that the inconsistency was one of the reasons why we kept dealing with so many aquatic calls.
But we hope to kind of just address that later on to the summer. Again, we'll continue to work with our park rangers and having just a real specific control. And then on top of that we will continue to do our weekly check-ins with one of the things we're doing this year.
actually are doing a meeting call with the police department, with SD parking enforcers, and we're just planning for summer safety. And it's a space for us to share best practices or things that we may need to be aware of as we go into the summer.
And then the other thing I wanted to share, we're going to pilot this summer is doing overnight security. It will be a 7 day thing. We're going to pilot it at Bullion Gardens and Magnuson, and it's basically.
Thursday to Sunday, we will just have an overnight security interview parked in our parking lot boat ramps to ensure that people are not illegally going in and amplify music. And then, if they are doing it, there's a direct call to 911. So.
there's this commitment from SPD, and we are making it possible to security that they can find a way to prioritize these calls. One of the reasons we are learning from last summer is when 911 was getting the calls, it's all based on priority, as you all could imagine, like, you know, amplify music may not be as high as, like.
shooting and things of that sort, so it's really kind of like doing that space.
Oh, Daisy, sorry, are those rangers or the security is something else? The overnight security? Oh, overnight security. That would be a private vendor okay yes and why not Gunner?
Um, we… so, like I just said, we're going to be piloting it, so we find that maybe Magnusson is doing great, and you know they're literally going to move it. It's gonna move it to the entire meeting is the concern. And if you have the flexibility in the contract to be able to adjust.
That's great. I'm also realizing, too, if you have the money for two sites. Yeah, I understand the budget. I understand the budget problem, but, like, complex. It's just gonna end up.
And I'm realizing as I say this, that I know very little about how parts are controlled.
Do we have closed circuit cameras anywhere? Not at our boat ramps.
And the gate installation, like, for example, last summer, what we learned is we, um, through the sept, like, at Magnuson, there was, like, 3 areas where we recognize people were literally, like, because there's not a game here, people are getting to the back.
Um, so through that step tag, we were able to identify where we would get some potential pain with security by adding these gains. So we did it at Madison. We also did it at some of our boat ramps on Lake Washington Boulevard. And what we're going to do this summer is actually.
at any time around, which was one of the main hotspots.
So, this is, uh, sharing information in regards to how our region is to support, again, Park Rangers supports all the things, um, but they are very critical to our safety, along with all the other amenities and services that we offer.
Um, I'd just like to share, when we go into peak season, park ranger hours, they change. They go into the 9 a.m. To 12 a.m, kind of like midnight shift, which allows two shifts. You've got an A shift, and you've got a B shift.
Uh, currently, if everyone is staffed and there's no call-outs, and we're all here and have to go, that brings us to 31 park racers, which includes supervisors and things of that sort. So, as you can imagine, like, they are here to support citywide.
Right? This is in addition to all the things we're doing this summer, so I'm really proud in regards to how our park ranger leadership really does their staffing to ensure that all things are covered to the best of their ability.
Um, again, they do proactive controls at our priority parts. They also do things in partnership with SP and our animal control. So there's a lot of concentrating, um.
efforts in regards to how we improve enforcement to different parts of Seattle. Again, they'll be critical to ensuring that the beach fire programs continue, particularly at Golden Gardens and Alka. And you know, in my next briefing, we'll hear a little bit more about how they're supporting.
World Cup, beautiful views is what we're calling it, that sort. And then just the last 3 items is just a reminder like in addition to this, they're also still supporting just citywide events. You've got big day of play, you've got Pride Parade.
We've got just activations as Parks and recreations, and they respond as needed.
What I put on here is a pilot and score, so what we tested last, uh, month, I want to say, maybe a few weeks ago, is we did an emphasis control in partnership with the police department, the West Precinct particularly, and what it was is we basically spent.
2 to 3 hours together, and just did an emphasis patrol in partnership. And so we're hoping to see if capacity allows both entities. If we could do some of that throughout summer safety.
And find different pockets of our districts to see if that can help with some of the education and engagement.
Oh, any questions? So that last point you're making about the.
I already forgot what you called it, but the partnership with, um… the emphasis patrols. Thank you. Does anything like that happen with other? I know.
different neighborhoods have different types of, like, safety ambassadors and other types of kind of maybe similar support that could be offered. Like, does that partnership happen, too?
Are you asking like with like community-based organizations, or just other areas? Yeah, yeah, everything. I mean, like this.
like, the safety ambassadors in Chinatown International District, or the Safety Ambassadors in Pioneer Square, or downtown. I know they're all, like, different entities are implementing them, but I'm just wondering, um.
you know, like, sometimes I've just been in a space, and I'm like, oh, like, there are multiple reasons. Right? Yeah, which is great, but… but I'm wondering, like, is there partnership? Is that intentional, that multiple people are here at the same time, or did that just happen… Because it's a priority area. That is a great question. There is initiatives that we do in partnership with other departments and also community-based organizations. So, for example, Chinatown, we have this. I'll just call it a citywide.
initiative is called DAP, which stands for Downtown Activision Team. And so really what it is is all city departments come all hands on deck in partnership with some of the ambassadors, and we'll pick a day, and we'll just be there to clean.
And so, like, we'll do emphasis cleans, and we actually just did one at home last week.
But it's successful because you've got SPD. Everyone, yeah. Um, and then it allows us to go in and clean our assets out. So, um, there is opportunities like that. Currently, right now, what I find is really concentrating Chinatown.
downtown, uh, which is why I'm hoping with this emphasis patrol and partnership with the Rangers, it really could go outside of that box, right? You know, I'll talk a little bit more later. But like when I'm thinking about like just like our priority person, like our daily patrolling that our park ranges do.
Like, there's so many things outside of, like, programs that we deal with, you know, like, I have been daily patrol over there at the Beach Community Center area, you know, a recent incident that happened at Rainier and Henderson, like, we're just trying to activate it and just be present.
Homework Park will still continue to be a priority site for us, in addition to summer safety, there are all these pockets that we are still planning to be there, like Danny Plain and Lake Washington Boulevard, like, that is, like, Capitol Hill Park that we talked about a couple.
And I guess you could also speak a little bit to the school partnerships with campus safety. Yeah, so, I mean, it's unfortunate, but the school shootings is something that I feel like our park staff are very well.
and trained to deal with. But I say that because we have stood up safety campus teams with the school district. We actually have one related to Southwest Team Life Center.
We also tried to kick one off at Meadowbrook Teen Life Center with Nathan Hale. We just recently did one in partnership with the Southeast Schools, so that's, um.
That's Dunlap, Rainier Beach High School, and then I know that it's not called South Lake High School anymore, but it's the same high school related to Graham Beach.
But all the principles and all the community-based organizations and city departments that are in that space, we meet every Friday to just strategize, but then also just to share information.
I was like, we'll learn about, like, the recent, like, fight that happened at Rainier, uh, not at Arena Ridge High School, and then it gives us a way to connect to our staff, like, hey, just letting you know, like, this bike's still over, like, just make sure you've got staff there. So, it does create an open space for us to just.
be more strategic about, you know, if we're on lockdown, high security, or how we discipline each other. I will say that the Southeast area, it's got a lot of community-based resources. I've got community passages there, um.
There's a lot of petroleum that's happening outside, and that memorial continues to grow, and it's an open case. So you're just kind of like dealing with staff and community at the same time. But that is an example of how to do that at different campuses.
throughout the city. Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Any other questions? Well, Beautiful Games is my next one. This is like literally like five slides, but… Do your thing. I am so excited for us to come into this summer. In addition to me sharing summer safety with all with you all and then Beautiful Games is what we're calling our programs because framework.
You're doing all these things on top of just what we normally do as Parks and recreation, right? So it's gonna be an exciting time. So with that being said, you know.
We're in this very unique spot. There's heavily a ton of resources really committed to the downtown corridor and the unity. I think what we are doing as a department, which I think is just the most amazing thing, and this is really what we're here to do, is we're really trying to focus a way for us to.
our neighborhoods, so they feel like they're a part of this, like, event.
They don't need to come to the stadium. They don't need to come to the waterfront. And most of the times, these communities don't want to. They want to celebrate together. And so we are doing different ways to retheme and reimagine programs, so they… the community can feel like they're part of this.
experience. Next slide.
So for us to continue providing real-class experiences, this is just an example of how we can reimagine programming really related to beautiful games in the World Cup. So as we shared earlier.
We're just gonna find ways to rethink existing programs. So the day camp is going to be all around summer. We got some lifelong programs soccer. We're going to change our music businesses around Zumba, so you're just kind of feeling, like, cultural, like, music and experiences and things of that sort.
So, you know, we are doing all this because we also know we're not getting additional money. So we're very creative in that sense. Sometimes we're so good at it that people want you to do more.
So again, feeding into this site. So I take it too that feedback didn't trademark will pop up. So, zooming out, like, this is just what we're offering just on a citywide lens. Um, again, there's so much excitement and other departments are doing amazing things and some of these things we're doing.
But just for Parks and Recreation, we're offering seven outdoor watch parties. Two soccer jamborees particularly in the Magnuson and the Delwich area and then I already talked about how real how we are going to reimagine.
programs. So as you can see, we're offering a little bit of everything. I would say the outdoor watch parties are pretty much kind of like a really fun, like a background. You're going to be able to watch the game, like, you're going to have access to food trucks, you're going to have access to, like, information booths to just learn about things that are offered in your community.
and you could just, you get to do this in your neighborhood.
Um, so, in addition to that, um… We will have park rangers at our outdoor watch parties. I hope this is really just emphasize, like, just the activation in general. So, here's a snapshot of what beautiful games.
Okay. Next slide.
Um, so just to capitalize on what I talked about in regards to just amplifying communities. Communities are recreation division created fires for each district. We are working with our comms team to make a public.
website so that we could start, like, just marketing all the things we're doing. But you will get a sense of all the different things that are offered in the neighborhood, and it will include everything from your watch party to you know a swim class to whatever that may look like.
But this is just another access. I'm sorry. What will be the communication mechanism for that? How like community hear about all this stuff? Yeah, well, we have a great comms team that's currently building it out right now. In addition to that, the city itself has to also.
task it down to us how they want marketing as well. Um, but, um… I mean, it's probably gonna be our normal, um, channels of how we do it, but… Not so subtly organized also by our.
Representatives, districts who I'm sure will be. Happy to glom onto this, and their teams and communications.
Next slide. So I also just want to share what we're doing holistically as a department, because the recreation Division probably has the heavy lifts, but usually I would say everyone in our department does. So I wanted to share like just along with maintenance.
We've got all hands on deck. We're gonna be sharing that our facilities and maintenance teams is making sure that our assets are clean and they're working and they're ready. We're doing a huge like seasonal hire right now just to keep up with demand, because again, this is on top of the things we're already doing.
Um, park rangers, like I had mentioned before, they're going to be focusing on summer safety, beautiful games.
all the things, um, so they're gonna be part of this plan as well.
We also offered some small grants to the community. So our rep for all grant also pivoted a portion of their funds just to offer to the community to bring in some version of soccer. And so I learned this morning it closed.
the end of February, up to 15 more visa right out. So that's another way of just how like community can activate their own community in partnership with SPR.
And then, last but not least, we have a handful of projects within just that footprint of the downtown park area that I heard this morning. We're on track to meet that West Lake Park, South Lake Freed, and then.
Yeah, certainly. okay, just wanted to share holistically all the things we're doing as a department. I'm really excited. I really hope you guys feel like this is something you feel proud of what we're doing. You know, it's just, I feel like there's just this unique space right now. And then, you know, everyone's on the bus team.
Yeah. Once we're ready to just fully publish it out.
Any questions? I am not following a game as sort of beautiful games as much as I should. Like, how many days of activation is that?
When you're doing one of those activation sites, how many times does it happen? So let me start with, I believe, like our days of what the date range we're planning for it's like June 15th to like July 24.
I believe there's actually only 6 games that are being hosted in CM. But in regards to activations between that duration and time, like, um.
it's it's going to kind of be like the watch parties are just those 5 or 6 days. Yeah, exactly. But they're doing a couple that are not here, right? Yeah, and these watch parties are only the ones that SPR hosting, so there might, like, I think.
They're doing some, like, within the fan zones that are being coordinated through local organization committee. So we're really just enhancing something that's already, like.
an existing footprint from other organizations. Like, I just feel like people have so many options.
And then I also feel like neighbors, I… I probably don't want to leave, because I don't want to deal with the traffic.
Not a question, but I gotta advocate for an outdoor watch party in District 1. And seeing Alki Beach, the beach bunge party?
pool watch party, Coleman. I saw it to her.
Well, we have lots of great spaces. While we're at it, the Pup Cup in District 7. I'm not really sure why, but, you know, I just, I think it just… One quick question. Glad to hear that the downtown projects are on time.
When right now is Westlake Park escalated to reopen?
Oh, wow. Yeah. And confirm with Rebecca where is your Friday.
Oops, somebody got their hands up. Is there a question from a…
You can email your question to pks underscore BPRC at seattle.gov. We'll pass that along.
Thank you. Thank you! Thanks so much!
All right, um, the most exciting part of our old and new business is we have our retreat coming up!
Um, do we have the exact timing confirmed? We have arrival time for it. Yeah, we have arrival time, and then we have… The zoo part of it laid out.
Just waiting in the park. Oh, okay. We can… we can confirm with you that we're going to do arrival between 4.15 and 4.30, start at 4:30 for the Zoom part of it, and then the formal kind of park meeting part of it starting 6.
But you're not able to… Make it the animal experience part of it. That's okay.
And we have an information. I'll also want to do that before this meeting.
And then, um, sorry, this is a bit new to me, but regarding tracking quorum for the.
The April 25th meeting. If folks, how does that work? So if folks are interested, they'll just let you know that they want to join, and you'll track that for us and let us know.
Yeah, yes, yeah, sorry. Sorry, not related to the retreat at all. Sorry, sorry. So sorry. Yes, if you can, please let me know in advance Sps, uh.
meeting, and that way we can do that. There's… my understanding, and Michelle, Paul, maybe you could help me out with this, my understanding is if there is a quorum, there's still… that's still okay, but we do need to make a public announcement. There's a quorum present. I think we still have guidelines throughout. Okay.
you know, obviously don't discuss anything. Is there any hardcore business.
We would we would share some instructions about that. Okay, thanks.
All right, anyone else? I just… Um, on, uh… Uh, old business, um, would love to see us schedule a more conference or Ranger update. This is something we've done a couple times. Great. I know that that's been… It's growing, we're excited about it, so…
Um, and then… Yeah, they're doing them. Stacey's team is doing a lot of through this planning with the SPD. There's just a lot, like, it would be much stronger to bring it. That's fine. Yes, we have it.
Um, and then following up on Linkin Park. Playfield, same thing.
Timeline. So if they do a community meeting, when are we expecting to see them? What… Uh, and just sort of give us a sense of, like, what that would look, what that look would look like from a…
When park staff feels confident that bring me back in front of the board.
Yeah, so we met with the school district. Lastly, color blur. Um… Well, they got a schedule. And, um, we basically decided we would debrief after that meeting. Got it. I think it's something's ready to bring to the board that obviously would be May would be the first.
After we see how that community engagement goes. Just, you know, for the Performance Subcommittee.
Justin, we've kind of regrouped for the first time this year recently to hear about the main parking budget, or performance to budget last year, in terms of, like, performance budget, like KPIs and stuff like that, goals.
And next, we're meeting again in early April when we'll hear from the CAP project side of it. And I guess sort of in May, we'll probably come to this group with our draft letter that goes on along with the superintendent's letter at the front of the report, and they try to get the report to city council in time to try again.
June… mid-June budget review, so that's coming back. I can't believe it's been a year. Feels like we just did this?
Um, so yeah, pretty soon. Thanks for your thanks to mention that. Yeah, just came up to me. I just thought it was.
And one of our topics for the retreat will be subcommittee, so people want to change what subcommittees are.
Any of that. And there's new work for the park naming subcommittee. Yeah, yeah, the policy to be developed.
All right. I just want to say, I'd really be interested to hear about… strategies are for increasing programming for or not programming, but scholarships for programming for for a lot of like the.
youth program that we have at the community, just because I hear a lot about that, like, those scholarship stops coming up.
Like here, really randomly, so I really want to hear about what our strategies to increase salvation opportunities.
Okay.
All right.