Uh, colleagues, I
m going to
call to order the JUNE 23rd,
2026 committee of the whole
meeting. I have the pleasure of
serving as chair of the
committee this year. My name is
George Baron. I represent
district four. On today
s
agenda, we will have a briefing
on the state of the district
court, and then we
ll take
action on three appointments to
the four Culture Board and
close with a briefing from four
culture. With that
introduction. Clerk Wells,
could I ask you to please call
the roll?
Certainly, chair. Thank you
very much. Councilmember
Balducci.
Councilmember Dembowski here.
Councilmember Dunn here.
Councilmember Fain. Here.
Councilmember Louis.
Here.
Councilmember Mosqueda.
Councilmember Perry here.
Councilmember von Reichbauer.
Here.
Chair.
Baron here. And I believe Vice
Chair Balducci is with us as
well.
I was just going to say here,
thank you.
All right. Thank you.
Colleagues, we do have a quorum
of the committee. Uh, thank you
all for joining us. Uh, Vice
Chair Balducci, MAY I please
have a motion for approval of
the minutes of JUNE 8th, 2026?
Thank you. Chair. I move
approval of the JUNE 20th eight
minutes or JUNE 8th minutes.
Sorry. JUNE 8th.
Thank you very much. Uh, are
there any questions or
comments? Uh, regarding the
minutes, seeing none, all those
in favor of approving the
minutes, please say aye.
Aye, aye.
Any opposed? Say nay. The
minutes are approved. Uh,
clerks, do we have anybody
signed up for public comment?
Either online or in person?
Uh, I believe there is no way
in person. We do have a couple
people online, but no one has
raised their hand. I just want
to give them a moment. If they
do want to make a public
comment, to raise their hand.
Thank you. If you are here to
provide public comment online,
please use the raise hand
function and the zoom platform
or use up star nine if you have
joined by phone. Are we seeing
in a request for public
comment?
No, no, not at this time.
All right. Uh, seeing no
requests for public comment, we
will close public comment and
move forward with our agenda.
Uh, the first item on today
s
agenda is a briefing on the
state of the district court.
Uh, we
re joined today online
by the Honorable Rebecca
Robertson, who
s the chief
presiding judge of King County
District Court. Thank you for
joining us today, Judge
Robertson. And I understand
that you
ve also extended an
invitation to the district
court judges to view today
s
presentation at their schedules
allow. Uh, so I want to say
thank you for doing that. And
to any of the district court
judges watching through this
presentation. You
re welcome.
Uh, and thank you for making
time to tune in. And with that,
I
ll invite Judge Robertson to
begin. Whenever you
re ready.
Well, thank you so much. I
m
going to go ahead and share my
screen. There we go. So again,
I
m judge Rebecca Robertson.
Can you give me a thumbs up if
you can see that?
I definitely see that.
Awesome. Judge Rebecca
Robertson I
m the chief
presiding judge of King County
district court. I wanted to
give you a brief overview of
the district court today. I
know there are a couple of new
members, so I
m going to, um,
go over some of the things that
other members MAY know, but I
think it
s important for
everybody to understand about
our district court. We are the
largest, uh, court of limited
jurisdiction in the state of
Washington. And we are actually
the second largest court in the
state, second only to King
County Superior Court. Or as
you can see here, we have a
mission statement. We want to
provide an accessible forum for
the fair and efficient and
understandable resolution of
the civil and criminal cases,
and maintain an atmosphere of
respect and dignity for all
individuals. Seven out of eight
cases in the entire state are
handled by the courts of
limited jurisdiction. So you
can imagine how many cases and
how many folks come through the
King County District Court. If
we are the largest district
court in the entire state. The
district courts and the
municipal courts are called the
people
s courts. It
s where
people will likely encounter
not only the judiciary, but
their entire government. Most
people are going to have any
contact with their government
through the district and
municipal courts. King County
District Court has 25
separately elected judges. We
are all, uh, we all are elected
from our district. And I
m
going to circle our brand new
judges that you just appointed,
Judge Barney Martin and Judge
Yvonne Chin. We are really
happy to have them. We are a
large and complicated
structure, so we have an
executive leadership team. We
have myself on the presiding
judge. Judge Hahn is the
assistant presiding judge, and
we have three division
providing presiding judges for
our three divisions. The
presiding judge in the chief
and the I
m sorry, assistant
presiding judge are actually
elected by all the judges and
the divisions elect their own
presiding judges. So we operate
as a democratic republic.
Essentially, you have
representatives from all of
your divisions. The executive
committee handles all the
policies, procedures, rules,
projects, etc. We also have 250
staff. We have the Chief
administrative officer or
deputy chief administrative
officer, and all of our
directors. They do the bulk of
the work for King County
District Court. King County
District Court has five
electoral districts. So if you
are elected out of the
Southwest district, you have to
live there and you
ll be
serving most of the time in the
Southwest District. Same for
the west and shoreline.
Northeast, southeast, etc. Our
administrative divisions are
separated into West, east and
south. King County District
Court contracts with 13 cities
to handle their municipal court
services. They
re covered by an
interlocal agreement. They are
the cities that contract with
us, get the same services as
King County does, as the state
does. This is operating on a
full cost recovery model. We
currently have 13 cities, but
Auburn is no longer going to be
contracting with us as of
JANUARY 2027. So we also have
strategic court look courthouse
locations for the convenience
of the public. County and city
residents can easily access
their local courts to obtain
services such as small claims,
protection orders, etc. And the
hearings will take place where,
uh, close to where the crime
occurred. So if someone is
charged with a crime in
shoreline, they do not need to
go to the emergency to have
their cases heard. A lot of
people think that district and
municipal courts do mostly
traffic tickets. Most of our
job is actually handling the
criminal cases, and for that,
we have to make sure that
we
re, uh, honoring and abiding
by the Constitution and
protecting people
s
constitutional rights. So
criminal takes priority over
any of our civil cases because
there is the loss of liberty
attached to any criminal case.
We have to make sure that
evidence has been lawfully
gathered. And if it has not, we
suppress that evidence. We have
to guarantee everyone the right
to an attorney. Uh, we do not
allow forced confessions. We
have motions all the time
regarding people
s Fifth
Amendment rights, and we have
jury trial in every courthouse.
So at every point in time,
we
re protecting people
s
constitutional rights. Just to
give you a brief overview of
the difference between superior
and district courts, superior,
does the felonies real property
rights, divorce, estate, and
commitment, civil cases over
$100,000. The juvenile cases
protection orders which we
share with them and appeals
from our level of court, the
district court does the gross
and simple misdemeanors. That
means that you can that has
punishment up to a year in jail
and a $5,000 fine, or 90 days
in jail, and the $1,000 fine.
We do civil cases under
$100,000, small claims
protection orders, name
changes, infractions and other
civil and other civil cases
such as tow hearings, etc. Most
of the cases that we handle are
and take the most time are
domestic violence and driving
under the influences cases, the
they take the most, they
re the
most serious. They take the
most time of the attorneys as
well as the court. They
re
getting more complex as the law
changes. And certainly body
cameras make every case that we
handle more complex because we
have all that evidence to
review. And we are also
increasingly handling domestic
violence cases in other cases
that could be filed as
felonies, but are instead filed
in the district and municipal
courts. So we
re working really
hard on all those cases.
District court also handles the
felony first appearances. So if
anyone is arrested on a felony,
they
re going to be appearing
before a district court judge,
usually the next day or the day
after. And we also handle all
of the most of the protection
orders and to harassment,
stalking, domestic violence. So
we play a large role in
enforcing the rules of law to
protect the public safety in
district court. We also have a
very large civil, uh, civil
unit at this time. Our cases in
2025 were almost 25,000. That
s
an 88% increase since 2023.
Right now we have two dedicated
civil judges and two who do.
About a quarter of their job is
civil cases. So we have
personal injury, breach of
contract, medical and consumer
debt, etc. Most people think,
oh, that
s a civil case is just
about money. But these are
cases that have real effect on
people
s lives. We deal with a
significant amount of
garnishment cases where folks
who are on the edge of being
able to survive or having their
wages garnished. We, in fact,
there was a very large company
in Seattle that was garnishing
wages due to a programming
error on their end. For years
they were garnishing wages in
amounts that were way too
large. And it was not until one
of our civil judges noticed
this pattern and summonsed them
to court, that this was
corrected and people got their
money back. Some of the types
of cases are, of course,
medical debt, which is one of
the most heartbreaking things
that you can see in court. We
had a case where a woman came
in in huge debt to Bank of
America, and she got to court
and said she had done it to pay
for the medical care for her
fiance, who was dying, and she
extended his ear for his life
for a year by using that credit
card. But that put her into
significant medical debt. So
these are the kind of cases
that are handled by our civil
judges, because they are so
important and because we have
had such an increase in our
civil cases, the positions that
were in Auburn Municipal Court
are currently are there are
going to be added to our civil
department and we will have
five full time civil judges as
of 2027 handling these cases.
So we
re also handling, um,
other civil cases, small claims
suits for the recovery of
money. The Dispute Resolution
Center of King County helps us
with that. A lot of them are
tenant claims for return of
deposits. These are cases that
are under $10,000, but that
s
real money to a lot of people.
And so those are very
important. Uh, we also have all
the other civil matters, such
as the vehicle impound
hearings, post judgment
executions, petitions for
seized animals, etc., that we
handle, and King County
District Court. In fact, there
was just a movie about a tow
hearing that took place in King
County District Court. The
movie tow. I don
t know if any
of you have seen that, but two
of our district court judges
were the ones that released the
car. Uh, for this, for this
woman. So these are civil cases
have significant impact on
people
s lives. We also have
our therapeutic courts, both
regional mental health court
and regional veterans court, a
regional mental health court is
funded by the mid budget, as is
the Veterans Court, that any of
the cases in our therapeutic
courts are referred by the
prosecutor and defense and our
regional Mental Health Court is
celebrating 25 years. That was
the second in the nation and
it
s still going strong. The
data shows that participating
in rental, um, regional mental
health court reduces
recidivism. There, increases
participation in treatment. We
also have three therapeutic
community courts and, uh,
shoreline, Kenmore, Bellevue
and Redmond. There are
intensive court involvement
with folks to get them to
resources. We have peer
membership. They usually come
to court once a week and check
in. It
s a very different model
than our, uh, what we normally
have in court. And it works for
a lot of people who are
struggling with issues that
keep them in the criminal
justice system. We have some
statistics. Statistics from
Spokane Community Court about
recidivism that shows
recidivism is reduced by
participation in community
court. We are actually working
on our own data now that we
ve
had community courts for at
least eight years, where we can
compare apples to apples. So a
city that has a community court
versus a city that doesn
t,
comparing similar cases and
what the recidivism rate is,
and we
re working on that data
right now for those who are in
community court and not in
community court, in a regular
court, we have several tools
and resources to try and stop
their downward spiral, prevent
felonies and escalation of any
criminal behavior. So if people
go to probation for doing so
normally for treatment such as
alcohol and drug, mental
health, anger management,
sexual deviancy, various
educational classes, consumer
awareness, etc., our mission is
to stop people
s behavior that
causes them to commit crime. Of
course, we are also very
mindful of public safety and if
some people have to, we have to
resort to punishment. We do. We
have, uh, contracts with
several jails as well as the
King County Jail. We use
electronic monitoring,
community service and
restitution, etc. As I said,
the gross and simple
misdemeanors carry up to a year
in jail. And so you do often
find fairly violent offenders
in custody on their gross and
simple misdemeanors. Our
probation department is very
active. We have ten probation
officers, separate assignments
to domestic violence court,
five locations where they are
located. They help people with
their problems. That led them
to the interaction with the
criminal justice system. Almost
all of our cases on probation
are domestic violence and dui.
We don
t have folks with theft
charges or criminal trespasses
on probation. What they are on
or for our most serious crime.
We are actually starting our
own domestic violence moral
recognition therapy classes
beginning in AUGUST, which is
almost cost free for folks who
are participating in as an
alternative to the traditional
domestic violence barriers
treatment, which is going to be
not as effective for a large
population of our domestic
violence offenders. So we are
going to have a fairly low cost
alternative in-house with Ccdc.
Here is our 2025 caseload. It
s
277,000 plus cases. What you
see here is parking. That is
photo enforcement tickets. We
have a huge increase in our
photo enforcement tickets also
have a huge, uh, infraction
caseload. And here is where
most of the judges spend their
time on the civil protection
orders. Criminals. Et cetera.
Our judicial workload looks a
little different. We spend most
of our time on our criminal
cases. So here is, um, county
and state criminal. The felony
first appearances, domestic
violence court. This is our
civil portion. These are our
city contracts. So a slight
portion of this will be the
infractions. But most of it is
criminal. So while most of our
cases are infraction, most of
the time we spent with spend
with people is actually in our
criminal courts. And as you can
see, since 2019 plummeted
during Covid, but it is rising
again. We are over our Covid
numbers. Uh, and so we are
essentially doing more cases
with the same amount of
resources. We are seeing a huge
uptick in litigation in all of
our criminal cases, huge
increases in our civil, uh,
civil cases. And they are
getting more complex due to
statutory changes and other
changes. Our trials are also
increasing as you can. These
are the purple is our state
trials. The lighter purple the
lavender is our city trials.
Our our trials are increasing
and trials take a lot of
resources. Department of Public
Defense right now for the state
is is staffed at levels that
are recommended by the
Washington State Bar
Association. They are fully
staffed for what was just
adopted as the Public defender
standards. What we
re
anecdotally seeing is that
means there
s more litigation
with more attorneys, there
s
more litigation in court
because there are more
attorneys to do that, to comb
through their cases, to have
motions, to have trials. And we
think that
s why we have a
greater increase in trials in
our state courts rather than
our city courts, even though
the numbers for each quarter
are pretty much the same. So
what we
re expecting as the
cities start to hire more
public defenders, as they
re
going to be mandated to do
that, we
re going to be getting
more litigation in our cities
as well. So I wanted to talk a
little bit about our staff and
our service data. We
ve taken
over 200,000 calls last year.
Uh, summonsed almost 73,000
jurors and scheduled almost
13,000 interpreter jobs in 95
languages and dialects for King
County District Court. So our
staff is really busy making
sure that we can provide access
to all folks in King County.
Our average call time has been
reduced from almost an hour to
four minutes. We
re using live
chat and we
re working on ai
translation services so that
when someone calls and they
speak another language, we
don
t have to call it an
interpreter. We can use some ai
translation tools so they can
get better service when they
call in. Our live chat has also
been really popular for folks
who don
t want to wait, and
they just live chat. Someone in
our call center. We also had
some initiatives and projects
this year, including, uh,
capital improvements for
security at our eight
locations. One of the most
important ones that we have
been working on are Lean or
Kaizen processes for all of our
operations and process
improvements. We
re going to go
through every single one of
these processes, and we
ve to
give you an example, we went
through our infractions and we
reduced the time that we took
to process infractions in court
by 50%. At least. This is just
time that we
re dealing with
paperwork, not actually
interacting with litigants. So
we
ve reduced our paperwork
time and increased the time we
can actually spend interacting
with folks, which is what we
re
here to do. It increases our
ability to ensure due process.
We
re going through every
single process in this lean
operation, lean process to get
more efficient and as efficient
as we possibly can. We also
introduced an online management
system for evidence that helps,
especially pro se litigants,
when they
re, uh, submitting
digital evidence. And we
ve
made language translation
service improvements, including
simultaneous zoom, simultaneous
interpretation in every single
court. And we have pocket talks,
the like ai translators at all
our front counters. And with
probation so that they can
better interact with folks and
not have to wait for our scarce
resources of actual
interpreters. So we
re
providing better language
access. Our Dei committee has
continued with its community
outreach. We they created an
unsecured bond procedure for
folks who did not have the
collateral to engage with a
bond agency. They can now have
the alternative of posting cash
bond in the 10% amount that
they would have been given to
the bond company, and they just
give that to the court and they
get it back when they appear in
court. We
ve included continue
with their education and
awareness cities. We
ve made
sure all our documents are
compliant with the Ada
recommendations, and we have
our web page that
s a central
source of Di information for
the public. And when I talk
about community engagements, we
go out into the community with
our tent with information about
the district court. We have a
giant gavel and robes that the
kids love to take pictures of,
and we educate the public about
what we are doing in district
court. One of the biggest
things that
s happening in
district court is our retiring
judges. We have eight retiring
judges this year, so Judge
Hirakawa and Judge Pagel have
already retired. Judge
Stevenson is retiring in
several days, and the rest of
our eight judges are retiring
at the end of the year. That
s
eight judges in one year.
That
s a third of our bench. So
we are losing. And I did the
math on my little Star Trek
calculator. About 320 years of.
It.
Legal experience with the loss
of these judges, it
s a big
deal. We are have some
challenges coming.
Up.
Um, one is the increased civil
caseload. As we talked about,
we are diverting to judicial
positions to that civil
caseload to try and get through
our backlog. It
s now more
complicated than ever because
of debt buyer requirements that
were affected. Effective in
2020. Video court is an added
complication, and we have some
concerns about how it affects
due process. If people are on a
tiny little screen or on their
cell phone, they can
t really
see us. Uh, we have increased
some access, but there are
some, uh, downsides to video
participation. So we are
considering, uh, limiting some
access, certainly limiting the
chat ability and determining
what kind of hearings is
appropriate to have these all
zoom hearings and some that MAY
not be interpreters, continues
to be a huge issue for district
court. And being able to
provide language access,
interpreter cases have three
times the number of of
continuances, which clogs the
court system, because folks are
trying to get interpreters to
court. And also the attorneys
are trying to get interpreters
to, uh, assist them with
communicating with their
clients. And there
s an
interpreter shortage. We also
have interpreters, mostly on
zoom, and it
s sometimes very
difficult to get them to come
into court when we have
evidentiary hearings or trials
where we are required to have
in-person interpreters. At this
time, they
re independent
contractors, so they can say, I
want $250 an hour and an eight
hour minimum for this motion
hearing. And if we can
t find
another alternative, that
s
what we have to do to guarantee
language access. Can county
District court led a.
Um.
An effort with the state, the
Board of Judicial
Administration to create a task
force on language access, which
was just done earlier this
month. So hopefully we can
create some, uh, new methods of
providing interpreters,
including ai. In translation
for our hearings, where we
re
just setting court dates again
and again. So maybe we can use
ai interpreters. That
s going
to require actual court and
statutory changes, but we
re
working on it. We continue with
attorney staffing challenges.
I
m sure you
ve heard from dpd,
as well as the state, that
there are fewer attorneys who
want to go into the criminal
justice system, fewer attorneys
means longer delays. They have
less experience, less folks to
supervise them. We are working
with the prosecutor and defense
on how to best deploy their
attorneys going into law
schools, going into the
communities, encouraging folks
to join, uh, to go to law
school and go into criminal,
uh, criminal justice. The
public defender staffing
increase in public defenders
means more litigation. So we
re
handling more cases, more
litigate, not more cases, but
more litigation due to there
being more attorneys. As
always, the budget is.
Um.
A challenge for everybody, I
m
sure for you guys to most of
our budget and salary is our
benefits for our 250 employees
who are doing the bulk of the
work serving the public. Um,
budget cuts means we have to
cut people and that means less
services. As I said, we also
have judicial turnover.
Issues, but.
We have created a really
comprehensive onboarding
program as well as judicial.
College takes about a month for
our new judges, so we can
really get them to hit the
ground running in court. Uh,
one of the things that we
worked on is our judicial.
Needs.
Uh, Administrative Office of
the court had not done a
judicial need study in three
decades. And so the judicial
needs estimates are 30 years
old, and it has not accounted
for the complexity of the cases
that we see. So the
administrative office of the
courts, as well as the National
Center for State Courts, just
completed a study where we all
had to record our time for
about three weeks on everything
we did to determine what the
more appropriate, uh, judicial
needs were. And those results
are going to be pending, etc..
So that is the overview and
what has been happening with
King County District Court in
2025. I am more than happy to
answer any questions that you.
Have.
Thank you so much, Judge
Robertson. I really appreciate
the update. I
m going to open
it up for questions from my
colleagues. Uh, colleagues,
feel free to raise your hand.
And I
m going to call on the
chair of our law Justice
committee. Councilmember Lewis
first. Go ahead. Councilmember
Lewis.
Thank you, chair. And thank
you, Judge Robinson. This this,
um, presentation was very
informative. Um, I have a
question about the debt buyers.
Um, uh, requirements. How has
what are those and how has that
changed the, the workload?
I will have to defer to one of
my civil judges to really
elaborate. Those cases are so
complicated, I could not do
them justice here. What I will
do is have our civil judge, uh,
Judge Shotwell, email you about
what the debt buyer
requirements are and what has
changed to make things more
complicated. But as I
m sure
you know, if you have a
mortgage or a student loan,
debt is sold between companies
all the time. And, uh, that
makes enforcement of collection
really difficult. So I will
have Judge Scott will follow up
with you. Thank you for the
question.
That would be great. Thank you.
Uh Councilmember Dembowski.
Thanks so much. Chair. Judge
Robertson, great presentation,
really comprehensive and
informative. Thank you so much
for putting it together. Uh,
you had mentioned the home
monitoring, uh, function, and I
brought back our memory of a
few years ago. We had some
challenges with the technology
and the 24 hour monitoring, and
I wondered if you could just
give us a status update. Is
that system now working
satisfactorily of issues? Are
they largely resolved?
Those issues are resolved. Uh,
there
s a lot of companies that
do the electronic home
monitoring as well as, uh,
government entities that can
handle it on their own. So we
have had no technological
issues recently for the
electronic monitoring. That
s
working really well.
All right. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Uh Councilmember Fain.
Thank you. Thank you again. Uh,
Judge Robertson, um, for your
presentation, I have a couple
of questions, and I
ll just try
and narrow it down. One is
related to the debt buyer. Um,
legislation, the effect of
that, and I won
t ask you to
explain it, but I wonder if you
know, if the. Legislation. The
volume of cars stand with the
driver is behind the 88%
increase in civil filings over
two years. That
s pretty
extraordinary.
It is pretty extraordinary. Um,
the driver is the difference.
We in standards, we. It used to
be 50,000. We took under
50,000. Now it
s 100,000. And
we
re getting a lot of the
during Covid kind of, um,
people defaulting on their
loans because they couldn
t
work, uh, anything. If people
defaulting on their debts
because they couldn
t work the
Covid related things. But there
has been a real, um, uptick in
people filing for, uh, you
know, landlord tenant issues
that wouldn
t necessarily go to
superior court because of the
monetary amount or it doesn
t
actually fit squarely within
landlord tenant. So there are
just a lot of different factors
that go into that increase. And
so I can follow up with you and
give you a list of all the
factors that do that. I
m happy
to do that.
Thank you so much, chair. Can I
ask one more?
Yeah. Go for it.
Thank you. Um, the other number
that struck out or stuck out
for me was, um, the parking
matters on the spreadsheet with
Kenmore having, um, 61,600
filings out of, you know, um, a
fairly small number overall. So
just curious as to how much
judicial and clerk time is
consumed by parking matters.
I can get you the percentages
later. It
s a small amount of
time for the judges because
most people pay the tickets.
However, any of those 61,000
cases come through the court.
The clerk has to receive it.
They have to file it. They have
to create a case. They have to
receive the money. Are whole
budget. Department has to, you
know, deal with the money
portion. So the clerks are
actually spending a significant
amount of time in our budget
team is spending a significant
amount of time. The judges are
spending a small amount of time
because most people don
t ask
for a hearing. And I
m happy to
give you more detailed numbers
on how much our staff spends on
that.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Um.
Uh, thank you, Judge Robertson.
I
ll ask a quick question here,
because I had the same, uh, one
of my questions was asked by
Councilmember Fain about the
80% increase on the civil
filing. So thank you for
clarifying on that. Um, perhaps
relatedly, you had a slide that
showed the the trials numbers.
Uh, and you mentioned about the
increase is, was that both
civil and criminal cases or is
that just focus on the criminal
cases? I was I was not clear on
that one.
Oh thank you. I
m happy to
clarify. That was just the
criminal cases. So far we have
not seen civil cases. The
trials going up. Um, I can get
you the statistics on that if
you
d like, but those were just
the criminal cases that we
counted.
They
re great. No, I, I just
want to make sure that we were
focusing. I understood that it
probably was criminal cases.
Either way. You spoke about it,
but I wasn
t sure. So, um, uh,
that is helpful to understand.
And, uh, you know, we
ve
obviously been dealing both
here and in the, in the law
Justice Committee with the,
with the public defender issue.
And, you know, we took up
legislation here to try to
clarify what our standards are
on that. Uh, but I appreciate
your reference. And I think the
note of the the challenge that
we will have if those numbers
continue to increase, I think
it
s going to be a challenge
for all of us to deal with in
terms of the additional costs
on multiple fronts. So thank
you for highlighting that and
keeping us abreast of those
issues. Uh, and I see
Councilmember Lewis, I
ll call
you for probably the last
question.
Thank you. Uh, Judge Robertson,
we tend to think about virtual
hearings and virtual meetings
as being, um, uh, productivity
increases and that kind of
thing. But you said that, um,
zoom hearings cause more time
for the in court clerks, uh, to
respond to attorney requests.
Can you give us some examples
of what that looks like?
Sure. So before Covid, our
clerks would be doing their
clerk work. They
re making sure
the record is complete. They
re
taking the evidence. They
re
making sure that they
re not
getting everything we have
added on managing zoom. So we
have people in court, and now
we have people on zoom. So they
have to, you know, open up the
zoom, let everyone in, make
sure everyone
s named, um, make
sure people are not moving
around. And the judges do this
to muting themselves, etc. What
we have found is that the chat
function we have it on, and
that people, both litigants and
attorneys, are constantly
peppering the clerk with
questions that would never
happen in open court. While
court was happening, you would
not approach the clerk and ask,
you know, start asking
questions. Can I go first? Can
I submit this via zoom, etc.?
That
s happening a lot in our
chat. And we realized how much
time it was taking our clerks
to handle that. And it also led
to a lot of inappropriate
ex-parte contact with with, um,
folks just saying things in the
chat that the judge shouldn
t
consider. The clerk shouldn
t
consider the other party wasn
t
aware of, etc. So it
s all a
learning experience from Covid.
We all just tried to survive
and now we
re figuring out,
okay, how do we how do we
normalize this? How do we make
sure we
re following all the
rules? So we are actually
considering limiting the chat
significantly so those things
don
t happen.
Sounds very complicated.
Yeah, it is very complicated.
All right. Colleagues. Uh,
well, Judge Robertson, thank
you so much for, uh, the
presentation today and for
keeping us abreast of the work
of District Court. We
appreciate the work of you and
your colleagues, and look
forward to continuing the
engagement. And, please, if
there
s any additional
information to some of the
questions that were posed, we
would welcome that.
I will get you more information
on the questions that you had
today. Thank you.
Thank you so much, MR.
Robertson. Appreciate it.
Colleagues, we
re going to move
on to our next items on the
agenda. We have three items
that would confirm appointments
to the King County Cultural
Development Authority, better
known as for Culture Board. Uh,
for culture, of course,
administers King County
s arts
and heritage programs for
culture is governed by a 15
member board of directors that
have a demonstrated commitment
to a knowledge of cultural
resources. Uh, to give you a
quick review of the process, we
will be briefed on this item by
Jean Paul. Then I will ask for
an input from four culture
staff. Uh, Claire McHugh is
here with us from Fort Culture.
Uh, then we will hear from our
appointees. Uh, it is my
understanding that one of the
appointees is unable to attend
today. So we are going to ask
Claire to provide a few
comments about that particular
appointee. And then we will
provide time for all of you to
ask questions of the people who
are up for appointment, uh,
with that, Jean, I
m going to
call on you to please provide a
briefing.
Thank you, chair Baroni. Good
morning, Council members. I
m
Jean Paul from council staff.
The materials for the three
appointments begin on page 39
of your packet. Proposed
motions 2020 six, 01060123 and
0127 would confirm the
appointments of Ellen Walker,
Nancy Salgueiro McKay and
Teofilo Cruz Uribe as Executive
At-Large. Appointments to the
four Culture Board for the
remainder of their three year
terms, expiring on DECEMBER
31st, 2028. For background on
the board, please refer to page
40 of your packet as the chair
indicated, four cultures
governed by a 15 member board
of Directors and directors are
to have a demonstrated
commitment to, and knowledge of
cultural resources. Be active
and experienced in community
and civic issues and concerns,
and have the ability to
evaluate the needs of cultural
constituencies in the region as
a whole. They are also to
represent a range of talents,
experiences and viewpoints. The
Council is responsible for
appointing board positions one
through nine, while the
executive appoints positions
ten through 15. All
appointments are subject to
confirmation by the Council.
Background on the appointees
begins on page 42 of the staff
report. Ellen Walker is an arts
administrator who has worked
for the Pacific Northwest
Ballet since 2003, and has
served as their executive
director since 2014. According
to her staff profile on the
ballet
s website, she oversees
an operating budget of $30
million and a staff of more
than 600 full and part time
employees. That profile also
indicates that under her
leadership, pnb has become
known as an industry leader in
making ballet a more inclusive,
diverse and welcoming art form.
MISS Walker has also served as
an adjunct faculty member in
Seattle University
s mfa Arts
Leadership Program, and she
recently completed service as
vice PRESIDENT Of the Inspire
Washington Board and as Board
Secretary and Council Chair for
dance usa. The second
appointee, Nancy Salguero
McKay, has served as the
Executive Director of the
Highland Heritage Museum since
2019, in that role, she helped
design, open and sustain the
new museum, which focuses on
preserving and telling the
stories of the people in the
Highline area through heritage,
arts and culture. According to
her application materials, she
is the first Mexican born and
raised museum executive
director in Washington State.
MISS Salguero McKay previously
served as an exhibit design
instructor for the University
of Washington
s Museum Studies
Certificate program. She has
also worked on several for
cultural advisory boards, the
Washington Museum Association
Board, and is a past board
chair of the Seattle South Side
Chamber of Commerce. The final
appointee, Teofilo Ortega Cruz
Uribe, is both a clinic manager
for Seymour Community Health
Centers first Adolescent
Specialty Clinic, and the
director of the Pacific
Northwest first Chicano,
Chicano, Latino, Latina focused
history museum. Prior to her
current roles, MRS. Cruz Uribe
served as a consulting grant
writer whose duties included
collecting and reporting on
grant program. She participated
as a culture grant review
panelist in 2019 and 2021, and
has been a member of Four
Cultures Heritage Advisory
Committee since 2021. Staff has
not identified any issues with
the proposed appointments. Two
of the appointees, MISS Walker
and MISS McKay, are with us
today. And Brian Carter for
culture is the executive
director and Claire Michaud,
the senior government relations
manager with For culture are
here as well. And that
concludes my remarks.
Thank you, Jean, appreciate
that. Colleagues. Any questions
for Jean on the staff report
before we move forward? All
right. Seeing no questions, I
m
going to call on Claire Michaud
from For culture to give us
some comments from the For
Culture staff.
Sure. I have Brian here as
well. Um, hi. Council members,
this is Claire. No, that
s
okay.
How do you have my notes?
Claire. So Brian or Claire,
feel free to jump in. Whoever.
Um, does it, does it can it be
all three of them or. Because I
know Ellen
s here and Nancy
s
here as well, so I wonder if,
um. Ellen, I
m actually going
to have Ellen and Nancy speak
for themselves to start,
because they
re just fantastic
people. And then, um, Brian or
I can talk about Thea, who
s
fantastic as well. So I
ll
start with Ellen. Do you mind
introducing yourself and
sharing a little bit about your
time working with for culture?
Um, sure.
Thank you Claire. Good morning
everybody. Um, I
m. Oh, frozen
camera. I
m Ellen Walker and
hey. And I
m executive director
of Pacific Northwest ballet. I
am I was born in district one.
I still live in district one.
That
s right. But I have also
worked in district four for my
entire career. Since 1988. I
have always worked in the
cultural sector, and we also
have a very important asset in
Bellevue. Thank you. Claudia.
I
m sorry. Councilmember
Balducci. It
s, um, our Francis
Russell Center is there in
Bellevue, and it
s a ballet
school with about 600 young
people over on the East side.
And we
re also opening a new
school. Truly thanks to doors
open, King County in the south
end of Seattle. Um, I am a
especially as I sort of get
into my fourth decade of of
work for the sector. I really
think about the sustainability
of our sector, and in my
career, I have never seen
anything that has guaranteed
that for our future, as much as
doors open King County, it
s
just incredibly important in
the the in what my view is
large, diverse and
interdependent. Uh, cultural
ecosystem here in the county.
So, um, really, really an honor
to be included as a nominee for
the for Culture board. And I
ll
pause there.
Well, thank you, Ellen. We
appreciate your, uh, being
willing to serve in this role
and appreciate it, obviously,
as, uh, district 40
representative, uh, grateful
that pub is, uh, in the
district, but obviously think
of it as a regional, um, entity
that provides, uh, you know,
wonderful service to the entire
county. Um, I, I
m going to
then call on our next, uh,
appointee, Nancy Salguero
McKay, to, uh, to share a
little bit about yourself and
the reasons you want to serve
on the Fort Culture board. Uh.
Hi, everyone.
Thank you. Thank you so much
for this opportunity to share
who I am and who we are as an
institution. So the Highland
Heritage Museum is the is
representing the school
district, which is covers the
areas of white Center, Burien,
SeaTac, Normandy Park and a
little bit of the Moines. And
so right now after Tukwila, we
are number two of the most
diverse, um, and low income
families in the county. And so
the idea of representing
identity, heritage, history,
the idea of seeing each other
in honoring people
s stories is
extremely basic and
fundamental. And so we are not
just committed with just a
statement. We are committed
through actions and making sure
that we are bringing the best
opportunities for us to
actually acknowledge and see
each other in many different
levels. And so I started to
work with folk culture as the
Heritage Advisory Committee in
20 2012. And so there
s been a
few years that I
ve been
involved with folk culture in
many different capacities, and
has always been a joy to be
able to, to not only represent
the diversity voice in many
different ways, but I mean,
diversity is not just me being
Mexican, but also my gender, my
sexual orientation, my
disabilities, I
m 80% deaf and
so on. And so all of us bring
in many different elements of
who we are as a human beings.
And so to be able to bring, um,
diverse and inclusion values
into the table, it
s been my
passion. Um, as a board member
of the Washington Museum
Association, that was also the
same idea as to reflect more
than just headliners reflect
all of us in the state. And so
now with King County, I
m more
than happy to have the
opportunity to to represent
those voices, especially the
ones that are struggling the
most when it comes to
representation. And so we might
work with folk culture is all
about making sure that we are
doing this as a team, as a
community, as it takes a
village to make things happen.
And so I know that it
s not
just one person is all of us to
truly make sure that that we
bring in the in representing
and honoring and seeing
people
s, um, stories in, in
presence in our communities.
And so with that in mind, I
just want to say thank you
again for the opportunity to to
serve and represent and to
vocalize those repressed voices
in the area. So thank you.
Thank you so much for your
willingness to, uh, to serve
and for all of the work that
you
re doing. Uh, at the
Highline Heritage Museum. Thank
you. Um, uh, colleagues, as I
mentioned, one of our
appointees, Teofilo Cruz Uribe,
is unable to join us today for
this meeting. So I was going to
have a call, a call back, and
Claire to share a little bit
about, uh, that appointee, uh,
for our, um, uh, knowledge.
Sure. So, Brian, I
ll start and
then if you want to follow up,
that
d be great. Um, Brian
s
known Tia longer than me, but
Tia has a really interesting
job that is both clinical
administrator at a at at a cmr
clinic and basically running a
museum that is co-located with
that. Um, that has to do with
Chicano. Chicano American
culture. And when I first met
Tia, also, Tia has incredible
energy. You guys get to meet
her when you do, um, you can
understand how she can hold
pretty much two full time jobs
at once. But Tia, the first
time I talked to her about I
couldn
t like. It was
interesting to me to think of
these things as sort of being
different. And she actually, in
getting to know her and getting
to see the kind of work she
does, they
re absolutely
integrated in her mind of
heritage and how we treat our
bodies and what goes on in our
social world. Um, and so it
s
been interesting getting to
know her and learn just how
much these things all work
together in creating healthy
communities and healthy
societies. Um, so I
ll pass
that to Brian, since Brian can
probably speak to more about
Tia
s work with the Heritage
Department.
Sure. Thanks, Claire. Brian
Carter, executive director for
culture. For the record. And
thanks, Chair Brown for the
opportunity to speak to these
candidates. Um, thank you to
Ellen and Nancy. They both
bring deep experience within
arts, heritage and culture, and
not just at their own
organizations, but I think as
regional leaders. And I think
that
s really critical at this
moment when doors open is, is
is growing both who for culture
is but the complexity and the
depth of our sector over. Well
so the perspectives that they
bring in, the insights that
they will provide. And those
are going to be crucial to us
and really excited as well
about Teo Fila joining us, I
m
unknown for a number of years.
She came up through the ranks
for culture and the advisory
committee, which is a great
opportunity to see the
methodology of our grant
process in practice. So she had
a seat at that table and then,
as Claire described, um, it was
so exciting to me when the cmr
museum came online. That is a
leading edge museum. We
re
going to see so many more
Latina, Chicano, Chicano
museums and cultural centers
coming online across the United
States. And just really proud
of our region for being one of
the early ones. And as Claire
said, there
s an evolution
within museums specifically
where you
re seeing these
cultural institutions become
really vital, civic, but also
social service hubs for the
community. Um, we
re seeing
that within our applications
that are coming in where you
see, right, the arts and the
culture and the heritage mixed
with work around mental health,
around basic family
necessities, around food
security. And we
re seeing an
increasing number of those
within our work. So having
somebody at the table who has
starred in an institution like
that, that is serving a
particular community, we
re
really excited about. Beyond
that, she
s just a fantastic,
fantastic practitioner within
the field. So really look
forward to welcoming, welcoming
her to the board. And as
always, just appreciate the
executive
s consideration of
what we were looking for in
board members. Um, as we move
forward as an institution and
also the council
s willingness
to look at those as well. So
with that, I
ll stop. Thank
you.
Thank you so much, Brian. I
appreciate that. Uh,
colleagues, I
m going to open
it up for questions or comments
on these appointees. I saw Vice
Chair Balducci go off mute. Is
that a sign?
Yes. I was going to raise my.
Thank you.
Bye. Sure. Go ahead.
Uh.
I well, I
d be happy to move.
All three, uh, if that
s in
order. And then, um, speak to
all of them. I just had the,
uh, had the opportunity to
spend time at all of these
institutions run by these
amazing nominees. And we are so
lucky to have people with the
breadth of experience, the the
closeness to the communities
that they serve. Uh, and, and
the willingness to help us
continue to grow and improve
our cultural arts sector. And
I
m just delighted with all
three nominees and happy to
move to approve them, if you
would like me to do so, chair.
Please go ahead. Unless there
are any objections from my
colleagues to taking up all
three at the same time. Seeing
no objections, go ahead, vice
chair.
Move. Approval of proposed
motion 2026 01060123 and 0127
with a due pass recommendation.
Thank you very much. Those
three items are before us. Are
there any further questions or
comments from colleagues for
appointees? All right. Seeing
none, I want to thank the, uh,
the appointees for being with
us today and for your
willingness to serve. And with
that, I am going to ask the
clerk to please call the roll
on these items.
Thank you. Chair Councilmember
Balducci.
I.
Council Member Dembowski.
i.
Councilmember Dunn.
I.
Councilmember Fain.
I.
Councilmember Lewis.
I.
Councilmember Mosqueda.
Councilmember Perry.
I.
Councilmember von Reichbauer.
And chair Baron. Hi chair. You
have 780 noes Councilmember
Mosqueda and von Reichbauer
Arts.
Thank you very much. Uh, by our
vote, we have approved proposed
motions 2026 0106, 2026, 0123
and 2026 0127 with a dubious
recommendation. We will send
these motions with that
recommendation for the consent
agenda on the regular course.
Uh, and, um, MISS Walker and
MISS McKay, thank you so much
for being with us today. You,
uh, these will be sent to full,
full council. Uh, but you do
not need to attend the meeting.
Although you
re welcome always
to to, uh, listen in. And we
really appreciate your
willingness to serve, uh, the,
the county in this role. And
for your current service to the
community in both of your
roles. So thank you so much for
being here.
Thank you.
All right. All right,
colleagues, with that, we
re
going to move to our last item,
which is a related item which
is the For Culture annual
report. Um, and on the briefing
on that annual report, the
county code requires a full
culture, provide an annual
report each year, and meet with
the committee of the whole to
discuss the the report. The
annual report contains the
prior year, significant
accomplishments, estimated
financial data, and a summary
of the cultural programs to be
undertaken during the year. Uh,
we are joined by people we just
heard from Brian Carter, our
executive director for For
culture. Uh, Claire McHugh, who
is the senior government
relations manager, and Calandra
Childress, who
s the director
of program strategy and Impact.
Thank you all for joining us.
And, uh, Brian, I
m going to
turn it over to you.
All right. Thank you. Chair.
Um, it
s always a great moment,
I think, for for culture to be
able to come in front of the
council and share what occurred
in the past year through our
annual report. And I know
Claire is going to be bringing
up some slides for you here.
Um, so to begin with, uh, we
re
going to be covering three
items in this briefing. They
include what I think is really
the core of four culture, um,
which is the trust I believe,
that
s required of our
organization, within our
community, within this
authorizing body. Um, will then
move on to highlights and key
issues that we saw in 2025. And
then we
ll conclude with a
section about what we
ve
learned and what we
re seeing
coming down the pike. And to
begin with, here you have the
Seattle Youth Symphony. And I
thought it was just a great
start. This has been an amazing
year. 2025 was an incredible,
full implementation of the
Doors Open program, as well as
the continuation of our
lodging, tax funded programs
and our 1% for public Art
Commission program. So really
exciting time. And I believe to
me, the the key message is that
it
s working. Doors open is
working. It
s supporting the
sector. It
s pushing growth and
strengthening around
accessibility and inclusion and
those public benefits, I think,
that are so key to a healthy
society and a real deepening of
the work that
s happening
across institutions and at the
individual level. So to begin
with, um, this idea of trust,
which is just really vital to
me, um, for culture, has a lot
of pride in our long history as
an organization. Um, from a
commission to a proper
department within the county to
our current role as a public
development authority. In 2021,
there was a return to lodging
tax. And then as the pandemic
hit, um, we were very fortunate,
with support of the council to
distribute and administer cares
and Arpa funding, that really
helped the sector weather the
challenges of the pandemic and
post-pandemic world. And now
we
re stepping into our second
year of Doors Open
implementation, and it
s a
really exciting time. And for
me, the good that goes along
with the additional funds that
are able to go out and support
the great work that
s
happening, is a responsibility
that we have to maintain. What
I believe is transparency,
accountability, and also like a
crucial element, which is
humility. And I think that
leads to effectiveness. And
when we talk about good
governance and we talk about
accountability, I just the
slide in front of you is just
to show what those, um, what
those kind of Guideposts and
structures are. So obviously
your role for oversight, um,
policy oversight. Um, and
watching us and making sure,
hey, our legislative intent
with for culture is this are
they achieving that? And I
always appreciate the fact that
we get between 2 and 3
ex-officio council members. So
just a special thank you to
council members Fain and Lewis
and also Baron for you guys
showing up. It
s once a month
that you come and you get to
hear the great work that
s
happening, the challenges that
we
re finding our way through,
and you get great insight into
who we are as an organization,
what our mission is and how
we
re delivering on that. Um,
there
s in the four culture
board of directors, the 15
member board of directors. We
then have three standing
subcommittees, and then each
discipline at four cultures.
That
s arts heritage, historic
preservation, public art, and
now science and technology each
have their own advisory
committees composed of
practitioners and leaders and
community. Um, tradition
bearers who help guide the work
at all levels. And so we always
appreciate the work they do,
especially their role in
overseeing the review and
approval of funding
recommendations that come
through in addition to those
or, excuse me, those committees
and groups. There
s the annual
report that we submit. There
s
the biennial budget review and
approval process by the county
council. There
s also an
assessment reporting
requirement for Doors Open, and
we
ll talk more about that
today. And then there
s an
annual audit by the Washington
State Auditor that
s conducted.
So that
s just kind of a high
level overview of how seriously
we take the issue of
accountability and good
governance. These are public
dollars. And we want to make
sure they go out and they
achieve the maximum impact as
intended by legislation. So at
a glance, and this is really
high level. And again I say
2025 is an exciting year. And
2026 continues to prove that
there was 94, almost $95
million in funding awarded in
2025. Um, we
ll talk more about
the number of organizations
that now exist within King
County, but over 1000 cultural
organizations were awarded. In
addition, you have individual
artists. You have individual
cultural practitioners. So
there you have writers and you
have poets, and you have
historians and historic
preservation folks. And 345
individuals were awarded
support. And again, it was our
first year of full doors, open
implementation. There were a
number of new grant programs
that were implemented and got
off to a great start. And then
one of the things that we
talked about. During the
ordinance creation, was what
the economic impact of Doors
Open Support would be. So it is
fantastic, right? The
expressions that we get to see,
the interpretation that happens
on the heritage side, the
preservation. But there
s also
a real kind of economic
benefit. So there are 12,000
jobs that are supported through
for culture funding, creating a
really, I think, thriving and
vibrant moment within arts and
culture. And King County. And
here you see just our financial
snapshot there. Uh, additional
details within the annual
report. But we give you the
three years 2023, 2024 and 2025
of our total revenues, our
total expenditures and our
total fund balances. And as
always, the total fund balances
tend to to gain a little bit of
attention. And why are those
high against the expenditures?
And again, it is the fact that
there are competitive grant
programs for the most part,
that award the funds, those
those award funds are then
encumbered. But depending on
the length of the grant terms,
those funds might go out, uh,
over a two year grant period or
over a three year grant period.
So the fund balances are
encumbered and they will
support the projects and
operations and facilities and
renovations over a number of
years. And with that, I will
turn it over to Claire, who
s
going to share some of the kind
of exciting projects that we
have been able to to support in
2025.
Yeah. So I, I get the fun job
here of sharing some of the
highlights from our
disciplines. So, um, for
culture covers arts heritage,
historic preservation and now
science and technology. Um, and
so with Arts, I just wanted to
share a story from Auburn
Theater, which was, uh, Auburn
Theater was a recipient of our
building for Equity Anchoring
Community Award. So those are
projects of greater than 10
million. Um, and they got to do
a groundbreaking for that, um,
theater, really just recently.
And I got to attend it, and
it
s great. They
re going to
part of this money is going to
go to support 300 seat theater
in downtown Auburn. There was a
theater in this spot. Um, it
s
a vacant it
s been a vacant
spot for nearly actually
probably 5 or 6 years now. Um,
it was it had a bunch of damage
and it had to be demolished.
It
s revitalizing this site in
downtown Auburn. Right next to
it is the Postmark Center for
the Arts, which is a facility
that, for culture has been
supporting over many years. Um,
that does community programming
for the arts. And it
s in a
historic building. Um, but it
s
really activating this site of
downtown Auburn. That
s really
wonderful. And it
s kind of a
part of, um, what arts and
culture can do for economic
revitalization. And it
s a part
of a strategic initiative of
the city. And I have to say,
the folks in Auburn that I
ve
worked with in the parks arts,
um, and then in the city
government, they
re just one of
the hardest working people
figuring out how to do, like,
make this vision a reality.
Over time. Um, and I
m really
excited to see how much it
positively impacts the
commercial businesses all along
there and just makes it a
really active part
Out of their town. On the
heritage side, we had several
fairs and festivals this year
that ended up applying, or it
would have been last year, but
for 2025 that applied for
heritage projects and received
funding. And so I just wanted
to highlight some of these. Um,
city and community festivals,
which so there was the Dia de
Los Muertos celebration at City
of Shoreline and City of
Shoreline has been producing
the celebration, I think, since
2021. And it used to be a
partnership with Shaw Lake
Arts. Um, and then they
ve kind
of taken it on and they receive
funding for that last year, and
we
re able to have a really
good celebration. Uh
Snoqualmie. Valley
International Block Party, um,
that was run by the Snow Valley
Regional Chamber of Commerce.
This brought together lots of
different vendors and
performances to serve the
Snoqualmie area. And it was
just I heard it was a really
good time. Uh, East Side
overall had a honoring
Juneteenth, uh, fair or it was
like a kind of like a festival
party. And then, um, the Irish
Heritage Club has Irish Week,
which has several, uh, um,
events, uh, over time, uh,
including like an Irish or a
soda, soda, bread baking
competition. But that was a
some cool story of that of the
heritage projects from last
year on the preservation side.
Um, we were really happy to see
that the Enumclaw Plateau
Historical Society received a
landmark
s capital award last
year that was part of sort of a
longer they
ve been doing long
term renovation in different
parts, but this is a 116 year
old Masonic lodge. I don
t know
if you
ve ever been to this
museum in Enumclaw, but, um,
it
s a really incredible
property and they
ve been
making changes to it over time
to be able to do different
things. And part of this sort
of part two, that they receive
funding for was to change the
the front of it so that they
could add more programming
space, which allows them to run
more community events, more,
more, um, uh, uh, just more
public access to the museum.
Um, so it
s really exciting for
them to be able to do this and
receive that Landmark
s Capital
Award. And then in science and
technology, I wanted to share
about some, which is acute
acute acronym. It
s Seattle
Universal Math Museum. Um, and
it
s actually it
s located in
Kent Station. They just opened
up their first, like kind of
central location, but the
majority of their programming
actually happens around its
mobile. It happens in South
Kane County schools and
libraries, but they have this
part of their award. They got
multiple awards through for
culture in 2025, one of which
was public free access. That
which allows the the museum to
offer free admission. Um, which
is really exciting and allows
kids and families to go there
free of charge. Um, and uh, do
hands on math programming. And
they had a really big party,
um, they opened on Pi Day. And
so it was MARCH 14th, and, uh,
they had a great time and we
had full for culture staff
there. Um, just to welcome to
the space. And we
re really
excited to see how this
organization grows and
continues to serve, uh, most of
South King County in doing, uh,
hands on math activities. And
then finally in our public art
department, um, we have in King
County for culture gets to
manage and store and install,
uh, the King County, uh, art
collection. And there are about
a little over 2000 works in
this collection, and they are
up all around the county and
all of our institutional
spaces. And in 2025, there are
170 installations. Things move
all around. The county is
offices are changing or coming
back to work or or moving to
different places. And we have a
staff that works on that. Uh,
and I, I just I have to say
that it
s really, um, it
s a
really amazing thing that King
County can do this because it
really does impact the public
s
experiences with institutional
space. So many things happen,
as you all know, like so many
things happen in the county.
Um, from the worst day of
someone
s life all the way to,
you know, maybe when they get
married or they do these things
that are great. And, um, all
along the way, we can shape how
they remember those times with
the sort of the things that are
around them. And I think public
art has that power. And then,
um, for those that are actually
really interested in this, um,
last year we were able to get,
uh, the majority of the public
art catalog online. Um, so our
temporary permanent artworks
that the county owns and make
it so that the public can learn
about what are the artists that
are there, where is that
artwork? What are the spaces
that they
re in? And I
ve heard
some really good feedback from
just people on the community
that have reached out to say
just how much, um, getting to
browse this and go go on their
own little free art expedition
has been. So that
s been a cool
element of what we were able to
do in 2025. And our public art
department. So I
m going to
pass it over to my colleague
Calandra, who
s going to talk
more about doors open.
Thank you Claire.
Um, yeah. So I am going to jump
into some of our learnings and
observations. After the first
full year of Doors Open,
funding distribution, uh, and
one of our, uh, goals as we
move into sort of integration
of doors, open funding into the
historic for culture work was
to really retain our ability to
be responsive to the field. So
we have rolled out these new
programs, but at the same time,
we know that, um, things happen
and we need to be responsive to
that. So the majority of our
funding does roll through our
regular grant cycles, but
sometimes emergencies happen.
Sometimes pipes break, trees
fall, and those can really be
make or break kind of
situations. For cultural
organizations that don
t
typically carry a fund balance,
that can address those
unexpected events. So I wanted
to talk about our emergency and
unforeseen grant, um, this is a
program that runs year round.
It addresses situations that
could not be predicted ahead of
time. And as you all will
remember, last year we
experienced two atmospheric
rivers and that resulted in
flooding in south and east King
County, which was really quite
devastating. So while this was
happening, we proactively
reached out to the cultural
organizations that were in
those impacted areas to let
them know about this program,
make sure that they were
tracking their expenses such
that they could come back to us
and and we could work through
this application process. And I
wanted to highlight one of
those organizations. You
re
seeing a photo here from the
Oxbow Farm and Conservation
Center. They experienced a 16
year high of flood waters. The
flood was a stage five
emergency on their flood
warning system and resulted in
really quite significant flood,
uh, site damage. So what you
re
looking at here is the, um, the
native plant nursery, and you
can see the water is quite high
in that facility. That
s
actually a facility that was
specifically built, you know,
that this is an organization
that
s located on a floodplain.
This is not, um, new
information that that the area
is, is prone to flooding. So a
lot of their facilities have
been built with this in mind.
And yet this flood, even, um,
superseded the the ability to
withstand those, um,
precautionary measures that had
been taken. So we were really
pleased to, to be able to work
with them and provide some
support so that they could get
their operations back up and
running. Um, so I know they
were one of the organizations
that were particularly hard
hit. And the Northwest Railway
Museum was also particularly
hard hit, and they also
received an emergency grant to
support their recovery. Uh, and
this need for responsiveness
is, um, it
s not just about the
physical environment. I think
one of one of our other
learnings that we have found is
that about 50% of our
organizations do not
necessarily have a facility
that they are running out of on
a daily basis. They are maybe
popping up in schools or
working with other cultural
organizations to provide that
programming. So we
re also, of
course, very focused on how to
build organizational strength
across the entire sector. Uh,
so Doors Open really creates
that opportunity to deepen and
expand operational work while
creating that organizational
stability. So one of the ways
that we
re really focused on
doing this is creating pathways
to technical assistance that
can build that kind of
perseverance and strength. We
have a system to connect our
cultural organizations directly
to a roster of coaches and
consultants that support all
kinds of organizational work.
Um, and then we underwrite
those contracts directly. The
benefit of this sort of system
is that the consultants have
all been reviewed and vetted by
peers. So that saves
organizations a lot of time and
energy seeking out that kind of
help. It can be very
overwhelming if you
re not sure
where to start on finding, um,
a particular kind of support
within your community. We also
have the ability to underwrite,
um, existing relationships. So
if an organization already has
a relationship with a
consultant that they
re really
pleased with, we
re able to to
bring them into the fold as
well. And one, one of the
findings that we found is that,
uh, that some of the top
services that have been
requested have really been
around financial and strategic
planning, in addition to grant
writing and fundraising
development. So kind of really
building that internal
operational strength and then
also finding ways to expand,
uh, the, the funding that
s
coming in the door and two
examples that I wanted to share
out are the Spotlight Repertory
Northwest, which is a live
music and performing arts
organization in Samammish. They
used their consulting hours to
work with a financial
consultant on preparing their
1990s and updating their
QuickBooks. So again, those
kind of internal systems, um.
Similarly, the Maple Valley
Historical Society used their
consulting hours to work with a
financial consultant to develop
stronger internal controls. So
they have built a new gift
acceptance policy. They
ve also
worked on producing
documentation required by the
irs. So again, just really kind
of strengthening those internal
systems to make sure that these
organizations can remain strong
and stable in the long term. So
we
ll continue to track those
needs over time and build out
our roster and build out our
consultant directory in
response to those needs. Um,
excuse me. So thinking about,
um, kind of the bigger picture
here, what have we learned
about the sector? Where have we
where have we seen that growth?
Um, I
m really excited about
this first bullet point here.
23% of doors open. Awardees
were first time applicants to
For culture. I want to point
out that that is not just
applicants, but applicants that
were successful and ended up
being awarded a grant. So even
higher number of first time
applicants that came through
the system. But we
re seeing a
really high success rate. And
what this tells us is that, um,
we
re continuing to to make
headway in reaching new
organizations, organizations
that haven
t historically
worked with us, um, and that
we
re really able to provide
that, that assistance, that
technical assistance, the
support during our workshops
when we
re building those
relationships with folks to be
able to navigate our systems
and make sure that they
re able
to, um, you know, build their
portfolio, bring in the
applications and all the
materials required for, uh, the
grant programs. The next, uh,
bullet point on here is about
our new science and technology,
um, disciplines. So $3.3
million were awarded in 2025.
That
s actually in addition to
the approximately $3.5 million
that were awarded the previous
year for our general operating
funds. So closer to $7 million
was awarded to science and
technology for 2026. That was
so awarded. Versus distributed
is the is the nuance there? And
then of course, we
re also
investing in our new
organizations. So the launch
program is our grant that is
very specifically focused on
organizations that are brand
new. They might be hiring their
first staff member. They
re
just getting off the ground.
And this requires a lot of
dedicated, focused support to
make sure they have the
resources that they need to be
sustainable in the long term.
All right. Now moving on to,
uh, accessibility. So, um, we
really we know that, uh, as we
build out these programs for
cultural organizations, that we
also need to be thinking about
how the general public is
actually accessing these
cultural, um, these new
cultural events that are
happening across the county. So
this is a great opportunity to
give a little preview of
something that
s coming out in
two days. We are just about to
share the results of a survey
that we did of King County
residents to better understand
cultural attendance by the
general public, and this was a
rigorous study of cultural
participation that
s
demographically matched to the
King County census. So we
really believe these metrics
are are quite valid. Um, we
found some great news about
King County participation. King
County is actually, um,
significantly higher than than
the us national average in
terms of participation. But we
also identified some barriers
to access. And you all will not
be surprised to hear that cost
is the number one barrier that
was named. Um, so that
s where
a program like public free
access comes in. In 2025, we
were able to underwrite 1.76
million, uh, free and reduced
cost tickets to cultural
activities. So that
s really
creating a whole lot of access
that would not have been there
previously. Um, we
re also
seeing a trend in organizations
shifting their their ticketing
model. So moving into pay what
you can and sliding scale
models, which is kind of
interesting. So um, there
s
both free, uh, free admissions.
So Claire was previously
talking about the new Seattle
Universal Math Museum, um, the
Henry Art Gallery has been
around for a really long time,
but they, with the public free
access grant that they
received, have been able to
move to a completely free
admission. Same with the Summer
Asian Arts Fest. Um, I know
that the the feast is a
theatrical production company
that has moved to a sliding
scale model. So lots of
organizations are kind of
playing with how they create
that access within the sector
and make sure that cost is not
the reason why folks are not
able to get in the front door.
And then continuing on that
theme of access, I
ll just call
your attention to that last
photo that you saw. It was
Youth in Focus. That
s a great
program. That
s that
s
educating students in
photography. And they have
actually moved to make their
summer programs completely
free. So what you
re seeing
here is a summer camp program
from 2025. That camp used to be
a paid camp. They
re now able
to offer that completely free
for for youth. And then
continuing on that cultural
education theme, just thinking
about how we are serving
students and youth across the
county. So a couple examples.
Um, so excited to have Nancy
joining our board, the Highline
Heritage Museum in Burien has
really dramatically expanded
their school partnerships, and
they
re actually in the process
of hiring an education staff
member to oversee that new
program. Or I
m sorry, that
expanded program, um, Art
Commons and Issaquah is, uh,
they
re doing a really
interesting program with
Issaquah Schools where they
have artists in residence in
the schools. So these are more
than just sort of one touch
programs. They
re really
building deep relationships
between those artists and the
students to build those skills
within the student population.
So they
re hiring teaching
artists right now. Um, I also
wanted to point out that we are
under contract with Auburn
Highline, Renton, Kent, Tukwila
and Federal Way school
districts for transportation
subsidies. So, uh, we
ve made
quite a lot of progress there
to make sure that students are
able to move back and forth
between cultural spaces and
their schools. Uh, we
re also
in conversation with the
Muckleshoot Tribal School and
working through that
partnership conversation right
now. And then we also have
conversations going with
Skykomish and Seattle Public
Schools. Both of those
districts needed to create some
internal, um, logistical
controls around accepting the
funding. So we
re just kind of
working through those
logistics, but we are well on
our way to expanding that
access for students. And I
think with that, I will hand it
back over to Brian.
Sure. So as we look ahead in
2026 and beyond, just a few,
um, issue areas and
opportunities that we see one
again is the increase in the
number of cultural
organizations. When I got to
for culture, this was 2014, um,
we estimated about 500 cultural
organizations. And again, now
we
re looking at serving over
1000 cultural organizations.
Um, there are consequences to
the carrying capacity of any
ecosystem. So that
s something
that we watch carefully. There
are going to be more
applications, um, seeking the
dollars that we have available,
but it also presents some
interesting opportunities. I
m
sure that you guys are well
aware of the number of
collaborative, um, operating
models that are being
undertaken. You saw a merger of
Seattle Shakespeare with the,
um, Got Act theater, which is
now Union Center, a
collaborative relationship
between the Seattle Rep and
Seattle Children
s Theater. Um,
and we
ve seen more recently a
merger between the Washington
State Jewish Historical Society
and the Jewish Federation of
Seattle. So I think
organizations are looking for
efficiencies among this kind of
increased competition within
the cultural sector and
increasing number of
organizations. And a lot of
this is happening with back end
administrative support. There
s
always been a long history of
programmatic relationships and
partnerships, and I think
people are now exploring more
of those from an administrative
side. Um, as Calandra shared,
um, one of the things that we
like everybody, um, are
watching, the impacts that
climate change is having on the
cultural sector, um, with the
increase in unpredictable and
volatile weather events, we
re
seeing more facility support
being needed on an emergency
basis, and we just see that
increasing every single year
and will continue to do so. And
then lastly is that, um, we had
shared during our last briefing
with this committee about our
evaluation framework, and
there
s a lot of data that
we
re gathering. And that is
only as valuable as the
information you can take from
it through synthesis. Um, so
we
re really undertaking that
because there
s a lot of
differentiation within those
thousand organizations that we
serve to, that we strive to
serve, um, by geography, by the
discipline that they represent,
by the size of the organization
themselves and the communities
that they want to serve. So
adaptation and evolution within
not only doors open, but us as
an organization, I think is key
to continuing to to serve this
growing number of organizations
and make sure that they
re
strengthened. So, as Calandra
shared, one of the things we
re
really proud of is the ability
to help a lot of these new and
emerging organizations, which
are typically smaller budget
size, typically, um, $200,000
annual operating budget or
below. Who need support, um,
technical assistance, capacity
building to make sure that
their internal operations are
strong. So we see that as a
continuing area of focus for us
as well. And then lastly, i
ll
just say outreach and
engagement. Um, we have got to
make sure that people
throughout this really large
county are aware of the
offerings of, for culture, um,
not just doors open, but all of
the support mechanisms that we
offer. So we are communications
department has really stepped
up their efforts when it comes
to outreach and engagement.
We
re doing a lot of work
around language justice and
accessibility, making sure that
we have translation services
that the any kind of collateral
marketing materials we have
have various languages on
those. So people can know who
we are and come to us. And I
think what
s really vital to
that is the people power that
we have here at the
organization. Everyone at For
culture, that came from a
museum or a theater or a dance
group or a choral group. So
when one picks up the phone or
they send the email, there
s
somebody there who can help
welcome them into who for
culture is and also guide them
to the appropriate resources.
And so much of that is us
getting outside the four walls
of this office and being there
in community at events, um,
getting to know folks because
there
s so many people on our
radar, there
s so many
organizations that we already
know and have known for years.
But being out in community
allows us to make those
connections to the folks who
maybe have never came to us for
funding. And as you saw from
the number of new applicants to
For culture, I think that
s
really successful. And a part
of that is and this is just so
much gratitude to the council
when there
s a new individual,
whether that
s an artist or a
new organization or just a
cultural group that
s kind of
nascent and forming. Um, when
you write, put us in contact
with them or anybody makes that
recommendation, we
re going to
get out there and we
re going
to talk to them. We
re going to
figure out what their mission
is, and if there
s an alignment
with the funding opportunities
that we have. And I think that
is going to be increasingly
important. That kind of boots
on the ground, um, engagement
with the cultural sectors, um,
throughout the county. So, um,
with that, I will conclude and
just say thank you. Um, on
behalf of all the staff of the
four culture Board of
directors, we love our working
relationship with all the
council members. Um, really
appreciate the ex-officio and
what they do and how they serve
on our board. And with that,
I
ll conclude and happy to take
any questions.
Thank you so much, Brian
Calandra and Clare for that
presentation. Thank you for
including their photo. I saw
the background of the Pacific
Science Center, which is now
that that area is now newly
open to the to the community. I
should say I finally got to see
that recently. Thank you all
for that presentation. Um,
colleagues, I
m gonna open it
up for questions from you about
the report. Uh Councilmember
Perry. Vice. Uh, well, Chair
Perry of the Council.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Uh, Chair
Barron. And thank you very
much. Also to Executive
Director Carter, uh, government
relations manager, Clare
Riccio, director Calandra
Childers, for taking the time
to provide us with this great
update on the report and the
great work you
re doing and the
and the folks who are
interested in nominating them
and bringing them on board and
making sure everybody is
successful on behalf of
everyone. And in King County,
this is really exciting. And
and I have a few questions. So,
chair, I
ll check in with you
to see if I need to, if we need
to go online for that or go to
the next person for Robert
s
Rules. Um.
You can keep going until until
you
re done.
Okay?
Okay. Wow. That
s great. Okay.
Um, as you mentioned, when
council originally adopted
doors open, the implementation
plan required for culture to
distribute at least 25% to
communities outside of the
Seattle area. And, uh, you
know, that was something that
was important to me in that
final vote. And in your report,
you mentioned pork culture
exceeded the 25% minimum
funding for organizations
outside of the Seattle area and
the 10% minimum for communities
of opportunity for
organizations serving
vulnerable populations. I
m
interested to know if you have
a dollar value for the total
amount of funds distributed to
jurisdictions outside of
Seattle. Um, and the staff
report notes the number of
funds distributed uh, in each
district. But I
d like to
understand this. The full, uh,
sum sum total that was that
s
one question. And we can get
this information offline
because numbers on the dais,
they
re not it
s not great. Uh,
so I would be happy to receive
that. Um, I
m also interested
to know how our culture
approached meeting that
requirement and the steps of
strategies you took together to
reach communities that haven
t
traditionally been engaged or
had access to these
opportunities. I
m especially
interested in hearing about
efforts to reach first time
applicants in rural
communities, so I
ll stop there
and see if there
s a response
to that.
Sure. Thanks for the questions,
Councilmember Perry. We
ll get
back to you with the exact
details about the funds that
went outside the city of
Seattle. We can do that
quickly. We
ll get it to you
today. As far as how we
re
reaching, um, folks that are
either first time applicants or
awardees or just have been
historically underserved by
funding sources, including
governmental services. It
s,
um, there are quite a few
efforts that we undertake. We
partner with a lot of different
media organizations in a lot of
different languages that are
really commonly used throughout
King County. That is one of the
ways in which we spread the
good word about what we
re
doing. We also have a really
robust outreach and engagement
program called hello. And I
think what
s fantastic about
this program, it isn
t simply
that we set up the table at the
fair. It
s a really intentional
partnership with community
groups on the ground, um, at
their organizations. And we ask
them to help us identify
artists or creatives or
cultural groups that can come
to these gatherings and get to
know us and our staff and the
offerings that we have. Um, we
also really rely on the folks
that are affiliated with the
organization so that staff
members being out in the field
and I mean all over rural
areas, unincorporated areas,
suburban areas, um, South King
County northeast, we try and be
out as much as we can, but we
have staff members doing that
and carrying the, um, the For
Culture banner and its
offerings. We also have all our
five, um, advisory committees,
all the members that are part
of that. We give them training
and orientation and ask them to
also like tap into their
networks and be constantly
telling people that we are
there. And then lastly, our
board members who also fill
that role. So those are just
some of the efforts that we
undertake. But there are also a
lot of, um, partnerships that
occur with individual awardees
where they might have an event
or they have a fair, or they
have a festival and they ask
us, hey, will you come and will
you share what you
re doing,
whether that
s, you know, me
showing up and letting people
know about the offerings that
we have or is a table. So we
re
trying to be responsive as
well. But the critical part is
we need those community members
that are from that geographic
area to tell us, hey, here
s
who you
re missing, here
s who
you
re not seeing. I think
we
re very fortunate that our
network has those great
ambassadors, and that
s how so
many new folks come to us and
how we get out. The word about
for culture.
I appreciate that. Um, uh, and,
and, um, one of the things that
the exec has been doing, it
s
actually pretty close to my
heart, is the community
building element. One of his
four b
s. And it was formally
boots on the ground, it
s now
building connecting or better.
I
m going to have to figure
that one out. Sorry, sorry.
Exact. Uh, but but I have a pal
in his office, Angela, who is
our Eastside person. Right? Who
is the person who is
representing him on the east
side between Angela and, um,
Department of Local Services.
Uh, Leon Richardson
s team.
They
re everywhere. So in my
district, Issaquah, Samammish,
Redmond, Woodinville. The
Snoqualmie Valley is festival
time. There
s everything at
Skykomish tunnel day Saturday.
There
s there. Everything is
happening right now. It
s very
visible. Art ministry, all
these different things. You
have a smaller team to be able
to reach all of those areas. I
would love to send you my, uh,
my, um, uh, connections for
those nonprofits, which I
m
sure that you have already, but
specifically the festivals and
the and the outreach, um,
because it would be really
wonderful to have you at the
nonprofit festival at Carnation
Farms incarnation, where
everybody
s highlighted those
kinds of things, where where
there
s just terrific
opportunity for visibility. We
send people to you all the
time. And I was really thrilled
to see in the report all of the
efforts that you
re making to
reach out to our folks, Oxbow
and the emergency areas as
well. But there is a really,
really strong interest, and I
want to make sure that you that
we
re all blooming where we
re
planted and then we can cross
pollinate, you know, and so
having that, having that
opportunity to really invest in
these areas will create those
thriving communities that
you
re trying to do everywhere.
And I appreciate that. And I
appreciate your, um, continued
vigilance on, uh, your finances
and how you are appropriating
these things. It is something
I
m keenly aware of right now.
And, um, and, and the diligence
is with which you, um, conduct,
uh, your team, your business,
um, is very much appreciated.
And I just want to take a
moment to say that one final
thing you had in your slides,
some crazy amount of 156
million not yet spent. And, uh,
the point that you made was
that it
s encumbered by some of
these grants. It would be great
to have a visual or a line that
shows encumbered by year out.
So if I
m looking 156 million
not spent and we know it
s 100
million a year coming and
coming, right, that
s going to
grow, uh, and dissipate, but
also substantially grow. And so
it would be very helpful to
have a third column, uh, third
row that shows encumbered in
26, encumbered and 27
encumbered in 20 and so forth
as we go along so that we can
get to what hasn
t been awarded.
And what is encumbered. Is it
entirely encumbered? Is there
something else going on in
those, in those numbers that we
should know about? Uh, for
transparency and visibility?
Okay. Happy to do that and
would welcome any list of
events. And we
ll do our best
to get out there.
Okay. Thank you very much to
you and the entire team for all
that you
re doing.
Thank you, Councilmember Perry.
Uh, colleagues, other questions
from colleagues on the for the
for Culture team. Councilmember
Fain.
So much. Um, thanks, Brian. I
appreciate the framing of your
presentation and the
acknowledgement of the
importance of accountability
and and good governance. Um,
Chair Perry or Councilmember
Perry touched on, um, a topic
that I
m sensitive to, and
that
s the amount of funding
that goes, um, around the
entire county. And so I was
while we were chatting, um,
here looked and so 38 million,
over 38 million, um, was
awarded last year in your
report. And I the report also
says that, um, around 30% was
awarded outside of Seattle. So
that
s over 11 million outside
of Seattle. And so, um, when I
was looking at the data, it
looked like funding is largely
concentrated in a small number
of, uh, council districts. And
some districts aren
t, um, even
competitive. They are. They
re
receiving few awards and some
aren
t even applying for
awards. And, um. Within those
that are outside of Seattle, a
large share appears
concentrated in certain
communities that already have a
well-established cultural
infrastructure like Bellevue
and, um, Vachon and Redmond.
Um, and so I wanted to kind of
ask you a question, backing up
and looking at this at a high
level, what do we think about
or what is your culture? Think
about the balance between
funding existing, um, strong
organizations versus or and
building cultural capacity in
these communities that don
t
have those organizations or
infrastructure and is the goal
to really create or expect that
every part of King County will
develop that capacity to
compete? Or are we going to
acknowledge that some areas
just don
t have that capacity?
Um, and we find a way to
support in other ways.
Yeah, that
s a that
s a it
s a
big topic. I appreciate you
surfacing it. Um, well, I would
say that the geographic
distribution of funds, um, the,
the floor of it right through
the ordinance is $1 million to
each county council district
and then 25% outside the city
of Seattle. And those marks
have been hit or exceeded. Um,
but again, that was the floor
for me. Um, one of the reasons
that I came to for culture,
because I believe in a more
equitable distribution of funds
to communities and individuals
that have been historically
marginalized from those
opportunities. So that, to me,
is the the value that I hold,
that the organization holds and
something that we
re constantly
working towards. I think it
s
it
s complicated in that each
particular city within King
County has a different level of
call it cultural health. How
many organizations in which
disciplines, their sizes, what
are their service areas, and
what are their programmatic
offerings? It
s really
variable, I will say, outside
the city of Seattle. And I
mean, we
re not talking about
specific cities, but there is a
really high success rate of
organizations in some of these.
In some of these, both council
districts and cities outside
the city of Seattle. So it
might end up being a lower
number of applications that are
submitted, but tends to be a
higher success rate, I think,
towards your larger question of
does your culture prioritize
right funding that what that
which exists that
s strong and
supported through other funding
mechanisms or growing. Right.
The cultural ecosystem and
strengthening small burgeoning
new organizations? I think it
s
always a balance of both. For
me, it is a really complicated
web of different size
organizations that have
different financial positions
and strengths, and we
re always
trying to find ways through our
different programs that address
the different needs. So the
sustained support program,
which provides operating
support, which is 50% of doors
open, helps a lot of
organizations across the board
of different sizes throughout
King County. I think some of
the more particular programs
like launch, are designed to do
exactly what you say to
Councilmember Fain, which is, i
think the borrow Councilmember
Perry is like helping folks
right grow where they
re
planted. The goal there was, if
you are new and you
re tending
to see a lot of new
organizations, um, kind of
popping up outside the city of
Seattle, let
s focus on their
early years, give them
dedicated funding such that
they actually can right develop
into those larger organizations
and cultural cultural centers
and some of those areas that
might be a little a little
weaker. Um, so I think that
s
one there
s also the open
program, which is the first
time applicant program at For
culture, where we
re always
kind of harvesting those kind
of just brand new. The really
cultural groups, they
re not
501 c3, they
re just getting
started. And we want them to
get to know us, and we want to
support some of their early
efforts, which are often one
program, or it
s a fair or it
s
one event. But we believe that
kind of early seed funding to
those types of cultural groups
allows them to start dreaming
about what a kind of more
robust organizational
structuring might look like.
Um, and then lastly, I would
just just to complicate this a
little bit more, the eventual
kind of growth or size of any
particular cultural center,
right? A hub is influenced by
four cultures funding, but also
deeply influenced by the
ability of that community to
get resources from itself, but
also attract resources from
foundations, from corporations,
from their own local municipal
government. So there
s that
kind of complex revenue pie
that I think determines the
likelihood of any one
individual organization
growing. So for us, it
s
something we definitely believe
in, a value that we hold. And I
think so many of our efforts
are designed to uncover who is
just starting up, what is it
that they need. And I believe
the kind of programmatic
framework that we have allows
us to do that. Um, based on the
needs of where those
organizations are and hopefully
that, that that spoke, spoke to
to your question.
Here. Can I just ask one more?
I just I should have started
with a thank you because you
really have been so receptive
and helpful when we are doing
our our is to try and refer as
many. Thank you. Existing
cultural organizations and um,
folks that are really trying to
enter the arena and I know that
launch is, you know, a small
percentage of the budget. So I
wonder if that could be an
opportunity to, um, reevaluate
how much we are dedicating to
that. Um, but really, my
questions were around, what can
we do to help increase the
overall participation? So, um,
i would encourage, as we think
about this balance, um, areas
that we can help or if it
s
just a fact that if we
establish an organization and
there
s no sustainable funding
around it or participation,
then it might not be a good use
of our investment to try and
help this organization get
started and then let it go and
have it struggle. So what can
we do to, um, encourage that
support in the in the
surrounding community? And that
would be something that I would
be interested in helping with.
But a longer conversation. But
always appreciate your
engagement. Thank you.
Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Fain sc
Councilmember Lewis. And then
we
ll go to Vice Chair
Balducci.
Thank you chair. And thank you,
Brian and your team for your
presentation today. It
s been
quite informative. Uh, my
questions really relate a lot
to what Councilmember Fain was
just asking about. And, um, and
just want to fine tune what I
heard a little bit, which is,
um, I heard you talk about
getting acquainted with new
organizations that, you know,
maybe they MAY be a club or
they meet maybe just forming.
Um, they
re not quite an arts
organization yet. Um, you also
said that we are providing, um,
consulting support to
organizations, and i
m
wondering if that consulting
support is that available to,
um, you know, pre-application
during applications, you know,
is it technical assistance
after money is awarded? Um,
what kind of, um, consulting or
technical assistance could be
available to these new and, um,
up and coming organizations?
Thank you for the questions.
Councilmember Lewis. I
ll, I
ll
turn to my colleague Calandra
Childress and let her speak a
little bit more to the, um,
that that technical assistance
that we
re able to offer
organizations.
Yeah. Thanks, Brian. And thanks
for the question, Council. Um,
it
s a great point that, um,
organizations, especially as
they are getting off the
ground, need a little bit more
support in their grant
applications. And that is
definitely what we found is
that that is one of the highest
requested supports. So we do
have technical assistance
available both for the launch
program. So knowing that those
organizations MAY not have that
internal capacity to to have
grant writers on staff or to be
familiar with just the the
processes of going through that
kind of work. So, um, we
ve
built into our, um, structure
and our budget specifically for
the launch program, and then
also knowing that our building
for equity program. So the work
that we do with facilities to
buy, build, renovate, and also
the, the project development
within facilities. So
organizations who have the idea
that they they want to move
towards a facility but maybe
don
t have a facility picked
out, they don
t quite know
exactly the structure, the
location, how they would go
about moving from an itinerant
organization to a grounded
organization. Those are ones
where we really focus that
technical assistance, because
we know that those are the
organizations that most need
that capacity building. So, um,
this is a new program for us.
So, um, as we mentioned, we
re
really tracking the requested
consultant support and really
trying to understand where, you
know, where do we have
consultants already on our
roster, where do we need to
continue to build that depth?
How do we actually really make
sure that those consultants are
from the communities where
those requests are coming from?
We know that different
communities across King County
have different needs, different
familiarity, different comfort
levels. And so we
re really
we
ve done a really, um, a
detailed inventory of where all
of our consultants are coming
from, where they
re located,
languages spoken, all of that
kind of thing, and are
continuing to build out the
roster to make sure it reflects
the the needs and the requests
that we
re getting.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Vice Chair Baldacci.
Thank you. Chair. And, uh, I
add my thanks to all the folks
at Fork Culture, the leadership
and all the staff. What a big
year. I mean, just reflecting
back on the early discussions
about what became Doors Open
was, uh, Access Washington. I
believe in initially and just
kind of thinking forward to the
massive effort that was going
to be needed to staff up,
create all these new programs,
create all of the processes
from scratch. I mean, this has
been a startup, a huge startup,
and I just want to say, you
know, sort of as you look back
to the results and the, uh, the
feedback that you got in that
survey, you know,
congratulations, it has been a
really amazing success story
and just has helped so many
people. And I hope you all feel
very justifiably proud of the
work that you have done.
Because it I mean, I don
t know
anywhere else in the country
that has done anything quite
this big, quite this fast. So,
uh, congratulations and thank
you. Uh, on the, the discussion
that
s sort of starting up with
the last two, uh, commenters,
Councilmember Lewis and
Councilmember Fain. I want you,
my colleagues, to know that the
big picture questions and
topics that you are raising
have been on our radar screen
radar screen the entire time.
Uh, from the initial, uh,
unsuccessful launch of, uh, the
access was the first time where
these were the underlying
questions about how do you
strike that balance between
supporting the pillars, really
the pillars of the the large
organizations that have been
the pillars of a very
successful arts and culture and
history and science community
here in the northwest, while
also making sure that you are
supporting geographic areas
that want to have centers that
want to have hubs of activity
that grow the future
generations of all of the, you
know, sectors there that
creates vibrant spaces
throughout King County where
people will go and spend their
money and, and, um, you know,
and also to make sure we
re
balancing with smaller
organizations, newer
organizations, more diverse,
uh, organizations that
represent their, you know, have
deep roots in their communities
that are community based. It is
an incredible balancing act.
And I will say that, um, I do
have a little bit of a flashing
red button when people name
Bellevue as a as a cultural
hub. That is very successful,
because I would invite you to
come visit the empty
storefronts of the places that
don
t survive in Bellevue. Uh,
the the poster child for that
was the Bellevue Arts Museum,
and I have to say, was past
tense because it finally did go
out of business after many
years of teetering on the edge.
Um, every community has got its
arts and culture, dreams and
needs and and our balance is to
try to create a floor
underneath all of them. We
can
t make them all succeed. We
can
t make them all, uh, like,
even with the massive funding
of Doors Open, you could not
fund the the hundreds of
institutions. And in the new
ones that happen every day to
the level that would keep them
all healthy, we provide a
cushion, if you will. We
provide an opportunity to do
things that maybe organizations
wouldn
t have done before. Uh,
we provide an opportunity to
grow and thrive, but we don
t.
We
re not ongoing, sustaining
funding at a at the level that
every organization needs. We
are we are a pedestal, if you
will. I
ve tried three
different metaphors. I think
they all fail anyway. Um, so
what I
m interested in, and I
don
t want to discuss it today
because we
ve been at this a
while, but I want to discuss it
in the future. Please. To the
for culture folks. Now, as we
are starting to do the early
evaluation of Doors Open, all
of these questions should be
framed up. Many of them were in
the implementation plan that we
passed, but we should frame up
these questions that the
members are asking and be
providing data and information
to help us see that full and
complex and beautiful map of
all the ways in which, for
culture is supporting the
community. Those examples we
brought today were just lovely
and very inspiring. But like
now we
re going to need to see
the whole map and where we can
do better as we inevitably
start to move towards re
reauthorization, which will
come up faster than you can
possibly imagine. So that is it
that I just wanted to really
say congratulations and honor
the incredible and historic
effort that went into where we
are today. And those numbers
from your survey about, um, how
the very high percentage of
people who engage in arts and
culture, uh, is a testament to
that success, and of course,
always more to do. But really,
congratulations to you all.
Well, thank you, Councilmember
Balducci. And also thank you
for all your support along the
way and all the council members
to get us here. This was a team
effort. It was a group effort.
And I totally agree. There are
things that are working. This
thing is working. It
s doing
what it was intended to do. But
we are not afraid of iteration
or evolution or adaptation as
necessary. And I think the data
we
re gathering will help frame
those conversations. So totally
agree. Thank you for that
comment.
Thank you all. Um, well, I
ll
call myself just to say that I
want to echo the thanks from
the vice chair on all of the
work that has been done over
the last couple of years in
getting this program going.
Just in my conversations with
community, uh, I hear
frequently about how vital this
has been in terms of, uh,
supporting the cultural sector.
So and I think it, uh, there
s
been a lot of positive feedback
that I
ve received about how
things have been implemented.
And so, uh, very grateful to
the team for that work. Um, I
also want to sort of post a
question more for like future,
not for right now, but just
echoing a little bit some of
the questions that
Councilmember Perry mentioned
about the, uh, financial
picture. I do want to note for,
for colleagues, there
s some,
you know, pretty detailed
information. And in our packet
around pages starting at around
102 with a little bit more
detail, financials that were on
the slides. If you all want to
take a look at that. Um, but I
do think that that question
about how we are planning on
spending the money and the kind
of future years, I think, would
be helpful for us to see
especially, uh, you know, I
think I remember when we
discussed implementation plan
that we had the concerns about
the volatility of the of the
sales tax revenue. Uh, and just
thinking ahead about how that
money is being used. So I think
the, the, the ending, the
ending balances, I realize I
m
Brian, I
m glad that you also
kind of flagged that. But like
that that gets attention. Uh,
but I think for that reason, I
think it would be helpful to
have that kind of detail of
like, how do we, uh, project
the money to be used in future
years, in the future? Um, and
so I look forward to kind of
continuing those conversations,
and I appreciate all the work
that
s that
s been done. Um,
all right. I don
t see any
further questions. So I
m going
to say thank you again to
Brian, Claire and Calandra for
the presentation and for all of
the work. Uh, colleagues, we
re
closing out today. This
concludes the action items on
our agenda. Uh, before we
adjourn, I want to make sure
that technical difficulties
didn
t stop council members
from voting. Any items. Uh,
Blake, did we have anybody who
are excused from the vote that
might be able to cast their
votes? Now?
Yeah. Yes, chair. Thank you
very much. Council members
Mosqueda and von Reichbauer
were excused from 2026 0106,
2026, 0123 and 2020. Arden MAY
20th 26012.
All right, I know Councilmember
Mosqueda is absent today, but I
see Councilmember von
Reichbauer on the line. Uh
Councilmember von Reichbauer.
Would you like to record a vote
on that? All right. There may
be technical difficulties
there, so we will, uh. Um, ask,
uh, remind folks that if a
member is excused, they MAY
email the committee clerk with
their vote by the end of the
day. If they were present for
earlier part of the meeting.
All right. With that? Uh, thank
you to everybody who
participated into the today
s
meeting. If there is no further
business to come before the