Speaker 0: I'm going to wait for one more member to approve those minutes. Well, turn to item eight. Is that our best action item? Okay. We'll go to item eight. Item eight is an ordinance which will improve the grant funding allocations for our Water Works program. This is round three of this very popular and successful program. These are sewer rate funded projects to address water quality improvements. The rate includes. What is it like about $3.6 million per biennium as at 1.8 per.
Speaker 3: It's about two 2 million for this portion of the program. Now that there is a council portion of the program in the separately executive portion. So this is the executive portion.
Speaker 0: Right. So in this this this half of it goes through the recommendation committee.
Speaker 3: The grants rank and committee.
Speaker 0: That's correct. And those are the recommendations that are before us.
Speaker 3: That's correct.
Speaker 0: All right. And we're going to be joined by a representative to present the recommendations.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: You've largely captured what I was going to present. So I think I'm I'm sorry.
Speaker 0: Working out of my class there.
Speaker 3: I think I'll just just introduce Elizabeth Louden, who's the Water Works program manager for the water program. She will give you a briefing, as you indicated here, this is based on water, on water and wastewater treatment division funding. And from there, I turn to Elizabeth.
Speaker 0: All right. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for your work. Welcome, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Good morning. Good morning. And thank you for inviting me. I'll be just offering a some brief comments on the water grant program and the current round before you. The overall goal of water works is to fund projects that improve water quality in the Wastewater Treatment Division's service area. The program also has additional benefits, including community involvement, building stewardship and leveraging funding. To date, 82 projects have been funded totaling $5.8 million, and that's for both the competitive and the council allocated projects. Project types include green stormwater infrastructure. Rain gardens and cisterns. Education and community engagement. Research and monitoring. And stream and riverbank restoration. Most projects include more than one type of activity, and as mentioned, there are two different tracks for funding. The competitive and council allocated.
Speaker 0: Are very competitive to.
Speaker 1: Ensure they are for the competitive track. The Grant Ranking Committee reviews applications and makes recommendations. And this year for the competitive track, we have a biennial cycle which will award all the funding for 2017 and 2018. And also this year, we had a two step process. Letter of intent, short pre application and then a full application. We started with 80 proposals and then the 23 before you were considered by the committee to be the the best ones.
Speaker 0: And are these before us as the committee recommended, or were there any changes between committee recommendation and submission to the council?
Speaker 1: There were a couple of changes. There was one project that was proposed initially proposed by a wastewater treatment division that the committee recommended, and then subsequently the management decided that their preference was to have the funding go to outside entities. So the committee reconvened for another session to decide what to do with that $113,000 and decided to awarded to two other projects which are on the list. The last two projects on the list. Yeah, great. So that was the one change that was made. So the round three recommended projects list starts on page 50 of your packet, and there are 23 projects totaling $1.86 million. There's a wide variety in project types, in size of projects that also location and I, things that are different this round. The recommended projects include 11 organizations that have not been previously funded by Water Works and two led by Native American organizations. So overall, this $1.86 million in water works funding is leveraging another $6.8 million in match, both cash and volunteer time. So this represents a significant community investment in water quality improvements.
Speaker 0: Excellent. Do members have questions or comments on this item? Councilmember Building.
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of going through the analysis here, but there's a series of grant programs that we do repeatedly where I'm very concerned. Turn that my district gets very shortchanged. And this is one of them. And I'm just going through the math here, and I haven't been able to work all the way through because there's not a summary by district. There's kind of a general. And and I just want to point that out. It's it's concerning to me because the first year when I had this comment, our chairman pointed out, and I thought quite correctly and wisely, that these things come and go in cycles, and some years you're going to get less, some years you're going to get more. But I'm on year three now and I'm just not seeing that there's a fair distribution to my district, so I'm concerned about that.
Speaker 3: I might briefly note, Mr. Chair, that that on page one, page 71 of your packet, there is a listing of projects, and you will see on that fourth column from the left that there that it's defined by district.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm busy sorting through that right now and trying to do it because it's not totaled up my district. And so I'm doing math and spreadsheets over here, which is probably not a good activity on my part, but it just I'd like to know what what's being done to make sure that there's a fair distribution of this money. So I can respond that that the committee does look at the geography of where the projects are. And so what we do is we look at the we ask the applicants what districts their project takes, takes, takes place. And that's where we have this information from the table here. And many of the projects take place in more than one district. So we do put we put together a map, kind of a preliminary map showing where the different projects were. We are also limited by where the applicants are coming from. So. But I did look at all of them because I know that there was a question about this earlier. I did look at all of the projects in the final list, the final 23, and just to see how many were only in Seattle versus outside of Seattle . And the numbers on that were 21% of the projects recommended for funding were in Seattle. And then.
Speaker 2: I.
Speaker 1: Almost have about 45 were in multiple districts. And then another chunk, 30 something percent, were entirely outside of Seattle. So. That's helpful. But is there outreach to make sure people are applying? Is there is there a way of making sure, maybe by mapping out where these are, that things are being spread fairly? Do we look back over five or ten years and see where there are gaps and try to fill those gaps? I mean, I'm asking more of a process question. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And we're I'm happy to do outreach. We have workshops that we've done in different locations around the county, and I'm happy to do presentations if people have suggestions on where I might present on what works opportunities.
Speaker 3: So Mr. Chair, if I might suggest I'd be happy to work with the agency if it's possible to take a look over the last several years and do a basically a spreadsheet analysis of where money has gone in terms of districts and how it has been balanced over over time as a resource for your information.
Speaker 1: I think that would be really helpful. And then maybe we can think about doing it because before you. So I appreciate offers, but before I personally or asked my colleagues to ask for specific work, it would be nice to do a little bit of an analysis to see if my perception is correct, first of all. Second of all, if so, why? And then what is what would be the best way to address whatever the issue is? Okay. So I wouldn't ask you to run right out and do that right away. And I do appreciate the offer. But let's see if we can do a little analysis about what's really going on and why. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. Okay.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember LDC and Councilmember Coleman Wells might remember better than than me as former chair of the Regional Water Quality Committee, but I had some similar concerns the first time this came out, and we prepared some legislation to kind of help shape the technical or the recommendations committee. Right. In terms of having council members suggest representatives. Yeah. And do either of you recall if you type of how we structured that and whether each district get a representative and how are we doing on filling those? I think I know I've got my person.
Speaker 3: Yes. So very briefly, there is a grand ranking committee, as you're referring to, that Grant's ranking committee does. I believe there are nominations from each of your offices to the council district offices, which go to the executives executive appoints them to the to that committee. And I am not in fact, I was going to ask what the what. She's got.
Speaker 0: The list.
Speaker 1: I've got the list. Yes.
Speaker 0: So why don't we before we let's not call out any vacancies in case there there. But if there are council members who have not got their representative to you, why don't you let those officers know offline?
Speaker 1: Do you have to do that? Yeah.
Speaker 0: That was one solution because, well, gee, I'm not sure it's the most effective. You know, it's just one way to have a voice at the table, which is part of the process. Obviously, I think it would be interesting to see on the denominator, if you will, where all the applications came from in terms of determining that that equity. And I think that could be rather readily transmitted. And the other piece of this was to ensure that equity we got these funds in half. So there is the council side. What is the will of the body on this today? Are folks ready to move forward either with or without recommendation? Is there any timing issues? I mean, I know what, by not approving it, we're holding up the funds.
Speaker 1: Oh, ahead. So for timing issues, let's see. So the initial letters of intent were submitted in June of last year and then went through the review process. So we did tell people, I think people are hoping to be able to get started this summer and some of the projects to have a seasonal aspect to them this year
Speaker 0: . Window.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Mm hmm. What do you think, customer value. Will you be able to get the information you want between now and two weeks? Or would you like this to remain here?
Speaker 1: I, I don't know. Let me look to Missouri. Do you think we can do some work on this between now and two weeks from now?
Speaker 3: I would certainly start today to work with the agency, and I'll look to see whether whether you can produce information that would be needed for that sort of an array over the next, let's say, week. Yes, sure. We can do that.
Speaker 0: Okay. All right. Customer McDermott, it's your legislation.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would move that we give you a do pass recommendations and a full council, he said, looking at the ordinance number ordinance 2018, 149.
Speaker 0: All right, that's before us. Further questions or comments this customer about.
Speaker 1: To say, I'm going to vote no on do pass, but I might get there by final count. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay, very good. The clerical cultural on.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Baldi Chino, Councilmember Dunn, Councilmember Garzon, Councilmember Colwell, Councilmember Lambert, I Councilmember McDermott.
Speaker 3: High.
Speaker 1: Council Member of the Grove. Councilmember Wainwright Bauer. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair. The vote is for eyes. One No. Four. Excused.
Speaker 0: All right. We've given a preliminary do pass recommendation to this legislation. It'll go in the ordinary course, which will allow a couple of weeks, and even if necessary, a courtesy delay for a third week. It sounds like that's reasonable information that could be gotten quite probably, and I'd appreciate a copy of it to our office as well . Maybe all offices, I'm hearing, to take a look and appreciate Councilmember Bowdich duties, diligence in making sure there's a balance in these grants. Thank you for your work and for being here.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. We are going to turn now to item nine, which is. Oh, the minutes. We like to put those before us. All right, Councilmember Cole. Wells.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm approval of the minutes of the May 2nd 2008 committee of the whole meeting.
AN ORDINANCE approving the grant funding allocation for the projects funded through the WaterWorks grant program, Round 3, in accordance with the 2017-2018 Biennial Budget Ordinance, Ordinance 18409, Section 113 and Ordinance 18261.