Arts Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the July Parks and Community Services board meeting. Chair Rowena Klima is attending remotely. Following our bylaws, the presiding officer must be in person, so the vice chair is running the meeting this evening. Board member Eric Dreber is absent tonight. We are at quorum, and so this meeting is now called to order. Let's move on to the approval of tonight's agenda. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda?

I move to approve this evening's agenda from last week.

Any second? I second. Let's vote. All in favor to approve tonight's agenda say aye. Any opposed say no. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Was that Rowena? Okay. All right. The agenda is approved unanimously. Let's move on to the next portion, the approval of the minutes from the Parks Board May 2026 regular meeting. We have two sets of minutes to consider for approval this evening. We will consider each one at a time. First, is there a motion to approve the May 2026 meeting minutes? So moved. Any second?

Second.

Okay, let's vote. All in favor to approve the May 2026 meeting minutes?

Aye.

I missed. Say aye. Any opposed, say no. Sorry about that. Can you try and go again? We're good? Okay, awesome. All right. The minutes are unanimously approved. Next, is there a motion to approve the June 2026 meeting minutes? So moved. A second, please. Second. All right, let's vote. All in favor to approve the June 2026 meeting minutes, say aye. Any opposed, say no. Aye. The minutes are unanimously approved. Moving on to oral communications. The Parks and Community Services Board values community input and looks forward to hearing from you during its meeting. Please be aware that in compliance with Washington state campaign laws regarding the use of public facilities during an election, no speaker may support or oppose a ballot measure or support or oppose a candidate for an election, which includes your own campaign. Any speaker who begins discussing topics of this nature will be asked to stop. There are rules adopted by the City Council limiting the topics about which the public may speak during our meetings. Under Ordinance 6752, the public may only speak during public comment about subject matters that are related to the City of Bellevue government and are within the power and duties of the Parks and Community Services Board. Following the Board's bylaws, the total time allowed for oral communications shall not exceed 30 minutes. Each speaker will be allowed to speak one time for up to three minutes. We will follow the order in which individuals signed up. If you do not get a chance to speak this evening, you're always invited to email your comments to us at parkboard at BellevueWA.gov. Now we'll turn it over to Cameron, who will read names from the online and in person sign in sheets.

Thank you. We do not have anybody registered to sign in, and I'm not seeing anyone here in the crowd. I see a very important person in the crowd, but he'll be here later. So we'll turn online and see if there is anyone interested in speaking during oral communications online. All right. I will note we did receive two written communications this evening that we this afternoon forwarded to the board. I will just give a quick summary of those two. One was from Alice Liao and a second from Douglas Barrett on related topics. The first email so it makes a suggestion to install benches along the sidewalk of 112th Avenue Northeast between main street and the East main light rail station. Um, this is at the corner of main street and 112th. Uh, we have, that's where the, um, tunnel portal is. And then there's the park that's on top that we've been focused on the past couple of meetings with naming. Um, and, um, The suggestion is just to add more benches and seating along the sidewalks to make it more walkable to get from downtown down to the East Main Light Rail Station. The second email voiced similar suggestions for benches along the sidewalk and added a couple other recommendations for improvements. within the park, including where another dog waste met station would be helpful for use and some comments around the need for bike lanes as well. So appreciate those two comments and we will respond to those and share them with our transportation department as well, since they kind of relate to walkability and improvements along the sidewalks in that neighborhood. So with that, I think we've concluded oral communications. I'll turn it back to you, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Cameron. All right. Let's move on to City Council communication. Do we have... Council Member Breyer on the call.

Hey, folks. Yeah, sorry, I couldn't be there in person. Driving back from an event I had to attend in Snoqualmie and traffic is very unattractive right now. So jealous that you're all not in a car. But so council updates, we are starting to slow things down as legislative recess is coming up in the month of August, as you guys also don't have a meeting then. Recently, we are looking at initiating the work to take a look at Bellevue College expanding their campus. They own a few properties in Southeast Lake Hills. So they're looking at what that would look like in terms of, you know, expanding their campus and different facilities and maybe dorms and stuff like that. Yeah. We're also talking to businesses to take a look at potentially creating a business improvement area where businesses can opt in to pay a little bit more for activation. So that will look like different events that happen on the daily in downtown. We're considering maybe we could do that in other areas like Crossroads and Factoria Shopping Center as well. um what else um i think that's pretty much it for now and then we were off for two weeks as well so um all right that was our first meeting back so i mean that's pretty much it i can hand it back to you vice chair unless there's any questions or comments okay uh no questions here thank you council member briar great thanks

All right, moving on to the Director's Report, we'll turn it over to Meredith Petit for the Parks Director's Report.

Thank you very much and good evening to everybody. Thank you for being here. I do have a few things to say. remind you of fun and exciting opportunities for you and your families this summer. I wanted to start by thanking everybody who came out to the July 4th event, including all of the community members, some of you I saw there enjoying the evening, as well as all of the staff that came out to work on their holiday and the support from all of the other city departments and community partners that make that event happen. Our preliminary numbers show an increase in attendance this year, probably for a variety of factors, including the light rail we know was very popular that evening, as well as, of course, the World Cup happening in Seattle. on a couple of days following that. So really great event by all accounts, really incident free for the most part. Everybody was very well behaved and things were very well run and organized. Our preliminary number estimate is somewhere in the 70,000 range as far as visits to and from the park that evening. So By all accounts, very successful and, again, just very appreciative of all of the work that goes into that event. It's very fitting. Last night I had the pleasure and honor of accepting a proclamation at the City Council meeting for July as Park and Recreation Month. So it's an opportunity for all of us in Parks and Recreation, but also the community, to celebrate that. the programs and the services and the parks and natural spaces that are offered in their communities. And we encourage everybody to help celebrate by getting outside and connecting with nature and each other. at all of the programs and facilities that Bellevue has to offer, of course. Also, just of note, we had some other department-related proclamations last night. One was Disability Pride Month, which was accepted by a community member that is a participant at our Highland Community Center, as well as probation... Supervisor Service, Probation Services Supervisor Week, I believe, coming up. So it was a really great celebratory night at City Council for Parks and Community Services. I do have that proclamation. I thought it was worthwhile to print a copy for everybody, and I'm not going to read it, but just wanted you to kind of be aware of what we're celebrating this month and the benefits that Parks and Recreation provides to the community and Again, thank the city council for that recognition. Additionally, just to highlight some of the events happening this month and next month, particularly our movies in the park events, starting here at downtown through the rest of July and into August. And then starting in August, we have movies at crossroads park. And so I'll pass that around to you. Please do share the word and thank, Hopefully you can join us out at one of those events as well and appreciate the staff that are planning and organizing those events as well. And that's all I have for you this evening.

Thank you, Director Petit. All right. Let's move on to board communication. Let's see. I know we have a new board member joining us today for the first time in this room. I know you did attend in our retreat, Stefan Holbein. So we typically like, I think everyone goes around, but I'd love to give you a chance to introduce yourself and provide comment first, if you like.

Thank you very much, Vice-Chair Verwerde. I'm Stefan Hobe. I'm very excited to be here at my first meeting today. I know I will learn a lot. I hope I can contribute a lot as well. I'd like to share an experience that I had last weekend at Downtown Park. My children attended the junior business fair and I was especially impressed by the strong sense of environmental responsibility shown by the participants there. So there were almost a hundred booths or tents and each requiring materials, packing, signs and other supply. And yet at the end of the event, the children and their families left the park remarkably clean and well cared for. And to me, this experience really reinforced not only the importance of downtown park, as a prime venue for community events, but also the fact that our community really values these green places and spaces and in fact takes great pride in caring for them. And a week before, if time allows, I had the chance to go on a site visit, which was very interesting to me. My work background is in urban planning, site planning, natural resource protection. I used to work there for the past 15 years. So this site visit was... Very interesting. This was the Ballarat neighborhood park. And site manager Sarian gave us a fantastic little tour. And I learned a lot about this area of Bellevue that is still relatively new to me. And one thing that stood out to me was how different this site feels to other park areas. For example, Ashwood Park, where it was just a day before. So, for example, Ashwood Park is a very simple, open, rectangular urban space. park had a much more complex character with a large l-shaped layout existing utilities buildings wetlands and natural features and what struck me was that to me these apparent constraints actually creating a lot of opportunities and so there's a lot of space to accommodate many different community needs and while still preserving the wetland area there so there's a high potential of a very diverse park experience. And what I was really impressed with was first that the strong community involvement there. There were a lot of survey responses and a wide range of ideas how to create this place. And second, and this is my last point, was the idea that manager Sarian gave us to preserve elements of the site's architectural heritage and industrial design, which aligns very well with the neighboring artistry, physically and thematically. And yeah, it's a great chance to also help preserve the area's history and identity. So I'm very looking forward to September for when all these ideas end. plans are coming together in the concept plan.

Thank you so much, Stefan.

Eileen, would you like to go next?

I mainly just want to say that I really enjoyed our June session at the Robinswood venue and meeting Meredith for the very first time and found out we all enjoy playing pickleball, right? Yeah. I thought it was funny because I've been to Robinswood that feel like countless times, you know, either walking with my friends or taking my kids to soccer practice or games or tennis or baseball. And I had heard about this venue because I think I've seen people getting married there, but I never knew where it was exactly. Like actually like a couple of times I was kind of looking for it, but I guess it's hidden very well.

Yeah.

Like, even though it's just right off of the parking lot. So it was kind of, like, satisfied a lot of my curiosity. Like, where exactly is this place? So I thought it was really neat that we had the opportunity to have an event there. And then I think I'm always looking forward to this kind of our annual off-site, if you will. I think we've done it at the golf course. We have, what was the other time that I... We did... Golf course was last year. It was all year... two years ago. And then last year, we did a Wigo. But we didn't do anything.

Darn.

And then I had the opportunity to talking with the manager on site. He told me he and his wife have this contract with the city. And it's been, I think it's very busy. He said he only gets like four days off every year. Like Father's Day is one of them and maybe Christmas. Otherwise, it's like just every day is busy. Like it's a fully booked like for 2027 even. So I think I really appreciate that, you know, he and his wife taking really good care of this kind of historic place. And that's very meaningful. So yeah, so I just want to express my appreciation for organizing the event for us. And I had a great time there. And now I know where it is. Thank you.

Thank you, Eileen. Steve?

Thank you. I wanted to just talk about the July 4th event. I attended early, but I also left a little bit earlier. I took my family there. And one thing I wanted to point out was that my kids were asking me, hey, so what's your contribution to this July 4th event? I said, well, I just show up and attend meetings and talk and things like that and they were like wow so it's like magic huh and my response to them was yeah it's like magic if if um you have good people who care about the community and who who have uh who are willing to put in the work to provide the environment and all the facilities, all the investments that go in. So I just want to express that, again, I was really impressed with the July 4th event. And that without the people executing the events, you can't get those type of experiences. So again, thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Steve. Elizabeth?

Yeah, thank you. I would also like to express my gratitude for all of the work that the Parks Department and all of the people involved put on for the July 4th. I haven't been able to go for a long time because I have been the one responsible for my dog during the fireworks, and I finally had someone else to stay home. And it was just as inspiring and crowded as I remembered. If I saw you, but I looked right through you, I apologize. It was overwhelming. But one of the things that I noticed while I was there, and I also saw my daughter there, a lot of teenagers there, which I was happy to see that they were spending their time doing something sanctioned by the city um was that a lot of people actually didn't make it in so in addition to those 70 000 plus as i was leaving the fireworks show a little bit early to catch a bus home i was running through block after block after block of families who probably mistimed the sunset a little bit you know and also it was so crowded in the park nobody else was getting in And I was just really inspired by how many people wanted to watch. I also really appreciated the reading of the Declaration of Independence. I've heard it many times through school, but we had a lot of guests and people who didn't attend elementary and high school in the United States. And so I thought it was just fantastic to have that. opportunity to celebrate what it's all about in the moment before the fireworks. So thank you for that. And as always, the youth orchestra is incredible. Maybe louder mics or louder speakers next time would be my only ask because it was just beautiful. So that was the main thing that I wanted to comment on. It was fantastic. I also wanted to say I really appreciate Bellevue Park's trails right now. We have, I already mentioned a dog. And we're worried about her paws on the asphalt. I think a lot of people are right now. There's a lot of warnings. And just being able to go to a trail where we can have long walks with our dog is so great because those trails don't get hot. And I think we don't appreciate that a lot. But when I'm giving my kids the instructions to walk the dog, um they're like it's hot and i'm like well you could still walk the dog because there's a trail like right there so no excuses there our dogs are happy we're happy uh those were my my main observations and also yes the off-site was was wonderful um the dinner was wonderful so thank you for that thank you elizabeth uh rowan i'd love to give you a chance to provide commentary

yeah thank you hi everyone sorry I can't be in the meeting today I'm getting over a cough thank you Michelle for serving as a presiding officer today you're doing an awesome job here's my update echoing Stephen Elizabeth I had a wonderful time at the 4th of July celebration at Bellevue Downtown Park I hung out with Elizabeth and Stefan and their families, but I missed Steve. I couldn't find him in the crowd. I really appreciated seeing the number of food trucks, games, porter potties available. So that was really awesome. The music was great. And this year, because my dog was at grandma's house, I actually was able to stay and watch the fireworks show, which was really lovely. So I'm echoing everyone, amazing job staff. Oh, and I also took the light rail and it was well used, busy, but everyone was really friendly. So that was awesome. So yes, thank you again, staff, for managing that huge, wonderful event. I'm looking forward to the Bell Red Park tour. Looking forward to getting a feel for the space, the road, and the possibilities. So great to hear that Stefan had a good time. And I saw on the calendar that Bell Red Park will have a community meeting number two on August 27th at Crossroads Community Center. So I'll try my best to attend that. And then there's a virtual one on September 3rd. And then after that, looking forward to our presentation from Ranger Curtis, who I think I saw on the camera. Yeah, that's all for me. Oh, I see his arm. Awesome. Thank you all.

Thank you, Chair Klima. All right, I'll go. In the spirit of being very prepared, I wrote a statement. All right. Good evening. First, I just wanted to thank staff for organizing our budget retreat last month. I really appreciated having dedicated time to walk through the budget, ask questions, and better understand the priorities and tradeoffs. It was a really valuable discussion, so thank you to everyone who put it together. I wanted to recognize everyone also involved in the family fourth, as has been said. I was actually really disappointed to miss it this year, especially the kettle corn and popcorn, my favorite. But from everything I've heard, it was another fantastic event. It takes an incredible amount of planning and coordination to put on something of that scale. 70,000 is probably another record. So thank you to all the staff and volunteers who made it such a success. Looking ahead, it's really exciting to see everything happening across our parks this summer. Movies in the park, community festivals like Flavors of India, the Arts Fair, some more youth camps keep going on and all of the recreational programming that brings our parks to life. It's a great reminder of how much these spaces mean to our community. Every time I go to a park, they're full of families, kids playing, people walking their dogs, neighbors spending time together. It's really a good reminder that parks are so much more than places to recreate. They're really where community happens here. As we discuss the natural lease program tonight and the budget, I think they'll both reinforce the importance of continuing to invest not only in our parks, but also in the programs that help people connect with them. Thanks again to the staff for all the work that's gone into tonight's presentation. Thank you. Great. That concludes our board member commentary. Let's move on to the presentation portion of our agenda. First up, we have the Bellevue Naturalist Program. We have Curtis Kukol presenting.

Great. Well, thank you very much for listening to me for a little bit this evening. I'm honored to present to y'all about our volunteers. And tonight we're going to talk about a part of our volunteers, the Bellevue Naturalist Program. Oh, and I should say my name. I'm Ranger Curtis Kukel. I work with Bellevue Parks and Community Services in the Natural Resources Division. My title is Park Ranger. Don't wear the hat inside, but you can imagine it there. So as per as usual for y'all, this presentation is for information only. At the end, I'm very happy to field as many questions as y'all have, but no action is being requested. And I want to start with the most influential environmental thinker of the 20th century, the Lorax, when he said, unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. And I chose that to start because our volunteers care a whole awful lot about Bellevue's natural resources and the conservation thereof. We're going to talk about just generally what is the Bellevue Naturalist Program, a very brief primer into environmental restoration basics, our tools in the toolbox when we do environmental restoration utilizing volunteers, and I'd love to highlight some projects and show some maps and some fun pictures. So the Natural Resources Division has five different teams. I am in the Nature Parks and Visitor Center team. with the ag team that does the blueberries at Larson Lake and Mercer Slough, we also have the park rangers. And as park rangers, we have extremely limited law enforcement authority. Basically, let's just say none for argumentation. Our job is to connect people to their park resources, to educate people about their park resources, and to inspire them to protect their park resources. Our other teams in the Natural Resources Division are the Forest Management Team, Greenways and Trails, irrigation and water conservation, and street trees and arterial landscape. I wanted to mention that we're talking about forest restoration for the rest of this, but most of the forest restoration is being led by our forest management team, as you can imagine. Our volunteers primarily work with forest management projects and quite a bit of greenways and trails projects as well. I'm only going to be highlighting the forest management projects. Irrigation and water conservation is pretty highly technical work that's not appropriate. And Street Trees is doing the majority of the work in the right of way. And so it's not as good of a fit for volunteers. Bellevue Naturalist Program is a training and volunteer opportunity. So every year we accept a class and they go through 11 weeks of training. It's a mile wide and an inch deep. It's everything from environmental concepts to land use. native and invasive plants, restoration, and they also do, depending on the year, about six Saturday field workshops as well to get hands-on experience. Applications are received by November 30th to be considered for the class the following spring. We accept about 30 volunteers every year, and we give selection priority to Bellevue residents. The majority of our volunteers are Bellevue residents, but we do accept residents of other cities if space allows. Since 2010, we've trained 241 Bellevue Naturalist volunteers. We have about 75 active volunteers at this moment. Volunteers give back 100 or more hours in support of our natural resources over the coming years. As long as they keep their background check up to date, we will continue to work with them and welcome them and love working with them. They do a very diverse array of volunteer opportunities and continuing education, including assisting with environmental programs, continuing education webinars. And I'm not going to go into all of the stuff that they do, but it's, I think, pretty cool. We're mostly just going to be talking about the restoration bit. So in pre-Columbian times, so 1491, a lot of Bellevue would have looked like this. Mature and old-growth forests broken up by rivers, streams, wetlands, native prairie, and indigenous people settlements. Very little of Bellevue, as you surely know, continues to look like this, primarily and first off because of historic logging around the turn of the century. This photo is from Seattle. And at the time that this logging was happening, it was not what we would call modern forestry. This was resource extraction, quick, dirty, make money, move on. Very little, if any, thought was given to what would happen to the forest resource after it was cut. But that's not the only issue that our forests see. This is a shot from last week at... Woodridge open space. And our forests have quite a lot of threats in this day. So the effects of a hotter and drier climate, boundary encroachments from neighboring private property owners, invasive and noxious weeds like this English ivy, but many more. anthropogenic wildfire, altered composition and structure from those historic logging practices, and even introduced insects and fungal pathogens that continue to negatively affect our forests. These, unfortunately, also have a multiplicative effect and an interactive effect with each other to make them more powerful than their individual parts so they're basically all that to say there's a lot of work that can be done in our natural areas in our open spaces Thinking conceptually about restoration, as the level of degradation increases, whatever we're talking about, whether it's soil compaction, invasive weeds, whatever, as we increase that, our effort that it takes to get back to our desired state is going to also increase non-linearly because of those multiplicative effects that we just talked about. What we can think about that as is also the cost, labor, the number of tools that we have to throw at the forest, the amount of time that it takes, and we're talking years in this setting, and just things like the aesthetic impacts to our park guests. All of those are going to increase very quickly as the level of degradation increases. The lowest level, our Bellevue Naturalists can have a really big impact because we can act completely independently. I mean, we can act in communication, but without direct support of our forest management team. And we can achieve those goals only with our volunteers. As the effects grow, there is a certain level where you have to move to the skid steer level. restoration technique, more and more effort. And when forests are in that level of degradation, we don't take the lead. We assist our forest management team and see where we can fit in. But we can have a big impact on those more highly degraded landscapes. So the one on the bottom there with our Bellevue Naturalist that's in Weona Park, you can do the work with gloves and buckets. The top picture is a much more highly degraded site at Lewis Creek Park, where I am based out of. There's been 100 years of farming history there. Just dozens of invasive weeds, soil compaction, and that requires a much more aggressive hand with the restoration. Natural resource professionals love to say tools in the toolbox, so I'm sorry. It's required, apparently, on every presentation. But when we want to use volunteers for these kinds of projects, we do have a bunch of different tools. It's not just the volunteers. And the best projects utilize those different tools together. And so, for example, we have staff like myself, our forest management team, we have part-time and LTE staff. We even have high school students that we hire as student interns with our Well-Kept program. We have contractors like Earth Corps and the Washington Conservation Corps that Bellevue sponsors. We have a lot of different kinds of volunteers. Our Bellevue Naturalists, our once-a-month Saturday work parties, corporate teams that want to get involved, special events where there are more volunteers, and scouting projects where Eagle Scout candidate or Girl Scout candidate is wanting to do a larger scoped project. We try and match the scope of the restoration that needs to happen with the kind of tool or tools to best achieve that efficiently and to get the best results. I'll give some examples of that, but pretty much none of the work that the volunteers do is going to be fully and none of it is fully independent of staff. Volunteers can't operate chainsaws or heavy equipment, pesticides, they're not there five days a week. On the other hand, volunteers aren't also called to do other, we don't have to pull them away for training, for boundary inspections, for all of those other things that staff need to do in the course of their job duties. And of course, cost and project management is a consideration when we work with contractors. OK, so I want to talk about some of the fun projects we've done. So we own a park is one of my favorites. For whatever reason, several spots in Leona Park were logged, but they were called high graded. The loggers took only the absolute best wood and they left a substantial amount of old growth trees on the ground. So we have three areas of the park where there are pretty good amount of old growth that remains. Those areas tend to be vast. pretty healthy and they also are pretty, let's say, light to moderately infested with noxious weeds. So on that curve that we looked at, that's the lower end of the degradation where we don't need a lot of effort, cost, manpower, time, whatever, and we can achieve our forest management goals. And boy, the naturalists have really shined on this project. We've completed about 10 acres of restoration in this park. We're continuing to work out there. We're continuing to expand past those core old growth areas. But as we talk about constraints, our naturalists, we're not sending them on to critical area slopes, to stream sides. We need to apply herbicides with either staff or contractors. And so again, multiple tools. This is a group from a few years ago. I think you might recognize one of those people. And I have even cut the number of volunteers back a little bit per project from this, from six to four. Whenever we do these kind of projects at Weona Park, we don't install plants afterwards. So what that means is we need to keep our environmental footprint extremely light. We need to keep the damage that we do by being there, by trampling, by stepping on the soil. We need to keep that at an absolute minimum. And we've found that four volunteers working for two hours over several years every month can do a huge amount of work and a huge amount of good in the forest and have the least amount of negative consequences by us being there. This is a good example. This was an area in the southern part of Weona Park where we removed the English ivy. You can see it stacked up just above the sign there. And the plants that are remaining in the forest understory are going to be what fills back in and basically restores itself. And then here's another group of volunteers. They're doing English holly pretreatment. This is a really great example of what we can do that is beyond the level of service that we would otherwise be able to provide. So the volunteers come in. We prune the holly, which is very difficult. Difficult work. And we prune that to about belt height. And what that does is it gives either staff or a contractor access later to come in and apply an herbicide to the holly to kill it. And we can use less product, we can go quicker, and we can have better mortality of the noxious weed when we do it that way. They can also follow up again afterward, after another year, and any little bits of root suckers that have been missed or holly plants, we can hand pull those and we get a really good treatment that's much more full on the landscape than if we just brought in a single treatment. This is a project at Wilburton Hill Community Park that we started right around 2020. And so we had to pause on it for a couple of months. But we were assigned this area of the park from our forest management team as a location that we could go to multiple times and just explore. We could work at the level that we had. And we did, I think, a pretty good job removing a vinca. And we did install native plants as part of this project because the disturbance was a little bit higher after removing that vinca. So this would be an example where we paired with our forest management team to get plants, to get irrigation in there. But then the volunteers provided all the labor. Here's some of our awesome people working out there. We do a lot of projects at Lewis Creek Park for a lot of reasons I won't go into, but one of them is that my office is there. It's also a very flat park. It's degraded. There's a lot of work to be done. This is kind of a cool project where we renovated two landscaping beds from... highly formal rugosa roses to native plants. And this is what it looked like before. All one species, non-native. It's pretty, but it has one blooming period throughout the spring and summer and required pretty much weekly contractor inputs in this to keep it looking like this. Soil is pretty much turned off. And we worked with our grounds management team and they hired a contractor to remove the roses. We had a few work parties where the Bellevue naturalists hand pulled all of the rose root runners, which is very tedious work. They also came back in and planted it with native plants that are thought to be kind of climate change winners. So these are drought tolerant plants, plants associated with the Oregon white oak savanna ecosystem of Washington state. We placed large woody debris, and this is no longer really a formal landscape, but it is one that's right up by our building, right by our trail, right by a playground. It can be really enjoyed by people who might not otherwise get deeper into the natural areas. And then we took this picture just... Last week, we have, I think, over two dozen native species that are in here now, both ones that we planted, ones that came in on their own. And this is... completely different for wildlife, for insects and pollinators, for the soil, for the aesthetic. And once we get it to this kind of level, even a maintenance is much less. To get it established is way, way more maintenance. But it is in a really good spot now where it can be enjoyed by people who can use this paved trail rather than getting more deep into the natural area. This is native camas plant, just showing this pollinator garden. And these are some of our volunteers last week who used timber carriers to bring large, dead, large woody debris from the forest. And we placed them in that pollinator garden for a place for especially overwintering insects and amphibians and snakes to be able to utilize. So it's been a really great resource for our environmental educators to be able to have a highly concentrated example of what someone could do in their own residential property. It's kind of been an interesting project that we've done at Lewis Creek. These conifers, pretty much mostly Douglas fir, were planted around the time that the park opened. So they're getting to be in that 20-year-old range. And we've done a lot of natural area pruning of them because as they grow up, the lower branches die and you have this kind of impenetrable thicket of dead conifers. wood that you can't walk through. And this is another example of something we would not generally do with our normal level of service. But we were able to come in with our naturalists. We were able to prune all of the dead and lower branches off. We were able to chop them into foot-long sections, scatter them. And this has a lot of benefits for wildfire risk reduction. We're able to get in there and better pull weeds to find them. It's much improved health and vigor for these trees. It improves airflow for the forest stand, and it looks a lot nicer for our park guests. It's less of a place for, you know, teenagers to do whatever, you know. It's a much better situation that we absolutely wouldn't have been able to do without our naturalist volunteers. Here's another example. This is again at Lewis Creek where we pruned all of the lower branches off. And just the chances if a wildfire did come through on this hillside of it crowning into those trees is quite a lot less. And we've been able to do a lot better job weeding under there. And we've gotten good comments from our guests. It also opens up light for the native understory. And you can see some of those starting to pop up now that it's been done. Bellevue Naturals are really good at addressing micro infestations of noxious weeds. So these are the locations that we've tackled over the last few years in Lewis Creek Park. These are spots that would not rise to the level of putting a crew out there for an entire day. But again, we're on that lower end of the curve. So we're able to make a huge difference by taking care of it now rather than in 10 years when the infestation has gotten out of control. They've worked on everything from English ivy to Yellow Archangel, Wisteria, and they've done amazing work that builds upon itself year over year, project after project. This is an example of Lewis Creek near Lakemont Boulevard Southeast. This is a multifloral rose that came about. I'm not sure if it was planted or if it escaped back before this was a park. There was a home just up the hill, and all sorts of noxious weeds find their way out of older homes. And this is a great example of – I think the naturalists did – three years now of follow-up projects just to get that very small infestation gone and This is another area in Lewis Creek where Bellevue Naturalist did at least five days of hand pulling of a plant called Yellow Archangel. Then we followed up with a different volunteer group, an Eagle Scout project to install a weed barrier and arborist chips and woody debris so that any remaining plants wouldn't take back over into the park. And they did a great job too. Another project I wanted to highlight, sometimes naturalists will approach us with something they want to do in our park system. And we've done several projects that way. And this is a project that's happening right now by a volunteer at our Odle Trail property. So this volunteer did just an amazing job removing, doing kind of some pretty backlogged maintenance on previous native planting and removing English ivy. So... Very narrow open space. But there's the before. There's the after. She's installed native plants. She's watering them, putting wood chips around them, deer exclusion cages, working with me for a follow-up pesticide application, working with our staff to trim trees. Just really a good job. Here's another before. It's just a huge amount of English ivy coming from adjacent properties and after. And it's hard to see, but we did put in several native plants in that area as well. If you'd like to volunteer with us without doing 11 weeks of training, we host Stewardship Saturday work parties year-round, and we go every other month between a forest management project and a greenways and trail improvement project. We also host some special events, including an MLK Junior Day of Service in January, an Earth Day project where we do invasive weed removal, National Trails Day in June, and our biggest planting event of the year is our Bellevue Arbor Day project, which we host in October. This year, it'll be at Lewis Creek, building off some of the awesome work that naturalists, work parties, Eagle Scouts, corporate teams, nonprofits have done out there volunteering. And I want to just very quickly recognize Stefan and Rowena, who are volunteers who I've had the pleasure of working with several times each for multiple years, in Rowena's case. And they're great examples of the kind of quality, amazing people that we get to work with as volunteers. And I'll end by saying the Lorax failed um to achieve his goals when he showed the onesler the environmental degradation that was happening over harvest of resources, fish and wildlife habitat gone, air pollution, water degradation. But what did succeed was he put the tools of conservation in his hand, a seed, whatever that is. That's a shovel, that's a wheelbarrow, that's gloves and buckets. And ordinary people can do really good work for conservation in our park system. Really excited to take questions from y'all.

Thank you so much for the presentation. Does anybody have any questions?

I don't have a question, but I really want to take a moment to appreciate the program. Thank you very much, Ranger Curtis, and actually also thank you to Chair Kleimer, because Rowena actually brought me into the program. She spread the word. I was joining the program in 2024, right after moving to Bellevue with my family, with my wife and two kids. And it was just the perfect introduction into Bellevue's parks, trails and restoration efforts. And I think what makes the program especially valuable is that you can learn directly from experts in their field. So obviously, rangers like Curtis, but also Birdos. Or I remember we had a professor of geology talking to us. So that was really fantastic. And I keep on meeting with participants. And many of them, they are passionate hikers and many of them also are long-term residents of Bellevue, so they know the trails and the parks. But I think what brings the whole program to another level is to get this insight from people like Ranger Curtis. and people that are very passionate about what they are doing. And yeah, it's just fantastic to see also the before and after pictures of Weona Park, of Lewis Creek Park. And it's always a powerful reminder how strong community involvement is. And I'm very lucky to be still part of it as a volunteer. And yeah, a big thank you to you, Curtis, to all Rangers of Bellevue, to all people who make this program possible. It's absolutely fantastic. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else? So also, thank you so much. I benefit from many of these projects. But one of the benefits that I get that you didn't highlight is that knock-on effect that you mentioned. I know near Phantom Lake Elementary, there's a huge restoration project going on. I don't know if you've seen it, behind the school in the soccer field.

I'd have to look. Yeah. Yeah.

in just like five years so um i see the effects every single day that i'm out in the parks and really appreciate it i think yeah i don't really have any questions i do have a quasi suggestion which is how can we get like more people involved and to be aware of the work that volunteers are doing because i think if people could see each time not just the sign like restorations in progress, but volunteers did this, someone like you, and you could do it too. We could get even more people involved and that would be exciting. So we'd love to learn more about that outreach activities that you do.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm going to ponder that. One thing we've tried to do better is utilize social media to really brag about our volunteers and show these kind of before and after pictures, these kind of hard-hitting projects that we like to put on them. So I'm going to think about your comment just now, though.

Meredith? Thank you, Curtis. Can you talk a little bit about data collection in terms of tracking volunteer hours and if there's opportunity there or if you already do kind of value number of volunteer hours and how that may be reported out.

Yeah, there's two kinds of parts to that. We do track that. So every volunteer program, and it's worth mentioning that Bellevue Parks has kind of a What's the best word? Individuated volunteer program. So decentralized. Thank you. I made up a word and yours is better. So the volunteers at Kelsey Creek Farm are going to operate, train differently. We have some department-wide standards that we all meet around background checks, but all of our volunteers are collecting that piece of data. So number of volunteers that we work with and the number of hours. That's one measure, but it doesn't really tell you what you're accomplishing. And so we've tried it different ways. And this year, we've started, for every volunteer project, tracking volunteer outcomes as well. And so we had a project this morning with Naturalist in Lewis Creek Park. And we said, OK, this project did approximately 150 square feet of noxious weed removal. We're going to track that over the year. So, yes, we track number of volunteers, number of hours. We make an estimate of their financial value to the city based on some standardized kind of industry-wide estimates, which is pretty high. It's worth remembering that volunteers in this area, this is, you know, People are doing this instead of something else and often are highly paid folks in their regular jobs too, right? So I think it's over $30 an hour now that we say goes with our volunteer labor. So we, yeah, we do track those and we're trying to do a much better job tracking outcomes of their work and not just how much they did. So I hope that answers your question.

Well, thank you, Ranger Curtis, for the presentation. I also appreciate that you are wearing your ranger outfit for the presentation. And then I'm proud that two out of the seven board members are naturalist graduates, right? You and Rowena. Yeah. So yeah, thank you both. So I have like two questions. One, I noticed on the front slide, you had CWB on your title. I wonder what that means. And I remember when I was a kid, I always loved meeting park rangers. And then, you know, as a mom, I remember taking my kids to national parks and their eyes just lit up whenever they meet a park ranger. So I'm always curious. Like, how does someone become a park ranger? Like, what kind of training and the background you would need, and how long you been with Bellevue? And my second question is about the volunteer program. You mentioned there are 70 active volunteers, approximately. So I'm curious, like, In order to volunteer to do these kind of projects, do you have to be a graduate of the naturalist program? That's one. And then once you graduate, how do people sign up for these projects? It sounds like you can initiate a project. That was impressive. It sounds like just one person did that before and after. But normally, how do people sign up and how often do they volunteer? So those are two questions. Thank you.

I'm going to try and hit all those for you. Okay. The first one is the easiest. CWB stands for Certified Wildlife Biologist. My background is in wildlife science. I recently, maybe two years ago, got my certified wildlife credential through the Wildlife Society. So those are people who meet a certain educational standard and have... at least five years of experience in wildlife work. So that's what CWB stands for. Let's see. Boy, there were several. Okay. How do our volunteers... How do you become a park ranger? No idea. No, I... There's different routes into it, and you can kind of think of park rangers as two main people. Let's say you go to Mount Rainier and there's one person that wants to show you the wildflower, and then there's one person that has handcuffs and a rifle, right? And those are very different tracks. One is definitely a law enforcement track, and it depends on if you're... If you're interested in doing it for federal government, state government. And then there's also a park ranger who wants to show you the flower, and that's kind of more what we do. And you can get into that any number of ways, from wildlife science, forestry. One of our park rangers studied... environmental interpretation. So that's how do you interpret the natural world to people who don't speak the language of nature. So there's different ways to get in it. I'm sorry to say, I get asked that all the time and I don't know the best way. Okay. Other questions. How do they sign up for these volunteer projects? Yeah. Okay. We have different kinds of projects. So the Stewardship Saturday projects, anybody can do those. The special events, anybody can sign up for those. We have a website. It uses Salesforce and an online calendar. So you can sign up without having to create an account. The Bellevue Naturalists get a monthly newsletter that has like, maybe there's some news that I think will be interesting to them, like a new park is accepting comments or an open house on it or whatever. And we literally list all of the opportunities out for them. And it gives instructions on how to sign up for all of those opportunities. And so like the We Own a Park project, We do constrain only Bellevue naturalists. We want... and I'll go somewhere with this too. There's a lot, there's no right way to do this, but there's a lot of ways that it can go wrong. And Bellevue naturalists have that training. They know their native plants. They know their exotic plants. They know the importance of properly decontaminating the seeds out of their boots and their backpacks. They know about the safety considerations. And we, so for that project and some like it, we do constrain to the naturalists. Some projects, when we work with our volunteers, either they're going to be background checked or they're going to be directly supervised by staff in a setting not exposing them to youth or vulnerable adults. So a naturalist working at Odle Trail on their own time needs to be background checked. And so the Bellevue Naturalist Program is a good vehicle to know that we have the training, we have the safety infrastructure, and we have the background check for the volunteer to complete that task right. We'll scope our projects for those one-time stewardship Saturdays or an Eagle Scout project regularly. differently to meet the needs of that group. And Eagle Scout is going to be similarly scoped differently to meet the needs of what scouting wants and the amount of time that they want to put into that. And boy, I feel like there was one more question that I didn't hit. Okay.

Thank you so much. I learned a lot.

I do. I do have a follow up question. So if let's say I want to be a volunteer and, and I don't know where to find information. Is there a I'm sure there are there are websites and social media, maybe you can point us point out locations where I can find this information.

Yeah, I think what I generally tell folks is check out our website because all of those different decentralized programs are going to be listed there. It's going to say generally what the volunteers in that program do, what the application period or process looks like, if background checks are required or not, and a staff contact, and it will give you that information. So if you're interested in this program over that program, it will have the information on how to do that. So that's always the first thing that I recommend. We get this question a lot, especially right around the end of, right before summer, we get a lot of parents asking about where can my kid get 40 hours of community service? And boy, the time is maybe a couple months ago. But yeah, and I'd say our website is absolutely the best way to do it. And you can see what the requirements are for those individual programs.

Thank you.

Oh, no, I'm just, I know Rona hasn't gone.

Okay, go ahead, Romina, then I'll go next.

Okay. Oh. Rona, do you have any comments or questions? I know you have a hand raised.

Oh, yeah, thanks. I was gonna chime in like Stefan as a Bellevue Naturalist program volunteer. Thank you so much Ranger Curtis for your presentation and for showing everyone the variety of work the Bellevue Naturalist volunteers do. I wanted to share with everyone. So I began the program in 2022, not long after I moved into Bellevue and I'm so grateful I've been part of the program. It's been an awesome way for me to meet friends like Stefan It's been a conduit to help me learn about other opportunities in the city, like the parks board opening that I stepped foot in. And it's been a fun way to continuously learn about the local ecology, geology, and history of the people that's inhabited this land. And it's definitely the staff and rangers like Ranger Curtis that make this program so effective, safe, fun, and educational. They always make sure safety is the first priority. They remind us to take water breaks and they'll stop a works or they'll cancel a work project if it's dangerously windy or there's thunder that day. For every volunteer I've ever vetted, they've always made sure we've had the right equipment we need to work effectively and safely. And the rangers, like Ranger Curtis, they're so knowledgeable. So it's fun to be on the work site doing our project and then learning about some of the plants and animals we might run across from the rangers. I wanted to mention that after every volunteer opportunity, I always see the other volunteers, like no matter if they're a bit muddy or have a few twigs in their hair, they always leave with a sense of pride of their work, a smile and a desire to come back. And I think it's because the rangers do an amazing job showing us the impact of our work, explaining what our work has done, whether it's to help wildlife, stop the spread of invasive plants, and do our part against climate change. So yeah, I wanted to say thank you Ranger Curtis and the whole Bellevue Naturalist team for incredible work managing this program, purting us volunteers, recruiting and teaching new volunteers, and yeah, doing an overall amazing job keeping our parks beautiful, safe, and resilient for the future. So thank you.

Thank you Rowena.

Thank you, Chair Klima. Elizabeth?

Thank you. I thought of one more question as we were speaking. So I may or may not have at one time pulled out some rogue foxglove, which, you know, is an invasive species, like out of the parks. And that probably wasn't a big deal. But do you encounter, let's say, like non-sanctioned volunteers taking it upon themselves to improve the parks, especially where there are obvious weeds? And what's our approach to that?

That's a really good question. And I think my approach is to be accessible and start a conversation. A park ranger that is only at their desk is not a great park ranger. So I try and get out into our parks a lot. And we do see that sometimes. It's actually more planting. They've decided to go plant something on their own. I'll give one example where we had a memorial bench at one of our parks where the park the person who had donated for the bench was planting non-native plants around it. And boy, that's complicated because there's a, there's a lot of, there's a lot of emotion there. Um, we were able to work with that guest, um, to remove those plants. Um, and we planted some native trees, uh, to commemorate that, that, uh, person that had, that had passed away. Um, I think maybe a bigger thing thing that I'd like to highlight. Our naturalists are always saying, but let me add them, coach. Let me go out there and let me get them. And we're always trying to pull it back to this, let's have our plan. Let's have our ongoing unified project. Because you can go, and let's say you did it perfectly. And you removed a 10 by 10 section of English ivy from a bit of forest. If that's all you did, it's going to be a short-lived restoration. And so we're always trying to encourage to work within this system because we can have, in the same way that there's multiplicative effects from these negative things in our forest, we can have a much greater impact. if we have a sustained, repeated, multi-year, thoughtful, integrated approach to restoration. And sometimes that means our volunteers will literally be walking by English ivy for five minutes on their way to go pull English ivy. And that's a hard thing to do. But I like to have a long conversation about, let's focus our efforts. removing non-native plants, um, like there's a lot of considerations there. Like some plants, like let's say you go chop down a Holly tree. It's not going to kill it. It's going to encourage it to, to sucker. And instead of one tree, you're going to have 50. Um, Removing plants and disturbing the soil this time of the year, there's quite a lot of weedy seeds floating around, so we can do more harm than good. If we disturb the soil right next to a bunch of wall lettuce and nipplewort, we're actually gonna just plant that other non-native plant right next to it. So having those conversations about, hey, your heart's in the right place, we'd love to have you be part of our formal efforts. um, this is maybe something you didn't think of, um, that, that we, you know, we first want to do no harm to the ecosystem and, um, you can actually do some harm, um, if it's not done in, in the way that, uh, according to the best practices. So I hope that answers the question. Yeah.

Thank you. Anyone else have any questions, comments? Um, I'll, I'll go myself. First off, thank you again. What a wonderful presentation. I haven't been able to join the program, but I have attended some of the stewardship days. I did one with Rowena. It was very fun, regardless of getting wet and muddy or full of twigs and plants and all things. I really also appreciated how, you know, you're explaining how early stewardship can prevent, right, like much larger efforts down the road. So that's kind of, again, one of the biggest value propositions. My question is around, you know, right sizing, like what is the right park ranger for us? What is the right volunteer for us? And, you know, how do we look at, you know, as our parks areas grow or, depending on their situations in terms of what's happening and how those issues would develop over time. Like, you know, do we see opportunities or the need to expand the program, increase volunteers, increase ranger staff? Like, what are your thoughts on current capacity and future projected needed capacity?

I'm not sure the propriety of me saying we should have more rangers, but I wouldn't.

You have the mic on.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I think that staff is a big limiting factor in the ability to expand this. Maybe more than financial resources. There's a lot of logistics in this. I think that given the staff that we have, the resources that we have, the projects that we're running, we're at a pretty good level. And we have to keep in mind the safety of the volunteers, those constraints are. I guess I don't have a great, I guess I'm kind of interpreting your question as how can we expand this? Or maybe not. Yeah, yeah.

Because again, I think a volunteer force means that we don't need additional budget to invest in, you know, paid staff to then go fix and clean up some of those issues, right? So ultimately, it would be in the best interest if you can grow a bigger volunteer workforce to support more restorations and projects, why wouldn't you?

Yeah, I think the interaction between staff and volunteers, though, is critical. I've heard people ask me about this. Can't we just have the volunteers do it, right? Yeah. The ability of the staff to work with them is absolutely crucial. And it goes beyond just, oh, let me buy plants. It's meeting volunteers. It's training volunteers. It's erosion control, irrigation, maintenance with mechanized equipment. So I think I would actually say if this was to be expanded, you would probably need a larger staff footprint.

Agreed. Yeah. And again, I just want to point out the obvious that it's an annual program. There's very limited amounts of spots to get into the naturalist program, right? And again, 11 weeks worth of course in content. So those are the limiting factors, right? Of course, to bring in more cohorts and expand.

Yeah. We've been very... lucky to be able to, I can't think of a time where we've had to turn down a Bellevue resident for the program. We do turn, I mean, like I said previously, turn down residents of other cities. And that depends on the year and what the applicant pool looks like. But yeah, yeah. I think that the ability of staff to work with volunteers so that you have a safe and efficacious product volunteer work product is is just crucial and um i don't really know how eloquently i to answer it beyond that um yeah i think expanding would require and and remember our forest management team does much more than just forest restoration projects they do boundary inspection they do hazard tree work um they do they they work with contractors they they do a lot of stuff and um i think if you wanted to do more of this you would probably need more of them

Yeah. And so when I first moved to Bellevue, this is, we live in a single family home, but it's the first time, you know, I've lived in a home with, with land or property or any place that the plants could grow. I do think that, you know, the, you know, our our garden, Bellevue Garden offers some courses, but I think there's a nice little blend of, you know, how do you learn how to maintain your own land, learn about weeds? You know, there's so much property within private property here. We could probably do so much more to like get out there and have people properly take care of their spaces and then also save hopefully on expensive landscaping restoration in your home. So I do wonder if there's some more beginner or entry level, like how can folks like start kind of practicing the right practices in a smaller scale? Yeah.

I would say one of the things we do with our naturalists is they get volunteer hour credit for continuing education. And we kind of curate a list every month of some of these online workshops, in-person workshops, where you can learn that. And some of those are through the city of Bellevue. Some of them are with our partners, like the Washington State University Master Gardener Association. They do a lot of workshops like this. Some of them are with the King Conservation District. And so there's actually quite a lot of... education, and even in some cases, financial assistance for homeowners who want to do conservation minded action on their property. That would include plantings, soil testing, wildfire risk reduction. There's a lot in our area that folks can take advantage of not beyond just our program, too.

So thank you so much. Just one more. How many park rangers do we have in the city? And then I think I was thinking, you said about 241 graduates of the naturalist program since 2010, and then 70 active. So we about like, what, 25% retention rate. So on average, you know, how many years of how many years, I guess, do the graduates volunteer before they start kind of phase out? I'm just curious.

Yeah, that's a good question. So the first one is we have three full-time park rangers. We have three PBE variable park rangers that do staffing and environmental programming at our three visitor center sites. What's PBE? Partially Benefited Employees. So they work under a certain threshold. Okay. And then we also hire between five and seven, depending on the year, summer park patrol rangers. And they patrol our parks. They lock gates. They report, you know, people having bonfires at a beach park. They... They do park rules, education, work with Bellevue Police Department when needed. They do that during the busiest summer months. So three full-time, three PBEs, and a summer park patrol program. I'm so sorry, my brain reset. What was the second half?

We have 70 active and 241 graduates. So I was thinking like about 25% retention. I'm just curious, like how many years on average do they usually volunteer before they start?

Yeah, it's an interesting question. And that number is a little misleading because people move, people pass away, people's moms and children and fathers and people get sick. People start new careers, people's child situations, people's lives change. And I'd say a lot of it is that that you're seeing there. Yeah. It almost comes down more to the individual volunteers that a certain proportion of them are going to volunteer continuously for multiple years. And some people, maybe a third of them will go for hundreds of hours. Um, I, I don't have good numbers in front of me, but lots of volunteers volunteer for many, many years. And some of them we kind of just get for the, uh, educational 11 weeks and that's okay too. People's lives are, they are what they are. So, um, I, I don't have any good numbers for you on that, but people volunteer for many years when they're into it. Yeah.

Thank you so much, Park Ranger Curtis. Really appreciate your time here presenting. Clearly we have a very interested parks board and we appreciate your program so much.

Well, I will take you to any of the sites we talked about. If that's something y'all want to do, I will show you plants and animals and yeah.

All right. Hold you to it. Thank you so much. Okay, moving on to our next agenda topic. Well, we will discuss and review and approve, hopefully, our 2027 to 2032 CIP budget recommendations in our memo to Council. Okay.

Thank you. So just to recap some of our process along the way, this is the third of three meetings that the Board has had on this subject, going back to April. where we had an initial presentation on the budget process and kind of the budget product, as well as an in-depth overview of all the current capital CIP projects that are underway. We got back together at the offsite in June, talked a little bit more about projects, and then got into some of the discussion about themes and messages to include within the letter. So between that meeting and tonight and what was included in your packet this evening is that draft. After the June meeting, staff took what we heard at the April and June meetings and crafted a draft letter that we then shared with the chair and vice chair so they had a chance to see that initial draft and provide some feedback And that's the version that was published in the packet this evening. So the process from here forward would be some discussion about the draft letter itself. Would love to get some feedback from you all on the content just to hear if we did a good job of hitting the the marks of some of the messages and points that you wanted to include. And then this is an action item. So after you've had a chance for everyone to sort of talk about it, ask any questions you want, provide feedback, there is in the cover memo that came with the letter two options for the action for the board. If y'all are sort of content with the way it's presented, there is a motion to approve the letter as presented. If we make some modifications, and especially if there's anything we need a little more time to work on, we'll get a good sense of what that change is. Make sure that making that change is, there's a consensus around wanting to make that change. And then staff would work with, you'll sort of delegate changes the chair, the ability to work with staff to finalize the memo, and then they would transfer on to the city council after that. So that's the, if we're in that situation, there's a second motion language there in the cover memo that we can use for that. So just to quickly summarize the letter itself, Kind of the key at the beginning and end of the letter is the kind of the overall board recommendation that the city council adopt and fully fund the 2027 to 2020 through 2032 parks and community services capital improvement program. And then we started getting into the kind of the rationale behind that with the theme that the board suggested around parks within reach. and built on that in the different sections have mentioned about some of the underlying principles and policies that are set forth both in our parks and open space system plan in terms of the projects that support implementation of that document that both the board and the city council took part in updating back in 2022. Um, as well as commitments, uh, that have been made in both the 2008 and 2022 parks levy programs as well. A lot of that drives what's in the current budget recommendations. Um, reasonings that were, um, I do have to thank the board for the, um, great amount of content that we had in terms of themes, um, around, uh, making connections within the community. increasing accessibility to parks and trails, focusing on parks and underserved neighborhoods and in growing urban neighborhoods as well, and connecting people to nature and water. All of those themes and messages we tried to capture in the draft as well. So with that, I'll open it up to any questions you may have or any discussion you'd like to have around the content in the letter and we can take it from there.

Okay. I'd love to start. I have just a quick statement and then love to hear if anybody else, you know, what are your thoughts on the memo? Do you like how it's written? Do you have any substantial or minor changes? Just love to hear. From my end, I just want to start by saying thank you to the staff for helping put this together. I support the memo as written and I think it does an excellent job of reflecting the board's discussion in our last retreat. I currently don't have any changes to recommend. I just want to share briefly why I'm supportive. I really appreciate the emphasis on parks as essential infrastructure. As Bellevue continues to grow, our parks and recreation system needs to grow alongside it to ensure residents continue to have access to nature, recreation, and community spaces. I also like that the memo focuses on broader outcomes, access, connectivity, stewardship, and maintaining our commitment rather than individual projects. I think it presents a balanced long-term vision that aligns well with Bellevue's goal of being a city and a park.

Thank you.

Anyone else would like to go next? We'll go. Thank you. I agree with you, Chair Valverde. I really appreciate this letter. I feel it reflects at least everything that I remember us discussing and the contributions of the Parks Board. So I also plan to vote yes in presenting the letter as written. What I especially appreciate is the focus on access, access for underserved neighborhoods, underserved people and people with disabilities. uh, all abilities, connecting people to nature, access to water. We again, uh, underline the, um, Elizabeth Hultman, The aquatic Center as a Center for water safety and equitable access it's critical that we have that. Elizabeth Hultman, Continued support for this expensive project as we try to hold the line so really appreciate all of those and I also appreciate the the connection across the Community connection to nature and connection connecting different people. Elizabeth Hultman, So thank you for that.

Thank you Elizabeth. Anyone else ready to comment? Steve?

Sure, I can make a comment. Again, I also support this letter, and I do want to emphasize that I thought it was important to talk about that we are, or the city is making a commitment to follow what the communities have voted for, right? So there's a commitment to maintain public trust, ensure that the city's parks are safe, welcoming, and maintain its high quality services. I think that's very important. And also stressing how we are identifying voter-approved levy investments, and we're executing on those items. And essentially, the city is being good stewards to the funds that are being used. Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Jalene, go ahead. Yeah, thank you, Chair and Vice Chair and staff for putting together this letter. I think overall, it's a great letter and a great update to the Council. I do have a couple comments. I wonder, I think maybe mainly two. One, I'm wondering if would be I don't even know if we have this kind of a goal or stats like it will be more powerful to add some measurable goals for the all the way to 2032 like we in the letter we mentioned like trails are currently used by 80% of Bellevue residents. we talked about 12% of shoreline is publicly accessible. So I'm wondering with all these capital improvement programs, are we looking at, say, 85% of trail access? Is that some goals that we wanted to achieve? And then maybe is, I don't know, 20% of the shoreline will be accessible by 2032 like some kind of goals that we are trying to target because it's kind of talked about these numbers and in the current letter like what we currently are at so i'm just curious if that's something that the city has um And then the other comment I have is, you know, when I just read it all holistically, it felt a bit heavier on the park system. And, I mean, we have a paragraph talking about the community services portion where we talked about kind of the emergent sports, off-leash area, and then the... kind of enhanced access for culturally relevant gathering and recreation spaces i'm just curious if there are any other content we could add to kind of bring a little more weight to the community services area because it reads like more maybe 90 it's all around the park system and so that's another kind of i'm just wondering if there's something we could add if there's any about again, what are our targets and strategic goals. So those are my main two comments. But yeah, overall, I think it's it's great. Thank you for putting all the effort. Yeah, thanks.

I think for your for the second comment around the kind of the weight of the letter, more on park system. I think that that is just a reflection of the recommendation is focused on the capital project program, which doesn't reflect the department of the entire or the budget of the entire department. But for our capital improvements, they do tend to be more focused in the design and development of features within the park. So that's probably the reason it feels that way. way there in terms of just finding other more quantifiable measures that is probably if there was interest in the board as a whole is probably something we could go back and see where we could sprinkle in a few more of those.

So, Eileen, thank you. Great, great questions and comments. As you were talking about goals, I was thinking, I forgot to mention, I did see additional metrics or I would say quantitative pieces of evidence and motivation in the letter. I wonder if it is the right place for us to put specific targets, because as a board, we don't decide on how to achieve those targets. We can advise and definitely appreciate any additional quantitative information we have. But if we were to commit to the city through this letter on specific targets, would we as a board have the levers we need to make sure that happens? I kind of feel like we defer to our parks department to achieve those goals. So If we were to add anything to the letter, I would prefer that we add achieving our measurable goals as stated in, and then whatever those specific plans were, because I think those are really carefully crafted to be achievable, um, within the scope of the program, if that makes sense. And I don't want to invent any new goals, especially as we're, we don't have the budget yet. We're just making a recommendation.

Yeah, I mean, definitely agree. I don't think we need to invent goals. I was more curious, like if there are already goals that the city is trying to achieve, I think it could potentially make the letter more powerful for stating those goals. that's just my comment but if it's something like we are still defining the goals and i think it's perfectly fine like elizabeth you're saying maybe we could just add something to the effect that there will be goals defined and the uh the the cip will I mean, to be defined as maybe a future state and those goals are being will be measured against. I think that adds to Steve's comments about that public accountability with the community. So thanks.

Just a quick question, Cameron. So ultimately, looking through the memo and trying to find, you know, additional data points or goals to intersperse, like would you consider that a significant change, right? We need to revisit a little bit and kind of look through.

I think that would fall into that category of if the board as a whole wanted to have that content added, we would sort of note and have that definition of what we're adding and Staff would go back, incorporate that, and then work with the chair to make sure that it falls in line with what has been discussed in terms of the direction the board gave. Wouldn't have to come back to the full board again.

Correct. Okay. So I just want to track this proposal for us to consider if we wanted to agree to it and make the change. How about you, Stefan?

Yes, thank you, Cameron, and to the whole staff for putting this together. I'm very much in favor for it because it reflects really nicely the overall idea of access and connectivity. I agree with you, Michelle, that... it is very important to mention that parks are essential public critical infrastructure rather than just optional amenities. And what I find also important, and it's good that it's included here, is that the proposed investments, they recognize both the importance of, let's say, urban parks and the natural areas. And I was just wondering if, It is useful to include a couple sentences about how this balance is created, how, let's say, this trade-off and decision-making is done, where the investments go, where the investments are prioritized, if it's the urban parks and the waterfronts or creating new places like this. on the one hand, and on the other hand, to invest in the restoration of existing habitats?

I think thinking back in past letters, the board has done something like that in terms of how each is presented or sort of the order. without necessarily ranking or prioritizing, but just structuring the letter in a way where it's kind of the elements that the board felt maybe had a little bit more weight came first.

Thanks.

Rowena?

Oh, sorry. I feel like everyone has really great questions about things we could add to the letter. Maybe it'd be helpful. Cameron, can you describe when this letter is delivered to council? From my understanding, it's accompanied with a presentation like what? Yeah, maybe recap the additional materials a council member would receive upon receipt of the memo.

So this memo does get packaged along with lots of other materials on the overall proposed city budget that will come from the city manager in September, be sort of transmitted to the council. OTHER CITY BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS ARE DOING SIMILAR PROCESSES FOR TRANSPORTATION, UTILITIES, ARTS. SO THIS WILL BE PACKAGED WITH THOSE AS WELL. THERE HAS NOT IN THE PAST BEEN A PRESENTATION THAT REQUIRED THE BOARD NECESSARILY. AND THAT PROCESS CAN CHANGE FROM BUDGET CYCLE TO BUDGET CYCLE. Typically, as the council is working its way through all of the budgets, they will go sort of topically through the whole city budget. So they will have a time and a council meeting that will focus more on parks and community services and or a grouping of departments. But we haven't necessarily needed to include the board in any presentation at that point.

Okay, yeah, just wanted to see that what other materials they get alongside it. So because everyone has some great ideas of things to add, but then if it's already added as like a supplemental doc, maybe it's not as necessary. So just a thought or question I had for everyone.

And they will see a lot of the same type of information that we sort of worked through in terms of the overall Parks and Community Services CIP portfolio and the four programs that we have and the projects within those programs. So that will probably be the main bulk of the information they have. And then they'll have the board's letter to sort of help guide and point them and shine spotlights on certain parts of that CIP program.

Thank you, Cameron.

Thank you, everyone. So I think what I'd like to do is go through the two different recommendations for changes that I think I heard. during the comments and then come to a consensus on whether we agree that it's worth revisiting and just making some edits for those comments in particular. So the first one was just around looking at the data points, trying to add some more goal-oriented language, like tying some of the proposals to you know, X improvement hopes to improve access to parks within a third. I don't know what, what our goal is like quarter of a mile walking distance to buy X percent, right? Like ultimately I think that's the idea to look at some of the metrics that have been presented. And if there are more things to tie it to some of the parks and rec schools, we would want to do that. Is that a correct interpretation? Yes. Any questions from board members? I'd love to, I don't know if we need to call a vote for it, but I'd love to hear if anybody disagrees with that maybe. Okay. So all in favor of let's go put some numbers or look at this one more time.

I would say I don't disagree in terms of it being a suggestion, but I'm definitely on the fence. I could absolutely recommend the letter as is just given the purpose of the letter is to emphasize the thematic areas versus to provide a strategic plan to counsel. So I would just put that out there as a potential way to interpret the letter. I completely agree, Eileen, with the way you're thinking about it. But whether we need to put that in a letter to council or not, I'm neutral. So I won't vote against it if that's what we propose. But I would vote either way.

Thank you. And again, thinking about our process when we go revisit the memo again, again, we'll interpret that to the best of our ability and add in what we think or not think. And I don't think we're going to go in and put numbers in every sentence and kind of make it a numbers document. So our revisions would be. We hope to keep as minimal as possible. Modest. Modest. Modest. It's a great word. Okay. We're not going to turn this and flip it and you're like, what memo did we present?

Yeah.

Okay. Anyone else on this? It sounds like we probably just want to revisit this one.

Okay.

So we're probably leaning more towards the second motion. And I believe, Stefan, your comment was just around how do we show our own kind of flavor of prioritization or the things that matter most, or if, you know, say a budget is a hundred percent and we're putting 60% on this 20%, like how do we try to subtly kind of guide the reader on where we're putting our bang for our buck basically in this plan? I think it's, we've already done that in kind of the narrative and what we're writing, but if there is any reordering or any way to emphasize that more, you know, in the writing. Let us know what you think could be done.

Yes, yes, you got that absolutely right. But I was not very focused on numbers, like say 50-50 in urban infrastructure, but more like to get an idea how... how this balance will be guaranteed. But I think Cameron mentioned already that in previous documents there was already an idea how maybe investments are prioritized or distributed.

Yeah, what I might suggest is looking at the section that is the park system within reach for all. And then we have the paragraphs that each kind of have their own, um, subheading. Um, and that might be the area where if you felt, um, you know, we put expanding access to water is at the end, but maybe that should be come, you know, closer to the beginning, or if you want to, that's kind of an easy way to reshuffle and, and give some sense of, um, weight to one topic over another. I can't say when we put the draft together, we necessarily did that with just the way that they're ordered currently. So if there was a way that the board did want to sort of alter which came first, we could, that's sort of an easy edit to make.

I would definitely love to move the, the aquatic facility and some of the water features up, up higher, if that were an option. But it's okay to transmit as is on my perspective as well. Yes, Stefan, if moving those could achieve what you're hoping for, but Otherwise, it sounded to me like he was maybe you're looking for some explanation as to how. And I don't know if the memo you would explain or need to go deep into some more of the process parts of what would happen.

That was wondering if it makes sense to include that here or this is. It's clear that it's very broad where the investments go. Everything is covered very nicely. And I was just wondering if it is necessary to explain how this kind of balance, how the decision-making process is, but maybe that is not part of it.

So if it was more to the public, I would want to explain that. But yeah, maybe because...

All right, no, but thanks for the explanation. So I don't think it has to.

Make sure we're covering you. So it just sounds to be about the data enhancement so far.

Did you want to move the water access up, expanding access to water? Upward since in the past, we have put the emphasis on things that come first. So I remember we talked about this before. If it's going on our list, this is something that we intend for council to prioritize. It doesn't mean like first, second, third, but still it gives it more emphasis, um, I do like leading with the people who are traditionally underserved personally, but putting water up there I think also makes sense because those are the same people who will benefit from the public pool where we don't have any truly public pools in Bellevue when the current one expires.

Okay, sounds like we have a second on that idea. Would there be any opposition to moving our water investments to kind of the top three position where it's being called out?

Sorry, you mean move the expanding access to water to... Like the second or third slot, yeah. Increase, like increasing access to underserved neighborhoods still first. And then the second one would be expanding access to water And then third will be the bridging. So basically just insert that between the first and second. Okay. Sounds about right.

Yeah. Okay. No opposition. Okay. So far moving water second and topics and then the data point enhancement.

I do have one additional thought, not a recommendation, but brainstorming since we're prioritizing. One thing that I noticed, so the main the main, I guess the bold point is a park system within reach for all, right? And then you go into increasing access in underserved neighborhoods, bridging gap and growing urban centers, and then connecting people of all abilities. For me, when I was reading that, even though it's not priority, but for me, I would... think we might be able to merge connecting people abilities with increasing access in underserved neighborhoods. They are similar, but slightly different. And also connecting people abilities. There's a reference of You know, at the very end talks about the board recommends continuing funding for barrier barrier removal through the renovation renewal programs and major accessibility improvements at kelsey creek farm through waterfront destination part programs so. i'm not sure whether that is something that we want to consider merging those two bullet points. Or if they are separate enough, I'm fine with that too.

I've talked a lot on the memo, but I'll just chime in. I hear what you're saying. I think there's a connection, but I would keep it separate, especially because people of all abilities are distributed throughout Bellevue, especially if we think about a lot of people with disabilities are aging. So it really is two different types of interventions that I think of. One is about getting the parks spread out, making sure they're spread throughout the city. And the other one is making sure that those are available to different abilities of people and I think it's important just to call out people who don't have, who have different abilities specifically, because if we don't call them out, we know from the America's Americans with Disabilities Act, then they, they simply do not get those services. Um, so by prior, by calling both out, we have the opportunity to prioritize both and projects for both of them instead of folding it in. That's yeah. Yeah, but yeah, I would like connecting people of all abilities to be separate. I would not be opposed to combining some of the other ones if we felt there's too many bullet points still.

Any other comments? Okay, so I'd love for us to move towards a motion to approve and what we're going to approve. So ultimately, what we're going to do is we're going to approve this draft letter subject to specific agreed upon changes. So, so far, the specific agreed upon changes have been data point, numerical quantitative enhancement, moving water, up although i know now there's potentially a debate about keeping the top three together as a theme and then you know i think we'll take that back and talk about that between ourselves a little bit more and then potentially do we have too many bullet points is there any opportunity for consolidation would we take it open ended and the answer could be no we do not take it right right

We good with that? Yeah. I mean, I personally felt there's six bullet points. I think it's fine. I mean, if you want to consolidate, maybe. Yeah, or we might not. But otherwise, six, I didn't think was too many. Yeah. And I think the way it's broken up, I think I have no issues, but I'm okay with if you want to move water up.

Okay. So those are kind of the three specific agreed upon changes. I think the idea is that we're not going to go back and make other changes that we didn't discuss and surprise the board with something completely different.

Okay.

With those three in mind, can I have a motion to approve and transmit to the City Council the 2027 to 2032 Capital Investment Program Budget Memorandum substantially as presented with adjustments discussed by the Board and final approval delegated to the Chair?

So moved and thank you.

Okay.

Any second?

Second.

Okay. All right. Let's vote. All in favor to approve the motion, say aye. Any opposed, say no.

Aye.

Thank you, Rona. The final approved letter will be distributed. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. What's the outcome? The vote was unanimous. All okay. Yeah. State the outcome of the motion. The outcome was we all agreed unanimously to send and approve this letter to be distributed by the board to city council. Okay. Great. We good with this agenda topic? Excellent. All right. Final topic. Very exciting. Board elections. Cameron, can you help us describe the nomination and election process that we will use for this?

Yes, thank you. So we do this once a year for the two leadership positions on the board, the chair and vice chair. Um, the process is a little, uh, slightly different than sort of the usual, um, making motions and seconds. So I'll sort of walk through, um, the process. So it's all clear before we get started, um, with, um, the vice chair as the presiding officer, um, the presiding officer opens a nomination period. So the nomination period will be, um, sort of verbally opened. Any board member present, so any of the six can nominate any other board member, including themselves. There does not need to be a second. So if any nomination is written down, we take the nominations in order as they're nominated. So we'll write down the list of everyone who's nominated in order. The presiding officer will ask if someone is nominated, if they will accept the nomination. That's sort of a key element. So we always want to have people installed that are willing and able. So we'll take a moment to make sure that anybody who's nominated is willing to accept that nomination. Then the nomination period is then closed, and then we have our list of nominees. Uh, the voting then starts, uh, starting with the first person on that list. So the first person who was nominated, um, will see if, if that person receives a majority of the votes, then they are elected to that position. Um, and that concludes the election. We don't continue onto the list. Um, if the first person, um, does not receive enough votes to be elected, then we move on to the next person on the list. Um, vote for that individual and sort of keep working our way down until, uh, someone on the nominations list is elected. Um, we will then, uh, so we'll start with the chair, go through that process, um, and that, and then we'll start the process over again for the vice chair position after that, using the same process.

Um, any questions before we begin?

All right. So with that, I'll turn it back over to the Vice Chair and we can start the nominations.

All right. We will start the nominations for Chair. So nominations are now in order for the Office of Parks and Community Services Board Chair. So I will now allow time for any and all nominations. Yes.

So I would like to nominate Rowena for a third term as board chair. And with that, I've actually prepared something that I'd like to speak to. So over the past two years, I believe Rowena has done an outstanding job leading our board. I have known Rowena since 2022. We first met at the Bellevue Essential class, and I also served as her vice chair the year prior, so before Michelle. So I've seen her work up close. So when I think of Rowena, I think that she's highly responsible and dependable. She's always here early for our board meeting, always prompt for our pre-meetings. I believe she's genuinely inclusive. She always makes sure that new board members are welcomed. She will do the outreach. During the meeting, she will make sure that all the voices are heard and valued. And I always see that she actively seeks feedback. just to drive continuous improvement for herself, for the board, and for the community. And in addition, I think she brings a lot of excellent insights to our discussion topics. I think I've seen that both in the pre-meetings and during our meeting. I think she's very detail-oriented, and so she would often notice things that I will miss. And on a personal note, I think you probably all know she's a very gifted gardener. If you follow her Instagram, there's all the flowers and vegetables that grow in her garden. So I always think that she brings the same... type of care and patience and just the very nurturing touch to her leadership style. So with that, I highly recommend Rowena for the board chair for the next year.

Thank you. Thank you for the nomination. Rowena, do you accept the nomination?

Yes, I'll be happy to accept the nomination of chair for the Parks and Community Services Board. Thank you for all your kind words, Eileen.

Thank you. All right. Are there any further nominations for Parks and Community Services Board Chair? Any further nominations? Hearing none, nominations are now closed. Let's move on to voting. So candidates are voted on in order of nomination. I will call for a vote in favor of Rowena Klima for board chair. All those in favor, say aye. All opposed, say nay. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

I heard no nays. So I declare Rowena Klima elected board chair. Congratulations, Rowena.

Thank you, everyone. It's been a pleasure serving you all as chair for the past two years. Thank you for your patience with me as I continuously learn Robert's rules of order and amendment rules. Yeah, and I hope, as Eileen said, I hope I'm giving you all a chance to bring your voice into discussions and make you feel empowered to give input. So reach out if there's anything I could do to help make this next year even better.

Thank you, Rana. It's awesome to have you as chair. All right, moving on to our nominations for vice chair. Nominations are now in order for the Office of Parks and Community Services Board vice chair. I will allow time for any and all nominations. I would like to ask if there is anybody who would like to nominate somebody for vice chair at this time.

Oh, I was gonna nominate someone. Can you guys hear me?

Okay, go ahead.

Oh, okay, sorry. I'd like to nominate Michelle Valverde for the role of vice chair. I really appreciate how Michelle stepped up to take on the role of vice chair this time last year. And then as presiding officer tonight, Michelle, I think you did a fabulous job leading tonight's meeting. And in general, I really appreciate all the input and comments Michelle shares in our meetings and all the good questions she asks our presenters during our board prep meetings and all the input she provides to all our documents and other memo-like projects we produce as a board. So thank you.

Thank you, Rowena. I will ask myself, I guess. I will accept. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'd love to continue. I have so much more to do. This has only been my first time helping, you know, to this degree. All right. Are there any further nominations for Parks and Community Services Board Vice Chair at this time? Hearing none, nominations are now closed. Moving to voting. Candidates are voted on in order of nomination. There's one candidate. I call for a vote. Am I allowed to do this? Yes.

OK.

I call for a vote in favor of Michelle Valverde for board vice chair. All those in favor say aye. All opposed say nay. Aye. Aye. Aye. I heard no nays. So I declare Michelle Valverde elected board vice chair. Thank you so much. I guess that concludes our board election for this year. Thank you guys. Awesome. All right. Our next agenda topic is new business. The board will not meet during the month of August. Thank you for letting me say that. The next meeting is scheduled for September 16. If anybody knows now if they need to request remote attendance, please let staff know if they're not able to attend. Does anybody? are in advance but let us know otherwise um we will not meet until this date so just email staff or message rowena or myself if there's anything happening before then that concludes new business um congratulations we've completed all the items on tonight's agenda and so i call the meeting now adjourned

Congratulations. Thank you.

Congratulations, Michelle. Congratulations, Rowena. Looking forward to continue working with you all and hope you all have a wonderful August off. Thank you so much, Council Member Breyer.

Thank you, Council Member Breyer.

Bye, folks. Feel better, Rowena.

Oh, thank you. Thanks, everyone. Have a wonderful evening.