Good evening and welcome to the January Parks and Community Services Board Meeting.

Wow, everyone's here.

We are at Quorum, and so this meeting is now called to order.

Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda?

So moved.

A second.

I second.

Ah.

Alright.

Let's vote.

All in favor to approve tonight's agenda say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say no.

The agenda is approved unanimously.

Next up is the approval of minutes from the park board's November 2025 regular meeting.

Uh is there a motion to approve the November 2025 meeting minutes.

So moved.

Is there a second?

I second.

Thank you.

Um let's vote.

All in favor to approve the November 2025 meeting minutes.

Um say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say no.

Okay.

The minutes are unanimously approved.

All right.

Next up is 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 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 are always invited to email your comments to us at parkboard at Bellevue WA.gov.

So now I'll turn it over to Ryan who will read names from the online and in-person sign-in sheets.

Alright, thank you, Chair.

We do have some pre-registered speakers this evening.

And I believe they may be coming up as a group if I understand correctly.

So okay.

I'll read off the names.

Oscar Munn, Hudson Crag, and Nihal Sarral.

Welcome to come up.

Yes.

Good evening, members of Bellevue City Parks Department.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Nahal, and I'm here to respectfully request that the City of Bellevue consider the development of an asphalt bike park within its parks and recreation system.

Bellevue is known for its commitment to high quality public spaces and active transportation.

And an asphalt bike park would align well with these priorities.

An asphalt bike park is an is a professionally designed paved riding facility that can be used by people of all ages and skill levels because it is built with asphalt.

It is usable year-round and requires less maintenance than dirt-based tracks.

It is also accessible to bikes, scooters, skateboards, and adaptive mobility devices, making it inclusive recreational option for the community.

My name is Hudson, and I would like to explain how an asphalt bike park would benefit the Bellevue community.

This type of park promotes healthy physical activity and provides a safe, positive space for youth and families.

It reduces barriers to participation by serving beginners and experienced riders in the same environment.

In addition, asphalt bike parks encourage outdoor recreation, strengthen community connections, and support Bellevue's goals from active lifestyle.

These parks can also attract visitors from neighbor neighboring cities, helping to increase positive recognition for Bellevue while adding values to local park system.

My name is Oscar Munn, and I'll be and I'll conclude by addressing the funding and long-term value.

Some examples of places that we could vote in asphalt bike park are Surrey Downs Park or Robotin Park, but there are other options we are willing to help work out.

Based on similar projects in other communities, a budget of approximately two to four million dollars would allow Belview to construct a high quality, long-lasting asphalt bike park.

A respected company for this type of project is Velo Solutions, an international leader known for designing safe, durable, and inclusive asphalt bike parks.

In closing, we respectfully encourage the Belgium City Parks Department to consider exploring this proposal further.

An asphalt bike park would be a thoughtful investment in recreation, accessibility, and community well-being.

Let us know how we can proceed to reach our goal.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you so much.

That was great work, guys.

Thanks to tell thanks for talking to us.

Thank you.

I'd love for if staff could give us an update on ashfall bike parks in the future.

All right.

Thank you.

And that's the end of our pre-registered list.

We do have some additional time and would like to provide the opportunity if anyone else uh would like to speak this evening.

So I'll offer that opportunity to anybody in the room first.

If you would like to speak, please come up.

Don't see anyone.

And we'll offer that um opportunity online as well.

If you can raise your virtual hand if you'd like to speak, please do so.

All right, don't think there's anyone else.

Turn back to you, Chair.

All right, thank you, Ryan.

Um, next on the agenda is City Council Communications.

Uh, but uh no council members were able to attend tonight.

Um, so we'll stay tuned for that for our next meeting.

And with that, the next on our agenda is director's report.

So I'll turn it over to Director Shiuzaki.

Thank you very much, Chair Klima.

So I as I think you know, this is uh hard to believe, but it is my final park board uh meeting.

Um I don't know if uh many of you know, but um when I previously had a staff job here in Bellevue many years ago, I was actually on the board of park commissioners in Seattle.

So I've also been able to sit on I'll say that uh that side of the table.

And you know, I just uh really want to thank you all.

I think sometimes people forget that you're volunteering for this.

You could be spending your evenings doing other things, but uh just really do appreciate your dedication and kind of that uh very important community perspective to the work that parks and community services does.

So important to have you kind of experts in the field, uh helping us, you know, figure out um, you know, complex parks issues, park planning issues, um, have a chance to kind of review the staff work that that goes on.

So I just really uh really just want to thank you so very much.

And um, as I think you know, you know, this is the end of my uh almost 37-year career in everything parks.

And you know, it really it's been a lot, it's been so rewarding.

Um, you know, every time I get to, you know, walk by a trail or a park that um, you know, I've had to been able to have a little role in.

It just it just kind of makes you feel good that you know you could uh you could actually have an impact and you know, hopefully uh make a difference uh long-term community.

So anyway, just uh thank you all again and uh you know, like they say, happy trails.

So uh I'll I'll all be around.

So thank you.

All right.

Um thank you, Michael.

With that, I think the board would like to make a very long toast to your amazing 37 year career with involving 400 projects with trails and natural areas and the Japanese garden in Bellevue.

So incredible.

Um, I'd like to thank uh Director Shizaki for his years of service.

It's been a delight working with you, Michael, on the board.

I really appreciate all the candid insights you gave about the inner workings of the parks and community service department during our meetings.

Uh when I first started, you gave a talk at the Bellevue Botanical Garden about your childhood, family, and passion for gardening.

And I really uh enjoyed it.

And both Paul and I were in attendance, and we were really impressed by all your gardening expert puns and jokes that honestly kind of flew a bit over our head, and the crowd loved it.

Um I know you're an outdoor, uh, an avid outdoor enthusiast and gardener.

So I hope you spend a lot of your time during retirement enjoying the outdoors and gardening.

And I hope you stay in touch and maybe give another gardening talk in the future.

Um see around the neighborhood, and I'll pass it to whoever else would like to share a few words.

Uh Paul's leaning kind of we supposed to be.

Yeah, it's a good thing.

I don't want to share your words.

Oh, we'll take little sips in between for Michael.

I I don't know the protocol.

Um but I did want to, I mean, I do remember that great uh talk that you gave.

And I mean, one of the things that kind of struck me as I was walking over today was this idea that much like a garden, a park system, or really anything that humans build ever requires cultivation, maintenance, ongoing work.

And you've been obviously things okay out there.

Part of uh a lot of great uh new projects that have uh been put in the pipe and are even completed in some cases, but um, I just one of the things that comes that I come back to over and over again that people remark on about coming to Bellevue is that it's not just that we build nice new parks.

So the ones that are out there in the open spaces and the trails, they stay incredible.

And um just the uh cultivation that have have got has gone into that under your leadership is amazing.

And I just want to thank you for making this uh best place uh I know to live in the world.

Thanks.

Who's uh oh, so I'll I'll make another toast.

So I just want to thank you for being there, not just for our board, but for our community, because when I joined the parks board, I knew I have a passion for parks.

I have a passion for being outdoors.

I love the trails, but I had at that time no idea uh other than general knowledge of how the city of Bellevue kept all of this up.

It's not just about planting, there's infrastructure, there's systems, there are rules and regulations, international rules and regulations that I didn't even know existed.

And one of the things that you always bring is a very kind and gentle um guidance to our board, so that we're not just bringing random ideas from the community, that we're able to create solutions or support solutions that make sense in this system, and that's what is really making our parks and community services world class.

It's not just the love, it's also the expertise.

And so I I feel really grateful to been able to be on the board with someone who has so much expertise to learn so much about how things are working and why they work the way they do.

So thank you very much, Michael.

Thank you for staying with us and bringing your expertise to the city.

I'm really grateful.

Thank you.

Oh, Eric.

Michael, I haven't got a chance to know you uh as much being new to the board uh and new to engaging with the community.

But one of the things that I pointed out in my actual interview is I truly believe that parks are the heart and soul of any community because it is what maintains those areas where we commune, hence community.

It brings the community together.

It allows for us to enjoy and share each other's company, share each other's cultures, and you've been an incredible part of that for Bellevue.

And I've personally have gotten to enjoy uh the parks that you have helped create here and help maintain.

So for that, thank you, and I wish you nothing but the best.

Hi next.

Well, happy retirement, Michael.

I'm sure you're looking forward to it.

Um, so I think 37 years, I didn't even realize that's truly a dedication.

And I think really some people could have as lucky as to have a job that's you are passionate about that's like your personal hobby and you get to work on it, right?

Because I know you enjoy gardening, you enjoy the outdoor space.

So I think that that's a really like to me, it's kind of rare.

Sometimes you kind of have a split, you work is work, and then you know your your personal hobby is personal hobby.

So I just want to thank you for your leadership and for all the legacy you leave behind for the city of Bellevue for us to enjoy.

And I I I guess hoped you have a lot of uh midweek hikes that you talked about.

I don't know if you've been making plans for.

Um, and um I um and I think you probably continue gonna garden so that um hope you have a lot flourishing garden.

And um, I think you have earned every bit of the retirement.

So thank you.

No, good.

That's good.

All right, then um with that.

Um perhaps uh it'd be really cool to get a group photo of us.

Um maybe after the meeting, unless is anyone have to kind of jump out uh soon after.

All right.

See, so right after group.

You know, I'll have to say that one of the best things about the these last couple days and probably part of next week is you know, it's like um it's like you're wake, but you you get to be here for it.

So it's it's not dead yet, but miss all your Michael's jokes during our meeting.

You really brought up the I love the uh the atmosphere you bring.

All right.

Uh thank you, Michael.

And with that, uh one last cheer.

Cheers, Michael, and that concludes the final director's report for Michael this year.

All right.

You know, I did just think of one thing I should add.

And so um, just in case you were wondering, so um deputy director Shelley McVane has been named acting director, and she'll um start that role on February 1st.

So just wanted you to know that you know, this crazy department won't be off, you know, just you know, doing whatever it wants in the wind, because you I know you're worried about that.

Um so anyway, Shelley Shelley McVane will be taking the helmet in an acting role.

So just thank you so much, Michael.

Yeah, looking forward to working with Shelley in future board meetings.

All right.

Uh with that, the next item on our agenda is board communications.

So um how about we start off on this end of the table and um share what you'd like to share during communication.

Well, just simple and quick.

Happy new year to everybody.

I'm excited for us to get to work with 2026 and the progress that we can continue from last year.

Aside from that, I don't have anything else particular.

Uh lots of family gatherings and food and eating over since we met last.

So uh I'm ready to roll up the sleeves and get back to work.

Um I don't have a ton to add.

I would um I would on a positive note say that as one who has remarked on the copious quantities of off-leash dogs at Ashwood that I have seen less of it.

I don't know that I have a causation there, but I thought it was interesting that um just even on the walkov tonight, I did not notice nearly as many, and oftentimes they are all on leash.

So I don't know if something's happened, if there's been a little bit more county enforcement or something in the air, but uh it's good to see.

So um, yeah, I had a good holiday.

Uh also not a big update.

Um, I had some out-of-town guests.

Um, so I took them to the Garden Delights at Botanical Garden, and they're from Jakarta, Indonesia.

So I felt like I like, you know, going through the park and their feedback was very positive.

It kind of made me feel really proud that that Bellevue it's on the global map, because I felt like for them to come in from, you know, um big metropolitan area, Jakarta, Indonesia.

I didn't have to take them all the way to Seattle, right?

Like we have local things thing Bellevue that I could have showed them for the holidays.

So I thought that was really positive.

Um I have a one question though.

Um, so you know, World Cup is happening, yeah.

I think uh starting June, the ending July.

I was in the middle of actually looking at to City of Redmond, they were um offering grants for people to host party, like uh viewing parties um in the city of the Redmond kind of area.

So I was kind of looking into their application.

So I was curious if City of Bellevue has any plan to host like the final viewing.

I know Redmond is hosting a big viewing party for the finals at Merrymore Park, which I think it's in the July 19th, if I'm not mistaken, like somewhere in the middle of July.

So I was kind of curious if City of Bellevue has any plan to kind of bring the community together hosting some of the World Cup matches, especially the final.

So Bellevue doesn't have any of kind of the official FIFA events here.

I believe one is at Merrymore.

And I think part of it is just having the venues that can handle um huge numbers with parking.

So Bellevue is not one of those designated sites, even though I believe that there might be other um either, you know, uh community organized viewings that aren't officially sanctioned by FIFA.

So there may there may be some of those, but some of those larger FIFA ones are not um going to happen in Bellevue.

I mean, the good news is, you know, obviously Bellevue will be hopping because uh there's a need for hotel rooms, and I, you know, Bellby's pretty sure they will be completely booked.

So I think there will be a buzz.

I think um I hear uh a couple of the teams are staying in Bellevue.

And so um I think there will definitely be a buzz during that time for sure.

And I and there is an interdepartmental team looking at uh those impacts, planning ahead, all those things.

So that is indeed on the radar screen of the city.

Well hi, um happy new year.

Uh thank you so much for the garden delights invitation.

Um always appreciated and uh nice year round staple.

Um I think I have two young daughters, and uh park season is all year for me.

So now that we're in the winter, no longer in summer, um, you know, it's getting darker out, thankfully that's changing.

But uh I've been on the hunt to identify all the different parks that have some sort of lighting after 530, uh, which has been a fascinating little uh investigative uh journey, uh, just to make sure that I'm not driving to parks at again, like the playground is too dark to play in.

Um I know I I talked to Ryan about it a little bit.

Um park lighting.

I wasn't aware it was such an interesting topic.

Um, you know, what are park hours?

What are policies?

It's kind of brought on a string of of questions and hopefully um a nice little investigative activity for me uh to just figure this out.

I know that in the rainy season I talk about finding parks that have coverage or some sort of rain protection because we have to make it out there.

Um heavy, heavy household user of facilities.

Um and then I'm so grateful for the activity guide you guys have given us.

Um I just got an email that my daughter is uh like we uh signed up in the wait list for the mid-winter break um Northwest Arts Camp, uh the craft camp.

But again, it's a small capacity, and we got on the wait list, and I just got an email that uh a spot has popped up.

So it's really happy day.

And thank you again for all these programs.

Uh super grateful uh to have her do something really you know fun and invigorating for midwinter versus you know just a regular um after school camp.

So thank you.

And thank you, Michael, for your service.

It's been a pleasure.

Eve, what do you like?

Sure.

Um let's see.

Well, happy new year.

Um during the break, um we our family got together and and made good use of the Monopoly game that uh where it was gifted over to us uh by Michael.

And uh I thought I was a pro at uh Monopoly, but apparently my wife uh she is the pro of the family.

She won every single time.

So um, yeah, we we had a lot of fun with it.

And it's uh it's a it's a we we have another monopoly um uh board uh at home, but we're definitely using the the city of Building one now.

Um the other thing that wanted to uh uh another thing that that came up um I guess one of the new year resolutions for me this year is is partly inspired by by Ermin or Eileen, I'm sorry, is uh she you know she started she um made an effort to uh visit every every single park in the city.

And um I started doing doing that, and one of the things I found really useful is uh I would turn on my chat GBT and ask it questions about our parks.

And it's really um I found it really helpful because there was a lot of historical information that that I didn't know about.

For example, like Robinswood Park, like what was this history, how it was founded.

And I apparently it is it was um founded by well, not the park itself, but the Robinson was uh was home was initially started by Homesteader in 1890s by a Danish immigrant.

And um, I thought that was fascinating.

Um, so I'm gonna be using that as I keep on visiting the parks.

Um as I I as I continue visiting all the parks in our our city.

And then lastly, thank you, Michael, for for your service.

And uh we, you know, I still remember interviewing with you that very first time.

Uh didn't think I would get the job, but appreciate it.

Uh thank you for your service.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you, Steve.

Uh we also played Monopoly over the break.

It is such a fun game.

Thank you.

I don't have a lot to report out.

I will just say I had some great discussions with uh my neighbors over the holidays, had some time to talk with others in Bellevue.

And one of the things that constantly comes up is just how diverse our park system is.

So when I ask them, like, do you have anything to say about the parks?

And they'll tell me about like one park or two parks, and they're like, and then we found this park that we did not know existed.

And it it is a point of pride that there are so many opportunities for families to go explore um all over.

And a lot of them did not realize that we have like one list of parks on the website.

I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer, but they they don't think about it until they're like, oh yeah, all of this stuff is online.

And uh, you know, once they go there, they're like, we have so many things to do.

So definitely was nice to hear lots of great feedback about the parks, and we just enjoyed staying local uh for the most of the holidays.

Thank you.

Um for me with diversity.

Uh uh, I thought that the public comment today was pretty interesting.

So if we could get any information about Ashville bike parks, that would be pretty interesting.

Um during the winter, uh, thank you for the tickets for garden and delights.

I took some of my neighbors there and they had a wonderful time.

And one thing I noticed is everyone takes like a million pictures on their phone.

So that was kind of uh amazing.

They were like full of wonder and uh amazement.

So thank you for that.

Um, and then not too much to report.

Uh I use the the trail north of Woodlawn Park a lot uh with my dog.

It's a fun getaway.

So if you're ever looking for a really short hike, Michael, you should check it out.

Um, and then say hi because I live pretty close.

Um yeah, so that kind of concludes my oral communication.

Uh any final words.

All right.

So with that, perhaps we'll jump into the discussionslash action items on our agenda.

And the first one is about the parks and community services board bylaw amendment.

And presenting this is our Cameron Parker, assistant director of the Parks and Community Services Department.

So thanks for giving us the overview today, Cameron.

Yeah, you bet.

Uh so you may recall we had a presentation on this at our November meeting to go over the uh content of the uh proposed edits to the bylaws um per the bylaws, the um presentation and discussion um has to be separate from the vote.

So we're coming back here with the vote.

Um that was uh going to be the extent of my staff presentation, except alert reader, Chair Rowena Umted something that had escaped all of us, which is uh the red line version of uh that was in the packet that you all reviewed, um, was actually um uh placed on the the immediate previous version of the bylaws, uh, which uh so if you'll look yeah, I'll kind of walk through here, but in uh section um where they talk about our meeting date, it says our old date of Tuesday, which we uh back in April 2024, the board updated the bylaws to change that to the third Wednesday instead of the second Tuesday.

So um to correct that, we have a um uh main motion to uh that would be proposed to do the red line strikeout version um that was presented in uh in the packet that makes um those sort of several changes, but two substantive changes around the um the term uh for board members as well as the length of exclusion uh for in the oral communications section that we talked about in November.

Um we'll then ask for a um an amendment to the motion to clarify that the edits that we are updating in the bylaws tonight will be applied to the most current version of the bylaws, uh which were as of April 2024, so we can keep our Wednesday meeting date.

Um so we have sort of worked on structuring that all out.

Um so that we'll have the main motion, the main motion will be seconded.

Um we'll um offer the chance during discussion for a amendment to the main motion.

That amendment um also needs to be seconded.

Um, and then the board will vote on that amendment first.

Um, assuming it's a uh affirmative vote, then the main motion would be then amended, and the main motion would then be uh also voted on.

So we'll have two votes if that makes sense.

If we have any questions on the process, we have it all scripted out, so uh it should go smoothly.

Um Elizabeth was the the first to arrive, so she got the the job of making the the amendment.

So um any questions on the bylaw changes themselves or the process.

Okay, great.

Okay.

With that, she'll begin.

Um is there a motion to adopt the proposed updated parks and community services board bylaws?

The so moved.

Thank you.

Is there a second second?

Thank you, Steve.

All right, now uh oh yeah, do we have any discussions about the bylaws?

If there are any amendments or anything like that.

So I I recognize the need for the amendment in order to move the motion forward, and I so move that we make the amendment to accommodate for the meeting change as was mentioned previously uh or part of the presentation.

Okay, okay.

So this paragraph right here.

Yes.

Oh, so I jumped in front of somebody because uh so we move an amendment to mo to the motion to adopt the red lines in the proposed updates PCS bylaws and apply them to the most recent version of the PCS bylaws because the red lines in the proposed updated PCS bylaws were applied to an outdated version.

Okay.

Is there a second to the amendment?

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Okay, so oh no, and then we're good.

It's perfect.

All in favor to the amendment of the motion, say aye.

Okay, now we'll vote on a on the motion with the amendment.

So um so now we'll vote on the motion with the amendment.

Sorry.

All in favor of the motion with the amendment, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say no.

Okay.

With that uh the motion with the amendment has been approved.

All right.

Oh so I say that again, sorry.

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

Now we'll vote.

Should I do that again?

No.

Okay.

So the motion.

Sorry, I don't really.

Okay, so we uh the outcome is uh we were all in favor of the motion with the amendment adopting the red lines proposed and applying them to the most recent version of the parks and community services bylaws.

Yes.

Okay, apologies for that confusion.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry, sorry for that error.

All right, thanks everyone.

I hope that made everyone's good with that.

Thank you, Cameron.

All right.

Now my papers are all slipped.

Next up on the agenda is program marketing and communications.

Uh, we are joined today by Bridget Larson, marketing coordinator of the Parks and Community Services Department.

So thank you so much for joining us tonight, Bridget.

Thank you so much for having me.

Um, so today we're going to be going over how we connect our community with our programs, um, specifically a marketing overview for parks and community services.

Um, my name's Bridget Larson.

I am the Parks Marketing Coordinator.

And I recently started in June.

Um, so there's been a lot of new work happening.

Um, and I'm just gonna kind of give highlights about how people can connect to our programs, our park information, um, and just kind of give a high-level overview of how people connect with us and the tools that I'm using to get the word out about everything that we're offering.

So, sharing our programs.

Uh, we utilize three main tools, a multitude of tools, but three main tools to kind of get the word out about our programs, our events, all of the things happening in our parks.

Um, so activity guide is the first one, which you all have a copy of.

Um, and that kind of gives a high-level overview of everything that we're offering in terms of programs, special events.

Um, our e-news is our digital newsletter, which goes out to our subscribers and gives general updates about anything we have going on with programming and updates with our parks.

And then we also have um several social media channels.

We have uh a department wide channel as well as um smaller channels for each of our community centers that we that have adopted that, and so they can really connect uh with community members in a personal way.

So, starting off with the activity guide, we have a printed and a digital version.

Um, so this is just a really high-level seasonal overview of what we're offering for about four months for each period, and it gives a really good taste of big picture planning as well as kind of an easy to browse way to get through all of our various programs across all of our amazing community centers and our sites.

Um the copy that you have here is the winter spring for 2026.

And um, if you look through, you can see all of the different programs we offer.

It is newly redesigned, so it is categorized by age group and activity type.

Uh so you know, you can look through and it's color-coded based on if you want to find things that are more geared towards early learning.

So maybe you have a toddler and you want to find programs specifically for that.

Um, it also goes over family activities.

So if you're just looking for things to do on the weekends or weekdays with your family, um, that's also easy to find.

Um, so my goal with redesigning it was really just to make it as easy to kind of navigate all of our amazing programs as possible, but it also um focuses on kind of the activity type versus the location of each program.

And so I kind of utilize that as a way to um help people help guide people towards a community center or a site that they might not know about or be familiar with.

Um so yeah, that's part of um our printed material, and then we also have a newly um designed digital option, which is on your screen here, and that is uh the same content, but you are able to view it on your desktop, on mobile, easily search keywords.

Um and it just makes it you know really user-friendly for online use, and it's a great way um to share our programs and share a general overview of what we offer um through social media through an easy to share link.

We also put that in our emus.

So that's some of the new offerings that we have for the activity guide.

And for using the activity guide, it's really just a great way to explore what's available, find the best fit based on what you're interested in, schedules, um, and also connect through online registration.

So that digital option, I directly link a lot of those programs uh into Civic Rec.

So if you're using the online version and you see something that you like, you can click it and it'll take you directly to that registration portal.

Um we also redesigned or renamed the uh activity guide.

So it was previously connections, it's now activity guide.

Some of the feedback I received was just that it's not super clear when it's sitting on the shelf and somebody's new and doesn't know maybe what that means.

Activity guide kind of encompasses, you know, that it's activity based, and these are things that you can do in our city.

Um, and also it's very translation friendly.

Um, so that was one thing that we looked at when navigating new title and language was um does it translate well to other languages?

Um I also worked on incorporating more visuals, so just highlighting the people that are in our programs, the staff that are putting them on that you'll meet when you go to visit one of our sites and kind of give it that personal touch.

We also added pre-translated um inclusion and financial assistance information, so that that is not a barrier when you're reading through the guide and you can easily find that information.

Um, so yeah.

Uh it's distributed um through uh several different facilities.

So it goes to our community centers, um, our city facilities, mini city hall, um, it also goes through the Bellevue School District and newly is also being uh distributed through the Bellevue Library system.

So uh I drop it off with uh the downtown Bellevue Library, and then they distribute it amongst their various sites.

So that's a new um addition, which is exciting to kind of get the word out to kids who might not be familiar with our programs.

Um the digital version is also available on our website.

So eNews is our digital newsletter, and that is something that was also newly redesigned once I started.

So that is a monthly edition.

It's sent to subscribers who specifically uh sign up to get that e-newsletter, and it offers kind of a you know, a really comprehensive overview of everything we offer, new and exciting things that are happening in the department, and just gives kind of that visual uh aspect of here's what our parks look like, here's where you can come visit us.

Um, so just another great way to kind of connect directly through people's inbox.

So, what eNews does best?

It announces new and upcoming programs, gives reminders and key registration dates, shines a spotlight on our park system, and also offers an overview of our locations and activities.

Uh, somebody who might be familiar with one of our sites but doesn't know kind of everything that Bellevue has to offer, it's a great one-stop shop for that.

Uh, looking at some of the numbers that we've seen, it's been really positive in terms of that redesign and kind of the growth that we've seen since it's gone out on a monthly basis.

So net growth uh since the redesign is uh just over 1800 subscribers, um, average growth of about 300 per month.

We're about um just over 84,000 for total subscribers.

So that's how many people we're reaching each month with our newsletter.

Open rate is uh just over 54%, which is really strong for a monthly uh city-based newsletter.

And we're also seeing an average uh amount of clicks, just over 1400, which means that within the newsletter, people are engaging, they're clicking the links that are in there.

Um, and our average unsubscribe rate is very low at just one percent.

So some of the uh kind of analytics and tools that I'm able to use to see how our community members are engaging with our content is through this newsletter.

I can easily see how many clicks for each link, um, where people are going and engaging with our content on our website, um, in our community centers, in our registration portal.

So it really gives me great real-time uh numbers and just gives me a great uh look into what people are interested in and engaging with.

So for our last e-news, the January edition, uh, there were 243 clicks onto our city web pages, just over 400 for the SBCC 20th anniversary schedule, which was um really exciting because that's something that we were really trying to get the word out.

You know, we're we're really saying a thank you to our community, and um, you know, those were free activities that we were offering.

Uh 380 clicks for our Northwest Art Center's uh free fitness classes, and um just under 200 clicks for our digital activity guide.

So just another way that people are getting that information.

So, how to subscribe?

Um, you can go to BellevueWa.gov slash parks, and um there's a little uh button to hit subscribe.

You just fill out your name, your email, and that uh newsletter will be delivered to your inbox.

And a high-level overview of social media, another way that we kind of personally engage with our community members.

Um looking at social media, uh, my goal is to make it visual first so that it's really giving um that visual cue of what we offer, the beauty of our parks, our trails.

Um, you're really seeing the people that are in our community.

Um, it gives a highlight of the programs and experiences that you can um engage with and then just kind of builds that connection with our community members.

Um, so really is a way to build awareness and trust over time, and also helps um people see themselves in our parks and in our community centers.

Um another great aspect of social media is uh the educational aspect.

So showing people um, you know, various offerings, how they can register, but also um maybe things that they didn't know about our parks.

So this was a great example of that.

We had a uh one of our trail crew members took a video of a bobcat, got great engagement, and it also had an educational element to it.

Um we kind of told people what to do if they see a bobcat, not to necessarily be scared of them.

Um, but it's just a really beautiful way to kind of show what's happening in our parks um and giving a view of what you might not see on in your normal day-to-day walking through one of our parks or trails.

So just a really great way to engage with the community on a personal level and also educate the public about safety around wildlife and safety in our parks.

So where to connect with us?

Uh we have quite a few channels, uh, Facebook.

We've got our general Bellevue Parks channel, which is uh shares a lot of those um shares a lot of the content from our various sites and engages with those accounts as well.

And then we also have uh more specific channels for engaging with tracks, engaging with Bellevue Youth Theater, Crossroads Community Center.

Um, we're also on Instagram.

Our Instagram page is fairly new for the department.

So if you'd like to give us a follow, it's at Bellevue Wall Parks.

And uh just another great way to really show the beauty um of where we live, but also get the word out about um what we're offering and meet people where they're at, um, trying to really engage with people on all channels and where they're comfortable.

So that is um a high level overview of the marketing tools that I'm utilizing, kind of some of the changes we've made um and updates and yeah, I'll open up, open it up for any questions.

Thank you for that awesome presentation, Bridget.

Um, I'll look around at the board.

Uh, who would like to go first with a question or comment?

Oh, uh go ahead.

This is really quick.

Thank you so much for this activity guide.

Actually, we got this um before the winter break, and for the first time I was really able to navigate it well.

I really appreciated the buy like demographic thing.

Because I was like, oh, this area is for me.

Um, and was able to share it with someone who was actually interested in our park.

So really appreciate it.

I love all of the pictures of people as well.

I agree.

It just makes it very easy to imagine oneself in those activities.

And you can just see like all of our citizens looking so happy, and it's really pleasant to flip through.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

Who'd like to go next?

Oh, go ahead.

Bridget, um, thank you so much for your work on the activity guide.

Um, I feel like for years, uh the connections um and now the activity guide has been kind of my way to know what's going about in every location that we have.

I there's no other way I feel like you would be able to find everything other than looking at every single page on the parks website.

Um, so you know, it's a really useful tool.

I I agree the redesign is super valuable.

Um, you know, I have kids, so just go into the early learning or the camp section, like before you would have to check out what each facility was was kind of doing, and you know, that made it a little bit hard to, you know, always I was writing down all the options and now it's so much easier to do with with this.

So thank you.

Um I was wondering in terms of, you know, how you know because you know, you're you're showing increased traffic to different websites and pages, like are we able to attribute like the increase to signups?

Like, do we see different, you know, areas that you're highlighting, for example, those classes, you know, get a little bit of higher enrollment or you know, do you have you know any way to kind of track a little bit further downstream, like your impact?

I assume you're having one.

I can never very hard to get spots in any of the many of the programs, right?

So somebody's looking and somebody's booking.

Um, so I just wondering, like, you know, are you too efficient?

I mean, we hide the marketing.

Let's make room for for more.

Either double the classes or you know, um, so anyway, I just wanted to hear your thoughts.

Yeah, that's a great question.

Um, so right now, most of the feedback I've gotten is word of mouth or personal anecdotes.

Um there's been um a few uh programs and community centers that have said we've really seen an increase in signups um due to the marketing.

So that that's helpful for me to know.

Um there are analytics in terms of signups, and um in the past they've been really strong.

I haven't looked into them uh most recently.

I'm gonna kind of see because we have our day camp registrations coming up.

Um, so historically, you know, we've never had a problem filling programs.

Um, so for me now looking at programs, I'm looking at, you know, are there any classes or or programs that aren't filling as much, and then how can I best market those?

Um, so I don't have any you know direct data right now, just uh feedback that I've gotten from staff and things like that, but that has been positive so far.

Yeah, I think that that's a great idea, right?

If you have a group of classes that are definitely like underutilized, they don't fill up.

And if you highlight them in the activity guide and those have increases, like you could probably correlate like that particular marketing to the increase, for example.

Um how was it doing before you made a change?

How is it doing now?

And did those classes in particular have a change or not?

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bridget, for the presentation.

And I also want to thank the staff.

I think I don't know exactly which month.

I think I in my uh report, I said I would love to know more about how Bellevue markets program how the residents receive.

So obviously you guys are listening.

So thank you for I don't know if it's a coincidence or it's actually no, it is based on what I suggested.

Okay, thank you.

Um yeah, so um, so yeah, so it's great to kind of have a little more um systematically to understand how these inflammations are getting to us.

Uh I have a couple questions.

One, you mentioned there's like 80 uh 18 hundred some subscribers.

So is that like, do you have a target you want to reach?

Because I think Bellevue has what 150,000 residents.

Obviously, this is 18 like households, right?

Like if a family of four or five is probably one the mom and dad or mom or dad is subscribing.

But like in terms I know the classes, like it sounds like it's really hard to get, you know, to sign up for.

Um, but like, is this the city happy with this number or you want to double the subscribers?

Like, um, what is kind of your goal on that?

Yes, I don't have any specific goals around subscribers.

For me, what I'm looking at is how are people engaging with the content?

So are, you know, are they still opening the e-news digital newsletter?

Do they are they getting out of it what they need?

Um, are they clicking the links within the newsletter?

Um, those are the things I'm looking at just to ensure that what I'm sharing is valuable and you know, it's not just being deleted and and people are moving on from it.

Um, and the same goes for social media.

So when I see um, you know, the bobcat video, for example, uh, do really strongly in terms of analytics.

What I'm looking at is how many people are interacting with the post, what kind of comments are they leaving?

Um, so a lot of the feedback that I look at for data is around how are people engaging with the content?

Um, and then opening it up when I meet people or um when we do surveys, you know, are you hearing what you want to hear from us?

What do you want to learn more about?

And just trying to be in tune with what people um are looking for from parks and community services.

So is it fair to say you're more focused on kind of the click-through rate to the open rate that you mentioned, like how people engage with the content versus you know, double or triple the subscribers?

Exactly.

Is there a reason why that's the focus versus we want to get to, you know, I don't know, 50% of the household in Bellevue, for example.

Yeah, I think that's a great goal.

Um, and you know, I'm always looking at how can we improve, how can we reach more people?

So I think that's definitely a step in the process for me right now.

So I think that's definitely a step in the process for me right now, I am um working on getting a sense of what do people really want to engage with and what are they um looking to gain from from the material that we're putting out.

So um definitely always looking to increase in our um in our subscribers in our metrics and um what we're seeing there too is is really um going strong in terms of increasing those numbers.

Thanks um my second question is I actually was just flipping through and I saw a few activities I'm interested I didn't know like I was thinking about learning how to play bridge and I'm like oh there's a free one that's like a Wednesday um then maybe I can go check out so then made me think about like how does a search what is like if I was thinking hey what are the activities offered at Northwest Arts Center you know or if I want to play some board game which I just note another one like what is the search capability like Steve was saying like he can type in ChatGPT tell me the little history about this park does ChatGPT know this I can say hey Bellevue in the city of Bellevue if I want to look for this activity do you have this do you know?

Yeah so um everything that is listed in here is also lifted listed um on register.bellvwa.gov and you are able to search for keywords so if you're just interested in pickleball you can search the word pickleball and everything will come up you can also search based on location so if you just want to see everything that's happening at Robinswood Tennis Center, you can go there click on that location and everything will come up also within the activity guide we have um class codes in there.

So if you just search for that class code specifically that'll bring you directly to that time slot that date range um so everything lives in uh in register.bellvwa.gov and that's where you can sign up for everything.

I will also try some of the AI tools to see how much it can tell me.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah thank you Paul Yeah I mean the AI tools is is really interesting and it's probably worth evaluating how the website performs with uh some kind of one off or or maybe regular checks of what are the different engines do when we put in certain things and that's and that's such a rapidly evolving thing that um it's probably gonna be tough to kind of pin down the the performance of the website based on that.

And it may be that the tools get so good that the changes may not matter as much but uh that's there's so much up in the air and right now I'd hesitate to make a prediction on that.

Super impressed by that 54% open rate.

I've worked in private sector marketing and a few other things um not a lot but a little um and uh that seems like a really high number the uh what 45,000 some email opens every time the e news goes out is is is pretty impressive.

And I guess one thing I was curious about is when it comes to the social media accounts do we have kind of a metric or comparative sort of here's a city that's doing really well on these counts.

Maybe they're a little larger than we are just so there's a little bit of a stretch goal.

How are we doing compared to them?

And just to kind of see and maybe not just one city but just to kind of get a get a feel for what does this look like in yeah other places with thriving park systems um uh well-funded park systems uh I'm I know some places are just trying to keep the Cesaws like from from falling apart and not not every comparison is what we're looking for but yeah I think that would be really uh really good to have going forward but uh they seem like great numbers to me right now if anything it might just give us something more to boast about so thank you so much and yeah that is definitely something I can look at thank you there was one more thing on that very last slide there was a list of sort of um facility based social media accounts like different community centers, skate parks and whatnot would have their own um account.

I'm curious are those run by the facilities themselves.

Yeah so uh I myself and uh our public information officer Christina Fainey we uh generally have a a management uh role um overview in each of the pages and then also within um each facility they have managers that are also um contributors of the page and manage the page so there's uh typically two to three people designated for each each channel and do they have do those sort of come to be because a particular facility says hey we should do that or is that something more that you well I know you haven't been here forever but uh that that your group or the director's office would say hey maybe you guys need to put up a page uh I'm just kind of curious how that how those particular ones it kind of makes sense but how those particular ones ended up with uh accounts yeah so if there's an interest then it um goes through the the channels and um so it goes through parks and community services it goes through can communications um and then once all that's approved um we start working on um you know what kind of content are we looking to um share with the community their community specifically their area

Uh I'm just kind of curious how that, how those particular ones, it kind of makes sense, but how those particular ones ended up with uh accounts.

Yeah.

So if there's an interest, then it um goes through the the channels and um so it goes through the parks and community services, it goes through can communications, um, and then once all that's approved, um, we start working on um, you know, what kind of content are we looking to um share with the community, their community specifically, their area, um, and kind of go from there.

Okay.

So if there's an interest meeting, they they kind of need to spearhead it if there's a new place, which you know, I'm not sure what that would be.

Looking at that list, it seems there might be a community center to not represent it there, but they would have to have somebody kind of champion it essentially.

Yeah, yeah.

And it um it's an always evolving um conversation, always changing because as with everything, social media is always changing.

And so um we're we're always looking at adding, you know, new channels and how we can make the channels we have even more robust and uh more successful.

So yeah, animals, I think is the is the key.

But yeah, awesome.

Thank you.

I'd like to go next.

Steve.

Oh, sure, sure.

Sorry.

Um well uh I I think um thank you so much for for all the work that you guys put into the activity guide and and also the social media um information.

So FYI just signed up for the um the online um e-news.

E news, yes, thank you.

So I I'm part of that.

So you get one additional subscriber now.

Thank you.

But uh really appreciate these activity guides because as for me, I'm you know, from a generation that's print something printed out is is really useful and scrolling on it and be able to write on it.

So it's um but then for you know, I noticed for my kids, um how they interact with uh information is a little bit different.

They're always going through their phones and and if they are trying to register with something, you know, that's the first thing that they will do, right?

Is they find information online and social media, so uh Instagram, face well, not Facebook too much, but more on Instagram.

Um and so I really think the um the connection that the city has um by promulging these um social media platforms is really helpful for the future generation, uh at least for my kids.

And uh and I think kind of goes to what Paul was asking is uh is your I guess if somebody wants to post more information and get that information out to the general public.

Is that does that information have to be vetted via, you know, I do can anybody just post on it, or does it have to be vetted first before it gets posted on to the and being shared?

Great question, yeah.

So uh each of our contributors go through specific training uh to be able to post on social media with within our staff, and then they're designated as publishers, so they have that permission to publish.

And then there's also a drafting system in terms of um, you know, going through me, going through our public information officer, going through a supervisor.

So we have designated managers and supervisors for each channel uh that would then ultimately approve those that content.

Got it.

So let's say if if um, you know, somebody is trying to promote bridge classes and and if they want to get uh that information out on Instagram, they would have to go through a publisher and and talk to them and maybe come up with ideas on how to post something on Instagram, right?

Is that and uh to clarify, are you talking about um for city staff or for the general public?

Uh for city staff.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

And how about for the general public?

I have not actually had a request to directly share anything from the general public.

Um, but I'm sure there's protocol for that that I could I could look into or follow up on.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh it most everything's already been said.

I really like the user friendliness of the new activity guide.

Uh it's easy to look things up, it's easy to identify and associate.

But some of the comments made by uh some of the other board members, I love the idea of getting more uh subscribers and building that up and have a lofty goal.

But I'm also hearing that classes aren't available.

So if you increase subscribers, we need to make sure that on the other end we're increasing the programming so that there's availability.

Otherwise, you will lose the audience and find frustration among our community.

So outstanding job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Eric.

The activity guides looks very fun and welcoming with lots of bright colors and fun pictures.

So great job on that.

And then I had a few social media questions, kind of similar to Steve's.

Are there like, I don't know, if we use hashtags that maybe the public should follow or tag, if that would be something interesting.

Are there anything like that?

And then for events or things like that.

And then I was curious.

So you have Facebook and Instagram, and have you explored other channels like TikTok or whatever else the cool kids are using, other cool kids are using these days.

So yeah, just curious if there are other channels that uh you've can uh looked into.

Yeah.

So to address your first question, hashtags.

That is always an ongoing conversation.

You know, do they add, do they take away from a post um in terms of just adding more that you have to get through.

Um, I think that hashtags are really valuable if you're looking at you know a specific event or a specific trend that you're trying to follow.

So I think that's a great idea in terms of having designated hashtags for some of our larger events and certain events.

And I know that we've utilized those in the past, but definitely a great thing to focus on.

Um then for other channels, um citywide, we have uh more channels than just Facebook and Instagram.

Um we've utilized Nextdoor.

I know that we have um an X account.

Um, and for for that, I the feedback that I've heard is that it's really dependent on the department and the content or you know, the owner of the channel, how how many people engage with that.

So some industries might have a really strong following on X, and others don't have as much engagement on X and have more on Instagram.

Um when I'm looking at channels, um Facebook and Instagram pop out as valuable to me because they're very visual platforms, and I think a lot of what our department offers is very visual, um, you know, beautiful open spaces.

Um, you're seeing people in your community.

So that's um a great opportunity in terms of highlighting that, uh, but definitely open to exploring other channels.

And I also connect with our communications team frequently um to share content so that we can ensure that people are seeing um content that goes out on the department pages citywide as well.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Uh any final questions, comments.

All right.

Uh with that.

Thank you so much for it for joining us today for your presentation.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

All right.

So the next item on the agenda is the human services need update.

Um, presented by Ruth Blau, uh, human services manager of the parks and community services department.

Thank you for joining us today, Ruth.

Thank you.

It's nice to be here.

Um Yeah, so I'm the manager of human services, one of the uh sister programs inside parks and community services.

And I'm going to use this little clicker and um give you an overview of what we've learned from the 2025 needs update, which is a report that we publish every two years to sort of paint the picture of um the needs in the community of the residents of Bellevue.

Um happy to take questions.

Um I want to mention that this report was uh underway from January to June of 2025, and that was right as there were really um sweeping reductions to federal funding for human services and almost a dismantling of the human services infrastructure in the country.

And so we had surveys and we were doing um subject matter expert interviews, and we were only at the very beginning of people really um experiencing some of the things that were happening.

So that's a little caveat, I think, to some of the information that we heard and the statistics that we have.

A snapshot of Bellevue currently, 59% of our residents are people of color.

About 40% are immigrants and refugees.

And that really has an impact on people who are needing human services, and what is here to support them.

There are over a hundred languages spoken in Bellevue, and about one in five residents report that they speak English less than very well.

That's also a huge factor for helping people connect to the human services that they need.

For our report, we did 14 subject matter expert interviews.

We had 118 participants in some focus groups.

We got 535 community responses that was translated into nine languages, and then 62 provider surveys.

So those are providers of human services who we survey.

There were four cross-cutting themes across all of the data that we collected.

That there are cultural and linguistic barriers, access barriers, provider strain, and stigma and mistrust.

So here in Bellevue, we have had agencies who've had to close entire programs, they've had to reduce weekend hours or evening hours, or you know, a van that they used to pick up clients to deliver them somewhere.

They had to terminate their transportation program.

So the cuts have been really devastating for the community.

After we gather all the data, we uh divided everything we heard into these nine areas of need, which help our commission in their task of figuring out how to how the city should invest their human services dollars into the infrastructure.

These areas of need are shelter and housing stability, financial assistance, food and basic needs, survivor advocacy and safety from violence, behavioral health, child care and early learning, medical and dental, navigation, legal case management, and other supportive services, and fostering well-being in the face of bias, hate, and discrimination.

In this work, we also identified that at this time there are three areas that we might call survival needs or critical areas to sustain life.

And this is in the face of the federal cuts, and those are financial assistance, food and basic needs and shelter.

Another statistic we always report on in human services has to do with people's ability to access services.

And 54% were able to access it in the language or culture that they needed.

Those statistics have not changed very much from our report two years ago, and it still really indicates some work that we have to do.

I'm going to really briefly go through a little snapshot of each of the areas of need with what some statistics about the need, and then a little bit about how Bellevue addresses the need with their financial investments.

For shelter, I'm not going to go through all of these, but just for a little snapshot.

The number of children experiencing homelessness in Bellevue is rising.

There were 651 Bellevue students who experienced homelessness in 2024 and 2025.

And that's almost three times higher than it was in 2021 and 2022.

The school district tracks students who are unhoused throughout their systems.

Homelessness is rising in the region.

And chronic homelessness, which is not someone who they lost their apartment and they don't have anywhere to live for a month or two, and then they figure it out and they're housed again.

But chronic homelessness, people who are losing their housing and they're not able to quickly figure out how to be housed again.

It's now representing about half of the cases of people who identify as unhoused.

And that's a real shift from 10 years ago or so.

It's not a good shift.

For the investments Bellevue makes, they are shelter bed nights, day centers, case management, and a myriad of other services that are funded to help the people in our region who are unhoused.

Housing stability is for people who are housed, but they're kind of barely hanging on.

They might be trying to figure out whether this month they can pay their rent or their health insurance or pay their car payment or pay for their child's something that their child needs, clothing or food.

So we about 32% of our residents here in Bellevue are cost burdened, which means they're they're not stably housed.

They are perhaps a car accident or a medical crisis away from becoming unhoused.

Bellevue's investments in this area are affordable housing and case management and our home repair program, amongst other things.

The next area of need is financial assistance.

And it's similar to housing stability in that people who are working, they are they have a place to live, they are raising their family here in Bellevue, but they might need a little bit of help to fix a flat tire, a little bit of help if they, you know, you break your cell phone.

Those kinds of things that can really set people back.

So financial assistance tends to help people with some bills that come in, like if they get behind in their rent payments to help people stay on their feet and keep the family together.

Bellevue's investments in this area was almost $2 million in rental assistance.

The next area of need is food security and basic needs.

It's an area that's gotten quite a lot of attention because the national cuts to federal food programs have been pretty devastating.

About one in four children in Bellevue need help to get enough food and are enrolled in the district's food program.

About over 3300 Bellevue households qualify for SNAP benefits.

Does prevents refugees from accessing federal food benefits.

That has put an extra strain on the food banks that we have.

And we're definitely hearing from them that their need that's coming in the door of the food banks' banks is way higher than the capacity that they have staff-wise, facility-wise, and with food.

Bellevue's investments in food and basic means is with meals, with bundles of essentials for babies and children, and with hygiene kits.

Is our DB cases?

The investments that the city makes is for survival advocacy, for uh legal support, counseling, uh support groups.

Child care and early learning is a very, very, very expensive in Bellevue, and there is a critical shortage of places for children for slots in the child care system.

And it's a huge financial burden for families that are low on moderate income to try to have to keep a job and keep your family together and figure out how to pay for child care.

So those systems are having to figure out a new way to do their business.

Bellevue invests in child care vouchers and invests in navigators who can help people help parents figure the system out to get their children into child care and into child care that if they have children with special needs.

Behavioral health is both uh mental health and addiction are both categorized, are both included in the category of behavioral health.

Um overdose deaths in King County have been very, very high.

And in 2024, we're at record high, and the cost for treatment is has increased.

And here in Bellevue, there are long wait lists to access both mental health and drug treatment.

Um across the city, fire carers, the CCAP programs and human services invest in lots of programs that help people, crisis phone calls, counseling, uh, behavioral health groups, suicide prevention.

Uh it's a it's a large area of need with a big investment.

Medical and dental care uh is a huge and rising problem.

And uh lot of who we see coming into emergency rooms are preventable things, but uh a lot of families don't have access to medical care and are underattended to in that way.

Bellevue invests in dental appointments, medical appointments, and uh some medical equipment.

The category that's called navigation, legal case management, and other services encompasses a lot of different services.

Um of our survey respondents experienced a barrier in accessing services.

So navigation is a service that really helps people find the service that they need, figure out how to get on the wait list or how to get seen once you're on the wait list.

Um lots of applications are difficult.

There are a lot of aspects to getting help that are very hard.

Um because 40% of the residents of Bellevue are immigrants and refugees.

There's a huge demand, especially now with everything that is happening with uh the challenges to people who are have non-citizen status in the United States in Bellevue.

Um the our legal providers are uh really really overwhelmed right now.

We do invest in uh adult daycare, legal aid, um, culturally specific senior programs, and uh uh legal services, civil legal aid, and lots of lots of other services are in this pretty broad category.

The final category is fostering well-being in the face of bias, hate, and discrimination.

This is a new category for us in human services, and it uh it was it's an intersection of uh an increase in some of the hate crimes, lots of discrimination complaints, and the challenge that residents are having who are uh immigrants and refugees, and um facing the challenge of being people of color and not speaking the language and trying to get the support and help that they need.

I'm having the same thing you're having, which is sort of allergies and that would be great.

Thank you, Michael.

The investments that Bellevue makes for uh to foster well-being are Bellevue's thank you, safe place program, um, cultural events, case management, navigation, and community building groups.

And um this needs update is one piece of the work that the Human Services Commission uses to make the recommendations for how to um take the funds that we have that come to human services and to distribute it to the agencies that do the work.

I think where it intersects with you all and your work is that uh this diverse and growing population of people and families who are here in Bellevue, um, they love the parks as much as you all do, and they use and utilize all these services, and it's wonderful for you all to keep them in mind as you do your work to think about um who is in Bellevue and uh and and where their uh their lives can be enriched and uh improved by the parks that you all attend to and pay attention to.

So open for any questions.

You know, I would point out that one of uh a couple pages in here on page 55 in eight different languages are financial assistance availability for our recreation programs and other uh support for people with disabilities.

So I think we're trying to get the word out to people that don't read English about uh how they can better access financial assistance for these important uh programs that you heard about uh earlier.

So um just in that context of uh this is how we operate our uh parks and community services system, knowing the information uh that Ruth just presented.

Yeah.

Thank you, Michael, and thank you, Ruth, for your presentation and all your work on this.

Um, yeah, the data is um very like powerful, sobering.

So thank you.

Um I'll now open it up to a discussion with the board.

Uh does anyone have any questions, comments?

Uh I'll turn it over to Eric.

Uh, first of all, thank you for the presentation consolidating what the actual reports were 159 pages or so, consolidating it down into a 20-minute presentation.

You know, kudos.

Thanks for noticing.

That being said, uh, there were a couple things that you mentioned I wanted to seek clarification on.

When you were talking about the strain on food banks, you'd made a reference to refugees being excluded from funding.

Is that correct?

For federal SNAP funding.

Federal SNAP.

So were you referencing refugees as an all-encompassing all immigrants, asylum seekers, or actual refugee status?

Um I do not know if an immigrant who is in the process of changing their status to citizen.

I don't know if they have been excluded from SNAP benefits.

But previous to this year, if you were a refugee in the United States, you could get SNAP benefits while you're on that path, but no longer.

And similar to that, we've been seeing an increase uh across the country as it specifically relates to our Somalian population.

Uh not that it needs to be answered now, but I would appreciate some type of feedback on how that's impacting here in Bellevue our human services that are being provided.

Um also I don't I think it was page 23.

You mentioned 30% of students withdraw from activities due to mental health.

Is that 30% of students surveyed or 30% of our students are actually all students in the Bellevue School District are actually withdrawing from activities?

It's 30% of all students, and that's a statistic we get from the school district.

So they're not withdrawing from school.

The activities that the schools offer.

Is that what I'm understanding?

I'm not sure what the what is in their definition of activities.

So I'm not sure if it's uh withdrawing from a soccer team or uh band.

I I see that that adds a little bit of clarification for me.

Um, and then the other thing, and this is something you can maybe get back to me for it mentions Bell V PD Safe Space Program.

I'd be interested in knowing exactly the number of businesses and organizations that are actually participating uh in the program.

It's a valuable program for uh all of our higher risk population communities, and I would uh like to know uh, you know, how diverse that is within our communities and uh the types of organizations that are participating.

Great.

I would get that for you.

Outstanding presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Eric.

Uh, who'd like to go next?

Uh Eileen.

Well, thank you for the presentation.

I feel like it's such a heavy topic.

Yeah.

Um, and then I noticed that in the activity guide, there's a low cost and no cost, which I think it's great just to highlight, you know, these programs are free.

Um, I have um, I think that's one question, the one I mean, maybe two questions.

One I noticed is that 32% of the 32% of what that's cost burden with the housing is that price holds households is like 32% of the residents in Bellevue or the people surveyed?

Bellevue residents.

A third of the people are saying they're either behind mortgage or they can't pay or that they cannot pay the rent, or what does that mean?

They define cost burdened as spending more than 30% of your income on rent.

On rent.

That's so only people who 30% of people who rent a cost burden.

No.

Um, rent or mortgage on housing.

30% on housing, sorry.

So a third of the families in Bellevue are spending a large percentage of their income just to stay housed.

And that is uh a factor that's getting worse because things are more expensive and income isn't keeping up with that.

And that is one of the things that moves people out of that housing stability.

We're here for the long term, things are going smoothly.

It's that but if that were the case, I feel like there should be more than 5,000 units that are short for affordable housing, right?

Like if a third of the Bellevue residents are spending more than 30% of their income on rent or mortgage, then the I mean, I don't know, like it feels like the affordable units number would have been higher.

Yeah that's a really you're right.

And I would I would have to look into the where that 5,000 units comes from because I don't know that they are counting everyone who's cost burdened as needing a unit.

Just to comment houses are so expensive you have to make so much you can be cost burdened and make what looks like on paper or you might see in a newspaper really good money but you might be the only person in your family earning money but you would have to cut your income by like 50 to set like 75% to qualify for affordable housing which I think was a quote that they said like we don't qualify.

So um affordable housing means for poor but it doesn't actually comprise all the affordability that we need like for a family of two teachers or a family where you know mom is or dad is at home with the little ones or something like that.

That's that's how I interpreted that because they're so expensive our houses.

Yeah I was just curious like any correlation or how those numbers were derived um I mean after all this numbers and presentation which is great but I'm just kind of curious like what can we do as a city as a community right today actually was I I just happened to make a call to City of Bellevue utilities department.

I had a couple questions and then I waited for like I think 20 some minutes which is really high.

So by the time I got hold of um one of the um the guy was helping me with question he's like yeah we had really high volume today I said oh what happened he said today is the first day in the um in the year and a half that Bellevue is shutting down water for those who haven't paid the utility water utility.

I think it's the first time they have done this in a year and a half and so maybe I don't know how many households that impacted and that seems like it generated a lot of call volume that's why the hold was really high.

So then it was interesting that you know you had this presentation so I'm just thinking there's a lot of people who have a lot of needs right so what can we do as a I don't know what's the goal for human services department this year for 2026 and what can we do as a community I mean probably there's a lot of things but like maybe you can highlight a few because I I was like oh I I I because here first of all he said it shut down water I'm like is my water going to be shut up he's like oh this this I was like wow that must have impact a lot of people because the the call volume I mean the wait time kind of was very long yeah so it seems like it's a lot of needs there people are not able to pay or fall behind our utility which is kind of the basic needs and um and then what's next right yeah I mean uh there are a million wonderful things that people can do and a community can do but just as an individual um agencies many many agencies utilize volunteers to get their work done and uh some of that volunteering might be people volunteering some of it might be unloading groceries and stacking them on the shelf I mean there's just a lot of volunteering opportunities I also just think being aware of um of the differences of the people who we are all who we all live with and just be just being aware can be really helpful but things that you can do the first thing that comes to mind is volunteering.

Is there a place like maybe you you encounter a lot of the agents who need a volunteer like is there possibility for the city to highlight I mean I don't want to add more work to your services but like agents that were like I I see like medical dental needs I see like legal I mean there may be other more greater needs that are out there that city can help highlighting to people who can offer such expertise yeah the city can't take on that task because the agencies might need help this week but not next week um they all manage their volunteers internally maybe they do a monthly training for new volunteers they have a whole they all do it differently and they all do it their own way so we the city of Bellevue doesn't really have the capacity to uh promote that I could certainly send you a list of of agencies.

I could certainly send you a list of agencies.

Yeah, even just highlight these agent agencies that people could look into and they can kind of take their own responsibility of contacting these, not asking a city to manage these volunteer program because that's a big task on its own.

But even just highlighting, like for me, like, oh, I wonder what are the these agents that are out there.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thanks, Eileen.

Uh any other question, comments.

Oh, Paul.

Thank you for that.

Um I am curious uh about the status of the safe parking program.

I think I had heard that there were some facility glitches there.

Yeah, facility failure.

Um so the building got condemned on pretty short notice.

So the agency for tomorrow that was managing safe parking pivoted to they got people into hotels pretty quickly.

And they are actively looking for a new site for safe parking.

Um I don't know if there's if they're close to that or not.

In the meantime, um, the people that they were working with, I believe most of them got housed and then they weren't taking in new clients.

Okay.

How long ago was uh the condemnate condemnation of the property?

Yeah, I don't know the answer to that.

I thought I heard about it sometime late mid to late last year, but I don't know.

It was late last summer, some over that that timeline.

Yeah.

Okay.

And the building is is done.

We're not gonna rehabilitate it.

Uh no, I don't believe it was it's it's it's probably not worth the reinvestment, but uh it was rather said agreed.

Okay.

Yeah, no, I mean it was interesting because that program did depend on uh a fortuitous piece of real estate that happened to be in the city's possession, but there's not a lot of that.

Um unused, I should say.

Um when it came to the um kind of the increase that we saw in a number of different homelessness metrics after 2021, 2022.

Um related to COVID?

Is do we do we have like any causation suggested for that?

I'm sure it has a COVID factor.

Housing's only gotten more and more and more expensive.

I think during COVID, we had a lot of people who lost income, lost jobs, lots of businesses closed down.

Um but I don't I don't specifically know any of sort of the metrics of how that would have happened.

Yeah, I mean, because the change was more of a step function than something you might expect from the sort of incremental increases in housing costs.

So it's it it points more, at least for a first pass analysis, it seems to point more towards uh something more than just an ongoing trend happening.

But um, okay.

But yeah, it it seemed to manifest in all aspects, whether it was student homelessness or um just the total metric, or as you pointed out, the number of folks that are in a chronic state as opposed to uh more of a transient homelessness.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep, you're welcome.

Thanks, Paul.

Uh Steve.

Um just following up on some of the statistics.

Are there any I guess you guys are the the booths on the ground and do you guys are are there any projections for the up, you know, in the near future, or these trends which way are they trending, right?

Um is it gonna does it look more positive or does it look more pessimistic these, you know, the going forward?

Yeah.

So what I would say is that we're in a pretty unique period where uh local efforts could be paired with statewide efforts, could be paired with federal efforts to help people with the costs of child care and help people with costs of housing and with food.

Um because the currently the federal administration is um ending the funding, for instance, violence against women, the federal funds for violence against women are have been zeroed out.

And so that means the burden for a lot of help for domestic violence really falls to the state and falls locally.

So I would say that it's grim, incredibly grim, what's happening right now.

But I but it's hard to know, you know, it's just immediately really, really grim, but it's kind of hard to know what what's gonna be happening next.

Following up on that, then in terms of the human services budget here.

Um are those are those being funded by the well, I guess there are many levels of funding, and I'm assuming a lot of that uh funding would be cut because of the fed on the federal level.

So in the human services department, we have one little pot of federal dollars.

It's called CDBG community development block grant.

It pays for the home repair program.

Some a little bit of the money goes to Porchlight Men's Shelter.

Um, a little bit of the money goes to for tomorrow and a few other agencies to do some microenterprise.

Um that money has been uh stalled and then restarted, and currently it might for 2026 it might happen.

So uh that's the bulk of our money is general fund City of Bellevue dollars.

The city is um focused on human services.

They are generous with what they budget for uh the human services team to invest in the work.

And um, so uh fairly flat funding from 2425 to what's ahead.

It's looking like it's not we're not taking a cut.

So yeah, thanks for asking.

Thank you.

Thanks, Steve.

Uh oh, go ahead.

Uh thank you so much for for sharing this.

I know I've heard a lot of this in the news at the federal level, but um it is really helpful to see how this is impacting us in particular in our communities.

I wanted to speak to what Eileen had said earlier because that was the similar to what was on my mind, but I think it bears repeating that right now, especially people know what's going on and they don't know how to help.

They they want to help.

They literally don't know what is my next step if I get out my door.

Um, they don't know where to go online.

Like I want to do something.

And when I heard the report, one thing I heard again and again is that people have trouble accessing services.

So it's not a tech highly technical need that we have to get people connected.

Um, and if there's anything that we can do to help connect people to those volunteering opportunities and make sure it's on the website so that people have a button to push, um, it would just be immensely helpful because I was reading, I was scanning through the report looking for how can people help, how can people help?

What are people who could do something skill-wise, or even if I'm unskilled and I have one language, what can I do?

Um I would love to hear it, and I'll reach out to you offline, um, Eileen.

Like we we can help connect people to the city if they are looking for volunteers, because in times past, maybe even just five years ago, uh, I know my kids and I had tried to volunteer and they're like, we're full of volunteers.

We don't need any.

And that's very, very recent memory for me of not being able to get a volunteer position at a homeless shelter because I had so many folks, but it's different now.

So um thank you for all the hard work you're doing, in spite of so much um, you know, so much bad news and and so much hurt that people are feeling.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just to add on that, I mean, I'm just thinking like for all the, I don't know how many families who don't have water today, like that water got shut down, you know, it like how much they owe in on the water bill, like where can they turn to get help, right?

And how much is a short and what percentage of that those families can get some help and then maybe get water turned back in the next day or two.

Like I'm just kind of like, you know, it's just unexpectedly.

I found out that today, and I was just thinking about those families who don't have water tonight.

Yeah, I hadn't heard that.

Yeah.

And I hope I heard it right.

Yeah, that's what I just happened to make a call to utilities today.

I'll I'll see if I can get any information about how many people or what was behind that.

I hadn't heard that.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Oh, Michael, go ahead.

So on uh a bit of uh I'll say better news.

So um in the just got a little message here that um uh unlike what Ruth and I just talked about.

So safe parking is actually operational.

It's still in the Lennar uh Lincoln Center parking lot, and uh, but it's being operated on a little different model because those buildings are still condemned.

Um so the city has provided portables for a day use center, and they purchased a shower trailer for use by the program participants.

So it's meeting the need in a slightly different way.

That's a big deal.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's good to hear.

Uh you have a comment or no.

Uh okay.

Uh I have a couple comments.

Um, yeah, the data was so interesting.

I was when I saw, I don't have a child, so to see $3,400 a month for child care costs, which comes out to like over 40,000 a year, and that's a lot.

And then I think I read in the report that 23% of people around here earn less than 25,000 a year.

It kind of doesn't work out, which is kind of pretty wild.

Um, so my my really quick question.

I I must have missed it maybe.

Um, I wasn't quite sure.

Uh, the 535 people that did the survey, uh, what what were they like and how did they find the survey?

Um, we put out a press release with a QR code.

So we got some responses from that, but we distributed it to our agencies.

So they had them at Porch Light Shelter for their clients.

We did some tabling at Crossroads Community Center and at uh one of the Bellevue School District um events uh at one of the schools.

So um we it's it was a lower number of survey respondents than we've had.

Um, and we had a lot of people who were really, really reluctant.

That April, May, June was at the time when there were um that Doge federal team was coming in and um closing federal offices, and at that time there was a lot of mistrust of why we were collecting people's information and were asking your age and how many people are in your household.

And um, there was uh even when we were tabling at Crossroads, people would come and talk to us, but they didn't want to do the survey.

So that was sort of a unique um challenge that we had with data collection this year.

The focus groups and the provider uh survey and the subject matter expert interviews really helped to fill in a lot of the data that we we didn't get from as many surveys.

Okay, thank you so much for sharing that.

Um really insightful insightful looking back at what the world was like just a few months ago.

Um I and then I have a really minor, I flipped through the the document, and then I noticed on page 33.

This is really specific, sorry.

Um, I was looking at the number of opiate over opiate over overdoses, and I noticed it peaked in 2023 and then it went down, which I thought, okay, that's kind of a good sign.

So are there things that are working that are helping bring that down?

There are things that are work.

There are multiple things that are working.

Um naloxone is now free, and you can you don't have to have a prescription and people carry it on them to help someone else.

Um so that has really really reduced the number of people who drop die from a fentanyl overdose.

Um there's there are also you know, they're learning about this.

This was a fairly new drug.

Um, they're really learning about how to intervene in this.

There are treatment programs that are working better.

And frankly, uh what what we hear anecdotally is that young people are not interested in fentanyl.

So the people who have been dying of fentanyl overdoses are in their 30s and 40s, and that young people are not interested because it really is so deadly.

And so it's not it's sort of had its heyday, and then frankly, people that were really into it died.

Thank you for that.

Hopefully the trend will hopefully continue downward to zero.

Well, that's kind of all my comments.

Any other final questions, comments that may have come up.

Um, thank you again for this presentation and uh yeah, looking forward to learning more about ways we could all help as a community.

Thank you.

It was really nice to be here.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

And then the next item is the December 2025 report and communication to council.

And the presenter for that is our Ryan Walker Senior Planner.

Great.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, as is typical, we have a uh quarterly slash portion of the year report um for city council and staff worked with the chair and vice chair to draft that uh as typical.

And you probably saw that in your packet, but just a couple of the highlights that are included um from the September through November meeting time frame.

Um the Eastgate neighborhood park um Eastgate Commons.

Now the formal name and adopted name, um discussion of that process and the board's extensive involvement and ultimately city council uh adoption of of the name um was highlighted.

Other informational presentations were highlighted around Crossroads Park, around the levy, uh open parks and open space levy marketing.

Um as well as naming processes generally and looking at those sort of guidelines.

Um and then on the um accreditation and reaccreditation for now the fourth time, fifth time actually, I guess if I'm counting right, um, for the department.

Um, and so that's a way to let city council know of that great achievement um that all of us are are involved with.

So um I will leave it there on the summary back to you, Chair.

Thank you.

Um, so we'll open it up to discussion.

Does anyone have any questions or comments about the memo?

Okay.

With that, is there a motion to transmit the report for September to December 2025 to city council as presented?

I move to transmit the report as presented to city council.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Uh a second.

I second.

Uh let's vote.

All in favor to transmit the report for September to December 2025 to city council as presented, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say no.

All right.

The motion to transmit the report for September to December 2025 to City Council as presented has been approved.

So thank you for that.

The next item on the agenda is new business.

So I'll turn it over or turn it back to Ryan.

Uh, what agenda items do you expect to cover during the February meeting?

Yes, thank you.

And um, well, I just want to say great meeting tonight.

Uh, really good topics.

Appreciate you uh bearing with us through the um motion process earlier, but we I think we're through the bylaws for the moment.

So um all good stuff.

Uh for uh Bell Red for February.

We have a Bell Red uh master planning park process um on the uh radar, and that will be the kickoff meeting for that with the parks board.

Um that's a new park facility along the West Tributary.

And uh so that's what we're looking at for that meeting right now.

And we'll see if there's anything added on to that.

Um couple of notes on that meeting.

I think is we mentioned way back in November.

Um that uh falls during President's Day week, it's February 18th, which is also mid-winter break for um schools.

So we were interested in getting um a fill for where people are on availability for that date.

Um, and if anyone knows that they will be absent for that meeting, or if they are intending to participate remotely, that would be helpful to know um as early as possible.

I am participating remotely if it is indeed held on the 18th, yes.

Okay.

Same here.

Um I will need to uh participate remotely.

And I believe I will be in the same boat.

Oh, you're coming along with us?

Yeah.

Available but remote is better than not available.

So all right.

And then folks have until uh noon the day prior to all them.

It sounds like we should be good for a quorum though, and that was one of the we wanted to make sure that was um possible.

So it sounds like we're good to go there.

So we will we will push forward with the meeting, um knowing there'll be some folks remote um and probably check in before the meeting to confirm any of that.

Um yeah, I think that's all I have.

Okay, thanks.

Any other questions or comments about new business?

All right.

Uh with that, um, we've completed all the items on tonight's agenda, and so I'll call the meeting now adjourned.

Thank you.