Governance and Utilities Committee

The Seattle City Council's Governance and Utilities Committee conducted two public hearings and approved both measures unanimously during its March 12, 2026 meeting. The committee authorized Seattle Public Utilities to sell a 28,900-square-foot property in SeaTac to King County Water District 125 for $280,200, facilitating the district's plans to build a new pump station and water service infrastructure. The committee also approved a seven-year extension to the city's cable franchise agreement with Comcast, raising franchise fees from 4.4% to 5% and PEG fees from 0.4% to 0.6% of gross revenues. In the meeting's highlight presentation, Seattle IT presented a comprehensive overview of its strategic transformation under Chief Technology Officer Rob Lloyd, who was conducting his final committee presentation before departing March 27. Lloyd detailed significant performance improvements including a jump in project success rates from roughly 10% to 78%, reduced priority-one outages by 41%, and maintained customer satisfaction at 67% despite a $21 million budget reduction and loss of 61 staff positions. The department unveiled a new dashboard-driven work plan system designed to align IT operations directly with mayor and council priorities, emphasizing accountability, metrics, and strategic focus over ad-hoc project responses. The session marked a transition point for Seattle IT, with Assistant CTO Tracye Cantrell set to become acting CTO following Lloyd's departure to lead the Center for Digital Government.