At the April 8 Magnolia/Queen Anne District Council, Seattle City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, chairperson of the council’s Parks and Neighborhoods Committee, and Seattle Parks and Recreation acting superintendent Christopher Williams spoke in response to the recent questioning of Parks staff working without transparency with the current Parks and Green Space Levy Oversight Committee. The concerns were raised following the March 18 selection of the 12 preliminary projects most likely to be funded, of which the Kinnear Park North Trail project was not one.
Don Harper, past Levy Oversight Committee member and FOLKPark steering-committee member, and FOLKPark chairperson Debi Frausto, both of whom raised the questions (as reported in the April 10 issue of the News), were present at the meeting.
John Coney, of the Queen Anne Uptown Alliance, asked for support for the Bell Street project, which includes the North Trail Project at Kinnear Park as part of a new connection for bicycles and pedestrians. This prompted both Bagshaw and Williams to say they were in support of the Kinnear Park improvements and appreciated the enormous work FOLKPark had put into the project.
Williams reported that Frausto’s comments made in a private meeting they had on Feb. 27 about the Kinnear Park concerns, made him want to state publicly he is “committed to the project and is going champion it.”
Williams went on to say that commitment did not preclude getting good information on “the issues that still need to be looked at,” like the geotechnical and design issues relating to the steep slope and the need to establish the costs and feasibilities of the project. He said he would push for study and open discussion when more was known.
‘A huge misunderstanding’
After the District Council meeting, Williams said he thought the letter Harper wrote regarding Parks staff not representing the project in an open process and including FOLKPark in discussions was a “huge misunderstanding…. This process is known for its transparency.”
The day after the District Council meeting, Parks released an e-mail levy manager Rick Nishi, who also helped evaluate projects for levy funding, sent to Harper in response to his letter. It outlined Parks’ positions about how Parks staff handled the North Trail Project in the process so far.
“Parks staff does not advocate for one proposal over another but take seriously our responsibility to be as objective as possible about every proposal…. Any discussions with Parks staff were based on the ranking of the project and potential geotechnical issues, costs and legal liabilities of project proposals. All of these are very real and self-evident factors,” Nishi wrote.
“At the meeting on Feb. 27, it was agreed that Parks would move forward by developing a scope of work for a comprehensive geotechnical analysis of what would be needed to design and construct the project. Parks has done this and is awaiting an estimate from the consultants before proceeding to the next steps in the process.… Staff did support the project to the degree possible, clearly stating that the project was not off the table, while still being objective and fair to the other projects.… Again, it just did not rank highly based on criteria, and much more work in the form of geotechnical work and engineering is needed before specific decisions are made, especially for support by the committee.”
Answering concerns
Oversight Committee chairperson Pete Spaulding, in a phone interview, said he considers “the letter Harper wrote as “[Harper’s] perception of how things may have gone.” On whether he agreed with Harper, Spaulding declined to comment.
He went onto say that the process was still in motion and Harper’s letter would be entered into the decision-making process still going on through the public hearing on April 22.
Spaulding reiterated several times that the letter was not unlike many other pieces of correspondence the committee receives relating to the projects as they continue in the process through the public hearing and final selection. And, as such, information such as Harper’s letter is always considered in the final decision made by the Levy Oversight Committee.
In regard to the Manor Park project making the preliminary funding list and jumping ahead of Kinnear’s North Trail, Nishi said, “Magnolia Manor Park is much more ready in design and implementation right now, and it is a straight-forward project; the North Trail is not.”
In response to Harper’s allegations that the committee was not transparent with FOLKPark, Nishi said, “Don [Harper] made a lot of broad-brush statements in his letter, and I am not sure exactly what he meant, and [I] cannot comment on much more than that.”
Frausto’s responded to recent developments by saying, “We believe raising our concerns with Parks has resulted in a better effort for everyone to communicate clearer on this project. FOLKPark’s discussions with Parks continue as we discuss next steps for the development of the North Trail. This includes reviewing a scope, proposal and funding for more geotechnical and slope stability studies.”
Harper said, “I am encouraged by the response from Seattle Parks [and Recreation] to my concerns about Parks’ evaluation of the Kinnear Park North Trail project. I will be working further with Parks and the City of Seattle on the feasibility of the North Trail project. I will also be following up on the evaluation process by Parks of projects submitted to the 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy Oversight Committee after the May 2013 selection of projects for the Opportunity Fund. This way, there will be no confusion on the part of Parks or the committee as to my concerns about the process [being about] any one project.”
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