Kinnear Park’s North Trail project, which requested $659,770 in funds from this year’s round of the city’s Opportunity Fund, fell off the preliminary projects list of those likely to be funded at the March 18 Parks Oversight Committee meeting. Queen Anne Community Council’s Parks Committee chairperson Don Harper is now asking questions since the project was rated high in the Parks staff recommendations to the Oversight Committee early in the process.
Raising questions
FOLKpark (Friends of Lower Kinnear Park) received funds two years ago for $750,000 and has raised about $250,0000 to rehabilitate Kinnear Park in a phased planning and design process that is well under way with Seattle Parks and Recreation, the Queen Anne community and design firm HBB.
Harper, just retired from his service on the Parks Levy Oversight Committee last December and a member of the FOLKpark steering committee, has written a letter to the Levy Oversight Committee members, committee chairperson Pete Spaulding, Parks Superintendent Christopher Williams and Seattle City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, chairperson of the council’s Parks and Neighborhoods Committee, questioning the Parks staff’s actions relating to the process.
Harper wrote, he “does not question the integrity or honesty of the Parks staff,” but he wonders, “if the deep budget cuts have impacted their ability to run an open and transparent process.
“This is not a plea to reconsider the North Trail project; that is best left to others. My concerns are that Parks has not approached the lower Kinnear Park North Trail project (No. 10) using an open and transparent process…. If Parks cannot be honest with the community, then how can they be honest with you [The Oversight Committee]?
“What was not reported to you about the North Trail project during discussions on Opportunity Fund projects on March 18, 2013, was the failure of communication between FOLKpark and Parks staff…. I hope for all of the hardworking volunteers out there who submitted projects for consideration, they had a more fair process than the North Trail project has had so far. I worry, though, that this project is not alone.”
In his letter, Harper also stated, “FOLKpark meets twice a month on the same two days and times for the last three years. The Parks project supervisor for the current lower Kinnear Park project is included in all e-mails as to the date, time, agenda of our meetings, and is always invited to attend. Neither the project supervisor nor any other Parks staff has communicated Parks’ concern and lack of support for the North Trail project, though this has been communicated to the Levy Committee.”
Both Harper and Frausto say they are not pointing fingers; instead, they say they are raising questions about Park staff actions. It is Harper’s hope that the process can at least be studied and questioned before the project list is finalized, after the public hearing on April 22 and, at the very least, revisited by the Oversight Committee after the selection is completed to ensure that it was properly done.
This is supposedly the last of the 2008 Levy funds to be dispersed.
Improper communications?
The North Trail Project, one of many ongoing and planned for Kinnear Park by FOLKpark, involves placing a trail on a steep slope. Harper contends that the Parks staff began nixing the project during the process of selection, emphasizing only the liability issues that could possibly arise and not giving enough attention to the positive and workable solutions that could be mitigated.
From the time the letter of intent was submitted, there was no direct contact with FOLKpark, Frausto and Harper say. It was during that time, Parks staff was working with groups nominating projects, asking questions and clarifying specifics, before they ranked the projects in order by districts.
Kinnear Park came in third in this district, over Magnolia Manor Park’s Missing Piece project. These results were turned over to the Oversight Committee for site visits, final discussion and decision-making, which culminated in the March 18 meeting, when the list of 12 projects was finalized. Kinnear was missing, while Manor Park made the list.
After meeting with Parks staff, a staff member from Bagshaw’s office, Harper and Frausto, Williams agreed to speak to Spaulding, the Oversight Committee chairperson, to see if there had been improper communications that may have resulted in the Kinnear’s chances for funds disappearing.
As of press time, Parks spokesperson Dewey Potter said a response to Harper’s letter was being drafted and would be released shortly.
Frausto said, FOLKpark will continue to promote the “merits of the project…they are all still there. The project will go on…. We have every intention to move on” and get the funds needed to complete the community vision for the park.
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