Last Tuesday about 400 people packed the Mount Baker Community Club to hear about Casa Latina's plans to relocate from their current site in Belltown to the vacant Chubby & Tubby store on Rainier Avenue.
The opposition was large and rambunctious, and I was reminded of our light rail controversy a few years back. There was shouting and name-calling on both sides.
Casa Latina made the mistake of placing too much faith in the good that their projects promise the community. They didn't foresee the ferocity of the opposition. The process of side taking seems to be characteristic of the way we deal with conflict in this community.
There are ways that we could work together more effectively. One method is expressed in Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." Perhaps our community would function more effectively if we tried to cultivate three of his habits: seek first to understand, then to be understood; think win-win; and synergize.
If we begin by seeking to understand, we will have a clearer picture of how each group views the situation. First, let's try to take in the community activist's view that has worked to put together the North Rainier Neighborhood Plan. That plan envisions a pedestrian friendly community where people walk and bike to a future light rail station.
Second, let's examine the viewpoint of some of the women who spoke up hotly at the meeting with fear and trembling verging on terror in their voices. They love the Rainier but are aware of its high crime rate. A day labor center will bring in droves of strange, and therefore untrustworthy, men. These people will hang out along the streets attracting alcoholics and other undesirables, just as they do in Belltown.
Thirdly, let's try to understand how this situation might have looked for the latino activists. From their perspective, this controversy smacks of prejudice against their people. Casa Latina provides education to help immigrants settle successfully in this country as law abiding and contributing members of society. Surely the organization should be welcomed with open arms in any neighborhood.
Finally, let's look at how this situation might appear to a Casa Latina staff member whose organization carved out a small day labor center on a littered embankment near a freeway overpass in Belltown. They cleaned up the site, and the presence of an active work program has since dissuaded some of the derelict elements from hovering about the area. Now the city has ordered Casa Latina to find a new home. It will be great to have a building large enough to allow all the workers to remain indoors while housing their offices and classrooms. It comes as a shock to this person that anyone might think the alcoholics and idlers from Western Avenue in Belltown would follow them to the Rainier Valley. They will remain there when Casa Latina leaves.
How can we come up with a synergistic, win-win solution that fulfills the hopes and dreams of all these differing worldviews? Following Covey's guidelines, we need to put our minds together and create solutions wherein the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. With this in mind, I asked some South End citizens to suggest win-win solutions to the conflict.
One suggested Casa Latina locate its administrative offices, classes, women's and children's programs in the old Chubby and Tubby building while pressuring the city for a grant to locate another site for a larger day labor center.
Another noted, because workers start their days at 6 a.m., the Casa Latina day laborers do not need to be out in the streets in front of the Chubby and Tubby building by the time school children show up to wait for their buses. Instead they should be required to remain indoors. Additionally, he suggested the city build more parking for Casa Latina. This would allow the organization to reduce vehicle traffic by giving them the opportunity to build a pedestrian friendly plaza and café where the current parking lot in front of the Chubby and Tubby building now sits.
These suggestions came to me within the space of a few phone calls. Just think how effective we might become as a community if we refused to take sides and play tug of war with one another. That's when new and creative ideas emerge to assure all sides can get their needs met. What a great community we would be if we spent less time demonizing and more time synergizing.
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