By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

We have two three followups today to the “Nickelsville” developments first reported here last Tuesday, one day after the second anniversary of the encampment’s return to West Seattle.

Those developments centered around a letter from Mayor McGinn to Council President Sally Clark a letter (read it here) suggesting two options for the site’s future: Sell it to Food Lifeline as that agency has sought, provided the council passes a bill allowing more encampment sites at “non-religious” locations – or vote to allow the site to become a “semi-permanent” encampment.

Today’s developments (editor’s note – third development, added 5:20 pm, is at the bottom of this story – the two ordinances to be reviewed next week, including the mayor’s alternative proposal for the Nickelsville site):

HPAC PETITION AND MEETINGS: The Highland Park Action Committee, which says its area has hosted the encampment for long enough – 2 years – and is demanding a move-out date, has started an online petition. The petition calls on the city to either move it before summer, or start a public-review process for HP and Riverview immediately. Find the petition here. Here’s the statement we received along with that link:

Please pass this link on to anyone you know who owns property in the city, or to anyone that supports a better solution for the homeless. The Mayor’s actions to date have repercussions for everyone. We appreciate all the support we’ve gotten on this, we have a lot of irons in the fire right now. We are working on legal papers to file and are focusing the next few weeks on a more political route while all this legislation is coming to a head in City Council.

We are meeting with Council President Sally Clark’s aide this afternoon, and plan to meet with the Mayor at his office next Friday. We hope to have as many signatures as possible by Wednesday, May 22nd. That day there is (a) meeting of Nick Licata’s Housing, Human Services, Health and Culture Committee at Seattle City Council from 2-4 where he’ll be presenting encampment legislation. Anyone who can make it to that, it would be great to try to have some community to encourage a change to the current situation. That night we have our regularly scheduled HPAC meeting, where we will discuss next steps. Join us at 7 pm, Highland Park Improvement Club on 12th and Holden.

FOOD LIFELINE: As mentioned in the mayor’s letter published here on Tuesday, Food Lifeline already has commitments from the encampment site’s other two owners to sell their parts of the parcel to FLL.

We confirmed this with FLL spokesperson Amy Lee Derenthal, who says the state has declared its land “surplus” and will sell no sooner than September 1st but no later than next January 15th, and that the private landowner who holds the rest of the site will “sell or deed his property” to FLL – once the organization has secured the city parcel.

Reacting specifically to the mayor’s announcement, Derenthal quotes FLL CEO Linda Nageotte as saying, “We appreciate the efforts of both the Mayor’s office and the City Council to move toward selling the land to Food Lifeline in addition to tackling the difficult issues surrounding both hunger and encampments. We look forward to a win-win solution that will provide safe shelter and healthy food to all who are in need of these resources.” They have one other ball in the air – a $3.1 million state funding request that FLL says was in the State Senate budget but not the State House. But they’re hopeful that will be worked out during the special session now under way, as they seek “state funding for preparation of the site, including geotechnical, SEPA review, grading, soil reclamation, and fill.”

Food Lifeline went public last October with its proposal to buy the site, seeking to build a new headquarters/processing center there.

ADDED 5:20 PM – DRAFT ORDINANCES TO BE PRESENTED NEXT WEEK: Three hours after we published this story, the agenda for next week’s aforementioned City Council Housing (etc.) Committee meeting was made public, and it includes drafts of the two ordinances mentioned in the mayor’s Tuesday letter:

*First – Councilmember Nick Licata’s proposal for allowing “transitional” encampments at certain types of non-religious locations – see the draft version here.

*Second – Mayor McGinn’s alternative proposal (though his letter says he would prefer to see Licata’s version passed, and to then sell the Nickelsville site to Food Lifeline), which would spend $300,000 on an environmental assessment of the current encampment site as a possible preface to “constructing a temporary structure for providing transitional services, food preparation, and hygiene facilities to be run by an organization that would manage the City-sanctioned encampment, providing up to 100 homeless people with a place to stay and with connections to critical human services while they transition to more permanent housing …” See the draft version of that ordinance here.

Again, the meeting at which those proposed ordinances will be discussed is at 2 pm next Wednesday – May 22nd – at City Hall.

With this record-setting heat, we’ve been getting questions about when the city’s wading pools open. Schedule’s not out yet, but the short answer: Not till next month. The questions, however, inspired us to check in on the new addition to West Seattle’s outdoor aquatics scene this summer – the Highland Park Spraypark, going in at the site of the wading pool that’s hasn’t been open since 2008. Seattle Parks project manager Kelly Goold says the spraypark is currently on track for completion by the end of this month, and shared construction photos with WSB:

The top photo, he explains, “shows concrete being poured in one pad and forming for the next – concrete for this project is part of the final phase.” The second photo shows “the very cool bronze inlays that tie to the planetary theme of the spray-park.” As he notes, most of the work has been “in-ground; a lot of piping for the spray-park equipment.”

(Video sent by Bob Mohr, recorded by son Jack, in Genesee Hill around sunset Monday, between 55th/54th/Genesee/Dakota)
While that short clip of a coyote on the run in a West Seattle neighborhood – watch the sidewalk at :25 and :40 – isn’t from Highland Park, that neighborhood’s plan to talk about coyotes and other urban wildlife tomorrow night would seem to be of interest to all. A federal wildlife biologist is on the Highland Park Action Committee‘s agenda, 7 pm Wednesday at HP Improvement Club (12th/Holden), and all are welcome. Also on the agenda: The proposed Duwamish River cleanup plan, and why, with a month left for public comment, it should matter to you.

To Mayor McGinn, his staff, and members of Seattle City Council,

The Highland Park Action Committee (HPAC) would like to request a move out date for the homeless encampment that calls itself “Nickelsville” at 7116 West Marginal Way at the base of Highland Park Drive. HPAC represents the Highland Park and Riverview Neighborhoods in Southwest Seattle. It has come to our attention that it has been difficult for the residence of Nickelsville to keep order in the camp and the management technique used to try to restore order recently included the “Show of Force Team” removing the Porta Potty Service. As the residents of Nickelsville wrote:

“The reason for this decision (to remove the Porta Potty Service) was our inability at Nickelsville in preventing the overrun of our community by meth dealers and barred, violent former campers. Progress was made yesterday, but the situation is still teetering on the brink.”

A new letter has been released from the encampment stating that things are “returning to stability.” The intent of their letter was to express dismay with the Seattle Police for not helping them with security. The Seattle Police are in a bind because the entire encampment is squatting illegally, so they cannot enforce one group’s illegal presence there over another group. The situation at Nickeslville has gotten out of hand, we have noticed a shift in the population from what was originally there, and this has been verified by campers living in Nickelsville. We were surprised, however, at the threatening management technique. As we have continued to hear stories of how the camp is currently being run, we were struck by the realization that there really is no oversight whatsoever for this encampment- it is illegal after all, and we have a lot of concerns with how it’s being managed at this point.

The City’s blind eye / hands off approach has not worked for the residents at the encampment, or for the neighborhood. If the City were running the encampment or had any official presence there, they could help get people the services they need. In fact, the existing management is actually intimidating campers into not seeking help or services, and pressuring residents to not call police so as not to create problems for themselves. Since the police were called in for this most recent incident, it has come out that there have been several violent and angry outbursts that have come from barred campers. These are the campers that are now living in our backyard woods, these are the police reports that are very carefully written without the words “Nickelsville” or “encampment.” Between this recent incident, the management techniques that are coming to light, the recent rat infestation reports from the Health Department, and the flooding tendencies the site presents in the winter months, the conditions at Nickelsville warrant a closure.

Nickelsville has been at its current location for almost 2 years as a “self managed” community. We were asked by Deputy Mayor Smith at a December 7, 2011 Community Meeting if we would like to seek eviction. Although some residents were calling for a forced eviction at that time, we did not feel that we, as a community organization, were comfortable asking for that until there was a place for the residents of Nickelsville to go, and we were told that there were not any. At that point we felt like legislation was just a few months away and a City Sanctioned Encampment with adequate health and safety measures were within reach. We requested more patrols in the greenbelt as a lot of barred campers were ending up there. We were told there were not sufficient resources for that, but if we call in with specific locations they would be cleared. The police have advised us not to use the greenbelt for recreation anymore because campsites can be guarded with aggressive dogs, which make it difficult to call in with specific locations in order to get to use our greenbelt again. We have met with Nick Licata twice since that December 2011 community meeting to discuss the Mayor’s Transitional Encampment Interim Use Amendments, drafted in April of 2012. We understand that Nick Licata has not moved on it for several reason, one being that Share/Wheel and Nickelsville expressed opposition to it at those meetings.

We conducted a survey of our community in August of 2012, 165 people responded. One of the biggest problems that came up was the increase in the number of people living in the greenbelt (such as the barred meth dealers and violent campers Nickelsville alluded to in their letter). The other important piece of the survey was that the majority of people wanted the encampment to move within 6 months. We took the results of that survey, a summary, and all the comments to our meeting with Licata’s office in August of 2012. We sent the results of our survey to Mayor McGinn as well, I just received a reply back from him- 8 months later, it thanked me for my concern.

The City has been ignoring our repeated pleas for political leadership, and our multiple requests for another neighborhood to take a turn hosting the encampment at a more adequate site that does not present such public health risks. We were happy to do our part to help share the responsibility of homelessness with city for a 6 month period of time. The City has disrespected and taken advantage of our neighborhood for long enough by keeping it here for 2 years now. The City is turning a blind eye to the huge public health risks at the encampment and to the threatening management techniques used on its residents, allowing for considerable risk to the campers and to the surrounding neighborhoods. The City has set a dangerous precedent of condoning permanent encampments, without due process from neighbors or community members, to be set up over night in any neighborhood in Seattle. Nickelsville has already written that a priority in finding a new site is that it is available for 2 years- the precedent has now been set for them, thanks to this unwillingness to act on the City’s part. We feel completely stunned at the lack of leadership and the lack of respect for our neighborhood from both the City Council and the Mayor’s Office.

HPAC, as representatives of the Highland Park and Riverview neighborhoods are requesting:

1. a move out date no later than June 13th (1 month after Nickelsville’s May 13th two year anniversary for this site.) We would like for the encampment to be evacuated prior to the swell in population that occurs in the summer months there.

2. at least 1 month notice be given to the campers, and that every measure possible be taken to ensure that each person at the encampment is offered shelter or housing.

3. a commitment to regular sweeps through the greenbelt for the next 8 months with aggressive bag-and-tag operations, and prompt action thereafter to remove any encampments that are reported by the community.

4. This is the second time that HPAC has had to galvanize against the city- the second time the city as forced our fragile community to spend valuable time and energy that communities like ours don’t have, fighting the city. We would like assurance that you will begin to treat Highland Park and Riverview with the same respect that you would for other neighborhoods in Seattle.

Should we not hear a move out date from the City by the encampment’s 2nd Anniversary (May 13th), we will be forced to take action which will include more media, a lot of e-mails and visits to your offices from our community, and legal action. This call for a move out date is independent of the Food Lifeline decision which should be made in the next couple of weeks. Our community does not want to see the encampment at its current location through the summer.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter,

Carolyn Stauffer
Chair, Highland Park Action Committee

We will be checking on the mayor and council’s response to HPAC’s letter.

11:27 AM P.S. Last night, hours before this letter arrived in the WSB inbox, we received a copy of an open letter from Stauffer’s predecessor as HPAC chair, Dan Mullins. Breaking news kept us from publishing it overnight but you can read it here now.

FOOD LIFELINE SITE DECISION DELAY? Though some word from the city was expected any day now by both Food Lifeline – which wants to buy the public land that currently houses the encampment – and the Highland Park Action Committee, which says the encampment has overstayed its welcome and wants a move-out date (as first reported here Thursday), Mayor McGinn‘s office says the next move may still be a few weeks away. Spokesperson Aaron Pickus answered our query this morning with: “We expect to have a report from our Finance and Administrative Services department in early to mid-April regarding the possible property sale to Food Lifeline.”

SENTENCING IN APRIL 2012 ‘FIREBOMBING’: It’s not in our coverage archives, but the U.S. Attorney reports that not only was there a firebombing at the encampment almost exactly a year ago – related to an “eviction” – but the repeat offender arrested for it and another crime two days later has just been sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. The U.S. Attorney’s Office sent a news release about it today – saying 37-year-old Shane Anello had pleaded guilty to charges stemming from having thrown a Molotov cocktail at the car of someone who had evicted him from Nickelsville on April 1 (a “car fire” is shown on the 911 logs for that day at 6:10 pm), and to shooting at a car in Beacon Hill on April 3rd. Read the full news release here.

(March 19th photo by WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand)
Police are often heard to exhort neighbors to get involved – because they ultimately can have more effect on the crime situation in their neighborhood than can police. And so, neighbors from Highland Park’s 15th/Holden vicinity (map) came to the West Seattle Block Watch Captains Network meeting on Tuesday night to show their intensifying concern about a neighborhood trouble spot.

Ongoing problems started coming to something of a head on March 19th, when the big police response shown in our photo responded to what Lt. Pierre Davis told us at the time was a case of cell-phone theft – but at Tuesday night’s meeting, pressed for information by neighbors, precinct commander Capt. Joe Kessler admitted it was something more: “Ten police cars don’t show up for a stolen cell phone.” (Toplines in the police-report system later indicated the call also involved “threats.”)

Four days after that, on March 23, a shots-fired report brought police back to the area. Nobody got hit, but that wasn’t the point.

Frustrated neighbors told police on Tuesday night that in their view, the landlord of a particular building is the problem. They were assured that city agencies are working with the landlord, even while police focus on the area too. Capt. Kessler said the “Anti-Crime Team has been out there every night, our patrol guys are out there on a constant basis …” but, he also said, they might not be there at the moment an incident is playing out, so calling 911 every time a neighbor see something “that is not right” is the best order of business. As with other crimes and problem areas, the captain added, even if another call gets in the way and police don’t arrive in time, it helps them “analyze what the trends look like” among other things.

Lt. Davis said the City Attorney’s Office precinct liaison Melissa Chin is in contact with the landlord “and I think we are going in the right direction with that and I’m looking at a resolution in the very near future.”

That was part of Mayor McGinn‘s response to WSB today, after we requested comment on the situation reported here on Sunday – centering on the encampment’s Central Committee declaring that it was having trouble “preventing the overrun of our community by meth dealers and barred, violent former campers,” blaming police for not supporting camp decisions to evict such people. Our story, meantime, included an incident one week ago in which the SPD report indeed quoted police saying that people on public land had no right to tell others to get off that public land – while also including a would-be evictee claiming they were getting booted for going to police about an alleged crime.

The mayor, meantime, says more police help is in order; the second and final sentence of his reply to us was, “The immediate next step is to increase our police presence through the use of directed patrols from the Southwest Precinct.” We hope to hear something about that when precinct commander Capt. Joe Kessler speaks to the West Seattle Block Watch Captains Network on Tuesday night (6:30 pm, SW Precinct, Delridge/Webster); then on Wednesday night, the Highland Park Action Committee, the neighborhood council closest to the encampment, plans a Nickelsville update during its regular monthly meeting (7 pm, HP Improvement Club, 12th/Holden).

Sunrise Heights residents who thought they heard gunfire around 4:30 this morning have found proof, and police have gone back for further investigation. The report we received mentioned a yellow or light-colored “muscle car” at the time shots were fired near 32nd and Kenyon (map) – police got there fast, we’re told, but the car was gone. Then this morning, our tipster found spent casings (including the one shown above) and a needle in the gutter, across the street from the east wall of the Westside School campus:

They counted five, but just texted us to say that while police were there a short time ago, a sixth was found, all 9mm. No reports of injuries or property damage.

In a separate incident, we have a report from Tom in Highland Park, who reports three shots fired from a car last night around 10:30 pm at 15th and Holden (map), by the apartments that drew a major response back on Tuesday. The call is noted in an SPD auto-tweet but as with all auto-tweets, no further details.

One more Crime Watch note that does NOT involve gunfire – an Arbor Heights resident reports a house in the neighborhood was broken into during the day Friday, 39th and 106th (map), and urges “vigilance,” observing that it went unnoticed until the resident discovered it later.

(Photo by WSB’s Patrick Sand)
HAPPENING NOW: Thanks to those who texted/e-mailed about a big police response in Highland Park a short time ago. Southwest Precinct Operations Lt. Pierre Davis tells us that officers were after somebody who bolted into an apartment complex near 16th and Holden after reportedly stealing somebody’s cell phone. Not an armed holdup, but “a crime of opportunity,” he explains.

SEPARATE CASE – RECOGNIZE THESE SUSPECTS? SPD has just gone public with video from another case:

Per SPD Blotter, this video shows two suspects from an armed street robbery in The Junction on February 2nd. It doesn’t show the actual holdup but does show suspects on a store surveillance camera afterward. Can you help detectives identify them? Call the SPD Robbery Unit at 206-684-5535.

The photo is courtesy of the Rotary Club of West Seattle, which heard today from Linda Nageotte, CEO of Food Lifeline, regarding its proposal for a new facility on the site that currently houses the encampment that calls itself Nickelsville, but primarily about the organization’s main job, as Rotary publicity chair Dave Nichols notes:

She talked about all the great things Food Lifeline conducts to help people who need help. A couple of facts that stuck out:

*97 cents of every dollar is spent on feeding people
*1 in 4 children in our community is at risk of being hungry

For an update on the Nickelsville-site plan, join the Highland Park Action Committee at its meeting tomorrow night. As the closest community council to the encampment, they’ve discussed it more than a few times, and will hear from Food Lifeline tomorrow (Wednesday) night. The meeting’s at 7 pm, Highland Park Improvement Club HQ (12th/Holden), all welcome.

12:50 PM: As several people texted and e-mailed to report, a TV chopper was over Highland Park for a little while this morning and we are pretty sure this was why – this car went up on the lawn of a home in the 8100 block of 9th SW. We’re still checking on the circumstances with police and fire – it didn’t originally catch our attention because it was a simple call on the SFD log without even a medic unit – but so far we understand one person was hurt, not major injuries, transported by private ambulance.

1:17 PM UPDATE: Seattle Fire spokesperson Kyle Moore says the car was reported to have gone onto the lawn after hitting a parked car, and the 46-year-old driver was in stable condition when taken to the hospital. One person was inside the house, he says, but wasn’t hurt.

4:55 PM: Thanks to Beef and Mark, both of whom e-mailed notes and photos (that’s Beef‘s picture above) to let us know that demolition is under way at the old Highland Park wading pool, to make way for West Seattle’s first spray park, which will be built in its place. Back when the idea of converting the wading pool into a spray park was first proposed in 2009, construction was expected to start the next year, but there’ve been changes along the way, including extra Parks and Green Spaces Levy money to take the project beyond a bare-bones spray feature. The Seattle Parks project page says it should be done in mid-May and open this summer. That’ll be five years after the wading pool was last open; in late 2008, the federal government mandated safety retrofits that were never installed because Parks expected to redevelop the site. You can see the spraypark’s design plan on the Parks website.

6:39 PM UPDATE: After Beef and Mark sent word of the construction work, we sent an inquiry to project manager Kelly Goold at Seattle Parks, to look for a few more specifics. Kelly’s reply:

Yes, it is exciting news that we are finally breaking ground. Current schedule is to have construction complete and the spray-park operational by May 27th (the typical opening day for spray-parks and wading pools).

Also, the art installation project is moving forward. The artist Leo Berk is doing great work on the project you have described in WSB in previous posts.

The art project involves the building at the site; here’s our report, with renderings, from last November.