West Seattle Ignored by Lisa Herbold

[brukeste]

Dear Council Member Lisa Herbold,

I am writing to you to ask why you have chosen to ignore your constituents here in West Seattle.

In February 2016 you were so helpful in coming to your neighborhood in Arbor Heights to see how badly our neighborhood has been neglected by the city over the years. You agreed with our assessment at the time and even invited the WS Blog photographer and SPU and SDOT staff to join you. During that meeting you asked for solutions and even admitted that we were being ignored. You were so engaged and promised you would not ignore us. But surprise, after your visit you sent us a poorly generated talking points document with no offer of a real solution then you have ignored all of our attempts to engage in conversation. Does the text you sent me saying your office would be in touch not truthful?

You even acknowledged the complaints. We have been trying for 4 months now to get your attention. Did we do something wrong? Did someone from the city suggest you ignore us? Then it appears you have instructed SDOT to not even complete specific projects here, maybe its a coincidence. Every time we call we are told that you are aware of the condition of our neighborhood, but have expressed no interest in addressing your constituents issues.

Please follow through on your promise to meet with us! We would like to have a meaningful discussion on how to rectify willful negligence to our neighborhood and properties.

Sincerely,
Bruce

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[anonyme]

Bruce, could you be more specific about the issues? I live in Arbor Heights, and would like to be aware – and possibly involved.

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[brukeste]

Here is a copy of one of the letters sent to Lisa that she has instructed her staff and Seattle to ignore responding to.

All I have begun a discussion with King County McDermotts office to get some documentation to help us track down why our neighborhood has been neglected or simply not considered when approving permits and environmental impact studies.

We have also been engaged with our city council member Lisa Herbold.

King County has committed to having information to me by Friday. Also, we are working with Council Member Herbolds office to get a meeting setup to discuss some options on how to make our neighborhood whole. We should hear back from them by Friday to when this meeting will take place.

(Alex, please give us an hour of dedicated time and not one backed up to another “event”.)

Just to summarize….

Before you read, we have many issues, however the primary problem is how to save our homes from dying peat bog. We want to be careful not to confuse the many challenges of our neighborhood.

* In 1954 Seattle annexed to Seattle

* In June 1954 Seattle approved development of our homes on 17 acres of peat bog.

* In 1958 Governor Rosellini requested a study on this area to understand peat bogs.
(Just an FYI. Peat bogs are a type of soil that can support development as long as there is a way to keep it alive by feeding ground water. If the water supply is cut off or diverted by other projects such as the Church development, King County filling in the wetlands, the
West Side school or Roxbury Elementary, the bog will die. Once it dies, that part of the bog is not recoverable, hence the dramatic change in the land settling. Many of us have seen issues in the last 3-4 years crop up on our property. My house has sank an inch on the
Eastside of my house and many neighbors up hill from us are starting to see cracking in their driveways, where it did not previously exist. Others who are elderly and on very fixed incomes have had to pony up thousands of $ to have Robbins & Co. secure their property.)

* In 1975 King County requested the wetlands associated with Grace Baptist be deemed a landfill instead of a wetlands and began filling it in with West Seattle Bridge debris. I have found their petition and am waiting for it to be sent to Seattle (currently archived in
Snoqualmie). The request was to change the wetlands from a Class 3 (supports plant and animal life and other hydro value…peat bogs) to a Class 1 (land fill).

* In 1975 one of the longtime neighbors sent an email to the city/county expressing concern with the water/drainage issues which appeared to show up when the county began filling in the wetlands with debris. The letter has been given to the city and county on several of their visits to survey
the problem.

* In 1980, Grace Baptist Church purchased the land their church is built-on and requested permission to fill in the remaining wetlands be filled in. This was approved.

* In 2013(?) the city/county went in on a plan to increase the holding pond. $1 million dollars later they notified us the work was complete and that this was only a band-aid and would not actually solve the problem. They never indicated to us (that we recall) that we lived on
a Peat bog during those meetings. To increase the pond size, they asked the church to sell them land but were denied. (I find this humorous since homes and property can be taken to build a Walmart? because its better for the community??)

* In February 2016 Lisa Herbold and a host of SPU staff and West Seattle Blog came to see the issue and requested a suggestion on resolving the issue. Again….without naming people, there is not a person we have spoken to, whether on the phone or those who visited
the neighborhood, indicated EVERYONE knows we are neglected. I suspect this has to do with the proximity of King County line. No one wants to take the responsibility because it is a multi-faceted issue.
During that meeting, I made it clear to Lisa and the other visiting entourage that we want to be partners in resolving the issue, but so far I think the end result was a shiny finger.

* In April 2016, we received a report resulting from a meeting with SPU and Lisa that contained “talking points” of what options could be offered to fix our neglected neighborhood.

* We are requesting additional documentation to see what impacts were considered when approving all the development of the schools, churches and a neighboring wetland (Roxhill).

* I am also requesting assistance in getting some property tax relief to our neighborhood. They continue to raise the taxes on our home, but we have properties that are being damaged and it doesn’t seem fair the city gets $ and we get no help. (Lisa asked the Assessors office to re-evaluate and reduce our neighborhood value as a solution.)

I can tell you the report did not seem very productive, but it did provide us some insight to how they are trying to shape the problem (“Its our problem and fault”). As I said, EVERY single person within the county/city who has been talked to, has said, “We know you are neglected”!

We have requested a productive meeting with Lisa in the coming week or so, to review some alternative solutions that hopefully will help save our investments due to the actions of the city/county. (Lisa Herbold has instructed her staff to avoid any meeting requests. She has expressed no interest in following up further. This is willful negligence since they know they have been diverting water)

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at this email address.

As we get more information I will forward that on.

Thanks for your help.

Bruce

Please share this with all your neighbors. It would not hurt to contact Lisa’s office and ask her to follow up with the meeting she promised. She has already indicated this is a problem in our neighborhood that she is not interested in addressing!)

Hopefully this helps.

Bruc

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[brukeste]

You can send a request to the following to request she follow through with a meeting:

Lisa Herbold:
lisa.herbold@seattle.gov
206 684 8803 (legislative asst)
206 768 1122 (office number)

Alex Cardy
alex.cardy@seattle.gov
206 386 1856 (office)

If you contact them, please update the email thread so that we can track the number of attempts by her constituents. I will be working my way through the neighborhood to get this information to many residents who are affected.

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[JanS]

@Bruce…a question….do you have proof that you can share giving concrete evidence that Ms. Herbold instructed her staff to ignore you?

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[anonyme]

I’m still not completely clear on the issue. Is there a peat bog in Arbor Heights? If so, is it going to be turned into a landfill? I’m confused.

I do agree that Arbor Heights as a neighborhood still remains one of the most neglected areas of West Seattle.

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