BULLETIN: Alki statue homecoming details, and more

Just in from the office of West Seattle resident City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen: When the recast Statue of Liberty returns home to Alki one week from tonight (as first reported here last month), it will not be going into the Bathhouse, but rather onto the old pedestal, temporarily. The event will happen at 6 pm Tuesday (9/11) and will be hosted by Mayor Nickels and Councilmember Rasmussen. Rasmussen aide Brian Hawksford tells WSB, “The statue will be temporarily placed upon the original pedestal until the new plaza pedestal is constructed in early 2008. There will be an announcement of additional new city money for the new plaza/pedestal project.”

Jo September 4, 2007 (7:56 pm)

I heard about this from Pamela Kliment of Parks Dept this morning, but hadn’t wanted to say anything until the official announcement was made.
Needless to say we are delighted that she’ll be back home on the existing base.
This is good news indeed, since it looks like some city money will be coming for construction of the new plaza along with any monies raised by the Phase II committee.
Wow!
Jo Ofsthus

MargL September 4, 2007 (8:14 pm)

Hallelujah!

Libby Carr September 4, 2007 (8:46 pm)

Yes, Jo, we too are delighted that she’ll be coming back to Alki even if it is to the old base for, hopefully, a very short period of time. We understand the Mayor will be giving $50,000 of City money to the construction of the new plaza and pedestal, which would indicate to me that he also sees the wisdom of building a new plaza and pedestal.
Even though our committee is not in favor of putting it on the old pedestal at all (remember the reason it came off of there in the first place?????) we hope that things will go well until the Seattle Statue of Liberty Committee has a chance to raise the necessary funds to build the plaza. The Mayor’s commitment of $50,000 is a wonderful contribution and a much needed start in getting the funds raised to complete the project the community started contributing towards over 3 years ago when brick donations was first suggested by Mike Boyle to Adam Sheridan after Mike had seen an article about the project in the Alki Beacon.
Our sadness and frustration is that time has been wasted because of the manufactured controversy on where the statue should reside, i.e. old pedestal or new plaza and pedestal, all of which was started by Pam Kliment, very unnecessarily, just 2 months ago in early June ’07.
Let’s hope we can all get this project back on track with the public meetings Pam is now insisting we have, how many more times(???) will finally be sufficient, and we can get a new 501 c 3 to take up our cause and serve as our fiscal sponsor. Plenty of people have called to donate funds but we have asked that we be able to call them back after we have a proper non-profit in place, which have been reluctant to step forward (or hard for us to find) because of this manufactured controversy. So, let’s hope the Mayor and Councilman Rasmussen’s joint celebration and rememberance of Sept. 11 will give us all a new beginning. Thanks – Libby Carr, Co-Chair, Statue of Liberty Committee

Libby Carr September 4, 2007 (8:49 pm)

Please visit our website, now up, at http://www.sealady.org and learn more about this great project. We will be putting up several new pages in the near future we think the community will find of interest. Thanks — Libby & Paul Carr

WSB September 4, 2007 (9:31 pm)

We’ve gone to the site, repeatedly, and there’s been no update on this event, even after it was announced four weeks ago, and even after details were announced tonight. We would love to link to update information on your site as we do with many other sites, but we’re just not seeing anything new, not even on the “blog” page; are we missing something?

Dis September 4, 2007 (11:29 pm)

>>>>>Our sadness and frustration is that time has been wasted because of the manufactured controversy on where the statue should reside, i.e. old pedestal or new plaza and pedestal, all of which was started by Pam Kliment, very unnecessarily, just 2 months ago in early June Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ07.

This comment is uncalled for, and very unprofessional.

Jan September 4, 2007 (11:33 pm)

WSB…I agree…I went to the website this evening, and the last blog post was almost a month ago. And not a mention of this new development. It matters not if the Carrs agree with this new development or not. If they’re gonna have the website, then they can’t just post their stuff…this needs to be accepted…and they should thank their lucky stars the city is stepping forward with money – and stop pointing fingers. Compromise is a good thing. I was down there at a function at the bathouse a couple of weeks ago, and it simply didn’t look right without the statue there. I don’t live on Alki, but I’m sure many people who do miss it and will welcome it back.

MargL September 5, 2007 (12:08 am)

?????? Personally I like the idea of the statue back where it was, on the old pedestal. Yeah it’s not going to be showcased in all the potential glory of a new plaza with new benches and flowers and bricks but at least it’s there, where everyone can see it. I also prefer not to have the pessimistic and woeful mindset that the first thing that’s going to happen is her arm is going to be ripped off again so there can be a collective, “We told you so.”

Shell Princess September 5, 2007 (12:18 am)

“Our sadness and frustration is that time has been wasted because of the manufactured controversy on where the statue should reside, i.e. old pedestal or new plaza and pedestal, all of which was started by Pam Kliment, very unnecessarily, just 2 months ago in early June Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ07.”
Dis is right, this should not be a personal fight. I think many people were frustrated by the lack of plans, unanswered questions and the escalating expenses and what some would call rather unrealistic expectations of how long it takes to actually raise funds.
With any major fund raising campaign you really need a mechanism to begin collecting funds and that wasn’t materializing–no ducks in a row. Can’t collect these days unless it is spelled out where it is going.
Play nice in the sandbox and everyone will like you. Don’t throw mud on others and share the shovel-lessons learned at the sandbox can be applied here.
Try not to call the other players bad names and impugn their loyalty to whatever…….Good sportsmanship still makes an impression.
This is a good project, lots of good ideas from all sides. Let’s keep it civil and get it done!