West Seattle community centers’ future: Help chart the path

As you might recall from the most recent city-budgeting process, Seattle Parks‘ community centers are under the microscope in an attempt to figure out what role they should have in their neighborhoods, and how they should be run, among other issues. The office of City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw – who chairs the council’s Parks Committee – just sent a reminder that a new team is being formed to come up with recommendations, separate from the budget process, which already has brought major cuts to some centers, including Alki. They want community members on the team as well as city reps, and the application deadline is approaching – Monday afternoon. It’s a short-term commitment; the team’s supposed to make a recommendation to the council this summer. Here’s how to help.

Laurie January 6, 2011 (3:23 pm)

If you don’t actively visit the Delridge or Hiawatha (or South Seattle) Commmunity centers, you may not realize how important they are to our neighborhoods. Teens can visit these places and shoot hoops or hang out with each other (instead of having to go someplace that costs money, like Freshy’s or Westwood Village). People of all ages need a place to take classes or just play. I’m surprised that I’m the first to comment on this, 6 hours later. If anyone thinks West Seattle centers aren’t at risk, just take a look at the Ballard Community Center (Mayor McGinn’s own) and how its been affected by the cuts.
Do any of you have any ideas, or stories of how you’ve been personally affected? I’m curious.

WSB January 6, 2011 (4:29 pm)

Thanks for commenting, Laurie, but don’t despair too much – I don’t know if anyone has taken action on this but for example, another call-to-action story a few days ago drew no comments but drew about 50 people coming forward to volunteer for what the story was about, according to the instigator :) Hope that will be the case here. People complain frequently about no input etc. – this is a perfect way to HAVE input – TR

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