(WSB file photo, future park site at 48th/Charlestown)

Thanks to the texter who noted that an informational sign is finally up at the “landbanked” future park site at 48th SW and SW Charlestown. When last we checked in, earlier this year, the timeline was for planning to happen in the first half of this year, but now it’s expected to last into next year, and construction is still two years away, according to the newest update. Since the website doesn’t mention what kind of public process – meeting, survey, etc. – will be part of the design phase, we checked today with Seattle Parks. We’re told the project is in the middle of a change in planners so it’ll be a few weeks before that info is available. The park-development budget remains listed at $1.2 million.

Thanks to Lisa McGinty from Friends of Lincoln Park for the photos and report on the Green Seattle Day work party:

32 volunteers came out in the rain this morning to help 323 native trees and plants find their forever homes.

Friends of Lincoln Park want to thank everyone for their amazing efforts to help keep our urban forest healthy!

Missed this chance to help? Keep an eye on our calendar for other upcoming West Seattle work parties, at Lincoln Park and elsewhere!

(City of Seattle photo)

Seattle Parks sends the reminder that West Seattle’s Camp Long is moving to winter hours and will be closed Sundays starting this weekend, continuing through November, December, January, and February. Also:

Camp Long will begin to take cabin rentals starting on January 2, 2019. Cabins are available for use beginning on March 1. More information is available here. Questions? Please contact Camp Long at 206-684-7434.

More than a year and a half after first word of a renovation project at Don Armeni Boat Ramp, it’s finally ramping up. The ramp’s floating docks are set to be replaced. Early this year, the city announced it had received a state grant to help pay for the project, and an update was promised by summer, but none followed. Then a related notice turned up in the newest city-circulated Land Use Information Bulletin, so we checked the project’s status with Seattle Parks, whose senior capital-projects coordinator Garrett Farrell replied with this update:

The City of Seattle Parks and Recreation Department is really happy to be getting the renovation of Don Armeni back underway.

The long delay is tied to the late state budget signing last year that held up our grants from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO)

RCO project 16-2356D provides $374,950 in grant funds allowing Parks to move ahead with the $500,000 project to replace the aged floating docks at Don Armeni. We were happy to see a budget get passed at the state level but really had nothing to report until that grant agreement was signed this quarter.

With the agreement in place we are working to secure our permits and move the project through design. We immediately started with those efforts as they will dictate when we can bid and perform the work.

When permit approvals are in, Farrell adds, there will be a public meeting about the project. Too soon to estimate the start date, but once the work gets going, he says, it should last about three months, and during that time, “we will keep one ramp open while we work on the other.” He expects a website for the project to be up and running next month.

P.S. The new notice we mentioned above is a Determination of Non-Significance – saying that a full environmental-impact review is not needed. The publication of that notice opens a window for comment/appeal – this explains how.

(WSB file photo of Colman Pool)

Later this week, the Seattle City Council starts getting down to specifics in potential changes/additions to the mayor’s proposed budget plan. One group of West Seattleites thinks a little money could be spent to get a little more use out of a public asset in West Seattle: Colman Pool. If you agree, now’s the time to speak up. The 77-year-old, city-owned outdoor saltwater pool on the Lincoln Park shore is open less than three months a year – it opens for weekends from Memorial Day until mid-June, then daily until Labor Day, and usually a post-season weekend.

The photo above was shared by Venkat Balasubramani, one of a group of Colman Pool fans who gather for an end-of-season picnic and talked about campaigning to add some operating days to the pool as well as some funding to address its maintenance backlog. He says the issues brought up by pool users ranged from pump maintenance (you might recall that the pool was closed for four days this summer because of pump trouble) to the need for better, more thorough cleaning of dressing areas and pathways, as well as the restrooms, which the swimmers say also are desperately in need of toilet seats.

They’ve contacted our area’s Councilmember Lisa Herbold as well as Councilmember Debora Juarez, who chairs the committee that oversees parks and other public assets. Herbold’s staff told the swimmers that she has “submitted a ‘Form A’ in the budget process which requests additional funding to extend the use of the pool by one month every year and to add any funds necessary to fix the maintenance backlog.” But public support is required for changes to the budget, so if you’re interested in more use of/support for Colman Pool, there are two ways to show it:

-Send e-mail that goes to the entire council, council@seattle.gov
-Show up at the next major public hearing on the budget, 5:30 pm Tuesday, October 23, at City Hall downtown

For the request to move forward, Herbold’s staff told the swimmers, they need at least two other councilmembers to sign on as co-sponsors by the day after that hearing, October 24th.

(WSB photo: Admiral Way Viewpoint, May 2018)

Back in May, when reader questions led us to ask Seattle Parks about the almost-viewlessness of some viewpoints like Admiral Way, they told us they were “pausing any view trimming while we review and update our viewpoint and tree trimming policies.” That process is happening now, and the city’s advisory Board of Park Commissioners got a briefing at its meeting this past week:

It’s the last big topic of the meeting, 1 hour and 33 minutes into the video (which you also can watch on the Seattle Channel website if the embedded version above doesn’t work for you). The briefing was presented by Parks’ Kathy Nyland and Jon Jainga, who brought along this document explaining where things are at:

They explained that a Viewpoint Advisory Team has been convened and has already met twice. It’s focusing on the 16 officially designated-by-the-city viewpoints (five of which are in West Seattle – Admiral Way [Belvedere], Charles Richey, Emma Schmitz, Hamilton, Rotary), though a fair amount of discussion at the meeting kept sidetracking to issues such as how to get other parks treated as viewpoints. But Parks can barely take care of what they already have: “We’ve got a maintenance problem and a capacity problem,” said Nyland. She and Jainga explained that not only does Parks have too few maintenance crew members for the 280,000 trees in the system, the work at some steeply sloped parks is too dangerous and requires hiring specially trained tree experts. Plus, they added, rules and practices have changed, and even if they had enough staff, they couldn’t do some of what used to be OK for maintaining views (tree-topping was mentioned). So they’re talking about what they can do, and where. Maybe figure out ways to have environmentally sustainable and not-labor-intensive landscaping in some areas, Jainga suggested, noting that Seattle is now a Bee City and a Bird City, among other things.

Interim Parks Superintendent Christopher Williams elaborated on the cost issue, saying Parks has to make decisions such as, maintain viewpoints or maintain ballfields? Money also factors into those considerations, he said, because organizations pay to use fields, while “views are free.”

The briefing document says Parks is considering using four viewpoints as “pilot” sites to try out whatever they come up with, adding, “This will allow us to ‘course correct’ as necessary before implementation across all designations.” The proposed “pilot” list includes Admiral Way and Hamilton Viewpoints.

WHAT’S NEXT: The Viewpoint Advisory Team is meeting again on October 10th and 24th (6 pm at Parks HQ downtown, open to the public) and after that is expected to return to the Parks Board with a final report and recommendations.

Two closure alerts from Seattle Parks: First, all of its community centers, pools, and teen life centers will be closed on Thursday, September 13th – one week from today – for staff training. The announcement adds, “The only programs that will be operating will be Preschool and School Aged Care; all other programs, lessons and activities will be canceled for the day.” September 13th also will be the start of a monthlong closure for Southwest Pool; it’s scheduled to shut down for a month of upgrades/renovations, primarily to improve accessibility, reopening October 15th.

1:13 AM: If you’ve got Shelter 4 on the Lincoln Park shore booked for a Labor Day picnic – be forewarned. Kevin sent the photo late Sunday night:

We were down there walking this evening around 10 pm and came across one of the most disgusting messes that we’ve ever seen. It’s quite heartbreaking to see a public space in our neighborhood treated with so little care.

We made some attempt at cleaning up, but it was very dark and my phone was about to die and it provided the only light. We made a dent, but the size of the mess was quite overwhelming. I’ve called Seattle Parks about it also, but safe to say they won’t get the message until Tuesday – hopefully there’s some recourse from them to whoever had the reservation. Words can’t do the mess justice. … I can only imagine the poor folks who show up tomorrow for a Labor Day picnic and have to deal with that before they can have their own day – at least it will be light.

I’m sure people leave picnic sites in an untidy state quite often, sadly… but the absolute magnitude of this mess and the disrespect to others left us dismayed and angry.

MONDAY AFTERNOON: Commenters who’ve since been to the park say this has been cleaned up. Given that so many unused items were among what was left behind, some wondered if what happened was an abrupt emergency departure. The archived real-time 911 log shows a medical response at the park at 4:42 pm, but there’s no way to tell whether it was related.

(Colman Pool, photographed last year by Long Bach Nguyen)

Just announced by Seattle Parks via Twitter: “Colman Pool will be opening today for regularly scheduled programming. Thanks to our Facilities staff for their work fixing the broken pump.” The historic outdoor saltwater pool on the Lincoln Park shore has been closed since Monday afternoon because of the breakdown. Its 7-day-a-week season runs through Labor Day, and then the pool will close except for one postseason weekend, Saturday-Sunday, September 8-9. You can see the pool schedule here.

(Closure-alert sign at south Lincoln Park lot – thanks to Venkat for the photo)

Thanks for the tips! The phone recording for Colman Pool now says it will be closed again Wednesday. The outdoor pool on Lincoln Park’s shore has been closed since Monday afternoon because of mechanical trouble. This is the last week of the pool’s short summer 7-days-a-week schedule; after Labor Day, it’s scheduled to close until one last post-season weekend, September 8-9.

7:30 PM WEDNESDAY NOTE: Just checked web, Twitter, phone and not seeing/hearing anything yet on status for Thursday.

12:01 AM THURSDAY NOTE: We checked again, no update yet for the day ahead.

6:06 PM: Thanks to Barbara for the tip: Colman Pool closed early today because of a problem. Seattle Parks says they hope to be able to reopen tomorrow. We’ll check in the a.m. and include the info in our daily highlight list. This is the last full week of operation this year at the outdoor pool on Lincoln Park’s shore; after Labor Day, it’ll be closed except for one postseason weekend September 8th-9th.

8:21 PM: Parks now says swim lessons are canceled at Colman tomorrow because of the pump problem. No official call yet on the pool status beyond that.

9:12 AM TUESDAY: Closed today.

Thanks to Carey Drewes-Moore for the photos and report – including a Sunday morning offer for you!

Muriel, Lauren, and Kassidy from Girl Scout Troop 45120 came up with a fantastic idea for their Silver Award Project of replacing the signs at both entrances to Schmitz Preserve Park in hopes that hikers will be able to have a better understanding of the trails system.

They also offered historic information and information on some of the plants to stay away from while in the park on their signs. Because the park is a preserve, signs on the trails are not allowed, to preserve the natural environment. They each spent close to fifty hours researching and revising their plan, communicating with the city, and bringing together all their information to create the new signs. (On Friday), the girls installed both signs.

They are hosting a map handout for those looking for an awesome West Seattle hike on Sunday morning from 8-10 am at the Admiral entrance of Schmitz Preserve Park. We will have coffee, donuts, and maps to hand out!

Another first tonight – the first family-movie night for Roxhill Park Champions, community volunteers working on a brighter future for the park. “Wall-E” is on the big screen right now; everybody there got free treats:

Also sponsoring the event: The Seattle Park Commons program, which is explained here along with how you can get involved with future community planning for Roxhill Park.