West Seattle, Washington
07 Sunday
The Morgan Community Association just got word from project manager Virginia Hassinger: Construction of Myrtle Reservoir Park starts Monday, and should be done by mid-September.
It’s been in our calendar a while, but local Seattle Parks and Recreation Community Centers staffers are working hard to get the word out too, because their centers are all co-sponsors – so in case you haven’t heard about it, June 23 – next Wednesday, the first day of summer vacation for all the local kids who aren’t out till next Tuesday – is Olympic Day at West Seattle Stadium:
Ages 3-12 – Fun, friendly competition for the whole family, where everyone is a winner! Join us for old-fashioned field games and Olympic-themed activities for all abilities. Try your skills at three-legged races, sack hop, egg on a spoon and much more. The Opening Ceremonies will feature Olympic athlete Emily DeRiel and Paralympic athlete Mike Peters. Then celebrate the evening with a performance by the Recess Monkeys! This event is sponsored by South Park, Hiawatha, Delridge, Alki, High Point and Southwest community centers!
It all happens 5-8 pm Wednesday 6/23 – which is the anniversary of the founding of the modern Olympic movement.
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Though the county project manager’s first response to that demand during April’s Morgan Community Association meeting was to suggest that residents file a public-disclosure request to force the county to give up the data, some information now appears to be coming out without quite that much of an additional fight.
With a “technical information meeting” looming this Saturday in West Seattle, documents are beginning to appear on a Technical Information page that’s part of the Puget Sound CSO Control Projects website – you can see the first round of links here.
This wasn’t announced to news media – nor was the creation of a new group to participate in the feedback process – but they’re both part of the newest developments in this ongoing controversy, as was a discussion we covered at last week’s city Parks Board meeting:
(2008 WSB photo of Delridge wading pool)
Two followups to this morning’s news about city budget cuts: First, the wading pool schedule is now available as a PDF on the Seattle Parks website. Here’s the document; the highlights –
Delridge: Thursday-Friday-Saturday noon-6:45 pm, starting June 26th
EC Hughes: Wednesday-Thursday-Friday noon-7 pm, starting June 30th
Hiawatha: Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday noon-6:45 pm, starting June 28th
Highland Park: Closed (awaiting conversion to spray park)
Lincoln Park: Every day 11 am-8 pm, starting June 26th
South Park: Sunday-Monday-Tuesday noon-7 pm, starting June 27th
That leaves eastern West Seattle with no 7-day-a-week pool, a situation that stirred some controversy two years ago (Delridge eventually got a seventh day). Also a note on the Parks budget cuts regarding maintenance — a little more insight comes from an internal memo that Acting Superintendent Christopher Williams sent to Parks employees:
We will hold three park maintenance positions vacant in each Park District for the last half of 2010. This will save about $0.3 million but will have a serious impact on our ability to maintain our parks to their current excellent standard. The Parks Division is also working on some ways to test different reduction strategies this summer to try to identify the ways that have the least impact on the public.
Again, from our earlier report, the full presentation given to councilmembers this morning can be seen here.
(We’ll continue to update this story through the afternoon as reaction comes in – scroll down)
ORIGINAL 10:46 AM REPORT: The City Council’s special Budget Committee meeting has just begun; this will be the first official word of what cuts will be made to make up for extra red ink in the current budget year; We’ll post as it happens. It’s being pointed out that these cuts do NOT require council approval. Note: The presentation is online, according to our friends at My Green Lake – see it here. We’re reading it now.
ONGOING COVERAGE: Budget boss Beth Goldberg‘s first announcement: In light of the Fremont fire that killed five over the weekend, NO reductions in the Fire Department.
From the budget document – wading pool effects: Lincoln Park remains open 7 days a week. (Goldberg is telling the council that the decision was based on keeping the most-used wading pools fully open. Other decisions, she says, were made based on “geographic equity.”)
Wading pools open 3 Days per week (in our area – there are other 3-day schedules around the city):
Delridge, EC Hughes, Hiawatha, South Park (Goldberg says the scheduling decisions were made based on the busiest day of the week and the days on each side of that day; as of this writing, the Parks website is not updated)
Highland Park wading pool remains closed (it’s set for conversion to a spray park; Goldberg is noting during the briefing that spray features are cheaper to operate than regular wading pools; she says the city’s total wading-pool budget is just under half a million dollars a year)
ALSO FROM PARKS: No community center/swimming pool closures this year, no lifeguard cuts. The description of cuts does not mention any program cuts, but does note a 5% reduction in maintenance (no elaboration yet)
LIBRARIES: Current hours will be maintained at all locations (but there are cuts, like $500,000 cut from the collection fund)
(added 11 am) POLICE: From the document linked above:
Leaves 21 new sworn officer positions related to the neighborhood policing program vacant, saving $2.1 million
(added 11:19 am) Goldberg says there are more SDOT cuts to come – “as we go deeper, the decisions get uglier.” The document linked above goes into detail about that department’s challenges.
11:56 AM: The meeting’s over. The mayor has a media availability at 12:15 to comment on the cuts.
12:19 PM: News releases are starting to come out with reaction to the cuts. We’ll publish the ones we get – starting with, after the jump, Councilmember Jean Godden, who says she’s concerned about the 21 police jobs that won’t be hired:Read More
In addition to the Morgan Junction Community Festival (here’s our latest preview), we have new info on two other major events coming up Saturday – First, volunteers getting ready to open the West Seattle Tool Library on Saturday got together at its South Seattle Community College location last night for some last-minute work. One big thing they want you to know – repeated in an announcement toward the end of tonight’s 34th District Democrats meeting – you’ll need two forms of ID to borrow tools (the second one can be a library card or current utility bill. Tools they still need: Electric pressure washer and portable table saw. The grand opening is 9 am-2 pm on Saturday; go to the SSCC north entrance on 16th SW. Another event on Saturday centers around under-construction Junction Plaza Park:
Brian Presser of TouchTech Systems in The Junction sent that photo tonight – he noticed a big crew working fast after the rain stopped: “Bricks going in, landscaping, lots of workers. Like Extreme Home Makeover – only for a park!” On Saturday, it’s the rescheduled planting party to put 800 plants in at the park, which is to be dedicated in less than three weeks – the evening of June 29th. If you’re not already signed up to volunteer Saturday, you can check to see if they still need help – info’s here.
Who will get shares of the first $7 million? Thanks to Pete Spalding from the Parks and Green Spaces Levy Oversight Committee, we have details on the meeting a week from tonight during which West Seattleites who proposed Opportunity Fund projects will get to make their pitches. It’s Monday, June 14th, at Magnuson Park‘s Workshop & View Ridge Room (7400 Sand Point Way; here’s a map). It starts at 4:45, when applicants will set up displays and sign up for presentations; 5:15-6:15 is their open-house opportunity to show them off; then 6:30-8:45, applicants get 2 minutes each to pitch their projects. (In addition to the West Seattle projects, this meeting also is for those from the Northwest and Northeast parts of the city; other parts of the city get a pitch session 6/28.) Pete stresses one thing: Even if your project didn’t rank highly in the recently revealed Parks staff ratings, you’ve still got a chance, if you’re ready to fight for it – those ratings are only part of what committee members will decide in their recommendations, and even the lowest-staff-rated proposal has a chance, if a good enough case is made! Here’s the official agenda; here’s the citywide list of projects and staff ratings.
The date’s official, as announced on the card distributed at the Camp Long table during Saturday’s ReFRESH Southwest festival in Delridge (WSB coverage here and here) – 5 months after the Camp Long Lodge closed for a $1 million renovation project, funded by the Parks and Green Spaces Levy, its grand-reopening party is set for 4-7 pm July 31st: “Tours, activities, cake,” promises the card. The celebration will precede one of GreenStage‘s free “Shakespeare in the Park” shows (their full season calendar is here – thanks to JanS for that tip). If you haven’t been to Camp Long lately, please note that the park itself remains open, and its trademark environmental-learning programs are still happening (see the latest list here) – only the main lodge is closed.
The next meeting of the citywide Parks Board has only two major items – but one is a project that’s drawn a lot of attention in West Seattle: The county’s project to reduce combined-sewer overflows (CSO) at Lowman Beach’s Murray Pump Station. 
We’ve covered the controversy over the past few months; most recently, the county loosened the tight timetable it had set for itself to make a decision on how to proceed, and instead of announcing a preferred alternative this month (from among these 3), it’s having another public meeting (June 19, based at Gatewood Elementary but including field trips to Murray and Alki pump stations) and has extended the public-comment period TFN. Whatever is decided for Murray, it is likely to have a major effect on Lowman Beach, a city park, and so the board is scheduled to be briefed during its June 10th meeting – special location, Woodland Park Zoo, whose annual report is the only other major item on the agenda. (Briefing items do not involve votes or other actions, but there will be a chance for public comment. Agenda’s not on the Parks Board page yet but we’ve uploaded it from e-mailed PDF.)
Much symbolic breath is being held citywide to see what will be cut/closed/etc. when the city announces midyear budget cuts, requested by Mayor McGinn after it became clear this year’s budget needed some adjusting. The Parks Department is being watched most closely, after months of rumors swirling regarding all sorts of possible cuts. At one point, Parks expected news on or around June 1st; then, as we reported from last week’s Parks Board meeting, the acting deputy superintendent thought not before June 5-6; we checked with Parks communications today and they were looking toward June 4; a subsequent check with the mayor’s office revealed there’s no indication yet the news will come that soon, so we may not hear for at least another week. Therefore, today’s bottom line seems to be – we’ll find out, when we find out. (PubliCola reported last night that they are hearing the cuts “may not be as devastating” as feared.)
When you visit Delridge Community Center for the ReFRESH Southwest festival this Saturday (1-5 pm, another update later today), you might wonder what’s up with 
Delridge Skatepark construction on the northeast corner of the DCC grounds. Though fall completion was the hope just a few months ago, that won’t happen – project manager Kelly Davidson tells WSB that skatepark construction is now expected to start in late summer, which would mean completion early next year. She says issues with groundwater and drainage at the skatepark site have meant it’s taking longer to completing the documents needed to send the project out for bid, but they’re getting closer – she’s hoping a meeting with engineers tomorrow will settle the issue of how they’ll deal with drainage.
Pending approval by Seattle Public Utilities, Davidson says “over-excavating” is likely to be the solution — digging a bigger hole, and surrounding the project area with fill that drains better than the existing clay. (She says a project team member has described it as “surrounding it with a sponge.”) Otherwise, groundwater could back into the bowls during heavy rain, and that would be a safety risk. She says this won’t change the skatepark design (by West Seattle-based Grindline), and doesn’t expect the water work to put the project over-budget, as they have a “contingency” to deal with this kind of issue. “Everything else [regarding construction] is ready to go,” she says, while acknowledging they would have liked to have known more about the drainage/groundwater challenges sooner, but geotechnical engineers didn’t get involved until the project’s “additional funding” was available at the first of the year. Once construction begins, she says it’s likely to take around 80 working days – based on a five-day workweek, that would be four months – meaning the skatepark isn’t likely to be open before next year. (If you’re looking for Parks info about this online – Davidson says the project webpage should be updated sometime later today.)
No news release or e-mail announcement yet – it’s not even on the official Seattle Parks page so far – but a city postcard that turned up in the postal mailbox today announces the date for the 4th and final public meeting on the design for the 20 acres of new parkland atop West Seattle Reservoir: 10 am-noon June 26, Southwest Community Center. The postcard says the “final schematic design” for the 20 acres of new park land, adjacent to the current Westcrest Park, will be unveiled at the meeting. The parkland was created by covering half of the previously open reservoir and filling in the other half; as reported here last Thursday, the reservoir lid is complete, and Seattle Public Utilities says the newly undergrounded reservoir is already two-thirds full. P.S. If you haven’t seen the three “concepts” shown at the last meeting April 24, they’re in this short version of the presentation that was given.
Memorial Day weekend means barbecues, clouds or no clouds. They’re grilling at Southwest Community Center right now, as Southwest Family Fest continues till 5 pm. And for another taste of summer – how about palm trees:
A little quiet when we dropped in – c’mon, it’s guaranteed indoor fun if the little ones are bouncing off the walls, bring them down to bounce off the inflatables instead. Outside, some of the car-showcase participants left early, but we caught a few on cam:
Southwest Community Center is at 2801 SW Thistle (map). The festival’s presented by the Late-Night Teen Programs but it’s for all ages.
CONTRACT AWARDED FOR MYRTLE RESERVOIR PARK: Construction is finally about to start on Myrtle Reservoir Park, now that the contract’s been awarded to Seattle-based Ohno Construction. Project manager Virginia Hassinger tells WSB the contract is for $470,000 pre-tax. A pre-construction meeting is set for June 7th, and after that, she says, they “will get going as soon as possible once the contract is fully executed.” (The official Parks webpage shows the park design.) Hassinger says Ohno is well-regarded for work done on Magnuson Park‘s sports fields and wetlands.
JUNCTION PLAZA PARK PLANTING PARTY DATE CHANGE: Friends of Junction Plaza Park has pushed the community planting party back a week to June 12th, since the current rainy weather put a bit of a crimp in the concrete pour at the construction site (42nd/Alaska). Those who’ve volunteered for the planting party should be getting an e-mail update from organizers. The park dedication is still on for June 29th.
Sometime in the next week, Seattle Parks (and other departments) will announce what midyear cuts they have to make this summer as the result of mayoral mandates on the budget – but there were no hints during briefings at last night’s Parks Board meeting downtown. In fact, while previous Parks statements had indicated the cuts would be announced on or around June 1st, acting deputy superintendent Eric Friedl told the board the news might not come till the following week. In his meeting-opening briefing, filling in for acting superintendent Christopher Williams, Friedl promised that even though this is a “furlough weekend” for Parks, and there’s no trash pickup today, the “seasonal schedule” mentioned after the trash debacle a few weeks ago kicks in Saturday, so you should NOT see a repeat at Alki – or any other city park – this weekend. Read on for other toplines from the Parks Board meeting, which started with a relatively sizable crowd – about 30 people:Read More
Seattle Parks just sent word that they’ve set the date for installation of the new rubberized track at recently renovated Hiawatha Playfield: Scheduled start date is July 5th, weather permitting, and that means a three-week shutdown for the entire field. Read on for the full announcement from Parks:Read More
The Parks and Green Spaces Levy Oversight Committee – citizen volunteers from around the city, including two from West Seattle – met tonight, and they’re getting closer to decisions on which citizen-proposed projects will receive money from the levy’s Opportunity Fund. Pigeon Point’s Pete Spalding is one of West Seattle’s reps, and tells WSB that the “initial staff ratings” on the proposed projects will be posted online tomorrow. In the meantime, he shares the news of the top 5 (again, in those initial staff ratings) projects in the southwest section of the city:
1. Puget Ridge Edible Park – West Seattle
2. South Park View Park – South Park
3. Morgan Urban Village Land Acquisition – Morgan Junction
4. Mini-Mart City Park – Georgetown
5. Highland Park Spray Park – Highland Park
We’ve reported on a few of those before – here’s our January story about the Highland Park proposal (the city plans a spray park in the spot now occupied by the HP wading pool, but admitted it’s underfunded, so community member Carolyn Stauffer spearheaded a proposal to enhance it with the Opportunity Fund); Puget Ridge Edible Park also appeared on the “Ideas for Seattle” website. In Morgan Junction, acquisition proposals have been described at recent Morgan Community Association meetings. Spalding also says two public meetings will be scheduled for June 14 and 28 – times and locations TBA – for those proposing Opportunity Fund projects to show them in an open-house format and to speak briefly to the Oversight Committee. The rest of the timeline’s spelled out here.
This Saturday, outdoor Colman Pool at Lincoln Park is scheduled to open for the first of three “pre-season weekends” – with its full season scheduled to start June 19th. The operative word here is “scheduled.” There’s no question it will be open this weekend (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday – Memorial Day). After that – same limbo as other programs, awaiting word of what midyear budget cuts Seattle Parks (and other city departments) will have to make, and what will and won’t be affected. As noted here last week, that also means that the question of whether city wading pools will or won’t open is also up in the air – even though a schedule has been published, the city website pointedly notes that the pools’ fate is pending Parks’ midyear-cut announcement on June 1st (one week from tomorrow). So in the meantime, if you love to swim, be sure to visit Colman during the three-day weekend – the special “preseason” schedule is on this webpage.
Will the trickle of rainwater we photographed in the Hiawatha Community Center< wading pool this morning be the only water it (and West Seattle’s other wading pools) sees this summer? At least a few citywide mailing lists are circulating concerns about the fate of Seattle Parks wading pools this summer, and some concerns/questions have made their way to the WSB inbox, so we wanted to share what we know: As reported in our coverage last week of the Seattle Parks Board meeting and a briefing by the department’s finance director, the status of wading pools (and other Parks facilities) will NOT be known until midyear budget cuts are made public. That announcement is still set for June 1st, according to Parks spokesperson Dewey Potter, with whom we checked again today; she said, “We are waiting for decisions from the Mayor and budget office on the array of possible reductions that might take place in mid-2010. We do not know if those decisions will include any closures in 2010; we will not know anything until they announce their decisions around June 1.” If the wading pools do open, Potter told us previously, opening day will be June 26.
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Minutes before Seattle Parks‘ finance director told the Parks Board the midyear budget cut would be almost twice as big as she’d estimated, her former boss got up and shared his budget-crisis thoughts.
It’s not every day a high-ranking city official quits, and then returns to his ex-department shortly thereafter to offer advice as a private citizen.
But that’s exactly what ex-Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher did last night, criticizing “elected officials” who “haven’t stepped forward to solve the problems we have today.”
So, he suggested, the Parks Board needs to step up and make sure its “advisory” role goes beyond his old job.
Low tide wasn’t the only big activity at Alki today – David Hutchinson sends a photo and update on Statue of Liberty Plaza work:
Seattle Parks & Recreation employees were at the Alki Statue of Liberty early today applying an oil finish to the benches in the plaza. We also have been informed by Tiffany Hedrick, of the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, that the cleaning and waxing of the statue will be taking place shortly. These two maintenance items are part of the commitment Parks made in an agreement with the Seattle Statue of Liberty Plaza Project and fiscal sponsor Urban Sparks. This work, which is done twice a year, is paid for by the Parks held maintenance fund which was created with the proceeds from the earlier sale of bricks and bronze plaques. Money from that fund will also pay for the new plants that will be placed in the landscaped areas surrounding the statue later this year.
The Alki Community Council wants to thank Seattle Parks & Recreation for the excellent work they are doing. We particularly appreciate the contribution of Parks employees Ed Jackson and Carol Baker in coordinating these tasks. The ACC is continuing to accept orders for approximately 100 more engraved bricks and 5 bronze plaques. Information and order forms can be found at the plaza or downloaded from www.sealady.org . Money raised by this sale will be turned over to Parks and will supplement the existing maintenance fund.
David Hutchinson
ACC Brick Sales
Note that this is one park not contributing to the department’s maintenance-funding crisis (we expect to hear the latest citywide budget info at the Parks Board meeting tonight). Meantime, the ACC’s next meeting is a week from tonight – 7 pm May 20, Alki UCC Church. Scheduled guests include Brenda Peterson of Seal Sitters and Dolly Vinal of the West Seattle Wildlife Habitat Project.
First heard out about this in the WSB Forums – new sand added to Alki Beach by the Parks Department caused problems for beach users, particularly volleyball players. Parks’ Joelle Hammerstad tells WSB they did indeed get many complaints because the sand was “too rough,” so they will “screen” the sand – and will replace if that turns out to be necessary. Read the entire thread in the Forums here.
As noted in our Sunday report on overflowing trash cans at Alki (David Hutchinson photo at left), it happened between Parks Department furlough days – and as discussed since, it didn’t just happen at Alki. With the furlough days now past for this month, we checked with Parks today to see if they had an official response – Joelle Hammerstad e-mailed back that it was “the result of a perfect storm” but that it has resulted in a change of plans for the future:
Overflowing trashcans at Alki Beach this weekend were the result of a perfect storm of three different events: 1) furloughs; 2) peak-season employees not having started yet; and 3) great weather. In fact, overflowing trashcans were a problem all over the city.
As has been mentioned in many a press release, all Parks employees will take 10 days of unpaid leave this year. We have intentionally skipped July and August as those are our busiest months. These furloughs save Seattle Parks and Recreation almost $2.1 million a year, and save jobs. None of us wants to take furlough days, but when we do, there are inevitable impacts.
Between late September and early May, Seattle Parks and Recreation has a skeleton crew working on the weekends. We begin what we call our “seasonal” shifts in mid-May. This year, those shifts actually begin this week, and continue until Sept. 28. This gives us maintenance coverage at Alki Beach from 6 a.m. to sunset 7 days a week, and until 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday nights for beach fires. Our off-peak coverage is just two employees on both Saturday and Sunday to cover all the maintenance needs of West Seattle parks. Most of the time, that amount of coverage works just fine. Obviously, this past weekend, it didn’t.
And, of course, the weather was beautiful. As the weather desks at the tv stations reported, it had been more than 2 months since we’d had what can technically be termed as a “mostly sunny” day. People were itching to get outside and enjoy their parks, which is great. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the maintenance staff to support that level of park use.
There are 4 in-ground cans around the bathhouse part of Alki and 4 more down at Don Armeni. These go deep into the ground, 16 feet. The in-ground cans at the bathhouse (west area) have actually been in place for quite a while (at least 5 years). We recently installed new ones in the Don Armeni area, and I think those are the ones folks feel have difficult doors. They cans are brand new; we believe that the doors will loosen up and become more flexible as they are broken in.
This past weekend, we had 88 trash cans along the Alki strip, not including the ones at Seacrest and Don Armeni. We have Dumpsters at the bathhouse – 1 regular and 1 for recycling, and usually have another at the picnic shelter.
We take full responsibility for our part of the state of the parks this weekend. Plans are in place to ensure that another situation like the one this past weekend does not repeat itself. As soon as our crews came in on Monday morning, attending to overflowing trash cans was priority #1.
However, as many posters noted, we need the community’s help to ensure that our parks are clean, safe and habitable for everyone. Packing it out when you see that a trash can is full is a great idea. Bringing along a trash bag, and picking up trash as you see it, is another great one.
P.S. Our friends at Capitol Hill Seattle got a version of the same response.
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