Recently there has been a lot of press regarding the role of Seattle neighborhoods and their input into the development of policies that shape the direction of city government. Specifically, within the last two weeks The Seattle Times has published an editorial focused on Mayor Murray’s stance on the status of grass roots City Neighborhood Council as well as an editorial written by Martin Kaplan that discusses the “top down” approach that the city has taken regarding density and zoning.
City Neighborhood Councils (CNC) is a citizen-led advisory group, comprised of elected members from each of the City’s 13 districts, organized under the authority of Seattle council in October, 1987. Much of Wallingford is in the Lake Union Neighborhood District. The CNC provides a forum for a discussion of common neighborhood issues and is available for advice on policies necessary for the effective and equitable implementation of the Neighborhood Planning and Assistance Program. The CNC also provides city-wide coordination for the Neighborhood Matching Fund, Neighborhood Budget Prioritization, and Neighborhood Planning Programs. The CNC may still exist, but they will no longer have City staff supporting it and the council will not longer get to allocate City grant funding. Instead, the City will create a city-wide group called a “Community Involvement Commission” with members appointed by the Mayor.
The “long and short” of the issue is that city leadership and elected officials, are deciding what is best for Seattle neighborhoods. It seems that the view from city hall provides them with accurate insight as to what is best for Wallingford, Fremont, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne and all of the rest of Seattle’s unique neighborhoods. It has always been the case that each neighborhood, like Wallingford, has its own set of issues, unique characteristics, history, charm, citizen make up and problems and each neighborhood has its own group of citizens who volunteer their time to try to ensure that their community continues to strive to be better.
At the end of the day, it is clear that a city democracy only works if it is built from the ground up with input from individuals who live in these neighborhoods. And that input is a compromised and negotiated position of those community volunteers who make up the respective neighborhood councils and truly represents the needs of that specific community. This provides a much better view than that from city hall.
I want to encourage Wallingford residents, young and old, bikers and car drivers, homeowners and renters to join and participate in the Wallingford Community Council (WCC) http://wallingfordcc.org. The Wallingford Community Council of Seattle is a neighborhood voice representing the greater Wallingford community in interaction with city government on land use, transportation and parks. The WCC provides a place and process for neighbors to engage with each other to address neighborhood opportunities, challenges and issues.
I also encourage the residents of Wallingford to read the two editorials referenced above and to write Councilpersons Johnson and O’Brien as well as the Mayor and demand that they continue the neighborhood council input that will help develop and implement well-planned and managed growth for the city of Seattle and while you are at it, remind them that they work for you and that their performance evaluations will be coming up shortly in the form of elections.
I totally agree that we need more engagement from the broader range of “Wallingford residents, young and old, bikers and car drivers, homeowners and renters”!
A “broader range,” according to Paul: Young people (who agrees with the mayor) old people (who agrees with the mayor), bikers (who agrees with the mayor), car drivers (who agrees with the mayor), homeowners (who agrees with the mayor), and renters (who agrees with the mayor).
So Paul, did I “exclude” anyone? Or is that “diverse” enough for you?
Sigh.
You can make s**t up if you like but your words are not my words.
This is a totally inappropriate ad hominem attack on a positive, non-controversial post.
“a positive, non controversial post?”
So the mayor dissolving the neighborhood councils and replacing them with hand-picked members who will parrot his agenda is positive and non-controvroversial? Because that’s what Paul was celebrating.
no, actually paulC’s comment was celebrating greater citizen engagement in civic life. you inferred the rest.
Greater citizen engagement….by disenfranchising single-family homeowners and neighborhood preservationists and replacing them obedient HALA cheerleaders.
It goes without saying that is the result of the mayor’s actions in disolving the neighborhood councils. So while Paul didn’t phrase it that way, he’s certainly happy with it.
I stand by my original statement.
WCC monthly meeting is next week, Wednesday August 3 at 7PM. Feature presentations from Parks on Gasworks Park improvements, and from Seattle Police on race and policing.
It should be said that the support for CNC and the rest of the District Council system was pretty minimal anyway. I believe each District Council got $40 a month, to do with whatever they saw fit, and CNC staff didn’t rate offices or phones if I remember right. Political theater.
For years I was a member of the Lake Union District Council and encouraged people to attend meetings, educated people about the function of the – incredibly “non-sexy” – group. Topics included updates on the transfer station, a waste water overrun tunnel and other very boring (to most) topics. Nothing like trash and sewage to get people asking – what meeting do you want me to go attend? Why should I skip my kids soccer game for that??
Getting people involved with community is never easy, people want to get involved with the fun, not the infrastructure and no-one has time. Government does not move quickly on most projects, which is good, but can be confusing for people who have not gotten involved previously. Zoning changes affecting people today, happened 20 years ago. The length of time for change to happen can be frustrating and comprehending that changes made years ago are just affecting your community now can be unclear.
The question that the City is asking — not very elegantly, I might add — is, how do we get others — renters, homeless, youth, young families, people of color and new citizens to engage? We, as residents, should be asking this, it’s a good, yet very difficult question. As I said before, no-one has time. So, we are asking people who are already stretched to not only attend meetings, but do research on projects, take time to understand the complex systems of the government and engage… in what, I’ve already deemed, “non-sexy” issues!! Good luck!
I try to get volunteers to come out and work on fun projects and it’s hard to get people’s time. Basically what the Mayor’s dictate will do is to possibly disengage the few in the City that WERE actually engaged. I believe, if the Mayor’s proposal happens, the commission will degrade over time to become a board of special interest people who represent their groups more than their neighbors — low income housing, developers, biker people, car people, parks people, library people, etc — not Wallingford people. I will be very surprised if the City develops a long-term, diverse engagement commission that actually represents the neighborhoods.
I think that keeping the District Councils in place and augmenting these groups with “non-meeting-oriented” engagement (think emails, websites, social media, larger workshops that happen less frequently, etc), which are equally weighted to the DCs would do a better job to actually engage a wider swath of residents…
But then again, I feel like the Mayor is just doing this to stop the voices of nay-sayers to his policy. When you have people who are against you, and you run the City, why not just silence that group, much easier than working with them.
Just my 2¢ on this.
Well, we have a city councilperson whose campaign was paid for largely by developers (don’t think that’s a secret), a mayor who does what he wants (public meetings are largely a distraction) and a city council that does whatever the mayor wants. Don’t know that downtown has ever listened to Wallingford much but, they surely don’t now. Don’t have too – keep the bicycle people and a few other groups happy and they’re untouchable. And they know it.
And I was talking several months ago to the person who owns the part of Fremont that Susie Burke doesn’t. The subject of the transfer station came up (speaking of not listening to the neighborhood) and he said it was put where it is because the Wallingford Community Council didn’t want condos and to keep them out, they took the transfer station.
Thanks WCC!!
Hi John – Before taking the word of someone who didn’t work on the process, please talk with people who did. I live near the NRDS and spent 8 years attending meetings with SPU both as a neighbor, and later, as a board member of the WCC. In fact, we worked really hard to get the transfer station moved, but the other site (Interbay) had strong opposition from Queen Anne and Magnolia and since it was already located in Wallingford, we couldn’t get enough ‘noise’ generated to push the city’s hand. There were plenty of people in Wallingford who we talked to in a door-to-door campaign, who did see it as the known evil, and who were worried about what could potentially go in there. But that was not the viewpoint of the council.
Have you been by the soon-to-open NRDS campus recently? If not, you will discover that it is going to be a state of the art facility with many neighborhood amenities. It will have a park with exercise stations, a sport court, Olmstedian walks, plenty of seating, a grassy slope and hundreds of plantings. It also has a playground with a rope climber, play structure and natural elements. The facility has public art, viewing windows, a green roof and solar panels. The layout of the campus will alleviate the back-up of traffic on 34th. The building itself has an automatic door and air filter systems to diminish odors and particulates and lessen noise.
So, yes, it’s a transfer station, but it’s pretty darn amazing one and I’m proud to have been part of the team to help bring this to Wallingford. Perhaps some of the neighborhood would have preferred lot-line to lot-line condos (honestly, I originally thought I would, too), but maybe they’ll re-think that as they relax at the playground and eat lunch, while they watch their kids play hoops at a park that wouldn’t have existed if it hadn’t been for the collaborative process between the neighbors, the WCC and SPU.
The NRDS, in my opinion, is a shining example of how the Community Councils and the city can work together to bring growth and improvements to neighborhoods. It took a lot of time and a lot of willing, hard-working volunteers, but look what will be there now. The fact is, we live in a city that needs transfer stations. They have to go somewhere. The city made the decision to keep it in Wallingford. If the WCC hadn’t participated, we’d be stuck with one that looks like the aluminum tilt-up South Transfer station.
Volunteering makes a difference. Our community councils make a difference.
Just went by the other day. The changes to the revamped transfer station and surround are impressive and really cool.
I was referring to the original transfer station; the rebuilt one is better than expected. though, as you said, should not be there.
And I went to several of those meetings, thinking that the city was seeking input from the citizens. When in fact it was, ‘here’s what’s going to happen so sit down and shut up’.
I don’t recall Wallingford ever having a voice. For 15 years we lobbied Schell and Nickels and McGinn for a good drug store in Wallingford. No one has listened and my grandson still has to drive me to Fremont for my Lipitor.
We have four drug stores in Wallingford.
I am part of the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce and I represent the Chamber at the Lake Union District Council (LUDC). At this time we are not sure what is going to happen with the LUDC. There have been some ideas shared, although nothing to take action on yet.
Wallingford Businesses are being impacted by the recent decisions that are being made by the City. The Wallingford Chamber has partnered with the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce which allows us to get closer to policy changes and other changes the City Council is looking at making.