By Peggy Sturdivant

I was actively looking for the good in Ballard last week, and I was finding it. In the midst of proposals that seemed to promise yet more density for Ballard through zoning changes I was determined to find bright spots. Meanwhile I had taken to always looking at the large Korean Ash tree on the former substation site on Market as though it was a sign that Old Ballard had not fallen. In Seafoodfest’s final hours I detoured around and noticed a man with belongings next to him sleeping on his side near the tree; its orange demolition notice on the ground instead of the trunk. He was still there the following morning as well.

As always there was much to love in the neighborhood. The blueberry bushes up the street were full of different varieties of ripe berries. The snap peas were ready for harvest. Walking along Shilshole Marina I saw a marriage ceremony in progress within the stone circle of the Leif Erickson statue. One man was facing the wedding party, a couple with just two people on either side of them. The ceremony was in sign language. The woman’s face was radiant as her groom signed to her, “I do.”

On Monday a woman smiled at me as we passed in the library foyer. Then she came back in to speak with me. “You write that column,” she said to me. “I wonder if I could put a little bug in your ear.” I confess that I braced myself. With heat waves and so many construction cranes come many complaints. “Ballard Commons…” she started.

“Those little children,” she continued. “In the water at the park. They are having the time of their lives,” she said. “I just love seeing them play.”

I think I’d been holding my breath until then. We went on to speak of a mutual friend, our shared love of what she calls her “living room” at Ballard Coffee Works and the potential loss of the tree at the Market Street Substation. Elizabeth Sprague, as she reintroduced herself to me, lives at Sunset West, just past the Locks on Seaview Avenue. “I used to always pick up the trash at that park,” she said, “and I’d have to carry it to Taco Time or all the way to a trash can on Market Street. But I saw a worker there one day and asked for a trash can, and by golly, they put one there.”

As the week continued controversy continued to rage over siting a transitional encampment at Market Street while I continued to look at the tree on-site to make sure it was still standing. Then at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday morning it wasn’t. There was a pile of wood chips and its large trunk had been, in logging terms, bucked.

I screamed. I braked and pulled over. I had been on my way to a Seattle Green Spaces Coalition meeting in West Seattle to discuss how our ongoing efforts to have input in the repurposing former substations. Suddenly there didn’t seem any point.

It was just a tree on city land, so why do I feel so betrayed? As with decisions about substation lands I thought there would be public process. I am the person who is passionate that every citizen needs to exercise their right to vote, because that right is still denied to many. I’m the person who goes to neighborhood meetings not just when there’s an issue that affects me. I follow local government. I try to be a model citizen (and really make an effort to return my library books on time).

So why did I feel hit in the gut when I saw the remains of the tree in the middle of dead grass, in front of the barbed wire fence that protects the polluted slab? How could I have been so innocent as to think the tree wouldn’t be sacrificed until there had been community outreach (and input) about the use of the site. Even the VFW directly adjoining had not even been consulted. A tree along the parking strip was also gone, not one with supposedly contaminated roots, just one that would be in the way of soil removal.

I suppose when you’re someone who has the good fortune to own a home and not be subject to prejudice based on the color of your skin it’s easy to believe that your voice will be heard. Easy to believe you’d never be arrested for walking in your own neighborhood until you’re a retired Metro driver who happens to African-American and uses a golf club for a cane. Easy to dismiss those without a home, until you don’t have one.

But on that Thursday morning I felt like for Ballard and other neighborhoods experiencing disproportionate density: we are the tree. Lightning didn’t strike. Bureaucracy did. The tree was executed right on schedule which would make it appear that a permit for the site is a “done deal.” I felt like my faith in public process had been felled as well, ground out like the stump.

However even trees that have been cut down have a way of sending up suckers for years. If this site now proves to be the best one for a transitional encampment I hope the newly replaced soil will one day become a community garden, or at least the green space that it deserves to become after serving the city for so long.