By Peggy Sturdivant

This week I learned that even if you’ve never heard a coyote kill a cat before, you know it when you hear it. Although I like to think of myself as eager to learn every day, there will always be things that I wish I’d never heard and never witnessed.

I’d love to forget the cat kill and ugly tone from some attendees at the city-run meeting on transitional encampments at the Sons of Norway Lodge on August 12th, but it’s not a choice. I think my husband’s night lesson is that if you are already having trouble sleeping then reading an on-line blog by someone in Dayton, Ohio writing about “Nimbyism” in Ballard is not a good idea. You will not go back to sleep, your mind will race and if the cat begs to go out, you may say, “Fine, go look for the coyote.” (Okay, that was me, not him).

The blogger didn’t even spell Nickelsville right in the title. Which does speak to this summer’s theme in Ballard, and Interbay. We are not getting our information as close to the source as possible. The man in Dayton, Ohio had been reading Erica C. Barnett, on her blog The C is for Crank, and Danny Westneat in The Seattle Times. Barnett was at least at the Sons of Norway meeting. Reading her account of some of the negative comments upsets me as much as hearing them then. But her piece didn’t address another catalyst of the anger that night; the lack of information provided.

The process from encampment ordinance to the media release on the proposed sites was not done behind closed doors as many have suggested (well, maybe some of it). In fact if one has the time, computer and streaming ability to watch the recordings of City Council committee meetings you can experience the “process” in maddeningly real time.

Which still doesn’t explain why businesses like The Sloop on Market Street or French Mornings Preschool in Interbay had to learn about the proposed transitional encampment sites third hand, and why there still had not been any outreach from the city in the subsequent six weeks. Even the Ballard Taskforce on Homelessness & Hunger didn’t have advance word on the site choices, although several members who had attended hearings in Council knew they were headed (unfortunately) toward industrial lands.

So let’s switch to good news on lessons learned. The city put together a public meeting on the proposed Interbay site at the soon-to-be-leveled for a 7-story building Q Café on 15th West. I learned about the meeting because I’m now on the Google Group for the Ballard Taskforce. It was a better meeting, not just because the site is so different.

The “Not-In-My-Backyard” label is harder to pin on the crowd that overflowed the Q Café, although I heard the developer of the building that’s home to Denali Fitness overlooking the site isn’t happy. Unlike the Market Street site located beneath rental apartments and some condominiums the only people already living near the proposed site do live in campers and vehicles parked nearby. A gated boat and RV Storage lot is across the street.

However for businesses the questions are similar. Why no information for so long? Is the site contaminated? How long will the site be in use? At the Q Café on August 17th the city brought along information packets to share about how the site was chosen and city staff in attendance actually stepped up to the microphone to answer questions. They changed the wording for those wanting to make public comment from pro- and con- to supportive and non-supportive.
After residents left this meeting I heard them say that at last they had more information.

I still want to believe that people are better than they would appear to be from anonymous comments, and will step up as needed. Give us information.

At the proposed Market Street site the remediation work has resumed, with one lane of the four closed, two policemen often in the street. The Metro bus that usually does its wait time there has had to idle farther to the west, blocking what’s just one-lane at 32nd NW. Noontime cars overflow the Taco Time drive-thru and it’s busy and loud.

I went to Interbay to look at the proposed site and stood by the fenced land to look and listen. Transit is two blocks away instead of at the gate and there’s very little through traffic. It’s quiet. To the west there’s a view of the Magnolia hillside above the train tracks. I think the site will be a good neighbor. With appropriate information I think we could all be good neighbors. In Ballard and Dayton.