Loyal Heights Community Council

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' recent Ballard News Tribune interview finally gets to the heart of the ongoing flap over Loyal Heights Playfield between residents and the Seattle Parks Department. Nickels' comments expose the underlying myth upon which dismissal of opponents' concerns have been based. Key to Nickels' "sore loser" hypothesis is his assertion that there was a city-wide vote to convert Loyal Heights to synthetic turf. In the interview, Nickels even describes the phantom election: "That was in the Pro Parks Levy years ago. It was going to be a turf field with lights. And that promise was made to the voters."

Mayor Nickels is mistaken - such a vote never happened. The 2000 Pro Parks Levy did not make any mention of artificial turf in its discussion of park improvements. The 2002 Joint Athletic Facilities Development Program (JAFDP), an implementation arm of the Pro Parks Levy, did suggest a synthetic surface for several parks, including Loyal Heights. But the JAFDP used the word "proposed" when making the recommendation, and detailed a public process involving the surrounding community to be conducted before final decisions were made.

That public process never took place. Instead, at the first Loyal Heights Playfield community meeting in March, 2005, those in attendance were told that the decision to install artificial surface had already been made, and that community input would need to be limited to issues like picnic table placement and selection of color schemes for new fencing.

Having a meeting to inform the public about what decisions have already been made does not constitute "public process." Apparently both the Mayor and the Seattle Parks Board of Commissioners are under the impression that the Pro Parks Levy gave the Parks Department free reign to determine the fate of neighborhood parks, without the bothersome need to get community buy-in. The minutes of the November 10, 2005 Parks Board of Commissioners meeting reveal this belief: "Commissioner Holme referred to the controversy over the synthetic field planned for installation at Loyal Heights. He recommended that future press releases explain clearly to the community that the synthetic field sites are pre-determined."

Such institutionalized myth-making by the Mayor and the Board of Commissioners is disturbing, regardless of whether it is just a mistaken understanding of the prescribed process, or whether it is a deliberate attempt to mislead. When Mayor Nickels suggests in the BNT that he will ask Parks Board of Commissioner to assess the recent outcry across the city about the Parks Department's process, it brings to mind the fox watching the henhouse. Our parks and neighborhoods are one of Seattle's most precious resources. Citizens deserve stewardship based on consensus-building and genuine governmental curiosity, not wishful and revisionist re-writing of history by a defensive city government.

Patricia Devine is on the executive committee of the Loyal Heights Community Council and Jim Anderson is the council's president.