The Alki Community Council works hard to represent and reflect member views. Council interests are neither narrow, confined nor prescribed.

Dick Nelson's cranky and spurious missive against the Alki Community Council (Letter, Aug. 30), its members and executive board, suggests he needs an education in how effective Alki Community Council is with accomplishing great things for our community. His letter joins similar, uniformed, correspondents to the Herald in recent weeks. I'm hoping the West Seattle Herald will allow a citizen of Alki, who is an active member of the Alki Community Council, to express his personal opinion of how he feels about the Council, its work and its accomplishments.

The official publication of the Council is the Alki News Beacon. From writing to editing to drumming up advertisers to distribution, the Beacon is wholly a volunteer effort. The editor bends over backwards to keep Beacon content fair and balanced. Anyone living in Alki can contribute to the Beacon.

Here are some achievements of the council I've observed over the past 15 years: The open space acquisitions at Mee Kwa Mooks Park and the Alki/Duwamish Head greenbelt; the purchase of 18.5 acres adjacent to Bonair Drive Southwest; the acquisition of College Street Ravine and the East Duwamish Head greenbelt adjacent to Harbor Avenue Southwest and the acquisition and development of Weather Watch and Cormorant Cove parks.

Alki is Seattle's oldest community and we are blessed with some of the city's best parks. Alki Community Council volunteers and Seattle Parks completed the stairway connecting the Admiral Way bridge to Schmitz Park Reserve. Alki Community Council worked with the city to regain public access at the street end park at Beach Drive and Andover Street. The Alki Community Council was heavily involved in all phases of the Alki Trail project which garnered $2.3 million via the Shoreline Park Improvement funding. The council also secured installation of bike racks along Alki Avenue.

Alki isn't just a beach, it's a neighborhood. The Alki Community Council works on many community issues such as emergency preparedness, public safety, candidate forums and the Community Improvement Fund (funding for the Community Center upgrades, open space acquisition, Log House Museum funding). Alki Community Council makes donations to local West Seattle non-profits like West Seattle Food Bank and Helpline. Alki Community Council supports Alki Elementary School and has sponsored two separate Alki Playfield play area improvements

The Council supports all our local businesses. Dick will be happy to know that the Alki Community Council and some members of the Alki Business Group along with businesses and individuals with no affiliation are working to identify and resolve mutual concerns about our neighborhood.

What should trouble all Alki residents about Dick's letter, other than his propagation of misinformation, is his certainly of who is, or is not, a patron of any particular Alki business. Has he been spying on us? Is he an employee of the National Security Agency or a covert agent of the now-defunct Total Information Awareness agency?

This behavior should be worrisome because, apparently, Dick has been secretly observing the Alki Community Council president. He appears to know where she lives and this concerns him. How could somebody who doesn't live on the beach know anything about what happens there? Well, one needn't live next to the south transfer station to know it stinks and draws flies. Perhaps Dick may not stagger any further than his favorite watering hole but, rest assured, Dick, you are in the minority!

Dick might also want to know that some business owners don't live anywhere near Alki Beach and therefore have no idea of the impacts they cause on those who do live here. But it would be fruitless to point that out since Dick, with his fine investigative work, most assuredly, must already realize this.

Dick seems to confuse private individuals writing letters of compliment or concern to the city with the volunteer work those citizens do in their spare time. Rest assured, Dick. In Alki Community Council public meetings and open forums no stance has been taken or advanced targeting a single business or person. Alki Community Council meetings are open to all residents of our neighborhood. Everyone is invited to attend! Council meetings conclude by 9 p.m. so everyone can go home to spend time with their families before going to bed in order to get up early and go to work. If you want to go out afterwards for dinner or a drink, there is plenty of time to do so.

Come to a council meeting, Dick! You will be welcome. You might even become so concerned about all the issues affecting Alki that you'll become a member and then, a volunteer. Perhaps you could head a committee and dedicate one or two evenings/week 12/months a year attending public meetings and forums and gathering information in order to advise your fellow residents on all your good work and worthy projects.

But, somehow, I don't get the impression that Dick and other recent letter writers to the Herald want to participate. Complain? Yes. But actually do something? Why, that would require commitment to spend the time and effort to know what all the issues are versus serving as someone else's mouthpiece with their own, uninformed opinion.

In griping over what he perceives is a lack of advise and consent between the Alki Community Council board and its members, perhaps Dick would also like the council to stop dealing with noise complaints at Boeing Field and proposed flight path changes at Boeing Field? The council wrote the first letter opposing flight path changes in June, 2005 and has monitored the issue closely since then, with monthly updates from West Seattle's representative to the Airport Roundtable.

In the past, the all-volunteer executive board was unable to seek minute-by-minute advise and consent approval from the membership when it worked on the Harbor Avenue street improvements, the Bath House remodel, coordinated with city departments on Spokane Street lower bridge upgrades, 1 Percent for the Arts, Port of Seattle's T-5 project mitigation, Jack Block Park, Harbor Avenue and Terminal 5 buffer zones or when it represented Alki on the Port of Seattle's Terminal 5 expansion. Would Dick have wanted nothing to be done about these issues?

Dick may think the Alki Community Council doesn't represent all of Alki's residents but it tries damn hard to represent, respect and be attentive to its members. Just look at the Alki Community Council list of accomplishments!

Of course, at the end of Dick's letter he tells us what he really thinks about the world. He plainly indicates he already speaks for the entire community so he needn't join the Alki Community Council. I'll drink to that! Dick, you're my man! Let's just see you start doing some of the work.

Peter Stekel

Alki