As if to show the Loyal Heights troublemakers once and for all "who's the boss," (the Seattle) Parks (Department) has capped their "Victory at Loyal Heights" tour with a final flourish, defying residents with the placement of 16 red oaks along the perimeter of the park where neighbors cling to the one thing they have left after the pillage of the park, which is their Olympic view.

Without so much as a phone call, parks planted the trees directly in front of homes of three of the four parties who stalled the project with a hearing examiner appeal in late 2005. The appeal, which created some restriction on the project, was poorly received by Parks. The new trees will ultimately completely obscure Olympic views and create a contiguous 60-foot wall.

Parks has to this point refused neighbors request to move and replace the trees with a smaller, more site appropriate type. Initially, Project Manager Ted Holden had acknowledged the mistake, and was working with neighbors on crafting a solution that would involve neighbors and Parks joining together to move the recently planted trees and replace them with small hedge maples.

Of course now come the "tree-hater" charges. Neighbors, working hard to establish more positive relations with Parks, are surprised, dismayed and very disheartened by this turn of events. In the end, the issue was reviewed, and Holden was apparently over-ruled by Interim Superintendent B.J. Brooks, ProParks Manager Michael Shiosaki, and Parks Manager Erin Devoto.

Holden had pledged to work with neighbors, acknowledging the mistake of planting the large trees, noting "We didn't know there were views there."

Of course not, because that would have entailed asking.

After two years of contentious and controversial community meetings, hearings, legal challenges and most recently efforts to create a new and collaborative working relationship, this hits the residents like a hammer. After "hearing" all of our concerns and complaints about not being involved in any meaningful way, Parks unilaterally decided to put in trees that will completely occlude the one thing that residents on the east side of the Park have left, which is a marvelous and stunning view of the Olympics. One of the most valued attributes there is the open sky, which will now go the way of the old grass, mixed use facility.

This really is the "perfect crime." Neighbors upset with the decision are already being characterized as selfish and anti-tree. This closing episode to a two-year nightmare seems cruel and heartless. Parks is already spinning this mistake/passive-aggressive flip-off, trying to show the neighbors once again as selfish NIMBY's, in love with their views and disdainful of the collective need for sports complexes. "First the neighbors complain that grass is removed, now they complain about trees?" All Parks needed to do was talk to the neighbors. This, of course, is asking far too much.

Project manager Ted Holden, after clearly offering hope of a solution, turned to enviro-babble in his notification to residents of the decision by Parks to stick with their mistake, noting that the large trees had been selected because of their "biomass."

This was either a cruel prank by a vindictive Parks Department anxious to show the neighbors once and for all who calls the shots, or else it was a poorly conceived error by an inconsiderate department unable to connect with anyone but "active users." Either, way, it should be fixed.

Jim Anderson

President

Loyal Heights

Community Council