Neighbors,

Only minutes ago, City Council’s Committee on the Built Environment (COBE) voted unanimously to *remove* the RDG Comp Plan amendment from further consideration on this year’s Comp Plan amendment policy docket.  This is exactly what we asked them to do, and I’m thrilled to be able to share this news with you now.

COBE’s vote this morning, from three councilmembers (Clark, Burgess and Bagshaw) is *not final* until the full Council takes a vote, probably on Monday, August 2^nd.  I am confident, however, that full Council will support this position. 

Please understand what we have accomplished.  Two weeks ago, the RDG Comp Plan amendment seemed headed for easy passage.  DPD recommended it.  The Seattle Planning Commission recommended it.  Even City Council’s own Central Staff recommended that this amendment be included on the policy docket.  It was only the outpouring of passionate yet well-reasoned, and exquisitely well-timed e-mail from the Community which moved this mountain.  There’s a big lesson here for all of us;  please share it with your children!

Thank you to everyone who wrote to our City Councilmembers.  Your e-mails were stirring but for the most part struck the just the right tone of reason.  This is what distinguishes us as a neighborhood; not just ranting but taking responsibility for our future, and offering constructive input to our elected officials.  I hope you can see how effective we can be, when we organize around some commonly agreed principles. 

Special thanks to those of you who were able to make the extra effort to attend this morning’s COBE meeting:  John Adams (and his capable summer intern architect), Diane Haddock, Melissa Westbrook, Renee Davis, Judith Leconte, Bill Dunning and others I may have missed.  Your presence was influential.  I would have been there but I’m stuck in Oregon on business.

If you’d like to watch the COBE meeting on the Internet, it should be posted by early this afternoon online at http://www.seattlechannel.org/  Look for the “July 28 meeting of the Committee on the Built Environment”.

I have one other thought for you at this time.  If your e-mail fingers are not totally worn out from writing to Council, consider just one more quick message, a *thank you* to COBE members, for their recognition of Community input, and for their vote to strike Comp Plan amendment #8.  Please note that Sally Clark took a genuine leadership position on this issue, working behind the scenes with DPD, and that she chose to override the recommendation of all advisors sitting at the table, with her own Amendment to the Resolution setting the Comp Plan policy docket.  Sally Bagshaw was effusive in her compliments for the Roosevelt neighborhood at the COBE meeting this morning; she’s also listening to us.  And Tim Burgess was part of the unanimous “yes” vote which carried the day for the Community. 

This battle’s not won ‘till the full Council votes on Monday, but I’ve gone out on a limb with my own notes of thanks, to provide quick, positive reinforcement for our friends on City Council. 

Thank you, neighbors, for your interest and support on this Comp Plan issue.  We’ve really made a difference!

Jim

Jim O'Halloran

Chair, Land Use Committee

There are two separate events unfolding right now with respect to the Sisley properties near Roosevelt High School.  One is the “contract rezone”, which was the topic of the EIS Scoping Meeting last week at Calvary.  Comments on that issue are due by Aug. 4, as outlined in another recent e-mail.  The other activity is much less visible, but technically important to the developer’s plan, and on a very fast track at City Council (this Wednesday).

The Roosevelt Development Group (RDG) has submitted an application to City Council, to *amend* the Seattle Comprehensive Plan.  The RDG proposal, among other things, would annex several properties in Ravenna near 15^th Ave NE and NE 65^th St to become part of the Roosevelt Urban Village.  Moreover, the RDG Comp Plan amendment would change some of the key provisions in the recently updated Roosevelt Neighborhood Plan, especially as it relates to the preservation of single family housing.  You can find the entire text of RDG’s proposal in the list (#8) of proposed Comp Plan amendments at this site:  http://www.seattle.gov/council/comp_plan/201011amendments.htm

The Roosevelt Neighborhood Association (RNA) has taken a strong position in opposition to the RDG Comp Plan amendment as outlined in the letter and attachment which can be found here (the attachment referred to in the letter can be found here).  There’s a lot of detail to the argument, and you needn’t study it carefully, but understand the RNA’s two major points:

(1)    The RDG Comp Plan amendment does not meet Council’s requirement that the applicant has conducted “outreach” with the affected community.  In fact, RDG has misrepresented meetings with the Community as genuine engagement on their Comp Plan Amendment.  This is not true, as the e-mail attachment forcefully makes clear.

(2)    The RDG Comp Plan amendment is positioned as a responsible and productive initiative to study increased density near the future transit station.  The RNA disagrees, and presses DPD and City Council to first study the neighborhood’s rezoning recommendations (“The Warren Report”) issued in 2006.  The Community’s land use recommendations cover the entire station area, unlike RDG’s Comp Plan, which would address only a corner of the community.  “Comprehensive Planning” should cover the whole station area.

The RDG Comp Plan amendment will be considered on Wednesday morning, July 28 at the City Council Committee on the Built Environment (COBE) meeting at 9:00 AM at City Hall.  John Adams, RNA Vice President and Diane Haddock, Ravenna neighborhood land use representative are each planning to sign up for public comment at the beginning of the meeting.  Other community members are encouraged to attend, to speak your own piece or to simply stand in support of your neighborhood representative.  The COBE meeting will be broadcast live on Seattle Channel 21, and posted on the City’s website within a few hours.   

I realize that attending the meeting will not be practical for most folks, but I would like to ask you to send an e-mail to City Councilmembers before they meet on Wednesday morning.  Your message can be as simple as “I support the position outlined by the RNA, and I oppose further consideration of Comp Plan amendment #8” or you may say anything you like, of course.  While careful, original comments have a lot of impact, the most important thing is just to send something; the number of e-mails counts a lot.

Who are you writing to?  Mainly, the members of the “COBE” committee which will meet on Wednesday morning: 

Sally Clark, sally.clark@seattle.gov

Sally Bagshaw, sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov

Tim Burgess, tim.burgess@seattle.gov and

Tom Rasmussen, tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov

I recommend also writing to Councilmembers Jean Godden and Bruce Harrell, who each seem to have taken a special interest in Roosevelt land use issues.  Of course it can’t hurt to contact each of the nine City Councilmembers (individually is best, but it’s OK to “cc” councilmembers).  Whatever you can manage. 

IMPORTANT NOTE:  In your e-mail “subject line”, do NOT use the term “rezone”, because this may cause your e-mail to be screened out of Councilmember’s mail.   The RDG contract rezone process is now considered “quasi-judicial”, which means that Councilmembers cannot have any direct communication with affected parties.  The Comp Plan amendment process, on the other hand, is openly conducted. 

Frankly, we’ve got an uphill battle on this issue.  But Council needs to know how much opposition there is and I think they can be swayed.  So please send an e-mail if you can, by Tuesday night if possible.  Thank you for your support.  Sorry for the long e-mail, and the short time frame in which to act.  Things are happening pretty quickly right now. 

Several years ago, 5 to be exact, the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association (RNA) started a new tradition called The Bull Moose Festival. This festival has been a significant activity that we started to promote the strategies of our Neighborhood Plan. The important aspect of this social tradition has been an opportunity for neighbors from Roosevelt and surrounding neighborhoods to come together to learn more about each other and important things happening in our neighborhood.

And we have lots of important things happening in our neighborhood: sustainability programs, a light rail station coming soon, developers trying to get approval for 10 or even 16 story buildings. We even have a volunteer business group coming together to sponsor “Soul of Seattle”; a radio show Sundays on AM 1090. It’s amazing all of the volunteer hours that have gone into keeping track of all this stuff.

At the festival in past years we’ve had a pancake breakfast with proceeds going to a local charity. We’ve had Jazz Bands and other live entertainment, car shows and fire truck demos, a Whole Foods barbeque and food booths, face-painting in the park, booths providing information about everything from walking-trails in the area to sustainability news. As a Seafair sanctioned event we’ve had the Seafair Pirates. Shops open to provide special discounts.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this festival, besides all the fun the neighbors have shared together, is that each year everything that has been achieved has been coordinated entirely by volunteers on a shoestring budget. And that’s the thing I find most disappointing about what seems likely to happen this year. Since last year’s festival, Whole Foods sponsored the RNA on one of their Community Giving days. That’s 5% of their proceeds for a signal day! Which means we have LOTS of money to use to organize the event this year. The trouble is that it’s simply not enough to pay an event coordinator to set up the whole thing. And if we can’t find some volunteers to help, 2010 is likely to be a year without a Bull Moose Festival. Is everyone too busy to help keep up this tradition?

Why call it Bull Moose? It’s a Teddy Roosevelt thing that has to do with the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party that created a split in the Republican Party in the 1912 presidential election. Not being a history buff, I’ll just leave it at that. But it does occur to me that maybe if we’d have called it The Bull Moose Party (instead of Festival) we’d have better luck keeping up this tradition.

If you have any interest in helping the RNA coordinate the event this year. Please let us know as soon as possible. We need to get started right away. Email me at rna@rooseveltseattle.org.

Written by: Randall Weers, Roosevelt Neighborhood Association, Secretary and Webmaster