Letter to Editor, Woodinville Weekly, Jan. 27, 2014

Woodinville Weekly, Letters to the Editor - Jan. 27, 2014

I was pleased to see the prominent mention of the comment period on the future of Wellington Park in last week’s paper.

Snohomish County Parks Department has applied for a Land Disturbing Activity (LDA) permit that would allow them to clear, level and grade approximately 50 acres of giant trees and rolling hills.

It would also allow construction of seven playing fields, four of which would be artificial turf.

The county would widen the little park road, rearrange the wetlands and excavate for a community center that has no funding.

This is a disastrous design for a small hilltop site in a rural neighborhood!

The traffic for year-round operation of the turf fields until almost 10 p.m. each night would far exceed the infrastructure in this area.

Construction of the turf fields would involve digging down more than two stories and moving all that dirt to fill in the rolling hills we enjoy.

This quiet rural area would suddenly be inundated with stadium lights, noise from tournament games and exhaust fumes from the huge influx of cars trying to get in and out of the sports complex.

Don’t let the County Council, the County Executive and the Parks Department ignore this travesty.

You have until February 5th to make your concerns known.

Do not be polite. Do not be quiet. Yell now and tell them this is the wrong place for a commercial sports complex.

These wonderful turf fields should be built on a flat commercial site, where participants can easily access them.

The Parks Department, the council and the Executive need to wake up and work with the community to design an appropriate park for this neighborhood.

Comments on the LDA permit application need to reach Tom Barnett by February 5th: Tom.Barnett@co.snohomish.wa.us.

Please visit SaveWellingtonPark.com for County Council contact information and more about this disastrous plan.

Tina Stewart, Woodinville

Destruction of Place and your loss of Freedom

When you look through your kitchen or family room windows, what do you see? A tree lined street, the neighbor's yards ... maybe some kids riding their bikes ... or perhaps you see grassy fields and Doug firs?

How about this scenario - One day you open your drapes and, instead of seeing your neighbors, trees or all the visual reasons why you moved into your house ... you see a giant shopping mall sized parking lot, stadium lights, bumper to bumper traffic and cops directing crowds of strangers.

If that imagery is shocking, welcome to the Nightmare of the possible future of Wellington Hills Parks as envisioned by Snohomish County's Department of Parks.

If you've been to the Park and enjoyed walking in this particular location, note the trees and where they will no longer be in the circled area on the Department of Parks Master Plan map ...

 If you've strolled through the park, perhaps with your kids or dogs ... the following photos of familiar locations show how it currently is ... however, on the following Department of Parks Master Plan map you can see how it might become.

... IF you don't speak out to stop the Nightmare from becoming real.

You CAN make a difference.

Please donate to the Neighbors to Save Wellington Hills Parks ... it's easy, just use the PayPal button located at the top of this blog's side column.

Note - all donations are for attorney fees - it gets expensive trying to get local government to do the right thing.

Thank you.



photos by Bill Stankus
February 2014

Map sections, drawn up by Snohomish County's Department of Parks

Cathedral Grove, Wellington Hills Park

                               A calm and wonderful niche in Wellington Hills Park.

photos by Bill Stankus
February 2014

Endangered

Today, January 31, 2014 ... a light, misty rain moved through the area.

While it's not difficult to take photos when it's sunny and the sky is blue ...
today weather offered interesting views within Wellington Hills Park.

 Unfortunately, the following views are in jeopardy...

The car in the next photo is at the spot where the County's Department of Parks wants to build a traffic circle ... to the right side of the car would be a driveway to a large parking lot and to the left of the car would be another driveway to a secondary parking lot. Also in this area there would be a large footbridge across the road.

Fine old trees, unfortunately located where the Department of Parks wants a driveway to a parking lot.

photos by Bill Stankus
January 31, 2014






For reference: Here's the traffic circle as drawn on the Department of Parks' Master Plan

One possible future - UPDATED

If you don't care about Wellington Hills Park being a Community Park and you don't want to act on saving the Park while also protecting your Quality of Life ...

Here's what will happen.

ps: Apparently the County is attempting humor (?) .

Next to the street, on the edge of all the clear-cutting … is a sign …

which sits in front of a strip of scrubby, weedy trees and the clear-cut area is partially blocked from view.

A few minutes with a muse

A few weeks ago when we experienced both fog and snow I spent many hours walking throughout Wellington Hills Park, looking for good-to-great photography opportunities.  There were a few photos I captured I consider to be some of the best photos I’ve ever taken.

I’m a hard critic on myself, that comes from the art schools I attended. No-nonsense teachers critiqued our work and occasionally someone’s freshly mounted on board print went sailing across the room - a very non-verbal criticism of the photo. The words, “re-do” were commonly said to students.

Occasionally, there would be long discussions concerning a student’s work.  The critique usually included references and comparisons to dozens of historic photographers along with their intentions, philosophies and their motivations.

Back to Wellington Hills Park.

As I was studying a particular scene, I sensed the presence - or the words of a great person who spoke often on ecology and environmentalism.  

With backpack and walking stick this person walked America. His passion for nature was strong - strong enough he eventually gained an audience with an American President and from those meetings came the beginnings of the National Park system.  His activism for nature and wild places helped preserve Yosemite, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. 

He founded the Sierra Club and he frequently said, “Wild is superior”. John really felt God in the wilderness, each tree had intrinsic value and forests were places a person could go in order to re-charge the batteries of their souls.

John fought to preserve wild places and green places.  He cried over nature lost to bulldozers and axes, he never understood those with cold hearts who wanted to pave over beautiful natural places.

Yes, I felt the words and values of John Muir as I was composing photos that day.

I’d like to think he was near-by as I walked the rolling hills and felt the essence of the 100 year old trees in Wellington Hills Park.

if only John Muir was here

Bill Stankus

January 2013

Not mentioned at The Wellington Hills Park public meeting

Several of us attended a recent County's Park and Rec ad hoc planning committee.  We heard about the newest changes to the park plan and we listened to the committee's discussion of the plans  - most of what was repeated at the 1/31/13 public meeting held at Brightwater.

One detail I didn't hear mentioned at Brightwater:

Parks and Recs plans to knock down the golf course buildings sometime during the next month. 

The two club house structures, the sheds used for golf carts storage and the boarded-up house at the eastern edge of the grassy area will be demolished.

I mention this, not because the buildings are remarkable but because the County is proceeding as if their proposed change to Wellington Park is a "Done Deal".

On the contrary - the sports complex is NOT A DONE DEAL!

If the neighborhood raises it's voice, writes letters to the Snohomish County Council telling them the current plan stinks ... and if the community donates time and money to the Neighbors to Save Wellington Park (NSWP) legal fund - the outcome will be different.

Just because a few people are pushing for a sports complex - doesn't make their plan a good one.

                         A Community Park is much better than a special interest park.

Make a Difference:
Please, send a check or use the PayPal button located on the right side of this page - all funds are used to pay legal fees.

Congratulations Snohomish County ...

YOU OWN A BEAUTIFUL PARK!

photo taken January 3, 2013
by Bill Stankus

Neighbors to Save Wellington Park Facebook page

Facebook, while extraordinary popular, hasn't reached everyone. For those few that haven't seen the Neighbors to Save Wellington Park page and want to chime in and help save the park from bulldozers, tree cutting and that nasty bugaboo, over-development with it's field lights and huge parking lots and traffic snarls ...

Here's a screen shot of our page, please join in and support Neighbors to Save Wellington Park.

Thank you.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/339407819470854/

The County's Halloween Trick

Tom Teigen said he was going to put a fence along 240th ... and here it is.


I would've preferred Snickers Bars for everyone.

photo courtesy of Heidi Ondrasik

FundRazr

All you have to do is answer your phone when it rings at dinner time or watch a few minutes of regular TV and it's obvious: politics and money are twined together.

Well, NSWP also needs money so that we can correct the misguided plans of Snohomish County.
Except we are not on TV nor will we call you as you're about to bite into a taco or slice of pizza!

What we are doing is asking you to donate, either by using the PayPal button in the blog's sidebar

or

You can click on this link and donate via our FundRazr site on Facebook.

We've set a goal of $25,000 in order to have funds for the legal battle we've taken up with Snohomish County.

While it doesn't seem fair that citizens have to fight their own government with our own money - there really is no other avenue for arguing and winning our case.

So, please, we need your help because if we can't manage our own local government ... who will?

The first wave of shock troops are here

October 2, 2012 ... The first wave of shock troops have begun their ground attack on the property formally known as, The Wellington Hills Golf Course.

Nothing Good will come of this.

Latest Master Plan of Proposed Wellington Hills County Park

For the County's latest Master Plan proposed for the Wellington Golf Course, go to their link here.

Otherwise, here's the drawing.

(I've also included a closer look at the plan.)