Haller Lake residents want to lock out jail

Reasons given to build elsewhere: Schools, driving range, distance

By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL
P-I REPORTER

Residents of Haller Lake understand that Seattle neighborhoods aren’t exactly clamoring for a new jail.

But out of four city-proposed sites, Haller Lake “is the worst,” residents of the North Seattle community said at a meeting Thursday night.

Concerns go well beyond the usual NIMBY responses, said Wilson Stevenson, who is spearheading a group called CAJINS — Citizens Against the Jail in North Seattle.

The proposed seven-acre site, he told the gathering, is too close to schools and homes. A jail, he said, could also draw the wrong crowd, boosting the local crime rate and threatening the area’s status as an urban village.

Stevenson questioned the logic of displacing a thriving business — the Puetz Golf Driving Range on 11762 Aurora Ave. N. — particularly if the city had to resort to eminent domain proceedings.

He also criticized the site as being the smallest and farthest from the King County Courthouse, requiring more fuel-draining trips for attorneys and police.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to put it in Haller Lake,” Stevenson said. “I think we have some good legs to stand on.”

Other residents agreed.

“Even without a jail, we have enough problems with drugs and crime here; we don’t want any more,” said Riza Ryser, the mother of four kids. “There are seven schools plus child cares close by. The area is too populated with residents — I’m surprised the city would even consider it.”

Unlike the other sites, the Haller Lake location would be a blow to the “hub urban village” envisioned in the Broadview-Bitter Lake-Haller Lake neighborhood plan, said Dale Johnson, president of the Broadview Community Council.

“We’ve been trying to create a place like Ballard or Green Lake that accepts more density, but that is an attractive place to live, work, walk, shop and recreate,” he said. “If a jail comes here, instead of going forward, we’ll go backward.”

The meeting, which drew about 250 people, was held at the Haller Lake Community Club, eight blocks north and a few streets east of the proposed jail site. A new 450-bed facility, mandated by the county, aims to house offenders whose crimes are misdemeanors.

Golfers, many of whom have come to the Puetz range since they were young, weren’t supportive of the jail plan.

“I know they have to find a jail site, but it would be a shame to see this driving range go,” said Ed Thenell, who used to golf at Puetz with his dad, and still comes year-round.

“This place is busy all the time; they do a nice job here — it’s a nice atmosphere.”

Nicholas Ericson and Pete Treperinas grew up playing golf at Puetz, competed in high school, and wound up working at the range’s golf shop. They said the family-owned driving range, celebrating its 63rd anniversary this year, “is like family.”

“Why would you want to put a jail here?” Treperinas asked.

“I like my job,” Ericson said. “I don’t want to lose it so they can put a jail here.”

The other sites being considered are 7.7 acres at Interbay (1600 W. Armory Way), 10 acres at Highland Park Way Southwest and West Marginal Way Southwest (near the First Avenue South Bridge), and a city-owned 12-acre site at 9501 Myers Way S. adjacent to the Seattle Fire Training facility.

Cindy Potter, of the neighborhood group GAIN (Greenwood Aurora Involved Neighbors), wrote in the recent Haller Lake Community Club newsletter that the Haller Lake site has the greatest number of public and private K-12 schools within a mile.

She named Ingraham High School, Broadview-Thomson K-8, Northgate Elementary, Christ the King Elementary, Haller Lake Children’s Center, Living Wisdom School and Northgate Christian Academy.

Others at the meeting added an eighth school — Lakeside — which is considered part of the Haller Lake area. Its track team, noted one resident, trains by running around Haller Lake.

Some in the audience said the Haller Lake site would be a bad fit for the people locked up, too.

They said the area lacked social services, yet has drugs, prostitution and other crime that could derail offenders as soon as they’re released.

P-I reporter Debera Carlton Harrell can be reached at 206-448-8326 or deberaharrell@seattlepi.com.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/367029_jail14.html

Change may be coming to Aurora Avenue North

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/366269_aurora09.html

Cindy Potter and son Elliott, 7, pass a vacant lot on Aurora Avenue North near North 89th Street, next to the Green Lake Motel, which was closed in May because of health code violations. An assault on Aurora led Potter and others living nearby to form a group that aims to clean up trouble spots on the strip.

Future looks brighter for downtrodden strip

By LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTER
Monday, June 9, 2008

Change comes slowly to Aurora Avenue North.

As the surrounding area turned rich, clean and a little bland over the past 20 years, the 70-block-long stretch of highway between Green Lake and Shoreline has remained more or less the same.

The used-car lots and building material supply stores still line the city’s old main drag. Seattle’s dead find their last rest at Evergreen-Washelli Funeral Home and Cemetery; the city’s down and out land at low-rent motels lining the strip.

The prostitutes, the pushers — they remain. But change, wanted or not, is coming to Aurora.

Earlier this year, a citizens group organized by the city drafted a 40-point improvement plan. City engineers have inked a proposal for a dramatic revamp of the highway’s northern end. Express buses are on their way, as are the condos-over-retail-space buildings ubiquitous in Seattle’s remade neighborhoods.

Crime rates in the once-dicey neighborhood are down, thanks in part to the initiative of residents. A recent spate of motel closures by the state Health Department has some wondering if city officials are quietly trying to push out the poorest.

“It’s almost like there was a kind of campaign against them. And it’s too bad, because now we’ve got a bunch of people out on the street,” said Faye Garneau, director of the Aurora Avenue Merchants Association. “The city has no places for these people to go.”

Garneau and her husband have owned property along Aurora Avenue for more than 30 years. She said she’s seen the corridor better and worse in that time and acknowledged that prostitution and drug dealing remain problematic on the street.

It’s also home to more than 500 businesses, including a smattering of Seattle institutions such as Puetz Golf, Garneau said. Most draw customers from the 40,000 or so drivers who use the street daily.

Some members of Garneau’s organization saw their livelihoods threatened by a city plan to remake Aurora. The merchants association successfully fought the city when it moved to put the proposals on track for expedited review.

If adopted, the proposals would bring wider sidewalks and an end to the center turn lane to a 35-block-long stretch of Aurora Avenue from North 110th Street to the Shoreline border, said Rick Sheridan, a spokesman for the Seattle Department of Transportation. Three lanes would carry traffic in each direction, including one lane reserved for bus and business traffic.

The aim, Sheridan said, is to make the road safer for drivers as well as pedestrians, who are forced to walk in traffic at several spots lacking sidewalks along the road. A planted center median would also moderate the area’s industrial feel.

“It’s really not meeting the needs of anyone in that community,” Sheridan said, referring to Aurora. “We can really create a more vibrant neighborhood.”

A bus rapid transit line would be included in the redesign. The proposed line would shuttle people into the city’s core with minimal stops and buses coming at 10-minute intervals.

Sheridan said the designs are preliminary and that construction wouldn’t start until 2011 at the earliest.

Garneau believes the plan as proposed would cut off access to several businesses and push more traffic onto surrounding streets. Business owners are also concerned about a loss of parking.

Community activist Cindy Potter’s organization, Greenwood Aurora Involved Neighbors, didn’t weigh in on the city proposal because it stopped just short of GAIN’s membership area. But she said some of the improvements suggested would be a welcome change anywhere on Aurora.

Having lived a half-block away from Aurora for nine years, Potter said she believes the neighborhood’s good qualities are often overlooked.

“Having grown up in Seattle, I never would have even thought to look at a house a half-block from Aurora,” Potter said. “People think of Aurora as such a trashy place, but you just step a few feet away and it’s a nice residential area.”

Potter isn’t a Pollyanna. She knows her neighborhood can be a violent place.

An act of violence actually prompted Potter and 11 others to start GAIN three years ago. A block watch captain attempting to shoo away three teenage drug dealers was beaten into unconsciousness. He lay on the street for hours before anyone came to his aid.

Since then GAIN members have been walking the streets around Aurora and cleaning up trouble spots.

Potter subscribes to the “broken window theory” of crime prevention, essentially that badly maintained areas tend to invite trouble. One broken window invites another, one streetwalker or drug dealer shows others they’re welcome to join in.

Potter said they’ve had an impact; police are getting fewer calls, and dump sites usually stay clean after the litter removal crew’s work is done.

Developers also have arrived. Rows of townhouses line the blocks tucked off Aurora. Now two mixed-use buildings — the kind with condos over retail space — are being planned on Aurora itself.

The city Planning and Development Department plans to launch a study of area, Deputy Director Alan Justad said. Planners will try to determine how much room for growth is there.

Justad said some planners have been interviewing property owners. But he said the effort won’t begin in earnest until late this year at the earliest.

“The value of land is going to continue to go up there,” Justad said. “So there’s going to be growth there whether we prepare for it or not.”

The Aurora motels, nearly all of which cater to the city’s poorest residents, remain a sticking point in that revitalization effort.

For some, the low-rent motels lining Aurora Avenue remain a refuge of last resort. They also have tended to attract drug dealers and prostitutes, and some have fallen into disrepair.

Since March, state health officials have closed four Aurora Avenue motels. Two have reopened.

Last week, authorities closed down the Seals Motel after receiving two complaints from Seattle police and another complaint from a customer. The emergency closure followed a similar action in mid-May against the Green Lake Motel.

Shannon Walker, director of the Health Department’s Facilities Licensing Division, said it’s unusual for her office to receive complaints from police departments. But she dismissed the assertion that her inspectors were assisting the city in an attempt to push out the hotels.

“Right now, we have two surveyors in Washington state,” Walker said. “We only have the resources to look at complaints that come in.”

Garneau, whose organization includes several motel owners, remains unconvinced.

“This year, it just seems to me that there’s a little overzealousness on the part of the inspectors,” Garneau said. “It’s a conception that a lot of people have, that these motels cause the drugs and prostitution. They don’t.”

Motel owners have an interest in keeping their places in compliance, and most won’t rent to clients they believe will destroy their rooms, Garneau said. But she said many renters aren’t able to care for themselves and can create a filthy environment almost immediately.

Since moving to the area in 1999, Potter said she’s seen motels on Aurora languish in disrepair. She supports the enforcement action and believes some motel owners are essentially profiting from the misfortune of their clients.

While cheaper than other options, the motels are hardly a bargain, Potter said. Most residents pay upward of $1,100 a month in rent.

Some motel dwellers just can’t get a deposit together for an apartment, others have problems with their credit or criminal history. Potter said some just don’t realize there are better options out there for them.

“Nobody needs a strip like this in their city,” she said. “And there’s no reason why it has festered for so long.”

P-I reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com.

Seattle names 4 sites that could house jail

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004397216_newjail07m.html

By Jim Brunner, Seattle Times staff reporter

Seattle officials Tuesday announced four possible sites for a new jail that would hold misdemeanor offenders when the King County Jail runs out of space.

The potential locations are all on industrial or commercial land outside of downtown:

• 11762 Aurora Ave. N. — currently a golf driving range and pro shop.

• 1600 W. Armory Way — a group of small warehouses south of Seattle’s Interbay Golf Course.

• 7200 West Marginal Way S.W. — a patch of mostly vacant land near the First Avenue South Bridge.

• 9501 Myers Way S. — part of a former gravel pit adjacent to the city’s new firefighter-training facility.

City officials recognize that putting a new jail in any neighborhood is likely to be controversial.

“I’m already starting to hear from some of my neighbors,” said City Councilmember Tim Burgess, who lives in Queen Anne, which is close to the Interbay site.

“There are going to be a lot of complaints, and many of them will be fear-driven,” said Burgess, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee. “But when we look at the facts, I think we can all understand the need for a jail, and we can understand that they can be safely run in our communities.”

City officials said they intend to seek plenty of public input before making a final decision. Burgess expects the process to take about nine months.

“We’re really committed to being a good neighbor on this,” said Catherine Cornwall, a senior policy adviser in the city’s Office of Policy and Management, who is leading the jail project for the city.

Seattle estimates it will need 445 beds in the new jail. A consultant two years ago estimated the cost at $110 million.

At least seven acres are needed to build the preferred low-rise complex. The city reviewed 35 sites and narrowed those down to 11 before settling on the four properties announced Tuesday.

But Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis stressed that the city isn’t locked into those four sites and will listen to suggestions about other possibilities.

“We’re still open to additional sites,” he said.

Seattle needs new jail space because the King County Jail won’t accept any more misdemeanor prisoners — people serving sentences of less than a year for crimes such as drunken driving or petty theft — after the city’s current contract with the jail ends Dec. 31, 2012.

Cornwall said Seattle already has done a lot of work finding alternatives to jail by diverting offenders into treatment programs and using electronic home monitoring. The number of people in jail on Seattle misdemeanor charges has dropped by 38 percent over the past 10 years, according to the city.

But beds still are required for crimes, such as repeated drunken driving, that carry mandatory sentences.

Other nearby cities face the same problem and are weighing whether to build additional municipal jails in the coming years.

Seattle ultimately could combine its new jail effort with Eastside and North King County cities — which need about 200 jail beds.

Ceis said if Seattle merges its efforts with those cities, the suburbs also would have to put some potential jail sites up for consideration.

South King County cities, meanwhile, are looking at building their own separate jail. They have hired a real-estate broker and are looking for possible properties for a new 800-bed jail, said Renton Police Chief Kevin Milosevich.

Those cities include Renton, Auburn, Tukwila, Kent, Des Moines and Federal Way.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Sewage overflow angers Broadview residents

http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/articles/2008/05/07/news/local_news/news04.txt

By Dean Wong
Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Broadview homeowners are angry about the raw sewage that overflowed into their basements in December and vented their frustrations to a city official last week.

During a heavy rainstorm on Dec. 3, the area’s sewage system backed up, causing extensive damage to homes.

Martha Burke, planning manager for Seattle Public Utilities said the neighborhood had been flooded twice in the past, in 1985 and 1997.

Burke said most of the sewer lines, installed in the late 1940s and early 1950s in Broadview are for sanitation only with separate storm lines.

“There should not be a lot of storm water going into the (sanitation) system,” said Burke.

The city provided a map with Carkeek Park Road to the west, Northwest 103rd Street to the south, Fremont to the east and 130th Avenue North as the borders of the problem area.

Some people at the meeting had flooding problems and lived outside these boundaries.

Resident Sid Andrews said sewage came into his home through the floor drain, shower and toilet causing $30,000 worth of damage.

Andrews runs the Fallen Brothers charity out of his home and collects food donations for the homeless and local food banks. Three refrigerators full of meat were damaged beyond repair and he threw out over $600 worth of meat and other food supplies.

Andrews pumped as much of the sewage out as possible that night. He went out to look in the manhole and found sewage rising eight inches from the top.

“One woman had four feet of raw sewage in her basement,” said Andrews.

A city crew sent to investigate told Andrews there were five breaks in the sewer line in his area.

Ted Lockhart and his wife used a pump to deal with the situation and then went out to buy another pump. He said he bought the last pump available in the whole city that evening.

Even with two pumps, the Lockhart’s resorted to bailing sewage with buckets.

“I kept it at hand to three inches. What saved us was when it stopped raining. We pumped all Sunday night and got no sleep,” said Lockhart.

“We are making a promise to look at it,” said Burke. “This is a community problem. We will do things to reduce the flow of sewage and water. This is a complex study, this is not going to be a simple fix.”

The city has a number of options and the solution may involve a combination of all these fixes.

On site solutions include homeowners disconnecting down spouts which drain into the ground and using natural systems like rain gardens.

Off site, the city can look into swales, natural drainage and improvements like adding ditches.

Reducing infiltration is another strategy on the table with repair of side sewers and replacing main lines from five inches up to eight or even 16 inches.

“I’m going to be getting to know your sewage system and get a better grasp of it and get a better feel for the pipe network,” said Andrew Behnke, a senior engineer for Herrera Environmental Consultants.

The engineering firm will gather data and build a model to see how storm water seeps into the ground.

Engineers will start conducting smoke tests on May 12. Liquid smoke will be pumped 600 to 800 feet at a time into the sewer system. The smoke will rise out of the ground or manhole covers if there is leaking, which can cause overflow.

Behnke stressed that an optimum solution will not be determined by the end of the year.

Numerous people at the meeting kept interrupting Burke’s presentation with horror stories of their sewage nightmares.

Others expressed concern about going through another winter storm season without any improvements to their sewer systems.

A few people said they called the city and were told it was not the city’s problem.

Claim forms were available at the meeting for residents to file for damages.

Dale Johnson, a member of the Broadview Community Council who did not suffer from a sewage backup, tried to keep the meeting moving in a positive direction.

“We are talking about the future and how to prevent the problem. We’re trying to get beyond the individual pain and how to solve the problem an move forward,” said Johnson.

Burke said another public meeting would be held later this year to report back to the community. That meeting would likely be in October.

Dean Wong may be reached at deanw@robinsonnews.com