SOUTH ROSE HILL/BRIDLE TRAILS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION
General Meeting - Tuesday, March 9, 2004
President Bruce Feuling called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m. Bruce introduced the SRHBTNA Officers in attendance. He also introduced members of the Kirkland City Council in attendance: Dave Asher, Tom Dillon, Jessica Greenway, and Jim Lauinger.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
ROSE HILL ELEMENTARY PTSA – The annual school play will be held on March 12 & 13, in the RHJH auditorium. PTSA Bingo Night will be held on Thursday, March 18, in the RHE gym.
A SPECIAL THANK YOU to Dana and Rhoda for, once again, bringing the refreshments to our meeting, and to the new Starbucks on 85th Street for donating the coffee.
SRHBTNA ELECTIONS will be held in May.
REPORTS
HOUGHTON LANDFILL BALLFIELDS UPDATE - TOM DILLON
Tom Dillon, SRHBT neighborhood resident, member of the Kirkland City Council, past president of Kirkland American Little League, and KALL special projects coordinator, talked about the project and his commitment to see the project through to its end. Tom begun by giving a brief history of the project. In 1996, meetings were held about project, including design aspects, how many fields, access, etc. In 1997, an agreement was submitted to King County Solid Waste for a five-year lease for areas, which when built, would include four baseball fields, a soccer field, and an access road to 60th street. The NW corner access road would be closed. The master plan (zoning permit) went before the hearing examiner, eventually to City Council. (Tom was not on the Council.) The grading permit was also granted 1999. The contract with Santana Trucking allowed 120–140,000 cubic yards of fill to be brought in. At the time of the agreement, it was a good deal for Santana and a good deal for Little League also.
Construction began in the spring of 2000. But in the later part of 2001, the facilities were not the way they were supposed to be. The erosion control system was not begun. Little League had paid for the design of storm runoff and temporary erosion control systems. Water was to be filtered and clean when it left the site. However, they weren’t built right and all systems failed during heavy storms. There was extreme runoff and the City shut the project down, saying if the erosion control systems weren’t built, the project couldn’t continue. Santana put straw down, etc., but by 2002, the grading permit expired. Santana stopped doing the work, Little League renewed the grading permit, but Santana did not return to work. Efforts were made to get Santana to come back to work but the Little League Board was going to be forced to fire Santana and sue them for specific performance. In early February, Little League sent a letter asking them to get back to work by Feb 17th or they would terminate the contract and pursue legal action.
Tom reported that he has been working with another reputable Redmond contractor to come in and finish the job. It is estimated that the project is 30,000 cubic yards of fill short. An aerial photo of the site was displayed. It was pointed out that the northern part of the site is near grade, the middle is under grade, and the south end is very much under grade.
Questions from the audience were raised about the involvement of the City of Kirkland and King County. The City is involved because it controls the permits. King County has divested itself, is transferring parks to cities, and won’t get involved. Concerns were raised by neighbors who voiced frustration about the project and the site. Neighbors mentioned the lack of response from the Kirkland Police as a concern. Others sited Little League stewardship in the past (occasionally the gates were left unlocked and the trash was uncollected). Tom said that Little League would work with the home team managers to ensure that the gate is kept locked and the teams remove their own garbage.
Tom was optimistic that the new organization would be able to get the T-Ball fields rebuilt by April 20th, the start of the T-Ball season. It is hoped that they will be able to address fencing, infield mix, outfield (grass is dying because of lack of topsoil), parking lot gravel, timbers outlining parking, etc. Tom reiterated that the ballfields were developed to build a park for our community and our kids, and to develop a community liability to a community asset. Tom apologized for what has happened, stating he lives in this neighborhood and is working very hard to get something done.
A question was raised about where the fill was coming from. Most of the soil has come from the new SAFECO building at Crossroads. GeoNorthwest received the records of all the sources of the fill. A neighbor of the site talked about the grade and the ground cover (or lack thereof) and what would slow down runoff. He discussed that changing the grade does not affect drainage patterns as much as the lack of ground cover. The temporary erosion control system with ponds and ditches with rock damns could be built to slow the water down and pull the soil out.
Kirkland City Council member Jessica Greenway pointed out that the project has suffered from a lack of communication and suggested a small neighborhood group be formed which would sit down with Tom and provide a way to communicate information about the project. A ballfields committee of neighbors was formed and consists of Terry McGee, Jeanette Simecek, C. Ray Allshouse and Ellen Glauert.
Kevin Kiernan, from King County Solid Waste, emphasized that KCSW believes the ballfields project will be an asset to the community, bringing recreation to the children in the community. He passed out business cards for reporting emergencies or incidents at the site: 206-296-4490. He said this number was answered 24 hours a day.
NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION PICNIC, SATURDAY, AUGUST 28TH – BRUCE FEULING
Arrangements are being made to hold our first annual Neighborhood Association picnic at Rose Hill Elementary. The School District will require us to pay for custodian but we will have use of the bathrooms in the gym, the playground, and there will be plenty of parking. (BF under construction.)
Bruce sought members’ ideas for the picnic:
· Games – what kind of games should we have?
· Food – should we charge or bring own? Barbecue?
· Booths by local merchants, such as Pecoras?
· Donated items (simple)? Hot dogs, hamburgers (like North Rose Hill) and charge $1.00 (not pot‑luck)?
· Drinks?
Business cards for the Neighborhood Association have been created in order to assist with soliciting on behalf of the picnic. A Picnic Volunteer Committee will be created at the May meeting and ideas for the picnic will be discussed at this next general membership meeting. Initial Committee members include of Ellen Glauert, Sam Barrett, Dave Young, Art Yeoman, Deirdre Johnson, Ram Hariharan, and Bruce Feuling.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Deirdre DeWan Johnson
Secretary