In response to the recent letter writers expressing perhaps reasonable skepticism about the potential acquisition of the Landmark 99 property by the City of Edmonds, I would add: Be careful what you don’t wish for.
I lived on Mercer Island when that city proposed a center of the Island greenbelt. Voters turned it down with many later regrets. I lived in Seattle when Paul Allen donated many parcels of land to potentially form a greenbelt corridor from Lake Union to the Seattle Center. A sort of Seattle central park. Voters turned this down as well in spite of the considerable financial contribution from Allen. Many hindsight regrets again.
There are indeed other Edmonds city needs that will require substantial funds including water treatment systems, habitat restoration, street repair, climate change mitigation and hopefully the eventual acquisition of land to restore the Edmonds Marsh Estuary. The most expensive of these will be candidates for private-public partnerships or state and federal funding support as the mayor has outlined.
I don’t know yet if the contemplated Landmark acquisition makes good sense. I think that judgment depends on acquiring a number of important pieces of information for careful consideration.
I am glad that further discussion by council will occur after a review of current city budgeting. I would hope the mayor and city government would provide information on other possible locations in the Highway 99 corridor for some of the amenities that might make this Landmark opportunity an attractive acquisition as a forward-looking benefit for the future residents of Edmonds.
Would another park, a kind of mini city park playfield be extremely desirable, perhaps coupled with a police sub-precinct and partnered housing or mental health facilities? Or are there better and less expensive suitable locations? I think it shows some wisdom gained from other municipalities and projects to start by exploring possibilities and doing the diligence to avoid important lost opportunities.
— By Al Snapp
Al Snapp lives in Edmonds.
Thank you for your thoughtful and reasoned comments Al. Too many other comments have ignored that funding would come from multiple sources and not just city funds. Also, the examples of lost opportunities elsewhere are compelling.
I don’t understand why we waste Tax Payers Money on new trail or the 99 project. When we have needed repairs on side walks and roads with Pot Holes. I saw the other day a Senior fall and was caught by his wife be fore he fell. He grabbed on street sign and it fell over against a rock wall. I believe our Tax Payers Dollars would be better used to fix things that are falling in our lovely city.
I don’t see that site as desirable for housing or a park. I could be talked into it as a police station and a mental health facility but I really agree with Mr. Westlake that the taxpayer dollars are best used on fixing existing things that are already on a very long list of needs for our city.
I wrote to all our city council members before they took up the $250,000 consultant expense issue on Tuesday this week. I heard from 4 of the 7 so far and CM Tibbott sent me an excellent explanation. I will not reiterate it here but suffice to say, contacting council members directly works (in some instances). More information will be forthcoming for all of us and opportunities for in-put from the citizenry. Keep up the good work folks.
Pamela: Lucky you to hear back from the city council. I too wrote to every one of them and did not receive a single reply.
Rosemary, I’m keeping track of who responds & who doesn’t for future elections. I do email each one individually, so I don’t know if that helps. I also emailed all of them over the banning of dogs at North Brackett’s & only 2 responded to that one. Of the responses I have received, Vivian Olson seems to be the most cordial. I wonder when folks put an “Open Letter to the Edmonds City Council” here on this medium, if they also send it to the council. Some on the Council read MEN I suppose, but probably not routinely. Best to email each of them individually I think. Keep writing!
This sudden Landmark proposed purchase is a last minute election tactic by an unpopular incumbent Mayor who’s running scared – nothing more and nothing less. Mr. Snapp has deluded himself and is now trying to delude us. Most recent history would tell us those greenbelts gone lost in Seattle and possibly even on Mercer Island would have just filled up with homeless people in tents.
For any hope to retain his office, Mayor Nelson needs lots of people from the Hwy 99 area to come out in the General Election for him in hopes of getting more City services and benefits. This is simple pandering at it’s most blatant. The sad thing is our Council President, who supposedly represents all of us equally, has colluded with the Mayor in this latest sad Edmond’s political power grab game.
Mr. Wright – you make some pretty strong allegations here which are basically your opinion, not necessarily based in fact.
Pamela, that’s very true and guilty as charged. Please feel free to present all your pure incontrovertible evidence that I’m wrong about any of this. I’m basing my comments (opinions written in an opinion venue by the way) on the known past acts of the people involved. What are your opinions based on?
Clint, I’m not going to argue back & forth with you. I notice that you seem to know a lot but what you said about Mr. Snapp’s letter and the mayor are, from what I can tell, your personal opinions, i.e, “the Mayor is running scared”….”Mr. Snapp is deluded”. Neither of which comment I find particularly helpful. I read Mr. Snapp’s view and found it interesting, not deluded. As for opinions, we all have them. Have a nice evening.
To paraphrase a quote from Top Gun , “The Mayor and some Council Members are attempting to write checks that the City can’t cash.” Edmonds can’t afford this project!
Look at the timing on this, who presented it and how it was presented. Just how did Mr. Tibbott know about and be part of the presentation while none of our other Council Members seem to have even known anything about it before the presentation? How is it that Mr. Ttbbott knew about an earlier discussion with the seller and Mayor about purchasing 3 acres of this property and no one else in town did?
Nobody is saying never do anything for Hwy 99. What people are saying is do it right as we can afford it and don’t let the politicians give away the farm in the process. This is a flawed initiative and it needs to get stopped. We need a new Mayor and Pence, Dotsch and Fagerstom elected to Council.
In fairness to Mike Nelson and his staff, this tactic of presenting grandiose projects that somehow need to take priority over all our basic and often neglected needs is nothing new. It’s how Edmonds has been run for most of the 50 odd years I’ve been hanging around town. We get sold all these great benefits to Edmonds that are going to somehow be financed with other people’s money and in the end we pay for all the start up costs and the ending over run costs when the projects go sideways for one reason or another. On top of that we end up with some things that have great improved form but lose much of their function in exchange for that. Spending the public dime is seldom well thought out here and our Councils tend to take their voting advice from the wrong sources which are often highly biased.
I agree with you Al. Best to fully look into it then decide if its the right fit or not. The “no” residents are very vocal so it’s nice to hear from another person that’s interested in seeing the possibilities of the space and if its really feasible or not.