I was among the three hundred plus citizens who packed the meeting room at Fort Worden Commons for what the city described as Open House #1, City of Port Townsend Golf Course plus Mountain View Commons Planning Effort. This meeting marked the midpoint of a roughly ten-month time line that started about five months ago with a series of community meetings from which the city extracted that the public would like to explore alternative uses for the golf course property.
Mayor David Faber opened the meeting and passed the microphone to City Manager John Mauro who said a few polite remarks, and then passed the microphone to Carrie Hite, Director of Parks & Recreation Strategy. Hite announced this was the start of a community discussion, part of a process that will lead to a vision for the park, but no decisions had yet been made. Someone in the audience reminded all present that the golf course is not a park.
Eventually the microphone was given to Chris Jones, principal and founder of Groundswell Studio, the Seattle firm hired by Port Townsend to put the alternative uses proposal together. He did a fine job discussing the history of the golf course property, the details of landscape as it currently exists, and finished with a review of several similar projects done in other towns around the United States.
No one in the crowd of around three hundred was allowed to speak. If they did, they were ignored or told their questions would be answered in the Q&A session later. In lieu of public comment, we were given a piece of paper on which to write a question. The papers were gathered by the consulting team who then flipped through the several hundred questions and selected a few to hand to Mr. Jones. He then read them out loud and either provided an answer or passed it on to city staff.
Half an hour was allotted for the Q&A session. No follow up was allowed during the session, except when the Parks & Rec director neglected to say how much had been spent so far and more than a few people yelled “How Much?” — loudly enough that Hite said her time plus $125,000 to the consultant.
My question wasn’t answered, nor were the majority of the questions because there just wasn’t enough time, clever that. To be fair, we were told we could talk with the staff and consultants after the meeting, but gone was the power of the community speaking their minds to city officials in public. It seems the only polite choice on this evening was to follow the city’s lead.
What caught my attention during the presentation (and this is listed in the history of this project on the city website) was that the golf course is zoned municipal and thus, as it stands, can only be used for municipal purposes. municipal purposes are generally defined as all purposes within municipal powers as defined by the constitution or laws of the state or by the charter of the municipality. Whether all the options presented fall under the definition of municipal purposes remains to be seen. Mayor Faber, in answering a question about affordable housing, believed that it would be difficult to rezone the golf course for such a purpose.
With the presentation and Q&A session over, we were supplied with six green sticker dots and six orange sticker dots.
Mr. Jones instructed the crowd to number these stickers one through six. We were to step up to the poster boards prepared by the Groundswell Studio and place sticker number one on the image of our preferred choice and then on down the line to choice number six. We were not allowed to put all six stickers on one choice, only one per choice, or we could give our stickers back to the consultants. Green corresponded to the Golf Course options and orange to Mountain View options.
Hopefully accompanying photos will show you how the attendees prioritized their votes. In order to handle the crowd, there were three sets of each poster board.
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Golf Course Site Potential Uses
Even though we were assured many times over that no plans had been made for the golf course, it took two boards to showcase all the options. They are as follows: Golf Course as-is, event space, sports fields, educational center, exercise stations, boardwalk, picnic, art, multi-use lawn, affordable housing, habitat.
Three each of the two boards were set out for people to put green stickers on. The sixth board from this compilation below is the one featured at the top of the article.
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Mountain View Commons Potential Uses
Fewer options were presented for Mountain View Commons, so there was only one poster. The options were: pool, plaza, farmers market, educational center, festival street, pickle ball, splash pad, art, affordable housing, dog park, playground. Three identical boards were set out for orange stickers.
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Can you tell me what is missing?
I describe this experience as being led into a candy shop with no prices and told you can pick your six favorite items. Months later you get the bill and you think to yourself, “I might have made different choices if I had known the particulars.”
The poster boards presented only pretty pictures — no prices, estimates of cost, or sources of funding associated with any of these options. I understand this is the start of a process, but at least with the ongoing taxpayer funded multi-million dollar nightmare of the Carmel Apartments, we had a starting price of about $250,000 to barge that broken dream of affordable housing down from Victoria.
So here we go again. If you want a say, or in this case, a question written on a small piece of paper that may or may not be answered, on the options for the future of the Port Townsend Golf Course or Mountain View Commons, now is the time to make your opinion known.
The City Council will be briefed on the project January 17th. The consultants will analyze the boards and present the two or three community favored options for both facilities at Open House Number Two in mid-April, where I assume more stickers will be handed out and more choices will be made. Open House Number Three in June will reveal the one or two most favored options. More information can be found here on the city website.
Brett Nunn has spent the last two decades in Port Townsend’s Uptown, raising a family, volunteering at local schools and wandering the outdoors. He writes about survival, community and culture. He is the author of the book, “Panic Rising: True-Life Survivor Tales from the Great Outdoors.”
Here’s the Peninsula Daily News’ take, but inquiring minds wonder about all the masked men and women!
I find this public comment process to be ridiculous and manipulative. Where is the representation? Where is the government of the people, by the people and for the people? Once elected, our “representatives” do WTF they want, paying lip service to our inputs. This happened in Sequim with the drug rehab clinic and seems to be happening in PT as well. This must be what they’re taught in government school, AKA “How to do what you want while giving the illusion that people’s comments matter.
The other thing I find amusing is people wearing masks, which are proven by hundreds of studies to make ZERO DIFFERENCE in viral contagion. The viruses are 0.3u while the pores in an N95 mask are 0.8u– approximately the same ratio as a golf ball to the cup, or mosquitoes to chicken wire. Why are they mandated? Because 2300 years ago, the Arabs discovered that facial coverings dehumanize the person and make them more submissive and obedient. Hmmmmmm……
“They” have been wanting to eliminate the golf course for many years now. It will be gone sooner than later.
Carrie stated, during the sticker time, that affordable housing could be considered municipal use. I don’t agree.
The manager started off saying he was glad to see such a crowd in his hometown. This may seem petty but have they changed the definition of hometown?
The Groundswell guy is not attention to details oriented. Many questions he could not answer such as the actual size of the golf course property. I asked him for help in explaining the boards and he directed me to place my sticker on a picture labelled “habitat” to support the camus patch/prairie. There was an entirely different board that had the camus patch represented. He assured me this was it. Once people moved I asked for help from one of his assistants who directed me to the other board. She was helpful.
We have more intelligent people in our own community who could have done mock ups prior to hiring for the final stages.
This was structured like any political argument these days. Designed to get folks fighting without having access to facts. Lumping these 2 properties together that have separate owners and restrictions seems to intentionally confusing.
Then there is the confusion with the hospital and the pool?
Does a historic hotel want to be next to a pool facility? That is not zoned for that. The hospital could and should be building housing for their staff and patients. It was not healthy for the community to force locals to compete for housing with new hires. Now we are supposed to house the new hires as part of our low income housing. Why couldn’t the hospital fix their housing/hire problem in their expansion plan?
I am not a fan of golf courses because of the environmental impact. I do enjoy the open space. Mostly I care about my neighbors who use the course.
Trust is something that must be earned. The city has not earned that trust. I don’t trust them to make good decisions. A remodel was too much for them.
Build a new pool at Mtn view-put an apartment on top. Call the hospital out on their lack of planning and harm of the community they purport to care about. They have room for condos in the parking lot and own property next to the castle. Call it a day and send Groundswell home. We can’t afford any of this. Once it is gone it is gone. We don’t have enough open space as is. We don’t have enough budget to maintain the parks we have. Check the Simpson’s monorail episode if you want the overall vibe of this project.
PS I was wearing my mask – we were sitting shoulder to shoulder with 300 plus folks. Not some sort of fanatic. Just a cautious person. My abundance of caution has kept me reading and paying attention. While I was wearing the mask we likely share many opinions and have come to the same conclusions. I found that comment unnecessarily dividing. We have to do better at reaching out and communicating with out name calling and othering neighbors if we want to get the work done.
PSS While you check out the PDN link above do take a moment to read about Mike Glenn’s 50,000$ raise. He can now purchase a modest family home in jefferson co every 2 years. Maybe take a moment to congratulate Glenn on his raise and his part in adding to the 50 year housing crisis in Jefferson co. Way to go Mike! Healthier together.
Brett, thank you for the info on this golf course meeting.
One thing I’m noticing in all the City officials comments and statements on many subjects and decisions is the use of the term “Stakeholders” .
Who are these Stakeholders and how are they influencing our City officials?
Just questioning,
Al
Al-
The first time I saw the use of the term stakeholder was during the takeover of the campus of Fort Worden by the FWPDA. They were a small group of connected locals. Tenants had not followed the inclusive MOU Centrum had with State Parks. Centrum leased from the State and re leased for profit buildings to tenants. Those tenants built exclusive. not inclusive businesses for profit. Profits made by Centrum were not returned to the people of the State.
Everyone loves the public image of Centrum.
Suddenly during the FWPDA takeover process the special interest out of compliance tenants were referred to as stakeholders. After the orchestrated train wreck at by the FWPDA tenants have control via non profits of the most valuable parts of the campus.
End goal achieved the long way around. By special interests using the term stakeholders.
I believe the stakeholders at Fort Worden then and now and in the golf course and Mountain View Commons are the taxpayers and public.
Special interests are no more stakeholders than John Mauro is a “hometown” boy.
Orwell said change the language and change the reality.
You elected them, you recall them or vote them out. This is typical of politics, especially local.
Congratulations on completing an official community sticky thing event – the first step in converting a desirable, livable city into a dystopian hellhole. It’s probably been 25 years since I glowed with civic pride as I placed my first sticky on a board at an Olympia City Council meeting. Housing options competing for our sticky votes that night did not include the eventual solution of converting greenspaces to vagrant drug camps.
The trashing of Olympia was not unique. The same pattern is now being repeated in communities everywhere. Government officials partner with non-profits to provide a service while a third (often invisible) entity profits from the deal.
I call this government / non-profit / profiteer structure “the blob that rules”. The three entities shield each other from the type of accountability each would face as a stand-alone organization. Public records request? Nope – not government. Poor business management by the profiteer sector? No problem – just raise taxes.
Watch for the transfer of valuable commercial and municipal real estate. Stay out of the sticky weeds.
Q. Wayle, the councilors are your representation, not the people who go to “government school”. If we’re not representing the people, then you can tell us to go and to not let the door hit us. In the meantime, please reach out.
Ben-
The City Council and the “government school” tool you employ as City Manager John Mauro have a well documented history of not following public input. The Mess Tent articles by the Free Press show purposeful limited notice by both City Manager and Appointed Mayor Faber. Council enabled that and had no issues.
Was it not Mauro that hired the specific consulting company that had sticker night regarding the commons and golf course? What conversations and agreements were made before the big night between him and the consulting company? Who oversees the results? Why trust Mauro? The purposefully limited Main Street polls and questionnaires didn’t add up to final numbers presented.
Why trust Council? Ant their tool Mauro into the best gig he will ever have in his life?
Mauro was vetted and hired by Appointed mayors Stinson and Sandoval. It is clear that he was told not to deal with parking. Collusion. Who does John Mauro work for? Not the public. There are more ways he has proven his lack of honesty. Outside the bubble all the dots are easily connected.
Mess tent issues brought up parking problems 9 years in the making. Now Mauro will oversee more “studies” regarding well documented City manufactured purposeful parking chaos that benefited a 3 time past appointed mayor.
That has been costing millions in lost business access according to previous ignored “studies” by Mauro’s predecessor Timmons. And all of several manifestations of City Council including this one. Why think the golf course or commons plans will not also be managed as key players want regardless of public input as the FWPDA managed Fort Worden?
Will you Ben stand up when things go as they always have from parking to golf course to commons?
You say you like Mauro and Faber in past comments. That has nothing to do with how they perform. Council is not a place to make friends above serving the public. Present council and past never got that memo.
So much more could be said, and examples provided.
Who will Mauro hire to do parking studies? What will they be told to focus on? Could they possibly note the last studies results of millions continuing to be lost and discrimination to the public that knows no better than to obey signage that is not at all enforced? Special people park all day for free. Community “resilience” and “vibrancy” are undermined.
Here is one from Faber most have not apparently seen. This is leadership?
Government school indeed.
Thanks for the article, Brett. I am very familiar with this Open House type public meeting format as it has become very popular as a way for government employees to avoid hard questions from the public while in front of the public. This is my least favorite format for public planning as it is designed for the presenters and not the attendees. Having stood in front of a hostile crowd as a government employee, I think it is an important part of the planning process to sometimes be in that position, despite the discomfort. It reminds you of who you actually work for.
I took a lengthy survey a year or so back, regarding the golf course as part of an extensive public input process but have not seen any kind of report on the findings of that survey.
Was this discussed during the meeting?
Does anyone know what happened to that data?
I am asking this today as I just filled out a school district survey on the school calendar and the email from the school also included a link to another survey on the golf course. It was a poorly worded survey so I didn’t bother to fill it out, but it made me wonder what happened to the other survey which was much more detailed.
Meanwhile, I told my kid to start playing golf while he could cause they already tore out the basketball courts, soccer field and play equipment at Mtn. View…
As I mentioned in the article, this specific push started about five months ago with community meetings across a variety of venues. A brief look at these results led me to believe that a relatively small number of citizens participated. I would guess fewer than the 300 or so that showed up at the recent open house. You can see this history on the city’s website if you dig around a bit. Perhaps the survey was part of that effort. People are now paying attention and want to let their opinions be known, yet when I talk to individuals there is a less than optimistic attitude mostly from past experience where the city has asked for public input only to ignore it if it didn’t fit with what city officials wanted. We don’t have to look too far in the past for an example, the streateries were opposed by the majority, yet they lived on long past their expiration date. The city seems to think that a vocal minority that supports keeping the golf course as is, is drowning out other voices. Will they keep issuing surveys until they can find enough support for whatever it is they think the golf course should be? We are led to believe the city council will have the final vote. These are the people that want to hear from the public.
Noticing now that -the photo of the golf course is larger than the other photos. That in and of itself makes our dots seem less than if the photo was the same size. Small trick-still significant in the over all manipulation of perception.
Just another Delphi meeting, eh? http://www.vlrc.org/articles/110.html