Staff photo/Ian Gleadle
The topic of the June 4 public hearing was whether to call for a public vote on a city ball field project.

The topic of the June 4 public hearing was whether to call for a public vote on a $6,588,000 city ball field project, whose final cost is not yet firm. The project entails reconfiguring the current field layout; replacing the grass with synthetic turf; adding lights, new scoreboards, baseball dugouts, landscaping, public art, a new entry feature, a basketball court, playground and walking loop. The city may need to borrow $2.5 million to help pay for the undertaking.

Twenty-eight speakers testified during the hearing. Five were Parks and Recreation Commissioners; several were coaches; one, a soccer league official; two, affiliated with organizations working to help secure funding for the endeavor. Some were parents of children who use or used the fields, some lived within the City of Woodinville, some did not.

Four spoke in favor of a public advisory vote on the project; 24 opposed such a vote. In the end, council voted 4-3 to proceed with the sports field project as planned (without a public advisory vote). Councilmembers Don Brocha, Gina Leonard, Scott Hageman and Mayor Cathy VonWald voted to proceed with the project as planned. Councilmembers Mike Roskind, Chuck Price and Deputy Mayor Hank Stecker voted against the measure.

Get on with it

Some of the reasons given for carrying on with the sports field project without a public vote were these: According to a questionnaire put out by Chamber Director John Erdman, no one in the Woodinville Chamber of Commerce was against the project, he said.

Karen Steed said that an advisory vote could delay a project that encourages healthy youth and adult activities. Council members who were opposed to the project were out of touch with the community.

These are essential services, said Karen Hergert. The project has been in the works for seven years. The city has money for both roads and the civic campus enhancement. Just do it.

As a Parks Commissioner, Tom Anderson said he felt stymied by the City Council. Why should people have to drive out of or through Woodinville to get to ball fields?

Parks Commission Chair Bob Vogt said historic information about money spent on the civic campus is out of context and not relevant. He said the plan will double the use of the fields, and there was a well-thought-out financial plan for the project.

Parks Commissioner Norm Maddex said the CIP (Capital Improvement Plan) process was fundamentally sound. It identified funding sources for the project and has already been approved by the council. He is concerned that treating this project differently from other CIP projects – by requiring a public vote for it – would set a precedent.

Youth sports coach Steve Olson said there was talk about how much the fields renovation would cost but no mention of the money the project would bring to the city when kids and parents shopped or went out to eat after a game.

Phyllis Keller said an advisory vote was unnecessary. How many times did the public have to advise the City Council of its wishes? The public already gave its opinions on the project. Stop discussing it and get on with it.

Woodinville resident and Northshore Youth Soccer Association President Debra Sternagel said this project was about more than ballgames. It was about a place for the community to gather. It was about economic benefits the fields could bring to the city. It was about choosing to be environmentally responsible by using synthetic turf and no longer using fertilizers.

Michael Tanksley sent a letter stating the Hollywood Hill Homeowners Association approved the project. Active recreation facilities were in short supply. This project was an investment in the public’s future well being.

Parks Commissioner Kim Nunes said much ado had been made about the project, but no one had registered any complaint about it. Opposing council members had their heels dug in the sand.

How did the city get to this point? asked Chris Browne. There was debate on the topic. There was a vote. There was a decision made.

Eric Campbell of CamWest Development Inc., the firm proposing a mixed-use development for the downtown Canterbury Square property, said his company would be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Parks mitigation fees. He very much supported the project. This amenity would make people want to live downtown.

Craig Lange said the new fields would add to the quality of life. Time was money and a public vote could cause the project to be delayed.

Coach Marty Wick said the City of Woodinville had poor sports fields. They didn’t even come close to what other cities had. The city needed more fields. Without them, council would be encouraging an Xbox generation.

Jorge Barrera said the roads that the city had were sufficient for its 10,000 citizens. There are 63,000 folks who use Woodinville parks. Don’t alienate those who live outside city limits. They spent money in town.

Parks Commissioner Liz Aspen said she supported the project because of what she knew about it. There was adequate public outreach. Maybe since 2000, one person was against the expenditure.

Denice Wallick said there was overwhelming acceptance of the project. As a parent and soccer coach, she spent a lot of time driving kids to other places to practice.

Steve VanTill didn’t understand the 11th-hour call for a public vote. Such a vote should have been called last year or the year before or the year before.

Lucinda Brezak said she spent a lot of time carpooling to her four children’s sports games. She spent money on food and lodging at these places, money that could be spent in Woodinville.

Andrew Hay, chair of the field project’s capital campaign, called the public hearing a political maneuver to halt the project, nothing more than a political temper tantrum. Council should already understand these issues, he said.

What is council afraid of?

Al Taylor’s PowerPoint presentation showed amounts of money put toward the civic campus over the years: $6.6 million for the ball field proposal, $3.9 million to acquire the corner properties along 131st and 175th, $3.4 million for community center upgrades. He said that $7.5 million was spent to buy the Sorenson property after voters rejected an initiative to buy it. The city spent $5.45 on construction of City Hall. There were also staff estimated annual community center operational expenses of $278,034.

He thought the city was channeling monies from admission taxes, real estate excise taxes, and builder impact fees exclusively for Parks. State code allows those monies to be used for a wider variety of uses, including emergency preparedness infrastructure, road and sidewalk improvements, and parks, he said.

He hasn’t found anyone who believed that current city project spending was rational and consistent with neighborhood priorities. He probably spoke with over 200 citizens. He didn’t think the city actually heard from that many people about the project.

If all users funded the project proportionately, Woodinville residents would be paying 15 percent of project costs and users outside the city would be paying 85 percent. Taylor called for a public vote for what he called “discretionary park spending.”

Steve Yarbroff wanted more information. The city estimated field costs would come in at $6.5 million. Community center upgrades would run $3.5 million. Who was going to pay for all of this? What else could be accomplished if the project were scaled back or enhanced? The Woodinville-Duvall Road was in bad shape. The city was responsible to all of its citizens.

What could Woodinville afford to do? Could it keep up its infrastructure and put money into the fields and the Community Center? He wanted a chance to have the facts.

Daryl Heinzerling, father of five, said the value of the fields was almost incalculable. Better fields would be fabulous for the community, but costs have gone up. Initially, the project was going to be $1.8 million. Now it’s estimated at $6.5 million. He wondered how many of the city’s public outreach meetings were held after the estimated costs went up. He’d relish the time to have costs and impacts presented more fully.

Dick Vermeulen asked the council what it was afraid of. If people want it, they’d vote for it, he said.

Council consideration

Councilmember Roskind said if the city was going to spend $6.6 million, it needed to hold a community vote. He said the city had fields that worked. Was the investment worth it? Did the city really need that level of investment? Were there other things the city needed more?

He was OK with the expenditure if there was a community consensus, but he wasn’t convinced there was overwhelming support for the project. The city wasn’t buying more land with all this money: It was just putting down fancy carpet. The city was spending all its Parks money on (the Community Center and fields). The community had the right to weigh in on this.

Councilmember Chuck Price said if the city were to borrow $2.5 million for the fields project, it had to include interest payments of $180,000 per year for 20 years in the overall cost. That wasn’t done. He thought the fields project would take money away from purchasing property for other neighborhood parks. Citizens should know that.

Price thought close to 50 percent of those who testified lived outside the city. That was a good example of the kind of outreach the city has had for the project. He said the project was in controversy for years. That’s why the council was where it was today. He liked the project. He didn’t like that 10,000 city residents should have to pay for a park that would be used by 63,000 people. He wanted to share the costs more. This was a regional facility, he said.

Councilmember Gina Leonard said that she was very frustrated having to sit and listen to this discussion again. She didn’t intend to reiterate why she supported the field project. Those who gave public testimony spoke eloquently about it. In November and December last year, the three opponents of the plan voted to fund it. Either they want to take their vote back, or they didn’t understand what they were voting for, she said.

Councilmember Don Brocha said things take so long in government because of democracy: Everyone has a say, and they have it multiple times. That said, the council has been through all of this. They have done their due diligence. The project had citizen input for seven years. The council was just letting the minority have another go at the apple. Good council members move on. If they’re not really interested in doing their council job, they come back and revisit their losses over and over again, he said.

Brocha came up with a David-Letterman-like list of six reasons why the city should carry on with the field project now. (6) It was funded by Park Impact Fees and REET (real estate excise tax). Growth would be paying for growth. (5) The city had enough money for all the parks and roads and surfacewater projects it had on its books. (4) The project would make the fields usable year round, usable by more ages, and usable longer each day (due to the field lighting). (3) The project was endorsed by people experienced with making these kinds of decisions: Kathy Lambert, Roger Goodman, and Mark Ericks, and Jean Fowler. (2) The project was thoroughly examined and approved by the (Parks Commission). (1) It was the heart of Woodinville and part of the small-town feeling that residents were trying to preserve.

He said it was mentioned that public testimony did not indicate overwhelming support. Nor did it indicate overwhelming opposition, he said.

Roskind responded to Leonard’s comments by saying that last year, he asked to have the Parks projects broken out from the rest of the projects that council was considering, in order to have a line-item veto. He would have voted against the projects if they were allowed to debate the items individually. They were not.

Roskind said other city projects were experiencing cost overruns around 20 percent. The city didn’t know the true costs for the sports fields. Twenty percent overruns for this project represented $1.2 million. That’s a lot of money, he said. It was not clear how overruns would affect the budget. He also said quite a few that spoke in favor of the project were architects of the plan and opposed to sending it to a vote. He said that Lambert’s or Goodman’s endorsement of the project meant they were endorsing the city’s spending of city money. Of course they’d endorse that. He wasn’t convinced the community wanted to spend its money this way.

Councilman Scott Hageman said yes, the price tag had gone up. Doesn’t it always? It would continue to go up as council talked and talked and talked about it. He was elected to take some leadership and make some decisions. It was a wonderful opportunity for the city to reinforce its sense of community. Fields would only enhance the city. By improving the fields, the city was protecting its assets, increasing its livability. He wanted Woodinville children to be able to play here and not be ferried around to ball games. There were so many good things about this project. If the city continued to prolong the process, it was going to have paralysis through analysis and the price would keep going up.

Deputy Mayor Hank Stecker said the night’s discussion was about a nonbinding advisory vote on the sports field project. Despite what some citizens might say, not a single council member supported selling the fields to put up apartments. This discussion was not about whether or not to have sports fields. The fields were going to be there. It was about how much money the city put into them. He was not trying to convince anyone whether to have fields or not have fields. His eight-year-old son played Northshore soccer He played Little League. Stecker coached. This discussion was about whether or not to have a vote for the citizens on how their money was spent on a regional facility. The service area has 63,000 people. Woodinville has 3,500 households.

He thought it was interesting that the Chamber of Commerce endorsed an unmanned sewage plant just outside the city, that it supported higher density for the city, but that it didn’t support citizens having a vote on whether the sports field project was a good use of their money.

He said Woodinville was not Redmond or Bothell. These were high expenditures for so small a town. By the time it was done, the entire civic campus could end up costing the city $50 million. Don’t be fooled. It was a lot of money. Woodinville had a very small downtown area. There were tradeoffs. No one was taking away the fields. It was about how much the city spent at one time and who kicked in for these expenditures. Citizens had a right to vote. It was about time they had that chance.

Leonard said that somebody kept calling this a regional facility. Two soccer fields and four reconfigured ball fields didn’t make a regional facility. It was a community facility. She also had a problem discounting comments by out-of-city residents. Price said he supported those who voted for him yet he has been known to fund and support other out-of-city residents’ issues.

She said a public vote would be legitimate if it were legally required, if the project were to be funded with increased property taxes, or if there was a public outcry for a vote. There were no legal requirements to hold a vote, property taxes would not be increased to pay for the project, and there was no public outcry.

Mayor VonWald said citizens could weigh in annually on capital improvement projects. Where has everyone been who’s been against this project, she asked. The reason it took so long to get the project this far was that council repeatedly asked the Parks Commission to refine the plan. She had no doubt a public vote would be an affirmative vote at this time, but it would be a waste of time.

It was not an incomplete plan, she said. It was part of the Downtown Master Plan, the Civic Center Master Plan and the Parks and Recreation Open Space Plan. Maybe the council members who opposed this project should read those plans, she said.

VonWald also said that the capital improvement projects that recently had $3 million in overruns were roads projects. Sixty-four percent of the Capital Improvement Plan was dedicated to roads and improving transportation. To say that the city was not dealing with its roads and infrastructure was a fallacy.

Stecker said anyone who drove around Woodinville knew the city was not taking care of its infrastructure.

When the vote to proceed with the sports field project passed 4-3, the audience applauded.