As you know, the 3/14, five-hour-long, City-run workshop was the first of the first round of neighborhood update planning workshops in Seattle.Of course there was the usual litany of red flags present to indicate lack of thoroughness, planning and resources available.

There was no agenda available until the day of the meeting, the din of the room from 100 people whispering and talking all at once and within a confined large meeting room made it impossible to hear anyone, the outreach results were very poor (the ratio of residents:city:non-residents were 1:1:1) and worse, they ran out of 1/2 and 1/2 halfway through the meeting. I'm not kidding folks.

Another "note-to-self" was that the grassroots organizations were barely mentioned and certainly did not play any role in the meeting; either as a introductory asset or asked to follow through with anything with their membership/attendees in their subsequent meetings. We all came, then left. *POOF*, and onto our lives until we hear about the next workshop (the day before).

I know the City really believes that inclusiveness is the key to "keeping the peace" and making all their efforts go smoothly and with as little underbelly exposed as possible, however what it ends up achieving is a marginalized neighborhood with "stakeholders" (non-residents who show up out of interest) having an equal say in our neighborhood.

But why is it politically-incorrect to use the existing neighborhood groups to be another tier of coordination and leadership, rather than placing them as yet another face showing up at the workshop?There was a 2:1 ratio of non-residents to residents on Saturday, and a quick show of hands at tonight's Othello Neighborhood Association (ONA) meeting showed that 4 people attended (out of 25) and that besides them, only 3 others knew about it. And these are the English-speaking ones next to the light rail. I know, I know, you're wondering why I didn't get the ONA membership out there more myself?

Well, I did promote it on my own, but the City needs to promote the purpose better throughout the neighborhood. Think like an advertiser or something. Instead, they present themselves to the community as another meeting to go to on a Saturday. People's eyes glaze over. I'm not surprised they didn't differentiate much between regular ONA meetings and this.

But a big irony here is something we recognized in the Futurewise/Transportation Choices HB 1490 legislation: we recognized that on behalf of us (the community), Futurewise et. al did not deem to have our input or say in the bill. This attitude is partly what got them initially in the hot seat and it wasn't until they realized it was dying on the vine that they sought our feedback. By then, it was too late to salvage.

It is an ironic, self-appointed perspective.The City of Seattle, in the name of Neighborhood Planning, an inclusive community-driven process, is taking the same approach; they do not deem to have resident's input or say in any of these workshops. The agenda was not only not available to us until the day before, but the agenda was set internally; sans transparency and collaboration with the community. They want to "listen" and collaborate with us. They are spending all this money so that we have our say, but they're not going to listen to how we have our say. This is interesting to me.

I have some agenda ideas that would be valuable to the entire process but am not sure if they will be taken seriously, or even considered. As chair of the MLK@Holly plan steward group, that's not a good sign. At tonight's ONA meeting, attendees got the word and got excited for the next workshop.

Now that the process has commenced, it will surely be highlighted more and people will step up. I realize that this is the first workshop since the 90's, and the City is a bit rusty. However, I'm not sure we're being taken seriously, or that community assets will be utilized properly.

All for now...
Jenna Egusa Walden
Othello Neighborhood Association - Chair