letter of support

January 14, 2015
Dear Seattle City Council members,
BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
President
Brad Kahn
Vice President
Charles Nolan
Secretary
Jodi Green
Treasurer
Jerry Tone
Ross Baker
Bruce Blume
Ken Bounds
Allegra Calder
Steven Clifford
Howard Frumkin
Brian Giddens
Gary Glant
Gerry Johnson
Maryann Jordan
Garrett Kephart
Carla Lewis
Carol Lewis
Kyle McCoy
John Nesholm
Paulo Nunes-Ueno
Beth Purcell
Doug Raff
Myra Tanita
Chris Towne
David Victor
Huong Vu
Doug Walker
Charlie Wright
Ex Officio
Brice Maryman
Christopher Williams
I am writing on behalf of the board of directors and staff of Seattle Parks Foundation in strong
support of the Cheasty Greenspace Restoration and Trails Project. We serve as fiscal sponsors
for the Friends of Cheasty Greenspace at Mountain View, one of about 30 community groups
devoted to enhancing parklands that we are working with across the city.
As you know, the Friends have been working to reclaim the 43-acre green space on the east
side of Beacon Hill from invasive weeds and illicit behavior and give it back to the people who
live in surrounding neighborhoods. They have already transformed the southernmost 10 acres
of the forest.
The Friends also envision a network of pedestrian and mountain bike trails in Cheasty,
providing new recreation opportunities for Seattleites and green connections between nowseparated neighborhoods and destinations.
In January of 2013, the Board of Parks Commissioners unanimously recommended moving
forward with a pilot project in Cheasty Greenspace that would test how forest restoration can
be enhanced by incorporating active recreation uses. Motivated by this opportunity,
community members have donated 12,000 volunteer hours to restore the green space,
making it is the second most popular Green Seattle Partnership volunteer restoration site in
the city.
The Parks Foundation is particularly interested in the Cheasty pilot because it:

Is a forward-looking, community-led solution that embraces the creation and
stewardship of a healthy, sustainable, ecologically diverse urban forest AND provides
new opportunities for residents to access the urban forest with a safe, ecologically
sensitive, inclusive, health-promoting physical trail system.

Advances the Parks Legacy Plan's guiding values of "access, opportunity, and
sustainability." Cheasty Greenspace will provide ongoing stewardship opportunities
and safe, natural places to play in a neighborhood that currently has limited access to
Rainier Valley’s largest public forest.

Is a great example of the kind of community partnership highlighted in the Legacy Plan
as key to the long-term health and sustainability of Seattle’s park system. The
brilliance of the partnership at Cheasty is that the same volunteers who have already
demonstrated a deep commitment to forest restoration would also build and steward
the trail system. These volunteers would ensure the plants would thrive at the same
time that the trail system took root.
ADVISORY BOARD
Deirdre Black
Barbee Crutcher
Barbara Feasey
Hope Garrett
C. David Hughbanks
Grehen Hull
Bob Ratliffe
Scott Redman
Stu Rolfe
Chris Rogers
Maggie Walker
Steve Wood
Unfortunately, a small but vocal group of project opponents have successfully derailed the proposed
pilot project, the trails portion of which is now constrained to a 1.5 perimeter loop. Gone are meaningful
recreation opportunities. Gone is a bicycle and pedestrian connection between the top of Beacon Hill
and Rainier Vista and the Columbia City neighborhood (including the light rail station) at the bottom of
the hill. Gone is any meaningful context to test the core premise of the pilot—that active recreation can
enhance community engagement with and support of habitat stewardship.
This is not an untested premise in other cities. Denver Parks and Recreation, for example, promotes
parks and trails that “give neighborhood youth and Denver residents a place to mountain bike and
connect to nature and… educate the next generation of land stewards about the ethics of shared trail
use, mountain biking skills and the conservation of the places we love and play.”
We must not miss the opportunity to make this a meaningful pilot project that offers real learning that
will inform city policy moving forward.
To this end, we respectfully request that Council:

Restore the original scope of the pilot project to include cross bicycle and pedestrian trails
through the interior of Cheasty so the project can better meet the needs of the community by
providing much improved access to public parklands for users of all ages and abilities, be safer
and more inviting, and better test the bike and natural area policies in question. The analysis of
the pilot project should include findings related to habitat health, public access, safety,
neighborhood connectivity, and improved community cohesion and lead to a well-vetted, databased, long-term, master plan for Cheasty.

Ensure access to green space and recreation opportunities for all communities. Public health
records show lower public health indicators in the areas surrounding Cheasty than in many
other areas of the city. While many Rainier Vista families come from cultural traditions that have
viewed forests with skepticism, if not outright fear, a recent focus group held at the Boys and
Girls Club revealed a near-unanimous desire to have pedestrian and bicycle connections through
the space, particularly to connect to Kimball Elementary School and Asa Mercer Middle School.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. Working together we can create great public parklands that
effectively meet the needs of a rapidly growing and changing city. I would like to follow up with you on
this matter in person, and will work with your staff to schedule a meeting between us later this month.
Sincerely,
Thatcher Bailey
Executive Director