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Spokane, Washington -- 10/19/2009
Park Deal’s Failure Rankles
Land swap near Albi falls apart, triggering finger-pointing.


Photo - Construction crews continue to work on the new
playfields north of Joe Albi Stadium in front of the wooded
area at the rear that was to be preserved but now may be lost.

An unraveled real estate deal that would have expanded a new
city park has angered neighborhood leaders in northwest Spokane
and, officials say, led to last week’s forced resignation of the parks
director.

The bureaucratic fiasco also reawakened tough questions
about oversight of Spokane’s nationally recognized park system.

Barry Russell, who resigned as the city’s parks and recreation
director on Tuesday, was told Monday in an e-mail by Fairmount
Memorial Park cemetery that it no longer was interested in trading
14 acres of wooded property for five acres the city owns adjacent
to Joe Albi Stadium. The land was to become a natural area with
hiking trails and was a key part of securing neighborhood support
for the attached complex featuring sports fields, a BMX track and
a skate park.

The news shocked many City Council members and neighborhood
leaders, who said they were assured all along that the trade, which
was tentatively agreed to in 2007 and approved by the council in
February, was “a done deal.”

But city administrators didn’t put the finishing touches on it, and
it remained unclear who was supposed to follow through: Officials
interviewed this week blamed the parks department, the city’s real
estate director, city attorneys, the public works department, the
Park Board, the mayor or any number of combinations.

City Administrator Ted Danek said he’s “trying
to determine how the breakdown happened.”

What is clear is that the issue at least
partially led to Russell’s resignation.

City Councilman Bob Apple, who serves on the Park Board,
said Mayor Mary Verner, in response to the cemetery’s decision,
told Russell on Tuesday: “You can resign or you can be fired.”

Apple, who said Verner used Russell as a “whipping boy,” said
he and most of the Park Board believe Russell was doing good
work and that the matter was out of park department hands.

Park Board member Randy Cameron said city administrators
told the Park Board that Russell was put on notice that he was
“deficient” in “communication and follow-up.”

“There were some on the board who thought he was doing a
good job,” Cameron said. “There are some who thought he
wasn’t doing a bad job.”

In an interview Thursday, Verner declined to comment
on Russell’s resignation or Apple’s characterization of it.

She said she would take the blame for the botched deal:
“Ultimately the buck stops at my desk.” She added that
she will “try to salvage it, if possible.”

Attempts made to reach Russell last week were unsuccessful.

An ambiguous system

The new park, much of which is being constructed over former
soccer fields at Dwight Merkel Field, also played a role in Verner’s
firing of former Park Director Mike Stone in 2007.

Officials, especially members of the City Council, had pointed
to the still-undeveloped park funded by a public vote in 1999
as proof of the park system’s inability to get things done.

But oversight of the new park has been complicated over the
past decade by property ownership ambiguities, traffic congestion,
neighborhood opposition, the city’s park structure and controversies
surrounding Joe Albi Stadium.

Spokane’s park system, under the City Charter, is independent
from the rest of city government. All spending, park policies and
other park decisions are determined by the Park Board.

Under the weak mayor system the city used until 2001, the
Park Board hired the parks director. But city attorneys have
advised Verner that she has that authority in the strong-mayor
City Charter.

That has put the director in an odd position at times when the
Park Board and mayor disagree over the director’s priorities.
Oversight has been further blurred on the new park near Joe
Albi Stadium because the land, unlike the city’s other parks,
was not technically owned by the park system when the deal
was first negotiated in 2007, even though the property is owned
by the city.

Interim Park Director Leroy Eadie said Verner has
directed him to make the land deal his “No. 1 priority.”

Former Mayor Dennis Hession, a former Park Board president,
called the matter “complicated,” but added, “I do think the park
director has two masters.”

He said citizens intended that the Park Board “make decisions
on the park system without the advice and consent of the mayor
or the City Council.” But, Hession added, the director is “answerable
to the mayor as all (city) employees are answerable to the mayor.”

Asked if ambiguities in the system led to the land trade’s undoing,
Verner said: “That’s exactly why I’m taking responsibility for it.”
She said she plans to convene a task force to study the park system
and recommend possible changes to park oversight.

Despite the celebrated opening of several new pools,
it’s been a tumultuous year in the parks department,
largely over controversies involving the purchase of
the former downtown YMCA,

the proposed Mobius science museum and the reversal of
the city’s longtime tradition of providing free swimming to kids.
In response, some City Council members, including Mike Allen,
have suggested that the Park Board should be elected.
The deal maker

Apple said the land swap was supposed to be overseen
by the city’s real estate officials and city attorneys.

The deal was presented to the City Council in February by
Dave Steele, then the city’s real estate director. A short time
later he was promoted to a job overseeing efforts to save
money within city government.

The land deal was an essential ingredient to winning neighborhood
support to finally move forward with plans to build the new park,
which is north of Joe Albi Stadium. Neighborhood concerns about
traffic and other issues had held up construction of the park since
funding had first become available to build it about a decade ago.

In 2007, then-City Councilman Rob Crow worked with neighborhood
leaders, park officials and others to win support for the park’s creation,
and later to secure backing for a $43 million bond issue to add more
funding to the park and to build new swimming pools.

Eric Armstrong, a member of the Northwest Neighborhood Association,
said residents wanted the land to maintain open space and a place to
walk and jog. He noted much of the new park is filled with amenities
including a skate park, a BMX track, a parking lot and a fenced softball
complex.

Neighbors recently expressed concerns about park construction when
they realized that a perimeter trail they were told would be included in
the park ended at the sidewalk along Assembly Street. Armstrong said
he had been led to believe that the trail was to be part of a natural buffer
along all sides of the park and separate from the sidewalk.

“The fact that we haven’t gotten it speaks to the fact
that they haven’t taken us seriously,” Armstrong said.

Attempts to reach Duane Broyles, president of the Fairmount
Memorial Association, were unsuccessful Thursday and Friday.

In 2007, he said the cemetery tentatively agreed to the swap
partly because the five acres was seen as an ideal place to
relocate a maintenance shop.

Crow said this week he is “upset beyond comprehension”
because he and others assured residents that the cemetery
land would become part of a natural area in the park.

Some, including Crow, question if the park could have been built
without the neighborhood support received by promising the land
trade.

“I guarantee you it would have been significantly more difficult,”
Crow said. “It was seen as a way to mitigate what was seen as
an additional burden to the neighborhood.”

Crow said he “was first in line” to take blame for the breakdown
– though he and others say they had been assured until only a
few weeks ago that the delay was about working through routine
issues.

“Everybody figured everybody else was working on
it and nobody had the sense of urgency,” Crow said.

Crow added he was surprised that Russell lost
his job over the botched swap.

“I was stunned that he was let go,” said Crow, who is a member
of the Park Bond Oversight Committee. Based on his interactions
with Russell, Crow said he thought Russell “was doing an excellent
job.”

Karen Bell, former chairwoman of the Northwest Neighborhood
Association, was one of a few neighbors who withheld full support
for the park. That’s because the land swap had not been finalized
and she questioned if the Park Board would follow through.

“I had deep reservations because it didn’t happen in a timely
manner,” Bell said. “They just wear us down until we give up
because they just do as they damn well please. They knew
how important this was to us.”

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