The February Highland Park Action Committee meeting is shaping up with quite a full agenda. Join neighbors to hear updates from the design team and Seattle Parks on the Highland Park Spraypark Project, and the Westcrest Reservoir Project, including the proposed P-Patch.
This month, the HPAC meeting takes place Wednesday, February 29th, the 5th Wednesday instead of the 4th. This is a temporary date change.
Potluck at 6:30, meeting starts at 7:00 pm at the Highland Park Improvement Club on 12th and Holden.
If you could not join HPAC for their January meeting, here’s an uopdate on discussions regarding Nickelsville:
- There is not a big increase in activity in the greenbelt, no big obvious spikes that they can attribute to Nickelsville;
- The Police don’t see any trends or spikes in crime in Highland Park associated with Nickelsville or those living in the greenbelt that are different from trends sweeping the rest of West Seattle or Seattle in general;
- There is a process in place to remove campers/people living on SDOT or Seattle Parks property. The police just need to know where people are having concerns about people living in the greenbelt – so if you have a concern, call them;
- They won’t do regular patrols as requested, but they will respond to calls about specific location;
- They do not advise people to patrol the area themselves as encampments are sometimes guarded by aggressive dogs.
HPAC has been writing our City Council and the Mayor’s office to encourage some political leadership on this matter, with appropriate siting of a city sanction encampment and swift action on setting standards for encampments in industrialized areas. When such standards are set, there will be a public comment period.
HPAC is interested in seeing standards set that include, at the very least:
- Access to water and sewer;
- Proximity or access to services; and
- Environmental review where it relates to public health concerns (sites not prone to flooding or littered with contaminants in the soil).
HPAC also wrote to the staff of Nickelsville to offer to team up with them to press the City Council to make some decisions as it seems that HPAC goals on a policy level are the same, but have not heard back from the Nickelsville folks. HPAC will continue to present any further updates at their meetings until the concerns we heard from our members have been resolved.
