Schools pull out of grant for Westwood

The Seattle School District has withdrawn its support for a city grant sought by the Westwood Neighborhood Council that would have facilitated a community input process to shape a vision for several public spaces in the neighborhood.

The council had hoped to use a $15,000 Seattle Department of Neighborhoods matching fund grant to hire a facilitator to examine a collection of district and city-owned facilities that lack connection with the surrounding community.

The scope includes sites that will undergo major changes during the next few years: a new joint Denny Middle School and Sealth High School campus, the present Denny site, the Southwest Athletic Complex and areas around the Southwest community center.

After submitting a letter pledging its support of the project the district reversed its decision because of a miscommunication about what the grant entailed, said Eleanor Trainor, capital projects community liaison for Seattle Schools.

"It asked for more control over the process than the district was willing to give as property owners," said Trainor. "We'll continue to work with the community. We'd like to partner with the community. As the property owner, we'd like to take the lead."

Also, she said, the city didn't want to fund a public process that is already part of school district policy.

"The bottom line is the city didn't want to fund a grant that would be a parallel process," said Trainor.

But Patricia Lopez, a department of neighborhoods staffer who helped review the proposal, said the primary reason the application was denied funding was because the district backed out.

"It was more because we didn't get the property owner's permission," said Lopez.

Seattle Public Schools is in the early design phase of a capital project funded by voter-approved levy dollars that will demolish the existing Denny school and construct a new one on the Sealth campus. There will also be major renovations to Sealth.

The district plans to create recreational spaces at the current Denny site after it's demolished in 2011.

But the Westwood Neighborhood Council wanted to ensure through the grant that the district's public process is truly inclusive, said Steve Fischer, president of the council.

Fischer said the district has done a poor job of public outreach in the past and he's wary that this process will be any different. The council has been critical of the district for not getting enough timely information out to the public regarding the Denny-Sealth project.

Trainor said the district plans to conduct a thorough public involvement process and even work with the community in choosing an independent facilitator.

"I feel completely confident we can work with the community closely and give them the ability to come to the table and express their desires," she said. "It will just be a process that is funded by the district rather than the city."

But Fischer said another major goal of the grant was to look at what are now "disjointed" public facilities to come up with a "master plan" for how they can work best as a system of community places. He doubts the district will go that far in its analysis.

The athletic fields are fenced off. It's difficult to get from one side of the 4.8-acre Denny campus to the community center without going through isolated areas. Some areas are rundown, and as a whole, lacks public spaces where the community can comfortable interact.

Fischer said the council tried unsuccessfully several times to set up meetings with district officials to clarify the roles of both organizations. But at a meeting last month, the council was told it wouldn't get the grant because the district no longer supported it.

"We were just kind of shut out," said Fischer. "We didn't get much respect from the school district in terms of trying to work with them."

Trainor said the decision was also helped by confusion over how to navigate through red tape on a project that included taxpayer dollars, the city and the community. She said the district isn't worried that the community's vision won't match the districts'.

"I don't think it cripples the community in anyway," Trainor said. "We haven't withdrawn our support for community input-we absolutely embrace the community. We just had to renegotiate the process..."

But the neighborhood council hasn't ruled out applying for non-city grants to move forward with its plans. It will host a community meeting at the Southwest Community Center on Dec.12 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss next steps. District representatives will be invited, said Fischer.

"We feel the community needs to know what's happening," he said.

The Southwest Community Center is located at 2801 S.W. Thistle St.

Rebekah Schilperoort may be reached at rebekahs@robinsonnews.com