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UPDATE: Budget-related construction on hold at Green Lake Community Center

What do you think? (3 Comments) October 21, 2010 at 10:58PM

On Tuesday (Oct. 19, 2010), My Green Lake reported that the Parks Department planned to begin converting the entire second floor of the Green Lake Community Center (7201 E Green Lake Dr N) into offices on Nov. 4.

Signs posted at the community center said that the work was “due to budget cuts.”  City Council, however, has not yet voted to adopt a final city budget.  The 2011-2012 budget will be adopted Nov. 22.

Earlier this evening, I received some updated information about the Green Lake Community Center from Dewey Potter, Communications Manager for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

“It turns out that our planning staff, acting in the best of faith to get the community center upgrades done by January 4 in the event the City Council approves the proposal, began to do work there,” Dewey told me.  “When they learned that it is not appropriate to do this before the City Council has voted to adopt the budget, they stopped immediately. The signs have been removed, and the work will not begin again unless and until the City Council approves the proposal.”

Note, however, that some floor repair work is being done behind a black plastic enclosure on the first floor the Green Lake Community Center.  This project is unrelated to budget cuts.

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Location: Green Lake Park
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What do you think? (3 Comments)
  • Anonymous

    When they learned that it is not appropriate to do this before the City Council has voted to adopt the budget

    —

    Well, this MIGHT lead one to ask what money WAS being used for the work that was performed – including how much – as well as how it came about that authorization was provided to begin work when, well, no budget had been provided for it.

  • Anonymous

    People need to remember that how we vote right now on the ballots we have at home will have a direct effect on city, county and state budgets.

    In particular, if King County Prop 1 fails, then there will be more budget cuts, certainly more service and program closures, and probably even cuts to core services like police and firefighters.

    If either of the liquor initiatives (1100 & 1105) pass, it will cut into a significant revenue source for cities. Right now liquor profits and taxes go 50% to the state, 40% to cities and 10% to counties. King County is already facing a $60 million deficit, the City of Seattle is facing a $67 million deficit, and the liquor initiatives (by eliminating liquor profits and taxes) would cost an additional $700 million over the next 5 years.

    Combined, initiatives 1053, 1082, 1100, 1105 & 1107 would cost state and local governments $1.2 billion.

    We all like services, we like education, health care, community centers and parks, but it all costs money and how we vote the ballots that we have right now will determine whether we get to keep those services or not. Lobbying the Mayor or the City Council won’t create or protect revenue for the services we want – but voting can.

    More info at http://progressivevotersguide.com/2010/washington/general/

  • Really?

    So help me out here. We’re in a “budget crisis” which is being used as an excuse to kick the community out of the Green Lake Community Center, yet we instantly find the money for such crucial projects as installing new lights at the Lower Woodland Skate Park, just down the street.

    http://www.mygreenlake.com/2010/10/skatepark-lighting/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MyGreenLake+%28My+Green+Lake%29

    So which is it? Things like this make me doubt the credibility of claims that such questionable actions have anything to do with “budget cuts.”

    If you worked at the Parks Dept., wouldn’t you want to work out of some premium real estate with a view of the lake too?