The process to add new features and resources to Cal Anderson continues with new community meetings coming in October and a new survey about your use of the park and your thoughts on “community initiatives that emerged during the CHOP/CHAZ.”
CHS reported earlier this month on the ongoing Seattle Parks community process to shape the upgrades and changes at Cal Anderson that city officials say can incorporate the ongoing need for human services and resources for the homeless community around the park.
As officials prepare for the last in a series of three community meeting sessions scheduled for next month, a new survey is collecting feedback on how people have used the park and how safe they feel there now and in the past.
The survey also “investigates the existing community initiatives that emerged during the CHOP/CHAZ.” — a community garden and a listening circle.
You can learn more and weigh in at 2020calandersonpark.com.
Another element of CHOP, meanwhile, is also undergoing a city-backed overhaul as the large Black Lives Matter mural has been temporarily removed from E Pine so artists can recreate their work in a new, more durable format.
Meanwhile, the third and final sessions of online community meetings have been scheduled. “We started the conversation with meetings in the beginning of August framing the topic, reviewing the history of the park and discussing ideas to better create a sense of belonging,” the project’s managers write. “In the second week of September we held meetings to inventory and prioritize ideas by reviewing the opportunities and constraints of the site. In the third and final meeting, we will discuss implementation and piloting of immediate action items.”
Wednesday, Oct 7 at 6:00pm – 7:30pm.
Use linkhttps://dlrgroup.zoom.us/j/96794281610Thursday, Oct 8 at 12:00pm – 1:30pm.
Use linkhttps://dlrgroup.zoom.us/j/93691483865
- 2020 Cal Anderson Online Community Conversation & Vision #1: August 5 Meeting Video
- 2020 Cal Anderson Online Community Conversation & Vision #1: August 6 Meeting Video
- 2020 Cal Anderson Online Community Conversation & Vision #2: September 9 Meeting Video
- 2020 Cal Anderson Online Community Conversation & Vision #2: September 10 Meeting Video
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Why won’t they just leave it alone. Please. Why are 95% of the people making plans for Cal Anderson and the surrounding area not even Capitol Hill residents? What happened to respecting the community? It seems to have gone out the window. The irony is that Cal Anderson would not have been able to take part in the garden that’s planned because it’s BIPOC only. He made this neighborhood what it is and now a 1 year Seattle resident who lives on Beacon Hill has decided “his kind” aren’t allowed. Nice.
I completely agree with you in the aspect of leaving the park alone. Let the park be a park!
But do you have a source about the BIPOC aspect? Just for my own knowledge.
I’m sure these ideas are all well intentioned but they continually miss one very important fact – Cal Anderson is a park! Homelessness is a problem for sure, but it has little to do with parks and recreation. Social justice is important, but it has no more to do with parks than agriculture practices. The fact that people have used and will continue to use Cal Anderson as a rally point is understandable, even welcome. The fact that some want to convert the park to a farm or campsite is not. Open space in this city is precious. As a park, I think Cal Anderson already does what most people want it to do. I think the Conversation Circles can wait.
Dutifully made my feeling known in the latest survey, and once again looking forward to being ignored by the decision makers. Imagine participating in a conversation circle with those people (the decision makers at Parks). Lots of mouths moving but noone listening.
This whole process is just so incredibly Seattle.
Let the park be an actual useable park again.
I must agree with the above post. Cal Anderson is a thoughtfully designed park with lots of community input. It’s used by people of all stripes and persuasions. The area where the “garden” was planted is a natural amphitheater and has been used for summer community outdoor movies and music as any real Capitol Hiller would have known, the fields are used by sponsored teams as well as the Gay baseball day participants. It’s OUR park and now I don’t feel I can go there. If this were happening in Volunteer Park, it wouldn’t even be considered.
I looked at the list of stakeholders and was appalled. Many of them are very political groups with no history in the neighborhood. When it comes to specifically reaching out to people of color 70% of the groups were black 30% were Native. There are three times more Asians in Seattle and definitely more on CH than there are Blacks. They also wanted to get religious leaders and the NAACP involved. Thanks but no thanks. It’s almost as though they’re gifting a neighborhood park to outside special interest groupsfor their own agenda with no regard to the actual neighborhood and the residents. It was especially amazing they wanted to get Africatown involved given that Africatown recently booted out a battered women’s shelter on Beacon Hill from the space they had rented due to the fact it was run by white people and Africatown wanted that space.
The survey is completely out of touch with the actual community that built the park, and used it respectfully for years as a peaceful public gathering place. The survey takes everything for granted in terms of who now owns that space. They don’t ask IF there should be a “peoples garden” they ask which end of the park it should be situated. I filled it out and said I think it was just fine before it was ruined and it should go back to what it was before. No camping, no tents, no staging of violent protests, a strong public safety presence from police, no needle dispensaries. The mobs and the city’s capitulation is destroying the heart of our city. I lived two blocks from the reservoir for 20 years and I started my business in that area. Now I don’t ever want to return and it breaks my heart. The people who built it have been betrayed.How can the City Council live with what they have allowed to happen on their watch?
I know, I feel as outraged and saddened as you do. I used to visit the park almost every day, whether for sport leagues or just walking through from CHS to home. It was a special space. I haven’t been there since May (it’s too depressing). Not even one step in, and I live close. The city has turned a great park space, and neighborhood, into a pile of poo. My back-up park (Miller) is getting trashed too, but thankfully feels slightly less sketch. I’m sure the clock is running out there as well without any upkeep or patrols. Seattle Parks is a complete failure.
I welcome the changes and diversification. I have lived in this neighborhood for 28 years, which isn’t even that long in the scheme of things, and there have always been changes. (No one seems to miss the open reservoir surrounded by a chain link fence and a dusty path that used to be there!) We can have outdoor movies *and* a garden. Considering the red lined legacy of this city, creating POC space in what was an all white neighborhood seems like a good idea.
How progressive to make the LGBTQ heritage of the neighborhood, and in particular Cal Anderson Park, a low rung concern. The park was not an underused space before all of this, and should be returned to (what was) a really great recreational space that specifically honored a local gay hero. Gay culture, outside a very narrow demo, is being trampled in this city.
I guess us gays need to start smashing some windows and light some stuff on fire for the city to care about us again.