Seattle neighborhoods at one table

Editor's note: This is the third installment of There Go the Neighborhoods, an occasional series on Seattle's neighborhood-planning process.

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The City Neighborhood Council's primary role varies depending on whom you ask, and that's just within the advisory group itself. Each member was drawn (or pushed) to their seat by a different path. Their view of its success as an advisory board to the City of Seattle can also vary depending on whether you talk to an eternal optimist.

Vice Chair Pete Spaulding is an optimist with realistic expectations. He sums up the City Neighborhood Council's greatest strength as a clearinghouse for information, bringing together people from all over the city and making them aware of issues that may affect them. He serves on behalf of the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council, along with other representatives from 13 districts recognized by the city Department of Neighborhoods, and is an elected member of the executive board. Although often "long, dry, and boring," the meetings, Spaulding thinks, are good avenues for dispensing information for representatives to take back to their districts. For him, the City Neighborhood Council is most valuable for its informational give and take between districts and government, not for its ability to influence city decisions.

Members who are more focused on whether City Council or the mayor heed their policy tend to be less encouraged, with one stating diplomatically: "The current situation is not one in which our input is highly valued." The City Neighborhood Council is defined as an advisory board, not a decision-making one — no matter how long they labor for consensus on internal decisions. Almost to a person, current members became involved by an initial concern that hit close to their home or business — a dangerous crosswalk, a proposal to pave planting strips, threat to a greenbelt. But it takes a special breed to stay involved for years and years.

The City Neighborhood Council was created by a council resolution in 1987; its scope has not been officially refined or altered by the City Council since October 1994. The neighborhoods that comprise the 13 district councils have altered significantly in the interim, but the City Neighborhood Council's role, listed on the Web site, remains:

1. Recommend Neighborhood Matching Fund projects to the mayor and City Council.
2. Oversee the Budget Priority Process.
3. Implement the Neighborhood Planning and Assistance Program (an obsolete task now better translated as advising the Department of Neighborhoods).

This description does not do justice to the City Neighborhood Council's role as informational clearinghouse on topics ranging from land use to pedestrian safety. The Web page on city's official site increasingly includes resources such as background material, plus links to media and Seattle Channel coverage.

The full City Neighborhood Council meets on the last Monday of every month; standing committees and the executive committee meet in between. The standing committees are Budget, Neighborhood Planning, Neighborhood Matching Fund, and Transportation. All meetings are open to the public. The April meeting featured a transportation update; May will focus on at-risk youth. Ranking of Neighborhood Matching Fund applicants is in progress, and this month alone there will be City Council Budget Committee community meetings (four), open houses for the public with the Washington State Department of Transportation-sponsored Viaduct Stakeholder Advisory Group (three), and public outreach meetings with the Parks and Green Spaces Levy Citizens' Advisory Committee (three). Given the necessity to finalize the 2009-10 city budget by Dec. 1, all City Neighborhood Council committees and departments are in full planning and public meeting mode. City Neighborhood Council Chair Chris Leman reminded attendees, "If your districts have certain needs, this is the time to make them known."

The City Neighborhood Council's oversight role in the Budget Priority Process has taken on heightened importance in light of Mayor Greg Nickels' transition to a two-year budget, reducing the opportunity for overall input on a budget that has had major cuts in areas of particular relevance to the City Neighborhood Council: the Department of Neighborhoods and the Neighborhood Matching Fund. In addition to budget cuts, policy decisions concern City Neighborhood Council members. One example: the Department of Neighborhood's draft proposal for updating neighborhood plans, which designates the Department of Planning and Development as the lead. Why wouldn't the Department of Neighborhoods oversee neighborhood planning?

"We need to keep the city's feet to the fire," is an expression I've heard repeatedly from City Neighborhood Council members in recent weeks, at a workshop sponsored by their Neighborhood Planning Committee, the April City Neighborhood Council meeting, and in a telephone conversation with Chair Leman. Although the phrase has an incendiary quality, the City Neighborhood Council's most direct contribution to City Hall is in the form of letters that may or may not light a spark under the City Council or the mayor.