Through my years of activism I've learned that whenever anyone calls a resident of SE Seattle a NIMBY or a racist they have something to hide or protect. Usually they are hiding discriminatory policies or protecting their own paychecks. People choose to live in SE Seattle for its diversity but we don't embrace the stream of crippling policies heaped upon us.

If wanting SE Seattle to be treated with equal dignity and respect as is afforded the rest of Seattle; if wanting genuine equal opportunities for the low income families of SE (safe streets, decent-paying jobs, quality education for their children, and the option to become a homeowner) so they can become middle class families in the future; if wanting comparable resources, services and amenities in SE that are found in other Seattle neighborhoods; if expecting city-funded social service agencies to ACTUALLY deliver services to our community members that require those services makes me a NIMBY then please make "NIMBY" my first name.

Perhaps John could tell me why whenever I try to help my friends with a bum refrigerator that a landlord isn't taking care of, or when a friend has trouble getting their medical expenses covered by the State's assistance program, I have to refer them to agencies OUTSIDE SE Seattle for help. And I absolutely guarantee John would be singing a different tune about Community Renewal if eminent domain were used to force him out of his home at 50% of its fair-market value, as happened to homeowners forced to leave the community when Sound Transit acquired property.

The basic dispute over the Southeast District Council is this: Should a board set up to provide neighborhood representation in city affairs for activist and business groups be subverted to serve the aims of social service groups who move in and take over? Social service groups all share the same basic agenda—they want more public money to be pumped into their groups and especially development money, to allow them to build housing projects and other facilities. These public dollars may provide some benefit to low-income people and renters (while also performing the all-important function of paying the salaries of the social service employees) but does that really mean that social service agency employees are the true voice of low-income people and renters? Not in my book.

Here’s your problem, John: You tried to get involved in neighborhood activism and found that you disagree with many of your neighbors. Here’s your solution: You want to silence your neighbors and give their voice to social service folks who agree with your feel-good, liberal, pro-density agenda. My question is this: Once you have given away the pipeline to City Hall for Southeast residents to paid private-sector employees, how do low-income people, renters, and enlightened new residents such as yourself obtain a voice in city affairs?

What a delight to enjoy a morning bit of amusing fiction like Hoole’s well written piece on SE. Seattle. And thanks to David Brewster, Crosscut editor, who gave Mr. Hoole 4000 plus words to make clear who Hoole really represents. Normally Crosscut likes to edit their articles down to less than a thousand words. Had they done that we might never have understood what a skillful propagandist Mr. Hoole really is. Remember Hitlers’ Paul Joseph Goebbels ? His major claim to fame was to put Hitler in power and justify the takeover of the entire nation under the guise of saving the nation from hoodlums. Mr Hoole adroitly uses the same kind of rhetoric to advance his agenda and the Mayor’s. First Hoole takes the word NIMBY, a word coined by the press to put a quick label on those who wish to preserve neighborhood values, and attach to that word every negative connotation he can invent. Especially values that differ with his. Hoole skillfully uses labels and assumes those who question the building of a slum on every block as NIMBYs. Hoole demonizes people who question if gentrification serves the poor. Hoole attacks the residents of SE seattle who have rallied against crime and advocated good schools or that public housing be available all over the region, not concentrated in one part of Seattle where Hoole can get paid to speak for the poor.

Were his opponents to use the same smear tactics they would label Hoole a POVERTY PIMP. A loaded term, like NIMBY, applied to a class of people who live off of the poverty of others. The poverty pimp is paid a salary based simply on their basic disrespect for the people they clam to represent. They believe that the poor aren’t smart enough or care enough about their own welfare to speak for themselves so they create a non-profit, pay themselves a salary and then lobby government. The trouble is they substitute their values for the less fortunate. Most often the pay they receive is public money that could have gone directly into services for those Hoole claims to represent.

As Hoole rambles on he makes it very clear that he understands that the light rail was not designed as a transportation solution, but an urban renewal project that used eminent domain to snatch land from small businesses along the rail corridor and give upscale developers access. Hoole is a shill for the Mayor whose plans for SE Seattle are more focused on increasing Seattle’s tax base than making sure existing residents have a safe and stable neighborhood to live. Hoole claims the Stranger newspaper as the basis for his value system in lifestyle and neighborhood planning. There just isn’t enough humor in this world and we must credit Hoole for a morning laugh.

Thanks for the comments. After it's all said and done, the problem with the SENDC is that it's got no game. Perpetual victims, sinned against by every politician, developer, and nonprofit administrator in the city - anybody who has cared to listen has heard the tale already, and it's not particularly inspiring.

Peer around any corner in the Southeast and you'll see another bridge the group's leadership has burned. It's not going to take a year for the well meaning people who attend SENDC meetings to realize that each burned bridge is the point of the whole exercise. I hope for their sake that the SENDC has something else up its sleeves.

Typically, not a single point I wrote about was addressed in the comments above; just more assertions and character assassination. It's hysteria like the Nazi comparison and the notion that I want to "silence my neighbors" that actually supports my arguments. Keep the comments coming - more bugs for the specimen jar.

This opinion piece is a smear filled with facts as much as the John Kerry swift-boating smear was by the ignorant and prejudice republicans that attacked him to suit their agenda.

Shame on Crosscut for publishing this without doing any fact checking.

After it's all said and done (if I may borrow John Hoole's words), John Hoole doesn't understand the source of complaints with SEDC or why the majority of neighborhood and business association groups suspended their membership there. Since his writing is founded on ignorance, his conclusions are ignorant as well.

Mr. Hoole: go read the SEDC bylaws. You will find that social services/non-profits can be members. However they must organize into an association (just like residents do, just like businesses do) and then they can send a rep to SEDC and get a vote. They did not do that. Each singular non-profit entity showed up and got a vote and overwhelmed the voices of the people who live and own businesses here. A perfect example is a Pea-Patch can be a voting member and that Pea-Patch rep can be an employee of another non-profit who sends a voting member to sit right beside them. It's undemocratic and in flagrant violation of SEDC bylaws.

Your piece also failed to mention that the City Auditor is investigating the situation with SEDC. Obviously, there is real merit to the source of complaints by the "NIMBY's". Obviously, when the majority of former members suspend membership a district council and when bylaws are violated, the city auditor takes it seriously.

It's not a coincidence that SE Seattle simultaneously received a handful of relocated and new human service facilities within a couple miles of each other at the same time the SEDC became full with new non-profit members. It's not a coincidence that they were in favor of eminent domain or designating Rainier Valley as a "blighted area" that would have raised all of our homeowner insurance rates and mortgage rates so that non-profits could easily acquire more parcels for locating their services.

You want to call NIMBYs for being concerned that a concentration of human services in one community may create problems on the street? This summer, the city of SF had a grand jury investigate why problems on the street did not go away even thought they spent $135MM building facilities to house the homeless. The problems didn't go away because the non-profits running the facilities had low benchmarks of accountability and "success". In result, they are not accountable to the community they reside in, only accountable to the people they service when they are in the actual building the own or to the entities that fund their grants. This same jury finding showed that because the city was providing a large amount of their grant money, they were reticent to vote against any agenda/policy the city supported. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/17/BABT11PHFJ.DTL&hw;=homeless+panhandling&sn;=001≻=1000

Special interests are ironically used here, Hoole. The agencies that receive the money from the City then are fair and objective reps who will not rubber stamp the city's agenda? That is a naive and sadly ignorant perspective to have.

These "NIMBY's" as you so casually toss and use the word over and over in this piece, live here and own businesses here. They are interested in creating a vibrant community. They are tired of the poor results derived from the ad hoc, poorly organized leadership of social services driving economic development in our community. There should be meritocracy involved if someone is to get millions of dollars in grant money, then this community should be seeing better results than it has over the last 30 years. Instead, crime is going up and poverty is going up and retail spaces get leased out to other non-profit agencies rather than real businesses that serve the entire community.

There should be accountability to the community if one is allowed to receive all this money; but there is no way to hold them accountable if they screw up. They will arrive, build and stay and social services will continue to get grant money even if they do not report on the adverse effects created in the community or agree to a community benefit agreement.

There is no system in place for checks and balances at this time. The deck is stacked in favor of non-profits to receive their money and build, and to take over a district council that was working perfectly fine until they violated bylaws and voting themselves in a members.

So take your "special interests" pipe and smoke it, because your 4,000 word op piece clearly illustrates you don't understand the factors in play here, nor who are the real special interests in SE Seattle.

BTW, the situation here in SE Seattle is exactly like what happened in South Lake Union. Substitute "Vulcan" for "social services" and you have the same take-over situation in one community.

Just because they serve the poor doesn't mean they aren't willing to service interests that perpetuate their own livelihood at the expense of a community.

Clicking on John's name at the end of his article takes one to his website where several blogs back he says "In Alinsky's words, 'Self-respect arises only out of people who play an active role in solving their own crises and who are not helpless, passive, puppet-like recipients of private or public services."

Obama noted in Ohio last year that being tutored by John McKnight and other Alinsky disciples was "the best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School."

Google McKnight and Obama together, up comes a New Republic's article of Sept. 10, 2008 based on an interview with Obama in which he talks about seeking McKnight's counsel prior to giving up on organizing, getting a law degree and entering politics as a more effective means to his community goals.

Hoole may not have been around when DON, Mary Diggs and others introduced neighborhood planners to how McKnight had transformed Alinsky's needs-based organizing to an assets-based one. BIG DIFFERENCE! Hoole's frustration's pulled him off track. In that he has at least a glimmer of where the track is, he needs to pull himself back up and, lord willing, his whole community too.

John, here's what McKnight has to say about labels:
"There are ways we talk about people so that they are separated from and less than us. Those ways usually have labels that go with them -- for instance, welfare recipient, ex-convict, developmentally disabled. Labeling is a way of throwing someone out of the club. You're not one of us, you're not in.

It doesn't matter what the intentions of the labels are -- whether it's good or bad, it all comes out the same, somebody is going to make money by fixing you, by making you a client. The people who call other people needy are the people who need needs.
Like a steel mill needs iron ore, health or human service agencies need needs. Needs are their raw material. The way they locate needs is by placing a label on people. So as soon as they can label you, what they're trying to do is say -- whether the label is good or bad -- you are needy.

The idea of clienthood has reduced people's humanity." (mouthmag.org)

Those interested can find more on McKnight and asset based community development (abcd) at http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/abcd/about/

Inclusion.com is a great offshoot.

bonafide,

The substance of the article is really the statements made by the activists I'm writing about, isn't it? Where I'm not quoting someone directly, I'm linking to relevant statements made by the players. My understanding of the beef with the SEDC comes almost exclusively from the people I'm calling NIMBYs. I find the contradictions and distortions of the SENDC's leadership puzzling, it's true. If I misunderstand, it's because the many public statements I cite don't articulate a coherent position.

My sources are there for everybody to see. We just disagree on the issues at hand.

John Hoole's account is on the mark. What I don't understand is why Southeast residents are spending so much time and energy being angry, and so little time coming together on a positive vision for the Othello and Mt. Baker station areas. Both areas have incredible potential to be great places. All the infighting is simply postponing any city infrastructure investment and scaring away developers. If the time spent berating each other, hatching conspiracy theories and yelling about what we don't want could be turned to discussing what we do want, maybe I'd live long enough to have a pleasant walk to the QFC.

Mr. Hoole,

I'm glad you brought up the mirage of objective investigative journalism here. You do use public statements, while at the same time conveniently claiming an "inside track" to what is being said off-the-record as well and your first-hand experience on NIMBY activism. Your long piece draws on many anecdotal experiences that translate to your characterizations and spotty conclusions, without seeking more substance to back up your claims.

I'm glad you use public statements, but you cannot ignore all the dots you missed when you tried to connect them. Your piece is long, and serves a certain agenda/perspective. Really no excuse to not have drawn everything correctly. Many SENDC members are articulate and intelligent people who would have been happy to explain the main thrust of points in a cohesive manner. Instead, your essay was long-winded, without even covering much ground except the one you wanted to present in the first place.

Sentimental,

the main bone of contention is "the vision" in the first place. Social services have a vision: it includes designating Rainier Valley as a blighted area, supporting eminent domain and creating a convenient "cluster" of their service facilities because Nickels wants to put them here. They also rubber-stamp DPD concepts such as 12-story buildings (think Belltown scale) around light rail stations. But they won't push the city on issues that residents want which is improving public safety or improving feeder routes and providing parking to stations that make it safer and more pleasant and encourage use for residents.

And the problem here is trust: the undemocratic method by which the SEDC was effectively neutered and taken over, created a bad faith environment. How can you trust people when they won't even follow bylaws and a system of governance that is in place?

Columbia City has become a vibrant place to be; and it wasn't because SEED or HOMESIGHT was leading the process. It was an effort led by residents and business owners. Economic development should be geared towards improving our quality of life for all residents, not just the relocated poor. We want shopping, we want lower crime, we want more local jobs. Let meritocracy stand by itself and let's be progressives. We should be figuring out a way to develop a community that allows the people with the most proof positive vision, to lead the way.

bonafide,

It wouln't take long for reasonable people to agree that we want shopping, lower crime, and employers in these station areas. Maybe we could even agree that we want broad sidewalks, healthy street trees, pocket parks with benches, new or restored buildings, and peole coming and going 18 hours a day. Why not agree to agree, and tell the city what we want?

Mr. Hoole,

Congratulations on a thoughtful and well-researched analysis of the Southeast community's turf wars. I hope we'll be seeing more of your work in the near future.

I think Mr. Hoole's piece is right on. For somebody engaged in the Columbia City area, this took some chutzpah.

At best, neighborhood groups and District Councils are coalitions of the willing. Of course their members are self-interested, and they come to the group hoping to be more effective by working together.

A District Council can never really approximate a representative body. Their participants will always be those who have the most commitment, the most opinions, the most flexibility, or the most to gain or lose. And mostly, nobody cares what they do. Who gives a rip whether they agree with City Hall? Their power isn't measured by how they vote. It's all about what they can make happen. If they have any clout, it's in pulling together the people and the resources that get things done.

Sure, members may work for a nonprofit. But to try to exclude them or discount their input on that basis -- that's unfortunate. To lump them together as a vast, colluding block -- that's simplistic and misguided. And to liken them to a corporation like... Vulcan? -- that's just laughable.

These people are here. They're legitimate community members. They come to the table with perspectives that some neighbors may not share, but we harm ourselves by trying to exclude them. Unless we assume each others' good faith and engage proactively, we all lose.

Some reactions above show just how perfectly John has nailed it. They include confused analysis of cause & effect (services breed poverty? Please). They show a muddled understanding of power and how to build it (the City wants to stick it to us? Gimme a break). They show a basic mistrust and disrespect for those who disagree. They assume a position of victimhood.

Real community leaders have to be players, not victims. And here I agree with afreeman: when members of our community assume the victim label on the neighborhood's behalf, it diminishes us.

Anger, mistrust, and vitriol are easy. Outreach, trust-building, and forging coalitions: that's real hardball, and it's a lot more difficult. Our most vocal activists too often take the easier, meaner way. Unfortunately and predictably, they have little to show for it but smoldering bridges.

Columbia City vibrant ? The reality of S Rainier Ave spreads like an infection into and from the surrounding areas.

All the froth and 'intellect' in this article and it's comments are in complete dis-connect to the reality of daily life in the valley.

Start by discussing "personal responsibility" as it relates to making babies and sticking around to be parents ! Or, if you can't do that, create an awareness campaign for the valley with respect to supporting law enforcement by informing on gang/thug activities.

The poor of the valley now have the government as their "surrogate" parents and we all get to pay ! The valley is nothing more than the entrenched home of gang/thug activity. Wake up Seattle, or do you care ?
I drive the streets each day, you do-gooders should start doing that too !

A few comments back, in an effort to suggest that only certain individuals have the right "vision", the writer said, "Columbia City has become a vibrant place to be; and it wasn't because SEED or HOMESIGHT was leading the process. It was an effort led by residents and business owners."

Residents and business owners have definitely played a critical part in Columbia City's recent cycle of progress, but the story of the last decade is much more involved than that. To begin with, the stage was set beginning in the late 70's with important streetscape improvements and Landmark District designation that were spearheaded by residents. The early purchase of several key buildings in the district by the likes of SEED helped stabilize the building stock. Public-spirited individuals like Karen Kinney, Darryl Smith and Joanne Kelly stepped forward to create and maintain institutions that gave people reasons to visit... BeatWalk and the Farmers Market. SEED and HomeSight volunteered staff resources to support the early efforts of the Columbia City Business Association (CCBA). The CCBA volunteers created a vision for the business district, and private individuals acted on that vision through their purchase and renovation of buildings and through their business recruiting efforts and leasing decisions. The city's Office of Economic Development provided over $90,000 in project grants since 1993 to help the CCBA pursue its work plan. The city's Landmarks Preservation Board and staff have assured that Columbia City's sense of place has been maintained. The Rainier Valley Historical Society has helped form Columbia City's sense of self. The story could go on and on...

The point to be made is that the creation of a successful place requires the best efforts of everyone... residents, business owners, property owners, volunteer associations, city departments, and non-profit enterprises. To promote division, create fear, distort the truth, draw lines in the sand are tactics guaranteed to lead nowhere. That appears to be our destiny at Mt. Baker and Othello.

I left Seattle due the ramifications of these problems.

FWIW, the worst are the bureaucrats, state and city, working on their own time. Social service types are a problem, but, FWIW, I don't think it's the rank and file DSHS folks so much as it is the rejects from MSW central - the ones that populate much of the 'community service' ranks.

Perhaps the most disgusting thing is the neighborhood representative that thinks they are to high and mighty to even talk with the folks they are supposed to be representing. This, too, is an attitude seen often in government service.

Inclusion and a true diversity must be the hallmarks of a neighborhood group - and, yes, that means folks will disagree more often than not. The important thing is to be able to focus on the things that everyone agrees on and not prevent the good works of eccentrics who aren't otherwise harming anyone.

The whole term 'NIMBY' has always struck me as strange. It is certainly the right of a single family neighborhood to stay that way. What is more absurd is the bureaucrat who starts accusing anyone who doesn't agree with them as somehow being 'negative'.

I saw a classic example of this just yesterday afternoon with a presumably very high paid Sound Transit official, Marty Johnson, if I recall the name right.

The issue involved the Sounder and Link crossing of Pacific in Downtown Tacoma. This guy, rather than actually listening to a group of very well educated lay folks instead insisted on playing PC bulldozer politics accusing anyone pointing out a complete failure of his in a respectful fashion as somehow being rude, or worse.

Remember, we are paying people to call us trash.

Well Mr Hoole,

I think you took an incredibly long time to say 'these people are too negative'. And often I agree with you. There definitely needs to be a more positive message.

Just about everything else is wrong though. And it becomes quite clear you have an agenda, or aren't clear on the facts. I would encourage you to look into the membership of SEDC again and trace back the voting members to their common leadership. Many, many of the members are incestuously linked. This in itself should be cause for some skepticism from anyone.

In addition, some other more convincing argument needs to be made for the social service membership at SEDC. 'Can't we all just get along' (like Scott's approach) really doesn't cut it. Can it be argued they democratically represent ANY population? (no-they have no process for the people they claim to represent to address their concerns). Under what argument should these agencies have voting membership in South Seattle and not every other district council in the city? They are not geographically constrained, their employees and owners don't live in S Seattle. Do they have conflict of interest? Of course, much of their funding comes from the city. And lastly, there is no individual business or citizen representation at any of the district councils - why should the social services be different? If they get any representation at all (and Im not convinced they should given their conflicts with funding etc) it should be under an umbrella organization with a single vote.

The individuals that you have so blithely assassinated in your piece are volunteers. They come from longstanding, grassroot community groups in the south end. Many have been organizing, donating their time and money, for decades. It seems a little odd to me that you would show up at a single meeting, (the founding meeting nonetheless - heck, still working on the bylaws!), and then pass judgment. Didn't even give 'em a chance. There's a lot of bitterness in the south end, but this is something we all are responsible for, and eventually it will fade. I'm not sure your article did anything to help, of course. Regardless, the bitterness will fade, and the SENDC WILL develop a positive agenda and represent the community in a democratic fashion. It will take a little time, but there's a lot of good people involved.

And really, if you care to examine it, SEDC is so blatantly corrupted, it can't last long.

BD

To a small point of your story:
Your search for accounts of Car-Free Days was faulty.
If you're looking for something more than a month old, go to regular Google, not Google News.

You would have found our comprehensive accounts of the one in Alki, which we chronicled while walking the entire 2-mile-plus route, as well as ahead of time (to see whether cars would be towed or ticketed).

I see a variety of accounts of the CC CFD by using this search string in regular Google:

car-free day "columbia city"

Just a datapoint.

Scott says, "Sure, members may work for a nonprofit. But to try to exclude them or discount their input on that basis -- that's unfortunate. To lump them together as a vast, colluding block -- that's simplistic and misguided. And to liken them to a corporation like... Vulcan? -- that's just laughable."

Actually, that is a poor interpretation of what was said. The collection of power on an aggregate level is not isolated to private businesses or politicians. What do you think "special interests" means? The nonprofit industry is a special interest and they have an agenda. This sector pays lobbyists to lobby at the capitol in Olympia.

What is incredible about this piece however, is that Hoole mischaracterizes and attacks community VOLUNTEERS. The salaried employees of nonprofits are the good guys, but the volunteers have a self-possessed and selfish agenda. It's an irony too much too bear.

Why are there NiMBYS?

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF

Most people who live in SE Seattle are ignorant of what is really going on. All non-whites (and whites) should read this and learn --
http://www.hirhome.com/cfr.htm

Obama is a CFR member and so is his wife. Most of the 2008 presidential candidates were also CFR members.

Educate yourself and do not trust most of the mainstream news. The core of SE Seattle's issues are based in problems that are much larger than SE Seattle. Racial discrimination -- black on white crime at the neighborhood level especially -- needs to stop.