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.

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).

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.

The City Neighborhood Council has a yearly work plan, and district council members can bring issues for discussion. When the City Neighborhood Council feels it is warranted on an issue, it will strongly advise the City Council and the mayor of its recommendations, usually by the aforementioned letter, or by an e-mail call to arms. Successful recommendations have included increasing hours for community centers and libraries and the need to reinstate budget funding for a city demographer. Unsuccessful recommendations include the City Council's recent vote to change the project size threshold for State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) reviews of devekopments. The Neighborhood Planning Committee is carefully tracking the draft proposal for updating 38 neighborhood plans (due for discussion at the City Council later this month) because neighborhood empowerment might be the City Neighborhood Council's highest priority, even if it's not listed as a stated mission.

The most successful City Neighborhood Council chairs have learned how to combine diplomacy with community activism. Too openly criticizing the players does not advance the complicated game of compromise that marks civic process. Success may be measured by a new sidewalk, 150 citizens at an 8:30 a.m. meeting, or a simple increase in public awareness. Spaulding notices positives that he believes came out of neighborhood plans: new housing built by public/private partnerships, the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, the year-old West Seattle Food Bank in the West Seattle Community Resource Building. Every day, he sees "great things, great things that were driven by the neighborhood plans." He was one of the few who didn't mention keeping the city's feet to the fire, but when he speaks, I can feel the heat.

Next: The City Council committee road show.

City Council Budget Committee community meetings

• May 20, Ballard Northwest Senior Activity Center, 5429 32nd Ave. N.W., 5:30-7:30 p.m.
• May 22, High Point Community Center, 6920 34th Ave. S.W., 5:30-7:30 p.m.
• May 29, Rainier Valley Cultural Center, 3515 S. Alaska St., 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Parks and Green Spaces Levy Citizens' Advisory Committee public outreach meetings

• Today, May 12, Bertha Knight Landes Room, first floor, City Hall, 600 Fourth Ave., 6:30-9 p.m.
• Wednesday, May 14, Northgate Community Center, 10510 Fifth Ave. N.E., 6:30-9:00 p.m.
• Thursday, May 15, Rainier Community Center, 4600 38th Ave. S., 6:30-9 p.m.

• Peggy Sturdivant is a freelancer who writes a weekly column on community issues for the Ballard News-Tribune. You can reach her in care of editor@crosscut.com.