Wellington Hills Park and a short action film inspired by Star Wars

Yesterday I posted the following on Facebook:

"Inspired by Star Wars… this entertaining 2-minute action film was directed and co-produced by the very talented Dylan Kato.

After watching the chase and light saber fight, go back and notice the opening and closing aerial shots … yep, that’s Wellington Hills Park, north side of 240th St.

Remember; help us save the park from unnecessary expansionist development. Your donations are always welcome."

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Not included on Facebook was the debate I had with myself.

Originally I intended to use the word, "imperialist" but decided on the less picturesque "expansionist".  Editing Facebook, once something is posted, is generally not recommended.

I now wish I had kept "imperialist"... because, after four years of dealing with the county ... it's the better word to describe how things have been.

And, to expand on the Star Wars metaphor ... the Wellington Hills community is a peace loving village, buffeted by stresses and agents from the far away county capitol.

May the Force be with us!

Wellington Hills Park - a buffer zone near the Urban Growth Boundary

Listening... looking at the bureaucrats when they make public comments about my community, my neighborhood ... as if it's square on a checkerboard ... a crumb on a bread board ... a not important place, an obscurity in their quest for expansion... 

Unfortunately, their efforts of conquest are real. Hernán Cortés would understand.
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Driving east through Wellington Hills Park.

Turning around, a few hundred yards west beyond the buffer of the park, 240th Street meets Route 9.

During the day, lots of trucks

 typical evening traffic on Route 9

and inside the Urban Growth Boundary
peering down at Costco, Route 9 and Hwy 522

Aboda and Primus... Route 9 and beyond

Move the Urban Growth Boundary to suit their fancy?
The callousness of bureaucrats is mind boggling.
Of course they don't live here... we're an abstraction to them... a speed bump, nothing more.

Letter to Editor - Woodinville Weekly - 01/11/16

in the Woodinville Weekly newspaper, 01/11/16

WELLINGTON PARK

Contrary to the disinformation about Neighbors to Save Wellington Park, I feel it necessary to restate our position concerning Wellington Hills Park.

The Woodinville neighborhood organization, Neighbors to Save Wellington Park, is not opposed to parks, recreation, sports fields, schools, little children, preteens, teenagers, millennials, mommies, daddies, grandparents, uncles and aunts, tennis players, ice skaters, golfers, dogs or cats or their owners, bicyclists, joggers, singers, tap dancers, Star Wars collectors, gamers, texters, modernity or anyone else.

What we are opposed to is the inappropriate development of Wellington Hills Park.

Rurally located, 100-acre Wellington Hills Park has a long history as a relaxing green place and is located outside the Urban Growth Boundary, between Route 9 commerce and residential homes in Woodinville. For decades it was a 9-hole golf course and for the past almost four years it has been a county park. Wellington Hills Park has been enjoyed by thousands of people. The park, in essence, represents a portion of Woodinville’s charm and fits nicely into the motto “quality of life.”
NSWP’s purpose is straightforward — the preservation of Wellington Hills Park as a community park.

Included in that purpose:

• To support the maintenance and continuance of the existing rural ambiance and quality of life for the neighborhoods adjacent to the Wellington Hills Golf Course area in both North King and South Snohomish counties.

• To support the safety of the community, the preservation of the environment and ecosystem are of paramount importance in this goal.

Find out more on Facebook (www.facebook.com/SaveWellington Park), our blog (newly updated to current issues, savewellingtonpark.blogspot.com) and our webpage (about to get a face lift now that the sports complex has been defeated, www.neighborstosave wellingtonpark.com.)

Donations to our legal fund are always appreciated. (NSWP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.)


Neighbors to Save Wellington Park

Good Idea - Or Obsolete Idea

Northshore School District’s plans for building two schools on the Wellington Hills property is disturbing on many levels.

Primarily, the Wellington Hills site should remain a community park. That’s plain and simple.

Of considerable importance is what Snohomish County has done – and not done – concerning Wellington Hills Park … and that’s another story, and one of lawsuits.

But the main point of this posting is this: I was surprised by the archaic feel of Northshore's proposed plans for new schools, that is, the design+location of their in-construction and proposed new schools.

Key points:

 • The Wellington Hills area has a stable or slightly shrinking population.
 • Millennials have already created new housing-living-employment trends. 
 • Northshore’s latest school, North Creek High School, in final construction, is, in my opinion, architecturally dated - especially when considering environmental issues, land and space value and modern living-employment trends.
 • Limited taxpayer dollars

Please read or listen to the following KUOW news story:  

"The Suburban Office Park is Finally Becoming Obsolete"  

"Every day, 10,000 baby boomers reach the traditional retirement age of 65. But many choose to stay in the workforce part time, or opt to do contract or freelance work, something that's driven millennials into leadership positions—the group is now the largest share of the American workforce. 

These shifting demographics are re-shaping suburbia. Office parks—sprawling corporate campuses—are now nearly obsolete: Nearly 1 billion square feet of inventory sitting idle, a figure that adds up to about 7.5 percent of the country's office inventory. Shopping malls are also being driven to extinction by changing consumer habits—about 15 percent will fail or be converted within the next 15 years, something that's telling a bigger story about where Americans like to work, live and shop. 

And as malls and office parks shutter, communities are looking for ways to revitalize these spaces to fit modern work and retail habits. Ellen Dunham-Jones, co-author of "Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs" and a professor of architecture and urban design at the Georgia Institute of Technology, explains."

... take a look around ... this may, in part, explain why we see empty commercial-industrial buildings ... and suggest better alternatives to the old-fashion approach of ripping up acres of property and altering neighborhoods for new schools.  

Perhaps some of those shuttered office parks are perfectly suited for new schools.

 

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Here’s a current photo of a suburban high school built in 1960 ... 56 years ago!

Here's Northshore's proposal for Wellington Hills

 Pics of the under-construction North Creek High School

Starting a new year, hopefully not repeating sins of the past

I suppose the desire to maintain Wellington Hills Park - as a park - can be seen simply as a NIMBY effort to save a 100-acre park.

But it is much more than that.

We know our climate is changing and the news is filled with stories of global catastrophes - lots of people suffering from environmental dangers.  Unprecedented droughts and flooding, mass migrations in Africa, water shortages almost everywhere, famine and crop losses.

So we ask ourselves - what can we do to be better citizens of our Country and the planet?

Personally, I think the proposed plans from the County and School District for Wellington Hills Park are counter to the needs of people, the environment and the planet. Haven't we learned from decades of bad urban planning the necessity of preserving green spaces?

  

Destroying a green place and replacing it with asphalt and concrete, creating more traffic snarl - while diminishing rural space are so retro... throwbacks to post World War II development that resulted in the boom in suburban track homes and the destruction of once stable neighborhoods … and the megaphoned distorted concept - 'development is good, hang the future'.

Wellington Hills Park is our domino. If we can keep it as a park - preventing one domino from tumbling into unrestrained development ... we will have done something special.

Yes, on a global scale, it may be a small thing towards countering the destructiveness of climate change ... but minimizing the cascade of negative environmental occurrences has to begin somewhere - why not here?

We save a green place ... we keep trees which give us breathable atmosphere ... we keep natural soil for rain water to filter through for replenishing aquifers ... we allow natural habitats for a myriad of God's creatures - aquatic, bird and mammal ... and we keep some balance in the needs of humans to connect with the natural world.

Sports complexes? Schools? Yes, these things are good and part of social orderliness ... and if we plan things correctly they would be built in appropriate locations and not "just because" there is cheap land in a rural location.