SEQUIM — Sequim Family Advocates, a volunteer coalition that hopes to build some 14 acres of new playfields north of Carrie Blake Park, is hard at the fundraising — with a goal of $245,000 — even as some local residents oppose the project.
The Sequim Community Playfields concept won unanimous approval from the Sequim City Council in May, a year and a half after the advocates made their first pitch.
At that time, several council members expressed unabashed delight with the plan, which calls for eight fields for soccer and other games, plus community festivals — with the city’s reclaimed water to keep the expanse green.
The fields are to be built at Sequim’s Water Reuse Demonstration Site at 202 N. Blake Ave., just north of the James Center bandshell where the Sequim City Band and other groups give free concerts from May into September.
The location is the problem, if you ask Robert Mullen, who lives nearby and enjoys walks across the wide, open spaces of the reuse site.
“Seniors . . . enjoy solitude and tranquillity,” on the park pathways, Mullen told the council at a meeting last month, adding, “to spoil this scenic area would be a shame.”
But spoil it the city will, Mullen predicts, if flocks of ball-playing children and bright lights are allowed in.
Lighting for the fields isn’t part of the first phase of construction, “but it will come,” he believes.
The city of Sequim expects to provide $16,600 worth of mowing, trash removal, restroom cleaning, and irrigation system maintenance for the fields next year.
Mullen calls that “use of city funds and land to appease a small interest group.”
He also objects, in a letter to the city Planning Department, to the potential for pollution from the parking lot and automobile traffic that would come with the playfields, and warns that noise will make the park unfriendly not only to pedestrians, but also to the waterfowl and songbirds living there.
Protest petition
Mullen has since gathered more than 150 signatures on a petition protesting the project, and sent them to the Planning Department.
Of the people he’s talked with at the site, “99.5 percent are against changing what’s there,” he said recently.
Mullen has received a “thank you for your comments” from the city. And in recent weeks, council members Erik Erichsen and Ted Miller have spoken up on behalf of seniors who want to preserve the peaceful walking paths.
“We should have had a public meeting before approval,” said Miller, adding that he’s received three or four e-mails from people concerned about noise and pollution.
But “during the day, during the school year, the [playfields] won’t be used,” since kids will be at school and not at the site playing ball, Miller said.
“I really believe the conflicts can be ironed out.”
Mullen isn’t mollified. He believes Sequim already has plenty of playfields, such as those at Carrie Blake Park and at James Standard Park on Silberhorn Road.
“I’m not against kids playing soccer,” he said, but “there are other places.”
New fields needed
Colleen Robinson, a Sequim Family Advocates board member and longtime soccer mom, disagrees.
She said that 10 years ago, when a few hundred Sequim children were playing soccer, finding field space was a problem.
Today, she said, more than 550 local youngsters are on soccer rosters. Yet no new fields have been put in.
Robinson, like several members of the City Council, said that Sequim and its water reuse park can accommodate seniors, kids and everybody in between.
“It is a normal American experience to have an entire community connect at its city parks,” she said.
On the other hand, Robinson added, if a Sequim resident craves a quiet walk on the trail, he or she “can simply come during the day and be home by 3 p.m., to avoid the kids of our town playing field sports.”
When school’s out for summer, it could be a different story.
This could be the last summer without playfields at the water reuse park, since Sequim Family Advocates hopes to start construction in August or September.
‘Inclusive community’
Sequim “needs to be an inclusive community for all ages,” Mayor Pro Tem Laura Dubois said when she voted for the playfields proposal last spring.
“This is probably one of the best things we’ve been able to do,” added council member Bill Huizinga who, like Dubois, is a senior.
As for Mullen’s concerns about pollution, Sequim Public Works Director Paul Haines sees the project as an opportunity for prevention, and for water conservation.
The new parking lot may be built with a pervious surface — pavement that absorbs stormwater instead of letting it run off and pollute streams — and the city’s water reclamation plant will provide irrigation, Haines said.
“I’m really excited,” he added, “about the chance to try multiple techniques with reclaimed water and development standards.”
Meanwhile, Sequim Family Advocates is wading through the city-permit process, and seeking cash — as well as in-kind donations from construction companies.
The group has published a glossy brochure with the slogan, “If you build it . . . we can play!”
Though $245,000 is a lot, “it’s here,” Robinson said. “We just need to find it.”
Those wanting to find out more about the playfields project can visit www.SequimFamilyAdvocates.org or write to P.O. Box 2065, Sequim, WA 98382.
The Sequim Planning Department at 615 N. Fifth Ave. can be reached at 360-683-4908.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
