To turf or not to turf

September 8, 2009

By Administrator

Some challenge Beaver Lake Park proposals

By J.B. Wogan

One resident said Beaver Lake Park didn’t need more athletic field capacity. Another said the fields shouldn’t be made of synthetic turf. Another said the turf wasn’t the issue – it was the possibility of lights and noise after 8 p.m. Yet another contradicted the other three: the city needs more synthetic turf fields because, as of now, children have to leave the plateau to find appropriate venues.

The whole process was flawed, another chimed in. The city wants to jam synthetic turf fields and lights and more beach use down our throats, he said.

As tempers flared at the Sept. 3 Beaver Lake Park meeting, City Councilwoman Nancy Whitten extended her hand as a calming gesture.

“It is not a foregone conclusion,” she said.

The Parks Department held the meeting as an informational session to explain some of the rationale behind elements of proposed changes to Beaver Lake Park. As Whitten said, none of the proposed changes are set in stone. Project Manager Anjali Myer has not made a formal recommendation to the City Council (she plans to do so in November); even after the recommendation, the council has the power to swap out undesirable elements of the plan.

Acquired from King County in 2003, the park is 83 acres, located adjacent to Beaver Lake and south of Southeast 24th Street. It has three baseball fields, a pavilion, a picnic shelter, a lake, forested trails and a fenced-in, off-leash dog area.

The city’s Parks Department is drafting a comprehensive overview of what it plans to change about the park in the future. The plan itself will cost $125,000, according to the city’s Web site.

Some of the proposed features are an added parking lot at the corner of 244th Avenue Southeast and Southeast 24th Street, a sculpture park, a dock, a volleyball court and a new restroom with showers.

In one design, the off-leash dog park would also be moved west, closer to 244th Avenue, though this element already received some criticism from the City Council.

The Sept. 3 meeting addressed topics that either the City Council or residents had challenged at a previous public meeting: sports field lighting, synthetic turf fields and the public shoreline at the east end of the park.

Parks Director Jessi Richardson echoed Whitten in saying that the final recommendation did not have to include synthetic turf fields or any change to the fields at all.

“This may not be the place for the field upgrade. I want to be very clear on that,” she said.

The reason proposed plans have included field upgrades is because Beaver Lake Park constitutes one of the few places where the city has full ownership of fields. The city has a partnership with the Issaquah and Lake Washington school districts, which allows them to use school athletic fields during non-school hours.

The Parks Department contends that more field capacity is needed. Guy Michaelsen, a consultant for the project, showed slides which he said indicated a latent demand for more athletic fields.

At certain points during the year, like spring and summer, half of all requests to use city-owned fields are denied, according to Michaelsen.

Ian Hepburn, who lives beside Beaver Lake Park, questioned Michaelsen’s conclusions.

“I think these statistics are meaningless,” Hepburn said, adding that the city needed to demonstrate that requests weren’t fulfilled somewhere else.

Dennis O’Neill, who coaches youth baseball at the park, said he hoped the Parks Department’s analysis considered the superior experience of natural grass to synthetic turf. Field capacity should be weighed against the quality of the proposed field, he said.

Frank Blau, who lives next to the park on Southeast 28th Street, asked what the city’s ultimate goal was with adding field capacity.

“Is the goal to have 100 percent scheduling on all the fields all the time?” he asked.

Parks Director Jessi Richardson said yes, it was.

“Our goal is to absolutely maximize these fields,” she said. Richardson added that maximization wasn’t realistic because in off-peak seasons, the demand is not as great.

Blau, like Hepburn, said he was frustrated with the statistics presented. He said he wanted hard numbers, not percentages.

But Charles Mauzy, who works with youth lacrosse and soccer teams in Issaquah and Sammamish, said there is clear demand for more fields. Mauzy said he would provide the city with the number of game cancellations due to a lack of field availability in several youth sports leagues.

“I’m more than happy to provide game cancellation numbers. For those of you who don’t want change, they’re not going to be pretty numbers,” he said.

Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com. To comment on this story, visit www.SammamishReview.com.

The idea of putting artificial grass on these fields at Beaver Lake Park has become hotly contested. Photo by J.B. Wogan