I got "looped into" the dispute over the Northgate General Development Plan rather late ... I subsequently volunteered to examine the traffic impact assessment produced by Simon Properties' consultants and joined in the effort to seek legal counsel for a possible appeal by CFLN (Citizens for a Liveable Northgate).

My whole perspective of this whole discussion is that the community found itself on the losing end of a "Win, Win, Win" for the developer, the City and the County (specifically Metro). And nothing we did was going to change that outcome...

But is this "Win, Win, Win, Lose" really a valid outcome?

I don't think so. In my view, the sprawling 6,000-seat cineplex sitting on top of a multi-level parking garage, disgorging hordes of youthful drivers every 20 minutes or so (whenever a film finishes in one of the 30 or so theaters...) doesn't meet anyone's definition of a community asset. It's a community blight. Maybe the Mayor and Metro are happy with what they each got, but they're not going to have to live with it. WE are...

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this whole sorry story is that our neighborhoods now know what undesireable things they're going to get (more traffic and noise), but have received no assurances that a long-awaited library and a long-needed park will be developed in any close and meaningful relation to each other...

No, the City hasn't shown much concern with what happens to the residential neighborhoods surrounding Northgate. Their eyes are on another prize: the sales tax revenues from all the new cash registers...

Lastly, with (the city's) approval of Simon's master development permit, the City appears also to have totally ignored one small little law that they otherwise embrace at every turn: the state's Growth Management Act ... Under state law, "Urban Center" (as the Northgate area has been designated) means "a compact identifiable district where urban residents may obtain a variety of products and services." Can you see any resemblance between what Simon plans to build and the definition of an Urban Center? Can you envision a bakery, a flower show, a neighborhood grocer?...

The recent shootings at Northgate Mall raise a troubling spectre of what Northgate might be transformed into when the cineplex draws kids at all hours of the day and from all over the Puget Sound region, not merely kids from our local communities...

I'm fearful that the Simon GDP will prove to be an irreversible step in letting our community decline into a retail ghetto. Where is the attractive, vital and liveable community in all of this? The City planners have laid a real missed opportunity on our doorstep.

-TOM HELLER, Lake City