By JESSE ROSS

The Meadowbrook Community Council members voted on Nov. 9 to create a new Meadowbrook Action Committee to serve as a watchdog group regarding land development activity in their neighborhood.

The committee was created in response to Meadowbrook residents' unsuccessful efforts to persuade the Seattle School District to downsize its plans for building a 1,500-seat playfield, complete with stadium-style lighting, at Nathan Hale High School. The new playfield would replace an existing playfield that has significantly fewer bleacher seats. Some opponents of the project have described the new playfield as a "stadium."

Neighbors fear that the proposed new playfield, if built as planned, will disrupt the surrounding area with increased traffic, crowd noise and bright flood-lights.

Community council members at the Nov. 9 meeting expressed their disappointment in the City's current process for notifying citizens of land use development. The newly-formed action committee will monitor all land use activity within the Meadowbrook neighborhood, notify community members of proposed building developments and zoning changes in the area and organize responses to those proposed developments.

The idea for the action committee was presented to council members by local residents Betty Jennings and Renee Barton after they learned that the School School Board had no plans to follow up on requests made for a meeting to discuss possible compromises to the playfield project.

While School District officials attended Meadowbrook Community Council meetings in the past to discuss the playfield project, several local residents who spoke at the Nov. 9 meeting said they felt the sessions were one-sided affairs.

Meadowbrook Community Council members believe it is imperative that School Board officials sit down with them to discuss their ideas for reducing the impact of the playfield on the surrounding neighbors. Proposed ideas include reducing the number of seats, implementing traffic and parking guidelines, and planting shrubs or trees around the outside of the field to reduce the amount of glare that neighbors would receive from the stadium lights.

Community Council members said they are not seeking to eliminate the playfield project. They just want the School District to hear their concerns and address them by making an effort to arrive at compromise solutions.

Now that the action committee has been formed, the first agenda item will be to send a letter to the School District informing them of its opposition to the Hale playfield project as it now stands and to formally request a meeting to discuss points of contention.

Council members hope the action committee will bring increased clout to their concerns about the Hale playfield and legitimacy to their position on future land development projects in their neighborhood.

"If I don't pay attention, my kids aren't going to have anything left," said Jennings. "I want to make it (the Meadowbrook neighborhood) a little more livable for them."