Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 5, May 2004

Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.

POLITICALLY SPEAKING:

Compromise needed on Magnuson fields

By JAMES BUSH

There's nothing like several hours of two-minute speeches to sharpen your understand of the arguments on both sides of a controversial issue.

Based on the testimony offered by a steady parade of speakers at the April 21 Seattle City Council hearing on the proposed Magnuson Park sports fields, we can offer this synopsis: the field proponents hate nature and the field opponents hate kids.

Oops, we'll take that back: those are the arguments the two sides seemed to be making about each other.

This battle is over a proposal to build 11 lighted, artificial turf fields at Sand Point's Magnuson Park. A posse of birdwatchers, nature-lovers and neighbors who prefer it to be dark at night are opposing the plan.

In the other corner are the team sports folks: players, parents, coaches and league administrators.

Both sides packed the house for the public hearing. There were so many kids in soccer, baseball and softball uniforms running around, you'd have thought it was Friday night at Dairy Queen.

The overflow packed the Bertha Knight Landes room down the stairs from the Council Chambers, with members of the two sides organizing themselves around the tables like teenage social groups in a high school cafeteria. Council staffers had wisely decided to alternate pro and con statements, so as each speaker finished, half the room would burst into applause.

But, as in most sharply-divided issues, just about everyone present from the City Council members on down could anticipate both sides' arguments before a word was spoken. This became abundantly clear when two field opponents offered pointed rebuttals to the contention that team sports are the solution to fighting childhood obesity before anybody on the pro-field side even made that point. (From their tone, you'd think team sports cause obesity.)

By far the most interesting and valuable information to come to light on April 21 didn't come from the public hearing, but through the release of a sports fields analysis by City Council central staffer Bill Alves.

The report did a fine job of burying a few erroneous arguments from both sides.

For example, proponents have claimed that Northeast Seattle is especially sports field-deprived. But the report notes that the area within a two-mile radius of Magnuson Park contains 8.3 percent of the city's population, yet provides a full 14.3 percent of the city's sports field hours.

Likewise, opponents like to argue that lit fields are strictly for grown-ups, but the report states that 40 percent of their use is by youth sports teams.

Seattle also rates well when compared to other Western cities in sports field provision, with 3.6 fields per 10,000 people (Denver is at 2.9, Vancouver, B.C., at 2.6).

The report backs those who argue that the best solution for the sports field crunch is to add artificial turf and (in some cases) lights to existing fields. About 80 percent of the city's sports fields are grass fields that are taken out of service (because games would destroy the sodden turf) from Thanksgiving to March.

During that same period, it is too dark for after-work games without artificial lighting.

Alves even provides a road map for the City Council on how to successfully stand up to Mayor Greg Nickels, who bumped the Magnuson field count to 11, up from the seven fields Council members backed in their 1999 vote on the issue. (Note: Council Resolution 30063 allowed for two additional lit fields if the neighborhood impacts "can be adequately mitigated." Based on the ruckus over this issue, it's reasonable to argue they can't.)

The City Council, Alves suggests, should use its approval process for the light poles (which exceed the zoned height limit) to impose conditions, including the number of fields to be lit and the time the lights must be turned off.

Let's hope the City Council can find the wisdom to craft a compromise and the courage to stand up to any executive interference.

Granted, much of the Magnuson Park scrubland set to be bulldozed and covered with fake grass barely reaches the "vacant lot" level on the habitat-o-meter. But the notion that modern lighting technologies can negate the ill effects of a seven-block-long sea of light on neighbors and nature is downright nutty.

The team sports boosters need to set aside their natural obsession with winning and accept a compromise on the number of lit fields. At seven lit fields (the number a former version of the City Council considered reasonable), Magnuson Park would accept 27 percent of the city's total inventory.

That's enough.