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| Old Fire House Teen Center |
OPINION: On March 11, 2025 the City stated: "Teen programs currently housed at the Old Fire House Teen Center are proactively transitioning to the Redmond Community Center at Marymoor Village for safety reasons. The transition will begin later this month, and all programs are expected to be operational in their new locations by late April." After two listening sessions the teens found Marymoor and the Senior & Community Center sterile and unwelcoming.
More than four months later a bureaucracy of Council / staff / a subcommittee / an advisory committee/ a stakeholder group / focus groups/ and 2 listening sessions still hadn't decided what to do with the Center. Total costs just for this citizen engagement and outreach was $124,600 not counting staff labor. It appears Council and staff were trying to wear out the teens from protesting in City Hall while shoe-horning them into Marymoor and the Senior & Community Center. These delays were pure nonsense ... at the expense to our youth's mental and academic health.
Last night teen participation testimony winnowed down to only three teens. All spoke against the closure. One persistently requested accountability.
In September and October 2025, a Stakeholder Group will meet six times to hear more information, including input from public focus groups. According to staff's FAQ, "City Council is expected to make a decision on whether to renovate the current structure or investigate rebuilding options by the end of 2025." And THEN the city must renovate or rebuild! This could take years.
Council and staff must stop playing games with our most vulnerable teens. The Mayor needs to move the process "fast forward."
Renovation is not an option since Parks Director Loreen Hamilton invested deeply into taxpayer's pockets for safety and engineering inspections. The building is 50-years old and renovation for safety would be expensive.
The school district rebuilds all the time, when they tear down their existing buildings and build a new, larger schools on the same parcel. The teen center's basketball courts are mostly unused, as is the deck in the winter. A rebuild could add 5-6 levels of affordable space, while allowing independent, sound-proofed teen activities in the first floor. The City owns the land; a partnership with a developer would make it feasible. Please get on with it.
My letter to Council, Mayor, Planning Director Helland and Parks Director:
ReplyDeleteThe following is hard language but we live in a free country and we'll never move forward unless "both sides" express themselves:
"You should feel embarrassed and ashamed for delaying the city's "teen center decision" for ~ 9 months! Your transparency and accountability is so poor you are like an ostriches with your heads in the sand. Has the mayor recently stated that developers aren't knocking at the doors to rebuild or that you are encouraging them? (Months ago Mr. Fields challenged the mayor. And, she adamantly said NO for the record.) You openly and fully describe the reason for renovating (safety) but have yet to disclose the benefits of a rebuild (affordable housing/central teen location?) . It shouldn't take more than a study session and a business meeting to reach a decision. But no, you need 5 Stakeholder meetings, focus groups and sub-committees. Are you waiting for Tom Markel to retire to distance yourself (literally) from Nelson before the end of 2026. Absolutely. He'll leave with a big hurrah.
Four months additional months for Stakeholder and focus group involvement are unwarranted and ridiculous. Can't one of you say you are sorry for the delays? You are numbing the public, especially teens and parents. It is sick Council is approving $211,600 plus staff expense to manage this gross delay.
Sincerely, Bob Yoder 98052
Blog story feedback: https://redmondcity.blogspot.com/2025/09/opinion-council-should-stop-playing.html
Some background on claiming (by Fields and Forsythe) the OFH is an historical monument:
ReplyDelete1) John Oftebro, the President of the Redmond Historical Society informed me they looked into the OFH as a place for their meetings BUT found it too old and unsafe.
2) OneRedmond invited the Redmond Historical Society officers to a silent meeting. One may assume they were discussing the city's strategic plan for OFH. (Nelson's surrogate, his attorney, the mayor, Councilmember Vanessa Kritzer are on the OneRedmond Board. )
Sidebar comment and all guesswork: Nelson and his family are the largest landowners in greater Redmond. Nelson's main office is in a house directly east and adjacent to the OFH. One could surmise Nelson will tear down his home office to expand the footprint on an OFH rebuild. Of course Nelson would sell his parcel to the city for profit unless his attorney could work a deal to "donate the land." for everlasting public relations.