Last week’s mail produced this year’s challenges under the headline “Key policy issues the (Lakewood) City Council will address in 2011.” Four of the six listed impact the Tillicum neighborhood, two of which are especially grievous – a new gate for Camp Murray, and Amtrak trains – the first that would put over 1,000 cars/day down Tillicum’s western border, and the latter that would run 14 high-speed trains per day down Tillicum’s eastern border.
With regards the Camp Murray gate, the City’s publication asks, “Is there a feasible solution for a new gate that is acceptable to the City, the State Military Department (SMD) and the neighborhood?”
First of all a clarification. There are only two entities at this table, not three. There is the SMD, and there are the people. The people are the city. And the people have spoken.
As President of the Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association, and therefore one that believes he has heard quite clearly from the residents he represents, the answer to that question raised above is resoundingly, repeatedly, unanimously, and emphatically ‘No!’
Page 10 of the aforementioned publication – which lies directly opposite the policy issues – shows an organizational decision-making flow chart for the City of Lakewood. At the top, as they should be, are the citizens of Lakewood. Not governments, or their dollars, or their plans – federal or state – but residents. And the residents of Lakewood – specifically those that live in Tillicum – have made abundantly clear how they feel about being run-over and railroaded through.
As stated in this online newspaper previously, Camp Murray has a gate already – at the southern terminus of their campus. They just don’t want to use it, won’t even discuss it, in fact eliminated it out-of-hand in their so-called rigorous review of gate alternatives. Their reason was, in their own Environmental Assessment, it didn’t fit their criteria of a pedestrian-friendly campus.
Ditto Amtrak. They have a track to run on. But they want to by-pass that and pass through us. Sure the passenger line has legitimate concerns with freight, but we’ve got legitimate concerns with fright. Seven-hundred people are killed each year by walking along the tracks. Yes, that’s trespassing. And yes, according to train officials, no amount of fencing can ensure safety. But why multiply by seven the number of trains already going through our city each week and make that happen at potentially twice the speed every single day?
An even more bothersome question is why the city council’s ‘plan’ with regards these issues is to “monitor” when we, the people – the ones above them on the chart – clearly are opposed?
The only time politicians seem to listen to the citizens is during elections. Time to turn out those who’d rather listen to city employees, AMTRAK, the military (and while we’re at it, casinos, unions and a host of other special interests) without considering the will of the people who elected them. A revolution in Washington DC in 2010? Perhaps a revolution in Lakewood Washington in 2011? All it takes is candidates who are determined to listen to and enact the will of its citizens.
Since I prepared most of the City’s year-end report content, I’d be happy to respond to Mr. Anderson’s letter. Pardon my delayed response, as I’ve been out of state for two weeks of military duty.
Employing the argument “the people have spoken” has rarely stopped or diverted a train. That is why “railroaded” is a word in your dictionary and that is why the City of Lakewood will continue engaging and monitoring WSDOT’s Point Defiance Bypass EA (environmental assessment) until it is released for formal review in mid-2012. There is little else the city can do in this regard until then and Mr. Anderson understands this. He also understands that the Lakewood City Council unanimously adopted a resolution, still in effect, opposing WSDOT’s Amtrak plans in early 2010.
The matter of Amtrak is bigger than Tillicum – it would adversely affect a number of Lakewood intersections at arterials even busier than Berkeley and Thorne Lane. We hope Mr. Anderson can come to understand that we should all be on the same team with regard to Amtrak.
With respect to the matter of the Camp Murray gate, the City withheld a permit in 2010 for the military department to punch a new gate onto city streets because we couldn’t come to an agreement on the proposed routing of traffic through the new gate, among other things. Camp Murray subsequently asked the City to work with it in 2011 to see if there might be a solution feasible to all concerned. The City would not be a good neighbor if we told Camp Murray “we are not talking to you because the people have spoken.” When you are city and your neighbor is a hybrid of state and federal government, respect and cooperation are in order and that shouldn’t be confused with accommodation or weakness.
First of all I assume, Mr. Brewster, you are writing on behalf of, and at the behest of, the City Council since the City Connections you prepared indicate our elected representatives – not city staff – are the ones ‘monitoring’ the two transportation issues affecting Tillicum, and the rest of Lakewood.
Presuming then that you are reflecting the council’s voice on these matters, I am sure you/they understand their role is to monitor and reflect the people’s voice and thus appreciate hearing from those who elected them. Perhaps you are right, at least in the “stopping the train” part, but our voice does count for something – maybe not as much in some people’s opinion as the hybrid “more than one power source” of which you speak, but the people have power too – we vote, which Camp Murray, Amtrak, WSDOT, et al, does not.
We would like to believe we are on the same team with the city council with regards the Amtrak issue, but while the council monitors, we are adamantly opposed. Presumably the council would be ok with mitigations, Tillicum is not – nor Nyanza Park, nor Tyee Park, nor Cochise, nor many of the business owners we talked with bordering the track.
Neighborliness, and community, is demonstrated less in acquiescing to a hybrid, however many chairs it occupies, but rather by looking out for, and valuing, as first priority – the safety and welfare of the citizens which no plan of Camp Murray’s and certainly not Amtrak’s has, or can, assure.