My take on the community center

I have now attended two meetings (on the Snoqualmie Community Center) and have heard more contradictions than I’ve heard facts.

There seems to be more going on behind the scene than is published for public record. This past Monday, the city’s parks director, who is new to this position, presented a recap, as she

understands it, of where the community center has been and where it now stands. What I learned from her 10-minute presentation is that the center has been up for public vote on three separate occasions and each time was voted down by the community.

Several reasons were given as to why the city believes it was voted down, but the fact that they are not willing to grasp still remains. It was voted down. So why are they proceeding? One has to wonder if they are following the Mayor McNickels model of building a stadium after it was voted down.

The parks director went on to say that the timeline for groundbreaking can be as early as September. Really? As an architect that has been involved with two buildings in the business park delivered by a national developer, one who knew exactly what they intended to build, I can tell you that her timeline is grossly misleading. She presented that the development team would be given four weeks to respond to a request For proposal. Once a team is selected, there was time allocated to negotiate the terms and conditions of this venture, meet with the public for input on programming needs, design a facility that meets the design criteria established by the planning department, a two-month process which includes public comment, develop construction documents for permit and break ground by September. It simply cannot be done. I ask myself, “What is the hurry?”

When asked by one of the Snoqualmie citizens about how the city plans to fund this proposed facility, knowing full well that the cost would exceed the budget, Mayor Larson stated that “Any cost over-runs would be the responsibility of the developer.” OMG! What developer, in today’s economy, would agree to take on that risk? The answer is none.

Randy Brown