With the Jeanne Hanson Park’s year-late, April 1 completion deadline approaching, the Snoqualmie City Council discussed taking early ownership of the park on Monday, March 9.
“The calls that we get are phenomenal,” Public Works director Dan Marcinko said about community complaints at the city council meeting. “It’s been a huge, huge burden – and the parks staff especially is just dying to open that park up to the public.”
The city cannot accept the park until it’s 100 percent completed under the current developer’s contract, but as the days transition from dreary to sunny, the city’s itching to let the public in.
To do this, this city would have to amend the contract and accept a bill of sale and a performance bond from the developer, which would give the city complete ownership of the park while developers tie up loose ends and complete the park work.
Nancy Davidson, operations manager of the Public Works Department, said there are still “moving parts” to handing over the keys, but assured the council that there was not much work remaining.
City Administrator Bob Larson warned the council not to get ahead of themselves.
“The city administration would recommend we should do everything we can to get even parts of that park open,” Larson began at the meeting. “But, with the caveat that we have to make sure that we’re protecting ourselves. We don’t want to take on liability.”
Construction on the 16-acre Jeanne Hanson Park began in August, 2013, and the opening ceremony was in September, 2014. The park was immediately closed again, for construction work to continue, which left residents scratching their heads.
“The public areas are all pretty much up to speed,” Davidson stated over the phone on Friday, March 13. She said all that’s left to do, besides some basic landscaping, is clean a few neighboring ponds, complete drawings of park construction (sewer, water layout, etc.), install wetland plants around the storm-water pond and install a brass plate with park information.
“We have a lot of people interested in using the park for what it’s intended… the work (the developer) has to do is not on the park surface itself.”
The council will consider the issue further and is expected to decide on the park at its next meeting, set for Monday, March 23.
In other business:
An interlocal agreement among Snoqualmie, North Bend, Issaquah and Sammamish was approved to apply for a $15,000 grant from Washington’s Office of Public Defense was approved. The grant would fund a public defense consultant to monitor public defense contracts.
The council authorized a request from the Snoqualmie Police Department to request quotes from contractors for lead cleaning in their gun range.
