The Crawfords admit they've picketed Aegis' development, but they claim it was only because the company refused to halt their cement trucks even while their building permits were in legal limbo. Nobody, it seemed to the Crawfords, could or would force the company to adhere to the rules—not the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which objected to the development but was told to butt out by city officials, and certainly not the city of Shoreline itself.
Since the Crawfords won their Superior Court case against Aegis and the development was remanded back to the city permitting process, the Crawfords say Aegis has offered them $250,000 as a settlement. Aegis did not return calls seeking comment. But Patty says she and Tim refuse to abandon the salmon, trout, and otter that populate their creek. "We're here for a higher meaning," she says.
Robin Laananen
Tim and Patty Crawford have spent $50,000 to protect this land.
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kfullerton@seattleweekly.com
WHERE'S THE CITY?
CIVIC TASK FORCES can write reams of recommendations for restoring the fish and plant life of Puget Sound-area streams. Environmental agencies can issue all the regulations they want. On the ground, it's city governments that must force private developers to respect the ecosystems of creeks and wetlands by adhering to land codes. Seattle has historically done a pretty lousy job of protecting the tributaries of Thornton Creek that run through its city limits. The stream—home to Pacific frogs, eagles, and five species of salmon—is badly polluted and misshapen by the hundreds of lawns that have overrun it.
Perhaps that's why the recently incorporated city of Shoreline has found it so easy to set aside state guidelines and allow Aegis Assisted Living to build a sprawling senior apartment complex on the banks of the creek. Tim and Patty Crawford, along with their neighbors (not to mention a King County judge), say the city didn't even try to get Aegis to scale back its project. They note that first the city tried to pretend the creek didn't exist, then accepted an unenforceable pledge from the company to compensate for environmental damage caused by their project at another location. Robert Vreeland, a fisheries biologist who serves as an officer with the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund, says, "Based on my experience, I am very wary of speculative mitigation; I want to see [mitigation] on site, not 'We'll do something later, somewhere.' I've been burned on those before."
It's safe to say that so far the city has treated Thornton Creek more as a headache than a valuable natural resource. When Aegis filed its request for a permit back in 2000, a biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reminded the city that state policy imposes 100-foot vegetation buffers around salmon-bearing streams. But Shoreline's Planning and Development Services Department changed Thornton Creek's classification from "stream" to "wetland" where it flowed through Aegis' site, which reduced the necessary buffer by half. The city also granted variances that let Aegis lay foundations much closer to the water in some places. The Fish and Wildlife biologist, Doug Hennick, didn't approve of the site plan.
But when Hennick went to a public hearing to say as much, he was surprised to learn that a city official had already spoken for him. Planning and Development Director Tim Stewart had submitted an affidavit stating that he'd had a phone conversation with Hennick in which the biologist said he no longer had any objections to the development. Hennick had to explain at the hearing that he'd said no such thing.
"Stewart never told me that he was going to write something to represent what I said. He put in sworn testimony about what I said, without letting me see the draft, saying that I had changed my mind," says Hennick. The biologist says he had several problems with the city's rationale for exempting the Aegis development from buffer requirements—concerns that were deepened by the city's refusal to submit information about the site to his office.
Hennick later wrote a letter to Shoreline Mayor Scott Jepsen requesting that the city reconsider its permit to Aegis. Hennick's letter prompted a combative response from Stewart, who wrote Hennick that, "If a lawyer, a doctor, or a planner were to ignore the facts as you have . . . in this case, the behavior would be grossly negligent and the individual would be subject to a charge of malpractice." Stewart sent his letter to Hennick's superiors at Fish and Wildlife. The city of Shoreline then filed a public-disclosure demand for all Fish and Wildlife documents, including letters and e-mail, pertinent to the Aegis development.
Stewart says the affidavit he filed with the city hearing examiner was an accurate account of Hennick's remarks. He also stands by the comments he made about Hennick in his letter.
When a King County judge rejected the city's decision to let Aegis' development proceed and sent the project back for reassessment, Hennick wasn't able to testify in the subsequent city hearings. Not because he wasn't asked or didn't want to; the Crawfords' land-use attorney, Claudia Newman, says she had hoped to call Hennick as a witness, but the dispute has gotten so hot that the Fish and Wildlife office has refused to let any of its staff testify about the Aegis development without a court subpoena. Newman says when she called Shoreline to request that the hearing examiner subpoena Hennick, she was informed that the City Council passed a resolution just last month stripping the hearing examiner's power to subpoena. Just a coincidence? Shoreline City Attorney Ian Sievers says city rules wouldn't prohibit Hennick from testifying at hearings. But Sievers did not return a call asking for comment on Newman's experience.
Kevin Fullerton
kfullerton@seattleweekly.com
