Dear Editor:
I would like to address a few errors in your cover story, Changed, and still disliked, in the July edition of the Madison Park Times. There are factual errors and misjudgments in tone that make for a misleading story.
The author states that the store owners announced their retirement and sold the property in early 2016 to Leap Associates. This statement contains a number of errors, packed into one another. I would characterize it as a turducken of errors.
Until 2016 the property City People’s sits on was owned by Leap Associates. Leap Associates is Harley Broe, Judith Gille, Dianne Casper, and Carol Anderson. Two of the women had also owned a small portion of the actual nursery business. Steve Magley, the majority owner of City People’s, the nursery business, ran it for 28 years, building it into the thriving, exemplar small business it is today. Many of its approximately 40 employees built a career there, many working at City People’s for over a decade, some over two decades. Neither Steve nor any of the employees retired.
Leap Associates sold the land (not the nursery business) to Velmeir Properties, a development company based in Michigan. Steve Magley and City People’s employees were not offered an opportunity to buy the land, and did not know about the sale until it was a done deal. At the end of 2016 Magley sold the business to long-time employees Alison Greene and Jose Gonzalez, who are now the nursery business’s sole owners. Ultimately, these new owners of City People’s will need to find new land to house their business They were offered an extension on their lease at the current site when the development project bogged down in the design review process.
The author said the community is “unhappy” with the project and “did not react well” to the design. This implies that we are looking to the developer and to the City to make us happy (or that we’re an ill-mannered community). At every meeting we have presented data we have acquired ourselves or from experts we’ve consulted that demonstrate the ways in which this proposed development is not in accord with Seattle Design Guidelines, Seattle Municipal Codes, Directors’ Rules, the Seattle 2035 Comprehensive Plan, or Seattle’s Climate Action Plan. Our stated agenda is that this site be developed in accordance with these laws, guidelines, and plans. We are asking the City, at every step that is lawfully available to us as citizens, to oversee this development and ensure that it is done properly. The author of your article described us as a “protest group,” but this seems like a rather meek protest. I think of us more as a group that likes to see rules followed and that everyone play fair—regardless of how much money they have to throw around.
People of varying views about this development all agree that it is significant for our area. The Madison Park Times’ readers deserve a better exposition of the many complex issues involved.
Sincerely,
Melissa Stoker
Save Madison Valley