People with backpacks and one with a cart of clothing in a beige shopping cart hang around the Clark Park gazebo the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 2.
Photo by Michael Whitney.
EVERETT — The 103-year-old Clark Park gazebo will be uprooted. Transplanted where is not yet known.
A fenced-in dog park will take its place.
The parks department plans to gently dismantle the gazebo and store it for now. It intends to reconstruct it in another place, such as a waterfront park like Harborview.
Council last week voted unanimously to proceed.
Councilwoman Liz Vogeli wants accountability on the relocation, though. Vogeli requested to develop an ordinance requiring the city to produce a relocation plan.
Nearby neighbors say the gazebo is a crime magnet. They don’t feel safe visiting the park. Police call logs seemingly back them up.
The gazebo is frequented by homeless individuals as a gathering spot and shelter space. The city’s “no-sit/no-lie” rules against laying down specifically don’t include parks.
Council members said they acknowledge the significance of the gazebo’s history, but its current state of use isn’t honorable.
The past solution to abate crime has been to fence off the gazebo, which the city put up a fence for stints in the 2000s and 2010s.
“I don’t like to accept something historic like that is to be chain-linked up or decimated by drug use,” Councilwoman Judy Tuohy said.
Councilwoman Mary Fosse was already looking at dog park features. The gazebo “is not being respected where it is,” Fosse said.
Bayside’s organized neighborhood association wants it gone.
Historians openly opposed removing the gazebo since Mayor Cassie Franklin publicized the idea in January.
The gazebo’s not at fault, they say. The people are.
Some have called for the gazebo to stay with the dog park built around it.
The parks department reiterated that the gazebo cannot be inside the dog park. It would create spots where dogs could feel cornered, parks director Bob Leonard said.
If it’s going to be put in storage, do not let the gazebo languish there, resident Jean Satti-Hewat said.
Historians had been pursuing grants to help the gazebo.
The nonprofit Historic Everett had a donor in place to contribute toward restoring the gazebo if it was at Clark Park, group leader Andrea Tucker said.
“All of this is so disappointing, not that we are surprised in the end” of the decision, she said.
Councilman Scott Bader characterized the conversation as pitting the preservation of heritage against public safety needs.
More than one dozen residents spoke trying to sway council for 30 minutes before the final vote. A number more submitted written comments.
Councilwoman Paula Rhyne attempted to remand the issue back to the city’s historical commission on a code technicality. City code outlines that a formal waiver is needed if demolishing any part of a site on a historic register, but city attorneys determined previously the whole park is on the city’s historic register, and you can’t demolish a “place.”
Rhyne’s motion failed 3-4.
The council belatedly received the historical commission’s long statement asking the city to seek a waiver after it began weighing the issue.
