Laurelhurst Community Club
Serving 2800 Households in Seattle
Arthur
R.M. Nowell, Chair
Advisory
Review Committee for UW Executive Vice President
Dean,
RE: Weldon Ihrig
Dear
Dean Nowell:
Thank
you for the opportunity to participate in your committee’s administrative
review of Weldon Ihrig.
Relationship/Interaction: I have had the pleasure of working with
Weldon since about late 1996 or early 1997.
This was at a time when the City had proposed a regulatory scheme to
govern the University that was not supported by either the University or its
neighboring communities. The University,
through Weldon Ihrig, reached out to the neighborhoods to address the many
issues with the City’s proposal. This
was the first time ever that anyone that I work with can recall that the
University had taken steps to work on issues of such enormous impact in
partnership with its neighbors.
The
City put its proposal on hold and allowed the University and its neighbors to
work together for an 18-month period to negotiate a proposed City-University
Agreement to govern the master planning process, annual reporting, traffic and
transportation issues, responsibilities of the City-University-Community
Advisory Committee (CUCAC) and other matters.
The final proposal submitted to the City involved hundreds of
compromises and was ultimately approved by the City and the Board of Regents.
Weldon
provided excellent leadership and guidance to others at the University with whom
neighborhoods worked, including Jan Arntz, T.C. Richmond and Peter Dewey. These individuals were committed and
motivated to reach a positive result because of Weldon’s example and ability to
facilitate a consensus-building process.
It
was not an easy undertaking for Weldon to take on the responsibility of working
with leaders of a dozen community groups in this process. Weldon demonstrated a remarkable willingness
to listen and to compromise, while remaining a staunch advocate for issues of
importance to the University. Someone
else in his position might have thrown up his or her hands, but not
Weldon. Without his leadership, this
successful process would not have been possible.
I
have had other interactions with Weldon in the past few years including
participation in periodic meetings of community leaders called by Weldon to
address various issues. The 1998
City-University Agreement provides for discretionary meetings between the
University and leaders in surrounding communities impacted by University growth
and expansion. These meetings were
helpful in continuing a dialogue between the University and its neighbors and
promoting a partnership in solving common issues.
Finally,
Weldon was instrumental in developing a compromise to improve the appearance of
the Ceramic Metal Arts Compound, located at the entrance to Laurelhurst. The ugly building with cyclone fence walls,
glaring lights on all night highlighting art materials or what many would
consider a junk pile and flat surrounding terrain with no landscaping was a
blight on our neighborhood. This
building generated almost as many concerns as the initial proposal to site the
Indoor Practice Facility along
The
above are a sampling of the experiences I’ve had working with Weldon
Ihrig. I hope you will find my insights
helpful. One of the things I like best
about Weldon is that he is a straight shooter.
I may not always agree with him, but have enormous respect for his
integrity and honesty.
Leadership: The ability of the University to expand and
grow to fulfill its mission and accommodate enrollment and other demands
depends in part upon recognizing and addressing the potential adverse impacts
upon surrounding communities. Yes, the
University provides wonderful amenities to our communities and the City and
contributes to the economic vitality of the University District and the region. But compromises are often necessary to
maintain the livability and vitality of neighborhoods and to generate support
for the University. Weldon has played a
key role in forging a partnership between the University and its neighbors. He is an extremely capable leader and an
asset to the University.
University’s
Effectiveness in Working with the Community: The
last year and a half or so has been a challenging time to work with the
University. This has been due to the
recent master planning process which has become very adversarial and the University’s
efforts to work behind the scenes with the City to eliminate the “lease lid”
with no involvement of impacted communities.
The wonderful groundwork laid by Weldon Ihrig in partnering with the
University’s neighbors is in jeopardy.
At
the conclusion of the master planning process, neighborhood groups were no
longer working directly with Weldon. As
a result or for other reasons, problems developed. For example, the master planning process was
characterized by what in our view were violations on the part of the University
of the quasi-judicial rules governing the process—rules designed to ensure
fairness to all parties. We were
disappointed that the University chose not to play by the rules.
Despite
the fact that under the Council’s preliminary decision on the master plan the
University was getting almost everything it had asked for, University staff
involved in the process continued to push for more. Instead of following the example of Weldon in
compromising and recognizing legitimate concerns of the surrounding
communities, the University worked to reverse the minor concessions provided to
neighborhoods. As a result, there is now
an appeal before the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board.
Elimination
of the UW lease lid is another example of the University’s current
unwillingness to work with its neighbors.
Provisions relating to the lease lid were a major compromise in the 1998
City-University Agreement. Neighborhoods
agreed to increase the permitted leasing area to accommodate the University’s
needs and to allow leasing to house patients and families of patients of the UW
Medical Center. The University’s efforts
to seek changes directly from the City to amend the City-University Agreement
with no involvement of the neighborhoods demonstrate little regard for its
neighbors and their legitimate concerns.
Despite
the current posturing of the University on its master plan and the lease lid,
we have had positive experiences working with certain segments of the
University on other matters. We have an
excellent and supportive relationship with the UW’s Center for Urban
Horticulture. We provide a
representative to the Husky Stadium Advisory Committee and receive positive
feedback that the University is considering our concerns about transit, traffic
and congestion issues. We have worked
together on such issues as the University Area Transportation Study and the
TransLake Washington Project. Because of
the enormous impact of the master plan and elimination of the lease lid on our
community and in the area, however, relations are now strained. We hope that this will change and that we can
again partner with the University in addressing the many issues we jointly
confront.
I
hope you will find my answers to the questions you asked helpful. Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Jeannie Hale,
President
206-525-5135 /
fax 206-525-9631