LEALMAN - Frustrated community activists last week grilled county officials about their sincerity in solving Lealman's many problems.
The promises of new greenspace and a community center must endure more public vetting.
Standardized garbage service remains a mirage.
"I've been getting a kind of an uneasy feeling lately," said John Frank, a member of Lealman's revitalization team. "There's a lot of mixed signals here. ... We've worked toward a goal, and now we're here at the threshold and everything is convoluted."
The most worrisome message, Frank said, is the county's proposal to hold a public meeting of residents from the entire Lealman fire district to discuss ways to spend money that had been earmarked for just the revitalization area, in the central portion of east Lealman.
Frank and others at a revitalization meeting Thursday said such a public meeting will splinter and factionalize the community when the western portion of the fire district wants part of about $1.7-million slated for revitalization.
Several groups could fight over the money, which would paralyze the county as it tries to sort out competing interests, Frank said. The result could be that nothing would get done and the money would be spent elsewhere, he said.
Residents on the revitalization team have asked that the money be used to build a community center and buy land at Joe's Creek for a park.
"This community has certainly waited our turn. We've waited for decades," Frank said. "Now we want our turn."
Armanda Lampley, a member of the county Community Development Department who oversees the Lealman effort, denied the county was trying to muddy the waters in an effort to avoid putting money into Lealman. The meeting is necessary to get wider community comment about the plans because the parks and other amenities planned for the area will serve more than residents of east Lealman.
"We're going to make this a meeting where we can tout what the county is doing for this area," Lampley said.
Frank said there has been enough talk.
"We've talked about it for 31/2 years. When do we get the shovels out and begin digging a hole in the ground?" he asked.
Assistant County Administrator Gay Lancaster suggested the meeting after revitalization activists tangled with the Lealman Fire Commission over the location of a new fire station in east Lealman.
The commission wanted to put the station on the eastern portion of Lealman Park, at 54th Avenue N and 37th Street. Activists wanted to limit the land used or build the fire station elsewhere so a community center could be built at the park, Lealman's only greenspace.
Since then, fire commissioners have decided to buy other land on 54th Avenue N for the station. If the land is buildable, they will give the property in Lealman Park back to the county.
Having that problem solved, said Ray Neri, director of the Lealman Community Association, makes the proposed county meeting unnecessary.
"It doesn't make sense," Neri said.
Lealman, he said, just went through this with its efforts to standardize garbage service and costs.
About four years ago, activists started meeting with garbage companies to get a contract. When that didn't work, they asked for the county's help. They were told that haulers needed three years' notice of the county's intent to put a contract up for bid, so they would know they might lose business if one company were given a contract.
Activists asked whether there was a speedier way. In the spring, the county proposed creating a Municipal Services Benefit Unit to add the price of garbage service to property tax bills.
At three meetings - one Community Association board meeting and two public forums with more than 100 people attending each - county officials told activists that the MSBU was a way around the three-year wait.
They assured neighbors that the "County Commission is prepared to take the heat" from any opponents to such a move. Lealman residents could expect a vote in September or October so service could begin in March.
But between then and last month, the county received a visit from BFI, one of the haulers that would be affected, and county officials reversed field.
The MSBU was unworkable. The activists would have to get petitions signed; the county would have to buy out the haulers for their estimated losses during the next three years; or the service would have to wait three years to be standardized.
Which left neighbors where they had started three years ago.
If the notice had been sent to the haulers then, Neri said, the situation would have been solved. As it is, the area likely will have to wait three more years to get less expensive, standardized garbage service .
"There's a lot of people who have put a lot of time in this," Neri said. "The bad taste in some people's mouths is going to be profound."
