Joseph L. Castleberry, Ed. D. President
5520 108th Ave. NE PO Box 579 Kirkland, WA 98083-0579 joseph.castleberry@northwestu.edu
Phone: 425-889-4202
www.northwestu.edu
To Whom It May Concern: On behalf of Northwest University, a regionally accredited, comprehensive, doctoral-level university located in the Houghton neighborhood of Kirkland, I am writing to express my personal support and our institutional support for HB 1769, a bill that would sunset the two community councils in Washington State. Northwest University moved to Kirkland in 1959
—
a time at which there were no paved roads to our property. We have enjoyed this location longer than virtually any of our neighbors have lived in Houghton. Everyone who lives adjacent to our campus knew they were moving into a neighborhood with a college in it when they bought their homes. We are Planned Area One in Kirkland, the first planning zone created in the city. That status usually requires us to apply for the approval of a new master plan every ten years
—
a process which adds considerable expense to our operations. The Houghton Community Council creates a very expensive additional layer of bureaucracy for the University to negotiate whenever we are required to update our master plan. We estimate that the Houghton Community Council cost us at least a year of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in our recent master plan approval process.
Its “disapproval authority”
places great power in the hands of some neighbors who unfairly and prejudicially object to our presence in the community. Northwest is a very religious college, and our students are well known as very respectful, highly responsible people who serve our neighbors as nannies, pet-walkers, and in many other ways. Yet some adjacent neighbors constantly seek to hamper our campus operations in various ways, using the Community Council to leverage their power.
An example would be the Council’s
long success in blocking us from making our athletic fields available to the City of Kirkland as practice fields for youth sports teams. The presence of children enjoying themselves on organized sports teams for some reason constitutes an offense to a few adjacent neighbors, despite the thick vegetative buffer that separates the university from their properties. While our campus is open to neighbors who want to walk through its park-like, peaceful atmosphere, the campus security force is required to chase away neighbors who want to use the fields for personal recreation such as kite flying or playing catch with a football on the former Seattle Seahawks practice fields. The Council is anti-democratic, and when we recently proposed a well-regarded, highly qualified resident for election to the council to give us a regular voice in its deliberations, the candidate was disallowed by the self-perpetuating membership of the Council. While I believe the members of the Community Council are good people who mean well, the Council has had a negative impact on our students, increasing the cost of their education while curtailing their enjoyment of campus life. I plead with the Washington legislators
to vote “yes” on sunsetting the
community councils. Sincerely, Joseph Castleberry, EdD President
