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Tuesday, August 1, 2006

Art News, Part II

Posted by on August 1 at 9:45 AM

The organizers of Hempfest Monday filed a lawsuit against the city of Seattle because the annual rally, to be held this year Aug 19 and 20, is still waiting to receive its event permit along with details about how the Seattle Art Museum will accommodate Hempfest’s need for a loading lane adjacent to the Olympic Sculpture Park under construction on the Elliott Bay waterfront downtown. (Hempfest is held at Myrtle Edwards Park next to the OSP site.)

At the end of the day Monday, SAM’s director of capital projects, Chris Rogers, said the museum would be sending a clarifying letter in response to the suit. I couldn’t reach the head of the city’s special events committee, Virginia Swanson. Rogers did say, though, that Hempfest and SAM may run into a conflict depending on how many large trucks Hempfest plans to drive through the construction site. Basically, Rogers said, the trucks would delay construction, and the museum can not afford any more delays since the four-month public conversation about the county’s trolley barn, which county executive Ron Sims promised to move but which didn’t have a new home by the time SAM needed to remove the barn, pushed the park off schedule, Rogers said. Originally set to open this summer, the park now will open Oct 28.

But SAM is required to accommodate Hempfest, festival spokesman Dominic Holden says. He points out a city ordinance passed unanimously by the council in June requiring SAM to “ensure safe public access … to ‘Special Events’” during construction. Holden says the museum has been dragging its feet on this event since Hempfest filed its permit application in January. He also says the city is in violation of its law to process special-event permit applications “within sixty (60) days of the application, if practicable.” (Both Rogers and Holden say the city regularly passes out permits only days before an event.)

Holden says the lawsuit, which Hempfest threatened a few months ago, is the result of SAM’s consistent maltreatment of its construction process. He says the city has had to pick up the pieces of SAM’s mess all along the way. He cites as examples the removal of the trolley barn, traffic problems around the area, a crane that fell on train tracks in March (no one was hurt), and the fact that Ivar’s pulled out of its Fourth of July Festival this year. Ivar’s told the P-I that the construction was a deciding factor in pulling out, and Holden says he would like to know how much money the city had to spend providing basic and emergency services that would have been provided by Ivar’s during the firework.

Meanwhile, Rogers said that with the transformation of the scraggy waterfront land into a park, Myrtle Edwards Park nearby may no longer be the right place to host a festival that brings 150,000 to 200,000 people, as Hempfest does. He called upon leadership from the city in setting guidelines for land use in the park. (Holden says the site is the only area in the city that’s large enough for the event and not in a residential neighborhood.)

Holden said he expects Hempfest will go on, and with minimal intrusion in the construction of the sculpture park. He sees the sculpture park as a beautiful addition to downtown—as long as it doesn’t interfere with the First Amendment right of marijuana reform advocates to assemble in the public park.

And Rogers, too, said Hempfest will go on. He said the museum has been participating fully in the preparation process for months, and that pulling everything together is the responsibility of the city’s special events committee.

I’ll write more as I know it. Preliminary thoughts?


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SAM's metaphorical britches have gotten too big, and their Board of Director's Executive Staff represents the fussy fuck museum donors who want Seattle re-made into their fussy fuck deep pocket funding image (I am not talking about the progressive donors who want expensive artwork available for viewing by the masses and limit their string pulling to the museum's mission (a public (not privite) art museum)

Seattle isn't that big of a town, and that very same multi-millioniare developers who complain about monorail shadows and favor one-way "good neighbor" agreements that are only for night-life business owners, are the very same multi-millioniare fussy fucks who dononate enough money that their names are engraved on the donor wall and that their phone calls are taken personally by the executive staff.


HEMP FEST FOLKS: Keep fighting the good fight, on all fronts y'all.

Obviously a thinly-veiled ploy by SAM and the city to keep the pot-smoking weirdos from using a public space for a legally protected demonstration. We certainly wouldn't want the a$$hole condo owners to have to look at a bunch of dirty hippies.

Long live dirty pot-smoking hippies!

Just as the Washington Post and NY Times revealed that their Mayor shut down the protests in Central Park during the GOP Convention - obstensibly for "protecting the park" reasons and "construction impacts" - which later turned out to be lies, as emails and other documents now show it was just for political reasons, so we have HempFest "having problems".

Face it, they are trying to weasel their way out.

Should Hempfest happen? Yes, and the city should be working with this long-standing festival to make sure they get a permit. The law apparently says this should happen within 60 days of application, but also allows a loophole in the "if practicable" language.

Will there be unique challenges in holding such a large public event in the midst of a major construction project? Of course. Maybe Myrtle Edwards Park isn't the best place to be holding Hempfest during the construction of the sculpture park.

I'd like to know more about what the Hempfest organizers are asking or expecting that is causing concern in terms of the sculpture park construction. Do they have unreasonable expectations? Even if SAM is required to accommodate Hempfest, as Holden says, that can't by any stretch of the imagination mean giving the festival organizers carte blanche during construction.

And where is the city in all of this? Why are Hempfest and SAM having to go at each other directly? The city should be in there mediating and solving this conflict over public space. Where's leadership when you need it?

Does this mean that construction can sometimes inconvenience people and require them to modify their plans until construction is complete? NOOOO! Oh the humanity!

According to this post, Hempfest is suing the City not just going at SAM directly, as MikeG suggests. And it doesn't appear Hempfest wants a carte blanche to alter the construction. They just need an access road for attendees and deliveries, which seems like a totally reasonable request for a big event.

Sure, folks should deal with the inconvenience of construction, but that doesn't mean we should ignore a city law or sacrifice our First Amemdment rights to assemble for free speech.

Is SAM still over budget and under funded? Or are they all cool now?

What city law is being ignored? The "within 60 days" provision includes a huge loophole in the "if practicable" language.

No First Amendment rights are being denied. Calling this a free speech issue is a red herring. Hundreds of thousands of people are free to go to Myrtle Edwards Park. But if an organization wants to hold an event, under the law they need to get a city permit.

Again, I want Hempfest to happen. But based on the information provided by Jen in her post, I want to know more about the issues here (specifically more about what the Hempfest organizers are asking for that may be holding up the permit, and why the city seems to have a problem managing conflicts when it comes to public events in public areas).

I think it's easy and understandable to be a bit paranoid when it comes to an event like Hempfest that isn't popular with certain segments of the general population and political establishment. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be asking if the Hempfest organizers are being reasonable in their requests during a year where there is construction going on in the park.

MikeG,

The notion that SAM construction next to a public park supersedes any and every other use of that park is b.s to start.

As I understand the timeline, SAM had ample notice that HF needed to use Myrtle Edwards Park (unless you're suggesting that they were unaware of HF, or that event be moved to Gas Works or Magnuson - which both the City and adjacent neighbors would have objected to vociferously) - pretty much since the beginning of their construction project, which created (and still creates) serious access and egress issues at the southern entrance to M.E. Park. Also, their design narrows the entrance to the park in a manner that these issues may not be resolved/resolvable after construction has been completed.

HF organizers aren't "asking" for anything that is holding up the permit. On the other hand, the City did increase the amount of their insurance bond over previous years (which HF organizers complied with), as well as requriring a new emergency evacuation plan to deal with the access problems SAM construction creates at the south entrance. In addition, the Port is now coming up with numerous last-minute objections to using the northern entrance (necessitated by SAM construction) - which HF is working to address, and which aren't germane to the permit issues at hand anyway.

I think you ought to look up the legal requirements for assembly permits - as I understand it (though I'm not a lawyer), the needs of a private contractor/construction project do not and cannot trump the First Amendment rights that necessitate the granting of a public assembly permit - particularly for a major political event that has been going on for many, many years.

The art park will certainly be an asset to Seattle, but the ease with which they got their permits and their ability to stomp on longstanding community events gives one cause to wonder just what other concessions they are going to get from the City down the road - and just how "public" this private project will be if you're a hemp activist, or a homeless person, or...?

Here's the law about access through the OSP construction:


Council Bill Number: 115592
Ordinance Number: 122141
Date introduced/referred: May 22, 2006
Date passed: June 19, 2006
Status: Passed
Vote: 9-0

25. PUBLIC ACCESS DURING CONSTRUCTION

B. During construction, SAM shall also ensure safe public access over the Boulevard to "Special Events," including but not limited to the Fourth of July celebration, City approved festivals and such other events that may be approved by the City's Special Events Committee.

GWS,

Which Boulevard is that referring to (thanks for posting, btw)?

The "boulevard" referred to in the ordinance is the strip between the intersection of Alaskan Way and Broad St. and the entrance to Myrtle Edwards Park. It's where the trolley barn and little parking lot used to be. Basically, it's the entrance to Hempfest and the ordinance says SAM has to provide access through it.

I don't trust SAM to be a good neighbor, a good corporate citizen. SAM is as cold, calculating and strategic as any other corporation, as recent history surrounding this park shows.

Why? Dollars to donuts that SAM is looking long-term towards some sort of summer music festival they can call their own (Woodland Park Zoo has one, so why not SAM huh?) and to do it, they need access to Myrtle Edwards Park.

SAM, from the sounds of it, is trying to set precedent for 1 SUMMER of Myrtle Edwards Park being MUSIC FREE, by holding up the permit, in their unique wink-wink, why-all-the-fuss-and-lawsuit-chill-out-stoners, back door deal with the city parks department sort of a way.

SAM isn't run by dumb shits. Of course, SAM knew work will be slow to non-existent HEMPFEST weekend, at least in principle. HEMPFEST is a long established event which has been growing in attendance year after year. The biggest HEMP FESTIVAL in the US of A, I hear. So, HEMPFEST is established and not a one-off event. Point: SAM dragging feet over the streetcar put them behind schedule, so GRAND OPENING BE DAMNED. SAM made their bed, now they got a lawsuit, so push the shit to one side, clear a path for band vans, and quite your bitching, SAM.

But anyways, what we have here with SAM is, should HEMPFEST decide to throw in the towel and move on short notice, is that next January, SAM can have their permit at the top of the pile. First come, first served is Parks policy for reserving park space for events (given the history of outdoor rock music festivals in Seattle (how about all those rock shows in Volunteer Park Amphitheater, or the Woodland Park Aqua Stage, huh? can't and won't happen because permits will not be issued), it is a safe bet the city would like a different *caliber* of summer music event in their brand-new shiny park. And since no other organization would, next year, be able to lay claim to an uninterrupted festival series (like HEMP FEST can if it happens at Myrtle Edwards Park this year), the fussy fucker fat cats can have a music festival, which well, won't attract too much of what the fussy fuckers would consider "bad elements" to the new shiny park and chance that HEMPFEST 2007+ will drive away the July tourists from Topeka for one a few afternoons. (Fussy Fucks ignore the fact that those couple 100k of people aren’t all smelly poor hippie folks from Capital Hill or Twisp. Lots and lots of tourists come to Seattle because of the festival and spend lots of money on hemp shit. and hotel rooms. and car rental. and snacks. why, some hemp fest attends are even *gasp* rich. I have even heard that republicans like the herb smoke and attend the festival wearing tie-die shirts. But I have only heard there are cool republicans, just never meet one.)

GWS,

That's kind of what I figured, but had never heard it officially referred to as a Boulevard. Thanks for clarifying...

Hello people? SAM's park is under construction and I am sure Hempfest logistics are difficult this year because of it BUT the park will be completed soon. It is obvious that festival organizers care more about large trucks with honey buckets entering a two-day festival than gaining a park in downtown Seattle FOREVER! Would you rather have a parking lot and more condos in Belltown???????

Maggie,

If it were impossible to complete the sculpture garden and still have a Hempfest, why would there be a law saying events are allowed access to the park? It would seem that the park can get finished and they can hold a Hempfest.

Or are you simply suggesting Hempfest be held in November after the park is finished?

As someone who's a Family member of SAM, and has been a Patron, I am offended by SAM's position in this regards.

p.s. Just for this ACTION by SAM, I'm going to give $25,000 to another non-profit INSTEAD of SAM.

p.p.s. consequences hurt. deal with it.

Let another town have hempfest. Old Seattle clogged with pot smoking slackers is a thing of the past. Seattle is moving in a new direction now, a better direction. Let some other town have hempfest who wants a bunch of unemployed losers lounging in their parks.

Just one more example of SAM's (and their funders/Board) arrogance. From their "deal" with WaMu to build the ugly-ass extension, which the monorail project intereferred with, so they tried to kill it, to now thinking they own right-of-way access to Myrtle Edwards park, because of Sculpture Park construction. SAM is not a good neighbor, they're a bunch of elite fussy-fucks who think the city and public should conform to their narrow vision of what is acceptable. Give 'em hell Hempfest.

I hear that they hate the slogans on the Lusty Lady's readerboard, too.

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