Thursday, January 21, 1999

By RUTH TEICHROEB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Despite strong opposition from the Wallingford community, the Seattle School Board yesterday gave the go-ahead to use Lincoln High School as the interim site for two more high schools scheduled for renovations over the next decade.

During a planning session to hammer out long-term plans for district facilities, board members agreed that Lincoln is the only site large enough to temporarily house Roosevelt and Garfield high schools.

Ballard High School students have used Lincoln since the 1997-98 school year while a new school is built for them.

Member Scott Barnhart said the board explored other options at the request of Wallingford residents who want Hamilton Middle School to permanently move into the Lincoln building when Ballard High School moves out in September.

"The community obviously has expressed concern about this," he said yesterday.

Concerns include extra traffic and parking problems posed by the use of Lincoln by two high schools with 1,600-plus students. Critics also don't want Lincoln to remain an interim site for a decade longer.

To appease the Wallingford community, Barnhart proposed yesterday that the district promise to move Hamilton to Lincoln by 2010 and work with Wallingford residents and the city of Seattle to develop a plan for the eventual community use of extra space in the building.

Board member Ellen Roe was the only one opposed, saying the district was "defying voters" because the last construction levy specified that Hamilton would be moved to the renovated Lincoln building.

"The people voted on it and they'll remember it," she said.

The Lincoln renovation was part of a 19-project, $330 million, six-year building program voters approved in February 1995. The district poured $13.5 million into renovating the building so it could be used as an interim site for Ballard High.

While the six board members at yesterday's planning session didn't vote on the use of Lincoln as an interim site, they gave the green light for that plan.

"With one dissenter, I think you have consensus on this," board President Barbara Schaad-Lamphere told district officials.

News of the decision sparked criticism yesterday from Tom Veith, president of the Lincoln Liaison Committee in Wallingford.

"I think people are going to be very disappointed," he said.

"Now we'll get to the end of the levy and we don't have what most of Wallingford has voted for," Veith said.

Residents are frustrated at the prospect of dealing with different principals and students every two years, he said.

As part of yesterday's meeting, the board also supported the district's recommendation to move South Shore Middle School to the building now occupied by Sharples Alternative School in South Seattle.

That move was prompted by chronic complaints from educators and parents that the open-concept South Shore building is inappropriate for middle school students.

The alternative school -- as well as a bilingual education program, teen parenting program and re-entry program -- now housed at Sharpleslikely would be moved to the South Shore building.

That proposal has triggered protests from parents of bilingual students and bilingual teachers, who believe South Shore will be too noisy.

Acting Seattle Schools Superintendent Joseph Olchefske said he believes the South Shore building is adequate, but he has offered parents of the bilingual students the option of moving to the Wilson-Pacific building in North Seattle.

Looking toward the future, John Vacchiery, the district's facilities manager, told the board that facilities planning will have to include recent projections that district enrollment will peak by about 2003, then decline to 42,000 to 47,000 by 2010.

At the same time, extra capacity is needed immediately in South Seattle, while North Seattle schools have declining enrollments, Vacchiery said.

During a meeting yesterday afternoon, the board approved the use of as much as $487,000 for a feasibility study for the proposed purchase of the 320,000-square-foot Terminal Annex Post Office building on Third Avenue South and South Lander Street for a consolidated district headquarters.

The money will be used for preliminary design costs, environmental and traffic studies, legal fees and other costs associated with the potential purchase of the $43 million property from developer Lowe Enterprises.

The proposed deal would be financed by the sale or trade of four district-owned properties worth $16.5 million, including current district headquarters in Lower Queen Anne, an annual savings of $1.6 million by consolidating services under one roof and a 25-year loan of $26.7 million.

P-I reporter Ruth Teichroeb can be reached at 206-448-8175 or ruthteichroeb@seattle-pi.com