Deed could trip Mukilteo plans

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, December 29, 2001

By Janice Podsada

Herald Writer

MUKILTEO — When the Mukilteo School District gave a former elementary school to the city in 1977, the deed specified that the property continue to serve the school district community.

But the city could violate that agreement with its plans to raze the former school, the Rosehill Community Center, and erect a new city hall, said attorney Terry Preshaw, spokeswoman for Save our Community Center, a Mukilteo citizen’s group protesting the city’s priorities.

A new city hall would serve Mukilteo residents, but not the school district community, which includes students and parents in Everett, Lynnwood and unincorporated Snohomish County.

The 1977 deed gives the district the right to repossess Rosehill if the city doesn’t meet the requirements of the covenant.

In 1986, the school district exercised its authority over the property and denied a city proposal to construct senior housing on the Rosehill property.

In a letter from then district superintendent Rodney Hermes to city planner Steve Skorney, Hermes wrote that senior housing "did not meet the requirements of the covenant contained in the transfer deed … it would remove the property, occupied by the housing, from use by the general public.’

"I would be surprised and amazed if the school district ever exercised that clause, because I don’t see any reason to do that," said Mukilteo City Council president Cathy Reese. "The city has never been in violation of the deed. I don’t see that the deed is an issue."

"It’s never been our intention to just put a city hall there, ever. It’s always been our intention to put a city hall and a community center on that property."

There is enough money at this time to build a new public works facility, police station and city hall, but not enough to construct a community center, Reese said.

"It’s possible by the time we’re ready to build city hall we might have enough money to build a community center."

Reese said Rosehill must be demolished to make way for underground parking that would be used by both city hall and a future community center.

"We have no interest in doing anything contrary to the school district deed," said Mayor Don Doran.

The center’s demise would displace scores of tenants and more than 400 children and adults who attend classes there, Preshaw said.

"The reason that (covenant) was put in there was because it was school district residents who paid for Rosehill in the first place," Preshaw said.

The Mukilteo School Board could once again become involved in Rosehill’s fate if it determines the city is violating the conditions of the deed, Preshaw said.

The Rosehill Community Center, which offers an array of art, music, exercise and dance classes, draws children and adults from outside Mukilteo, said Carol Harkins, director and founder of Gene Nastri School of Fine and Performing Arts, a Rosehill tenant.

Ann Adams-Day, 1980 chair of the Rosehill Community Board, said in the late 1970s the board saved Rosehill, considered prime view property, from being sold.

"We saved the land back in those days from developers for the people," Adams-Day of Borrego Springs, Calif., wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

"Many hours of volunteer time was given, including now dead Sen. (Warren G.) Magnuson, and former state Sen. Larry Vognild and the Everett Fire Department."

As it stands, Preshaw said the best solution is to keep Rosehill operating, "until a new community center offering all the current services is designed, built and operating."

Rosehill is scheduled for demolition in late 2002.

You can call Herald Writer Janice Podsada at 425-339-3029 or send e-mail to podsada@heraldnet.com.