Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You realize for every person that opposes a pool at Hearst, there are 20 that favor it.

Just saying it doesn't make it so. Would most people favor spending all this money on an itty-bitty pool that still will result in loss of part of the field, tennis courts and tree cover?

Then maybe the solution is to make it a big pool, as was suggested by some close by neighbors at the DPR meeting.

Then the Hearst field would be even smaller than the little kiddiie astroturf field. The fact is, DPR just can't fit everything at Hearst, even with a mini-pool. Too much program, too little space. Many people see that, perhaps even Mary Cheh now. But she is even more reluctant than Trump is to admit error.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You realize for every person that opposes a pool at Hearst, there are 20 that favor it.

Just saying it doesn't make it so. Would most people favor spending all this money on an itty-bitty pool that still will result in loss of part of the field, tennis courts and tree cover?

Then maybe the solution is to make it a big pool, as was suggested by some close by neighbors at the DPR meeting.

Anonymous wrote:"You realize for every person that opposes a pool at Hearst, there are 20 that favor it"

No. That's not actually true. Neighbors seem at least evenly divided in my conversations. When it comes to people who actually care, public meetings are overwhelmingly anti-pool.

This is an immediate neighborhood issue. Ward 3 people I talk to who live outside the six block radius don't seem to care at all.

No, there are people all over the ward who want an outdoor public pool. They lobbied Kathy Patterson and Jim Nathanson for years and now Mary Cheh. People don't care about the sanctimony of Hearst, but they want access to a nearby public outdoor pool.

You really are reading this wrong. Most people assume this is a done deal and see no need to post here or go to public meetings. Their voice has been heard. The nearby residents are the ones who are keeping this as an issue worth fighting for the myriad BS issues that keep getting churned in this thread. The fact that the closest neighbors are evenly divided should tell you something, because the other 80,000 of Cheh's constituents want this.

"You realize for every person that opposes a pool at Hearst, there are 20 that favor it"

No. That's not actually true. Neighbors seem at least evenly divided in my conversations. When it comes to people who actually care, public meetings are overwhelmingly anti-pool.

This is an immediate neighborhood issue. Ward 3 people I talk to who live outside the six block radius don't seem to care at all.

Anonymous wrote:You realize for every person that opposes a pool at Hearst, there are 20 that favor it.

Just saying it doesn't make it so. Would most people favor spending all this money on an itty-bitty pool that still will result in loss of part of the field, tennis courts and tree cover?

You realize for every person that opposes a pool at Hearst, there are 20 that favor it.

Anonymous wrote:This whole thing has blown up in Cheh's face. She thought that forcing the neighborhood to accept a homeless shelter would be balanced by shoving a pool in to the corner of Hearst Park. Quid Pro Quo. It didn't work. I didn't really care about Mary Cheh until three months ago. Now I know who I will never vote for again.

Cheh has always been arrogant, but it's gotten worse the longer she's been on the council. Perhaps she spent too much time as a law professor where she's used to be the one asking tough questions, not answering them. But what started off as a visible aversion to criticism and even just critical questions has morphed into She Who Knows Best Decides What Is Good For You. Whether it's the homeless shelter location, the pool location at Hearst, etc., Cheh makes up her own mind and then forces the agencies to follow without even much of a fig leaf of public input.

This whole thing has blown up in Cheh's face. She thought that forcing the neighborhood to accept a homeless shelter would be balanced by shoving a pool in to the corner of Hearst Park. Quid Pro Quo. It didn't work. I didn't really care about Mary Cheh until three months ago. Now I know who I will never vote for again.

Anonymous wrote:When our kids have used Hearst for practice, they were as old as 6th grade and used part of a corner with 4 other teams at the same time. It was fine.

And it was fine because it's a large field. Shrink the field to half its size, and a couple of those teams have to go somewhere else. Except there isn't somewhere else to go -- soccer fields are the most in-demand of DPR facilities and there is an enormous shortage.

Anonymous wrote:I didn't know there were high school games on the field this fall - that is new.

It's not new at all. Hearst is one of the very few DPR fields large enough for an 11 on 11 match.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The field doesn't need to be high school quality. It never has been. Frankly, the biggest use of the field is for 4 team to practice on it during the week and for the kiddie games to be played on it for the weekend.

Comparing it to the regulation size Sidwell field is a useless exercise. It can be the size of the field at Mann and be fine.

This season, the field is being used for high school games, 11 on 11.

The one thing you do have right is that the field being proposed is roughly the size of the Mann field. The field at Mann is used for games by fourth graders, who play 7 on 7. There's no way four teams could practice on that field, two maybe if they were young.

It seems that the Cheh plan for Hearst is to build a glorified kiddie pool and shrink the soccer pitch to a kiddie field.

When our kids have used Hearst for practice, they were as old as 6th grade and used part of a corner with 4 other teams at the same time. It was fine.

I didn't know there were high school games on the field this fall - that is new.

Anonymous wrote:The field doesn't need to be high school quality. It never has been. Frankly, the biggest use of the field is for 4 team to practice on it during the week and for the kiddie games to be played on it for the weekend.

Comparing it to the regulation size Sidwell field is a useless exercise. It can be the size of the field at Mann and be fine.

This season, the field is being used for high school games, 11 on 11.

The one thing you do have right is that the field being proposed is roughly the size of the Mann field. The field at Mann is used for games by fourth graders, who play 7 on 7. There's no way four teams could practice on that field, two maybe if they were young.

The field doesn't need to be high school quality. It never has been. Frankly, the biggest use of the field is for 4 team to practice on it during the week and for the kiddie games to be played on it for the weekend.

Comparing it to the regulation size Sidwell field is a useless exercise. It can be the size of the field at Mann and be fine.

Anonymous wrote:I favor an alternative that puts a bigger pool where the tennis courts currently are located, and then use the tennis court configuration from alternative C. If you do that, then you can have a bigger soccer field, the tennis courts and a more usable pool.

That seems to be a triple win.

Look at the aerial photo on page 7, where it shows how much space the existing soccer field takes up. There's no way to add tennis courts there without substantially shrinking the soccer field. For good measure, the photo shows part of Sidwell's field, which gives an indication of the length of a proper high school soccer field, and you can see that the existing field is already undersized.

Anonymous wrote:According the the NW Current, Mary Cheh favors the alternative that would place the pool closest to the upper playground and Hearst school and farther away from homes adjoining the park. This seems sensible.

In other words, the option that shrinks the soccer field the most.