September 24, 2025 Meeting Summary
-- see also the August 26, 2025 meeting summary
- Welcome and Introductions: Justin Camputaro, Marymoor Park Administrator; Greg Helland, FOMP President, online; Michael Hobbs, Marymoor Bird Survey, FOMP Secretary; Glenn Eades, Eastside Audubon Bird Loop, neighbor; Shai Hinitz, MAR/C; and Ethan Jablonow, Evan Stickles, and Nick Kramer, King County Park Rangers
- King County Park Ranger Program – Ethan took the lead in the presentation. This program started in May, 2025, originally with five rangers plus a supervisor. They are currently down to three rangers with an interim supervisor, but with the new levy passage, they are heading towards 11 rangers total. With levy funds, they should also have materials such as display tables, etc.
The role of the rangers is to increase a sense of safety and belonging for park visitors. They do not have law enforcement powers, but do make verbal warnings when appropriate, and can liason with law enforcement when necessary. They are often the first contact choice when there are issues of minor code violations (though homeless encampments are addressed by different county personnel). Park Rangers also do a lot of engagement work with park visitors.
While daylight hours are short, they are workin five 8-hour days a week (Tuesday-Saturday). In summertime, they work four 10-hour days.
Typically, Parks staff will contact the rangers of there is a long-term or persistent issue noted, as well as to call them in for events with lots of visitors, or for times when public outreach is appropriate.
Ethan has spent close to half of his days at least partially at Marymoor since the program started.
Michael offered to give a private tour of the park to any of the Park Rangers that would like to attend.
- CIP/Project/Facility Updates:
a. Eastside Audubon Birdloop: –They had a good turnout for their September work party - 25+ people! They are working around the Viewing Mound slope, trying to replace weeds with more natural plants.
b. Marymoor Community Gardens: – Season wrap-up near. At the end of August, 2557 pounds of veggies had been delivered to the Food Bank. This is less than last year, but still successful. Many flowers were also donated.
c. R/C Field (MAR/C): –
- The Fall Swap Meet was very well attended and lots of swapping successfully accomplished. The season's first club meeting was at the field, with a repair clinic to fix damaged planes. This week is the first annual Freestyle Fall Classic.
- A couple of members went to the NW Scale event in Othello and did well displaying their scale planes.
- Two members have started a model plane podcast.
- Shai thanked Parks for the maintenance done. He also noted that wildlife has been very happy with the irrigation of the runway.
- Shai said they are at a record number of members of nearly 300. Many of them are youth members.
d. Marymoor Velodrome Association: – Races are done for the year. Unfortunately, the final race had to be cancelled due to smoke. But overall, they had a good season. They also gave Parks a copy of the original blueprint of the velodrome, which now hangs in the park office.
e: SODA - Off-leash Dog Area: –
- Their first fall work party is this weekend.
- The northern culvert has had an end-screen added to keep dogs and debris out of the culvert.
- The tree removal that had been announced was delayed, probably until October.
- The Marymoor Off-leash Dog Area got the bronze award Seattle Times Best of the Northwest for places to take your dogs. The gold and silver winners were dog-friendly bars.
f. Concessions Updates: – Snack Shack owners are very happy with the way the summer has gone. Quite successful. They intend to be open year round, and may expand into having a cart. Justin had no update on the Dog Hair Don’t Car food truck, but they appear to be doing about as well as they expected.
h. Maintenance Items: –
- Patrick Tobin (“Pat”) will be taking over Monday as Maintenance Supervisor.
- Tennis court resurfacing is complete. Final part of the project will occur October 13-17, with a new light switch. This will allow user-control over the lights, giving a 30-minute illumination for a push. This will not be available 24-hrs; there will be off-hours.
- Seasonal crew ends October 15th, so staff will shrink by around 20 people.
i Events Updates: –
- The concert season went very well, with 21 concerts. The “Sublime” concert was the biggest concert ever here, with well over 6000 attendees. The final concert, with Band of Horses, unfortunately faced some some issues (that Justin did not elaborate on). The current company has 2 more years on their contract.
- Ganesh Festival was very successful, with a good plan. Attendance was around 6000/day for Sat/Sun and several hundred on Friday night.
- Justin has amassed pages of suggestions for improvements to the procedures and processes with regards to large events. He is very hopeful that things can be improved for future years.
j: Capital Site Planning: – Starting in October, Clise roof and gutter upgrades. More Clise improvements are coming soon. Kitchen, bathroom, and infrastructure improvement/renovations are planned. Levy money collection starts in 2026, but it may take up to a couple of years until Marymoor sees funding. But knowing that funding is coming means existing money can be spent more freely.
k: Sound Transit Light Rail: – Shazaad has confirmed that the Phase 2 of the trail from ST to the Marymoor Connector Trail is moving forward. This includes lighting, etc.
l. Cricket/Multipurpose Facility Proposal: – There is still no official proposal nor agreement. It appears consideration of any a facility is on indefinite pause until after the new King County Executive election in November.
- Marymoor Park Business Unit future planning – Greg raised questions about the name, “Business Unit.” Justin stated that it is the official name of his department. It does contain implications of it being solely interested in revenue generation, which some of us find a bit troubling.
Justin asked us to state what data we think it would be useful for Parks to gather about Marymoor. Shai immediately mentioned cut-through traffic numbers. Greg stressed that FOMP members have stressed that a balance between casual use and revenue generating events is very important.
- Other Business: – FOMP is changing the day of our monthly meetings to 4th Tuesdays!
By unanimous consent, FOMP meetings will move to 4th Tuesdays, though the question of November’s meeting is still slightly open. We have typically moved to the 3rd Wednesday in November, and the question remains whether we will move to the 3rd Tuesday or go with the 4th Tuesday in November.
Next meeting, TUESDAY, October 28th, 2025 in the Art Barn
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These notes do not constitute an official record of the meeting. They may have inaccuracies and omissions. If anyone has any complaints about the content of these notes, they should direct them to Michael Hobbs at fomp@marymoor.org, and he will endeavor to correct them.
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