EVERETT, Wash. — Everett is a divided city.
This is as the city goes ahead with a controversial plan to dismantle a historic gazebo and replace it with a dog park.
Clark Park sits in the heart of Everett’s Bayside neighborhood. At its center is a more than a century-old gazebo.
After years of complaints of illicit drug use inside the historic gazebo, the city plans to remove it and install a dog park.
There are strong advocates on both sides of this contentious issue.
Those who support the gazebo say it is part of Everett history that should be preserved. Others say it attracts a drug-taking crowd that makes the park unusable.
The issue is dividing neighbors.
This gazebo has graced Everett’s Clark Park for more than a century.
“I walk this park every morning, 365 days a year,” said Pat Stack. “Every day.”
So, Stack has grown to love the historic structure in her five years in this Bayside neighborhood. KIRO 7 asked if she’d like to see the gazebo stay or go.
“Stay,” she said, “and used during the holidays or special events or some kind of kid’s use.”
“It’s a nuisance to the high school,” said John Stejer. “Fentanyl all the time. I’m glad to see it go.”
Stejer, a longtime Bayside resident, says the gazebo has to go.
“It was fenced off for years,” he said. “They brought the fence down. And then the drug people moved in right away. And we never were able to use it as a community.”
Indeed, the city of Everett has struggled for years to make Clark Park. In 2017, the park was declared a SODA or Stay of out of Drug Areas to ban those who were arrested for drug crimes. Now the city plans to remove the gazebo and build a dog park.
But this 9-year-old girl, whose father granted permission to talk to us, says kids, not dogs, need this place.
“Because there are kids all around,” Leona Haggett said, “even more than people have dogs around this park.”
Neighbor Robert Blackard thinks the gazebo should stay, too.
“A city that loves to keep its historical being or just identity you know,” he said. “Why?”
And he doesn’t think removing the gazebo will achieve the city’s goal.
“It’s not going to stop the drug problem,” he predicts.
The work has not started here yet. But if all goes as planned, the gazebo will soon be dismantled and stored away.
And in a few months, there will be new lighting, new signage and a new dog park.
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