Appeal Decision for Ingraham Trees

The Appeal to the School District Hearing Examiner for the Seattle School District regarding the Designation of Non-Significance for the Ingraham trees has been decided. True to all expectations the decision was in favor of the School District. The Designation of Non-Significance was upheld. This decision was then sent as a recommendation to the Superintendent of Schools. She upheld it too.

The reason this was not a surprise is that the School District has an advantage called a "weighted advantage", their experts and professionals are automatically assumed to be correct. The Appellants are automatically assumed to be wrong.

The reality is, the School District can call any piece of land that it desires to "develop" Environmentally Non Significant. By doing this, the School District then has the advantage in an appeal of being right. It is automatically assumed that the School District is RIGHT. The Ingraham appeal decision stated a more than Moderate Significant Environmental Impact to the neighborhood around Ingraham. 75+% Significant Environmental Impact. In the real world, that means the School District only had a Designation of 25% Non-Significance (an F). In the fair, Democratic world the Appellants won. In the SCHOOL DISTRICT world the Appellants lost.

Anyone, brave enough or brash enough to appeal a Decision of Hon-Significance must prove beyond a doubt twice that the School District is wrong.

The numbers look like this: Opening : School District 100% correct---The appealants 0 correct. The decision: School District 125%, Appealants 75%.

The scales of Justice began as unbalanced then ended as though they were in a kangaroo court.

We wait to see what the Department of Planning and Development will say.