Why are Hospital related staff allowed to take up at least 20 spaces every day on NE 50th Street rather than parking at the Hospital's employee parking lot at Magnuson?
In a document titled "Parking Policy and Enforcement FAQ Laurelhurst" sent to the Laurelhurst Blog by Edna Shim, "Regional Government Affairs & Community Relations," it states (in part):
Seattle Children’s Parking Policy and Enforcement FAQ 2022: Laurelhurst Neighborhood
Our parking policy states members of Seattle Children’s workforce are not allowed to park in the neighborhood. We have a strong systematic commitment to enforce this policy. Seattle Children’s parking policy and restrictions are in effect 24/7. Violations of Seattle Children’s parking policy are tracked and treated as a performanceissue.
On a daily basis, our parking enforcement staff patrol neighborhood streets, rotating through several neighborhood patrol zones in a randomized order to prevent enforcement predictability. We monitor suspected parking violators by running these license plates through Children’s workforce database.
One neighbor said:
We really appreciated Tom patrolling our streets and looking into cars that seemed to be with the Hospital, as we know the Hospital has a strict parking policy about parking in the neighborhood. He always followed up on our calls and did thorough research on every car. For almost a year we have never seen the Hospital Security car in the neighborhood, never. That allows Hospital staff to park anywhere they want, with no consequences, taking up valuable parking spaces. And it completely misrepresents what Children's has told neighbors regarding their strict employment parking policy.
Since Tom retired, there are consistently and daily many areas in the neighborhood that Hospital staff are regularly parking in - the corner of NE 45th Street and 45th Avenue NE near Seattle Community Church, corner of NE 45th Street and 43rd Avenue NE, 41st Avenue NE, up and down NE 45th Street, 46th Avenue NE, 44th Avenue NE and other locations.
And NE 50th Street has had the most Children's staff parked from Sand Point Way up to 45th Avenue NE. This effectively takes up almost every single parking spot on NE 50th Street. One neighbor reported counting 30 cars in one day, evident by the out of state license plates and observing drivers walking directly in to the Hospital campus. Neighbors report they have talked to some of the vehicle owners who confirm they work for the Hospital. And cars generally arrive between 7-8am and leave about 12 hours later. Neighbors report that all the non-resident cars have out of state plates.
One neighbor commented:
NE 50th Street has effectively become a side road and free overflow parking lot for the Hospital and it's very unfair to the residents for the Hospital to use residential streets as their additional parking lot. It's unclear why parking violations are clearly going unnoticed when the Hospital is aware of the situation.
The Hospital related staff also create a safety issue parking most times almost down to Sand Point Way, on the corner, making visibility turning right onto NE 50th and also left onto Sand Point way very hard. Many of the cars are also parked illegally too close to the stop sign at the intersection with Sand Point Way.
In the last 7 months, the hospital appears to have taken little action so that residents can park in front of their own homes, rather than a block or so away.
Neighbors wonder what can be done to ensure they still can park near their home as the Hospital appears to not be implementing consequences for parking on the street.
The only time the Hospital monitored the area was shortly before Tom retired. He and other staff in the Parking Planning and Operations Team were in regular contact with a neighbor even saying:
There is an unusually high number of out of state travelling nurses filling in a staff shortage and we believe it has been a miscommunication with these folks as they onboard that is causing the problem. Over the next two weeks, we will schedule 3 mornings for someone on the ground to intercept arriving cars and redirect them. Please keep us in the loop as this may continue to flare up.
Then suddenly the neighbors' emails were forwarded to Edna Shim in "Regional Government Affairs & Community Relations," and the officers no longer checked on NE 50th Street or even continued communications with neighbors as they had consistently been doing.
Edna took over the communications on behalf of the Hospital though she is not involved with Hospital Parking Enforcement and it appears that parking personnel are no longer allowed to respond to anyone.
The Laurelhurst Blog's attempts to interact with Hospital Parking Enforcement directly, as has happened seamlessly for over a decade, was also suddenly stopped by Edna Shim who said:
As you are aware, our Transportation and Security teams are working on multiple solutions. Moving forward I will be your primary point of contact regarding neighborhood concerns.
Seattle Children’s remains committed to enforcing our parking policy to reduce the impacts on our neighborhood. Seattle Children’s continues to communicate and enforce the neighborhood parking policy for all workforce members.
However if enforcement was happening, then it is unclear why 20-30 cars are still parking on NE 50th Street for almost 8 months.
Edna said that these action items are being taken, however neighbors have only seen these items followed through on once or twice:
This location a large portion of them are contract staff with non-Washington State license plates which makes it more challenging to identify the owner. Here’s what we have done and continue to do until the issue is resolved:
• Prioritize this location, in enforcement rotation, for new parking enforcement staff
• Parking enforcement staff on the curb intercepting would-be parkers
• Parking enforcement staff writing citations
• Parking staff leaving flyers on the cars regarding parking policy
• • Strengthen signage about no parking in neighborhood. On-street signage is at the discretion of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).:
Edna also sent this information:
When the pandemic hit in 2020, there was an Emergency Order signed by then Mayor Durkan and later Mayor Harrell, extending free on street parking to hospital employees. We continue to check with the City specifically SDOT and SDCI, as to when the temporary suspension of parking requirements for all Major Institutions (hospitals and colleges) will sunset. It’s our understanding that SDCI believes that certain elements are still in place. It’s possible that the street parking exemption will expire this summer depending on the COVID-19 situation.
However, SDOT provided this information to the Laurelhurst Blog:
In March 2020, the City of Seattle began implementing temporary permits to create on-street parking around certain healthcare institutions, and discontinued issuing these temporary permits last year.
In June 2020, Children’s Hospital informed us that they would accommodate their employee parking on the hospital property and no longer needed reserved parking on city streets.
Neighbors provided these solutions to the Hospital saying "It is unclear why this has not been resolved, these are immediate, inexpensive and effective solutions."
- sign be installed on the Hospital property along NE 50th that reminds employees that parking in residential neighborhoods isn’t allowed
- designate onsite free parking for travelling nurses
- reached out to the traveling nurse agency
- have a patrol officer at the street at 7am to remind staff of Hospital parkign policy
- put fliers on cars with Hospital parking policy
- cite cars immediately when neighbors call in
- mandate that employees update their vehicle registration info
The Laurelhurst Blog also reached out to Jamie Cheney, Director of the Transportation Department and she sent what appears to be a message only intended for staff saying on June 24:
Vickie, Lisa and Samuel-
I think Edna is on vacation. I will set up a time on Monday to discuss with you three.
However, the Laurelhurst Blog, nor any neighbors have received any responses since that date and the parking issue still continues with 2-3 blocks taken up by Hospital staff.
One neighbor commented:
I fully expect employees to continue to park on the street. This isn’t sustainable for the neighborhood. On one day, neighbors reported that there were only 4 cars that were parked on NE 50th Street that actually belonged to residents. All the other cars belonged to Childrens employees.
Some of the townhomes on NE 50th Street still remain vacant, but once these get sold, there will likely be many more cars parked on NE 50th. This would be totally fine on it’s own, but if you combine this with Childrens staff filling most of the street already and no parking allowed on 44th Avenue NE, then parking will consistently overflow up the hill on NE 50th Street.
NE 50th street also gets a lot of traffic and it’s inconvenient to have it effectively become a one way road due to the large volume of Seattle Childrens employees that choose to park here.
In the past, Seattle Childrens had staff dedicated to enforcing staff parking restrictions. It seems evident that this enforcement has, for the most part, stopped. NE 50th Street is consistently used by hospital employees so that they can avoid paying for parking.
Having a long line of cars parked all the way to the bottom of the hill on NE 50th Street where it connects with the very busy Sand Point Way is also super unsafe. I’ve watched two cars in the past week nearly hit each other as one makes a quick right onto NE 50th Street, not expecting another car to come down the hill.
Another neighbor said:
It's unclear why Children's is clearly not being a good neighbor. They say they enforce their parking policy, however they do not, evident on NE 50th Street going on almost a year. They no longer patrol our neighborhood and they do not attend to neighbor reports.
Edna has shut down any communication and now does not even have the courtesy of responding though she is the neighborhood liaison. It is almost insulting that the Hospital would treat their neighbors in such a manner. There are simple and immediate solutions that can be implemented so that everyone is happy.
And one other neighbor commented:
We have always loved living in Laurelhurst and the Hospital has always been a good neighbor. However in the last year, the tables have completely turned, with Edna taking over. Our basic need to park near our residence has been removed, with no end in sight. Being elderly, we feel most safe parking close to our residence, but can no longer do so. Yet the Hospital continues to ignore this issue and does even have the decency to communicate to neighbors.
Jim Sawyer, Hospital Director of Security, told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff at one time:
The Hospital takes its street parking restrictions very seriously. Hospital Security actively tickets the streets seven days a week, and attempts to respond to all complaints within an hour. We respond to any and all Transportation requests for enforcement help of any kind. This is a priority for our patrol and enforcement team. We patrol and ticket the streets regardless of whether we receive calls or not. If one of our neighbors calls we have and will give their concern priority response.
We have a systematic process in place to enforce parking which includes regular (but variable by time and day) patrols, database tools to look up and cross reference license plates and the ability to deliver citations remotely which allows us to scale enforcement.
Workforce are required by hospital policy to register their vehicle and to keep this information up to date. The hospital also has access to the DOL database for looking up suspected vehicles out of compliance. If the name does not match a workforce member, we can also attempt to match the registered owner address to workforce members living at the same address.
There are no assigned parking areas in the neighborhoods - all assigned areas are on hospital property or in one of our designated off site lots.
We advise staff there is no cut off street distance-all street parking is unauthorized. By cut off distance we mean-if an employee were to ask “If I park a mile and a half away and walk in-is that ok”? If-when we field these questions we answer that "no -you need to park in your assigned area if you drive-there is no amnesty so to speak if you park a greater distance away".
Human Resources takes street parking very seriously - it is a performance issue that will or can impact ones employment. If an employee is a repeat offender it becomes a serious performance issue which could result in disciplinary action up to and including termination.
Parking Enforcement can be reached at: Transportation@seattlechildrens.org or call 206-987-5500. Include vehicle location, time, license plate number, and vehicle description.
Here is other contact information:
- Jamie Cheney (Director of Transportation): jamie.cheney@seattlechildrens.org, cell: 206-696-6824
- Drew Dresman (Parking Planning and Operations Supervisor): drew.dressman@seattle.childrens.org, cell: 206-349-2273
- Jim Sawyer (Security Director): Jim.sawyer@seattlechildrens.org, office: 206 987-6213
- William Woodward (Security Supervisor): william.woodward@seattlechildrens.org, office 206-987-2030
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