Robert Sondheim

Robert Sondheim

Seattle City Council

Position 1

2007 CITY OF SEATTLE CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

 

Historic Seattle thanks you for taking time out of your busy campaign schedule to complete this questionnaire. Your responses on the questionnaire will be placed on Historic Seattle's website and provided to our members, local media outlets, and other interested parties.

 

1.  Building public awareness:  What priority do you assign to Seattle's efforts to educate community residents about the importance of historic preservation?

 

x High Priority              □ Medium         □ Low              □ No opinion

 

Statement: Saving our heratage comes through education of not only community leaders and residences, but to make sure that they are made aware to educate future generations as well.

 

2.  Revitalizing neighborhoods:  What priority do you give to assuring that Seattle has the financial resources required to play a significant role in revitalizing historic neighborhoods?

 

x High Priority              □ Medium         □ Low              □ No opinion

 

Statement: I am a member of the Pike/Pine Urban Neighborhood Committee (PPUNC)and we are trying to get the Pike/Pine corridor established as a historic district, so I am all to aware of the job and finding the resources to revitalize a historic neighborhood.

 

3.  Preserving designated City landmarks:  What priority do you give to sustaining Seattle's designated landmarks and saving other landmark-eligible historic places as properties that enable residents to see history and learn from it?

 

x High Priority              □ Medium         □ Low              □ No opinion

 

Statement: Too many of our beautiful land marks in Seattle have gone the way of the bulldozer, and we need to save what we have left weather it is mid 20th century or late 19th century. It is such a shame that we are loosing these bits of history.

 

4.  Protecting Seattle's heritage in court:  What priority do you assign to the work of the Hearing Examiner and City Attorney regarding the preservation of designated City landmarks and landmark-eligible properties?

 

x High Priority              □ Medium         □ Low              □ No opinion

 

Statement:  We need to influence our officials the importance of our early architecture. We need to stop destroying and start preserving our landmarks by working with contractors to encorporate new structures with old.

 

5.  Advocacy for historic homeowners:  How do you rate Seattle's efforts to influence public policy and public perceptions around the benefits of preserving significant historic residences?

 

□ High Priority              □ Medium         □ Low              □ No opinion

 

Statement:  This is a high priority with me, but it seems to be a low priority on behalf of Seattles efforts in trying to save historic residences.

 

6.  Influencing public policy:  What priority do you place on Seattle's work to foster preservation-friendly policies and funding?

 

□ High Priority              □ Medium         □ Low              □ No opinion

 

Statement:  Again I see that Seattles work to preserve is lacking allowing our preservation to be a low priority.

 

7.  Supporting historic preservation:  What priority do you assign to sustaining and funding Seattle's Historic Preservation Program in the Department of Neighborhoods?

 

x High Priority              □ Medium         □ Low              □ No opinion

 

Statement:  Our neighborhoods have a lot of character, from its architecture, and now that is being lost and homes from lot line to lot line is the norm. We must work to preserve the individual-ness of our neighborhood character and influence the Department of Neighborhoods to take a better look into what they are permitting.

 

8.  Funding for preservation projects:  What priority do you assign to the provision of grants and revolving loans for Seattle's private historic preservation projects?

 

x High Priority              □ Medium         □ Low              □ No opinion

 

Statement:  What ever we need to do to preserve our past.

 

I would like to say that I am not opposed to growth in our city, but I celebrate the past as well and no better way to show testimony to our past is through our architecture. My family has been apart of Seattle for over one hundred years. I live on Queen Anne Hill because I grew up in this area, but there is no better place to observe historic Seattle. And each time I see an architecturaly significant home or building come down I feel a great sence of loss that a piece of history is lost. I have been a docent and volunteer with the muesum of History and Industry for over thirty years.