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Video: Parent complains about tent pitched on Seattle playfield

Someone pitched a tent in the corner of an end zone at a playfield in Interbay. (Contributed)

There’s a new obstacle for youth football in Seattle, and it has nothing to do with concussion concerns or new defensive schemes. The problem, according to a KIRO Radio listener, is a tent pitched in the corner of the end zone at the Interbay Filed, located off Dravus Street, between Magnolia and Queen Anne, that police can’t legally move.

“It’s on the very back line of the corner of the end zone, I guess it’s in a great position to take out the corner route for passes into the end zone,” a listener named Paul told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson.

The issue comes on the heels of an ordinance drafted by advocate groups that will dramatically alter how the city deals with homeless encampments. In short, the ordinance would only allow city officials to oust people from an encampment if it is interfering with public use. The city must provide at least 48 hours notice of the eviction and find the residents a new place to camp.

About three weeks ago, Dori spoke with Lisa Daugaard, director of the Public Defender Association, about his concern that the ordinance would ostensibly allow a homeless individual to set up a tent on a kids’ sports field and the police wouldn’t have any legal recourse to remove it. Daugaard dismissed the idea as a ridiculous hypothetical.

“Realistically, that’s not happening,” she said at the time.

Apparently, it is.

Paul emailed Dori a video of the situation and told him about issues he and the kids have had with homeless campers.

“I heard you talk to (Daugaard) on that day on that show and I knew at that time she wasn’t anywhere near reality because at our practice field and playfields where we play our youth football games, there are tents there every day,” he said.

And it gets worse than the video shows, Paul said.

“We’ve had instances where we’ve had to have people drug off the field who have passed out on the sidelines and we’ve had homeless people come over say, ‘We’ve got a guy over here who’s kind of laid out, do you mind if he just sleeps it off over there, can you practice around him?’” Paul said. “We don’t really know what to do about it. We’ve talked to the police down there. They park in the parking lot sometimes and they basically said, ‘Well, if they’re not hassling you, there’s nothing we can do about it, so you’ll just have to share the field with them.’”

A call has been placed to the Seattle Police Department and KIRO Radio is awaiting their comment on the issue.

Paul said he’s been coaching at the fields for six years and that his kids play there. He sets up the fields starting at 7:30 a.m. on Saturdays and he said, lately there have been two or three tents pitched in the corner of the end zone at the northwest end of the field.

“Bless the people at the Parks Department, they’ve actually been sticking their neck out and waking the people up and asking them if they could please move their tents because we’ve got 10, 12 hours of football games gonna be played there all day,” he said. “On this occasion, there was another tent holder who moved their tent away and this one last guy just didn’t respond and didn’t come out of his tent, and right at the northwest corner of the end zone there’s a blue and green tent there all day long while we’re playing football games.”

Paul said he and the other parents rent the field for the day.

“We paid for the field and we can’t get anybody in any official capacity to move a hazard out of the way,” he said. “… What strikes me as strange, I’m an adult and I’m used to this stuff, I see it all the time. The kids don’t even flinch anymore. They just do their laps around the tents. It’s just part of the landscape now. One of the things we do before games and before practices is show up 15, 20 minutes early, walk the field and the corners of the field where we gather on the sidelines and look for needles and drug paraphernalia.”