SeaTac councilwoman offers salary to clean trashed park

SEATAC, Wash. — A SeaTac council member has offered her annual salary to help clean a park littered with graffiti and trash.

"It's filthy and dangerous, it's not safe for our citizens,” said Pam Fernald, SeaTac council member, as she walked through North SeaTac Park Sunday night.

She pointed to trash in the water and on the ground.

"What it is, is a nightmare right now,” said Fernald.

“It could be, it could be really beautiful,” she added.

Recently, during a park clean-up, she found drug needles. As she went to pick one up, she got pricked.

She’s since had to get various shots to ward off being infected with disease.

"It's just unthinkable to me,” said Fernald.

For eight years, she says, she’s been asking the city for money to clean the park up.

Now, she says, she's so fed up that she recently volunteered her entire city council salary to the effort: $12,000 a year.

“I was born and raised here, this is my neighborhood, damn it,” said Fernald.

“$12,000 might not be much, but that's how much it means to me. I wanna do something and I wanna do it now,” she added.

Fernald says it’s unlikely she will have to pay any of her own money, though. The city manager has pledged to come up with a plan to fund clean-up of the park by the end of May.

KIRO