Suit may keep Summer Nights concert series out of Gas Works Park

A lawsuit filed today against the city of Seattle and producer One Reel aims to prevent the annual Summer Nights concert series from moving to Gas Works Park.

If the lawsuit is successful, the series almost assuredly would be cancelled for 2006.

Friends of Gas Works Park, a nonprofit advocacy group, is claiming the city violated state law when the Department of Parks and Recreation opted not to formally analyze the effects of having 17 to 23 nighttime concerts at the Wallingford area park. Up to 3,800 tickets are sold for each show.

State law "requires governments to look before they leap and evaluate environmental impacts before making decisions and taking actions," said David Bricklin, the group's attorney. "That was not done prior to making the decision to shift the concert series out to Gas Works."

Parks spokeswoman Dewey Potter said Tuesday that the department performs environmental reviews on projects that result in wholesale changes to a park, such as designating a section of a park as an off-leash area for dogs. Although the concert series would cut off a quadrant of Gas Works for the concerts, Potter said the change is temporary.

"The whole thing goes away after a number of weeks," she said.

Last summer, the concerts took place on the shore of South Lake Union, but construction of a new park there necessitated a search for a new venue. Prior to last summer, the concerts were at Piers 62/63, which need repair.

The City Council voted last month to move the concerts to Gas Works for the next three summers, even as Council President Nick Licata described the process of siting them there as truncated, noting that others would call it haphazard.

Cheryl Trivison, founder and board member of Friends of Gas Works Park, said one of the reasons the group decided to pursue legal recourse was because of "the way this whole deal was put together, totally ignoring the community. They wanted the deal done before they let it out to the public, and that's unconscionable."

The group also opposes fencing off a section of the park for the entire summer for a commercial venture as it restricts the use of the park for everyone else.

Trivison pointed to a parks department notice informing those interested in scheduling a picnic this summer that the city cannot reserve any event at Gas Works until May 1, "after we secure the dates of the summer concert schedule."

The notice goes on to say that reservations between May 1 and Sept. 30, "will be limited. When planning your event, please keep in mind that the concert venue will consist of fences and other large equipment that will remain in the park during the entirety of the summer."

Bricklin said an initial hearing on the lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court, is scheduled for March 16.

One Reel officials currently are booking performers for the series. They did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment but have said in the past that if the concerts cannot take place at Gas Works this summer, the series would have to be cancelled.

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com