Request for Informaton

City of Seattle
Key Tower
700 Fifth
Suite 4010
Seattle, WA
98104-5051

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2 November 2003
All Souls? Day

Re: Freedom of Information Act Request/Request for Information

Dear Information Officer;
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552 and any Washington State Statutes that may apply to a Request for Information. I request that a copy of the following documents and applicable information in whatever format be provided to me: ___John Dickinson____.

I am:
a. Filing this request en forma pauperis.
b. Affiliated with a non-profit, non-commercial institution, and this request is made for a scholarly purpose and not for a commercial use.
c. An individual seeking information for personal use and not for a commercial use.
d.An individual directly affected by the past actions taken by King County and the City of Seattle.

I am aware that I am entitled to make this request under the Freedom of Information Act and applicable Washington State Statutes governing a Request for Information, including local Public Diclosure rules, and if your agency response is not satisfactory, I am prepared to make an administrative appeal. Please indicate to me the name of the official to whom such an appeal should be addressed.
I am aware that if my request is denied I am entitled to know the grounds for this denial. I am aware that while the law allows your agency to withhold specified categories of exempted information, you are required by law to release any segregable portions that are left after the exempted material has been deleted from the data I am seeking.
I request a waiver of all fees for this request. Disclosure of the requested information to me is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government, and is not primarily in my commercial interest, nor a business trying to get information on industrial competitors.
If possible, I would prefer to see the original documents in person rather than having copies made, in order to avoid copying costs. Because subsequent requesters may also want copies of these documents, I do not consider it fair that as the first requester, I should bear the full cost of the initial search for this material.

Sincerely,

John Dickinson
5242 South Fontanelle Place
Seattle, WA 98118
206.721.3113
comet@worldperc.com

Request for Information
1. Any and all transcripts from cases designed to prevent graveyard restoration, including City of Seattle, v, John Dickinson and King County, v, John Dickinson. To include oral testimony by one David Kidney, King County, who falsely testified that John Dickinson fell one tree ten inches in diameter upon a prison worker?s back, thereby injuring him greatly. To include sworn affidavit by one Carla Gomez Cole, City of Seattle, who falsely testified that John Dickinson cut one tree containing the nest of internationally and Federaly protected red-tailed hawks, and all notes, conversations, enticements, promises of promotions, and encouragements that would lead to their testimonies under oath attesting to such fabrications.

2. Any and all costs relating to above cases including, but not limited to, all investigatory, litigatory, attorney, appellant, copying, delivery, preparatory, testimonies from expert witnesses, and any and all expenses relating to these cases.

3. Any and all information concerning the vacating of the graveyard on Capitol Hill at 1130 Broadway Avenue in 1876 or thereabouts, including, but not limited to, the locations, names, costs, and papers filed in Superior Court for vacating, papers of notifications of relatives or next of kin, costs associated with the disinterment, removal, re-interment and other costs associated with vacating this cemetery.

4. Any and all information concerning the vacating of the paupers? graves in Georgetown in 1905 or thereabouts, including, but not limited to, the locations, names, costs, and papers filed in Superior Court for vacating, papers of notifications of relatives or next of kin, costs associated with the disinterment, removal, re-interment and other costs associated with vacating a cemetery of 700-800 bodies.

5. Any and all information concerning the vacating of the graves at Greenwood Avenue North and 85 Street or thereabouts, including, but not limited to, the locations, names, costs, and papers filed in Superior Court for vacating, papers of notifications of relatives or next of kin, and costs associated with the disinterment, removal, re-interment and other costs associated with vacating a cemetery.

6. Any and all information concerning the vacating of the babies? graves in 1927, or thereabouts, including, but not limited to, the locations, names, costs, and papers filed in Superior Court for vacating, papers of notifications of relatives or next of kin, and costs associated with the disinterment, removal, re-interment and other costs associated with vacating cemetery property of 100-200 babies from the Comet Lodge Cemetery northern half.

7. Any and all information concerning the foreclosures upon Mr. Noice, deceased, and non-owner of the Comet Lodge Cemetery by King County and the City of Seattle in 1938.

8. Any and all documentation concerning attempts to save these sacred grounds known as the Comet Lodge Cemetery since the last burial in 1936 to the present. There were at least twenty-two (22) attempts via letters and formal requests to preserve, protect and promote the existence of this cemetery by non profit organizations and individuals, all without success because of direct action or inaction on the part of the City of Seattle and/or King County.

9. Any and all information concerning the City of Seattle?s purchases of graveyard property beginning in 1927 and continuing to the present. Re: Deed ordinances including, but not limited to: 89356, 86196, and 53346, those being portions of the northern half of the Comet Lodge Cemetery "Babyland".

10. Any and all information and documentation about the City of Seattle request to buy more graveyard property from King County in 1954.

11. Any and all information leading up to the decisions to take the sewer main into and through the Comet Lodge Cemetery in 1987.

12. Any and all information on the decisions by the City of Seattle to bulldoze the gravemarkers on November 2, 1987.

13. Any and all information on the decisions to declare the Comet Lodge Cemetery a retail space on the zoning maps and computer disks sold to potential developers after the gravestones were bulldozed in 1987 by the City of Seattle, to include, but not limited to public involvement, disclosures or decision making.

14. Any and all information on the awarding of contracts to convert the Comet Lodge Cemetery into the dogs run free neighborhood tombstone park that it has become today, including but not limited requests for proposals or competitive bids if any, the awarding of contracts to Andi Macdonald and her newly formed Washington State Cemetery Association (sic), stone masons for monument, for landscapers and landscape architects, maintenance groundskeeper, prisoner labor supervisors, boulder salespersons, any and all persons associated with the cemetery?s conversion and desecration and all the costs associated with these actions on the part of King County and its employees continuing to the present.

15. Any and all costs assumed by the City of Seattle in creating a community planning area around the Comet Lodge Cemetery by Carla Gomez Cole to keep it from be restored. Carla Gomez Cole, Neighborhood Service Center Director for City of Seattle in West Seattle at the time, used her offices, materials, time and personnel to create a neighborhood planning group in which she volunteered to be president thereby limiting any discussion or motions to restore the cemetery. Using City of Seattle facilities, office equipment, printing and time, she prevented several groups from restoring the cemetery thereby protecting her desecration activities from being unearthed.

16. Any and all emails, letters, correspondence, and any other communications that Carla Gomez Cole used to prevent the restoration of the Comet Lodge Cemetery, including, but not limited to, tens of emails to City Attorney, Sidran, and his offices, visits to King County Executive Ron Sims on City of Seattle time, travel to disrupt public meetings to prevent the Comet Lodge Cemetery?s restoration.

17. Any and all promises and or communications made to Carla Gomez Cole for her efforts to keep the restoration of the Comet Lodge Cemetery from happening, including, but not limited to, her promotion to the job of City Council Public Information Officer.

18. Any and all costs assumed by the City of Seattle Police Department which responded to at least six (6) calls made by Carla Gomez Cole to the Comet Lodge Cemetery to harass, intimidate and prevent volunteers with legitimate permits from restoring the Comet Lodge Cemetery. At one time at least six (6) cars responded to her call.

19. Any and all information and costs relating to the three (3) public meetings with Executive Ron Sims and his staff as well as Carla Gomez Cole and other City of Seattle staff relating to the conversion of the cemetery into what it is today, a dogs run free neighborhood park. This information should include notes taken by both King County and City of Seattle staff relating to promises that were made to the neighborhood and the descendents of those interred within the Comet Lodge Cemetery and the Tribal Leader for the Duwamish Nation, Cecile Hansen. In particular, but not limited to, promises that the cemetery would be restored with, in King County Executive Ron Sims? words, with "sensitivity, dignity, integrity and respect for our early settlers, and that the cemetery would be surveyed" and the promises of his staff that the grounds would be restore without the use of chemicals, that there would be nesting towers reaching for the clouds to satisfy the imaginations of Carla Gomez Cole about the red-tailed hawks that had built their nests in the trees that were removed, that a visual scrim/fence would be built to shield the view of the families who built their homes in the graveyard from the stones marking evidence that the land is a cemetery, and that the fence would not be a chain-link fence but one of trees such as cedar or cyprus and that it would not be turned into a dogs run free park as has happened.

20. Any and all information relating to the decisions by the City of Seattle not to assist in the restoration of the Comet Lodge Cemetery after being asked by John Dickinson in a request for matching funds from the Department of Neighborhoods or by three letters from King County Executive Ron Sims.

21. Any and all information relating or resulting in the decision from Mayor Greg Nickels? offices to issue the statement "We have no interest in the Comet Lodge Cemetery" "Any apologies at this time would cost too much money."

22. Any and all costs that have been assumed to prevent the restoration of the Comet Lodge Cemetery and the costs that will be assumed during the reading and researching of these requests.

23. Any and all information about the reasons that Carla Gomez Cole was fired from her position as Public Information Officer for the Seattle City Council.

In an effort to save the City of Seattle and King County money that they don't want buried in an unwanted cemetery, a link has been provided with a transcription of many of the documents being sought. These documents give a framework and calendar to assist in the search for the information that is being requested and is not a replacement for it. Comet Lodge Cemetery

NOTE: Since filing of this request there has been no responses from King County and only two responses from the City of Seattle: Mayor "We have no interest in this cemetery." ms x "Are you kidding?"