Citizen Activist `Works For What's Right' -- Charlie Chong Is Devoted To Improving Community

Where there is a ravine in West Seattle to be kept wooded and wild, a polluted stream to be restored to its former pristine state, or a good school program to be supported, there is Charlie Chong.

With his quick step and twinkling eye, the bearded Chong has emerged as one of the city's leading citizen soldiers in the march to improve the community. Not just on his home turf of West Seattle's Admiral District, but throughout southwest Seattle and beyond.

If you want something done, call on Charlie Chong. That's the word out on this retired federal bureaucrat who drives a battered Plymouth and lives in a big, brown house in need of repair.

He may not be a leader, and he says he is not, but he is a stalwart standard bearer for people who help him.

Chong, 64, is a pepper pot of ideas when it comes to community issues. Some say he must have a personal agenda, such as to make a name for himself so he can run for political office. He says not.

Chong became president of the Admiral Community Council in 1989, a district overlooking Duwamish Head and Alki Beach, but his interests often take him beyond there. He is a member of the city's citizen open-space committee and the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce. He recently became a director of Vision Seattle, the civic group that led the successful move to restrict the height of downtown buildings.

For a person who always seems to wear a coat of friendly

demeanor and interest, the words he frames in his soft voice can have surprising sharpness.

Listen to him on the busing of school students:

``West Seattle lost the busing war. Schools here used to be catalysts for community activity. Now they are not because the children go to school elsewhere. (The school district) tried to achieve racial integration on the backs of little children.''

Here's what he says about the administration of former Mayor Charles Royer:

``Charley Royer turned the city over to developers, and his staff promulgated regulations that were not followed. Royer and the City Council failed to take steps to protect natural areas.''

On a cool and cloudy morning, Chong got in his car to point out some of what he likes and dislikes about what has happened in West Seattle.

First stop was Schmitz Park, its huge old trees silent and still, like a slice of forest wilderness transported to the city. ``Some of these trees are 100 years old,'' Chong says. ``We have to save similar pockets of trees, even if they aren't as grand as these.''

Then he drives to the top of a bluff at a street end overlooking Alki and Puget Sound. The view is stunning, with Vashon Island in the distance and ferryboats moving like toys. This is where an environmental battle was lost, Chong says.

A tall apartment building will rise on the bluff, he says, blocking the view for the public, despite the opposition of Alki residents who wanted the bluff to remain as it is, a bit of open space, high on a promontory.

Next, he wants to show ``what happens when the city gives permits and then doesn't watch the building that follows.'' He stops at new apartments perched halfway up a potentially unstable hillside. ``This represents a failure to protect the public. I can show the regulations that say this kind of thing shouldn't happen,'' Chong says.

Don't misunderstand him, he says; there are many capable city employees engaged in processing construction projects who care deeply about the city and how it develops. His quarrel is with past policymakers.

Driving farther south, he comes to a scene that gives him pleasure, not far from the Fauntleroy ferry terminal. It is of Fauntleroy Creek, murmuring as it runs down a grassy gully. This is where residents have joined forces to try to restore a salmon run.

Later, in the very southwest tip of West Seattle, in Arroyos community, he shows what he calls a treasure: a big grove of green madrona trees on a hillside, startling in their sudden color after the bareness of the hill. Fine homes dot the scene above.

Chong says the trees should remain there, in a natural preserve, but he feels the hot breath of developers. As he drives along a dirt road at the base of the grove, he points out for-sale signs and pink ribbons among the thick stand of trees, indicating that surveyors had been at work there.

``It will be gone in a few years,'' Chong says wistfully.

Chong, who is married, has lived in Seattle since 1970 and was an official in the regional office of the Community Services Administration when that federal anti-poverty agency was closed. He found himself out of a job and chose to retire in 1983. Born on the island of Maui in Hawaii, he has also lived in Arkansas, Minnesota and Alaska.

In Seattle, neighborhoods have a strong identity, lending a rich mosaic pattern to daily life, and Chong is proud to represent one of them.

The bureaucrat-turned-civic activist became president of the Admiral Community Council in the fall of 1989, shortly after moving to the district, saying he was pushed into the presidency. ``People made a mistake. I said I'm not a leader.

``Don't call me a leader, I'm a pushee.''

The president of the Seattle Neighborhood Council, Kent Kammerer, said Chong has ``a way of bringing people together and reaching consensus.'' Chong thinks of himself as a ``facilitator.''

Tom Tierney, deputy chief of staff for Mayor Norm Rice, said of Chong: ``He's working for what's right in the community. Some community activists work on what's wrong, and Charlie's building what's good for the community. He promotes open space and bridges gaps between residents and, let's say, the chamber of commerce.''

Chong agrees with developers on at least one point.

``Developers say community councils are not representative of neighborhoods, and I say they are right. If we were representative of the people in the neighborhoods, we'd be home watching television and washing our cars,'' he said.

He also says it doesn't take that many hard-working volunteers to get things done:

``If you have six workers in a neighborhood organization, you have a good organization. If you have 12, you have a strong organization. If you have 24, you can run the city.''

As it happens, Chong said, the twinkle in his eye brightening, his community council has just reached that pinnacle of 24.