This afternoon full council confirmed the appointments of two people to the Board of Park Commisioners that we in my committee had the pleasure of talking to in committee last week: Diana S Kincaid and Tom Tierney.
Diana is a returning board member, who has been on the board since May 2009, and serving as Park Board chair since March 2012.
A longtime community volunteer, Diana served as president of Friends of Magnuson Park from 2003-2004, is a member of the Parks and Open Space Advocates (POSA) and currently represents the Park Board on the Central Waterfront Design Committee.
As my colleague on the Parks and Neighborhoods committee Tom Rasmussen remarked at the table, Diana has provided extraordinary service and we hugely appreciate her.
Most recently in addition to chairing the Park Board, Diana has been very involved in working to try to get the NOAA road opened in Magnuson Park.
Tom Tierney served as the Executive Director of the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) from 2004 to his retirement in September 2012.
We let him have about one and a half minutes of retirement before snagging him for the Park Board.
Before leading the Housing Authority, Tom was a senior executive at the Port of Seattle and before that, with the City of Seattle.
He has worked closely with the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) for 30 years, knows large departments and understands the challenges of big bureaucracy.
Tom is looking forward to tackling the funding challenges presented by a growing population using Parks that have a backlog of maintenance needs, and also wanting more and more green space. We’re looking forward to having him in that role.