Whale Scout details restoration, education work at former Wayne Golf Course as city closes master-plan RFPs

Whale Scout and City of Bothell staff described recent habitat-restoration work at the former Wayne Golf Course and next steps on city master planning during the Parks and Recreation Board’s December 2024 meeting.

The presentation, given by Rachel, Whale Scout’s student and community education coordinator, outlined volunteer plantings, community education events and an internship program tied to restoration at the former Wayne Golf Course. “By the end of the planting season, we'll have about 504 trees and shrubs in the ground,” Rachel said, summarizing the planting target. She told the board Whale Scout has expanded outreach—counting school and senior events—and has partnered with UW Bothell students on water-quality and vegetation monitoring and a recent planting project that placed roughly 270 trees and shrubs in one site.

The presentation stressed riparian benefits for salmon and, by extension, southern resident orcas. Rachel said the group focuses on riparian forest restoration to improve water quality, reduce erosion and expand wildlife habitat in the corridor that connects to downstream salmon migration routes. She described Whale Scout’s work at two city-connected sites: the former Wayne Golf Course and a Bear Creek site in Redmond, and thanked City of Bothell staff for assistance with debris hauling, grant-support letters and event coordination.

City staff updated the board on related planning work. Parks and Recreation Director Nick Stroop said the city closed its RFP for the PROS (parks, recreation and open space) plan and, separately, the RFP/RFQ process for the Fort Wayne (former Wayne Golf Course) master plan. The staff review for the Fort Wayne proposals will begin immediately: “We received 12 of them. Next week, our internal staff will be reviewing those 12, and we hope to get it down to a manageable number to bring back, to do interviews with,” Stroop said. For the PROS plan, board members heard earlier in the meeting that seven proposals were received when that RFP closed.

Stroop said the consultant work is funded for a February 2025 kickoff and that the board will have multiple touch points in the master-planning process, including presentations, open houses and community outreach. He described the Fort Wayne corridor as a largely passive-use area offering a significant opportunity for large-scale habitat restoration and said Whale Scout is a key on-the-ground partner.

Board members and staff discussed coordination with other jurisdictions and programs that fund watershed-scale work. Rachel and board members noted King County and regional coordination on fish-passage and river restoration; Rachel said multi-jurisdictional efforts (a local coordinating body she referred to as “Riot 8” in the meeting) help prioritize streams for funding. City staff also noted partnerships with surface-water staff and the potential to extend restoration to parcels that feed sediment into the creek.

The board praised Whale Scout’s outreach and volunteer recruitment. Several board members described the organization’s events—including a SilverSneakers walk, a mason-bee building workshop and a community “curious step” speaker series—as bringing new users to the park and broadening participation beyond typical stewardship volunteers.

The board did not take a formal vote on funding or the master plan at this meeting; staff described next steps for consultant selection and public engagement in early 2025.