The activists who killed a City plan to build a children’s playground at Denny Blaine Park are angry with Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell after texts from his private cell phone to millionaire philanthropist Stuart Sloan, the donor behind the playground project, showed that both men shared a mutual “disgust” for nude bathers at the queer beach. They also feel Harrell gave Sloan preferential treatment by arranging for City administrators to meet with Sloan to directly address concerns about legal nudity at the beach, and that Harrell’s office had been dishonest about its involvement with the playground plan.Â
The mayor’s office maintains that Harrell did not know Sloan pledged $1 million to pay for the playground, despite the texts, two in-person meetings with Sloan previously reported by The Stranger, and Sloan’s direct contact with the mayor’s staff.Â
Sophie Amity-Debs, co-lead organizer of Friends of Denny Blaine, a park stewardship group affiliated with the Seattle Parks Foundation, did not buy Harrell’s claim.
“That he has had a far greater involvement than he has let on has been pretty apparent from the start,” Amity Debs said. “That’s obviously a lie.”
Caught with Their Pants Down
In texts from Harrell’s personal cell phone between March 2023 to June 2023, Sloan called beachgoers “DISGUSTING” and urged the mayor to address the issue of nudity before summer. Sloan also sent Harrell and Seattle Parks and Recreation Superintendent AP Diaz photos of nude bathers, taking the “liberty” to black out the “privates,” of which “there were many.” When Sloan expressed his disgust about nudity, the mayor wrote, “If you are disgusted I share your disgust.”Â
After those texts, Harrell sent a top City administrator and Parks staff to help Sloan. City officials later visited Sloan’s home to present plans and the estimated cost for the playground months before the public knew about the proposal.Â
Both the mayor’s Communications Director Jamie Housen and Lee Keller, a representative for Denny Blaine Park for All, a group of neighbors that includes Sloan, told The Stranger that their concerns with Denny Blaine had nothing to do with queer people or nudity but rather trash, human waste, illegal parking, and lewd behavior like public sex and masturbation.Â
But mayor Harrell and Sloan only discussed nudity in the texts; Sloan referred to bathers as a “sub-group” from outside of Seattle with different morals than the rest of the city, “you and me included.”Â
Amity Debs said it is clear from texts that Sloan and the mayor are discussing nudity itself as a problem that needs to be dealt with.
“Maybe the morals in question are being nude in front of other people, but I think realistically it is an attack on something that is perceived as the dregs of society,” Amity Debs said. “It is very frustrating to hear that terminology leveraged against my community, either intentionally, or just because of the general perception that the public using the beach is dirty and unclean.”
The mayor’s office said in a statement that its understanding of “sub-group” was in reference to “unwanted, illegal and lewd behaviors.”
Colleen Kimseylove, another lead organizer of Friends of Denny Blaine, said the texts show a lack of “human empathy” on the mayor’s part.Â
“It's just pictures of naked people,” Kimseylove said. “It's not sex. It's not trash. It's not poop.”
Milo Kushold, a Denny Blaine activist who is not part of Friends of Denny Blaine, told The Stranger by text that they were disappointed overall that the City prioritized rich citizens over poor ones. They said the mayor should listen to everyone and not just people in “philanthropic positions.”Â
“And if they really can't stand having naked bodies near their multi-million dollar fences, I'd be delighted to see the funding of a new, nicer, larger nude beach somewhere else in the city,” Kushold added.
In a text to Parks Superintendent Diaz about the nude beach he was “trying to completely clean up,” Harrell said that he appreciated Sloan’s “philanthropic position.” The mayor’s office said that Harrell’s use of that phrase referred to Sloan’s philanthropy in general, not any specific project at Denny Blaine.
Beachgoer Lex Leighty, who was coincidently preparing to visit the beach when The Stranger reached them by phone, said between the Denny Blaine fiasco, Harrell’s focus on eradicating graffiti, and the City’s regular sweeping of homeless encampments, doting on the rich is something they’d come to expect from Harrell.Â
“Everybody else has to go through chains of command,” they said. “Everything the working class population has to deal with is so further down his list of to-do.”
Rivka, another regular visitor of Denny Blaine, said these texts caught Harrell and Sloan “with their pants down.” It was clear to her that they didn’t want queer people at the beach, especially not nude queer people.
In a statement to The Stranger last week, the mayor’s office said that at no point did Sloan refer to the sexual orientation or identity of the beachgoers, and that Sloan has never denigrated LGBTQ people in any conversations with the mayor.Â
“Additionally, his significant philanthropic donations have been made to the benefit of people of all backgrounds, identities, and orientations, including his $78 million donation to Fred Hutch–a leader on cancer healthcare for LGBTQ people,” said Mayor’s Office Communications Director Jamie Housen.
Neighbors group Denny Blaine Park for All said in a statement that this fiasco was only about people regularly “breaking the law in this park” with no enforcement of existing laws.Â
Since 2018, there have only been 11 calls to Seattle police regarding lewd conduct near or around Denny Blaine Park.
How Did All This start?
The Stranger first spoke to Amity Debs in November, shortly after she and other activists learned of the playground proposal; she and Kimseylove were among a handful of key organizers who mobilized against it.Â
Petitions against the proposal attracted hundreds of signatures, and activists later drew hundreds to a public meeting with the parks department on December 6, where community activists said installing a playground in this policial moment felt nakedly homophobic, perpetuating the “groomer” conspiracy that LGBTQ people seek to indoctrinate and sexualize children, and even put bathers at risk of catching an indecent exposure charge from a surprised and angry parent.Â
The gay and trans people who spoke lambasted the City for threatening a park that has been a summer haven and community institution since at least the 1980s. Days after the passionate public meeting, the parks department announced it would not be building a playground.
But that was not the end for Debs, Kimseylove, and their co-organizers. In the months after the meeting, they helped form Friends of Denny Blaine and began meeting with the parks department and neighbors who lived near the beach to hash out a compromise that ended conflict over its use.Â
The two sides emerged in May with a public proposal for supplemental use guidelines at the beach, which included an unpopular plan to cleve Denny Blaine into naked and clothed zones. The parks board was set to vote on the supplemental guidelines, but the department scrapped that plan before they even had the chance.
What’s Next?
Amity Debs said Friends of Denny Blaine will continue to facilitate as good of a relationship with neighbors as possible but added that none of them had reached out to activists about Sloan’s text messages.
“It is my sincere hope that Sloan and Harrell are a minority here and that it is not a sentiment that is held by the rest of the neighbors,” she said. “It is telling that Sloan is not the one who showed up to our meetings. I think he didn’t think that this disgusting subgroup was worth his time.”
Denny Blaine Park for All said in a statement last week that they remain committed to fostering “respect and civility to ensure Denny Blaine Park is a welcoming space for everyone [sic] including all visitors, families, the LGBTQ community and neighbors.”
Last week, Friends of Denny Blaine announced a $3.5 million fundraiser to pay for various park improvements, including regular water testing, the purchase of native plants to replace invasive species, bike racks, a summer shuttle, and bathrooms to replace Denny Blaine’s lone, hard-working porta-potty.Â
After Sloan and Harrell’s messages became public, Friends of Denny Blaine started a donation drive. Anyone who donates $25 will have a postcard with their name on it sent to the mayor’s office to remind Harrell, “This member of a disgusting subgroup votes.” A $1,000 donation will partially pay for a drag queen to deliver Devine’s filth monologue from John Waters’s Pink Flamingos outside the mayor’s office. So far, the group has raised about $3,000.Â
As of press time, no drag queens were set to bully the mayor.