Laurelhurst resident Dixie Wilson withdrew a lawsuit she filed in February against the Laurelhurst Community Club (LCC) last week after, she says, the proceedings proved her point: The group does not represent every resident of Laurelhurst. And leading Seattle land-use attorneys agree that Wilson's lawsuit has weakened the group's credibility.

In December 2008, the LCC filed an appeal to block a proposed expansion of Seattle Children's Hospital. Over the last two years, the group has spent $34,900 in legal fees challenging the hospital's growth. Although the LCC claimed in its appeal to represent "the interests of the community's 2,800 households and businesses," the group never polled its members on the decision to fight the expansion of the hospital. And when pressed to name its members in court, the group could produce only a post-office-generated list of addresses in the area.

"We feel it is a great victory that the membership list doesn't exist and that it was recorded in [King County] Superior Court," says Wilson, who supports the hospital expansion. Wilson points out that several hundred addresses included in the list are not actually in Laurelhurst, but in nearby neighborhoods, including Bryant, Windermere, and Ravenna. Under the standards used by the LCC, Wilson says, "I could form a [community group] and say I represent all of Seattle."

Over the next 20 years, Children's Hospital—which serves sick kids from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana—foresees the need for 350 new hospital beds, says Ruth Benfield, vice president of the hospital's Facilities and Psycho-Social Services. In December, the city gave the hospital preliminary approval to expand, and in February, a volunteer group tasked with ensuing the project jibes with citizen interests also gave the expansion a thumbs up.

Now, two leading land-use attorneys say the LCC's inability to name the people it claims to represent damages the group's credibility in any future legal action on the neighborhood's behalf.

"It would make any claim that [the LCC] represents all those people pretty dubious, to put it mildly," says Bob Johns, a Seattle land-use attorney. "I think it would affect their credibility in front of the hearing examiner."

Johns adds that as a nonprofit corporation, the LCC is "required by state law to have a record of its members, including names and addresses. If they don't have that documentation, you have to wonder if the people at those addresses are actually members."

Peter Buck, another Seattle land-use attorney, concurs. "The [LCC]... has no list of members and doesn't poll those people on land-use issues, and they have been suggesting otherwise."

The LCC has a long history of fighting development "in the interests of" the 2,800 area households—even beyond the borders of Laurelhurst. For example, the group protested new playfields at Magnuson Park and opposed buildings taller than six stories in the Roosevelt neighborhood.

"They sort of portray themselves as the voice of the community," says Dewey Potter, spokeswoman for Seattle Parks and Recreation, who has interacted with the group on issues related to Magnuson Park. "We think it is not the community overall; it is just some individuals."

"I would expect to see in the near future a group of people form a second Laurelhurst council that would more fairly and democratically represent the neighborhood," says Wilson. She believes such a group would focus on issues "directly relating to the residents of the neighborhood and not continually spending time and money fighting issues that don't pertain to Laurelhurst."

The city hearing examiner has not yet issued a decision on the LCC's appeal of the Children's Hospital expansion, and LCC president Jeannie Hale has not returned calls for comment.