City Hall Is Back on Denny Blaine

After trying and failing to erect a playground at Denny Blaine Park, the queer, nude beach on Lake Washington, the millionaire owner of University Village and his wealthy neighbors want a city Park Ranger stopping by to to keep watch for public pee-ers and masturbators at the beach, much to the frustration of the park’s queer-led stewardship group.

The move has kicked up a two-year fight between beachgoers and its neighbors—the former to protect a historically queer space, and the latter to exert some control over it.

To recap, Stuart Sloan, the aforementioned millionaire, lives next to Denny Blaine Park, which has been a queer, nude beach for at least four decades. Tired of the naked people outside his mansion, Sloan donated $1 million to the city in 2023 to build a children’s playground at Denny Blaine. To ease his plan along, Sloan appeared to leverage his connection with Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, whose office staff, and staff at the Seattle Parks Department, met with Sloan to update him on its progress. Harrell has denied knowing the identity of the donor, despite the two meeting the day after the city killed the playground and Sloan texting Harrell’s personal cell phone in March 2023 to complain of the “DISGUSTING” nudity at the beach, complete with photos of naked people, whose butts and penises Sloan took the “liberty” of digitally scribbling out. For modesty. (A spokesperson for Sloan previously told The Stranger the only concern was illegal activity, but the photos did not show it and the exchange did not mention it).

When Sloan’s plan went public, the gay community saw it for the deterrent it was, and organized, pushing the city to dump the plan and save the summer. Last Spring, neighbors and the activists, who’d by that time formed the Seattle Parks Foundation affiliated Friends of Denny Blaine Park, tried to hash out a solution that would make everyone happy, but those conversations didn’t go anywhere.

Neighbors, who formed their own group, Denny Blaine Park for All, took their grievances to Hollingsworth, who said on a recent episode of the podcast Seattle Nice that neighbors thought peeing and masturbation were out of control. Denny Blaine Park for All did not respond to a request for comment.

“A small group, I’d say about 10 percent of folks, who go down there and there’s inappropriate behavior,” she said. “Masturbation. Indecent exposure. Relieving themselves in the bushes or in the lake.”

If 10 percent of people at Denny Blaine were masturbating and pissing everywhere, it would be an empty, sticky, stinky beach, not a desirable summer spot. Hollingsworth clarified she hadn’t promised neighbors a Park Ranger, and conceded the number was just a guess–it could as easily be 0.5 percent–to convey how few people were doing that, and that they were coming from outside the community.

To be sure, masturbation happens. When Friends of Denny Blaine Park, the stewardship group that grew from the activist movement to fight the playground, surveyed 58 beachgoers, half said they’d seen masturbation at least once. Most said they had not been sexually harassed at the beach, but those who did had dealt with inappropriate sexual comments, intense staring, and run of the mill creeps pestering them while they sunbathed. But the overwhelming consensus from park goers is that they want the community to handle these incidents, not the city, says Colleen Kimseylove, who co-runs Friends of Denny Blaine. 

Kimseylove has planned a series of intervention trainings for this summer meant to help people handle the occasional weirdo. Kimseylove thinks the root of that behavior lies in people thinking they’re getting away with something, or that nudity is a secret act. Equipping people with skills to interrupt this behavior keeps the beach a “dignified, safe place for all,” but installing a park ranger, to act as city hall monitor, seemed a step too close to surveillance.

“If the concern is inappropriate public behavior, a park ranger is not in the best position to be able to discern that,” Kimseylove said. “Naked public people know naked public behavior best. They’re in the best position to be able to interpret when this has gone from a lonely clueless guy trying to start up conversations with people on the beach to a lonely clueless guy following people around the beach, after they’ve moved themselves around again and again.”

Hollingsworth says she understood that privacy concern. “Ideally, what I’d like to see happen is for it to continue to be used how it is, with the gay community,” she said. “Longterm, I would love to see the neighbors join Friends of Denny Blaine; I would love for everyone to come together and work out their issues.”

Neighbors had also asked Hollingsworth for additional porta potties, more frequent trash pick up, and to stop people from parking in front of their driveways.

On that, they’re mostly aligned with Friends of Denny Blaine. They have been asking the city for additional trash canisters and porta potties for more than a year. Permanent improvements paid for with city money from the Parks Department’s CommUNITY fund, including a study for bathrooms, and accessible stairs are already in the works, says Sophie Amity Debs, who runs the Friends group with Kimseylove. Amity Debs noted Hollingsworth’s appearance at the public meeting in December 2023 that killed the playground plan, where she told the community she’d look into the issue when she took office.

“To hear that she seemingly hasn’t been taking action, or meeting with us, and is meeting with Sloan, it doesn’t shock me, but it is disappointing,” Amity Debs said.

Hollingsworth says the neighbors initiated the conversations and she’s willing to meet with anyone.

Bruce Harrell’s office says the Park Ranger program is meant to reduce the reliance on police, citing 725 incidents it says rangers deescalated last year. Though, when Rangers can’t deescalate a situation, they do call the cops, Parks said.

The Mayor’s office did not say if it supported the idea, or why the reduction in parking was a city priority, but acknowledged a “diverse range of opinions” about the beach. The office says the city’s goal is to build trust with park goers through “friendly faces,” which it understood would take time. Parks would listen to park users to “determine appropriate deployment usage,” Mayor Harrell’s office says.

Even so, a friendly face may not seem so friendly if it works for the city and you’re naked. . 

Kimseylove says the group has a public email. If Sloan or neighbors want to work with people who know the “shape of the issue,” they’re not hard to find, they said.