Church Family,
 
Thank you to all who attended the small group meetings last week and the congregational discussion last Sunday. Your input is valuable and is helping to shape the future of what our church will become. For those who weren’t at the discussion after church last Sunday, about 20 people gathered and heard from one another about what is important in the process of discerning how we develop our property. Some people expressed a desire to see less property management burden for our Building and Grounds team and others expressed their perspective that maximizing the sale price among the options presented by Habitat for Humanity Seattle/King and Kittitas Counties (Habitat SKKC) was most important to them.
 
One of the comments that we heard during the discussion was that it is important to better understand what else Habitat SKKC is providing to the church according to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), besides the sale price. Something will depend on which part of the lot is sold and developed, but this is a list of key features Habitat SKKC is including in the MOU, beyond the sale price:

  • Remove the rental house, and in the case of the west half sale, also the parsonage
  • If the west half sale goes through, build a new parsonage, meeting requirements of Book of Discipline
  • Repave existing parking and/or creating new parking
  • Add rooftop solar to all new units
  • Consult with Leadership Board and Faithland Team on location of 2, 3, and 4-bedroom units
  • Work with church leaders to have conversations with neighbors about the process of development
  • Prioritize parking for the church during construction
  • Welcome CUWS periodically

After the discussion, Michelle Manis, chair of the Leadership Board for our church, led us in two straw polls to see if we were approaching consensus as information to help the Board make final decisions about what to include in the MOU that we will vote on March 29. Participation in the straw polls was open to anyone attending so we could include the perspectives of important members of our community who will not be allowed to vote on the 29th. The first question she asked about was whether those attending overall felt confident partnering with Habitat SKKC and were in favor of an MOU. All but two people in the room indicated support for an MOU with Habitat SKKC. The second question she asked us was whether we were leaning toward a sale of the west half or a sale of the south half of the property for development. The room was not as uniform on this second question with about half of the people indicating support for the south half and half for the west half, and several indicating that they thought both were great options and could easily support either option. Leadership Board will meet this week to make a decision and report out their decision and reasoning during worship next Sunday (3/22/26).
 
Last week, we told you that we weren’t clear on how Zoom voting would work and we now have heard from Rev. Galang who will be officiating, how we can include the votes of those attending on Zoom. Anyone on Zoom who is a full member will be able to send a direct message chat through the Zoom platform to the vote counters which no one else will be able to see and the vote counters will fill out a ballot for them. If, for whatever reason, the chat feature on Zoom doesn’t work for someone, the vote counters can call on the phone to the person who appears on Zoom and is a full member of the church, using a phone number that is published in the church directory, to record their vote by phone. Remember, no absentee voting is allowed so only those in person in the sanctuary and those on Zoom at the time of the vote will be able to cast a ballot and have their vote included.
 
We remain available for conversations, questions, and ideas to anyone who continues to have thoughts to share or wants more information. Our goal is to make this as transparent a process as possible and we hope to include all our community members in as many ways as possible. Your input is important to us and will make the final results of this discernment better.
 
Faithfully Yours, HLUMC Faithland Team: Jon Daniel, Carol Jaeger, and Pastor Laura