Letter: We Can Save Silver Oaks

Kent resident Maj Ragain, whose 91-year-old mother lives at Silver Oaks Place, submitted this letter to the editor:

I am speaking on behalf of my mother Bea Summers who has lived at for the past four years and on behalf of the many residents I have come to know in meetings over these past weeks. My mother signed a lease, paid her rent and has been summarily evicted. She is 91 years old. She holds on to the hope she may remain at Silver Oaks, her home.

“It may be legal for Capstone Companies to give two months notice for the eviction of a community...it may be legal, but it is not responsible. Itʼs not decent. It is not the act of a good neighbor or moral citizen. It is unjust.” These are the words of the Reverend David Patee, senior pastor of the . It is a question of values. A
community is defined by what it values. Money, property, the needs of people. What are our responsibilities? You must answer that for yourself.

We all remember when, during the nineties, developers first sought to build a shopping mall, then other commercial property south of Kent. Doing so would have damaged a marvelous and fragile living relic from the Ice Age, what we now know as the , one of our natural treasures. It is irreplaceable with its stand of tamarack and grey birch,
its unique flora, a place of living history preserved. And now another forest is threatened by developers ... Silver Oaks.

Kent citizens rose up to defend the Bog site and turn back the developers. Not once, not twice, but three times. Concerned citizens with vision understood that such a place was and would remain valuable to us all, part of our shared life.

The developers are here again, with their plans and their money. There was no public discussion prior to the eviction notices. But, there is public discussion now. Again, Kent is asked that question: what do you value and how will you act to affirm that value? The living bog is fragile, irreplaceable. So are the citizens at Silver Oaks. We saved the grey birches in the bog. Are the seniors, our neighbors, not at least as valuable? The Silver Oaks community is also an ecosystem, bound by friendship and affection. Is that not worth saving? Finally, are we not all part of that community? We have already shown the force of a united will. Not here, not in this town, Kent said to the developers in the past. We can say that again.

The sale of Silver Oaks will not be finalized until Dec. 31. There are still alternatives. But, the Kent community must express its support for the residents of Silver Oaks. Over 1,000 people from Kent and the surrounding area have signed the petition to be filed with Kent City Council with copies to be sent to Silver Oaks management and to
Capstone. You can express your views through the developerʼs website. The contact information is all there. Let them know who
we are, Kent, with our long history of activism and community development. Let them know what we value.

In the meantime, an effort should be made to explore alternatives. Why not consider converting Silver Oaks into a blended community, opening housing to married students (it once was that) and graduate students. Fill the vacancies. There are ways to do this other than driving our seniors out of Kent.

Kent citizens rose up to save the bog. Go down Meloy Road and walk the half mile trail. Feel the living history of the past. Drive down to Silver Oaks, just off Horning road. Get out and walk around. Talk to some of the people who remain there. They too are worth saving. We need them. And they need our help. Go home, Capstone. Stay, seniors

The Capstone website homepage boasts, and I quote, ”We seek to understand before seeking to be understood.” Good PR. But, I think they have not understood the pain caused in the displacement of 250 senior citizens, many of them in ill health; nor has Capstone understood the resistance they are meeting....and will continue to meet ... from the Kent community and from the seniors, the bravehearts.

We ask for the support of the Kent City Council and the Kent Community to permit the senior citizens to remain in their homes at Silver Oaks. And if we do not stand up for them now, who will stand up for us, when that time comes?

Maj Ragain