UP Native Terry Lee Prepares For Post-County Career

Quick facts on Terry Lee:

-Age: 64

-Pierce County Councilman, Dist. 7, first elected in 2002. Lifelong resident of the district.

-University Place native, Curtis High grad.

-Graduated from Central Washington University, where he majored in chemistry and zoology; completed post-graduate studies in nuclear physics and radiology.

-New job: executive director, Peninsula Metropolitan Park District.

-Family: wife, Donna, married 38 years. Daughter, Megan, son, Cooper, granddaughter, Giada, or "GG," as her grandfather calls her. Mother, Ethel, still lives in University Place.

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Terry Lee's new office doesn't overlook a large city, but it serves its purpose just the same.

As the Dist. 7 representative on the Pierce County Council the past eight years, the University Place native has worked out of the County-City Building in downtown Tacoma, looking after the interests of UP, Gig Harbor and the rest of the communities in the county's west end.

But come 2011, Lee's years of public service will come to an end – at least at the county level. His second and final term will end, and will succeed on the County Council.

Lee, however, will continue to serve the public. Since November, he has worked as the executive director of the Peninsula Metropolitan Park District in Gig Harbor, where he's lived more than three decades. The park agency itself is less than a decade old, created by voters there to preserve and improve park space in that community's unincorporated areas.

For Lee, 64, public service is something that just came naturally. Long before his tenure on the County Council, he worked with other boards and committees, including stints on the Peninsula Advisory Commission (1983-1991) and the Pierce County Planning Commission (1991-2002, the last seven years of which he was chairman).

What's been a blessing, he says, is the fact that he's a local who got to serve his hometown.

"It was a match made in heaven," he said. "My heart was still in University Place."

Lee grew up in UP and spent his first 26 years in the community. His family lived in a house off of 40th Street West, which back in 1946 didn't resemble the hustle-and-bustle thoroughfare that it is today.

His mother, Ethel Miller, still lives in UP.

Lee, a Curtis High grad, watched as the rural community where he was raised began to develop rapidly with apartments and multifamily housing. Those aren't necessarily bad things, he said, but a community's single-family residences help give its identity. That why, even though he wasn't living in UP, he was glad to see residents vote for the city's eventual incorporation in 1995.

He says in terms of his contributions to University Place while he was a member of the County Council, the improvements at Chambers Creek Properties stick out the most. He credits the majority of the transformation to former Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg.

He acknowledges that building a golf course that cost nearly $100 a round to play and attracts some of the world's best golfers was controversial among locals who argued that their money should have been better spent.

"But I think there are other components of Chambers Creek Properties that are embraced by the people of UP more so than the golf course," he said.

Those include the and park areas, the Soundview Trail and recently opened pedestrian .

As for his replacement on the County Council, Lee recommends to Flemming that he try to be out in the community as much as possible, on both sides of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

"It's a different heartbeat on the west side of the bridge than the east side of the bridge," he said.

For Lee, the next few months are all about PenMet Parks. That work includes securing more park space, building an off-leash dog park and converting land at the Tacoma Narrows Airport into something the whole community can use.

"Generally speaking, I'd like to think that we are going to take parks and recreation to the next level here on the peninsula," he said.

But he assures Patch that University Place will always have a place in his community service-oriented heart.