Monthly Archives: January 2015

Sammamish to send Initiative/Referendum to citizens for advisory vote-Part 2

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Jan. 24, 2015: The Sammamish City Council agreed at its retreat today at the Suncadia Resort in Roslyn (WA) to ask its citizens whether the right to initiative and referendum should be adopted by the City.

The Council will formalize its consensus approval at the Feb. 3 City Council meeting. No formal, legally binding action could be taken at the retreat, including appointments of Council representation to regional committees.

The advocacy group Citizens for Sammamish (CFS) has been pressing the City Council to adopt an ordinance granting the right. Council members have been reluctant to approve the initiative/referendum process because of what they view how the state process became abused by Tim Eyman, who makes a living at filing state initiatives; and the increasing dominance by “big money” interests rather than the original intent of power to the people.

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Sammamish retreat: 2040 vision, annexation, council relations–Part 1

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The Sammamish City Council’s annual retreat revealed similar visions for the City by 2040, with a population reaching about 80,000 (the maximum under current land use zoning), a more technologically advanced city and local transit shuttles.
Council members also hoped to expand the tree canopy despite current development that has seen large-scale removal of trees; greater use of electric and even driverless cars; and redeveloped commercial areas at the QFC and Safeway complexes in addition to the Town Center, which is on the cusp of realizing the vision that was created in 2009.

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Complacency, willful ignorance, Council infighting mark Sammamish muffing of Lake Trail issues

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“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.”

[New Statesman interview, 7 January 1939]”
― Winston S. Churchill

This is around 18 pages when printed.

Summary

The City of Sammamish has tried to keep an arm’s length to final development of the East Lake Sammamish Trail, but this hear-no- evil, speak-no-evil, see-no-evil approach began to unravel last year as King County’s over zealous approach to building the North end spurred outrage among homeowners.

A review of two years’ of emails, videos of Council meetings, conversations with city council members and homeowners along the Trail paints a picture of:

  • a complacent city staff routinely engaged with the County that kept the City Council in the dark;
  • frustrated property owners reaching out to the County and City;
  • a City Council that didn’t want to know what was going on;
  • inflighting among Council Members, who largely tried to ignore the one Council Member who was raising red flags about the County’s development of the Northern most section of the Lake Trail;
  • a City Council that ignored homeowners who complained; and
  • a City Council that finally awakened to the issues but remains muddled about what to do next.

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Open government expert criticizes Sammamish plan for council retreat east of mountains in Roslyn

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The president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government criticized Sammamish’s location for its annual city council retreat Jan. 22-24 at the Suncadia Resort in Roslyn, east of the mountains, an hour and a half away over Snoqualmie Pass.

Sammamish will once again hold its annual retreat an hour-and-a-half away from the city, east of the Cascades Mountains in Roslyn, over Snoqualmie Pass. This makes it less likely citizens and reporters will attend to see what’s happening out of sight and out of mind.

Toby Nixon, who is also a city councilman in Kirkland, said Sammamish should hold its retreat preferably in the “jurisdiction” so citizens who wish to attend may do so easily.

Sammamish city council member Nancy Whitten unsuccessfully made this argument when the council decided to return to Suncadia, where it’s held its last several retreats.

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Favoritism charged in nominating procedure

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Sammamish City Council member Ramiro Valderrama charged that Mayor Tom Vance played favorites in calling on Council Member Tom Odell to nominate Council Member Kathy Huckabay first for Deputy Mayor at the Jan. 6 city council meeting.

Valderrama claimed he hit the call button first and that he was watching down the line for other council members to do the same–and none did.

The call button is a process by which a council member signals to the mayor he or she wants to speak and the process calls for the mayor to call on the council member in order.

The issue here is that under the city process for selecting the mayor or deputy mayor, the person nominated gets voted on first. If this person gets a majority of votes, no more votes are taken.

Valderrama nominated Council Member Don Gerend, but because Odell’s nomination of Huckabay was recognized and voted upon first, and she received a majority of votes, Gerend’s nomination never was put to a vote.

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