Sammamish selected the Hotel Murano in Tacoma for its annual retreat Jan. 19-21. The decision was announced Tuesday by City Manager Lyman Howard.
This was the location last year.
The City was leaning toward returning to Suncadia Lodge in Roslyn, east of Snoqualmie Pass until Sammamish Comment revealed the plans.
The Sammamish Review and Issaquah/Sammamish Reporter shirk their civic and Fourth Estate duties.
Neither makes endorsements in elections.
The Review used to, but stopped last year in advance of the Sammamish City Council races. The Reporter never has.
There was no explanation from The Review for its reversal. The Reporter said people can make their own decisions.
Ballots for the Nov. 8 election will be mailed Oct. 19 by King County Elections.
Like most states, Washington has early voting, this in the form of mail-in voting.
Because of ballots mailed overseas to expats and military personnel, the state counts ballots for two weeks after Election Day as long as the mailings are postmarked no later than this day.
Sammamish will hold its annual Disaster Preparedness Fair Saturday, October 15, at City Hall from 9am to 3pm.
Details can be found here: Sammamish Disaster Preparedness Fair.
Several private and civic organizations will have displays in the Council Chambers and in the Courtyard, providing information residents need to survive disasters.
The principal focus is on earthquake preparedness, but other emergencies—such as downed power lines that can be dangerous—have been addressed in the past.
The City is the host but didn’t participate last year with a table of its own. It will this year.
Sammamish also was slow to participate in the Cascadia Rising emergency disaster drill last June, finally signing up after Sammamish Comment began asking questions about the City’s preparedness.
Since then, the new City Council (effective Jan. 1) and new City Manager (effective March 1) have undertaken numerous steps to bring the City to a state of preparedness.
Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama led the opposition to Sound Transit 3.
The Sammamish City Council’s vote Tuesday night to oppose Sound Transit 3 was the right choice for the City. The vote was 5-2.
ST3 takes bus service away from Sammamish but offers a park-and-ride for the north end, an obvious contradiction. Even the PNR is not a firm offer.
Taxpayers would fork out between $500m-$550m in taxes over 25 years for this.
Issaquah and Redmond get light rail extensions. But the Issaquah light rail goes to downtown Bellevue and south Kirkland, not Seattle. The rail station is projected to be at roughly I-90 and SR900, behind the QFC grocery store (presumably in the I-90 median.) It needs to go to Issaquah Highlands.
If Sammamish residents want to commute to Seattle by light rail, the choices would be to go to the QFC terminal, either by car or bus, then to Bellevue and connect to Seattle; or go to the potential north Park and Ride (if it happens), then to Redmond, through downtown Bellevue and on to Seattle.
Fat chance.
Sammamish Comment 