Issaquah-Fall City Road cost jumps 36% over pre-annexation estimate

The construction cost of Issaquah-Fall City Road (IFC) improvements quietly has gone up by 36%.

Or has it?

The Sammamish City Newsletter says the improvements to Issaquah-Fall City Road will now cost $36m. In 2015, the figure was $23m.

The March Sammamish City Newsletter’s page 1 article updating the plans to widen Issaquah-Fall City Road is the following, opening paragraph:

“When 10,000 Klahanie-area residents came into Sammamish last year, the city knew that a big responsibility was going to follow them through the door – a $36 million item known as Issaquah-Fall City Road.”

This figure is not what the City told Klahanie residents and the taxpayers of legacy Sammamish when promoting annexation to Sammamish.

Instead, then-City Manager Ben Yazici and then-Mayor Tom Vance said IFC Road would cost $23m, a reduction from the $38.8m King County priced the road improvements, cited by Issaquah.

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Dave Reichert’s cowardice

US Rep. Dave Reichert went from being for repeal of Obamacare in committee to “undecided” before a scheduled vote in the US House of Representatives.

After the vote was pulled–when it became clear the bill would fail, as at least three dozen Republicans pledged to vote no–Reichert still won’t say how he would have voted.

Last Wednesday, I wrote that Reichert is afflicted with political timidity. This was wrong.

It’s flat-out political cowardice.

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