By Christie Malchow
Mayor of Sammamish
Guest Contributor
The Sammamish City Council annually has a retreat in January. Its
purpose is multi-faceted, with the goals ranging from generating or affirming Council goals and priorities to agreeing on procedural and structural improvements to help us provide the City of Sammamish dynamic, strong, and effective leadership.
By Miki Mullor
Guest Contributor
Miki Mullor
During the recent moratorium deliberations by City Council, the Town Center neighborhood plan was brought into the conversation. The issues with traffic planning in the city, exposed during the concurrency debacle, were feared to also impact the Town Center plan. Calls to review the plan were answered with a response that the plan was done 10 years ago therefore it’s too late to review. This implies a “statute of limitation” argument that if indeed there were issues with the plan, those should have been raised at that time and cannot be argued now.
However, recently surfaced documents from the time of Town Center planning in 2007 reveal just that – that serious problems do exist in the plan and those problems were raised timely – yet ignored by the city.
The Sammamish City Council last week made the following appointments to various 
commissions that review policy, plans and make recommendations to the council:
Christie Malchow
The Sammamish City Council may backtrack on holding its annual retreat locally.
This was the first year in the city’s history that the retreat was held in Sammamish.
In the last two years, it was in Tacoma. Previously, it was held for many years in Roslyn, east of the Cascades.
The locations drew criticism as discouraging public participation and not living up to the spirit of the Open Meetings Act.
At the end of the retreat Saturday, Mayor Christie Malchow remarked that it may be held elsewhere.
By Harry Shedd
Special to Sammamish Comment
The Sammamish City Council appeared indecisive during the council retreat about future growth in the city.
Should the “bedroom community” vision continue into the future or will future generations demand change in our vision?
Should the Town Center receive more of the city’s future growth or should the city continue with current “throughout the city” plans?
Should council members seek out resident input or go with their “best understanding”?
Sammamish Comment 