By Miki Mullor
Editor

In a bombshell announcement at the end of the Sammamish City Council meeting tonight, Council member Jason Ritchie resigned from his position effective immediately.

Earlier in the meeting, the Council extended the moratorium on development for six more months, with an exception for single family homes on existing lots.

Ritchie was elected to City Council on November 2017 to his first term as an elected official. He previously ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress and for Washington state legislature.

“The City of Sammamish has an incredible opportunity in the Town Center development that should bring services and diversity of housing the the city desperately needs,” – said Ritchie at the end of the meeting, “we have an obligation to find solutions not roadblocks, it is unfair and inappropriate in my opinion that this council chose a path of obstruction in the form of continuous moratorium.”

“At this time due to the recent actions of this council i’ll be resigning the council effective immediately.” – told Ritchie to a stunned City Council.

Ritchie was a voting ally to Council member Pam Stuart, who is also a Town Center proponent.

City Council now has up to 90 days to appoint a new member to Ritchie’s seat.

Earlier in the meeting the City Council voted 5-2 to extend the current development moratorium for six more months. The moratorium was enacted in response to the Growth Management Hearing Board (GMHB) ruling in the case brought by former Mayor Don Gerend against the city. In its ruling, the GMHB invalidated a newly enacted portion of the traffic concurrency rules on procedural grounds. While the city is working to remedy and adopt the rules in a different procedure, the Council enacted a moratorium to prevent development from being approved while this work in ongoing.

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