OP-ED
By Don Gerend
Sammamish is the youngest city in Western Washington, just 20 years old next summer.
Only about a third of our current citizens were here for the City’s birth, beginning with a vote to incorporate in November 1998, followed by a tempestuous campaign by more than 40 candidates for the first city council.
A split Sammamish City Council tonight passed the new traffic concurrency rules.
The “M4,” Mayor Christie Malchow, Deputy Mayor Karen Moran and Council Members Tom Hornish and Chris Ross, voted for the new volume/capacity (V/C) rule that brings some measurement of reality on the roads into Sammamish concurrency rules.
The “V3,” Council Members Ramiro Valderrama, Pam Stuart and Jason Ritchie, voted against.
Continue readingBy Miki Mullor
Analysis
On Tuesday night, the Sammamish City Council drew a line in the sand on over-development, forcing a potential pause on development until a much needed public infrastructure is built.
A split council voted on an esoteric traffic engineering parameter that decides what is the accepted level of traffic congestion the city is willing to tolerate.
In doing so, the council have possibly made Sammamish the first jurisdiction in the Puget Sound to be implementing the Growth Management Act (GMA) the way it was originally intended to – to protect the citizens’ quality of life.
Continue reading
were in the pipelineMore analysis to come.
The Sammamish Community Center, a $33m facility funded with $28m of Sammamish taxpayers’ money and operated exclusively by the Y, generated at least $1.4m in surplus that is being sent to Seattle Y, raising questions regarding accounting methods.
The Community Center exceeded all expectations set forth in the city’s original plan. The city thought the Community Center will attract 1,750 members, with a monthly membership rates for a family at $68. In reality, more than 5,700 memberships were sold, with monthly membership rates for a family at $138.
The difference is sent to Seattle, although it supposed to stay in Sammamish.
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