Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama sprung a surprise on the Sammamish City Council Sept. 13 when he suggested a study over 60 days for a building moratorium, starting with the Town Center.
The idea may have some merit; only a thorough discussion and perhaps some study will make this determination.
Tactically, Valderrama’s timing and forum was a bad idea.
The 2003 Sammamish election presented an opportunity to shift the balance of power from a Republican-conservative leaning City Council to a Democratic-left-of-center membership.
As the election season approached, the Council was generally, though not reliably, split 4-3. Ken Kilroy, Ron Haworth, Troy Romero and Jack Barry were reliably a voting bloc. The minority three were Michele Petitti, Kathy Huckabay and often, but not always, Don Gerend.
Petitti won her seat in 2001. The others were all original council members from 1999.
Click once on image to enlarge, then click on the image a second time. Write in votes are excluded from the data analysis.
Roger Goodman, the Democrat seeking a sixth term in the State House of Representatives for the 45th Legislative District, defeated Sammamish Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama in his home city in the Aug. 2 primary.
Goodman receive 56.5% of the vote. He carried 21 of 24 precincts and tied in one more.
For Valderrama, who carried every precinct in the city-wide City Council November election in 2015, this is a stunning reversal of fortune.
It’s a clear message from Sammamish voters that they want Valderrama to stay in Sammamish to serve more than a year of his four year term to which he was reelected just 10 months ago.
District-wide, Valderrama received only 38% of the vote in the primary. The primary result historically is a predictor of the final result in the November general election. This is Nov. 8 this year.
A color-coded map and more analysis is after the jump.
Ramiro Valderrama still ducks the question of whether he supports Donald Trump for president.
Update, Aug. 13: Valderrama emailed that in addition to denouncing Donald Trump’s comments, not does not support Trump, either. Valderrama’s original email is below the jump.
Ramiro Valderrama, candidate for the 45th District State House of Representatives and current deputy mayor of Sammamish, still won’t take a position on whether he supports, endorses or disowns Donald Trump.
He denounces Trump, the Republican nominee for President, for things Trump says. But that’s as far as he goes.
This is the position Valderrama took when Sammamish Comment first asked his position in May.
In Part 1, the background, objectives and membership of the Planning Advisory Board was described. In Part 2, the PAB gets down to work writing Sammamish’s first Comprehensive Plan. In Part 3 today, the focus shifts to the creation of the Town Center Plan, a sub-area of the Comprehensive Plan.
The Sammamish Planning Advisory Board (PAB), tasked with writing the City’s first Comprehensive Plan, finished all elements except the complex topic of developing a commercial-office-retail element that was better than the strip malls created by King County.
These malls were formally known as Sammamish Highlands at NE 8th and 228th Ave. NE, the Pine Lake Center at 228th and Issaquah-Pine Lake Road and the 7-11 complex on East Lake Sammamish Parkway. Sammamish Highlands, not to be confused with the neighborhood of the same name at the far south end of the City on 228th, was more commonly known as the Safeway complex. This included the commercial stores across 228th (McDonald’s and other retailers) and eventually Saffron across NE 8th.
The Pine Lake Center was more commonly known as the QFC complex.
Alternatives for Commercial Development
When the first draft of the Comp Plan was completed, the PAB proposed several alternatives for commercial development. Under State Law, this was standard procedure. Usually Comp Plans had Alternatives 1, 2 and 3 and a No Action Alternative.
The No Action Alternative is self-evident: don’t do anything and proceed as before.
The alternatives contained in the Draft Comp Plan were as follows:
Sammamish Comment 