Category Archives: City Politics

Sammamish leadership moves up readings on Initiative and Referendum ordinance

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Sammamish City Council leadership advanced the first and second readings of the enabling ordinance for the Initiative and Referendum from July 21 and September 1 to July 14 and July 21, calling a special meeting of the Sammamish City Council for this Tuesday.

City Manager Ben Yacizi told Sammamish Comment that the Council decided to get the first and second readings completed before the August recess.

The cover page to the Special Meeting, for which the first reading of the ordinance is the only item on the agenda, is below the jump.

The Council meeting was originally scheduled as a Study Session to discussion the Comprehensive Plan updates.

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Hank Klein drops out of Council race against Valderrama (developing)

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Hank Klein has dropped out of the Position 4 race for Sammamish City Council, but too late to pull is name off the ballot.

“I have decided to drop out of the race for City Council because of personal reasons,” Klein wrote Sammamish Comment today after I left a voice mail for Klein seeking his website address. Through yesterday, no website had been created.

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Initiative/Referendum no sure thing at Sammamish City Council despite 10 pt win at polls

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If anyone thought that the Sammamish City Council will honor voter wishes after a 55%-45% victory at the polls in an April advisory vote, it looks like this faith in government may well be premature.

Even though there was a consensus expressed informally at the Council’s January retreat that they would follow the wishes of voters, and despite the assurances of Mayor Tom Vance to local newspapers on several occasions that he couldn’t see the Council going against voter wishes, Vance has since been walking back these assurances and the June 15 study session did nothing to provide assurances.

Deputy Mayor Kathy Huckabay, a staunch opponent to granting Sammamish citizens the right of initiative and referendum, flatly stated there had been no assurances the Council would follow voter wishes.

She then went on to use an argument often used by opponents to a measure that passes over their objections: voter turnout was low and voters were, essentially, too stupid to understand what they were voting, or not voting, for.

Alarmingly, Council Member Bob Keller, a close ally of Huckabay, Vance and Council Member Tom Odell, each of whom also oppose the initiative, sided with Huckabay on the voting argument.

Twice Keller said during the June 15 Council meeting that the vote was “close,” despite the 10 point margin of victory.

Keller told this column after the results he “planned” to honor the result.

Now it’s not clear what he will do. He is the swing vote, with Council Members Don Gerend, Nancy Whitten and Ramiro Valderrama previously saying they will honor the voter wishes. Keller is a member of what’s become known as the Gang of 4, voting together as a bloc on most issues.

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Promises made (sort of), promises (about to be) broken for Klahanie

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Klahanie Vote Map

The Klahanie Potential Annexation Area. Voters rejected annexing to Issaquah in February 2014 and approved annexing to Sammamish in April 2015. Sammamish said over and over and over again it would complete the annexation by August 2015. But–they were just kidding, it appears.

When Sammamish was running along the sidelines of the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area (PAA) vote for Issaquah in the weeks and months leading up to the February 2014 vote, city officials said over and over and over again that if the PAA voted against annexing to Issaquah, Sammamish would fast-track its efforts to transfer the PAA from Issaquah to Sammamish and work with King County to accelerate annexation to Sammamish.

Throughout, Sammamish officials said they would try to set a vote in the spring of 2015 and complete annexation by the following August.

When Issaquah was rejected (by a mere 32 votes), Sammamish quickly went through the processes to set a vote in April 2015. The PAA voted with more than 80% approval to annex to Sammamish. In the weeks and months–more than a full year, in fact, Sammamish continued to say it would hope to complete the annexation by August.

In the immortal words of Rick Perry, “oops.”

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Lyman Howard named City Manager but cloud hangs over action

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Lyman Howard

Lyman Howard, the Deputy City Manager for Sammamish, was named May 19 to succeed retiring Ben Yacizi as City Manager March 1.

Due to the unusual way in which the Council handled the matter, there’s a question whether the appointment followed legal procedure, however.

The City Council emerged from an executive session and voted that Howard would be the next city manager. Although the appointment was made and a starting date announced, there appears to be a foggy area whether this strictly followed the state law governing hiring staff, according to one public official not associated with the City who wishes to remain anonymous because of the position held.

There was no public discussion about why Howard was appointed, nor about the internal search process and Howard’s winning qualification. The Council emerged from executive session and immediately went to a vote.

Here is a transcript of the action, taken from the video of the May 19 meeting:

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