Category Archives: General

Common sense on the Community Center

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It appears that common sense may prevail on the proposed Sammamish Community Center.

That’s the project, readers will recall, that last year was headed toward a $64m, 98,000sf extravaganza that would have been the biggest city community center in King County, according to some.

It would have been roughly 2 1/2 times the size of our City Hall at roughly seven times the cost of the building.

Note that now City officials are putting the price tag of City Hall at around $28m, “including land costs.” I think this is somewhat misleading, but I won’t argue the point.

We already own the land on which the Community Center will be built, the so-called Kellman property. This was purchased not so much with a Community Center in mind; affordable housing was one preferred use, a folly–but that’s another story. So the original Community Center concept at $64m was breath-taking. It got a lot of justifiable push-back from the public and some council members who were fiscally alert and not interested in a Taj Mahal. The City was also charging ahead alone rather than partnering with a private entity well-versed in operating community centers.

According to this article in the Sammamish Review, the City is now talking with the YMCA about a sharply scaled down project that is priced at $29m for a 64,000sf building (the City Hall is just over 39,000sf). Further, Council Member Nancy Whitten thinks the YMCA should deed over the property it owns near the Pine Lake Middle School as part of the deal–an idea I think has great merit.

Kudos to the City for coming around to considering a solution that wasn’t even on the table.

That’s not tobacco they’re smoking at the City Council

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I was known as a tree-hugging environmentalist (among other things) during my 8 1/2 years of service on Sammamish committees and commissions but that doesn’t prevent me from saying the City Council is smoking something other than tobacco with the proposal to ban smoking in City Parks.

Despite some snide comments toward John Curley by one City Councilman and some Sammamish Review readers, I agree with him: the idea that second-hand smoke in an open-air park is hazardous (at least in the levels we’re talking about here) strikes me as pretty ludicrous.

I don’t like cigarette smoke; it’s obnoxious and has an odor that is particularly offensive to my sensitivities. But any time I go to the Sammamish Commons (for example) for the Fourth of July or Farmer’s Markets, if someone is smoking nearby, I can easily move upwind. In this case, I have to say smokers have their rights, too.

I think Washington’s smoking ban in buildings went too far. I am all for banning smoking in open areas within buildings (offices, restaurants, bars, etc.) or places like Safeco Field or the Clink (Century Link stadium), but I also believe that exceptions should have been allowed: a fully enclosed smoking area or provisions for “smoking clubs” would have been acceptable.

Sammamish has better things to do than pursuing this nanny state ordinance.

Final City Council results

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Well, almost. They won’t be completely counted until the end of today but this is, for all practical purposes, “it.” The City had a 52% turn-out, better than some other cities and worse than others. This is about normal for an off-year election for Sammamish.

One interesting note: the drop off from the top of the ballot (Whitten-Richardson) to the bottom (Vance-Bornfreund) was 6%. This is an unusually high number. Typically this ranges around 2%. The drop off is indicative of voters not wanting to vote for either candidate.

In the Valderrama-Wasnick race, the results were nearly in line with my prediction: that the 24% primary vote gained by John Galvin would pretty much evenly split between Valderrama (46%) and Wasnick (26%). It wasn’t quite 50-50 but it was very close. As I told a couple of interested parties, the math simply didn’t work for Wasnick. He had to win 24% plus one vote to win while Valderrama only had to gain 4% plus one. The strategy by some Wasnick supporters that 100% of Galvin’s vote would shift to Wasnick simply was fantasy land.

The final results were also very close to those on Election Night, as I also projected.

CITY OF SAMMAMISH
Ballots Cast/Registered Voters: * 14068 / 27117 51.88%
Council Position No. 2
Nancy Whitten 6485 53.84%
Kathy Richardson 5529 45.90%
Write-in 31 0.26%
Council Position No. 4
Ramiro Valderrama 6646 56.56%
Jim Wasnick 5076 43.20%
Write-in 29 0.25%
Council Position No. 6
Jesse Bornfreund 3622 31.91%
Tom Vance 7681 67.67%
Write-in 48 0.42%

It’s all over; losers concede to winners

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It’s done: the concessions have been given. Tom Vance, Ramiro Valderrama and Nancy Whitten are the winners (though there has been no doubt since Election Night). The Sammamish Patch has now weighed in and declared them winners.

So how does the voting bloc line up on the Council now?

Left-leaning

Nancy Whitten

Tom Vance

Right Leaning

John Curley

John James

Center-Left

Tom Odell

Ramiro Valderrama

Center-Right

Don Gerend

As with any label, however, it’s pretty tough to accurately portray someone. For example, none of the council members can be described as entirely property rights or environmentalists. Gerend is the most pro-development Council Member but he also has an environmental streak.

Curley, a Libertarian at heart, wants to increase tree retention requirements.

Whitten, perceived as the staunchest environmentalist on the Council before this election, has a contrarian property rights streak in her.

James, a solid Republican, surprised me with his pragmatic view from his real estate profession that the pave-it-over plans for the Town Center espoused by Gerend and others are feasible. In other words, he is no knee-jerk pro-development Council Member that many expected when he was elected.

Vance and Whitten will form the left wing of the Council.

Valderrama, whose base of support is the lakefront–a conservative wing–also drew solid support from environmentalists–the conservationists wing. He and Odell are fiscal conservatives but favor environmental issues.

In fact, the entire Council, except for Gerend, favor fiscal conservatism. (Gerend still favors doubling the real estate excise tax, or REET).

With that, we are done with our election coverage.

Watch this space periodically for updates on other issues affecting Sammamish.

Day 3 of Election Results

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Nancy Whitten gained ground as measured by percentages, but only fractionally. Ramiro Valderrama and Tom Vance gained ground, also fractionally.

Yesterday (Wednesday) the Sammamish Review, the Seattle Times and the TV stations declared Whitten and Valderrama winners. Vance made the cut on Tuesday night with TV and the Seattle Times but not until Wednesday afternoon for the Sammamish Review.

Of course, you read it here first. We declared all three winners Tuesday night.

Thur, Nov 10 Votes %
Position 2
Nancy Whitten       4,474 53.36%
Kathy Richarson       3,889 46.39%
Position 4
Ramiro Valderrama       4,667 56.88%
Jim Wasnick       3,519 46.39%
Position 6
Jesse Bornfreund       2,494 31.44%
Tom Vance       5,405 68.15%
Wed, Nov 9, 2011 Votes %
Position 2
Nancy Whitten       3,756 53.29%
Kathy Richarson       3,278 46.51%
Position 4
Ramiro Valderrama       3,924 56.67%
Jim Wasnick       2,987 43.14%
Position 6
Jesse Bornfreund       2,125 31.74%
Tom Vance       4,546 67.90%
Election Night  Votes %
Position 2
Nancy Whitten       3,228 53.55%
Kathy Richarson       2,787 46.23%
Position 4
Ramiro Valderrama       3,345 56.47%
Jim Wasnick       2,566 43.32%
Position 6
Jesse Bornfreund       1,833 31.96%
Tom Vance       3,883 67.70%