Category Archives: Opinion

Op-Ed: Civic Engagement Can Improve Your World

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By Stephanie Rudat
Guest contributor

β€œHow wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” -Anne Frank

Stephanie Rudat

It is strange to think that Anne Frank, huddled in a tiny room with her family and some family friends, would have world improvement on her mind. She may not have had civic engagement on her mind. Hers was a mind that focused on the beauty of nature, on pouring your thoughts onto paper, which cannot judge you. But civic engagement is a sacred way to improve the world in the United States. Or, at least, it used to be.

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Growth pays for growth…or does it?

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By Christie Malchow
Mayor, City of Sammamish
Guest Op-ed

We often hear this term, 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐑 𝐩𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐑. But does it?

It doesn’t in the absolute sense. Actually, state law prevents it from paying its full impact, leaving the balance of the burden to existing taxpayers to fill the void.

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Hey, Sammamish, Let’s Celebrate Our 20th Birthday

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OP-ED
By Don Gerend

Background

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.

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Common Cause Housing Balance for Sammamish-Part 3

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Part 1 may be found here. Part 2 may be found here.

  • How to attain sustainable housing affordability, create vast community wealth and improve driver experiences.

Paul Stickney

By Paul Stickney

Guest Contributor

Article Three of Three

Β Statement:Β  As you have been reading these articles, you have seen me use β€œwe” and β€œour” quite often. This refers to either The City, the Community or both.

For over four years, I have attended nearly all City Council meetings, Planning Commission meetings and Transportation Committee meetings plus others. I am definitely NOT a Politician. I see myself as a citizen β€œStatesman”–bringing a bedrock of principles that are right, to benefit the members of our community, with a vision of long-term housing affordability and sustainability.Β  I am working to build consensus for achieving that vision.

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Common Cause Housing Balance for Sammamish-Part 2

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Part 1 may be found here.

  • How to attain sustainable housing affordability, create vast community wealth and improve driver experiences.

Paul Stickney

By Paul Stickney

Guest Contributor

Article Two of Three

I am beginning Article Two with five transparent Position Statements:

  • Traffic concurrency should limit additional single-family homes in most of the City, that we have Internal oversupplies of; and Traffic concurrency should NOT limit adding smaller and different homes in our Centers that we have Internal undersupplies of.
  • It is not who’s right, it is what’s right for the majority of Sammamish residents over time.
  • In Sammamish, our Internal Housing β€˜Needs and Wants’ deficient supply gap numbers are from 2-4 times the size of our External growth target number.
  • As a City, we should make a paradigm shift from β€œKeeping all Housing to a minimum within Sammamish” to β€œEnsure Housing supply reaches optimum sustainability within Sammamish.”
  • We, as a community, are HOLISTACALLY far better off with Housing Balance, then without

Please, evaluate these five position statements as you read and critique this series of articles.

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