Category Archives: Issaquah

Cost of Klahanie annexation to Sammamish taxpayers: $4m-$5m so far

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  • $3m in tax revenues to King County;
  • Forfeiture of $1m-$1.5m in sales tax equalization;
  • $700,000 to Fire District 10 for tax revenues lost;
  • In return, King County provides $500,000 in services;
  • Klahanie residents don’t get to vote in November 3 City Council elections; must wait until 2017 to vote in next City Council election;
  • Taxes get lowered for 2016;
  • Klahanie gets some services from King County it should have been doing anyway.

The cost of annexing Klahanie to Sammamish is adding up to $4m-$5m before the annexation becomes fully complete on January 1.

The cost to Klahanie voters is two years of disenfranchisement because the Sammamish City Council voted July 7 to make the annexation fully effective January 1, 2015, rather than July 31, in two weeks, when everything else procedurally effectively becomes part of Sammamish. The January 1 effective date means residents in the Klahanie annexation area won’t be able to voter for candidates in the Sammamish City Council races November 3. The next city election is in 2017.

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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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Klahanie annexation vote April 28, ballots this week; impact already being felt

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Klahanie Vote Map

The Klahanie Potential Annexation Area and its voting precincts. Click on image to enlarge.

Residents in the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area will be receiving ballots this week to vote whether to annex to Sammamish. If approved, city officials hope to make the annexation effective in August.

Klahanie PAA voters rejected annexing to Issaquah in February 2014 by a mere 32 vote. Click here for the voting analysis.

Several Sammamish City Council members actively opposed the Issaquah vote, and Council Member Don Gerend served as a spokesman for Klahanie Choice, the anti-Issaquah group that instead support annexation to Sammamish. Council Member Ramio Valderrama led the Sammamish council in several votes to send messages to Klahanie residents that Sammamish welcomed the PAA with open arms.

Sammamish has wanted to annex the Klahanie area since incorporation and in 2002 entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Issaquah mayor to transfer the PAA from Issaquah to Sammamish after an annexation vote failed. The Issaquah City Council refused to approve the transfer.

Annexation to Sammamish will add between 10,000-11,000 residents to our city’s population of around 45,000. The area, in aggregate, will also have one of the largest voting blocs, which could tip future elections.

There are other ramifications as well. Continue reading →

Power play over Sammamish Deputy Mayor’s position

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It’s nothing more than a power play to keep the leadership reins tightly held by the voting majority on the Sammamish City Council.

In a break with tradition during most of the past 16 years, the Sammamish City Council voted to give the incumbent deputy mayor a second consecutive one-year term. Since the first city council was seated in 1999, tradition has been to rotate the deputy mayor’s position every year. Until it was discovered that state law required a minimum of two year terms for the mayor, this position was rotated every year as well.

Mayor Tom Vance ignored Council Member Nancy Whitten’s raised hand to be recognized first and went directly to Council Member Tom Odell, whose hand wasn’t raised and who said nothing that was audible over the microphones. Odell placed Member Kathy Huckabay’s name in nomination first. Council member Ramiro Valderrama nominated Council member Don Gerend.

This power play is important because procedurally, the first nominated is the first voted upon without seeking a Nay vote. If the first nominated gets a majority vote, the voting stops.

Vance’s sleight-of-hand prevented any vote on Gerend’s nomination.

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County to destroy 36% of trees in 1.3 mi on Lake Trail, put at risk 26% more–and they ain’t done yet

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King County will destroy 36% of the trees and put at risk 26% more–a total of 120 out of 194 trees–in just 1.3 miles of the East Lake Sammamish Trail between SE 43rd Way (the round-about) and 33rd (roughly the 7-11) as it plans to widen the trail to 18 ft (equal to 1.5 lanes of two lane highway).

The Sammamish Review reported the pending destruction November 5.

And this doesn’t include the long section from 33rd to Inglewood Hill Road.

In a post on October 16, I raised the alarm.

The County’s destruction of trees on the Northern section of ELST, north of Inglewood to the Redmond city limits, is a blight on the landscape.

The County claims that it must adhere to federal and local standards for the trail’s paving and “improvements,” and the trees must go as a result and to protect wetlands that are in reality drainage ditches.

I filed a four page Public Comment with the County and City in advance of the Oct. 29 comment deadline. This document is here: ELST Comments 10202014_2

The County claims it cannot deviate from the trail standards. Poppycock. On the section through Issaquah, there are a couple of deviations from standards, narrowing the trail and changing the alignment slightly for environmental reasons.

Photos below the page break.

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