Category Archives: Issaquah

Klahanie PAA dodges Issaquah bullet; and the gift that keeps on giving

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The Klahanie Potential Annexation Area dodged the bullet from Issaquah, it turns out, as the city reveals its budget proposal.

One of the points the city promoted when seeking an affirmative vote from the PAA to annex to Issaquah was lower taxes.

The 2015 budget, just released, proposes raising property taxes 1% and nearly doubling most Business & Occupation taxes immediately and marginally in the following year.

Sammamish, which is now pursuing annexation of the PAA, hasn’t raised property taxes since incorporation in 1999 and it doesn’t have a B&O tax.

Issaquah needs to raise taxes because it’s essentially broke. The new budget projects an $8m surplus, which is really “nothing” for a government and city the size of Issaquah. There are little or no reserves for replacing aging water and sewer infrastructure, for example, or for doing many of the things the Klahanie PAA needs in terms of road improvements, maintenance and park upgrades. Sammamish, on the other hand, has a large cash balance and untapped bonding power of more than $400m, should it choose to use it.

Klahanie PAA voters were wise to reject annexation to Issaquah.

The gift that keeps on giving

Remember the City of Issaquah’s cybersquatting on the website domains of the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District? I wrote several columns about this in September and October last year, beginning with this one. The Issaquah Press and Issaquah Reporter then named this event as the Top Story of 2013 in their January 2014 year-end recaps (just before the Klahanie PAA vote to annex to Issaquah, as it turned out).

On Oct. 6 this year, the Issaquah Press won first place in a national contest judged by the Arizona Newspaper Assn., which reviewed more than 2,300 entries for editorials.

The winner was The Press’ editorial condemning the city for the cybersquatting. Here’s the link to the story. Here’s the link to the editorial, which also ran in the sister paper, The Sammamish Review.

This bonehead move by Issaquah continues to haunt the government. Nobody was held accountable, and no elected official condemned the action until the mayoral campaign was well underway. This speaks volumes.

This is another reason the Klahanie PAA dodged a bullet.

 

New water wars burbling in Sammamish

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The water wars between the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District and Issaquah were entertaining. Despite the City of Sammamish watching this war, and becoming involved as an interested party, Sammamish city officials couldn’t resist approaching the Northeast Sammamish Sewer and Water District to invite a “discussion” about assuming the district.

To keep the players straight, here are the references we’ll use going forward:

Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District: “Plateau”.

City of Issaquah: “Issaquah”.

City of Sammamish: “City”.

Northeast Sammamish Sewer and Water District: “Northeast”.

Citizens for Sammamish: “C4S”.

Northeast went tilt over the City’s overture. Obviously having watched what was going on between Plateau and Issaquah, and the latter’s hostile takeover attempt of part of the Plateau’s assets and district, Northeast was paranoid. Not only did officials reject any call for “friendly” discussions, they fired up their customers, who flooded the City with emails and protests. Furthermore, Northeast budgeted $600,000 to defend the district against any attempt by the City to take over the district.

City officials seemed bewildered by Northeast’s reaction. We aren’t planning any move to assume Northeast, City officials protested. We just wanted to sit down and discuss the possibilities. A couple of City newsletters devoted a great deal of space to injured innocence.

Having watched the Plateau-Issaquah water wars (and participated in some of the negotiations to bring the wars to an end), I find it astounding that the City was so ham-handed in its timing to approach Northeast and even raise the issue when Plateau and Issaquah seemed headed for armageddon. Repeating, having become involved in talks as a neutral participant, so-to-speak, to resolve the dispute between Plateau and Issaquah, how could the City not understand the sensitivities of even raising the topic at that time with Northeast? It’s mind-boggling.

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Sammamish taxpayers, beware: More than $100 million in spending on the way and climbing

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  • Community Center: $35 million and probably more.
  • Developing the former YMCA property next to Pine Lake School, at a cost of $15 million proposed in the park plan.
  • Sahalee Road improvements at an unidentified cost, but probably in the low millions at the least.
  • Millions of dollars in the park plan for the Sammamish Landing, the Pigott property and more.
  • Klahanie Annexation: $32 million for road improvements and who knows what else on top of this, almost certainly amounting to tens of millions of dollars more.
  • Widening Issaquah-Pine Lake Road at a cost of $16.5m.
  • Rebuilding “Snake Hill Road” (it’s really 212th Ave. SE, down the windy, snake-like drive to East Lake Sammamish Parkway): Millions of dollars.
  • Desires to take over the Northeast Sammamish and Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer Districts: tens of millions of dollars, at a minimum.
  • Town Center improvements.
  • And this is on top of the normal operations of the city, including millions of dollars for road maintenance, parks, services and overhead.

Sammamish is embarking on a spending spree over the next few years that will make your taxpaying eyes water. For a city that prides itself on not raising property taxes and imposing no utility tax, one has to wonder how long this will stand in the face of this pending spending spree.

Let’s look at the issues.

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Is ‘You can’t trust Issaquah, Part 5’ around the corner?

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Is Issaquah about to equivocate on prior indications that it would release the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area if it lost the vote February 11?

It did lose the vote-albeit by a mere 32–but outside the margin for a recount. Despite Mayor Fred Butler pledging during his successful campaign for election in November saying he’d release the PAA and not gerrymander it, Butler’s been silent so far.

Councilman Paul Winterstein appears to be equivocating, however. According to The Issaquah Reporter, Winterstein told the county that “Winterstein testified that Issaquah hasn’t had time to analyze the election results and sort things out”

What’s there to sort out? Issaquah lost. Period.

Butler’s silence is disturbing. He needs to step up and honor his campaign pledge. One of the issues in the annexation vote was the inability to trust anything Issaquah says it will do. Butler, as the first new mayor in some 16 years, immediately stepped up to resolve the water wars. It’s already past due to step up and take moves to honor his word on annexation.

As for Winterstein and the Issaquah City Council: enough, already. You lost, and that’s that. Stop holding the PAA hostage. You could have annexed the area in 2005 if you weren’t greedy about the debt issue. Give it up now.

Klahanie annexation vote analysis, by precinct

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I’ve obtained the certified election results of the Klahanie annexation vote to Issaquah, and plotted them out by precinct. Click the map to enlarge.

Sammamish Comment Chart. c. Sammamish Comment. Certified Election Results, Klahanie Annexation Vote, Feb. 11, 2014

Sammamish Comment Chart. c. Sammamish Comment. Certified Election Results, Klahanie Annexation Vote, Feb. 11, 2014

You’ll note that I’ve marked “SE 48th St. Extended,” which bisects the Brookshire precinct at the very southern tip. There has been discussion that this portion of the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area could be retained by Issaquah while the rest goes to Sammamish. This hardly makes sense to me, given that this is just the extreme southern tip of the PAA.

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