Category Archives: Regional

Huckabay wants study about Council Member salaries

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Kathy Huckabay

A salary study for City Council members was requested by Kathy Huckabay during the Sept. 20 meeting (at 184 minutes into the meeting on the video tape).

Members are paid $850/mo; the mayor gets $950/mo.

Huckabay asked the staff to conduct a salary review as part of the current budget process. Staff said it is undertaking a salary review study for employees. Her current term expires next year. She has not said whether she will seek reelection or retire,

“In that salary review, are you going to be reviewing city council salaries?” Huckabay asked. “Next year is an election year. It would be really important for potential people who are running for city council to understand what the salary schedule is.

“I understand Issaquah hired somebody and they did a salary study and they came back with an adjustment.”

Huckabay didn’t say what the Issaquah adjustment is. Huckabay asked a question about storm water costs immediately after her salary review question. Staff answered the second question but not the first.

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Drinking water contamination traced to EF&R, Issaquah says

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A legal battle may be brewing between Issaquah and Eastside Fire & Rescue over damages to Issaquah drinking wells from highly toxic chemicals the city’s consultants say originated with the EF&R.

Issaquah has a conflict of interest and the City of Sammamish may also if Issaquah seeks damages from EF&R.

Two wells that provide drinking water for Issaquah residents were shut down briefly this summer from contamination of PFOS and PFOA, two toxic chemicals detected in the wells. The levels of toxicity were above Environmental Protection Agency standards.

Issaquah rushed to spend at least $1m to lease a filtering system to cleanse the water. The wells have been reactivated. Additional costs for consulting services continue.

Sammamish Plateau Water detected the chemicals at levels well below the EPA standards in nearby wells after conducting its own tests and hiring a consultant to assist.

Issaquah issued a press release yesterday in which it said the city and EF&R are working together to “further investigate potential sources of these PFCs.”

The city is cash-strapped and will likely make a claim against EF&R, Sammamish Comment is told.

Two members of the Issaquah City Council are on the board of EF&R, establishing a conflict of interest if Issaquah makes a claim for damages.

Two Sammamish city council members are on the EF&R board and a third is on the EF&R finance committee. Sammamish gets its fire service from EF&R, with taxpayers paying for this service. Sammamish City Council members thus could also be put into a position of a conflict of interest.

With two members of the EF&R board in a clear conflict of interest and two more in a potential conflict, the seven member fire board could be deprived of a quorum to decide how to settle any claim.

The Issaquah Press release:

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2003 City Council election flips from 4-3 conservative majority to 6-1 “green” Council

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City_of_SammamishThe 2003 Sammamish election presented an opportunity to shift the balance of power from a Republican-conservative leaning City Council to a Democratic-left-of-center membership.

As the election season approached, the Council was generally, though not reliably, split 4-3. Ken Kilroy, Ron Haworth, Troy Romero and Jack Barry were reliably a voting bloc. The minority three were Michele Petitti, Kathy Huckabay and often, but not always, Don Gerend.

Petitti won her seat in 2001. The others were all original council members from 1999.

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Writing Sammamish’s first Comp Plan

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In Part 1, the background, objectives and membership of the Planning Advisory Board was described. In Part 2, the PAB gets down to work writing Sammamish’s first Comprehensive Plan. This is six pages when printed.

City_of_SammamishThe 17-member Planning Advisory Board members were a cross-section of environmentalists, activists, developers, real estate agents and businessmen. The City Council did an admirable job of appointing a broad spectrum of people.

Open divisions from the start

However, from the start there was open tension among the members. Divisions from the bitter 1999 City Council election carried over to the PAB, which was appointed by this Council. Most of the members of the PAB supported the candidates who won in that bitter contest; a few supported the losing candidates, who, it will be remembered, lost by wide margins in what turned out to be a nasty race filled with anonymous fliers and a forged newsletter.

Sammamish MapOne of the developer-real estate appointees who supported the Council candidates later told one of the environmentalist-activists it was her personal mission to oppose everything he said. The two strong personalities clashed often and openly.

Two members resigned early. One Council Member later said they resigned because they thought the PAB was too heavily dominated by environmentalists. Whether this is an accurate characterization or not is beside the point. The broad spectrum of the appointees belies any charge that environmentalists ran away with the process. In the end, the Comp Plan was adopted and recommended by the PAB with just one dissenting vote and this vote had nothing to do with the environment or any other issue. The dissenter complained the PAB hadn’t finished its job. (This will be described later.)

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Sammamish delivers punch to King County over ELST

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July 5, 2016: Sammamish handed King County a strong left hook to the jaw tonight when the City Council voted to withdraw from a 12-year Inter-Local Agreement (ILA) section involving the East Lake Sammamish Trail (ELST).

Fed up with complaints from property owners and increasing tension between City and County officials over how the County has developed the trail, the City Council’s move to cancel the ILA means Sammamish now has complete control over approving Section 2B of the ELST.

Section 2B is the center section, from the 7-11 to Inglewood Hill Road. Section 1, north of Inglewood to the Redmond city limits, is complete. Section 2A development is under appeal to the Shoreline Hearings Board, which is now deliberating. A decision is expected this fall.

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