Category Archives: Regional

Malchow, Valderrama, Hornish for City Council; ballot returns now

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Sammamish voters are beginning to mail their ballots for the November 3 City Council election. It’s a good time to review endorsements.

Position 2

Christie Malchow is the recommended choice over Mark Cross.

Christie Malchow, Position 2

Malchow is an energetic professional who got her baptism under fire in Sammamish as an appellant of a proposed project, Chestnut Estates West, that would have a material adverse impact on salmon-bearing Ebright Creek, traffic and a proposal to build on what had been designated as open space when the developer built Chestnut Estates (East). The City Hearing Examiner threw out the City Staff approval of West as improperly approved.

As with many who enter public service because of a passionate issue, Malchow came to understand there are bigger issues at stake than just a NIMBY issue. She learned that the City staff routinely waivers, ignores or grants variances to code to approve projects. City transparency and responsiveness is lacking. Malchow pledges to hold the staff’s feet to the fire, pry open the doors to transparency and to restore responsive government to Sammamish.

Malchow, if elected, will be the youngest member on the Council and the only one not eligible for membership to AARP. She’s 42 and has two small children, representative of the demographics of Sammamish.

Cross is a career government employee who served eight years on the Council, from 2004-2012. He seeks to return to Council after a four year break.

Cross, 65, served admirably on Council and is a faithful public servant. But his principal objective is to add staff to manage future road projects and to pave over the rest of the East Lake Sammamish Trail, though from his public statements, there is no evidence that environmental protection and property rights along the trail figure into his agenda. Cross will be a reliable member of the ruling majority, the so-called Gang of 4, all of whom have endorsed Cross for election. He also endorse Mayor Tom Vance, a member of the Gang, for reelection.

We need independent voices to challenge the Gang, not a reliable member to make it the Gang of 5.

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Greenwashing, Part 2: Sammamish never demanded EIS from developers

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  1. Greenwashing (a compound word modeled on “whitewash”), or “green sheen,” is a form of spin in which green PR or green marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that an organization’s products, aims or policies are environmentally friendly.–Wikipedia.

Sammamish staff has never required an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) from a developer when reviewing a project, it was revealed October 7 at the only candidates’ forum held for the City Council election November 3.

Nor, as far as Sammamish Comment can determine, has staff ever issued a Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance (MDNS) for a project until the current Conner-Jarvis project, which is under citizen appeal; it’s only otherwise issued a Determination of Non-Significance (DNS) in 15 years of projects.

For those not versed in land use regulations and reviews, this alphabet soup of letters is confusing and, on its face, meaningless.

Here’s what these mean, why they are important to development in Sammamish, why the staff practices lie at the root of what citizens are seeing today as trees come down and controversies emerge over protection of wetlands, streams, lakes and Kokanee salmon and why the responsibility ultimately flows back to the City Council.

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Variances-R-Us, Part 2: City engineers admitted staff routinely ignored code, relied on unwritten policies

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The City Council adopted the [Public Works Standards] by ordinance…. Thus, the PWS has the force of regulation.

When it adopted the PWS, the City Council gave to the Public Works director the authority to administratively amend them…. The record of this hearing does not contain any evidence that the Public Works Director has ever formally exercised that authority: the PWS read today just as when they were adopted in 2000, except for changes that were brought about by the Council’s 2005 adoption…changes which the City Engineer testified are routinely ignored by Public Works and which do not to this day appear in the publicly available version of the PWS. Public Works’ unwritten policies are also not publicly available. (Emphasis added.)

This remarkable section is part of the Sammamish Hearing Examiner report of an appeal of the Kampp Property project by the Pine Hills Homeowners Association.

A City official testified Staff routinely ignores city code, and relies on an unwritten policy. (Memo to lawyers: “arbitrary and capricious” rings a bell here.)

This damning admission underscores the cavalier approach to approving developments that citizens have been complaining about for years.

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City sponsors, skips Sammamish Disaster Preparedness Fair in City Hall

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  • October 15’s Great Washington ShakeOut drill reveals City’s Emergency Operations Center radio system was boxed up and inoperable since the remodeling more than a year ago.
  • City claimed regular drills with activated EOC.
  • State law requires annual emergency plan drills.
  • City skipped signing up last year to participate in four-day Cascadia Rising drill next year, joining after Sammamish Comment revealed the inaction.
  • Ten days later inoperative radio system discovered in EOC.
  • 12 days later City skips its own Preparedness Fair.
  • State law requires plan update every two years; last plan dated 2012, being updated now.

The City of Sammamish was a sponsor of the Sammamish Disaster Preparedness Fair held Saturday in City Hall, but it skipped the event. There was no City table or personnel to provide information to citizens of what to do or how to prepare for a major disaster, or to explain just what the City’s role would be in such an event.

Eastside Fire and Rescue and Sammamish Police had tables. So did the Sammamish Citizens Corp, Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District, the Red Cross and several private enterprises displaying (and selling) survival kits. There was even a hot dog stand selling refreshments.

But no table from City Hall.

Sammamish’s own five year old Emergency Management Plan says “City and County governments will take the lead in managing public health, safety and welfare services.”

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Forgetting who you’re serving at the Sammamish City Council

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All too often, elected officials forget who they were elected to serve. This unfortunately is the case with some on the Sammamish City Council.

Artwork via Google images.

During the course of this year, Sammamish Comment chronicled a number of important issues in which the Council and the City Administration practiced benign neglect. In many cases, individual Council Members have pursued personal agenda, played follow the leader or blamed citizens for being whiners or misunderstanding what they are supposed to understand.

These attitudes are why Washington D.C. and Olympia (WA) are so dysfunctional and failing to serve the peoples’ interest in pursuit of their own. It’s why Sammamish citizens voted to incorporate in 1998: to get out from under an unresponsive King County government that ignored our wishes and needs.

Certainly being our own City proved far more beneficial than being under the King County Council. We have roads and parks we weren’t going to get under the County rule. We have community events, notably our Fourth of July, Sammamish Nights and similar activities we’d never get under King County.

But the City is letting citizens down in a number of areas due to the benign neglect and personal agendas referenced above. For example:

Skipping the Cascadia Rising earthquake drill

There are a lot of things in government that fall within the category of “What were you thinking?”

Skipping the Cascadia Rising earthquake drill tops the list.

The Sammamish Comment revealed October 5 that the City skipped the sign-up deadline last year to participate in a regional Cascadia Rising earthquake preparedness drill that outlines a scenario of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hitting Sammamish. (The scenario’s epicenter is the Cascadia Subduction Fault off the Washington coastline, with a 9.0 epicenter magnitude.)

Sammamish had no plans to participate. Until after The Comment began making inquiries.

This is a huge public safety issue. This is the worst example of benign neglect yet by our City and City Council. Read the details here.

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