Category Archives: Regional

County cites “breakdown in internal communications” over ELST plan for Section 2A keeping semi-truck wide design

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  • From tonight’s City Council meeting:
    • City Staff and County Staff are meeting this week.
    • The City Council wants the County to come to the March 3 council meeting to explain themselves.
    • The City Council is hopping mad at the County. Member Ramiro Valderrama wants a discussion about withdrawing the Trail from the Inter Local Agreement (ILA) with the County, but this effort failed to muster a majority because it’s unknown what unintended consequences could be. This subject could be revisited if the March 3 County Come-to-Jesus meeting is unsatisfactory.
    • Deputy Mayor Kathy Huckabay wants to give the County the “benefit of the doubt” over the “communications” issue. (!!!)
    • Member Tom Odell, who had met with County officials about the North end troubles and came away cautiously optimistic, has “had it.”
    • When the video tape of the meeting is posted on the City web site in about three or four days, the discussion at the top of the meeting (including a staff report) is worth watching. It takes about an hour. Then skip ahead to public comment for my remarks.

Now for my commentary today.

It’s not often I am gobsmacked by government, but one should never under estimate the incompetence of King County.

The County issued its design plans for that portion of the East Lake Sammamish Trail that runs from 33rd St (the 7-11) to the Issaquah City Limits, and it’s the identical design to the North end that has caused so much controversy.

Please see my post of Sunday, County to City, citizens: Drop Dead, for context.

I emailed the City Feb. 15 about the design. What I got back pretty much summed up the County’s position by this clip from the Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke.

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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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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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