Sammamish manipulates traffic counts to approve development, study charges

Mike Mullor

Update,  June 6: The City Council meets tonight and this topic will come up. The meeting begins at 6:30pm at City Hall; Public Comment is scheduled about 7:25pm. Mullor’s study may be accessed here.

Original post, June 5:

Sammamish manipulated its traffic concurrency code to allow new development despite daily vehicle counts exceeding the thresholds for pass-fail standards, a study shows.

  • Miki Mullor will present his study to the meeting tonight of the Citizens for Sammamish. The group meets at 7pm at the fire station at 1851 228th Ave. NE.

The City uses traffic count data it has to apply for concurrency testing. Most of the data is from 2012. Some 2014 data is used. No 2016 data is used, according to the study. Using 2014 data on key roads where 2012 data is used would have failed some concurrency testing and denied the applications for development, the study shows.

Click on all images to enlarge. Source: Miki Mullor Concurrency Study.

Miki Mullor, a Sammamish resident, used Public Records Request (PRR) to obtain 2014 traffic count data that the City has but does not generally use in its concurrency testing.

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County, State, water district elections for Sammamish

Filings for candidates for the November election ended Friday. There are races other than those for Sammamish City Council of local interest.

King County Council

Kathy Lambert

As expected, incumbent Kathy Lambert filed for reelection to the District 3 seat of the King County Council. Sammamish is part of District 3.

Former Sammamish Mayor Tom Vance in March filed the necessary paperwork with the Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) to challenge Lambert, but in the end, he did not file the required documents to become a candidate.

Instead, John Murphy of North Bend filed to challenge Lambert. Continue reading

13 candidates seek 4 Sammamish City Council positions

Thirteen candidates filed for four positions on the Sammamish City Council, the most since 1999 when 40 people filed for seven positions for the first Council.

 

This means there will be primary races in the August election for each seat up this year. The top two of each race will advance to the November general election.

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8th candidate files for Sammamish council

The eighth candidate for Sammamish City Council filed today.

Melanie L. Curtright, 57, of the Hampton Woods neighborhood in the North end of the city, filed for Position 7. John Robinson and Pamela Stuart previously filed for this position. If none drops out or changes slots, this sets up a primary in August at which the top two advance to the November election.

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New battle brewing over Ebright Creek development

Wally Pereyra, gearing up for a new land use appeal over development affecting Ebright Creek.

A tiny, two-home short plat is at the heart of what’s likely to be another appeal to protect environmentally sensitive Ebright Creek.

The Sammamish City Staff Monday approved development “to subdivide one parcel comprising approximately 2.97 acres into two single-family residential lots. The site is located to the east of Ebright Creek, west of the Greenbriar subdivision. The site is constrained by the buffer of a Type F stream (Ebright Creek) and landslide hazard area buffers.”

The applicants, Clifford and Pauline Cantor, first filed for development 16 years ago.

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