Category Archives: Town Center

Assessing the candidates’ forum

Posted on by
2

Five of the six Sammamish candidates for City Council appeared at forum last week sponsored by the Rotary Club and the Kiwanis Club.

Kathy Richardson, who had planned a trip to Africa before she decided to run for City Council, was absent. She had a video-taped statement and a stand-in give a closing statement.

As far as the performance of the other candidates, there wasn’t really much difference between them on the issues. All believe the current City Council did not consider alternatives for creating a Community Center, the $64 million Taj Mahal that is proposed for the Kellman property in the Sammamish Commons. This 98,000sf proposal is 2 1/2 times the size of City Hall. Each of the candidates believes a public-private partnership should be considered, along with the possibility of a location outside the Town Center.

Some criticized Jesse Bornfreund as detached. Our view was that he was “relaxed.”

None supports a utility tax for general purposes and there was only limited support if for a specific purpose.

Who “won?”

Tom Vance was clearly the most well informed and in command of the details and nuances. We’ve remarked that nobody can out policy-wonk Vance. Nancy Whitten was second-best on wonkiness. Whether you agree with their positions is another matter. From a “performance” standpoint, Vance was the “winner.”

The other candidates had varying levels of knowledge of the issues, relying more on philosophical approaches to governing Sammamish in the next four years.

The Sammamish Review and Sammamish Patch have more detailed stories.

Now, on to the election and hopefully the issues

Posted on by
Reply

With the primary behind us, it’s now on to the general election and the issues facing Sammamish.

Here are the issues that are already apparent for the candidates to address in the general election, in no particular order:

  1. Kick-starting the Town Center. The capital markets still remain very tight for development. How can the city help kick-start the Town Center in the continued challenging economic climate?
  2. The Community Center. The city is proposing a concept that I’ve already labeled the Taj Mahal. I previously compared the proposal to city hall: 2 1/2 times the size at seven times the cost. I got some pushback on the price comparison from one of the council members, who questioned the figure I used for the cost of city hall. Even granting his figure–which I don’t–there is a mismatch. In the most recent newsletter, the city cleverly separated the infrastructure price (some $20 million) from the cost of the building ($44 million), saying the infrastructure (improvements to 228th and a parking garage) would also serve the Town Center. But don’t be fooled: the infrastructure isn’t triggered without the community center, and taxpayers will be asked to foot the bill in a bond vote. But is this the best solution? I’m not sure it is. The YMCA has tried for years to partner with the city to build a community center. This would shave millions of dollars off the cost (and the Y already owns the land, by the way) to taxpayers for a similar concept. I don’t think this option has received due consideration. This ought to be a big topic of debate for the candidates. Continue reading →

75% of voters reject Galvin tactics, “policies”

Posted on by
2

Update, Aug. 19: Galvin continues his wild allegations. In another comment in the election story he takes my observation about his ridiculous commentary repeated below and leaps to a series of assertions about my “support” for Valderamma. In fact, there is no place, no where and no how in which I have indicated support for any candidate. I declared Wasnick the victor over Galvin, so by Galvin’s twisted logic it would seem I support Wasnick, too.

Why is Galvin anti-Valderrama? Because, perhaps, Valderrama as a leader of Citizens for Sammamish–a group Galvin tried to exercise a leadership role–shunned his tactics and style.

As for my comments vis-a-vis Valderrama and Galvin, I’m merely exposing Galvin’s continued hypocrisy and distortions.

Update, Aug. 18: Here is Galvin’s graceless comment from the story in the Sammamish Review directed toward the vote for Valderrama:

John Galvin on August 17th, 2011 7:00 pm

A clear message that the paper’s editor is eager to hide is that more people voted against Valderrama than for him.

There is a growing discontent with City leadership, with grandiose plans that are never implemented, with policies that deny the future and cling to the past. Valderrama will need to be more dynamic, more substantive, and more independent if he hopes to get elected.

I invite citizens to compare Valderrama’s campaign website with my campaign website.  Which site is more substantive? I know what the Growth Management Act is. I know the city’s comprehensive plan. . I have attended city meetings and forums since 2000 and know all the players. I’ve studied all the confusing city economic reports. I’ve dared to raise issues the city council was eager to ignore. The first round is over, but the fight has just begun.

Humble in victory, proud in defeat. Relentless!

I am more than happy to support those candidates who will bring new vision and energy to Sammamish.

Hardly “humble in victory.”

Original Post:

It’s all over but the shouting, as they say: 75% of those voting in the Position 4 primary rejected John Galvin and his tactics of intimidation, insults, hypocrisy, cry-babyism and his advocacy of policies that would pave over the Town Center and result in traffic gridlock.

It’s particularly noteworthy that Galvin, who had a high profile following his years of berating everybody he didn’t agree with, his constant whining in letters to the editor and his advocacy of building a “Bellevue Square” in the center of Sammamish without the remotest ability to build roads to accommodate the traffic, was thrashed by two candidates who were unknown to the public, save for some road signs and a couple of articles in the local papers.

Continue reading →

Whitten goes off the deep end on affordable housing

Posted on by
1

It was a perplexing comment in The Sammamish Review profile of Nancy Whitten, seeking election to her third term on the City Council.

Here’s the bizarre portion of the article:

Whitten said she is also concerned about Town Center’s requirement that 10 percent of a development’s housing units be “affordable,” in that they can be rented by a family with an annual income of about $54,000. Having grown up in Chicago, she points to the infamous Cabrini-Green public housing project as an example of the downfalls of clustering affordable housing together.

“I question, socially, if we want to pack that much affordable housing in that small of an area,” she said.

I, too, am from Chicago (the Western suburbs) and know well the history of Cabrini Green. In the heart of Chicago, the place was a notorious housing project owned and operated by the City–not privately-owned units administered by a local organization like Seattle’s Arch. It was a densely-packed project for thousands of people of low income.

Chicago’s Cabrini Green. This is no Sammamish.

The affordable housing plan for Sammamish is a required 10% of the 2,000 units throughout the Town Center (with an option to go up to 20% of any given project), and families would have an average income of $54,000–which in their dreams, nobody residing in Cabrini-Green remotely made (except through illicit activities, perhaps).

The Chicago Housing Authority so mis-managed the “projects,” as it was known, and crime was so rampant, that the projects were eventually torn down.

Sammamish’s affordable housing plan doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to Cabrini-Green, and Whitten knows it.

In fact, the Town Center Plan doesn’t even remotely resemble the one once advanced by the Lake Washington School District, which owns 15 acres in the Town Center (not all of which is buildable). LWSD once proposed 144 units on this site, all of which would be affordable, for professions like teachers, police officers and fire fighters. Insofar as the proposal came very early in the Comprehensive Plan process, it was deemed premature and LWSD withdrew the plan.

The Town Center plan calls for a minimum of 200 and a maximum of 400 units, scattered throughout the 100 buildable acres.

What is Whitten thinking?

Galvin flouts law in candidacy

Posted on by
4

John Galvin, who has spent years complaining about and alleging that Sammamish flouted its own procedures and the law in the Town Center process, flouted the law when it came to his own candidacy for the Sammamish City Council.

Galvin declared his candidacy May 12, in opposition to incumbent Nancy Whitten. Under state law–and clearly defined for new candidates on the Public Disclosure Commission website–Galvin had 14 days to file is paperwork with the PDC. The paperwork is called a C-1, which lists his candidacy and his campaign treasurer, and an F-1, which is a financial disclosure statement.

The C-1 and the F-1 were required to be filed by May 26. He did not file and the PDC was alerted to this failure the next day. The PDC then contacted Galvin, and he finally filed his paperwork dated May 31 and received June 1. Here it is:  Galvin PDC Candidate Filings.

Galvin has a history thinking that the rules don’t apply to him. Throughout the last decade, Galvin has routinely shouted out from the back of the city council chambers, disrupting the meeting. The City Council, Planning Commission and Park Commission all have time limits for public comments so no one member of the public monopolizes the time. The public comment period, three minutes for individuals and five minutes for a representative of a group, is timed and a bell goes off when the time is up. The Mayor and chairmen routinely let the speaker go perhaps 30 seconds over to complete his or her thought but Galvin routinely abuses the process. He not only ignores the time limit and the bell, he often also ignores the admonition to wrap up. He routinely goes two-three minutes over the time and in one case talked for 12 1/2 minutes. (Mayor Gerend deserves blame for indulging this frequent, routine, blatant and egregious violation of the rules.)

Galvin has proved over and over that rules and courtesy don’t apply to him. Now he’s demonstrated the state law doesn’t apply to him, either. This is not a person citizens want or need on our city council.