“Voters have forgiven us for past troubles:” Sound Transit CEO. That’s the headline of a story on MyNorthwest.com.
The CEO is reacting to the latest vote in favor of Sound Transit 3, the $54bn project, $27bn tax plan over the next 25 years.
The CEO needs to take another look.
Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama led the opposition to Sound Transit 3.
The Sammamish City Council’s vote Tuesday night to oppose Sound Transit 3 was the right choice for the City. The vote was 5-2.
ST3 takes bus service away from Sammamish but offers a park-and-ride for the north end, an obvious contradiction. Even the PNR is not a firm offer.
Taxpayers would fork out between $500m-$550m in taxes over 25 years for this.
Issaquah and Redmond get light rail extensions. But the Issaquah light rail goes to downtown Bellevue and south Kirkland, not Seattle. The rail station is projected to be at roughly I-90 and SR900, behind the QFC grocery store (presumably in the I-90 median.) It needs to go to Issaquah Highlands.
If Sammamish residents want to commute to Seattle by light rail, the choices would be to go to the QFC terminal, either by car or bus, then to Bellevue and connect to Seattle; or go to the potential north Park and Ride (if it happens), then to Redmond, through downtown Bellevue and on to Seattle.
Fat chance.
Oct. 4, 2016: The Sammamish City Council voted tonight to to oppose Sound Transit 3 for the $27bn tax package, a $54bn multi-modal transportation package that reduces service to Sammamish in exchange for citizens paying an estimated $500m-$550m in taxes over 25 years.
The measure is on the Nov. 8 ballot in the Sound Transit area that includes portions of King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.
Going into the meeting, five Council members told Sammamish Comment they opposed ST3. These were Mayor Don Gerend, Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama and members Tom Hornish, Tom Odell and Christie Malchow.
Members Bob Keller and Kathy Huckabay supported ST3.
The vote tonight was 5-2 against the huge tax package. Keller and Huckabay were the dissenting votes.
Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama: ST3 is “taxation without transportation.”
The Sammamish City Council was clear at its May 10 meeting: the draft plan for Sound Transit 3 does nothing for our taxpayers.
A majority of the Council was also clear: they didn’t want to support a statement sought by the Suburban Cities Association (SCA) in support of principals of mass transit, because these were viewed as a “Trojan Horse” for ST3.
Led by Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama, members feared that there would not be an opportunity to later weigh in on ST3 itself and any expression of support for the SCA principals would be taken as support for ST3.
Sound Transit 3: Parallel rail lines, two stations from Issaquah/Bellevue and Seattle/Bellevue along the South Bellevue corridor.
Sound Transit will hold a public intake meeting Monday, May 2, at Sammamish City Hall beginning at 6:30m to receive comments on Sound Transit 3 (ST3), the $27bn tax hike for $50bn in projects over the next 25 years.
This is on top of tax increases approved for Sound Transit 2.
Sammamish citizens should attend this meeting to make it clear to Sound Transit and King County officials that ST3 is poorly conceived, ill-timed, extends over too long a period and short-changes not only Sammamish and the Eastside, but also Everett City Center and the Boeing Everett plant, where so many people from our local environs work.
Our citizens also need to urge the Sammamish City Council to opposed ST3.
Sammamish Comment 