Category Archives: Traffic & Schools

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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Sammamish needs to open up with transparency on TIP; there’s a “now you see it, now you don’t” show happening

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Illustration via Google images.

Sammamish officials have a serious transparency and credibility problem.

The side-by-side comparison of the 2014 and 2016 Six Year Transportation Improvement Plans (TIPs) shows what appears to be creative “book keeping” to present a financial picture that is rosy when it’s really not. Sammamish Comment also reviewed prior TIPs to compare projects and projected costs.

Sammamish Comment spent this week dissecting the TIPs for the Readers. The issues are these:

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Staff Conclusion: Not enough time to meet Ace Deadline; an analysis

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See the running update in previous post here.

Analysis:

The Sammamish City Council spent a great deal of time on the Ace problem last night and in the end directed the City Attorney, Bruce Disend, to meet with Ace’s attorney to see if a developer’s agreement could be reached.

Ace’s attorney argues that a Developer’s Agreement will enable the City to compress permitting processes and essentially bypass environmental regulations–or mitigate them–in a way that makes building Ace on an environmentally constrained property feasible.

Ace also has retained a company called Watershed to come up with a mitigation plan. The principal of Watershed is Bill Way, who lives on the Lake Sammamish waterfront in our City. I’ve known Bill for years and he is a stand-up guy, dedicated to protecting the environment. His company has come up with creative ways to do so, including for the widening of 228th and its impact on George Davis Creek, as well as Skyline and Eastlake high school projects. This creek runs through the properties involved in the Ace proposal.

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School shootings: heartbreak and no answers

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Along with millions of us, I was in shock and heartbreak over the Newtown shootings.

Then I read about the 16-year old who committed suicide by gun in the parking lot of Skyline High School. This student has not been identified by the local press out of respect for the family, and properly so.

[See this story for a link to Help centers.]

I know nothing of this student and I don’t suggest or imply anything at all about this statement: I could not help but think, There but for the grace of God…some other student, with sinister motives, could easily have gone from the parking lot into the school at a time when classes were in session and shot students before taking his own life.

It wasn’t too long along that there was a sick hoax in which a former student threatened a gun shooting at Skyline.

I can only imagine the heartbreak of those families and friends in Newtown, and of the family of friends of this student at Skyline–and I can’t imagine this heartbreak very well. How can you, unless you have gone through this set of circumstances? Losing a child, which no parent is supposed to do–your kids are supposed to survive your death–happens through auto accidents, sickness and other circumstances. This is part of life. But to lose a child to this? Something so senseless?

How do you cope? There are few answers.

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