Openness, transparency take another hit in Sammamish as Vance, Huckabay appear to withhold emails in Public Records Request

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Openness and transparency in Sammamish have taken another hit as Mayor Tom Vance and Deputy Mayor Kathy Huckabay appear to have withheld emails requested under

Tom Vance

the State Public Records Act.

This is especially ironic because Huckabay, in a last-minute email and letter-writing campaign against Council Member Ramiro Valderrama, who is seeking reelection, and candidates Tom Hornish and Christie Malchow, has made openness and transparency her top point against these three.

Sammamish Comment filed a multi-part Public Records Request (PRR) August 27 in pursuit of several stories that subsequently were posted as information was developed through interviews and records. Included in that multi-part request was the following:

Request #2:

Subject: All emails from the City server and the personal email accounts:

Kathy Huckabay

  1. relating any and all Public Records Requests of any kind to, from and/or between Tom Vance, Tom Odell and Kathy Huckabay on any subject.

City Clerk Melonie Anderson responded Thursday last week:

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Malchow, Valderrama, Hornish for City Council; ballot returns now

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Sammamish voters are beginning to mail their ballots for the November 3 City Council election. It’s a good time to review endorsements.

Position 2

Christie Malchow is the recommended choice over Mark Cross.

Christie Malchow, Position 2

Malchow is an energetic professional who got her baptism under fire in Sammamish as an appellant of a proposed project, Chestnut Estates West, that would have a material adverse impact on salmon-bearing Ebright Creek, traffic and a proposal to build on what had been designated as open space when the developer built Chestnut Estates (East). The City Hearing Examiner threw out the City Staff approval of West as improperly approved.

As with many who enter public service because of a passionate issue, Malchow came to understand there are bigger issues at stake than just a NIMBY issue. She learned that the City staff routinely waivers, ignores or grants variances to code to approve projects. City transparency and responsiveness is lacking. Malchow pledges to hold the staff’s feet to the fire, pry open the doors to transparency and to restore responsive government to Sammamish.

Malchow, if elected, will be the youngest member on the Council and the only one not eligible for membership to AARP. She’s 42 and has two small children, representative of the demographics of Sammamish.

Cross is a career government employee who served eight years on the Council, from 2004-2012. He seeks to return to Council after a four year break.

Cross, 65, served admirably on Council and is a faithful public servant. But his principal objective is to add staff to manage future road projects and to pave over the rest of the East Lake Sammamish Trail, though from his public statements, there is no evidence that environmental protection and property rights along the trail figure into his agenda. Cross will be a reliable member of the ruling majority, the so-called Gang of 4, all of whom have endorsed Cross for election. He also endorse Mayor Tom Vance, a member of the Gang, for reelection.

We need independent voices to challenge the Gang, not a reliable member to make it the Gang of 5.

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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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Variances-R-Us, Part 2: City engineers admitted staff routinely ignored code, relied on unwritten policies

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The City Council adopted the [Public Works Standards] by ordinance…. Thus, the PWS has the force of regulation.

When it adopted the PWS, the City Council gave to the Public Works director the authority to administratively amend them…. The record of this hearing does not contain any evidence that the Public Works Director has ever formally exercised that authority: the PWS read today just as when they were adopted in 2000, except for changes that were brought about by the Council’s 2005 adoption…changes which the City Engineer testified are routinely ignored by Public Works and which do not to this day appear in the publicly available version of the PWS. Public Works’ unwritten policies are also not publicly available. (Emphasis added.)

This remarkable section is part of the Sammamish Hearing Examiner report of an appeal of the Kampp Property project by the Pine Hills Homeowners Association.

A City official testified Staff routinely ignores city code, and relies on an unwritten policy. (Memo to lawyers: “arbitrary and capricious” rings a bell here.)

This damning admission underscores the cavalier approach to approving developments that citizens have been complaining about for years.

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City revises Sahalee Way timeline to ensure public role

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Sammamish officials last night reversed course on the timeline for approving the contract for the Sahalee Way road project, followed by public input, and put the cart behind the horse instead of in front.

Additionally, Staff effectively threw out the City Council action October 6, when the Final Work Scope for the $15m project was approved on a 4-2 vote and said it will start from scratch with the design.

Sammamish Comment detailed the controversy and timeline surrounding the project yesterday morning.

The public meeting announced October 6, set for November 4, remains. The plan to have the City Council approve the contract for the consultant Perteet was set for November 3. This has been rescheduled to December 1. A new Council review meeting was set for November 10, by which time Staff will assimilate public comment from the November 4 meeting, which will be 7p-9p at the Boys and Girls Club Teen Center.

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