The Taj Mahal community center

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Sammamish has a rather sordid history about the community center.

The very first city council (1999-2001) recognized the need for a community center but it and succeeding councils dithered and dithered.

The councils agreed early on to partner with the Boys and Girls Club to erect a building on 244th Ave. just north of NE8th, but the BGC dithered so long on fund raising that the Lake Washington School District built a school on the site.

The city then dithered in doing a deal with the YMCA for a public-private partnership, despite having a couple of reasonable proposals.

Finally, 10 years after incorporation, the city bought the old library at NE8th and 228th and contracted with the BGC to run the place.

Now we’re looking at the prospect of a community center that will be three times the size of city hall at seven times the cost.

Holy crap! Why so expensive?

In part, there is the desire on the part of some, including the high schools, who want competitive swimming lanes, at a cost of $10m. (But, notably, the schools aren’t willing to step up and write checks, it seems.)

As long as we’re talking about features serving people, this is one use for the pools.

Whitten goes off the deep end on affordable housing

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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

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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.

Protecting neighborhoods and televising more meetings

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Sammamish has a major controversy over whether to remove barriers to increase traffic connectivity. Among the concerns neighborhoods have in removing barriers are speeding cars.

Here’s one solution.

  • Sammamish has decided to start televising planning commission and city council workshop meetings. This is long overdue and was urged by the Planning Commission a few years ago in a formal proposal, but kudos to the city for at long last proceeding down this road (the barricades were finally removed, apparently). This will improve communication between the city government and its citizens.

Sammamish Legislator proposes eminent domain restriction

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State Rep. Larry Springer (D-45th) has introduced a bill in the Legislature that would restrict government’s ability to condemn property and resell it for commercial purposes. Springer represents the northern end of Sammamish.

The Sammamish Review has this story.

I proposed such a restriction in testimony during public comment before the City Council as a protection for homeowners in the Town Center. The City Council rejected the recommendation.