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Sammamish city council descends into dysfunction, paralysis
By Scott Hamilton
Commentary
The Sammamish City Council hardly distinguished itself Tuesday night, descending into full-fledged dysfunction, paralysis and open warfare.
The issues: concurrency and the building moratorium.
It was often an embarrassing display and overall, the council as a collective body came off tarnishing itself.
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Concurrency approval, lifting building moratorium now targeted for September
The building moratorium in Sammamish won’t be lifted next week.
In a sometimes-heated meeting, the city council on a 4-3 vote adopted an amendment offered by Deputy Mayor Karen Moran to add some capacity-based measurements to the Level of Service concurrency model previously approved.
The absence of road capacity measurements means some key road segments without stop signs or stop lights aren’t measured.
These include East Lake Sammamish Parkway north of Inglewood Hill Road to the Redmond city limits; 244th north of NE 8th to the city limits; and long stretches of Sahalee Way.
All are heavily congested during rush hour and would likely fail concurrency tests.
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Council tables contract for interim city manager
The Sammamish City Council tabled for one week a contract to hire an interim city manager.
The move came without comment or debate, following a four hour executive session, called to interview candidates for a public employee position and to review the performance of a public employee.
The only employee position the council has direct authority over is the city manager.
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Just how cozy is the city with STCA?
Editorial
Kellie Stickney Communications Manager
Just how cozy is Town Center developer STCA with the Sammamish city administration?
Sammamish Comment has been reporting aspects of the relationship between the developer, administration and certain members of the city council for more than a year.
Now, The Comment discovered that the city administration collaborated with STCA to promote their project using taxpayer money at the same time the new concurrency model was being developed by the city.
This casts an appearance of a conflict of interest because a realistic concurrency system may block new development under certain circumstances, including the Town Center. STCA is the largest developer of the Town Center.
The council included the Town Center in the moratorium so it will be subject to the new concurrency.
It is our view that it is improper for city staff to collaborate with STCA and at the same time develop a concurrency model that may block it.
Indeed, on February 28, Kendra Breiland, the city’s concurrency consultant, met in Bellevue with STCA for “coordination.”
Sammamish Comment 