Reichert’s retirement long overdue

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The news last week that US Rep. Dave Reichert will retire is welcome, and overdue, news.

I’ve got plenty of courage. Really. US Rep. Dave Reichert. Photo via Google.

Reichert, a Republican, has been the 8th Congressional District Congressman for 14 years. The 8th includes Sammamish, other Eastside suburbs, Southern King County and east of the Cascades into Chelan County.

Reichert is one of the few so-called Republican moderates in the US House. While he indeed has been more environmentally friendly than most of his colleagues, his has been a mostly reliable Republican vote throughout his 14 years, including the last nine months under Donald Trump.

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Primary precinct voting analysis for Sammamish

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The precinct analysis of the August 1 primary in Sammamish yielded few surprises, but it gives the City its first look at how the Greater Klahanie area votes.

Klahanie was annexed into Sammamish in January 2015, but the City Council executed the annexation in two basic steps: the legal one, in January, but the “political” annexation came too late for the area to vote in the November 2015 City Council elections.

City officials said there was just too much to do to accomplish the political annexation sooner. Critics believed some officials didn’t want Klahanie voting in what was anticipated to be a close election for some candidates.

Regardless, the residents voted this time—though not in great numbers.

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Council returns Sept. 5 to take up traffic, concurrency

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  • This is six pages when printed.

Lyman Howard. Source: Google images.

The Sammamish City Council returns Sept. 5 from its August recess with traffic and concurrency the No. 1 priority and the No. 1 item on the agenda.

City Manager Lyman Howard will present a proposal to establish a “roadmap” going forward to take a top-to-bottom look at how the City implements traffic concurrency policies and testing that are required before development can be approved.

Controversial study prompts review

The review is the outgrowth of a controversial study by a Sammamish citizen, Miki Mullor, who concluded the City Staff had manipulated data to approve development. After a de facto moratorium brought on by the 2008 Global Recession, an improving economy and capital liquidity enabled a major spurt of growth that saw wholesale tree removal and increased traffic congestion over a few years beginning about 2014.

Mullor’s study contained incendiary charges that prompted Howard to label it “inaccurate” and “deeply offensive” at the June 6 Council meeting, the day after Mullor emailed the study to the City. Howard suggested later at the same meeting that Staff would answer questions raised by the study and from the Council.

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Primary results certified for November City Council election

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King County Elections today certified the results of the Aug. 1 primary, in which three of the four seats for Sammamish City Council were on the ballot.

The fourth seat only had two candidates and were not subject to the primary.

The winners are as Sammamish Comment projected on primary night. The final results are below.

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Ghassemieh, Indapure led fund raising, expenditures in City Council races

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Minal Ghassemieh and Rituja Indapure raised more and spent more money than any other candidate for Sammam City Council, to mixed results.

Ghassemieh was defeated in her bid to advance to the general election for Position 3. Her opponents, Karen Howe and Karen Moran, raised less than half and spent about one third of the money in their winning bids to advance to the November election.

Indapure swamped her opponents in fund raising and spending in Position 5 but had a poor second place finish against Chris Ross, who through Friday had 47% of the vote to Indapure’s 31.5%. The third candidate, Ryika Hooshangi, trailed Indapure by 10 points.

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