GMA nuanced in development control, says City staff

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  • The special study session on Sammamish transportation concurrency and traffic issues continues at the City Council meeting today. This begins at a special time, 4:30pm, to about 6:30pm. It will be televised by Comcast 21 and webcast on the City website.

The Growth Management Act doesn’t exactly mandate development, as Sammamish officials often said, a special study session last night on traffic and transportation concurrency revealed last night.

Instead, the GMA gives cities and countries some options to respond to growth.

The deep-dive into how Sammamish developed and uses its currency system continues tonight in a special time, 4:30pm, at a City Council meeting that will be webcast and televised on Comcast 21.

The special meetings were prompted by a study by a Sammamish citizen, Miki Mullor, who concluded Sammamish manipulated concurrency to approve development.

He claimed the GMA allows cities to stop development if concurrency fails.

Not entirely so, the City Council was told last night.

And, yes, through policy decisions from a succession of City Councils, the Staff crafted concurrency that approves development—but the rationale is far more complex than the black-and-white reasons claimed by Mullor.

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Candidate questionnaires for City Council begin July 12; ballots go into mail

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Candidate questionnaires for Sammamish City Council begin publishing tomorrow, July 12, in Sammamish Comment.

Tomorrow is also when King County Elections mails the ballots for the Aug. 1 primary.

Four Council seats are up for vote in the Nov. 8 general election: Positions 1, 3, 5 and 7. Three of the races, 3, 5 and 7, have three active candidates running, requiring a primary vote Aug. 1. The top two vote-getters will advance to the November election.

Position 1 has only two candidates running. This position won’t appear on the Aug. 1 ballot, with these two candidates going directly to the November election.

Sammamish Comment submitted a three-page questionnaire about City issues to the candidates last month. They were asked to return them by July 7, allowing for processing for publication beginning tomorrow.

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Paucity of local endorsements mark City Council races

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The 11 active candidates running for Sammamish City Council have of local endorsements as the Aug. 1 primary closes in.

Some candidates have no endorsements listed on their web sites, which are also—for the most part—appallingly devoid of substantive discussion of their issues.

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Ghassemieh, Indapure each raise nearly $20,000 for Sammamish Council primary

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It’s less than one month away from the Aug. 1 Sammamish City Council primary and fund raising by the candidates ranges from nearly $20,000 to nothing, an examination of filings with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission reveals.

The data below is through June. Each raised more money since then.

Minal Ghassemieh (Position 3) and Rituja Indapure (Position 5) raised the most money, at $17,384 and $19,400 respectively. However, only a small portion of their fund raising came from Sammamish: 26% of contributors totaling $5,050 for Ghassemieh, and 32% of the contributors donating $6,296 for Indapure.

Mark Baughman (Position 1) hasn’t raised any money, but there is no primary for this position. His sole opponent, Jason Ritchie, raised $3,569, who is self-funding most of his campaign so far.

John Robinson (Position 7) raised $1,500, of which $1,000 is from himself.

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More questions posed in Sammamish concurrency kerfuffle

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Miki Mullor

More questions about Sammamish’s method of applying traffic concurrency by the citizen who understood a controversial study last month.

Miki Mullor sent a new round of questions to the City Council and City Administration on July 4. (See the Power Point program here.) He submitted the questions in advance of a scheduled July 10 meeting at which the City Council is to get a detailed briefing from staff about concurrency and how Sammamish measures traffic in approving development.

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