Sammamish has until Nov. 3 decide whether to appeal a decision by the Shoreline Hearings Board siding with King County on its appeal over three of four issues on development of the southern end of the East Lake Sammamish Trail (ELST).
Sammamish should not appeal the SHB’s decision.
Sammamish residents should have received their mail-in ballots for the Nov. 8 election by now.
Given the top of the ballot, the presidential race, offers such an awful set of choices, voters might instead start at the bottom of the ballot and work their way to the top.
The Seattle Times lists its endorsements for initiatives, propositions and the elective races here. You have to go to this link and then select the ones you’re interested in reading. Sammamish Comment concluded its endorsements yesterday.
Sammamish voters should Vote No on the $54 billion plan for Sound Transit 3. This is a $27 billion tax plan over 25 years.
For this, Sammamish gets degraded bus service and prospectively a new park-and-ride on the North End. The average Sammamish household will pay an estimated $1,100 a year in Sound Transit taxes. With about 20,000 households, this is $550 million over the 25 years. For a park-and-ride. And worse service.
Even more notable–and alarming: no project outlined in ST3 is guaranteed. Not a single one. Voters could approve the $27bn in new taxes and none of these projects is a sure bet. This is why The Comment says the park-and-ride for Sammamish is only “prospective.”
One thing that is not prospective but which is guaranteed: if ST3 passes, citizens in its taxing district, including Sammamish, will have no say at all in future tax packages. ST3 takes away voter approval for future taxes and puts it squarely in an unelected board appointed by elected politicians. Unlike the tax packages for ST1 and ST2, there is no sunset for ST3 taxes.
This is a bad deal in so many ways.
The Comment’s position on ST3 is well known to long-time readers of this column, so this recommendation comes as no surprise.
45th Legislative District
The Senate seat is not up for election this year.
House of Representatives
Position 1
Roger Goodman (D) (I)
Ramiro Valderrama
Position 2: Larry Springer (D) (I) Unopposed.
The City of Sammamish has gone to court 28 times in the last 10 years on matters other than routine operational reasons. Half were for Land Use Petition (development) (LUP) appeals from Hearing Examiner decisions, a review of court records reveals.
In addition, the City wound up in Court over development of the East Lake Sammamish Trail for what’s called an Administrative Law Review, three times over Public Records and twice by parties seeking injunctions against the City.
The City also is a defendant in a damages lawsuit by developer William Buchan, which is also the plaintiff in one of the LUPs. Both are for the proposed development of Chestnut Estates West, west of 212th Ave. SE and SE 8th St.
The review of records in King County Superior Court this week revealed numerous other court actions relating to City requests to condemn land (usually for road rights of way) and Quit Claim deeds. These are routine cases related to the normal operation of the City.
The court cases do not include recent actions before the state Shorelines Hearing Board on appeals by King County and the Sammamish Homeowners group over a Hearing Examiner’s decision regarding development of the East Lake Sammamish Trail.
Sammamish Comment 