Sammamish Comment’s coverage of the November 7 election begins later today with a report from last night’s City Council candidates forum.
Here’s what we have planned so far, leading up to the election. The schedule is subject to change and additions:
The only candidates forum for the Nov. 7 Sammamish City Council election will be Monday, Sept. 25, at City Hall. Details may be found here. Ballots are mailed to voters Oct. 18.
The forum runs from 6pm-8:30pm. Sammamish Comment will be at the forum and provide coverage either that evening or the next day.
The City will tape the forum for broadcast within a few days on Comcast Channel 21 and the City’s website/YouTube channel.
Four Council positions are up for election: 1, 3, 5 and 7. For the first time since 1999, there are no incumbents for these positions. The candidates are (in the order they appear on the ballot):
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.
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.
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.
Sammamish Comment 