Tag Archives: Don Gerend

Yacizi resigns, effective in February; legacy positive despite controversies

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Ben Yacizi.

Ben Yacizi has resigned as Sammamish City Manager, effective in February.

Yacizi has been City Manager for nearly all of our existence after incorporation in 1999. He became City Manager in January 2001.

Having served on City commissions for 8 1/2 years, I know Ben quite well. We’ve debated issues, we’ve fought over issues, and we’ve collaborated on issues.

A City Manager is the Chief Executive Officer of a city; the City Council is the Board of Directors. A City Manager is responsible for all hiring and firing, operations, the budget and carrying out policy set by the Council. Some cities, with an elected mayor (as opposed to a mayor selected by fellow council members like Sammamish), who serves as the CEO, usually have an Administrator as well.

Ben, as CEO of Sammamish, has come in for his share of criticism from citizens. With additional benefit of an insider’s view, he’s also come in for my criticism on more than one occasion. But I can tell Readers that on balance, I would give him four stars out of five for his oversight of Sammamish. Continue reading →

Klahanie annexation vote April 28, ballots this week; impact already being felt

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Klahanie Vote Map

The Klahanie Potential Annexation Area and its voting precincts. Click on image to enlarge.

Residents in the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area will be receiving ballots this week to vote whether to annex to Sammamish. If approved, city officials hope to make the annexation effective in August.

Klahanie PAA voters rejected annexing to Issaquah in February 2014 by a mere 32 vote. Click here for the voting analysis.

Several Sammamish City Council members actively opposed the Issaquah vote, and Council Member Don Gerend served as a spokesman for Klahanie Choice, the anti-Issaquah group that instead support annexation to Sammamish. Council Member Ramio Valderrama led the Sammamish council in several votes to send messages to Klahanie residents that Sammamish welcomed the PAA with open arms.

Sammamish has wanted to annex the Klahanie area since incorporation and in 2002 entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Issaquah mayor to transfer the PAA from Issaquah to Sammamish after an annexation vote failed. The Issaquah City Council refused to approve the transfer.

Annexation to Sammamish will add between 10,000-11,000 residents to our city’s population of around 45,000. The area, in aggregate, will also have one of the largest voting blocs, which could tip future elections.

There are other ramifications as well. Continue reading →

Barricades: Promises made, promises broken over 10 years; kicking the can down the road another two years

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Perhaps the highest profile issue after the East Lake Sammamish Trail to consistently vex the City Council is “barricades.” And most specifically, the “42nd St. barricade” in the Northeast corner of the City that separates the Hidden Ridge and Timberline neighborhoods.

At the March 17 Council meeting, residents from the neighborhoods appeared during the public comment session to support or oppose removing the barricade on 42nd. The public comments sessions begins at the start the meeting, and the testimony is interspersed with comment on other topics.

The Council had some extended discussion toward the end of the meeting, beginning at 1:59 hours into the meeting. Continue reading →

Sammamish to send Initiative/Referendum to citizens for advisory vote-Part 2

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Jan. 24, 2015: The Sammamish City Council agreed at its retreat today at the Suncadia Resort in Roslyn (WA) to ask its citizens whether the right to initiative and referendum should be adopted by the City.

The Council will formalize its consensus approval at the Feb. 3 City Council meeting. No formal, legally binding action could be taken at the retreat, including appointments of Council representation to regional committees.

The advocacy group Citizens for Sammamish (CFS) has been pressing the City Council to adopt an ordinance granting the right. Council members have been reluctant to approve the initiative/referendum process because of what they view how the state process became abused by Tim Eyman, who makes a living at filing state initiatives; and the increasing dominance by “big money” interests rather than the original intent of power to the people.

Continue reading →

Complacency, willful ignorance, Council infighting mark Sammamish muffing of Lake Trail issues

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“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.”

[New Statesman interview, 7 January 1939]”
― Winston S. Churchill

This is around 18 pages when printed.

Summary

The City of Sammamish has tried to keep an arm’s length to final development of the East Lake Sammamish Trail, but this hear-no- evil, speak-no-evil, see-no-evil approach began to unravel last year as King County’s over zealous approach to building the North end spurred outrage among homeowners.

A review of two years’ of emails, videos of Council meetings, conversations with city council members and homeowners along the Trail paints a picture of:

  • a complacent city staff routinely engaged with the County that kept the City Council in the dark;
  • frustrated property owners reaching out to the County and City;
  • a City Council that didn’t want to know what was going on;
  • inflighting among Council Members, who largely tried to ignore the one Council Member who was raising red flags about the County’s development of the Northern most section of the Lake Trail;
  • a City Council that ignored homeowners who complained; and
  • a City Council that finally awakened to the issues but remains muddled about what to do next.

Continue reading →