Tag Archives: East Lake Sammamish Trail

County cites “breakdown in internal communications” over ELST plan for Section 2A keeping semi-truck wide design

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  • From tonight’s City Council meeting:
    • City Staff and County Staff are meeting this week.
    • The City Council wants the County to come to the March 3 council meeting to explain themselves.
    • The City Council is hopping mad at the County. Member Ramiro Valderrama wants a discussion about withdrawing the Trail from the Inter Local Agreement (ILA) with the County, but this effort failed to muster a majority because it’s unknown what unintended consequences could be. This subject could be revisited if the March 3 County Come-to-Jesus meeting is unsatisfactory.
    • Deputy Mayor Kathy Huckabay wants to give the County the “benefit of the doubt” over the “communications” issue. (!!!)
    • Member Tom Odell, who had met with County officials about the North end troubles and came away cautiously optimistic, has “had it.”
    • When the video tape of the meeting is posted on the City web site in about three or four days, the discussion at the top of the meeting (including a staff report) is worth watching. It takes about an hour. Then skip ahead to public comment for my remarks.

Now for my commentary today.

It’s not often I am gobsmacked by government, but one should never under estimate the incompetence of King County.

The County issued its design plans for that portion of the East Lake Sammamish Trail that runs from 33rd St (the 7-11) to the Issaquah City Limits, and it’s the identical design to the North end that has caused so much controversy.

Please see my post of Sunday, County to City, citizens: Drop Dead, for context.

I emailed the City Feb. 15 about the design. What I got back pretty much summed up the County’s position by this clip from the Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke.

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County to Sammamish, citizens on East Lake Sammamish Trail: Drop Dead. County sticks with design, tree destruction

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King County’s design for the Southern portion of improving the East Lake Sammamish Trail is 90% complete and despite indicating to Sammamish city officials that it would be more flexible, nothing in the design appears to be responsive to the City of residents.

In other words: Drop dead.

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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.

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County to destroy 36% of trees in 1.3 mi on Lake Trail, put at risk 26% more–and they ain’t done yet

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King County will destroy 36% of the trees and put at risk 26% more–a total of 120 out of 194 trees–in just 1.3 miles of the East Lake Sammamish Trail between SE 43rd Way (the round-about) and 33rd (roughly the 7-11) as it plans to widen the trail to 18 ft (equal to 1.5 lanes of two lane highway).

The Sammamish Review reported the pending destruction November 5.

And this doesn’t include the long section from 33rd to Inglewood Hill Road.

In a post on October 16, I raised the alarm.

The County’s destruction of trees on the Northern section of ELST, north of Inglewood to the Redmond city limits, is a blight on the landscape.

The County claims that it must adhere to federal and local standards for the trail’s paving and “improvements,” and the trees must go as a result and to protect wetlands that are in reality drainage ditches.

I filed a four page Public Comment with the County and City in advance of the Oct. 29 comment deadline. This document is here: ELST Comments 10202014_2

The County claims it cannot deviate from the trail standards. Poppycock. On the section through Issaquah, there are a couple of deviations from standards, narrowing the trail and changing the alignment slightly for environmental reasons.

Photos below the page break.

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Heads up on ELSP Lake Trail: your trees are at risk

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While many letters to The Sammamish Review and comments to the Sammamish City Council have recently focused on the Lake Sammamish Trail from Inglewood Hill north to the Redmond city limits, residents south of Inglewood Hill to the Issaquah city limits are next on the trail “improvement” list.

Residents have until Oct. 29 to comment to the City and the County on plans to extend the 18 ft wide extreme makeover this distance. Trees will be destroyed in the name of building this “improvement” to city, county and federal standards. (Eighteen feet is the width of a land-and-a half of East Lake Sammamish Parkway.)

The City and the County have it within discretion to make small adjustments to standards. In most cases, aligning the trail slightly toward ELSP will save trees adjacent the west side of the trail. I spoke with a county official who said this would encroach on the wetlands. In walking the trail end-to-end, most “wetlands” are nothing more than drainage ditches, and in any event in most cases these ditches may be moved slightly toward ELSP.

Finally, the trade off between wetland and trees ignores the environmental benefits of trees: capturing stormwater runoff, stabilizing slopes and protecting the lake. They also help cool temperatures. My car’s thermometer shows as much as a 5 degree difference on hot days from the Safeway complex to my neighborhood, which is surrounded by cedar trees.

Residents need to flood the City and County with comments. Unfortunately, too many members of our city council appear uninterested in public opinion (as letter writers and the Oct. 8 editorial suggest). It took Councilmember Ramiro Valderrama months to get the city to put the north end on the agenda and to do something about the rape-and-scrape destruction of a thousand trees (by one count) on the north end of the trail. The County ran rough-shod over objections and pleas to be selective and careful.

The emergency tree ordinance just passed by the Council this week isn’t sufficient to prevent a similar slaughter on the south end of the project, Valderrama told me last night.

Public comments to the application by October 29 and public comment to the City Council is necessary. But in the end, appeals of the city permit and the shoreline management permit may be the only alternatives.