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The Sammamish Town Center plan was about seven years in the making, controversial throughout. Then development was held up by the 2008 Great Recession. Ground was finally broken in 2015. The first store, Metropolitan Market, opened this year. And now the Town Center is again at the center of controversy over the building moratorium.
There has even been a call to revisit the plan.
Here’s why doing so is not a good idea and why the Town Center is needed.
The King County Council is poised to adopt an ordinance intended to “coerce” utility companies and water and sewer districts into franchise fees to use street rights-of-way in order to raise millions of dollars in fees for the County’s general fund.
The problem—and there are many—is that the ordinance and use of funds is unlawful under state statutes, says a coalition of water districts that issued a press release today.
Continue reading “King County nears adoption of “unlawful,” “secret” tax”
Sammamish City Council Member Ramiro Valderrama, citing what turns out to be a series of unsubstantiated claims, executed a pirouette on his previous vote supporting a moratorium including the Town Center—and went splat.
The Town Center was exempted from the moratorium at the Nov. 21 meeting by a 4-3 vote, with Valderrama, Mayor Bob Keller and Council Members Don Gerend and Kathy Huckabay voting to lift it.
Valderrama said his vote always was about storm water management for the Town Center. In voting to exempt the Town Center, Valderrama claimed the emergency moratorium was not about traffic concurrency.
This simply wasn’t true.
Continue reading “Valderrama cites fake facts in Town Center moratorium flip-flop”
Sammamish Comment recommends John Murphy for election to King County Council District 3, which includes Sammamish, Issaquah and adjacent unincorporated areas.
Lambert has been the District 3 Council Member for 16 years. Before that, she was a state legislator.
As a matter of preference, The Comment would rather see new blood come in after four terms. This has been true on the Sammamish City Council level and for other elective positions.
Continue reading “Murphy for King County Council District 3”
Nearly two years after turning on the “Intelligence Transportation System” stop lights on 228th Ave. from one end of the City to the other, Sammamish is finally fixing it.
The ITS is intended to coordinate lights on 228th to give green lights and expedite traffic.
The problem: side streets and left turn arrows faced long delays, even when there was little or no through traffic on 228th.
Continue reading “Two years later, Sammamish fixing 228th stop lights”
The victory last week by the Sammamish Heritage Society in its appeal of an Issaquah decision to allow demolition of buildings at the Lutheran church property on the Providence Heights campus off 228th Ave. is a seminal moment for the group.
But it may be short-lived.
The Issaquah Hearing Examiner ruled that Issaquah “did not have the opportunity to adequately consider adverse impacts to a site designated as a landmark” by Issaquah’s own landmark commission before issuing the permit to demolish the church, which has significant stained glass windows.
Continue reading “Appeal victory seminal moment for Sammamish Heritage Society”
The construction cost of Issaquah-Fall City Road (IFC) improvements quietly has gone up by 36%.
Or has it?
The March Sammamish City Newsletter’s page 1 article updating the plans to widen Issaquah-Fall City Road is the following, opening paragraph:
“When 10,000 Klahanie-area residents came into Sammamish last year, the city knew that a big responsibility was going to follow them through the door – a $36 million item known as Issaquah-Fall City Road.”
This figure is not what the City told Klahanie residents and the taxpayers of legacy Sammamish when promoting annexation to Sammamish.
Instead, then-City Manager Ben Yazici and then-Mayor Tom Vance said IFC Road would cost $23m, a reduction from the $38.8m King County priced the road improvements, cited by Issaquah.
Continue reading “Issaquah-Fall City Road cost jumps 36% over pre-annexation estimate”
