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.
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.
The construction cost of Issaquah-Fall City Road (IFC) improvements quietly has gone up by 36%.
Or has it?
The Sammamish City Newsletter says the improvements to Issaquah-Fall City Road will now cost $36m. In 2015, the figure was $23m.
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.
The Sammamish Review and three sister publications ceases operations Feb. 24.
The Sammamish Review will cease operations Feb. 24.
So will the Issaquah Press, SnoValley Star (Snoqualmie) and the Newcastle News. All are part of the Issaquah Press Group, which in turn is owned by The Seattle Times.
The Group made the announcement today.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has been nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has a record of fighting EPA regulations. The EPA adopts regs for clean water and protecting threatened/endangered species–like the Kokanee salmon in Lake Sammamish.
Scott Pruitt for director of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Ryan Zinke for Secretary of Interior.
Rick Perry for Secretary of, umm, ahh, Oops.
These are President-Elect Donald Trump’s choices for environmental departments. In the case of Perry, the Department of Energy, the agency he wanted close but for which he famously forgot and said Oops in his 2012 run for president. Energy has no small impact on the environment.
Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma, fought EPA regulations for years. Zinke, a first-term Congressman from Montana, received just s 3% rating from the League of Conservation Voters.
And now they will be in charge of clean water and endangered/threatened species regulations.
There are direct, local implications.
Sammamish Comment 