Tag Archives: Issaquah

Sammamish taxpayers, beware: More than $100 million in spending on the way and climbing

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  • Community Center: $35 million and probably more.
  • Developing the former YMCA property next to Pine Lake School, at a cost of $15 million proposed in the park plan.
  • Sahalee Road improvements at an unidentified cost, but probably in the low millions at the least.
  • Millions of dollars in the park plan for the Sammamish Landing, the Pigott property and more.
  • Klahanie Annexation: $32 million for road improvements and who knows what else on top of this, almost certainly amounting to tens of millions of dollars more.
  • Widening Issaquah-Pine Lake Road at a cost of $16.5m.
  • Rebuilding “Snake Hill Road” (it’s really 212th Ave. SE, down the windy, snake-like drive to East Lake Sammamish Parkway): Millions of dollars.
  • Desires to take over the Northeast Sammamish and Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer Districts: tens of millions of dollars, at a minimum.
  • Town Center improvements.
  • And this is on top of the normal operations of the city, including millions of dollars for road maintenance, parks, services and overhead.

Sammamish is embarking on a spending spree over the next few years that will make your taxpaying eyes water. For a city that prides itself on not raising property taxes and imposing no utility tax, one has to wonder how long this will stand in the face of this pending spending spree.

Let’s look at the issues.

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Is ‘You can’t trust Issaquah, Part 5’ around the corner?

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Is Issaquah about to equivocate on prior indications that it would release the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area if it lost the vote February 11?

It did lose the vote-albeit by a mere 32–but outside the margin for a recount. Despite Mayor Fred Butler pledging during his successful campaign for election in November saying he’d release the PAA and not gerrymander it, Butler’s been silent so far.

Councilman Paul Winterstein appears to be equivocating, however. According to The Issaquah Reporter, Winterstein told the county that “Winterstein testified that Issaquah hasn’t had time to analyze the election results and sort things out”

What’s there to sort out? Issaquah lost. Period.

Butler’s silence is disturbing. He needs to step up and honor his campaign pledge. One of the issues in the annexation vote was the inability to trust anything Issaquah says it will do. Butler, as the first new mayor in some 16 years, immediately stepped up to resolve the water wars. It’s already past due to step up and take moves to honor his word on annexation.

As for Winterstein and the Issaquah City Council: enough, already. You lost, and that’s that. Stop holding the PAA hostage. You could have annexed the area in 2005 if you weren’t greedy about the debt issue. Give it up now.

Klahanie annexation vote analysis, by precinct

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I’ve obtained the certified election results of the Klahanie annexation vote to Issaquah, and plotted them out by precinct. Click the map to enlarge.

Sammamish Comment Chart. c. Sammamish Comment. Certified Election Results, Klahanie Annexation Vote, Feb. 11, 2014

Sammamish Comment Chart. c. Sammamish Comment. Certified Election Results, Klahanie Annexation Vote, Feb. 11, 2014

You’ll note that I’ve marked “SE 48th St. Extended,” which bisects the Brookshire precinct at the very southern tip. There has been discussion that this portion of the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area could be retained by Issaquah while the rest goes to Sammamish. This hardly makes sense to me, given that this is just the extreme southern tip of the PAA.

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Before spending tens of millions on Klahanie, Sammamish has its own needs

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The Sammamish City Council, acting to tamp down the potential annexation of the Klahanie area to Issaquah, promised a Christmas Tree spending package to entice a “no” vote. As I wrote previously, this was one of many reasons Issaquah lost the election.

Today there was a school bus accident in Sammamish–fortunately with only one very minor injury–on an arterial that has been hazardous from the day we incorporated, a faulty design inherited from King County days.

The accident was on SE 24th approaching 200th Ave SE from the west.

Source: Komo TV

Source: Q13 TV News

I’ve noted to the City Council and some of its members on many occasions that there are no shoulders and the ditches create a hazard. There are no walking paths nor bike lanes. Many times I’ve driven up the hill there have been bicyclists in the traffic lane chugging their way up. Because there are no bike lanes or shoulders, cars that want to pass them are faced with entering the oncoming lane. There are plenty of blind curves.

24th is a designated arterial, but the City has done nothing to improve the roadway since incorporation. A few years ago, a walking path was created from 212th to 204th, a positive step, but nothing more has been done since then.

Before the City Council goes off on a spending spree for its Christmas Tree list for Klahanie, it needs to take care of some hazardous road conditions (and fill the potholes that one city councilman says don’t exist but which really do) in our City.

All hope gone for Klahanie annexation supporters: only 3 votes counted today, “Against” still leads; final results Monday

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If there was any last-ditch hope by supporters that remaining votes would bring an affirmative vote to annex the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area to Issaquah, it’s gone.

Today’s vote count (Friday, Feb. 21) saw only three more votes added to the tally–one for the “Against Annexation” side and two for the “For Annexation” side. The vote now is 1,534 Against Annexation and 1,504 “For Annexation.” The spread narrowed one vote to 30 and the percentages are now 50.49% Against Annexation and 49.51% For Annexation. This is outside the requirement of 0.25% for a mandatory recount.

The election is certified on Monday. There could be a couple more votes come in, but hardly enough to change the outcome.

Now it’s up to Issaquah’s City Council to throw in the towel and give up the Klahanie PAA to Sammamish.