Tag Archives: Karen Moran

Sammamish City Council evolves into new 4-3 split

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  • This is the inside story about how old alliances on the Sammamish City Council broke down and how new ones have been formed.

Analysis

If there was any question following the first two or three months of the seating of the current Sammamish city council, all doubt was removed Tuesday: the council is split 4-3 along new alliances.

The debate Tuesday over Council Member Tom Hornish’s decision to step down as deputy mayor and from committees but not resign from the council had all the appearances of a power play led by Council Member Ramiro Valderrama.

One council member characterized the split as the new “V-3” and “M-4” factions, with the V-3 being Valderrama, Jason Ritchie and Pam Stuart and the M-4 being Mayor Christie Malchow, Hornish, Karen Moran and Chris Ross.

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Give Hornish a chance, city attorney advises council

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  • The city council meeting may be viewed here. The discussion begins at 8:30 and continues o 46:30 minutes. It resumes at the 2:11 hour mark for committee assignments.

The Sammamish city council should give Tom Hornish up to 90-120 days to assimilate into his new job and determine how much time he can devote to the council, the city attorney said Tuesday.

Tom Hornish

But three council members pressed instead to hold Hornish’s feet to the fire and require him to maintain his committee memberships.

Members Ramiro Valderrama, Jason Ritchie and Pam Stuart were unwilling to give Hornish a pass until they lost on his announcement Tuesday that a new job requires he relinquish his position as deputy mayor and membership to the council finance committee and regional groups, Eastside Fire & Rescue and ARCH, the affordable housing group.

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Malchow, Hornish selected as mayor and deputy mayor; new members sworn in

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Christie Malchow, now Mayor of Sammamish.

Tom Hornish, now deputy mayor of Sammamish.

Christie Malchow and Tom Hornish were voted to be mayor and deputy mayor by their fellow council members tonight, at the first meeting of the meeting of the new year.

The votes were unanimous.

Malchow, who was deputy mayor for a portion of last year, will serve for two years. Hornish will serve one year. (The deputy position is a one-year term.)

Both are in the middle of their first two-year term.

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Moran won over Ghassemieh voters in Position 3 race: analysis

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Karen Moran

Karen Moran won over voters in the Nov. 7 general election who favored Minal Ghassemieh in the August primary for Sammamish City Council Position 3, a precinct analysis shows.

Moran led second place Karen Howe in the primary by just 72 votes and less than one-half percentage point. Ghassemieh trailed a close third. Only two percentage points separated Moran from Ghassemieh.

Howe and Ghassemieh share much of the same constituency in the primary: Democratic and labor union endorsements.

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Valderrama cites fake facts in Town Center moratorium flip-flop

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Ramiro Valderrama

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.

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