Tag Archives: Pam Stuart

Council backed into corner by staff, consultants on traffic, development; no good choices: analysis

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By Scott Hamilton

Editor

Analysis

The Sammamish City Council continues to wrestle with the controversial and highly complex topic of traffic concurrency.

The council has been backed into a corner by staff, consultants and, as the responsible executive, the city manager. There are no good choices left to the council to deal with the city’s growing traffic problems and balancing these against development.

Chris Ross

Karen Moran

The process to date has been so thoroughly mucked up that, in reality, there are few choices the council has if it is going to lift the building moratorium in July, its self-imposed target.

Deputy Mayor Karen Moran and Council Member Chris Ross are the key votes that will determine the direction.

The first choice is to adopt the new model that has been proposed by the city staff and consultants.

The second is to go back to the old model, adjusting it to eliminate “credits” for theoretical added capacity that, for the most part, are pencil-pushing solutions.

I favor the second choice. Here’s why. But it may be too late to go there.

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It’s time to approve concurrency plan, lift moratorium

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By Scott Hamilton

Editor

Commentary

It’s time to wrap up the Sammamish traffic concurrency plan and move forward.

It’s time to lift the building moratorium.

The City Council spent a good portion of the meeting last night taking another crack at changes to the concurrency plan approved May 15.

Deputy Mayor Karen Moran and member Chris Ross moved to reconsider the controversial May 15 plan that was adopted.

What was expected to be a major effort to reconsider turned out to be nothing more than a tweak here and there.

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Sammamish city council members just screwed their constituents

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Editorial

The Sammamish City Council members just screwed their constituents.

On a 5-2 vote May 15, the council agreed to advance the current proposal for revising the traffic concurrency model.

It was a vote that shocked Mayor Christie Malchow and council member Tom Hornish, who opposed advancing the model.

Deputy Mayor Karen Moran and Members Jason Ritchie, Pam Stuart, Ramiro Valderrama and Chris Ross voted to advance the concurrency revisions even through the model doesn’t include analyzing congestion and travel times. The model’s creation also included count flaws, the staff admitted, nor was it validated when submitted to council for approval.

Drivers who sit in traffic are told they have a better experience. Traffic, according to the model, has improved from 2014 to 2016.

It’s a preposterous claim. Yet five council members voted to advance the model toward approval in June or July.

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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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Valderrama’s hypocrisy over Hornish issue

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Analysis

Ramiro Valderrama

Sammamish City Council member Ramiro Valderrama displayed hypocrisy last Tuesday in his aggressive attempt to force fellow member Tom Hornish to remain on committees following acceptance of a new job in the private sector.

Two years ago, Valderrama sought a new job in the public sector that would have had direct conflict of interest with his city council position. It would have meant choosing between his new job and the council when it came to attending meetings and committee meetings. It likely meant Valderrama would have missed the council’s annual retreat at which goals and committee assignments are made for the coming year.

Yet Valderrama vowed to retain his council position if he got the new job and brushed aside all objections from his constituents.

When Hornish stepped up and recognized time constraints were coming, resigned his position as deputy mayor and stepped off all but one committee, Valderrama—oblivious o his own actions two years earlier—objected and engaged in a transparent attempt to set Hornish up to fail and ultimately force him off the council.

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