Tag Archives: Ramiro Valderrama

Sammamish hires full-time emergency management director

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Sammamish has hired its first emergency preparedness director.

Andrew Stevens, the emergency manager of Downey (CA), starts work April 17. He holds

Andrew Stevens, Sammamish’s first full-time emergency management director.

the same position in Downey (CA).

“I’m very pleased that we were able to attract and hire Andrew Stevens to the position of Emergency Manager,” Sammamish City Manager Lyman Howard wrote in an email to The Sammamish Comment..
The folks on the interview panel were impressed and delighted as well.  I’ve also heard positive comments from the regional Emergency Management community, that we made a good choice.  Andrew starts April 17th.”

The appointment comes nearly two years after The Comment revealed Sammamish was going skip a multi-state, multi-jurisdictional, Canadian-US earthquake disaster drill called Cascadia Rising. Sammamish scrambled to join after the revelation.

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Sammamish Council inundated by Cascade Bicycle Club campaign on ELST

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Sammamish officials faced an onslaught of bicyclists last month in a coordinated, mass-attack email campaign urging them to approve the development permits for Section 2B of the East Lake Sammamish Trail.

City Council members were inundated with emails that said were coordinated by the Cascade Bicycle Club to approve the permit for the center section of the ELST. This section runs from roughly the 7-11 north to Inglewood Hill Road. It is the final section that is at the development permitting stage.

Sammamish, the permitting agency, is resisting the applications filed by King County, developer of the trail, on several grounds. These include environmental, tree preservation, disputes over legal ownership of the trail and past and current problems between the County and adjacent property owners over development of the north and south sections.

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Sammamish electeds have history of using private email accounts

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Special Report: (10 pages when printed.)

  • Council Members routinely used private email accounts for City-related business.
  • Expansive Public Records Request during 2015 Council elections brought issue to fore.
  • One Council Member, acting as a private citizen, demanded emails on private account from another Council Member.
  • The City Attorney, paid for by tax dollars, became de facto attorney for the “private citizen” Council Member.
  • Two Council Members subsequently failed to produce emails from their private accounts.
  • One of the two Council Members failed to produce emails from her private account again in 2016 pursuant to a PRR.

Hillary Clinton’s email was a story that wouldn’t die in the presidential campaign, dogging her right through the Nov. 8 election.

The City of Sammamish has its own problems over emails. Council members routinely used private emails for city business and when it comes to complying with the Washington State law for Public Records Requests (PRR), some members aren’t always forthcoming with documents.

One City Council Member was explicit that a controversial topic should be discussed using private emails to avoid public disclosures through City emails.

The City Attorney’s position on compliance in responding to Public Records Requests appears inconsistent.

The issue is about transparency in government and complying with the law.

Requirements to hand over emails from personal accounts is well established in Washington State. A Bainbridge Island case is illustrative. See here and here.

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Transportation Master Plan RFP green-lighted for Sammamish

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Sammamish Retreat 2017.

A request for proposal for a consultant to create a Transportation Management Plan (TMP) for Sammamish was green-lighted Saturday at the annual retreat.

A TMP for a 20-30 year vision will be a first for the City.

This differs from the Six Year Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP), a legal requirement under state law for projects needed for growth and traffic concurrency standards.

It will include connectivity, sidewalks, bike lanes, the possibility of new east-west and north-south routes.

Coordination with Redmond, Issaquah, King County, the State and Sound Transit will also be examined.

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Sammamish to hold finance retreat, town hall for likelihood of new taxes

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Sammamish Retreat 2017

A special retreat on Sammamish will be scheduled in July focusing on city finances, the looming operating deficit in 2020 and how to fund road and stormwater projects. New taxes and new debt will be key points at the retreat.

Council Member Tom Odell essentially floated the idea of a 2% utility tax, which would raise $2m, by asking how much this amount would support in new bonds. This will be one of the points to be discussed at a finance retreat.

Member Ramiro Valderrama asked that franchise fees on the two water districts serving Sammamish and potentially contracting out stormwater management (presumably to the water districts) be included.

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