Jan. 14, 2016: The Sammamish City Council outlined its priorities for the State Legislature at the first part of its annual Retreat today. The Retreat began at 5pm and continues to noon Saturday.
Among the issues Sammamish supports:
Jan. 14, 2016: The Sammamish City Council approved going forward with a geo-technical feasibility study for the controversial Sahalee Way road project.
The vote was 5-2, with Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama and new Council Member Christie Malchow voting no.
Valderrama said he was in favor of the study but wanted to get a formal presentation from staff on public input from a November open house first. Malchow said she has yet to be convinced the project will actually solve a problem and improve traffic flow rather than only “checking the box” for concurrency.
Don Gerend, the new Mayor of Sammamish. He will serve a two year term.
A new, inclusive approach for citizens was immediately apparent following the swearing in of two new Sammamish City Council members and selection of a new Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
Virtually since the forming of the City, public comment has been limited to three or five minutes. It was very rare that there would be interaction between the public and the Council, who usually sat mute while citizens often went away wondering whether anything they said sunk in.
That changed Jan. 5.
Don Gerend was selected Mayor for the next two years and Ramiro Valderrama Deputy Mayor for the next year at the first Sammamish City Council meeting today (Jan. 5).
The positions are selected by the City Council under the City Manager form of government, rather than voters.
The votes for both were unanimous.
Christie Malchow will be sworn in as Sammamish City Council Member tomorrow.
Update, 6pm: The Sahalee Way contract has been from the new business agenda to the Consent Agenda.
Original Post:
The Sammamish City Council, with two new members, will be asked to award a contract to design the Sahalee Way road project and to award the refuse/recycling/yard waste contract to Republic Services at the first meeting of the New Year tomorrow.
The two contracts became mired in controversy under the previous Council, which had approved the “Final” Design of Sahalee Way and which was poised to approve the Republic contract when stopped after rival Waste Management obtained a temporary injunction blocking action. This injunction was lifted Dec. 22.
Tom Hornish will be sworn in as a Sammamish City Council Member tomorrow.
The Sahalee Way green light suddenly turned red when objections by Council Members Ramiro Valderrama and Nancy Whitten (who retired Dec. 31) and The Sammamish Comment revealed a fast track approach that eliminated public participation.
The two new Council Members, Tom Hornish and Christie Malchow, will have been sworn into office only a matter of minutes when they will be asked to approve these two controversial contracts.
Sammamish Comment 