Ron Haworth
Services for the late Ron Haworth will be Wednesday, Sept. 27, in Selah (WA).
Selah is next to Yakima, about a two hour drive from Sammamish.
The services will be at the Selah Civic Center, 216 1st Ave. Doors will open at 11:30 and service will be at 1pm.
Ron Haworth
Ron Haworth, one of the original Sammamish City Council members and later a deputy mayor, died today unexpectedly of complications following heart surgery.
Haworth served on the Council from 1999 through 2002. He was elected in 1999 following a career as a fire fighter and chief on the Eastside.
A staunch conservative, his demeanor was crusty and sometimes curmudgeonly, but he had an impish smile and a twinkle in his eye that revealed a softer inner-self.
Special Report: (10 pages when printed.)
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.
June 5, 2016: Development of the East Lake Sammamish Trail has been an overhang of Sammamish politics for 20 years.
It was a dominate factor in the first City Council race 1999 and surfaced again in 2001. It became a key issue in the 2003 election, with a flood of “outside” money flowing to candidates favoring the Trail.
The issue surfaced periodically in subsequent elections. It wasn’t until 2015 that once more it became a key election issue, as Trail residents rallied behind three candidates to win bitterly contested races. For the first time, they helped elect a resident who lives along the Trail.
And the issue hasn’t subsided, either.
In April, three Council Members voted to undercut the City’s own Hearing Examiner and side with King County, developer of the Trail, on a jurisdictional issue in an appeal before the State Shoreline Hearings Board.
This is the story behind the 20-year battle of the ELST.
After being routed in the 1999 City Council elections and licking their wounds for the better part of two years, the environmentalists in Sammamish—the “greenies—“ began a comeback.
All seven Council seats were up for election in 2001. This was because that as a new city, two- and four-year terms had to be established. The largest vote-getters in 2001 would get four year terms. The three lowest vote getters would get two year terms.
As it happened, only three Council members were challenged by people backed by the Greenies, and by SHOUT officials (see the post of March 28 to understand who SHOUT was): Ron Haworth, Ken Kilroy and Phil Dyer. Don Gerend, Kathy Huckabay, Jack Barry and Troy Romero were unopposed. By default, they would receive the most votes and four year terms.
Sammamish Comment 