Overruling the Staff recommendation opposing action on the SE Quadrant Docket Request, the City Council approved moving forward with it. The City Council also approved a revised Staff recommendation putting the issues raised by the Docket Request on a parallel track of examining the issues at the Council’s Economic Development Committee.
The Council also decided to expand the Quadrant’s Docket Request issues to the entire Town Center.
There is absolutely no sense of urgency or problem-solving for locally owned, small businesses in the City Council packet going to the Council tonight.
It’s as if small businesses, other than Ace Hardware, do not exist in the City’s mindset. These are left to the whim of Regency, the absentee landlord who has made it clear our locally owned small businesses can go to hell.
Despite the loss of several small businesses at the Sammamish Highlands center, and the doomsday countdown for Civilized Nature now started, there is nothing in the council packet to suggest the Administration is looking for solutions and alternatives to help small business.
I find this lack of foresight to be appalling. The Administration last week pretty much said everything can wait to the 2015 Comp Plan rewrite, three years away. Implementation of a rewrite would not happen until the following year, four years away. This leaves small businesses entirely at the mercy of Regency.
Our City Council must step in and fix this. But will it? It’s hardly shown much foresight, either.
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Civilized Nature, the local pet store in the Sammamish Highlands shopping center, is the next locally owned store that will be leaving the City.
I confirmed today (Dec. 4) that the pet store will move because it won’t be able to compete with mega-chain Petco, which will move into the former Hollywood Video that has been vacant for a couple of years, and the Rancho Grande and Sushi restaurants whose leases weren’t renewed to make way for Petco.
Ace Hardware’s lease expires August 28, 2013. Petco is said to start construction in January and to open several months later. Civilized Nature did not tell me where it will move to, but since there is no commercial space in Sammamish that is available, Civilized is all but certain to move out of the city.
At the City Council meeting tonight, which was standing room only, I presented recommendations to rezone more land commercial to serve local businesses. I’ll be posting my remarks later.
The City is about to undertake a Comprehensive Plan Amendment process. Astounding as it seems, the City Administration did not put commercial rezoning on the agenda for the Council, even after the lack of commercial zoning outside the Town Center became clear and may be a death knell for Ace. In fact, the Staff report recommended against a rezone for Ace Hardware, for a number of complex reasons.
In more posts this week, I’ll publish various documents concerning the Ace situation.
This is a long post: be sure to scroll down.
Following the election and the controversial advisory vote for the Community Center, I thought a poll about the job the City Council is doing might be worthwhile.
Although unscientific, my Go Daddy poll about the advisory center is turning out to be pretty close to the mark: 55.7% of the respondents favored the Community Center and through Nov. 13, actually ballot results give the Yes vote 53%, well within standard margins of error of scientific polls. (The Sammamish Review’s unscientific poll wasn’t so good; it gave the Center a 62% Yes vote.)
A recent Citizens for Sammamish meeting turned into a massive venting session about frustrations with the City. The Council, the staff and the manager all came under fire. So I’m polling on this, too, as well as the Favorables-Unfavorables of each Council Member.
Feel free to comment in the Comment section. BUT: keep it clean, no swearing, no insults. Concisely state your opinions and the reasons for it in a clean and respectful way. I’ll delete comments that resort to name-calling and obscenities.
Question #1
Question #2
Question #3
I know this election is barely over but in 2013, four City Council seats are up for election. Mayor Tom Odell, Deputy Mayor John James, and Council Members John Curley and Don Gerend are up for election. Let’s get some favorable-unfavorable ratings.
Question #4
Question #5
Question #6
Question #7
Council Member Don Gerend has been on the council since the city elected its first council in 1999-13 years. I’m told he plans to run for another term next November, his 14th year on the Council. If elected, he would serve 17 years by the end of his term.
Question #8
The other three Councl Members, Nancy Whitten, Tom Vance and Ramiro Valderrama, were elected in 2011 and won’t be up for reelection until 2015. What is your opinion about them?
Question #9
Question #10
Question #11
Sammamish Comment 