Tag Archives: Sound Transit

Sound Transit 3: Vote No

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Sammamish voters should Vote No on the $54 billion plan for Sound Transit 3. This is a $27 billion tax plan over 25 years.

For this, Sammamish gets degraded bus service and prospectively a new park-and-ride on the North End. The average Sammamish household will pay an estimated $1,100 a year in Sound Transit taxes. With about 20,000 households, this is $550 million over the 25 years. For a park-and-ride. And worse service.

Even more notable–and alarming: no project outlined in ST3 is guaranteed. Not a single one. Voters could approve the $27bn in new taxes and none of these projects is a sure bet. This is why The Comment says the park-and-ride for Sammamish is only “prospective.”

One thing that is not prospective but which is guaranteed: if ST3 passes, citizens in its taxing district, including Sammamish, will have no say at all in future tax packages. ST3 takes away voter approval for future taxes and puts it squarely in an unelected board appointed by elected politicians. Unlike the tax packages for ST1 and ST2, there is no sunset for ST3 taxes.

This is a bad deal in so many ways.

The Comment’s position on ST3 is well known to long-time readers of this column, so this recommendation comes as no surprise.

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ST3 opposition is the right move by Sammamish

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Valderrama

Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama led the opposition to Sound Transit 3.

The Sammamish City Council’s vote Tuesday night to oppose Sound Transit 3 was the right choice for the City. The vote was 5-2.

ST3 takes bus service away from Sammamish but offers a park-and-ride for the north end, an obvious contradiction. Even the PNR is not a firm offer.

Taxpayers would fork out between $500m-$550m in taxes over 25 years for this.

Issaquah and Redmond get light rail extensions. But the Issaquah light rail goes to downtown Bellevue and south Kirkland, not Seattle. The rail station is projected to be at roughly I-90 and SR900, behind the QFC grocery store (presumably in the I-90 median.) It needs to go to Issaquah Highlands.

If Sammamish residents want to commute to Seattle by light rail, the choices would be to go to the QFC terminal, either by car or bus, then to Bellevue and connect to Seattle; or go to the potential north Park and Ride (if it happens), then to Redmond, through downtown Bellevue and on to Seattle.

Fat chance.

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Sammamish Council opposes ST3

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City_of_SammamishOct. 4, 2016: The Sammamish City Council voted tonight to to oppose Sound Transit 3 for the $27bn tax package, a $54bn multi-modal transportation package that reduces service to Sammamish in exchange for citizens paying an estimated $500m-$550m in taxes over 25 years.

The measure is on the Nov. 8 ballot in the Sound Transit area that includes portions of King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

Going into the meeting, five Council members told Sammamish Comment they opposed ST3. These were Mayor Don Gerend, Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama and members Tom Hornish, Tom Odell and Christie Malchow.

Members Bob Keller and Kathy Huckabay supported ST3.

The vote tonight was 5-2 against the huge tax package. Keller and Huckabay were the dissenting votes.

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Setting priorities: King, Pierce and Snohomish counties–or for Sammamish

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As the Nov. 8 election approaches, the Sammamish City Council still has not taken a formal position on whether it supports Sound Transit 3 (ST3). The topic is set for discussion at the Oct. 4 Council meeting.

Sammamish City Council: Back row, L-R: Tom Odell, Mayor Don Gerend, Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama, Tom Hornish. Front row, L-R: Kathy Huckabay, Christie Malchow, Bob Keller.

Sammamish City Council: Back row, L-R: Tom Odell, Mayor Don Gerend, Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama, Tom Hornish. Front row, L-R: Kathy Huckabay, Christie Malchow, Bob Keller.

Five of the seven members previously said they oppose ST3 as it currently is laid out. Two members, Kathy Huckabay and Bob Keller, support ST3 in the name of regionalism. While regionalism is an admirable goal, the plan needs to make sense. ST3 has serious flaws.

Even Mayor Don Gerend, who is a regionalist and represents Sammamish on many such committees, finds the ST3 plan so bad and so disadvantageous to Sammamish, that he declared his opposition to ST3.

As this column has reported several times, the $54bn plan doesn’t even guarantee a single project. It only guarantees that taxpayers will no longer have the power of the vote over new taxes. This power shifts solely to the ST board, which is comprised of appointed people not the least bit accountable to taxpayers.

ST3 proposes less bus service for Sammamish, which now is the second or third largest city on the Eastside.

ST3 says it will give Sammamish a north end park-n-ride. But as noted, this isn’t guaranteed.

For this reduction in service, removal of direct taxpayer authority over new taxes and a park-n-ride that may not even get built, Sammamish taxpayers get to pay between $500m and $550m over the next 25 years.

It’s overdue for the City Council to stand up and take a position.

Supporting ST3—or not—is a matter of the City Council setting the right priorities for the people they were elected to represent. They were not elected to represent the greater King County, nor Piece County nor Snohomish County—all part of the Sound Transit taxing district.

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Sammamish: Step up and take a position on ST3

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st3-map

  • ST3 will take money away from Sammamish taxpayers to fix local transportation issues. See below the jump.

The Sammamish City Council needs to step up and take a formal position on Sound Transit 3, the $54bn cost, $27bn in new taxes for a 25-year construction plan that gives our city less bus service and a one-half billion dollar park-n-ride–maybe.

A front page article in The Seattle Times on Sept. 19 details the effort–and opposition–to extend light rail to Issaquah.

An editorial in the same edition details Newcastle’s recent Council vote opposing ST 3 for the very same reasons Sammamish should: taxation without transportation, as Sammamish Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama so eloquently put it. The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce also decided to oppose ST3, reversing its support given for ST2. It likewise points to the extraordinary cost with questionable benefits.

The Comment opposes ST3.

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