Tag Archives: Wally Pereyra

Leading environmentalist supports Sammamish building moratorium

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Wally Pereyra, the leading environmentalist in Sammamish, favors a building moratorium. Photo via Google images.

Wally Pereyra, the leading environmentalist in Sammamish, favors a building moratorium. Photo via Google images.

The leading environmentalist in Sammamish supports a building moratorium.

Wally Pereyra, who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring Ebright Creek on behalf on threatened Kokanee Salmon and similar amounts on other restoration and land use appeals, will miss tonight’s City Council meeting at which the subject will come up.

Pereyra issued a written statement, copying Sammamish Comment:

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So long, Sammamish—sort of

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Personal message from Scott Hamilton, Editor of Sammamish Comment.

Hamilton KING5_2

Scott Hamilton

After 20 years, two months and 10 days, I have moved from Sammamish.

For my wife, Gail Twelves, it’s been one month short of 16 years.

We’ve moved to Bainbridge Island, where we will build a home. For the first time in decades, we’re renters—for the time being.

Sammamish Comment will continue through next year, at which time this community service to Sammamish will close. The Comment was formed in 2003, so at the end of next year, this will have been a 14 year run.

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How Sammamish veterans lost their City Council races

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  • Note: This is 11 pages when printed.
Nov 4 results

Click on image to enlarge.

How did two veterans of Sammamish public service lose their bids for election to the City Council in the Nov. 3 election to two unknown newcomers to the City?

They lost through a combination of miscalculation, arrogance, the split of traditional coalitions, angry opposition, tenacious newcomers and a one-term Council Member who wasn’t about to cower in the face of determined opposition.

They also had an unwitting helping hand from their own Deputy Mayor, whose obsessions galvanized the opposition to upset her allies.

This is the inside story of how Mayor Tom Vance lost to two-year resident Tom Hornish and how former Mayor and Council Member Mark Cross lost a comeback bid to a feisty young Mom in tennis shoes, Christie Malchow, invoking remembrances of another tennis shoe Mom campaign in Washington long before Malchow moved here.

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Greenwashing, Part 2: Sammamish never demanded EIS from developers

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  1. Greenwashing (a compound word modeled on “whitewash”), or “green sheen,” is a form of spin in which green PR or green marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that an organization’s products, aims or policies are environmentally friendly.–Wikipedia.

Sammamish staff has never required an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) from a developer when reviewing a project, it was revealed October 7 at the only candidates’ forum held for the City Council election November 3.

Nor, as far as Sammamish Comment can determine, has staff ever issued a Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance (MDNS) for a project until the current Conner-Jarvis project, which is under citizen appeal; it’s only otherwise issued a Determination of Non-Significance (DNS) in 15 years of projects.

For those not versed in land use regulations and reviews, this alphabet soup of letters is confusing and, on its face, meaningless.

Here’s what these mean, why they are important to development in Sammamish, why the staff practices lie at the root of what citizens are seeing today as trees come down and controversies emerge over protection of wetlands, streams, lakes and Kokanee salmon and why the responsibility ultimately flows back to the City Council.

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City’s Newsletter on growth distorts the facts; Variances-R-Us

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Newsletter LogoThe September Sammamish City Newsletter–which has become an electioneering tool for the Nov. 3 ballot at taxpayers’ expense–has one and two-thirds pages devoted to growth issues.

Unfortunately, it just flat-out distorts and omits some important facts.

In a Q&A format, the Newsletter begins on Page 1 and jumps to Page 3, discussing a host of issues.

Here’s what’s distorted:

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