Sammamish Forum
November 18, 2008
By Contributed
Who is the Parkway project really for?
With no visible community support for the East Lake Sammamish Parkway improvement project, and very strong opposition, I question who the project is actually for.
Why construct a median with trees when we already have the trees planted by nature?
The council should have bounds placed on its spending.
Projects that exceed some amount, perhaps $5 million should be subject to community approval.
The entire voting population should be consulted regarding spending priorities for major projects.
For example, we need a community center far more than we needed the upscale City Hall and the roadways beautification program.
In addition, our area along with the rest of the world is in a recession. The tax revenues are shrinking and services are being cut.
Instead of throwing away money for East Lake Sammamish Parkway why doesn’t the council reduce the taxpayer burden by eliminating this wasteful spending spree?
I have no problem giving back impact fees to developers if it saves my family from paying for this unnecessary extravagance.
In the future, tie the impact fees to more useful infrastructure projects.
For Mark Cross and other council members who want East Lake Sammamish Parkway to look like the Kirkland waterfront, I say join that city council and let the residents of Sammamish enjoy the natural beauty that is part of the experience of driving along the parkway.
Linda O’Connell
Sammamish
Bicyclists should ride to the side
Regarding your story about rules of the road for cyclists and drivers:
One of the most annoying things that bike riders do is stake their claim from the white line inward when there is a bike lane, such as on East Lake Sammamish Parkway.
Even when the bike lane is 6 feet or more in width, they ride right on, or very close to, the white line.
When cars approach from the rear, drivers have to slow down and in most cases veer to the left to safely pass one of the line riders.
I’m a biker myself (two Seattle to Portland rides) and when I ride, I’m either in the middle of the bike lane or favor shading even more toward the right.
My biggest concern is safety and staying right improves my chances of not get rear ended when I’m on a bike.
I suspect this white line riding is an attitude problem that the whole bike lane is theirs and they are defending it by being on the line.
Charles Garrity
Sammamish
Thanks, everyone for help finding our dog
In these difficult economic and volatile political times, when we can be caught up in negativity, sometimes it takes an event that shakes our world to put things in perspective.
Our beloved dog Gypsy, staying with friends while we were out of town, got spooked and ran away from their home close to Fall City. We live by Skyline High School.
Gypsy is a “rescue” dog we got from the Yakima animal shelter almost two years ago.
She has worked through a lot of fear issues since then and has become my Velcro dog.
Gypsy was spotted on the Aldarra Golf Course in Fall City and head golf pro Steve Smith did everything to help us find her — from letting us use golf carts and notifying everyone on the course to call if they saw her, to letting our other dog walk the course in hopes that his smell or bark would lead her back.
Players on the course were great and did not mind us yelling and whistling for hours over two days.
Dave even discontinued his game to join our group of searchers.
Thank you for showing our daughter what it means to put aside your own concerns to help someone in need.
Thank you to Sammamish Police Sgt. Peter Horvath for alerting fellow officers and taking time to search.
Thank you to the countless citizens we ran into while my husband and I searched on foot for 11 hours.
Your concern and compassion and especially your hugs helped carry our burden.
We do live in a caring community.
And thank you to Andrea, who took the time to call us on a borrowed cell phone after sighting Gypsy and to her daughter, who prayed we would find our beloved pup.
I am extremely relieved to report that this story has a very happy ending.
After missing for 26 hours, Gypsy was found, curled up in someone’s yard, resting.
When I spotted her, I called her name and she came bounding into my arms in pure joy.
Rickie Anderson
Sammamish
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