Klahanie annexation a viable option
June 19, 2013
Sammamish annexing Klahanie makes sense, and the City Council did the right thing by voting to say so.
The Klahanie master planned community, and a few other adjacent neighborhoods, is home to more than 10,000 people. The roughly 2 square miles is perched on the Sammamish Plateau, a triangular landmass that touches Sammamish on two sides so it almost looks like a bite taken out of a cookie. Read more
Legislature needs compromises to function
June 13, 2013
By Larry Springer
Special times often call for Special Sessions. But a little history first.
The Legislature finished on time without a special session in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and even 2009 at the beginning of the worst budget crisis in state history. As the global economic crisis deepened we had special sessions in 2010, 2011, and 2012 during which we cut our budget by more than $12 billion. Those cuts hurt. They hurt seniors, put college tuition out of reach for middle class families, cut funding for prisons and slashed money of parks.
Courtesy Larry Springer
Don’t mix alcohol with graduation celebrations
June 12, 2013
Graduation Day at our local high schools brings a whole range of emotions — pride, relief, amazement … and trepidation.
Certainly, the anxiety comes from the unknown future as students prepare to move away from families and begin new life, job and educational challenges. Read more
Sammamish Forum June 12
June 12, 2013
Review was wrong
As a Sammamish citizen of 30 years, now called a “land speculator,” I am moved to respond to your editorial about the pilot study. After a year of work with the Sammamish Planning Commission and months with the City Council, your editorial has taken a very complicated issue and reduced it to nothing but knee-jerk emotional rhetoric and even name-calling.
There is another side to the issue, and it affects many Sammamish citizen property owners. Personally, our retirement is at stake. Read more
Pilot program is bad deal for city
June 5, 2013
For more than a year now, a group of property owners have been pushing for a “pilot program” to allow them to develop land that is currently off limits.
They cast it in terms of their property rights being restricted versus environmental favor.
But it is not property rights at stake, and the pilot is a bad idea. The City Council should leave the existing regulations in place. Read more
Sammamish Forum June 5
June 4, 2013
Stop building
I am writing to wholeheartedly agree with Sandy Livingston’s suggestion that a moratorium be imposed on development in Sammamish. The latest devastation caused by the developers on Inglewood Hill is breathtakingly appalling. Enough talk of turning Sammamish Town Center into something it is never going to be, let’s concentrate on preserving what is beautiful about what we already have. Read more
State, region need transportation funding options
June 4, 2013
By Don Gerend
Our state is facing a looming problem that has gotten little attention lately – one we need to act on to create jobs and retain the quality of life that makes this a special place to live.
Our transportation system is teetering on the brink of crisis. The recent collapse of an I-5 bridge in Skagit County should serve as a wake up call to us all. State highways, county roads, and city streets are deteriorating and bridges are in need of repair. Read more
Boy Scouts of America makes right decision
May 28, 2013
Boy Scouts have played a big role in Sammamish’s history, as well as shaped numerous boys and young men to be better citizens.
Local Scouts provide numerous community service hours of good deeds, from food drives to litter clean up, from construction of trails in parks around the city to the many other Eagle Scout projects that provide new amenities around town today. Read more
Sammamish Forum May 29
May 28, 2013
Forbid the pilot programs
Erosion Overlays were put into place in 1997 when Sammamish was put into the Urban Growth Boundary.
Before that, all of Sammamish was considered rural, and those properties had parcel specific building restrictions (P-suffix conditions) that limited development. Read more
Memorial Day is for remembering, honoring
May 23, 2013
If you are planning to avoid the traffic, save the gas expense and enjoy Memorial Day close to home this weekend, there are some simple ways to honor the men and women from the United States military who died in military service to their country. Read more
