For a physics teacher, even a popcorn movie can be a chance to cement a lesson.

And so it happened that students in Pete Saxby’s class, at the Lake Washington School District’s STEM school were watching the Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock movie “Speed.”

As the bus approached a highway ramp with a 50-foot gap, Saxby stopped the film to check the students were able to find the variables such as the buses’ speed and the distance of the jump. Students estimated the angle of the roadway, while Saxby muted some of the saltier dialogue, and calculated that, yes, it was feasible that the bus could make the jump.

The students were mostly ninth graders who take physics before they move on to other sciences. Cindy Deunas, principal of the school, explained that studies show taking physics first helps cement concepts that make biology and chemistry easier to master.

At this school, classes in the advanced sciences are generally assumed.

The district opened its new STEM school this year as a way to help reduce overcrowding. The $24 million school was still under construction in the fall, so the students were housed at Eastlake.

The building, located adjacent to Alcott Elementary just off state Route 202, is still partially under construction, but enough is finished so the students have been going to class there since Jan. 3.

The school is a magnet program, admitting students from across the district on a lottery basis, 150 per grade. This year, only ninth and 10th graders are in the school. As the students age, it will add 11th graders next year and 12th graders the following year for a total enrollment of 600 students.

Duenas said she’s excited to preside over these students who all have shared interests and really want to be in this specific program.

“They’ve shopped around,” she said.

The program

The school focuses on the sciences and lots of hands-on experimentation. Students still take core classes like English and foreign languages, but the sciences is where it shines.

After spending the first two years learning the basics, 11th and 12th graders will choose a focus of study. Next year options will be as environmental engineering and sustainable design; forensics and forensic psychology; and digital media and design, Duenas said. In subsequent years, the school will add more options, she added.

The school will pull in outside experts in those fields and give students an opportunity to work with those professionals on actual projects.

“They will take the theoretical and apply it in the real world,” Duenas said.

The focus on sciences is what draws in many of the students.

“I thought it would be fun to come where everyone has the same motivation as me,” said Hana Keller, a 10th grader from Sammamish.

When a student has something interesting they’re working on, Keller said, it will pique the interest of others.

“Everyone asks to see your project,” Keller said. “Students, teachers, everyone wants to help.”

“This is my group of people,” said Maya Ganesan, a 10th grader from Redmond.

The students’ assertions were quickly borne out as they entered a computer lab. A class was using Xbox Kinect motion sensors (donated by Microsoft) to program their own video games. Even though Keller and Ganesan weren’t part of the class, they quickly found classmates’ projects and showed interest, offering tips.

Still, they are high school students, and the talk also ended up including teachers and class loads.

Growing pains

Students said that one of the most challenging aspects of the school is also the most exciting. As the first students, there is no existing structure of activities. It will be up to them to set up the literary magazine (set to publish its first edition in the spring), clubs, a National Honor Society chapter and decide on things like colors and mascot.

It gives students more possibilities, but also more responsibility, Keller said. Other agreed.

“You can’t really say, ‘I was the first,’” very often, said Kevin Nakahara, a 9th grader from Kirkland.

For some students, distance will also be a factor. Nakahara said he has to get up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. to make the commute to the school.

Additionally, the school won’t have any sports teams. Scholar athletes will need to go back to their home school to play sports. While for Sammamish residents it means a relatively quick trip up the hill to Eastlake, for some students it will be a trek to Juanita or Lake Washington high schools.

Advanced classes

Some 10th grade students are already earning college credits, said Ganesan as she showed off jars with little sea creatures in a biology laboratory.

“They really encourage you to take the advanced classes,” she said.

The school will ultimately offer 10 Advanced Placement classes, Duenas said. Advanced Placement classes feature a college-level curriculum and at the end of the year students take a comprehensive exam on the topic which earns them a score from one to five. Typically, students who get a three or higher on the exam earn college credit for the class.

Duenas was quick to add that they do not expect the teenagers to take all 10 of the AP classes.

“We expect them to have a life.”

STEM? What kind of name is STEM?

STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math, a shorthand for the kinds of classes students will focus on. The name, however is not permanent. Principal Cindy Duenas said that the school will open up for suggestions for a school name – along with colors and a mascot.

After the suggestions pass through a committee to whittle them down, it will be up to the school board to select the schools’ official name.

Sammamish leaders already knew that the city was unusually youth and family oriented. Now they have the numbers to back it up.

Chris Mefford of consulting firm Community Attributes, made the latest in a series of presentations to the City Council’s Economic Development Committee May 14 on an economic study his firm is conducting.

Among the latest round of data Mefford presented information about the relative ages of residents and family size. Almost one-third of the city’s population is under 18. But then, there’s a big dip in the curve. Sammamish has a low number of people in their 20s and early 30s, Mefford said.

Along the same vein, he noted there is a dearth of the one- or two-bedroom apartments and condos in the city, where people in that age group would be most likely to live.

Mefford wondered aloud about the reasoning there. Whether people that age would want to live here, and there’s no opportunities to do so, or if there’s limited options because people that age don’t want to live in Sammamish.

Councilmembers at the meeting seemed accepting of that demographic bubble. They note that once those younger people start having families, they look to live in Sammamish.

Fifty-six percent of Sammamish families have children in the house, compared to King County as a whole, which has 29 percent. About 40 percent of Sammamish households have four or more people, compared to 20 percent in King County as a whole, Mefford said.

Once people move in and start having children, Mefford noted, they keep having children. He said the city may have the highest family size in the state. For now though, the city doesn’t really have the sorts of entertainment options that twenty-somethings are after, and city leaders seemed comfortable with that.

“I don’t think we want night clubs or night life,” said Councilwoman Nancy Whitten.

The city is also generally wealthier and better educated than the county as a whole, according to Mefford’s data. The median income is 60 percent higher that the county, and the percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher is 50 percent higher than the county.

Who works here?

Mefford then went on to take a deeper look at Sammamish’s employment picture. According to a host of data sources, Mefford said there are 21,400 people in Sammamish who work. Of those, 20,700 work outside the city. According to the math, that means only 700 people live and work in Sammamish. Of the 4,600 jobs located in Sammamish, 3,900 are filled by people who live outside the city, Mefford said.

“Most people who work here don’t live here,” he said.

Mayor Tom Odell noted that many jobs in Sammamish are service industry jobs, such as retail or restaurant employment. People in those jobs are unlikely to make enough to afford to live in the city, Odell said.

He though the city should try and find ways to increase the amount of office space so that professionals, maybe those who already live in Sammamish, could have places to work as well.

Enticing more Sammamish residents to work on the plateau would likely reduce traffic, and could also help local businesses since there would be more customers around on the plateau during the day.

Mefford said this sort of dynamic might mean there’s a space for co-working, where a group of small businesses can share an office space.

Even with these added spaces, and including the office space envisioned in the Town Center plan, Sammamish is likely to retain its character as a bedroom community, Mefford said.

Mefford plans to present another set of materials to the committee, including a draft plan for possible actions to the committee June 11. The final version of the plan is due to go to the whole City Council in late October. It would then be up to the council to act on the plan.

Sales taxes can come from lots of places, including some revenue from Internet sales and some from sales on construction trades. So the city bringing in more money doesn’t always directly mean that the small shops around Sammamish are doing likewise.

These small businesses still need your support. They are the shops that plow part of their profits back into the community to make the city friendlier and support local events.

Sammamish certainly doesn’t have everything people need in terms of retail, but there is often more than people realize — from jewelry to bike tires, from running shoes to insurance. These local stores and services support the community— but they can’t exist without the community supporting them.

A recent study by a city consultant said Sammamish residents spend only about 27 percent of their money in the city. If Sammamish is to support its current businesses and a future Town Center, that number has to be closer to 43 percent.

As high as it might seem, that number is possible. Yes, it’s a lot easier to stop in Issaquah or the Redmond Town Center and pick up items from several shops.

But the tax revenue from those sales won’t help pave your streets. The owners of those businesses might support their own communities (and they should), but they aren’t the folks who are helping foot the bill for concerts at Pine Lake Park or Fourth on the Plateau.

Sammamish will likely never be a shopping hub, drawing people in from around the region. It’s not really going to be able to capture money from people in other cities.

All the more reason for people here to shop locally and work to help support the businesses that make Sammamish livable.

You can keep taxes low and city government in its place all for about 45 minutes a day. That’s about how much time it would take for you to serve on the Sammamish City Council. Let’s see if you have what it takes.

Here is a little test for you; this is from an actual meeting back in 2010. You have a choice to either spend $23,000 to educate fourth-graders on the importance of picking up dog poop or not spending $23,000 to educate fourth-graders on the importance of picking up dog poop. How would you vote?

Wait. Before you decide. What if I told you that the money is coming from the federal government and if we don’t spend it some other city will.

Now go ahead and vote. If you vote to spend the money you would have been in the majority. Congratulations, I guess. If you would have voted not to spend the $23,000, as I did, then please, I implore you to run for my open seat.

If you have the time and a vision for a limited government consider running and serving your fellow citizens. The majority of your neighbors would greatly appreciate it.

John M. Curley

Sammamish City Councilman

He will be missed

Recently, I learned that one of the reporters for the Sammamish Review, Caleb Heeringa, was no longer employed by the paper.

Like any outstanding periodical, all levels of staff contribute to the success of the publication. This also applies to the Sammamish Review. The Review has a great management team, a great advertising department and consistently great reporting.

The skills of Mr. Heeringa definitely support his peer recognition and the award-winning achievements of the Sammamish Review.

Mr. Heeringa’s articles were fair, factual and friendly.

The reason for mentioning friendly is that the Fourth Estate prides itself on reporting the news, not making the news. However. I believe that Mr. Heeringa’s friendly reporting did contribute to Sammamish being recognized as the friendliest town in the nation.

Mr. Heeringa will be missed!

Larry Crandall

Sammamish

City needs work

Let’s see. We now have a place up here called Sammamish, used to be the Pine Lake Plateau, before that, Chicken Hill. They are calling it a city?

But really, all it is is a giant housing development. I thought cities had stores like hardware stores, barber shops, a variety of restaurants, clothing stores, shoe stores and other businesses. But where are they up in Sammamish?

We have lots of parks and churches. I think at last count more than 20 churches. Now, does something seem wrong to you? When Sammamish was first formed, we had promises of a city where we could get these things. Now, we have to drive to the cities on either side of us to get any of the needs we want.

Issaquah has all these stores and so does Redmond. Let’s see, round trip roughly 12 miles to get a light bulb.

As you can see, the council that runs this city is in it for what a lot of meeting and driving around telling us how we are going to get some of these things.

Now what are they doing taking a big hunk of property and putting in a YMCA. What that is going to end up putting three private businesses out. They do not seem satisfied that they will not let the ACE hardware build up here. They are being forced out. So, now, if you need some paint and other items to keep up your place, you will have to run to another town.

Yeah, great City Council, and your Planning Commission.

You sure have screwed up what could have been a nice city and turned it into a giant housing complex without amenities. You ought to be run out of here on a rail.

Urban Masset

Sammamish

Moratorium is needed

I am very disappointed with the City Council. They gave permits to developers who have devastated an area on Inglewood south of 228th  Avenue to build more houses. I pass it every day, and I find it to be a horrible site.

Bringing in more people to the city means more cars. It is already crowded when trying to get off the plateau in the morning during the rush hour. Of course, that means the traffic is bad in the afternoon, too.

I propose putting a moratorium on building for several years. It was done once, it can be done again. Also, I see signs posted that the city is doing something but I can’t read those signs as I drive by them.

I feel when there are discussions about permits for developers that these discussions should be written up in the Sammamish Review so that the residents know what is being proposed in our city.

It appears that these discussions are done quietly not allowing the residents to speak to the issue.

I have been here for 20 years and, yes, I understand that you can’t stop progress. However, with our two lane roads I sure don’t think we should keep getting more people living up here.

The city is probably looking at the bottom line only. As a resident, I want to have an environment that my grandchildren can enjoy.

So, City Council, please put a moratorium on building once more. It is really necessary. Oh, by the way, I saw a lot of deer crossing at that point where the trees have been cut down. Where are they going to go now?

Sandy Livingston

Sammamish

At the May 7 City Council meeting, Councilwoman Nancy Whitten suggested the city take up monitoring duties that the Friends of Pine Lake plan to stop doing. She said the city could spend $10,000 to do the monitoring.

Whitten had suggested specific factors to monitor in the stream, but the rest of the council suggested they wait before they get too specific.

Councilman Don Gerend and Mayor Tom Odell both noted the city should first try and figure out which factors are most important to check on – for the health of the stream overall and in order to keep the fish happy. The council plans to ask for a report from the Lake Sammamish Kokanee Work Group to determine what it should monitor.

In March, the council heard a presentation about monitoring the stream, which estimated costs to range from $5,400 to $9,000 annually, with possible one-time costs for equipment purchases.

Sammamish is required to monitor water quality in Ebright Creek as a result of a settlement agreement between the city and the Lancaster Homeowners Association and the Friends of Pine Lake. The settlement stems from possible impacts caused by the construction of City Hall.

The new laws state that the vehicles may be impounded, subject to the discretion of the officer. Elledge said the Sammamish Police impounded 62 vehicles last year. He said the department’s guidance to officers would be to release the vehicle to a co-owner if they have a valid driver’s license.

Mayor Tom Odell suggested the city might want to consider graduated fees for repeat offenders – increasing the impound fee charged by the city if people have their vehicle impounded multiple times.

The council may consider that issue separately in the future.

The Environmentally Critical Areas Ordinance (the cool kids call it the ECA for short) is an umbrella term for a wide array of regulations. Taken together, they set rules for developing near wetlands, on steep slopes, in areas with soils prone to erosion, near animal migration routes and a few other topics.

The city is required to update the laws periodically, and the City Council is in the final stages of that process. The Planning Commission studied the plan for about a year before handing its draft regulations off to the council.

Many of the regulations proposed by the Planning Commission would loosen development standards and allow people to build on land which would otherwise be off limits. Virtually all speakers who supported the relaxed regulations either own property which would be able to be developed under the draft plan, or work for those who do.

Generally, they say the regulations are too restrictive and deprive them of their property rights. They suggest that many regulations were adopted decades ago, and since then, builders have found ways to work in sensitive areas without causing ecological harm.

In particular, they suggest a pilot program envisioned in the new regulations is the way to go. Under this idea, a handful of property owners in these areas would be allowed to develop their land under tight restrictions and with a system set up to monitor the environmental impacts.

“It would allow a few properties to demonstrate it can be done without issue,” said Jim Osgood. Osgood is a Sammamish resident who owns property that would be eligible to develop under the pilot program.

Other supporters, such as Larry Martin, an attorney working for someone who wants to develop, said the regulations were too tough on property owners and reduce their property’s value. He said the city should seek a less burdensome option. He continued, saying the pilot programs could be almost as effective as the current system, and yet it would still allow development.

Sam Rodebaugh, a Sammamish resident and attorney working for Osgood echoed these ideas.

“Development can be done. It can be done safely and without compromising the property rights of the owners,” he said.

On the other side were a number of residents who opposed the ideas – the pilot programs in particular. They questioned why the community should bear the risk of a degraded environment when only a few property owners will reap the benefits. And if the pilot programs turn out to fail, the damage will already be done.

“Why consider them at all?” asked Sue Campo, a Sammamish resident and former environmental science teacher at Eastlake. “How does modifying them help the community?”

Mark Cross, a former City Councilman who is an urban planner by trade, said calling the proposal a pilot program is a misnomer. Cross noted that there is not data about the state of the environment in those areas prior to development.

The lack of a baseline means that monitoring the areas after development won’t be able to show anything, since there is no baseline to which the monitoring data may be compared.

Ilene Stahl, founder of Friends of Pine Lake, said the idea of the pilot program serves little more than the wallets of a few property owners. She said that the program does not conform to the best available science, is not in the public interest and is only in the financial interest of a few.

“Only a few people will ever benefit,” Stahl said.

The council did not officially close the public hearing, so interested residents can still weigh in. Written comments can be sent until May 20. At the council’s meeting that day, they will also accept additional oral testimony. At that point, they will close the public hearing and begin their own deliberations.

Get involvedTo review the documents related to the Environmentally Critical Areas ordinance (and there are a lot of them) visit the city website ci.sammamish.wa.us, and follow the link on the left side for “Environmentally Critical Areas.”
Send comments or questions to ECA@ci.sammamish.wa.us.

Each has completed 300 hours of training at the police academy and will have another 250 hours of training with an officer in the field. They may eventually be able to assist officers around the city and take on duties such as transporting prisoners to jail and otherwise supplementing the department.

Kyle Rip and David Kretschmer

“They’re not to take the place of an officer,” Elledge said.

Rip and Kerchner were the only two of an initial applicant pool of 24 to make it all the way through the program, Elledge said. He hopes to find another three reserve officers and is seeking applicants for those positions. For more information, visit www.nationaltestingnetwork.com.

*This version corrects the spelling.

Police responded to a home on the 1500 block of East Lake Sammamish Parkway Northeast when the woman who lives there reported missing items.

The woman, who said she is married under Islamic law, but not under U.S. law, has split up from her husband. She was out of town from April 8 to April 24 and says that when she returned, she found items missing from the home.

She had a no contact order in place after an alleged domestic violence incident in February. Police say the information she provided was not sufficient to obtain a search warrant.

Youth in

possession

Police responded to Eastlake High School at 8 a.m. April 30 after a student was found in possession of marijuana.

Officers confiscated the marijuana for disposal and the student’s mother was also called. The school will discipline the student.

Mystery calls

A woman called police April 30 to report she’d been getting harassing phone calls.

She said the calls began April 17 or 18 and she’d been getting them one or two times a day.

It has since risen to five times a day. Her phone carrier declined to give her the number that had been calling without a police report.

Missing laptop

An Eastlake High School Student reported that the notebook computer he’d been assigned by the Lake Washington School District had gone missing.

He said he’d left it in the gym after a class March 27. He allowed several days to pass before reporting it to police in the hopes someone would turn it in to lost and found, but no one did.

Another

missing laptop

Another Eastlake student reported his laptop missing. He was participating in a track meet between 3:30 and 7 p.m. April 18.

As usual, the team piled their personal belongings in the locker room, but he did not lock it. When he returned, his gym bag was missing.

He waited more than a week to report the incident in the hopes that someone had simply grabbed the wrong bag.

Found card

Someone turned in a debit card they found at the Starbucks on Issaquah-Pine Lake Road at 4:07 p.m. May 4.

Police searched for someone with that name in Sammamish, but when they contacted a homeowner where that person was believed to live, he said he did not know anyone by that name.

Negligent driving

Police stopped a vehicle on the 4000 block of 228th Avenue Southeast at 2:57 p.m. May 3.

Officers found the driver had a warrant for her arrest for driving with a suspended license. Officers transported the woman to the Issaquah jail.

A friend of hers was going to come to get the vehicle.

After waiting 30 minutes, they called the friend, but he said he could not find the incident so he went home. Officers then had the vehicle impounded.

DUI

At about 2:20 a.m. May 3, officers noticed a car going 50 mph in a 35 mph zone near the 4600 block of Issaquah-Pine Lake Road Southeast.

When officers contacted the driver, they noticed the smell of intoxicants.

The man stated he would not submit to a portable breathalyzer because he did not trust the technology, but he was willing to submit to sobriety tests. Officers noted signs consistent with impairment. The man still refused to submit to a field Breathalyzer.

The officer arrested the man and took him to the station.

The man asked for a specific public defender, and was put in touch with him. Eventually, he took a breath test and blew a .135, above the legal limit of .08

Driving while revoked

Officer pulled over a vehicle near the intersection of East Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast and 212th Way Southeast at 11:23 p.m. April 28, after a random check said the vehicle’s owner had his license suspended.

Officers contacted the driver who said that situation should have been resolved. He was only a few blocks from his destination.

Officers allowed the man to walk to his destination, and the man said he would have someone else come retrieve the car.

Car vs. deer

vs. pistol

Officers responded to the 26600 block of Southeast Duthie Hill Road at 7:56 p.m. May 1 when a motorist hit a deer.

The deer survived, but was badly injured. Officer euthanized the animal.

Harassing call

A woman came to police at 11:25 a.m. April 30 to report she’d gotten a harassing phone call. She’d gotten a call in the past week from someone claiming to be from the government, but she thought it was a scam and hung up.

She then got another call from a man who said he knows her husband. The man said he was traveling to India and was asking for advice about what to see and do there.

He then shifted the conversation to a graphic sexual discussion, saying he’d been given permission by her husband to date her and have intercourse with her. Once he started that, she told him not to call back and hung up.

He called back twice. During the conversation, she noticed the man made some mistakes about personal information which led her to believe he did not know her husband as well as he had said.

She said she could recognize the voice if she heard it again.

The woman is afraid of the caller’s intentions and is staying at a friend’s house.

Burglary attempt

Police responded to reports of an audible burglar alarm on the 800 block of Windsor Drive Southeast at 2:07 p.m. April 28. The officer walked around the house and found a rear door open.

The officer said it appeared as if it had been left open accidentally. When he contacted the homeowner, the owner said he had locked the door and closed it. He also said there were pry marks on the door frame.

Nothing was damaged or missing.

Items in the Police Blotter come from Sammamish Police reports.

Maraldo, of Newcastle, occupies the District 2 seat, representing Newcastle and the southwest portion of the Issaquah school district. She was elected to the board at the end of 2009, taking over for longtime member Connie Fletcher.

Although Sammamish residents do not live in District 2, the race will still appear on their ballots in November.

The Newcastle mother of two looks forward to continuing the work of managing the district through a challenging fiscal period, if re-elected, she said in a statement.

“In the past four years, the district has faced $16 million in funding cuts from the state, and yet still provides the excellent education our community has come to expect,” she said.

As the district continues to grow, Maraldo said she believes there is still significant work to be done.

“We have an increasing number of students coming to our schools with educational challenges,” she said. “English isn’t spoken at home, their families are facing difficulties in this harsh economy or they struggle with learning disabilities. The best way to level the playing field is by providing them an education that meets their unique needs.”

Maraldo represents the board on the Washington State School Directors Association’s Legislative Committee and the National School Board Association Federal Relations Network. As the board’s legislative representative, she has testified before both the House and Senate Education Committees.

“The state Supreme Court has made it clear that the legislature is not upholding the constitution,” she said. “If we don’t invest in education for our future workforce, we will be facing an even larger fiscal cliff in the future.”

A graduate of Liberty University, Maraldo began her career working at the NASA-Ames Research Center in an educational program aimed at making math and science more exciting for children. From there, she spent seven years working at Cisco Systems, before deciding to stay home full time.