Council approves budget

The East Lake Sammamish Parkway project nearly upstaged the adoption of the new city budget on Tuesday for the second City Council meeting running. However, after listening, asking questions and sharing opinions, the council approved the budget.

The council also voted to approve a 1 percent property tax increase.

Eight residents spoke asking the council to delay, cancel or otherwise modify the parkway project.

“The reasons that the parkway project have been justified (for) don’t hold up under scrutiny,” resident Michael O’Connell said. He asked that the council delay the project.

The council had received other written requests and opinions about East Lake Sammamish Parkway, in addition to lengthy verbal comments at the Nov. 18 public hearing about the biennial budget. In fact, the parkway was the topic of nearly all budget-related comments that the city received, officials said.

The initial portion of the project was approved in January 2008. The vote included design work and the first phase of the project, from Northeast Inglewood Hill Road to Northeast 26th Street, for an estimated $13.5 million. The council has not committed to completing the other two phases.

City staff will answer questions about the parkway at the council’s Dec. 16 meeting, when council members are scheduled to consider sending the project to be bid.

In a budget presentation, Finance Director Lyman Howard emphasized that the city operates with the lowest per capita spending of Eastside cities, at $657 per resident. However, the city is headed toward the need for a funding decision, since it receives about 68 percent of its revenue from property taxes.

“We do have a structural imbalance, and will be working with you to solve that,” Howard said.

In an estimated six years, city revenue will no longer be able to meet the expenditures, in an event referred to as the “crossover point.” Council members met earlier this year for an evening finance retreat to discuss the crossover and potential funding sources, such as a utility tax, but canceled the remainder of the finance retreat and delayed a decision.

Several adjustments were made to the approved budget, such as adding about $10,000 for sustainability and increasing human services spending from $130,000 to $160,000. The city also in the past week learned that it will receive a $3 million grant from the federal Transportation Improvement Board to help fund the 244th project. Standard & Poor awarded Sammamish a bond upgrade, to a rating of AAA. “What that means is if you do go out to borrow money, you’re going to borrow it at a lower interest rate,” Mayor Lee Fellinge said. “It’s truly money in the bank.”

After listening to the residents and hearing assurances from City Attorney Bruce Disend that their public hearing about the budget had not only followed the law but exceeded it (a citizen had called the attorney general’s office in the belief that city officials might not have adhered to public hearing requirements), the council asked a few last questions and then jumped into deliberation about the budget – with a few comments about the parkway along the way.

Several council members emphasized that the city has been planning for and working toward the parkway project for many years, setting aside money so that the project can essentially be “pay-as-you-go” rather than spending borrowed funds.

“The road is needed. The road was needed several years ago,” Councilman Mark Cross said. “We aren’t making a $30 million commitment to that project tonight or any other night.”

“I’m very proud of this budget,” Cross continued. “I’m ready to put the money into the road projects.”

Other council members said they’ll be looking for discussion to begin soon on how to move forward with the funding of a teen/senior center and Sammamish Landing Park after the failure of the parks and recreation bond on the Nov. 4 ballot. The measure received about 57 percent of the needed 60 percent supermajority.

Councilmember Kathy Huckabay, who voted against the budget, said she was troubled by the idea of the current worldwide financial situation, the crossover point in the city’s future and the idea of raising property taxes now when the city will have to look at additional funding sources as it approaches the crossover. She also said the parkway project is too much at this point, has become a “lightening rod” issue in the community and that she’s in favor of delaying it.

The council approved the budget with five “yes” votes, a “no” vote from Huckabay and an abstention from Nancy Whitten.

Councilmembers Michele Petitti, Don Gerend and Jack Barry pointed toward the awards the city has received for conservative budgeting, the improved bond rating and the efficiencies built into the budget.

“I think the financial condition of this city is an example for other cities,” Barry said. “I will be enthusiastically voting in favor of this budget.”

In other news, the council held a public hearing and first reading of an ordinance annexing the Camden Park, Camden Park Estates, Trails at Camden Park and Devereux neighborhoods. The group of King County residents requesting the annexation collected a total of 93 signatures, representing $81.7 million worth of assessed value, or 81.3 percent of the value in the proposed annexation area. In order to move forward with the request, they were required to achieve 60 percent. One citizen spoke to the council against the annexation, saying he did not move to the area to be part of the city of Sammamish. The next step in the annexation will be a second reading on Dec. 16.

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