Let Klahanie voters choose Issaquah or Sammamish | Letter

Published 12:19 pm Friday, September 27, 2013

Klahanie Choice is a neighborhood citizens group dedicated to helping Klahanie and surrounding neighborhoods make the best choice for our future.

When Sammamish incorporated in 1999, the Greater Klahanie neighborhoods were not included in the city boundaries; we remained in Issaquah’s Potential Annexation Area (PAA). A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Sammamish and Issaquah in 2002, wherein Issaquah indicated that it would release Klahanie from its PAA and allow Sammamish to add it to its PAA, thereby making it eligible for annexation to Sammamish.

This transfer of PAA was never consummated by Issaquah and, in 2005 a vote was taken to annex to Issaquah. The vote passed, but not the vote to assume a share of Issaquah’s existing bonded indebtedness. As a consequence, Issaquah decided to go against the vote of the people and not annex Klahanie to Issaquah.

Now, eight years later, Issaquah finally decides to respond to another desire of the citizens of Klahanie to be a part of a city, rather than being governed by King County. In the meantime, however, Sammamish has matured and is a wonderful residential city, very similar to Klahanie, in excellent financial condition (no bonded indebtedness) and cradles Klahanie geographically.

Sammamish has expressed a desire to annex Klahanie, if the Klahanie citizens so choose, but this cannot happen without consent of Issaquah and changing of the PAA.

Many of us in Klahanie feel that Sammamish could be a better fit for Klahanie, for the many reasons so compellingly expressed at the Boundary Review Board Hearing, Sept. 18-19. We are asking Issaquah to give us the opportunity to choose which city we would like to be annexed into.

Issaquah has tentatively scheduled an election in February, 2014, subject to the outcome of the Boundary Review Board decision. We are asking to have two questions on that ballot:

1. Do you want to annex to a neighboring city? YES NO

2. Which city do you want to be annexed to? Sammamish Issaquah

This would allow the two cities to fulfill the term of the 2002 MOU which states, that the “city of Sammamish and the city of Issaquah find that it is generally in their best mutual interests to accommodate requests for annexation based upon the preferences of the citizens within a PAA.”

Let Klahanie decide. Give us a real choice.