Rob Young of Klahanie believes his community is at a critical crossroads. The vote to annex to Issaquah failed. He said it’s time for Issaquah to give up the right to the potential annexation area and let residents consider Sammamish.

If this can happen in short order, an annexation vote to Sammamish could be on a November ballot, Young said, with annexation in January of 2015 if the vote is “yes.”

Young supported the annexation to Issaquah, but at this point Issaquah has had two shots at it, and he wants to be part of a city so he and his neighbors can get better services.

The King County Growth Management Planning Council (GMPC) met Wednesday Feb. 26 and while Klahanie wasn’t on the agenda, both Kamuron Gurol, director of community development for Sammamish, and Paul Winterstein, president of the Issaquah City Council, showed up and testified about the PAA.

Senior Policy Analyst Karen Wolf of the planning council said Winterstein testified that Issaquah hasn’t had time to analyze the election results and sort things out.

Gurol was asked by the Sammamish City Council to offer comments from that city stating its interest in annexing the Klahanie area.

“We were waiting for the results of the election,” Gurol said. “Now GMPC would have to modify the PAA map to show it as a PAA for Sammamish. Our hope is that Issaquah will release the PAA.”

Gurol said the GMPC has the authority to modify the map. He said both cities have the mutual desire to avoid duplicative or overlapping PAAs. This would be avoided if Issaquah releases the area.

“It looks like it’s going to take an action by Issaquah — we’ve asked GMPC to put it on the work program for this year,” Gurol said.

He said the best case scenario is if Issaquah releases it and GMPC puts it on the map as Sammamish’s PAA. The worst case scenario is if the two cities cannot work this out.

Wolf said the GMPC wants the two cities to figure it out and come back to them at the May meeting.

“The GMPC doesn’t want to get into a dispute between two cities,” she said.

At Monday’s regular Issaquah City Council meeting, Klahanie was not on the agenda, but it may as well have been. Several people testified, most asking the council to release the PAA.

“We’re all very tired, fatigued,” said Chris Jensen of Klahanie. “Sammamish is the obvious choice. Since the early 2000s it seemed like this reality was just over the horizon but vocal minorities of what appeared to be less than five people kept blowing against the political sails, keeping us moored in this harbor of stagnation.”

Jensen said recent quotes from Mayor Fred Butler seemed to imply some sort of gerrymandering or slicing up of precincts, which would only exacerbate the animosity that’s been growing toward Issaquah ever since the issues surrounding the water district and the cyber squatting.

“Releasing the PAA would go a long way to repairing the voters’ state of mind at this point,” he said.

Julie Pai said she has lived on the plateau for 12 years. She lives in the north end of the PAA, and said her family shops in Sammamish, visits its library and prefers the lifestyle in Sammamish.

“Release us from your PAA,” she implored. “We don’t belong to Issaquah. You promised to release us in 2002 and did not do that. It is not right to hold us hostage. All along it’s been clear that Sammamish is a better choice.”

Pai, addressing Mayor Butler, reminded him that in his campaign he said he’d release Klahanie.

“It doesn’t get any clearer than that,” Pai said. “Don’t equivocate. Release us.”

Three more people delivered the same message, while three testified that they still want to be part of Issaquah.

Winterstein said the Issaquah City Council will be reviewing its comprehensive plan. Every seven years the Growth Management Council calls for a comprehensive overhaul of cities’ comp plans, and this is the year to do so, Winterstein said.

“Releasing Klahanie is changing the comp plan,” Winterstein said. “There is a mechanism for this.”

He said since a PAA can only be in one city’s comprehensive plan, Sammamish would have to add it to its plan.

“It’s good practice to be thorough and deliberate,” he said. “We’re beholden to this comp plan process. We need to get a sense of the entire process.”

Any changes to Issaquah’s comprehensive plan wouldn’t go into effect until 2015.