Pro annexation group tell their side of the story

Dick L’Heureux has lived in his home in Brookshire Estates since it was built 27-years ago. One of the neighborhoods within the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area (PAA), he and his neighbor, Mike Foss, hope it is annexed to the city of Issaquah.

The decision goes before voters Feb. 11.

“The issue is, we identify with the city of Issaquah,” L’Heureux said.

L’Heureux is the president of the Brookshire Estates Homeowners Association and Foss is the vice-president. Foss has lived there for about 13 years. L’Heureux was involved in the 2005 annexation attempt, which failed. In that vote, the ballot measure was split into two parts — one to annex, the other to assume the bonded indebtedness of Issaquah. The second part brought it down.

“We were blind-sided then,” L’Heureux said.

This time only annexation is on the ballot.

“How often do you move to a city and say ‘I don’t use that park so I’m not going to pay for it?'” Foss asked.

The two point out that Issaquah is already built out. It has its infrastructure in place – the hatchery, the theater, and is an “outstanding community,” they said.

Taxes are the big issue. L’Heureux and Foss said they used actual levy rates for Issaquah, Sammamish and King County and did a comparison. The study done by Nesbitt Planning last year used $320,000 as an average single family residence value, but both men said $500,000 is more accurate now. They said with annexation, property taxes would be close to $800 less than what they pay now as part of unincorporated King County. If they were part of Sammamish, taxes would be about $480 less. They said they took a simple approach using their own tax bills and a friend’s who lives in Issaquah.

The city of Issaquah has said it doesn’t have the funds to widen Issaquah-Fall City Road, but L’Heureux and Foss said the road is a regional issue, not a city issue. Whether or not the annexation is approved, the road is bounded by King County and Sammamish.

“I think it will be a multi-jurisdictional effort to widen it,” Foss said. “I think that’s definitely on King County and Issaquah’s lists.”

Both men acknowledge that a large part of the PAA borders Sammamish, but the Klahanie PAA started developing in the early ’90s when the Growth Management Act was created to provide structure to growth. Sammamish didn’t incorporate until 1999.

“We’re not anti-Sammamish, we just don’t identify with that as where we live,” L’Heureux said.

Foss said he doesn’t really see that Sammamish has reached out and said they wanted the PAA until recently, whereas Issaquah has funded two studies costing thousands of dollars on annexation of the areas.

“Issaquah has been interested in us for 10 years,” Foss said.

As far as assuming Issaquah’s debt, they say, sure, Issaquah has debt, but the city has been around for 100 years. They say by design Sammamish is an area of resident taxpayers, but when it starts building more infrastructure, it will be on the backs of taxpayers. And, they feel that if business in Sammamish picks up, it will create a B&O tax, just like Issaquah.

Issaquah has said it will hire five more police officers if the area is annexed, but some say Issaquah is already under-staffed on police.

“I can’t imagine they’re going to spend that kind of money (for the officers) if they’re going to keep them on the valley floor,” Foss said.

Foss said once when he called to report on suspicious activity, the sheriff deputy who responded had to come all the way from Edmonds.

“I’m absolutely certain our police coverage will be greatly improved,” Foss said. “I think there’s a real good chance they’ll put a couple of officers at Eastside Fire and Rescue’s station 83 (which is the closest to the PAA).”

As regards fire coverage, EFR will still be there, and L’Heureux said EFR has been very supportive.

“This is a premium group of neighborhoods,” Foss said.

Below: Dick L’Heureux is on round two of trying to get Klahanie and surrounding neighborhoods annexed to the city of Issaquah.

Klahanie Choice wants voters to have a choice

Don Gerend is a former mayor of Sammamish and is on the City Council, but he also is representing a group called Klahanie Choice. Gerend has lived in the Pine Lake neighborhood since 1979 and has been on the city council of Sammamish since the city incorporated in 1999.

The Klahanie PAA was not part of the Sammamish incorporation because its board couldn’t decide if it wanted to be part of a new city. It also may have been concerned because an early ’90s vote to incorporate Sammamish failed.

According to Gerend, the Klahanie board said in 2002 that it wanted to be part of Sammamish, and that a May 6, 2002 Memorandum of Understanding said Issaquah agreed to release the area from the PAA. Issaquah reads the MOU differently.

In the 2005 Issaquah annexation attempt, Gerend told the state Boundary Review Board that it didn’t make sense geographically or socially to join Issaquah since most of the kids in the PAA went to schools in Sammamish.

Regarding roads, Gerend said Sammamish did a depreciation schedule many years ago on all of its roads, concluding the city needed to have $3 million a year for road maintenance, which it has maintained.

“We would do the same thing for Klahanie,” he said. “We’d set up a schedule — it might be $800,000 a year but that’s what we’d do. I dare you to find a pothole in Sammamish.“

He said Sammamish has $70 million in the bank and no bonded indebtedness. Responding to the concern that Sammamish will eventually burden taxpayers with debt, he said the city had debt — $2 million to create the lower Sammamish Commons, which it paid off. The city is spending $25 million of its savings for the new community center. Sammamish charges developers impact fees because, he said, growth should pay for itself.

“We’re not going to increase debt, because we pay it off,” he said.

He said if the PAA were to annex to Sammamish, the city has the funds on-hand to make the traffic and safety improvements to Issaquah-Fall City Road.

“Transportation-wise, we’re motivated — Issaquah is not,” he said.

Sammamish is one of six cities in Washington to have a triple A bond rating, Gerend pointed out. Also it does not charge its taxpayers a utility tax.

“We don’t feel we should put that burden on our taxpayers,” he said.

Per calculations by Klahanie Choice, which used the $320,000 example from the Nesbitt study for property value, if Klahanie were to annex to Sammamish it would save a homeowner $532 per year over what they’re paying King County, and $619 if annexed to Issaquah, a difference of $87.

Klahanie Choice says the addition of five extra patrol officers actually results in a net decline of police coverage for Issaquah, spreading the force even thinner than it is.

“This is the far extremity of Issaquah,” Gerend said. “If you look at Sammamish we’re already patrolling its perimeter.”

Sammamish’s police force is made up of King County deputies. Gerend said the advantage to using county deputies is they have access to their SWAT teams and helicopters as well as priority to police force resources. He pointed out that Sammamish is the eighth safest city in the U.S. and in 50 years there has not been a homicide on the plateau. Gerend said if Sammamish did annex the PAA, it would hire at least six more deputies.

The Sammamish City Council passed a resolution Jan. 7, 2014 to fast-track the annexation and merging process if annexation to Issaquah doesn’t pass. He said if Issaquah does not release the PAA from its comprehensive plan in the event of a “no” vote, the citizens of Sammamish and King County can go to the boundary review board and the Growth Management Planning Council and ask them to release it.

Furthermore, Gerend said if the Issaquah annexation is defeated, Sammamish wouldn’t oppose Brookshire and the other neighborhoods south of Southeast 48th Street petitioning to be part of Issaquah. He noted that Aldarra Estates and Montaine neighborhoods in east Sammamish annexed to Sammamish by petition.