The Sammamish City Council voted 6-1 to leave the Southeast 42nd Street emergency Opticom gate in its place, a decision reached after more than three hours of council discussion and public comment Tuesday evening.

“You might have noticed that this one’s a little tiny bit controversial,” said interim Sammamish Public Works Director John Cunningham at the beginning of the meeting.

The council also asked city staff to calculate the number of lots in the vicinity of the gate and to contact Eastside Fire and Rescue, the Sammamish Police Department/King County Sheriff’s Office and the Redmond fire and police departments to determine how often emergency vehicles use the barricade. Councilmember Bob Keller also asked staff to determine, had the road been built today, what standards would it be built to and what roadway classification would the city give it.

The council did not set a timeline to discuss this information, though Cunningham told the Reporter city staff are already working on it.

Additionally, the council — some of whom thought Tuesday’s conversation was about the overall process to evaluate barricades in the city, not just on the 42nd Street gate — asked to put the review of the 2014 adopted resolution that sets the general guidelines for review of emergency barricades back on the agenda at a later date.

Barricades, particularly the Southeast 42nd Street Opticom gate, have come up many times in the past, usually with council calling for more information or study while simultaneously not approving any staff time be dedicated on the budget, like they did in February 2015.

Long-term council members like Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama-Aramayo and Tom Odell said this is likely the ninth time the 42nd Street gate has come to council in their tenures.

“I’m a little frustrated,” Valderrama-Aramayo said. “Why does this keep coming forward?”

Valderrama-Aramayo, who has long been in favor of keeping the gate closed citing safety issues, said he was perplexed that the city keeps revisiting the issue. He said he couldn’t fathom the amount of money it would take to mitigate the traffic issues, like steep hills and blind corners. His statements elicited applause from an audience that was largely there to support retaining the barrier.

The barricade was installed before the city incorporated, per a conditional agreement between King County and three residential plats, the Chrysalis Estates, Webers Ridge and Old Mill Point. The barricade blocks a direct route, cutting through Timberline and Hidden Ridge neighborhoods, from Sahalee Way to State Route 202.

Studies conducted by residents and data at least a decade old has been used on both sides of the issue to claim its retention or removal is necessary.

Proponents of retaining the gate have often said opening the gate would increase traffic through the neighborhoods, and that it was not safe for others to drive the path. Conversely, those in favor of its removal ask how it can be safe for nearby residents to use but not safe for the rest of the population?

Councilmember Kathy Huckabay, the only opposing vote to keep the 42nd Street gate in its place and off the city’s workload for presumably another year, said Tuesday’s conversation is indicative of a larger safety issue.

“Is the road so terribly unsafe that we can’t even let traffic use it halfway up the hill?” Huckabay asked. “That is a much bigger issue in my mind than even opening or closing the darn gate.”

She wanted to allocate time and money to further conduct a study using current traffic patterns and up-to-date information so the council would be informed enough to make a decision one way or another.

At the start of the meeting, city staff estimated such an evaluation, along with a communications plan of action for public outreach and engagement, would be $150,000.

“We wanted to make sure we had a process for communicating and including the public both those that are for and against removal of the barricade,” Cunningham told the council.

There was a desire from the council to put this business to bed, but as a couple council members pointed out, any council in the future could dredge it back up.

“Even if we put a park there, the next council could say ‘Well we’re going to wipe out that park and put the road through,'” Mayor Don Gerend said.

The barricade topic preceded the consent agenda and extended the meeting another hour and 20 minutes to accommodate other agenda items like the Issaquah-Fall City Road 10 percent design concept and an executive session.

In other council news:

City staff presented the 10 percent design plan for the Issaquah-Fall City Road project. There will be an open house in mid-May.

The council, after an executive session, voted 7-0 to reject and rebid for a stormwater retrofit on the Inglewood Hill Trunkline project.

Councilmember Bob Keller, also after executive session, made a motion to unify the city’s appeal to the Shoreline Hearings Board regarding the southern segment of the East Lake Sammamish Trail with King County’s in asking the Hearings Board whether the city’s hearing examiner had jurisdiction to review 2015 appeals against the city’s 2015 permit. The motion failed 3-3, with Councilmember Tom Hornish abstaining.