Sammamish race narrows in on environment, property rights | Election

Once a corporate lawyer, Nancy Whitten is still surprised that it was the environment that first pulled her into Sammamish politics.

After eight years in Position 4 on the City Council, she gave it up this year to challenge Kathy Richardson for Position 2.

For two women who claim conservative leanings, their views about the environment and property rights are as different as their disposition and personalities.

While neither woman would say the two are mutually exclusive, Whitten owned her partiality to the environment as much as Richardson owned to her concerns about property rights.

Calling herself a centrist on the issues, Whitten says she challenged Richardson for fear that she was not.

Some speculate Whitten had other reasons.

Though both Jim Wasnick and John Galvin had filed for her seat when she made the decision, she said “I could have won.”

Whitten

In the view from Whitten’s living room, patches of light flicker from Pine Lake and through towering evergreen trees.

A storm sent one of the towering giants through her roof last winter.

It was an unfortunate loss – the tree was still healthy, she said, and of course they had to replace their flooring.

Little has changed on her 5-acre wooded parcel since she purchased it 30 years ago, except for her home, which she carefully built 120 feet from the shore and over the same footprint as the lake house she raised her four children in.

“We tried to keep it fairly natural,” she said.

Her activism began outside her window, when in 1981 she learned the Department of Fish and Wildlife regularly poisoned Pine Lake to benefit its trout.

The issue was resolved with a petition, but the lake was already on its way to becoming a swamp, she said.

In 1989, she helped lead a committee in passing a plan that would reduce phosphorous in the lake, which would have caused the lake to be overwhelmed by algae.

For the next 10 years she watched

transportation, traffic and storm water issues through the city’s tremendous growth, she’s said. Through it, “the environment got the short shrift.”

After an unsuccessful attempt in 2001, she won a seat on City Council in 2003.

Her interested in the environment tempered a strong business bent she had when she first moved to Issaquah as a corporate litigations lawyer, she said. “You have to balance it delicately.”

Policy aside, she’s gotten herself in trouble a number of times by how she works with city staff and her tendency to ramble on at council meetings.

“It’s created trouble for me,” she admitted. “Politics haven’t been my background. Politics aren’t me.”

She noted that she wouldn’t pose so many questions at the City Council meetings, if the council formed more committees to review amendments beforehand.

“How can council be anything but a rubber stamp, if you don’t ask questions?” she said.

At 65, she’s about as established as Sammamish politicians come.

Richardson

Richardson’s first strong interest in citizen activism began in a neighbor’s living room two years ago.

The group was upset with the city’s plan for their shoreline homes.

Now called the Sammamish Homeowners Group, the neighbors flooded City Council meetings with testimony about the shoreline plan.

With support from about 300 homeowners, the group not only changed the plan but also the city’s attitude toward public input, she said.

Frustration with the Planning Commission’s disregard for public comment was what stirred them to form a group in the first place, she said.

“There are lots of ways to dismiss the public, but we have a very smart public,” she said. “The folks who live in our community can make a better city.”

Seeing the tangible change of SHO moved her to apply for a spot on the Planning Commission this year. It’s considered a training ground for future council members.

In a small conference room at City Hall, she talked in detail about development plans and environmental policy.

It’s a bit nerdy for the petite blonde, who otherwise spends her time at a tech consulting firm or exploring the outdoors, but she finds it interesting.

The quick decision to run for City Council was more to the credit of her supporters than good timing.

She had already planned a safari trip in Africa, a lifelong dream, during the weeks leading up to the election.

Supporters offered to run her campaign and fill in when she was gone.

Garnering encouragement from a city council member, she was without excuse.

“I’m doing it, because I’d vote for me,” she said. “And I have pretty high standards of our public representatives.”

An underdog, she knew she would have an opponent, but she never expected a council member would switch positions, she said. “It made it a much more difficult race.”

It certainly made her rethink the decision not to use signage, she said with a laugh.

A key debate was scheduled in the middle of her trip, and her absence didn’t go unnoticed. Whitten nicknamed her the “ghost candidate.”

Disagreement

Whitten’s concerns about Richardson stem from her concerns about SHO. The group has been known to throw out accepted science, she said.

Richardson disagreed. In many cases SHOs recommendations were better for the environment, she said. “The difference was in the details.”

Whitten pointed to two major points of dispute – pervious pavement and and the importance of barriers.

The term “barriers” refers to how close homes can get to the lakeside and what stands between the structure and the lake.

They’re of particular interest, because the Lake Sammamish Kokanee Salmon are close to being wiped out.

There is no science that proves that a buffer on an urban lake improves the habitat for salmon, Richardson said.

Pervious pavement prevents runoff by allowing the water to pass through into the ground. Most lake pollution is caused by runoff that takes oil and chemicals down with it.

Richardson doesn’t contest its effectiveness, but pointed out that the worst runoff comes from the plateau, not the shoreline.

“If you’re trying to improve the water quality of the lake, don’t focus on the first 200 feet, focus on the rest of the city,” she said.