Washblog

City Councilman David Baker said that there will be no cost to residents for the new city hall because the city was selling land and using the proceeds for the purchase.

Hendrickson was also concerned that the city budget is being misrepresented to voters. One council member has said that there is a budget surplus of $1.2 million, but Hendrickson stated that the total amount in prior years was well over $3 million but in 2008 is actually closer to $800,000 and dropping every year.

One business owner was very angry about the decision by city manager Steve Anderson to give a project for shoreline development to a contractor without accepting bids from multiple businesses. The business owner was hoping to bid on the project but was told outright that a decision was made without a bidding process. Members of the council stated that the decision was made by the council rather than by Steve Anderson and that they were happy with his performance. John Hendrickson was the only current council member who stated that Anderson was abusing his power and not listening to citizens of the community in other matters where he was making the final decision. Challengers Dennis Hill and Bob Black both stated that multiple bids should be allowed on all projects. Bob also stated that the city manager needs to answer to the community just like a city council member does and he would vote to dismiss the manager if he saw that the city manager was, in fact, abusing his power.

Another audience member asked the candidates if they knew that a developer working on one of the city projects is asking the city council for a tax exemption. He wondered if this meant that the cost of the exemption would be passed along to residents.

I later learned that the tax exemption request occurred after the passage of a new state law that allows cities with 15,000 residents or less to give tax breaks to encourage new development. One of the developers, Urban Partners, requested the tax break several months after being granted a project. Before any decision is made, the city council must enact an ordinance to allow the exemption in Kenmore and the developer would have to apply for the exemption. The decision about whether the tax exemption will be granted will occur next year.

David Baker said that the effect of this tax exemption would be spread across all property owners in King County and would likely only come to a few cents. Dennis Hill disagreed, saying it will probably be closer to $125 per property (although an analysis has not been conducted at this point to determine the exact cost) and it would only affect Kenmore residents. Dennis Hill, who is a member of the City of Kenmore Downtown Task Force, stated that when the developer submitted the bid for the project, he said that Kenmore was a prime place for the new project. But when the developer later asked for a tax exemption, he claimed that Kenmore was a "high-risk" area for development.

At another point in the discussion, Hendrickson brought up the card room issue. In 2004, 51% of Kenmore residents voted in favor of allowing card rooms in Kenmore. The intention was to allow Kenmore Lanes to continue operating a card room that it had been running for many years, even if it meant allowing other card rooms to open in the city. After residents voted yes, the Kenmore City Council voted to ban card rooms in Kenmore. Hendrickson said he refused to go along with the council during the vote for the ban because he felt that it wasn't his place to make decisions that he knew were against the wishes of Kenmore residents. After this, he said that city council members became adversarial and hostile towards him. They said that he wasn't a team player and at one point, during a closed executive session, another member of the council (not up for reelection yet) threatened to cause him "real bodily harm".

One of the frequent comments made by challenger Bob Black was that city council members do not listen to the residents of Kenmore. Bob Black has been a regular attendee at city council meetings and he stated that council members have the attitude that they know what's best for Kenmore residents and don't need to listen to them. He states that city council members withhold important information from residents because they think that residents are not savvy enough to understand the details. They don't answer e-mails or return calls, especially for complaints. I found out later that this has caused at least one prominent business owner to move her business to Kirkland after trying repeatedly to reach council members to resolve a problem.

Bob Black and Dennis Hill also expressed anger over how small businesses who were in the way of the current redevelopment project were being treated. Black said that he is friends with one business owner who is very angry at the city. The business owner was forced to move out of a downtown location where he operated his business for many years. He wasn't granted money to defray the costs of moving. Black asked "why should future business owners want to come to Kenmore when they see us treating established businesses so poorly?"

On the same topic, Hill said that he had provided information to one of the city planners about a program provided by the University of Washington that would give free classes to small business owners to help them create a plan for the transition. The city already pays $5000 a year for these services, but it is not giving information about this program to the businesses that would benefit from it. He said his suggestion was ignored by the city planner.

Another angry topic for challenger Bob Black was closed executive sessions that are held by the Kenmore City Council. It appears to him that the most important decisions are made during closed sessions, which prevents Kenmore residents from observing or participating in the process, even in matters that affect property taxes. Hendrickson was equally angry and stated that closed sessions violated the Open Public Meeting Act that is part of Washington state law. Hendrickson stated that he repeatedly told other council members that they were discussing issues in closed meetings that should have been open to Kenmore residents.

Here's a quick summary of a few other issues that came up during the forum:

• People are concerned about the lack of sidewalks, especially on roads leading to Kenmore Jr. High and Inglemoor High School. Surprisingly, it was brought up that sidewalks cost $1.6 million per mile and Kenmore needs 67 miles of sidewalks. The city requires developers to install sidewalks when they put in a new development, but this means that some neighborhoods have intermittent stretches of sidewalk on their roads. Bob Black made the comment that in his neighborhood, he's seen one development where the developer put in sidewalks within the development, but the entrance to the development has a brick wall on each side of the road. Inside the development, the sidewalk leads into, rather than around, the wall.
• Glenn Rogers and David Baker both supported a pedestrian bridge over SR 522 at 73rd street. Earlier this year, a pedestrian was killed at that corner while waiting to cross the street to go to the Park and Ride. Everyone supported this idea. [CORRECTION: The budget for an overpass does not come from the city budget and the land is owned by Sound Transit, so it is unclear how this idea could be implemented.]

Behind the Curtain

The candidates forum was sponsored by the group Citizens for a Better Kenmore, the group that was the driving force against cardrooms in the 2004 election. I've been told by several people that members of this group are from the Christ Church of Kirkland. Council members Glenn Rogers, Laurie Sperry, and Milton Curtis, as well as Planning Commission member Reverend Dennis Trott are all members of this Kirkland church.

During the prior two elections, City Councilman Glenn Rogers has been given $6500, 70% of which was provided by the Kirkland church members who live outside of Kenmore. In 2005, City Councilwoman Laurie Sperry was given $8000 in campaign contirbutions, 55% of which came from Kirkland church members who live outside of Kenmore.

The Bethany Bible church in Kenmore is also affiliated with this movement. Mayor Randy Eastman and council members Glenn Rogers, Laurie Sperry, Milton Curtis, and Allan Van Ness are all endorsed by Scott Ritter, the minister at Bethany. Members of this church subscribe to a fundamentalist view and it appears that they are actively working to remake Kenmore, regardless of what the majority of Kenmore residents want. The church sponsors the Life Choices Pregnancy Clinic which is located near the Planned Parenthood Clinic in downtown Kenmore.

When appointing the city’s new planning commission this year, five out of the seven members of the commission are members of this 60 member group.

I find it disturbing that the city council is so heavily influenced by a single church group in our city.

Stay Informed

You can find out more information about the city council forum in this Wednesday's edition of the Kenmore Reporter.

Dennis Hill told me today that the city council recently approved $50,000 in the 2008 budget for a makeover of the Kenmore City Web site. He has been providing feedback to the city about how to improve the Web site. Hopefully, this will become a source of good information after the makeover.

On November 3rd, there will be a meeting for Kenmore Neighbors for Responsible Growth at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park. The purpose of the group is to exchange information about Kenmore politics so that we can monitor and influence the direction of our individual neighborhoods.