At this event the council laid out the things they have to do in the year ahead. Boy what a docket of things to do! And the city staff did a good job presenting all the things they are working on this coming year.

Note: The information about the retreat is still available on the city website here.

Sammamish Friends gave comments advocating for the Emerald Necklace (the Emerald Necklace got about a dozen mentions!) and for the idea that the city should not back off of any opportunities to acquire land in the city for future open space for its citizens. Our position is that some portion of the newly increased impact fees charged to developers who build in Sammamish should be continually allocated for land acquisition.

We also indicated our intent to seek grants for land acquisition and trails. We’ll be working with King County and the city to buy property.

A new group in town that Sammamish Friends is helping to get going announced themselves at the retreat: The Sammamish Stormwater Stewards. This group is going to be doing a lot of research about stormwater systems and the best ways to transition to a green stormwater infrastructure, including rain gardens, and pollinator pathways.

At the retreat, they advocated for the city to adopt greener stormwater infrastructure practices. More information about the Stormwater Stewards can be found on their site. Sammamish Friends will be adding events for this group to our meetup.com group, so if you are interested in hearing more from this group, sign up at the Sammamish Friends meetup.com group. You can also follow our Facebook page.

On the community development front, we committed to working with Tim Larson and the council on brainstorming ways to increase communication between the city and its citizens. We’d like to help find ways to connect with social media and other outreach methods, including helping to promote town halls and other innovative strategies to engage Sammamish residents.

All in all this was a great way to make a richer connection with our city council and find out about all the hard work they and the city staff do for Sammamish. Please try to join us next year!