Traffic, development and growth were just some of the important issues on the table for Sammamish City Council candidates.

On Monday, Sept. 25, the eight candidates gathered at Sammamish City Hall to take questions about their vision for the city’s future and their opinions on many of the issues the city faces today and will face in the future. The forum was co-hosted by the Reporter and community groups Plateaupians for Peace and Sammamish Friends.

The candidates are running for four positions that will be left open, as the current council members in those seats will not be running for re-election. For Pos. 1, Mark Baughman and Jason Ritchie; Pos. 3, Karen Howe and Karen Moran; Pos. 5, Rituja Indapure and Chris Ross; and Pos. 7, John Robinson and Pam Stuart.

All the candidates answered questions from the moderator of the forum, Alaya Leadership Coaching and Team Development founder and coach Margaret Rottsolk, who started the night off with Sammamish’s biggest issue, traffic.

All of the candidates agreed that something had to be done to ease the pressure in and out of the city. Making Sammamish a more connected city was a primary objective for everyone, and not just to the rest of King County but within the city limits as well.

Baughman began by explaining that better connectivity east and west across the city was one of the most important changes to implement for traffic in Sammamish. Despite the progress toward that goal the incoming Town Center might provide, the city needs to continue to pursue the goal in other avenues.

“A lot of this is having a good plan,” Baughman said. “And one of the things I believe the city has done a good job of, but it is a bit behind on, is having an overall plan for the city in the future for when a project comes in the door we are not surprised and reacting. We have to be in charge and have to start managing growth in the city.”

Ritchie said that, as a father, increasing connections to schools was an important goal. He also said he wanted the city to work with King County to widen 228th Avenue all the way to State Route 202, which would help get commuters on and off of the plateau with ease. For pedestrians wanting to enjoy the city, an interconnected path all the way around Sammamish through trails and sidewalks was brought up by Ritchie and several others.

Connecting residents to various multi-modal transportation options like a park and ride or the incoming ST3 rail system was also a popular plan to help commute times, one of Howe’s goals. Howe explained that pursuing various transportation options are things the city could do to improve the commute experience without having to actually build or change any roads. It would be another option for citizens.

Investing in fixing and improving the existing roads to improve connectivity was important to Moran.

“To just build lanes for the sake of building lanes doesn’t help us. We need to get traffic to flow,” she said. “We need to have connectivity, we need to look at grid work, we need to put in roads where we can and if we miss this opportunity now and continue to build the way we are, it will be gone forever.”

Indapure suggested working with regional partners or big employers to address connectivity. Working to have commuter busses to help relieve traffic in and out would be a big help, she said. A loop bus within Sammamish was also brought up by Indapure as a way to help the citizens have a consistent way to traverse their city.

Ross focused on the main arterial roads in the city and wanted to make sure surplus traffic is not going into the neighborhoods. He stressed that finding ways to make sure traffic is flowing smoothly without the need to divert into neighborhoods was important. Ross also discussed secure places to lock their bikes and be picked up by the bus, which would be another method to help reduce traffic and promote biking.

Robinson took a different approach by wanting to find ways to get employees to change their behavior instead of just trying to change the roads. Robinson would like to work with major employers to find an incentive plan to promote people to carpool or find alternate means of getting to their place of employment.

Smart road improvements and exploring options in park and ride locations were methods that Stuart focused on.

“We need to be looking to the future,” Stuart said. “We have rail coming to Redmond and we have rail coming to Issaquah. If we want to talk about connectivity, how do we connect to that rail efficiently and effectively, that means cost effectively and quickly.”

Aside from traffic, the night’s other big topic was the concept of smart growth and what the candidates believe the future of growth in the city should be. Many of the candidates agreed in their answers that preparing for the future with smart planning for both urban and forest planning was vital.

Finding a balance in growth and improving what already exists is going to be the city’s goal in the coming years and implementing technological advances will be a big part of the city’s progression. Both Howe and Moran talked about using technology to help coordinate stop lights, assist multi-modal transportation and taking care of the environment.

Indapure saw smart growth as the planning for affordable housing, town homes and cottage homes and how can they be connected to transit and the parks, making sure new developments have solar panels and how to create an ecosystem where new development environment that would not eradicate Sammamish’s emphasis on the preservation trees.

Ross, along with other candidates throughout the night, felt that the future of transportation could be solved through the implementation of autonomous vehicles as development of the technology increases. The implementation of strong cyber security as technology becomes more prevalent in city operations was another aspect Ross considered important for smart growth of the future.

Robinson and Stuart felt that strong leadership would be important to help guide the city into smart growth for the coming years. Robinson said he believed in managing development in the city by creating a strong policy and enforcing it in city projects. Stuart said the city should pace growth with only what the city can handle and to make sure the city decisions are data driven.

While looking to technology in the future was a common trend, Baughman said the city can’t rely on technology for everything. Sammamish needs a strategy that goes beyond what is in the Comprehensive Plan, he said, a plan that would be able to answer many of the city’s questions when it comes to the full build-out capacity of Sammamish.

Along the same lines, Ritchie said any sort of growth or investment the city makes must be conscious of the impact on the environment.

“Technological advances, wonderful,” he said. “But I want to make sure we are not overdeveloping … Sammamish should not become Bellevue, we can’t just build every single lot that can be built. Let’s leave some spaces alone. To me that is smart growth.”

For the full discussions and the candidates’ extended answers, the entire forum is available to watch online at the city of Sammamish’s YouTube page.