The Sammamish City Council unanimously voted Tuesday to revoke its interlocal agreement with King County regarding permitting of the final East Lake Sammamish Trail segment.

The agreement historically had allowed the county to process its own land use applications by applying Sammamish city code.

“Honestly it’s not working,” Sammamish City Manager Lyman Howard told the council Tuesday. “Staff has been spending an inordinate amount of time after the fact in trying to work with the county to do what’s right for the citizens and we’ve been acting as a liaison.”

The move would “formalize the relationship” between the county and the city regarding these permitting matters, Howard said.

“We would then issue the permits in house and would allow us to actually act as the regulatory agency … as opposed to the liaison between the county and the homeowners,” Howard said.

The decision comes after the contentious construction period of the northern segment of the East Lake Sammamish Trail, completed last summer, and the ongoing litigation over the permitting of the southern segment of the trail.

The entire portion of the Sammamish trail, divided into three segments, will eventually connect Issaquah to Redmond as part of a larger regional trail system.

“We do anticipate a work load increase, but at the same point of time we’ve been spending an inordinate amount of staff time on the back-end after the permit has been issued,” Howard said. “We will be prepared in 90 days.

“This will be a much more efficient process as we move forward, and we will be staffing efficiently both through current staff as well as outside consultants,” Howard continued. “Those dollars through the permitting process are reimbursable from the county.”

The city will continue to act as a liaison between the county and Sammamish residents regarding the southern segment of the trail.

“I do believe there’s been a tremendous lack of customer service,” Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama-Aramayo said. “We’ve ended up spending a lot more time on this.”

Segment B, about a 3.6 mile stretch from Southeast 33rd Street to Inglewood Hill Road, is currently in the design phase.

The city will provide a 90-day notice to the county informing it of the council’s decision to terminate the interlocal agreement.