The King County Conservation Futures Citizen’s Committee, had a close up look at Squak Mountain Saturday, April 27.
“They went into some of the forest, and got a good sampling of the area,” said Dave Kappler, the president of the Issaquah Alps Trails Club.
As an extra bonus, Kappler said they had a great view that day, all the way to the Olympic Mountains.
The committee, led by Terry Lavender, serves as an advisory board, making recommendations on land purchases to the King County Council. Also on the tour were County Council member Reagan Dunn along with Ingrid Lundin and Dave Tiemann, project managers with King County.
The tour gave Dunn, Lundin and Tiemann the opportunity to see that Squak Mountain is the missing link between Tiger and Cougar Mountains, Kappler said. Dunn is supportive of the efforts of Save Squak and the trails club to stop the potential clear-cut of 95 acres on the mountain.
“It’s not real common to see council members on these tours,” Tiemann said.
The competition for the money is fierce. Lavender said there are 42 properties spread throughout King County and 37 cities looking for funding. They range from a piece of waterfront in Seattle to riverfront on the Snoqualmie River to Squak Mountain.
“How this will fit, we don’t know,” Lavender said. “We have $16.8 million in requests for conservation futures funds and we have $8.8 million available for 2014.”
Money for the fund is collected from property taxes levied throughout King County for the purchase and permanent protection of open space lands.
Lavender said the committee will start the process of what properties to recommend to the county this week. Its recommendations will go to county executive Dow Constantine by the end of May. He has the authority to modify the recommendations, before they are presented to the entire council, which also can make modifications. But Lavender said there is a great deal of respect for the committee and its recommendations are pretty solid and rarely challenged.
If Squak Mountain is chosen to receive conservation futures funds, it would be for $500,000. The balance of $1.5 million to buy the property from Erickson Logging would have to come from parks levy funding, which is already gone for 2013.
Lavender said a new parks levy will be on the August ballot, which will have open space acquisition money included. The committee also makes recommendations on how that money is spent.
“Requests for parks levy are $7.5 million with 21 projects asking for money,” she said. “It’s too early to be saying where this is going to end up.”
