The saying goes, in order to comprehend your future, you need to understand your past.
If that is the case then the city of Sammamish is rudderless, and lost at sea.
No other city on the Eastside invests less in the preservation of its history than Sammamish. Nowhere else are the relics and icons of a city’s past deteriorating so quickly, with no resources to protect, conserve, or celebrate them.
The Reporter recently met up with two women who for the past decade have struggled to keep the Sammamish Heritage Society, the Plateau’s only organization concerned with local history, afloat.
As anyone associated with community groups will know, often it is a core group of reliable volunteers who do the bulk of the work, assisted by a fluid band of supporters who come and go.
For Virginia Kuhn and Helen Baxter, a lack of financial and community support and the demoralizing, uphill battle of giving endless amounts of time and energy to preserving a history that fewer and fewer residents seem to actually care about, has almost defeated them. The Sammamish Heritage Society is on the verge of going under.
“We’re pretty much at the end of our energy,” Baxter said. “We need some new blood, locals who want to get involved and take it to the next level.”
Kuhn and Baxter were buoyed recently by a rare donation from an unexpected source – Arlington, Va.
James T. Windle grew up in Sammamish – his mother and father purchased their first house here, on Inglewood Road, in 1976. His mother still lives here, and though James has been living on the east coast in recent years, he still considers Sammamish home.
In a touching letter to the Sammamish Heritage Society, Windle wrote that many of the changes in Sammamish over the years have been positive.
“Unfortunately, history is often a casualty during times of dramatic change in a community. Historic buildings, photographs, and spoken narrative from early Sammamish residents, among other historic artifacts, ought to be preserved as a new generation of Sammamish residents establishes a prosperous community.”
Windle’s letter included a check for $200, by far the largest single donation made to the society.
“Preserving history is not dogmatically clinging to the past, as some would argue,” Windle wrote. “It is celebrating the unique aspects of the place and the way we live.”
This idea is of celebrating the unique aspects of the place is one that the current Sammamish City Council has regularly paid lip service to, particularly in the lead up to the city’s 10th birthday celebrations in August of this year.
But as yet the council has yet to offer support of any kind to the struggling group.
Although the budget constraints of Eastside cities are well known, with vital services all competing for a dwindling pot of money, neighboring municipalities have demonstrated a willingness and an ability to support the functioning of their local historical and heritage societies.
In Issaquah, the remarkably successful Issaquah Historical Society receives about 65 percent of its $125,000 annual budget from the city — approximately $80,000 — as well as free rent of two facilities.
But as Issaquah History Museums Director Erica Maniez pointed out, the city’s decision to support the group came only after many years of volunteer works and fundraising.
“We first received funding in 1999, but by that time we had been in existence for 27 years,” she said. “We were something of a known quantity. With volunteer effort we had raised about $40,000, and had restored the depot. Getting support from the city was the result of a lot of lobbying.”
Which is something the Sammamish Heritage Society has not done a lot of to this point, as they struggle to retain a strong community group to undertake the volunteer work needed to prove the value of their mission.
During the recent debate at Sammamish City Hall over the city’s decision to not fund the restoration of the Freed House, one of the few remaining buildings of historical significance on the Plateau, several councilors said the heritage society needed to take the lead in raising money and volunteer labor for a restoration, and that the city was not willing to invest in the Freed House if it was not confident of the commitment of the society.
According to Kuhn and Baxter, who have staged many fundraisers in recent years without much success, there seems to be very little enthusiasm among residents for the need to preserve local history.
“Between 2000 and 2005 we held a regular home and garden tour. It didn’t raise a lot of money,” Kuhn said. “For a while there we had the support of the old DC Steakhouse — they hosted a fashion show once. There were a lot of events like that. But we were never able to raise more than $300.”
Windle’s $200 donation will be vital to the continued functioning of the group — it will pay for almost four months rent at Plateau Storage, where the society gets a good deal to store their impressive collection of photographs and historical documents.
These modest sums of money indicate what an enormous impact even small contributions make to non-profit groups like the heritage society, who are a registered 501 3c, and so all donations are tax deductible.
“If the city came to us and said, ‘we can store your stuff,’ that would be a godsend,” Baxter said. “$500 a month would be an absolute fortune.”
Councilor Michele Petitti has regularly lobbied for the council to offer support to the heritage society, but she told The Reporter her requests fall on deaf ears.
“The work of the heritage society, it’s good community. They need to be there,” she said. “We know we have the support of the state, and of the county, but for some reason we just can’t get the Sammamish will.”
Petitti sympathizes with Kuhn and Baxter’s frustration in finding support for the continued operation of the society.
“(The council) doesn’t embrace it — they don’t see the value in what they are doing, in terms of record keeping, and archiving.”
Petitti said there were a number of sites the city could offer as storage or meeting space for the group, including the Kellman Mansion, currently sitting vacant behind city hall, and the unused portions of city hall itself.
“I think they need to get tough,” Petitti said. “The heritage society should get a big moving truck and dump all their stuff in the corridor at city hall, and make them look after it. I am at my wits end, in terms of advocating for the heritage society with the council, because they don’t care.”
Soon, a King County 4Culture grant for the maintenance of the heritage society’s Web site, www.sammamishheritage.org., will run out.
“Then we’re up the creek,” Baxter said.
In coming weeks the city council will consider a list of projects and events recommended for funding by City Manager Ben Yazici.
That list includes $15,000 for Ethnic Diversity Celebrations, a continued $10,000 subsidy for the Sammamish Farmers Market, almost $29,000 for the Sammamish Arts Commission, and $5,000 for the Sammamish Symphony.
Along the Plateau in Redmond, the city council’s belief there that the preservation of the area’s history is a priority has resulted in a vibrant and productive historical society which, as in Issaquah, now contributes to the attractions of the city.
President of the Redmond Historical Society Chris Hines told The Reporter the support of past Mayors such as Rosemarie Ives had been crucial to the survival of the group, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.
“The city has been very helpful and supportive – we feel very, very fortunate,” she said.
That support includes free rent of the meeting room in the Old Redmond Schoolhouse Community Center. The city also pays to mail the society’s newsletter, which goes out nine times a year to 700 subscribers.
“If we had to pay that $800 a month rent, I don’t know what we’d do,” Hines said.
She said the fact the group was now well established had to do with a mixture of the initiative of a committed band of early volunteers and a belief in city hall in the importance of their work.
In Sammamish, it appears there is not too much of either. Unless something changes soon, the great stories, the images and the lessons of a different time on the Plateau may be lost.
