With just a few days remaining before they make their decision on whether to pay for the moving of the historic Freed farmhouse to the Lower Sammamish Commons, the Sammamish City Council is sharply divided as to the merits of the investment.

At Tuesday night’s council and Parks and Recreation Commission joint study session, the opinions of the councilors and commission members ranged from “without pledges from the community, I can’t vote to move Freed House,” to “we could make this not a dream but a reality.”

The former was the viewpoint of councilmember Kathy Huckabay, who said she shared the concerns of councilmember Nancy Whitten and others that investing hundreds of thousands of dollars without some guarantee of financial support from the community would not be fiscally responsible.

The later was the thought of councilmember Jack Barry, who in a long and impassioned speech said that one of the things the city lacked was “a sense of who we were, and where we came from.”

Prior to the study session, an advocate for the restoration of Freed House informed the council of a King County “4Culture” grant that could contribute up to $25,000 for the initial phase of the restoration, the relocation.

However, the deadline for the grant application is July 13, and there is a feeling amongst the council and city staff that this was too soon to be able to provide a suitable application.

Mayor Don Gerend said he had received a letter from Sammamish resident Joe McConnell, in which McConnell volunteered his services as a work coordinator when any such restoration efforts began.

McConnell’s offer is just the sort of valuable commitment from community groups the council is hoping to see, in order to reduce the financial burden on the city of the restoration, which councilor Whitten said was in the range of $1 million.

Whitten suggested delaying moving the house until community groups could raise an amount of money, which the city would match.

Parks and Recreation Director Jessi Richardson said that there was a narrow window of time, in August and September, in which to move the house, due to favorable weather conditions.

City Manager Ben Yazici added that if the council voted to approve the bid and award the contract for the moving of the house, as they will be soon asked to do, then that work would need to occur almost immediately.

With a new parking lot soon to be built at the Lower Sammamish Commons area adjacent to the proposed new home of the Freed House, city staff said that the house needed to be brought in first, for a later move would most likely damage the new parking lot and landscaping.

With the Freed House issue getting more complex as time goes by, commission member Randy Jackson said “where there’s a passion, there’s a way.”

“You know, there are citizens who think that heritage is just as important as ballfields,” said commission member Gail Stacy Michelman. “There are so few things of heritage left. They have all been destroyed.”

Commission member John James said that the house itself was deteriorating rapidly.

“A year from now, there’s mightn’t be a choice to make,” he said.

With the council set to make their decision at this coming Tuesday’s meeting, the clock is certainly ticking on Freed House.