A public hearing and subsequent discussion over an agenda bill to annex a property known as the King County Island at the Sept. 5 Issaquah City Council meeting ended inconclusively nearly four hours after it began.

The 32.7-acre property is located just west of Swedish Medical Center in the Issaquah Highlands and includes four complete tax lots, one partial tax lot and Washington State Department of Transportation right-of-way.

The Issaquah School District has been in talks with the city about using the property for one of the rapidly-growing district’s new elementary schools. Currently, the Issaquah Highlands has just one elementary school, Grand Ridge Elementary.

Over the course of nearly an hour-and-a-half of public comment, parents and school district officials came out in droves to ask the city to give Highlands children another option for their education. School district Superintendent Ron Thiele, school board President Lisa Callan and Directors Anne Moore and Marnie Maraldo, school district Chief of Finance Jake Kuper and school district Director of Capital Projects Steve Crawford all spoke in favor of the proposed new school.

“Currently there are 12,400 [Fletcher later said that she had misspoke and had meant to say 1,240] school-aged children in the Highlands. Obviously they can’t all go to one school,” said Connie Fletcher, who sat on the school board for 16 years.

“As I’ve gotten to know the young families that surround around us, one of the things that truly surprised me was that 500 children were being bused out of the neighborhood to three different elementary schools,” said Issaquah Highlands resident Nancy Skerritt, a retired educator.

She pointed out that “time on the bus is time with family.”

Callan called attention to the difficulties faced by families whose children are split between two schools.

“I know that people felt sad and disappointed that they had to choose between their kindergartner’s music concert at Challenger and their fourth grader’s concert at Grand Ridge,” she said.

Highlands resident Annie Lao said that she lives one street away from the boundary for Grand Ridge students, meaning that her 3-year-old daughter will have to be bused to Clark Elementary in a few years if no additional Highlands school is built. Lao described her school years in portables in the Seattle School District, and said she always felt “a little bit less.”

“It’s very, very heartbreaking as a parent to know that I may have to repeat with my child that experience I lived through with the Seattle School District,” Lao said.

She added, “Clark is not the solution for our neighborhood. When we moved in it was a quality neighborhood, and I do expect quality schools.”

Issaquah resident Betsy Grant, who has three children at Clark, said that her fifth grader “has not had a classroom inside the building in four years.”

“Now in a brand-new beautiful building, he’s in a portable outside. When you put a kid in a portable, they’re not part of the whole community,” she said.

She urged the council to agree to put a school in the discussed location rather than more homes, so that the residents who are already there will have a school to which they can send their children.

However, plenty of others spoke against a new school in the Highlands.

Highlands resident Paul Bleiweis was adamant that the increased traffic an elementary school would mean a dangerous hindrance for ambulances taking people to Swedish, just east of the proposed school site.

“I have been taken from my house three times in the past six years by ambulance — two of those times to Swedish … Both of those times, seconds mattered,” he said.

He described how his children were once riding the school bus while it was loading children at a high school bus stop on Discovery Drive. An ambulance came up behind the bus, and — as it is illegal for even an ambulance to pass a school bus — the ambulance was forced to stop and wait for the bus.

“If the school goes there, I’m afraid somebody like me is going to die,” he said, his voice constricted by tears. After apologizing for “getting a little emotional,” he continued, “Damn it, I should have died. I don’t know why I survived … Putting that school there, you’re going to put lives in danger.”

Highlands resident Pradimnha Vosli agreed that “saving lives comes at a higher priority than convenience.”

“The hospital is supposed to be a clear path. Twice a day that hospital is going to be inundated with traffic,” Highlands resident Robert Swanson said. “Not good. Life and death is between one minute.”

Swanson also expressed his concern over the slope stability if the hill is cut.

Issaquah resident David Kappler added to the ecological concerns, bringing up the problem of trees being uprooted during storms.

“We can’t make assumptions that all the trees are going to be living or going to be standing after we expose those trees,” Kappler said.

Both Kappler and Issaquah resident Connie Marsh said that they would like to see another park created in the Highlands.

“The decision tonight is not about whether to build a school or not,” Deputy Council President Mary Lou Pauly said. “The school district decides if they’re going to do that.”

She said that while she hoped it could be the future site of a school, she’d like to see more information first.

“I think it could be a really good school site,” Pauly said. “But I don’t know that tonight … I’m confused right now.”

Goodman agreed that the decision being made was not about building a school.

“I think how we’re being asked to make this decision is, I think, probably irresponsible,” Goodman said.

“We’re here to work with the school district … but [approving a new school] is not our job,” Councilmember Bill Ramos said. He said he would like to see more details, such as a more in-depth geological report.

“One of the reasons it is such a distressing process is because we’re not following the process we’re supposed to be following … The school is a separate issue, that goes to the development commission,” Goodman said.

She explained that the council was “being asked to rezone this property without going through our rezone process.”

“When we decide to not establish pre-annexation zoning that’s the same as or comparable to, then we’re essentially going through a rezoning process,” she said.

The problem, Goodman said, was that the parcels’ lines had not even been defined.

“I feel it’s irresponsible for us to designate zoning for land where we don’t even know where the boundaries are going to be,” Goodman said.

Councilmember Tola Marts said he had “a problem with a motion that references an undefined piece of property for zoning.”

“I really believe that we do need a school in the Highlands,” Councilmember Mariah Bettise said she was “open to discussing different zoning but … would support zoning that allows a school on that site.”

She called for “a better job” of communication between the school district and the council.

A motion to proceed with the annexation process failed 5-1 just before midnight. Councilmember Paul Winterstein was the sole yea vote.

“My hope is that the administration will come back with something that is cleaner and something that we can resolve in less than four hours,” Marts said. He called the agenda bill “the most confusing piece of legislation we have had in front of us in my seven-and-a-half years on the council.”

The zoning portion of the discussion was quasi-judicial, meaning the council acts as a jury and judge. In this unusual circumstance, the council members are neither allowed to talk with one another nor with the administration about the zoning element before or after the council meeting.

Councilmember Eileen Barber was not present for the vote.