Challenges with growth, taxes and infrastructure were all key issues discussed at the annual Sammamish State of the City address held at the Sahalee Country Club.

Business owners and city officials met on April 19 to hear the speech by Sammamish city manager Lyman Howard who spoke during a luncheon.

Growth was a hot topic during the speech as Howard said transportation issues and a growing population led to the city imposing two six-month moratoriums over the last year to develop strategies moving forward. No new building permits have been issued since July 2017 as the city pieces together a traffic management plan. Howard said the city was looking to end the moratorium by this July.

Sammamish sits inside the urban growth boundary as part of Washington state’s growth management act, which dictates how and where growth should occur. Areas inside these boundaries are expected to build to greater density than unincorporated areas and the city will begin working with the state on an update to the act in 2019.

“It is something that we have to be aware of,” Howard said.

Before Sammamish incorporated in 1999, portions of the city’s current territory were in potential annexation zones for both Redmond to the north and Issaquah to the south. Howard said because the city was formed, they were able to keep taxes lower than if they were an unincorporated community.

Sammamish collects roughly $724 per person through taxes and spends $578 per person in services. The remainder of the balance is invested into infrastructure projects. One of the primary sources of city revenue is the property tax, which will be $1.72 per $1,000 of assessed property value for 2018, around 20 cents lower than last year. This drop is due to Washington setting funding goals the city can raise to, instead of collecting from set rates. This means if property values go up, the percentage of property tax drops. Property tax nets the city roughly $28 million annually.

Sales tax in the city is 10 percent, of which the city received $5.1 million from the state last year, a fraction of the amount generated. The city’s operating budget at the end of 2017 was $36 million, but it is projected to drop by $8 million by the end of this year. Sammamish does not have a business and operations tax or a utility tax.

The largest cost to the city’s general fund, much like other municipalities, is public safety. Some $7 million was spent on police services in 2017, which the city contracts with the King County Sheriff’s Office for. Another $8 million is spent on the fire services.

The city additionally attracted a Central Washington University satellite campus in 2017, which is leasing a building on 228th Avenue Northeast. Howard hopes the university will ultimately purchase the property and stay in Sammamish. The university offers running start classes for high schoolers.

“That was very visionary,” Howard said.

Howard also praised the city for allocating $250,000 for human services in the city.