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Dear
Friends,
The election is right around the corner. There are very important races in all the cities surrounding Lake Sammamish. As the photo of the nearly complete safety improvements made to W Lk Sammamish Pkwy against the wishes of affluent and vocal opposition illustrates, the livability of our community rests upon your shoulders to support and actively encourage your family, friends, and coworkers to support the candidates who genuinely want to improve our quality of life for the near and long term. Please talk to, call, or email friends, family, and coworkers to get out the vote for sustainable, livable communities Tues Nov 4.
Developer special interests are spending large amounts of money funding and putting forth candidates who help them make a quick buck and scrupulously leave us to clean up the mess while they move on to the next community. An example is Redmond Ridge. There are 800 new homes, 400 to be built, and several hundred more in the adjacent Trilogy project. Novelty Hill Rd was expanded to 4 lanes with bike lanes and sidewalks, but only on the hilltop leaving bottlenecks on either side. There is no plan for mass transportation to get those people to and from work, goods, and services in downtown Redmond.
It hurts our community in the short term too. Halloween day two Friends members were harassed by drivers of 10 ton dump truck drivers hauling gravel between Cadman and the Redmond Ridge developments. Two drivers brushed cyclists on Union Hill Rd, stopped in front of them to turn into Cadman and then flipped off the cyclists as they passed again. One Friend member was privy to their conversation on the radio afterwards, "What did he do, call the cops?" "If I wanted to run him off the road I would have." "Bikers need to be on trails." The owner of RMK Trucking and employer of the offending drivers admitted he didn't know the laws of the road as pertaining to cyclists and that the attitudes in the quotes were prevalent among all drivers. Indeed, one of the cyclists was nearly run off the road earlier the same morning near Bear Creek Country Club. A police report was filed for the Cadman incident, but there was no blood spilled and no witnesses so no citations were made. In the event of any altercation with motor vehicles, especially large trucks, call 911 and file a report with the police. Our personal safety is threatened in the short term, but the new residents, downtown businesses, and adjacent community members suffer in the near and long term. This is but one example of hundreds all around the Eastside. Even many media endorsements, such as the Seattle Times, don't necessarily endorse a candidate based upon their merits. Instead, they base them upon candidate name recognition or fundraising. To help you sift through the rhetoric, the Friends is endorsing a host of candidates.
Absentee ballots go out next week and the election is Tues 11/4. Go to Call to Action to find out to shape the future livability of your community! If you have a candidate you would like the Friends to endorse or would like to help out, contact the Friends.
Thanks!
Friends of Lake Sammamish