Locally owned 50 cents
april 15, 2015
eview R sammamish www.sammamishreview.com
Issaquah bests skyline in baseball, page 12
City Manager Ben Yazici resigns after 14 years following year, for what was supposed to be a one-year stint. Yazici After roughly 14 said he has no immediyears on the job, ate plans once he leaves Sammamish City the city. Manager Ben Yazici “I just need to take announced last week some time off,” he said, that he would step adding he wanted to down in February. spend time with his “I’ve been thinking extended and immeabout it for two years,” Ben Yazici diate family, which said Yazici, 55, who first includes four sons. joined the city as public works/ Yazici first made his finance director in January 2000. announcement during an execuHe became city manager the tive session at the April 7 City
By Tom Corrigan tcorrigan@isspress.com
Council meeting. “We’re going to miss Ben, that’s for sure,” Mayor Tom Vance said. Sammamish was incorporated in 1999, just one year prior to Yazici’s joining the city. Vance said Sammamish’s needs were many, running from roads to recreation facilities. Yazici took it all on, Vance said, adding someone had asked him what he thought might be Yazici’s main skill. “It’s his creativity,” Vance said, noting city staff members and elected officials many times
Elephant love inspires visit to Thailand nature preserve By Neil Pierson npierson@sammamishreview.com The words “leisure” and “relaxation” weren’t part of the vocabulary for Loreen La Penna and Yvette Michaels during their recent trip to Thailand. The two Sammamish residents and neighbors spent a week in mid-February at the Elephant Nature Park, a 250acre wildlife preserve in the Chiang Mai province of northern Thailand. Visitors from around the globe converge on the nature park, where their days are filled with hard, manual labor in a sweltering 100-degree jungle climate. La Penna, Michaels and other volunteers were kept busy with various things — unloading melon trucks and chopping down banana trees for the elephants to eat; clearing swaths of brush to prevent wildfires; and cleaning up enormous piles of elephant dung. “Nobody came there to be a bum on a beach and party at night,” Michaels said. “There’s no such thing. You were so worn out, at 8 o’clock at night, we were in bed.” La Penna, a Microsoft employee, got the idea to visit the region several years ago after viewing a segment about Asian elephants on “60 Minutes.” She floated the plan by her friend and neighbor Michaels, a Boeing employee,
had to choose between various paths for Sammamish to take. Naturally, there were disagreements along the way. “Ben very frequently had that third option we were looking for,” Vance said. Vance also mentioned what he called the city’s excellent finances that include little debt and a top bond rating. Yazici said he hopes to see the end to at least three major endeavors before he leaves. One is completion of the community and aquatic center now rising
As voting begins, group continues push for initiatives and referenda By Tom Corrigan tcorrigan@isspress.com
Contributed
Sammamish residents Loreen La Penna (left) and Yvette Michaels spent a week in February working at the Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand, a preserve for the endangered Asian elephant. See more photos from their trip in the slideshow at www.sammamishreview.com. who decided to tag along. “Last year, her cat died, and two weeks later, my dog died,” Michaels said, “so we were kind of lonely for animals, I guess.” The World Wildlife Fund for Nature estimates the Asian elephant population has been cut in half over the past 60-75 years, with fewer than 30,000
left worldwide. The major reason behind the drop are poachers who kill the elephants for their ivory tusks. About 10 percent of Asian elephants reside in Thailand, but a large percentage are domesticated, working on city See ELEPHANT, Page 2
next to City Hall. He also wants to finalize the city’s $6.1 million purchase of the former Mars Hill Church building and see that property put to use as some sort of higher education facility. Finally, Yazici wants to finish the annexation of the Klahanie area, should voters in the affected neighborhoods approve joining Sammamish during the April 28 special election. Speaking early the morning after the April 7 council session, Vance said it was too soon to talk about replacing Yazici.
“Things are going fine,” said Harry Shedd, a member of Citizens for Sammamish and the primary force behind the push to give local residents initiative and referendum rights. “We are moving forward, day-by-day, sign-by-sign and email-by-email,” Shedd added. Sammamish voters can let their voices be heard by April 28 as to whether or not they want the right to put issues directly on the ballot via the initiative and referendum routes. While there does not seem to be any organized opposition to the ballot question, resident Steve Teichler wrote the “con” side for the King County Voters’ Pamphlet. The city has seen a lot of change over the past 30 years, Teichler said. “The elected council has done us well,” he added. “I really don’t know what problem the pro side is trying to solve.” Teichler went on to say he questions Shedd’s motives for pushing the initiative and referendum issue. Initiatives allow voters to put specific questions directly on the ballot, effectively bypassing legislators.
Referenda questions also are put before voters and are used, within limits, to halt or repeal legislation adopted by local lawmakers. Taxes and personnel matters are among the issues not subject to referendum. To put issues on the ballot, supporters must first collect a number of signatures equal to a percentage of the number of registered voters. The April 28 measure is an advisory vote put on the ballot by the Sammamish City Council. While the vote is nonbinding, Mayor Tom Vance has said the council will follow the lead of voters. While he made no promises, Vance said he couldn’t see any council member going against voter wishes. Shedd repeatedly has said neither he nor Citizens for Sammamish have any agenda. They have no issue or question they intend to pursue via initiative or referendum should they become available. See VOTE, Page 2 Prsrt Std U.S. Postage PAID Kent, WA Permit No. 71 POSTAL CUSTOMER
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