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FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2015
Deal to buy Squak Mtn. land finalized
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Violet Spataro sings 'Let It Go,' from the Disney animated film 'Frozen,' for a student assembly at Samantha Smith Elementary School in Sammamish.
School’s ‘sparrow’ conquers cancer Now happy and healthy, 4-year-old cancer survivor helped by Samantha Smith students BY DANIEL NASH ISSAQUAH/SAMMAMISH REPORTER
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BY DANIEL NASH ISSAQUAH/SAMMAMISH REPORTER
The Issaquah City Council unanimously passed a simplified transportation concurrency plan at its regular meeting Tuesday night. Transportation concur-
rency, as dictated by the state Growth Management Act, requires cities to manufacture a procedure for how they mitigate traffic impacts from new development and update said procedure periodically. The new plan, written by Issaquah's development ser-
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vices department over more than a year, moves the city away from a system with which it examined intersections and projects individually toward a "system-wide" predictive model. "It's much simpler for us, much simpler for staff and moves us to a more holistic
approach," Development Services Director Charlie Bush said. Additionally, the updated plan raises the traffic impact fees levied on developers. Kristi Triple spoke on behalf of Rowley Properties to express the Issaquah developer's support for the
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Issaquah City Council approves simplified transportation plan
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Students at Samantha Smith Elementary School gathered in their gym Jan. 16 for the school's annual Martin Luther King Jr. day assembly. But before they learned about the United States' most
famous civil rights activist, they had a special visitor. As kids filed into the room, 4-year-old Violet Spataro danced and spun across the makeshift stage in her bright red dress. She ran up to students she recognized, chatting and passing out high-fives as freely as candy on
Halloween. Violet's become a familiar and welcome face to the Samantha Smith Dolphins. And she's embraced them in return — as has her family. For the better part of three years, Samantha Smith students have helped provide financial and moral support for Violet's medical treatment for retinoblastoma, through their own chapter of
King County and The Trust for Public Land are taking the last few steps in a two-year-long journey to permanently preserve more than 200 acres of Cascade foothills forestland. Coveted for its ecological value, including sheltering the headwaters of a salmon-bearing stream, 226 acres of land on Squak Mountain was purchased by the trust in 2014 for $5 million. King County previously purchased about half of the total acreage from the trust. In December, the county made its second and final payment to the trust, concluding the transaction and bringing the acreage into public ownership. The property was purchased with King County Parks Levy regional open space funds, Conservation Futures funds, and real estate excise taxes. The forestland remains closed to the public while King County Parks crews prepare the site for public use, including property clean-up, removing infrastructure and establishing trail routes. The property should be open to hiking in the springtime, and King County Parks will begin a public planning process to help determine future uses for the property, which is being added to the County’s Cougar-Squak Corridor.
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plan and what it could do to address crowded roads in the city. "It's not a secret that traffic congestion is the biggest problem facing citizens and business alike," she said. Kathy Orni, of Kirkland's YarrowBay Group, wanted to ensure the new plan would not change the terms of development projects in-progress. As reported last week ["Issaquah looks at costs, options in transportation SEE TRANSPORTATION, 3