Clyde Hill News: Council Study Session Preview
Also: Stormwater progress, and what's going on with City Code enforcement?
It’s good to be back home after travel. I’m writing this week’s issue of Clyde Hill News from my desk and not a hotel room. One snapshot from my vacation: snow in Boston, viewed from the airplane — another reason to love living in the Pacific Northwest:
One more item before our disclaimer: if you find this newsletter useful or interesting, please forward it to your Clyde Hill neighbors and friends. Thank you!
Disclaimer: while I am a councilmember on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the City. The information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about City business I will respond from my City email account.
March City Council Meeting Preview
The City published the packet for Tuesday’s meeting here. From a resident point of view, some topics of interest:
New City Attorney. “Lighthouse Law Group emerged as the [City Attorney Hiring] Committee’s front-runner. If a contract is entered into with this firm, Atty. Tom Brubaker would serve as the Clyde Hill City Attorney.” If you’re a Clyde Hill resident with a question or comment here, I’d like to hear it: council5@clydehill.org. You can read the Administration’s memo here.
Clyde Hill City Celebration. Pre-COVID, Clyde Hill held an annual celebration (movie night, food, carnival rides) in August. The Administration is asking for feedback about its plans for this year. You can read more here. More importantly, you can call or send email to tell the City about what you’d like to see happen with respect to this celebration or in general regarding community-building.
New Fire Station. The currently proposed design does not conform with Clyde Hill’s building code. The Administration is proposing a Development Agreement rather than the Hearing Examiner process that all other building projects go through in order to get a variance. You can see the site plan below and read the Administration’s memo here.
17th St Stormwater. Briefly: progress. Councilmembers Kim Muromoto and Steve Friedman met with the Administration, following up on the March Regular Council Meeting discussion. “The result of the meeting was a unanimous decision to proceed with engaging the relevant property owner(s) about acquiring a permanent easement on the properties for the purpose of improving, operating and maintaining the existing stormwater system.” You can read the City’s memo here.
Code Enforcement
Code enforcement is on the agenda again on Tuesday night.
“What the City enforces (and chooses to not enforce) and how and why has emerged over the last year or so as a contentious issue, mostly because of inconsistency (that the Mayor called out publicly at a 2021 meeting) as well as lack of clarity (detailed in previous newsletters, for example here).”
That statement, from an earlier newsletter, is still true.
The document in the meeting packet is a report (that you can read here) summarizing the activity of the Administration responding to complaints. As a resident, I’m not sure what to make of it.
The community has been vocal about code enforcement issues. For example, here’s a photo of the Mercia Hedge being removed by City-hired contractors in February. A mirror-image of this hedge, across the street to the north, remains standing.
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Dean Hachamovitch