Timeline:

2.19.2010 

Please click on the following links to see correspondence between the City of Sammamish and the HOA Board.

Letter from City Manager Ben Yazici

Email from Deputy City Manager Pete Butkus

2.17.2010

Please see the following link to view a copy of the Klahanie Park Survey.  This is only a copy.  Please reference your mailed survey for proper submittal.

Copy of Klahanie Survey

Thank you!

Your Friendly Office Staff

2.16.2010

This letter has been sent to the park directors and other such officials at each of the below municipalities as of today 2.16.2010

•  King County
• City of Issaquah
• City of Sammamish

Klahanie Park Update

The Board invited comments from owners about the Klahanie Park situation at the Board's meeting on Tuesday, January 26, 2010.  More than one hundred owners attended that meeting and roughly one quarter of those took the opportunity to express their concerns about the County's proposal to transfer the Park to the City of Sammamish.  The Board listened closely to what was said and came away from that meeting with a clear understanding that an outspoken portion of the Association's membership wants the Association to take effective action to prevent the City of Sammamish from acquiring the Park and making changes to the Park that would dramatically increase impacts those neighboring the Park would have to endure. 

The Board also invited the Association's new general counsel, Terry Leahy, to speak to the owners in attendance.  Mr. Leahy explained that, while he was still "catching up" on this issue (since he became general counsel only a few days before the meeting), he has a lot of experience representing associations faced with making far reaching decisions of the type that now face our Association.  He noted that there is still an open question about whether the County can transfer the Park to a "governmental entity" that does not have jurisdiction over the entire Klahanie Property.  He reads the Covenants as expressing an intent that Park ownership be perpetually linked to owners' voting rights, so whoever owns and operates the Park will be accountable to the Klahanie owners.  He also explained that the prudent course for a board to follow in fulfilling its obligations to all owners in a matter like this is to generally follow these steps:  (1) collect accurate data on the direct and indirect short and long term costs to the Association, were the Association to take over ownership and control of the Park; (2) make cost information known to the owners; (3) identify and investigate alternatives to acquisition of the Park by the City of Sammamish or by the Association; (4) receive comment from owners about what action(s) / alternatives the owners would like to see the Board take on the matter; (5) decide, as a Board, which action(s) to pursue; and (6) to the extent the action taken by the Board triggers an obligation to engage in some vote of the Association membership, then to take the necessary vote.

Since last week's Board meeting, the Board has taken these actions:

               1.            Retained a consultant, Dawn Merten, with substantial experience in cost estimating of the type the Board needs in this matter.  Dawn Merten is already at work gathering information needed to provide the Board with realistic, reliable cost estimates for owning and operating the Park, so any decision the Board makes about possibly acquiring the Park is a fully informed decision;

               2.            Directed Mr. Leahy to further investigate the "Park-linked-to-Klahanie-voters" issue and to recommend Board action based on the outcome of his investigation;

               3.            Directed Mr. Leahy to assist the Board in creating a simple survey it can use to get a better sense of where members of the Association stand on some of the factors the Board may weigh in deciding what action(s) to take; and

               4.            Identified, as one possible alternative course of action that warrants further consideration, a statutory procedure that was recently used by owners on Finn Hill (north of Kirkland) to form a park district that took over control of O.O. Denny Park (another King County Park the County threatened to close).

                The draft survey has been received, is being reviewed, and we anticipate conducting the survey shortly. Based on the interest already expressed by owners at the last Board Meeting, and on what the Board believes other owners will say when asked about the link between the Park and the right to vote,

we will be contacting King County, the City of Sammamish and the City of Issaquah to make it known to each of these governments that we, as an Association, are committed to preserving the existing link between Klahanie Park and the right of Klahanie owners to elect those public officials who are entrusted with making final decisions on major actions affecting the Park.  We intend to explore with each of these governments actions that can be taken to safeguard this existing link between Klahanie Park and Klahanie residents, so that elected decision makers will continue to be held accountable to the Klahanie voters. 

The following link is to an update that was mailed out to all Klahanie residents in December.

Klahanie Park Update 11.30.2009