Saturday's open house on the City’s Comprehensive Plan update and Growth Management Act administration was well attended. Let’s look at what the Council does. It promotes public involvement but at the same time prohibits their input. With all the hoopla about how much the Council listens to the people, it all for naught because in the end, the Council prohibits citizen input when making decisions. It happened with annexation. It happened when Council excluded citizen input after two years of meetings regarding Lakeview Neighborhood Comp Plan update. The Council prohibited public input that would upset what had already been agreed to by Metro, Bellevue, and Kirkland’s Council without public input. It will probably happen again when Council promotes increase housing densities with more traffic jams in the Finn Hill, North Juanita, and Kingsgate neighborhoods. The Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting the public from speaking regarding the Concurrency requirements of the Growth Management Act. They muzzled the public and prevented them from addressing their concerns. The Council preferred using administrative procedures instead of conducting public hearings thereby preventing public input when the City rezoned properties in compliance with the Growth Management Act. What is really happening? Is the Council baffling us with promotional bull. It attempts to promote their image while at the same time prohibiting us from interfering with what they have already decided.
This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.
The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?