Candidate Profile: Amy Lam, Sammamish City Council, Pos. 1

SAMMAMISH, WA — Voting is underway and the 2021 primary election is heating up in King County ahead of Election Day, Aug. 3. Nearly 650 candidates are seeking various offices in 2021, beating the previous record set in 2017. Out of that total, more than 200 candidates appear in the primary, which features all the races with three or more people seeking the same office.

Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles leading up to Election Day.

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Candidate

Amy Lam

Age (as of Election Day)

56

Position Sought

Sammamish City Council Position 1

Party Affiliation

Democrat

Family

2 children, college age

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

None

Education

Bachelor’s degree, Fine Arts, Brandeis University
Master’s degree, Graphic Design, Yale University

Occupation

Creative Director with 25+ years experience, I will be the new Creative Director at MOHAI.

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

None

Campaign website

amyforsammamish.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

I have been a resident of Sammamish for 26 years and I’m running for City Council because I want to ensure the city continues on a path that is sustainable, environmentally responsible, and looks to the future.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Almost every resident I have met while canvassing is frustrated with development and traffic congestion. It is a requirement that development must maintain traffic concurrency, that is road improvements or strategies are in place to accommodate the impact of development as they are occurring or within 6 years. There is debate among city leadership regarding our traffic model because it does not take into account traffic congestion. So, first things first, there needs to be alignment on a traffic model that takes into account the driver experience.

Residents are further frustrated seeing construction that appear to clear cut trees. In 2015, the city increased the amount of “significant” trees developers are required to keep from 25% to 35% in most residential, single-family zoned areas. While applauded, that comes too late. In 2019, the city adopted The Urban Forest Management Plan (UFMP). This is a policy document that will guide the management, maintenance, and growth of trees in Sammamish for the next 20 years. It is a comprehensive document that we should have had years ago. Currently, 75% of our tree canopy health is categorized as “Good”, with 14% Fair and 9% as “Poor/Dead”.

It is critical that we manage our canopy or the Fair trees could fall into the Poor category. We do not want 25% of our trees in the latter category. Our tree canopy is currently at 48% with a theoretical maximum at 60% so there is room for improvement. We need a full time Urban Forester position to unify and lead the three departments currently responsible for urban forest operations. This would improve collaboration and enforcement of policies and codes. We also need an Environmental Advisory Board.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

The critical difference between one of my opponents (the other has no campaign website) is that I think long-term and am more visionary. We need advisory boards comprised of experts in technology and the environment to recommend new innovations and methodologies that will make Sammamish more resilient and prepared for the future. I am also not a Republican. My opponent wants to have more police presence. I believe this would change the wonderful character of our city. Most crime in Sammamish are crimes of opportunity and we need to do our part in preventing theft by installing locking mailboxes, locking car doors, not keeping valuables in cars, removing packages from porches more promptly, etc.

What would you do in office to strengthen preparedness and response efforts for extreme heat and wildfire smoke events?

Sammamish has a Hazard Mitigation Plan which summarizes the impact of certain disasters on our community. This includes earthquake, flood, severe weather, wildfire, cyberattack, among others. Regarding heatwaves, it addresses using cooling centers for our most vulnerable population. For wildfires, we are particularly vulnerable due to limited transportation corridors off the plateau in the event of an evacuation. The city has an Emergency Preparedness Guide which outlines general steps we can take individually and in our neighborhoods to prepare for a disaster.

However, as the recent heatwave and wildfire situation has shown, the city needs concrete plans. Catastrophe modeling can create predictive models but residents want to know, as in the event of a wildfire, where are the routes for egress, where will that information come from, who will notify us, etc. I would lean into experts to create the plans and our city to educate and inform the public.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

Our current board has failed our residents by being reactive rather than proactive. There is no agreement on a traffic model that addresses congestion while development continues. Our urban forest management plan wasn’t adopted until 2019 so they had no baseline understanding of our tree canopy, health and maintenance, meanwhile development continued. There is no Climate Action Plan despite leadership claiming to be good stewards of the environment. Our board can draw upon the expertise of residents by creating advisory boards in technology and the environment but have not. Leadership is about teamwork, being courageous, and being accountable.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?

As an Asian-American and cognizant of Asian hate due to Covid-19, I would have reached out to locally owned Asian businesses to understand how their business was impacted and if there were ways the city could improve support.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

I support municipal broadband, which is internet access owned by public entities. As the Covid-19 pandemic has shown, the internet is an essential utility just like electricity, water, and sewer. Everyone should have the opportunity to succeed with fast and affordable internet service. For Sammamish, the benefits of a city-owned option includes job creation by attracting businesses, competitive pricing, and increased internet speeds. It also improves productivity by allowing individuals to work or study from home more effectively, supports healthcare, and saves taxpayer dollars by reducing connection fees in our public schools, government buildings, recreation centers, etc.

Sustainability is important to me. I’d like to provide free compost bins to all single family homes and require that restaurants and grocery stores contract for food waste services. According to the EPA, 22% of our landfills is food waste. When food waste goes to the landfill, the nutrients never return to the soil. The wasted food rots and produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and a leading contributor to climate change. However, sending food scraps to a composting facility or composting at home, leads to healthy soils. Adding properly composted organics (food and yard waste) to gardens, highway construction sites, and poor soils, improves soil health, improves water retention, supports native plants, and reduces the use of fertilizers and pesticides.

Aside from recycling, we need to have goals in reduce and reuse. We also need a Climate Action Plan to reduce our city’s carbon footprint and aim to be carbon neutral.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I have received numerous company awards and accolades during my time at Starbucks. These awards were given for projects that I supported or successfully led. The skills needed for these projects included visionary thinking, teamwork, and creative solutions.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

Over the years, I have received so much good advice on parenting, career, home, health, etc, that it’s hard to pick just one! Because I am future oriented, being advised in my early 20s to always take part in 401K plans has been a good one. Also, as an advocate for women and minorities in the workplace, I took to heart a piece of advice given to me by a woman at a high level government agency, that by speaking out against inequities everyone will benefit

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I am running a lean campaign and have not asked for donations. It is appalling that local and national campaign expenditure during the 2020 elections was estimated at $14 billion. Imagine if that was spent on infrastructure, education, or human service. Thank you in advance for reading about my priorities and supporting my candidacy.