Emily F. Keller

Special Report One Year After Sandy: Are The City's Most Storm-Vulnerable Communities Being Heard?

Contributed reporting to the Gotham Gazette special report exploring community responses to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan, “A Stronger, More Resilient New York,” one year after Hurricane Sandy. You can read the series here.

Judge Forbids City From Removing Emergency Call Boxes

    New York City must retain emergency call boxes with fire and police buttons on streets and other locations because it has not provided an accessible alternative, a judge said in August, settling a lawsuit filed on behalf of people with hearing disabilities.

    The City had sought to lift a 1996 injunction banning removal of the boxes and proposed using pay phones enhanced with a tapping mechanism as a replacement. One tap would indicate that the emergency was a fire and two taps would request the police.

City Council Transportation Committee Questions MTA Cuts

   MTA New York City Transit President Thomas Prendergast spent last Thursday morning fending off criticism from the City Council Transportation Committee about drastic service cuts planned for this spring.

    The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to eliminate or reduce service on dozens of bus lines, saying that many of the lines overlap with other MTA bus and subway services.

    However, many seniors and people with disabilities are unable to switch to the subway if their bus route disappears, or may require a particular bus to reach the accessible subway stops that comprise only one-fifth of the system.

    The MTA also plans to reduce Access-A-Ride paratransit service while promising to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines that requires the transit provider to offer the service to people who are unable to use subways and buses because of a disability. Kathy Andrade and J.M. Colon (pictured) said they oppose the cuts.

    This article was published on Transportation Access. Click here to read the article.

New Picnic Shelters at Parks are to be Wheelchair Accesible

    When the city’s Parks and Recreation Department opens picnic shelters at Pine Lake Park this week they will be more than just another nice addition to the waterfront beach. They will also be one more step toward making Sammamish’s parks and trails accessible to people with special needs and disabilities. Walkways to the three new shelters will make them easier for people with disabilities to access than the park’s old shelters, said Mark Vysoky, a parks project manager for the city.

    “Some of the old shelters were not accessible because the walkways were limited or they exceeded the maximum percentage of slope,” Vysoky said about the shelters.

    Published in the Sammamish Review. Read the story.

City to Revive Stalled Pine Lake Study

    A draft study about water quality in Pine Lake that has been sitting dormant for two years could be reviewed soon. The city’s former drainage engineer, Eric LaFrance, will return to work for the city again as the Senior Stormwater Program Engineer beginning Aug. 18. One of his first projects will be to review the study.

    Published in the Sammamish Review. Read the story.

Skyline Project Starts Without Permits

    The city of Sammamish issued a stop work order to the Issaquah School District on July 15 for construction work that was done without a permit. The district’s contractor, Lydig Construction, installed five portable classrooms and did clearing, grading and electrical work without a building permit, said the city’s code enforcement officer, Joan Burlingame.

    Published in the Sammamish Review. Read the story.

Freed House to be Cut, Reassembled

    The city will slice an old pioneer farmhouse from the 1890s in half in order to preserve it. The City Council will pay BOLA Architecture and Planning up to $25,000 to cut the city-owned Freed House in half and then move and re-connect it. The company will also build the foundation for the house.

    The council voted to sign a contract with the company at a July 21 meeting. The money will come from a $238,600 fund that was set aside in the 2007-2008 budget for the house’s relocation.

    Published in the Sammamish Review. Read the story.

Parks Bond on Ballot

  

  When Sammamish homeowners head to the polls this fall, they will also have the chance vote their financial support for parks and recreation facilities.

    The Sammamish City Council will place two parks measures on the Nov. 4 ballot. The first asks homeowners to pay 14 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation per year for capital construction.

    The bond would raise about $19 million. The construction fee would last 20 years and cost the owner of an average Sammamish home about $84 per year. The bond also includes $3 million for the first phase of Sammamish Landing (pictured.)

    Published in the Sammamish Review. Read the story.

    Read the background story.

Planning Begins for Waterfront Park in Sammamish

    City park planners are beginning planning work for Sammamish Landing, a strip of land that could become the city’s first public waterfront on Lake Sammamish.“For those who aren’t on water already this is their little piece of water,” said Mayor Lee Fellinge.

    Planners are working on the first steps of developing the park. They are also conducting a traffic analysis and a cultural assessment of the area, which may be historically linked to the Muckleshoot or other Native Americans, as well as to railway activity.

    Published in the Sammamish Review. Read the story.

Habitat for Humanity Has its Eye on Sammamish

  

  Governing a city with a median income that is more than double that of Washington State has its downside; creating affordable housing so people who work in Sammamish can live here too is a difficult challenge. But living in Sammamish could get a little easier with the development of Town Center, a 243-acre project that is in the planning stages. A City Council mandate means there could be as many as 200 affordable units in Town Center. They will also offer incentives that may double that number.

    One of the city’s potential partners in that effort is Habitat for Humanity, an international non-profit organization with a chapter serving East King County.

    Tom Granger (pictured), executive director for the Eastside chapter, spoke to the Sammamish Chamber of Commerce July 17 about the importance of building housing units for people with low-incomes in Sammamish.

    Published in the Sammamish Review. Read the story.

    Read a related story.