Town Hall meeting draws citizens for State of the City presentation and Q&A

Published 8:30 am Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Citizens from all around Snoqualmie met with city staff on Thursday, April 28 at the Snoqualmie Valley YMCA for a town hall meeting which included a state-of-the-city presentation by Mayor Matt Larson and a Q&A panel with the mayor and city council.

Booths for various city departments lined the walls of the gym, where the meeting was held. Citizens could explore the booths, meet with city staff and ask questions.

At 7 p.m., Mayor Larson began his presentation, describing the city’s financial state and plans for the coming years. He explained that in the future, city expenses would outweigh revenues, but with some key developments and plans for the next few years, the city could mitigate that projection.

Larson brought up four development projects as keys to this goal: Snoqualmie Parkway Plaza; housing development on Pulte plats 27 and 28; the mill site; and the Salish Lodge expansion.

The Parkway Plaza is the plan for development on the corner of Snoqualmie Parkway and Southeast Douglas Street. Larson announced a 40,000 square-foot grocery store would be built in that area along with plans for a gas station and additional retail space.

“If all goes well we could have the grocery store year and a half from now,” he said.

With the plaza bringing retail development, the plats bringing housing development and the Salish expansion bringing in more tourism and recreation, the plan for the mill site is to become a wine, or enology, center, with retail spaces and a park.

Larson also spoke about the need for affordable housing and talked about the low-income housing project being developed by Imagine Housing near the new Snoqualmie Valley Hospital building.

During the Q&A, a citizen asked about the Tokul Roundabout and the relationship between the city and the Snoqualmie Tribe, which has been a vocal opponent on that project. Larson answered by stating that the city tried to work with the tribe as much as possible to address their concerns, despite communication difficulties.

The question that got the biggest response from the audience was about the reverse angle parking on S.R. 202 in front of the train depot.

Larson, along with councilmembers Charles Peterson and Brian Holloway addressed the question stating that the parking change was a requirement of the state when the road was renovated in the past year, due to the speed limit of the road.

“The current code basically says we don’t allow angled parking on the state highway, the compromise was, you get to keep it, but flip it. The financial benefit ostensibly would be cost savings for less accidents,” Larson said.