A King County Hearing Examiner has concluded that the county DOT produced bogus traffic reports in order to facilitate Quadrant Corp.'s application to develop a large housing community at Redmond Ridge.
The Puget Sound Business Journal has a report here. KIRO-TV had a story this evening. A clip is here. The Hearing Examiner's report is here
The effect of these erroneous downward link adjustments was to understate background traffic volumes and overstate the amount of unused road capacity available for new development on Novelty Hill area arterials. Inclusion of these improperly validated link adjustments within the 2002A concurrency model was willful and unreasoning action taken without regard to attending facts and circumstances. It constituted arbitrary and capricious action on the part of the Department.This and other "arbitrary and capricious" actions by the DOT led the Hearing Examiner to revoke the permits that had been issued to Quadrant. Whistleblowers from the county DOT who provided information to the Hearing Examiner were demoted and are now suing King County in federal court.
UPDATE: Thursday's P-I has the story.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 29, 2005 09:54 PM | Email ThisOf course, Lambert's political position (if any)on the merits of the Quadrant project would be a completely different question than Ron Sims' corrupt and dishonest management of the King County Department of Transportation.
David Irons needs to build a "clean government" constituency to stand up to the corruption and mismanagement of the Sims administration. That is about the only way that a Republican can win countywide in a partisan race.
Posted by: Richard Pope on June 29, 2005 10:10 PMThe county can't claim they were dealing with some kind of chaotic process like they did with elections.
Of course with a little over 4 months until the election, I suspect this might be forgotten by then.
Posted by: Deadwood on June 29, 2005 10:20 PMI wonder how many impact statements have been manipulated by King County to enable Quadrant and other major developers to provide Ron Sims with his sardine-style-living *density* projects?
Posted by: Deborah on June 29, 2005 10:27 PMWhat's the mob's word for the same? Omerte? Ron's is Goodhometre. Either way, you don't talk. Just smile and do the two-step for the dumb audience.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on June 29, 2005 10:35 PMThe only thing that would make this more befitting of Sims is if he confiscated his own grandma's property "for the public good" prior to selling her to the zoo and the land to Quadrant.
Posted by: Andy on June 29, 2005 10:43 PMHmmmm....And - like the mob,....isn't Ron Sims and KC about due for a good old fashioned RICO investigation?
Posted by: Deborah on June 29, 2005 11:17 PMIt is no surprise Peter Orser (Quandrant President) is so shocked! He probably thought through all the campaign contributions Quandrant has made that these "little details" would have all been covered!
Posted by: Joe on June 29, 2005 11:40 PMAll of these things will hopefully come home to roost. He will resign before that, skating the 'official misconduct' nusiance as a private citizen. His comfy pension & bene's will continue on. He will write a book and take the victim posture. The classic ending to any American political novel.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on June 29, 2005 11:50 PMemployees demoted (in Gregoire's employee's case, "blamed and fired"), and then employees sue... taxpayer money is used to defend (and lose) the lawsuits... taxpayer money is used to pay the money damages.
By the way, in Washington State, wrongfully withheld earnings have to be paid back "double." (that's why you often hear of people being suspended 'with pay')
I'm not sure how directly involved Ron was with this ordeal (yeah, I know.. he's received plenty of contributions from those who benefitted). What is more pressing is that this is another sign of a serious "lack of leadership." Maybe if I click my heels three times I can get my county back. Yeah, right. And even many of you fellow "Republicans" want(ed) to get rid of the last council-member from unincorporated King County... leaving folks like me with no real representation. Thanks
Posted by: YourGovernorCostsMillion$ on June 30, 2005 12:42 AMIs that the church that was seeking permits to expand its school at the same time that the redevelopment (with several hundred new condos, a gas station, drive-throughs) of the next door property was occuring, just east of the new homes, on the unsignalized 'dead end' intersection where a fatal injury accident occured on SR 169?
Posted by: MCSquared on June 30, 2005 04:54 AMOlympia wants your money to build roads. Why should you pay higher gas taxes so governments like King County can give your money to massive developers like Quadrant to subsidize road construction in the rural areas to support their cracker-box developements?
Redmond Ridge East was just the latest scam. Redmond Ridge and Trilogy approved in 1997 were worse, and will likely cost the citizens of King County and Washington a billion dollars or more to eventually fix the road system King County helped those developments destroy.
Kathy Lambert... who's Kathy Lambert. ;-) As a council member in this "quasi-judicial" process, she and her colleagues have the excuse to not comment. This is perhaps the largest issue in her district, but doesn't even warrant coverage in her email.
More later. Kirby talking about it now - 6:30 AM.
Posted by: Mike on June 30, 2005 06:33 AMI would disagree with one of the comments above about the cost of correcting a road system that the development destroyed - quite honestly, the road system was never in place to begin with. I wouldn't blame the develpment on this one, I'd blame the officials, environmental groups, and activist that have lobbied for wasted funds on public transportation instead of road construction.
Posted by: Darth Dogbert on June 30, 2005 11:26 AMOn the other hand, isn't it funny how where there are Quadrant communities springing up there is also traffic backlogs. In Pierce County, where I live, you can see in in the South Hill area. I saw it up on the highway going to Snohomish on a Friday evening going to a soccer tournament back in April. Quadrant isn't alone, but is a major factor in many of the areas where there is real congestion.
Just my two cents.
Posted by: tc on June 30, 2005 12:09 PMDarth, the developers of Redmond Ridge and Trilogy are to blame for their part in paying off the right groups to get approval of their projects-- illegal under the Growth Management Act which predates the CAO-- though we should all really blame the officials that accepted this graft and permitted their contruction without actually improving the immediate road system. The only thing the developers had to do on Novelty Hill Road was to improve the section that winds up from West Snoqualmie Valley Road, which was necessary but not as vital as improving the load-carrying capacity of the roads that take residents anywhere they actually go-- i.e. west to Redmond.
I agree with the rest of your statement, however.
Posted by: Kyle on July 1, 2005 04:22 PMI think the following speaks quite clearly, in light of the latest ruling, that the Elections division is not the only portion of King County government that is in need of better accountability to the public.
The competency and behavior of King County’s DOT is quite questionable. A person with less nuanced point of view might consider such behavior corrupt. At a minimum, it does not require at great deal of mental gymnastics to conclude that the administration of King County government is in deep need of a team that can actually manage.
To refresh our collective memories please note the following:
Seattle Times
Wednesday, April 26, 2000
Redmond Ridge in traffic jam
King County officials now acknowledge that when they approved Redmond Ridge, they underestimated the number of drivers who would use the same roads as residents of the highly contested Eastside development.
The miscalculation will cause the county to spend millions of dollars to widen Novelty Hill Road. While Quadrant, the Weyerhaeuser subsidiary building Redmond Ridge, is chipping in $20 million for road improvements, some residents say it's not enough.
Had the county done a better job of forecasting the number of commuters from East King and Snohomish counties, it would have been able to get Quadrant to pay more for the road work, critics contend.
"Now the developer is off the hook for any expansion of Novelty Hill (Road)," said Claudia Newman, a lawyer representing Redmond-based Friends of the Law, a citizens group fighting Redmond Ridge. "It's on the taxpayers."
…
The latest transportation study states that if no improvements are made to Novelty Hill Road, traffic in 2012 would crawl along at 5 mph. It would take commuters 26 minutes to drive from the western entrance of Novelty Hill Road to 208th Avenue Northeast, just over a mile away.
Just what that will cost is not known. Ron Paananen, an engineer with the county's road-services division, says it could be "anywhere from $20 million to $200 million," depending on such things as property acquisition, design and environmental measures.