The March 14 Redmond City Council study session included some interesting topics on 1) human resources, 2) city communication regarding rapid growth, and 3) the city's tree canopy.
HUMAN RESOURCES: Melody Mathes, Director of Human Resources stated their employee turnover rate was lower than the state and region. Though this bodes well, she was concerned that it is becoming a little more difficult to retain workers (owing to salaries). In fact, she said she would be evaluating salaries for possible increases!
CITY GROWTH: There was a reported dip down in whether the community thought the city was heading in the right direction...from 2013. There was also a dip down in whether the community thought the city was communicating well with the public. Jane Christianson, Deputy City Administrator suggested the city needed to communicate better about the rapid growth downtown. Councilmember Stilin said there are two audiences: One group that favors the change to Cleveland Street and all the high rises going up and another group that opposes these changes. President Hank Margeson looked at the complainers as "toddlers" that haven't grown up yet. Councilmember Kim Allen said a brochure that explained why Redmond is undergoing all this growth would be helpful.
TREE CANOPY: It has been scientifically determined that the tree canopy in the city is 39%...about equal to Kirkland. This includes the watershed preserve. 63 acres of tree canopy were lost to development since 2009 (2.5%). This figure does not include the loss of tree canopy to development at Overlake's Group Health property. 37 acres of canopy was lost in North Redmond between 2009-2013. 10 acres was lost on Education Hill. Of course continued development in 2014 and 2015 will further destroy canopy. From three years of data 376 landmark trees have been removed. President Hank Margeson roughly calculated that Group Health's Capstone development so far has planted 1500 of the 3000 trees that they are obligated to plant and he asked Planner Cathy Beam to stay on top of this. Councilmember Kim Allen says the city should strive for "no net loss of trees and even increase their numbers." Developers are supposed to pay $250/tree into a tree replacement fund for every tree they can't replace. So far the city has planted 12,000 trees (not counting Capstone) from this fund and used it to pay for tree maintenance to ensure survivability.
Reported by Bob Yoder
HUMAN RESOURCES: Melody Mathes, Director of Human Resources stated their employee turnover rate was lower than the state and region. Though this bodes well, she was concerned that it is becoming a little more difficult to retain workers (owing to salaries). In fact, she said she would be evaluating salaries for possible increases!
CITY GROWTH: There was a reported dip down in whether the community thought the city was heading in the right direction...from 2013. There was also a dip down in whether the community thought the city was communicating well with the public. Jane Christianson, Deputy City Administrator suggested the city needed to communicate better about the rapid growth downtown. Councilmember Stilin said there are two audiences: One group that favors the change to Cleveland Street and all the high rises going up and another group that opposes these changes. President Hank Margeson looked at the complainers as "toddlers" that haven't grown up yet. Councilmember Kim Allen said a brochure that explained why Redmond is undergoing all this growth would be helpful.
TREE CANOPY: It has been scientifically determined that the tree canopy in the city is 39%...about equal to Kirkland. This includes the watershed preserve. 63 acres of tree canopy were lost to development since 2009 (2.5%). This figure does not include the loss of tree canopy to development at Overlake's Group Health property. 37 acres of canopy was lost in North Redmond between 2009-2013. 10 acres was lost on Education Hill. Of course continued development in 2014 and 2015 will further destroy canopy. From three years of data 376 landmark trees have been removed. President Hank Margeson roughly calculated that Group Health's Capstone development so far has planted 1500 of the 3000 trees that they are obligated to plant and he asked Planner Cathy Beam to stay on top of this. Councilmember Kim Allen says the city should strive for "no net loss of trees and even increase their numbers." Developers are supposed to pay $250/tree into a tree replacement fund for every tree they can't replace. So far the city has planted 12,000 trees (not counting Capstone) from this fund and used it to pay for tree maintenance to ensure survivability.
Reported by Bob Yoder
Where is it in "The Plan" to add office space and jobs within Redmond to balance the growth of costly city services that comes along with all the new residential units?
ReplyDeletePerhaps the City Council wants to develop Redmond to be a bedroom community with high real estate taxes as they can't/won't attract businesses.
I agree, Redmond is rapidly becoming a bedroom community to mostly one industry. Bland.
ReplyDeleteWhat is happening to downtown Redmond is straight out of the United Nation's Agenda 21 playbook, right down to the government (City of Redmond) condemning property of long-time, successful Redmond business owners and forcing them to either move or close so we can have a downtown park that nobody was even asking for.
ReplyDeleteThere are a plethora of websites that can be explored to validate this, such as this one:
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/