Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Councilman Richard Cole - regional leader in Growth Management

Long-time Councilman Richard Cole has given hours of his free time (besides work at Council) these last 4-plus years as a Policy Board Member of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC). In fact, every month Richard has attended monthly meetings lasting anywhere to 1/2 a day to 3 days. We applaud you, Mr. Cole!

PSRC is composed of four counties: Kitsap, Peirce, Snohomish, and King. It's mission is "multi-city planning" for population growth and transportation funding distribution. PSRC Vision 2020 is just about over and with it, Mr. Cole is retiring from the Policy Board. Though, Richard isn't hanging it up quite yet! He'll be moving to the PSRC Executive Board to begin work on Vision 2040 for the Puget Sound Regional Council.

After meticulous statistical study and review, PSRC Vision
2040 anticipates 4-county growth of 1.7M people in the next of 30
years of which 0.2M have already arrived. Interestingly,
70% of the growth is "internal" - from Washington State
families! Planning encompasses transportation
infrastructure and more affordable housing stock for our children.
Sustainability is critical to the plan.
Mr. Cole stated the failure of Proposition 1 to pass left our area in a bigger hole. (It's unfortunate the Proposition 1 funding proposal was so all-encompassing & immediate rather than incremental. Even more unfortunate, citizens rejected mass transit funding years ago when costs were much lower.)
Mr. Cole didn't represent just Redmond in the growth management process. He worked for "Suburban Cities" -- a growth management coalition that represents more than half the population of King County -- 37 cities. One of Mr. Cole's biggest accomplishments was to hold back Snohomish County from establishing a policy of " fully contained communities".... similar to Trilogy & Redmond Ridge. King County executive Sims agreed. The decision? Growth should occur where infrastructure already exists.

The General Assembly will be meeting on 4/24 to vote on the plan. Council President Nancy McCormick is a past Executive Board member will attend. Redmond gets 8 votes out of 400. Thank you Mr Cole, for your dedication and efforts in planning regional growth for "Suburban Cities". It was reported by Ms. McCormick yesterday:

Vision 2040 passed this afternoon on a 97.3% vote (think it was .3,
know it was 97+%). Kitsap County split their weighted vote and one city
voted no. 4/24/08
Vision 2040 update: visit SEATTLE TIMES, 4/14 "Steering growth to uban areas"

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