City Hall Flooring: No

The tile floor in the City Hall lobby has been failing since 2024. The original installation back in 2006 didn’t include required expansion joints or waterproofing, so the tiles have been cracking and lifting. Staff brought a contract for $265,000 to tear it out and replace it.

In the grand scheme of the city budget, that’s not much money at all. But, the city is in a structural deficit. We are spending heavily from our fund balance (our savings). The city’s financial forecast shows the fund balance going negative by 2029. We need to make major corrections to our budget. In this environment, I can’t support spending $265,000 to replace a floor in city hall. That’s nearly the entire amount the city would generate from a year’s worth of the maximum allowable property tax increase.

When we’re facing a structural deficit and will have to ask residents for more taxes, major cuts to services, or a mix of both, I can’t support spending your money on a new floor at city hall.

The vote was 4-3 to cancel.

East Sammamish Park Turf and Batting Cages: Yes

Council unanimously approved a contract with Coast to Coast Turf for $923,960 to convert the two baseball infields at East Sammamish Park to synthetic turf and resurface the batting cages.

This is a bigger number. Here’s why I supported it.

The 20-year cost comparison between keeping the current natural infields and converting to turf is close. The total net cost to taxpayers is actually lower with turf, about $943,000 over 20 years compared to roughly $1.09 million to maintain the status quo. The difference is where the money lands. Turf cuts annual maintenance costs by about $37,000 and cuts required staff hours nearly in half. That’s operating budget relief, which is exactly where our budget pressure is. The funding for the new turf fields comes out of a fund that can only be spent on parks capital expenses.

On top of that, turf fields reduce rainouts and increase playable hours by an estimated 15%. Eastlake Little League uses these fields for about 74% of total field hours. More playable time for kids is a straightforward win.

There is a tradeoff. Field rental fees are penciled in to go from $20 to $26 per hour (though the $40 restriping fee would no longer be necessary). During the meeting, I asked staff whether we could bring on sponsors for our ballfields, the same way we do for city events, to help offset that cost and bring the fees down for Sammamish teams. There’s nothing that would preclude it. I’m going to research what other cities are doing and come back with a specific proposal. Our youth sports organizations shouldn’t absorb the full cost increase if there’s a way to share it while providing our business community a new opportunity to reach our community.

Work is scheduled to begin this summer with fields reopening in the fall. Thank you to the Parks and Recreation Commission for the thorough review of this project.

Coming Up

The April 14 study session includes a preview of the 2027-2028 budget calendar and process, plus a fiscal sustainability discussion. I’ll have more to say on both next time.

You can schedule a time in advance through Microsoft Bookings: Schedule a time here. Drop-ins are welcome too. If I’m not already in a meeting with someone, I’m happy to talk.

These will happen every Friday. Occasionally I’ll be out of town or at an offsite commitment. If all the booking slots appear full, that’s likely why. I’ll do my best to keep those interruptions rare. If you’re dropping in, check the booking link or here before you come as I will be listing dates I am unavailable.

While I’m the Mayor, under Sammamish’s council-manager form of government, I don’t have more decision-making authority than any other councilmember. I can’t direct city staff, and I can’t unilaterally resolve most issues residents bring to me. If you tell me a pothole needs fixing, I can’t call public works and make it happen (but I can ask the city manager to prioritize fixing it).

What I can do is vote on policy and budgets, bring your concern into a council discussion, and make sure the right people hear it. I can also tell you honestly where something stands in the process, what’s been decided, what’s still open, and who actually has the authority to act on it.

That’s the point of this. City hall can feel distant. I’d rather you be able to sit across from me and say what’s on your mind.

Let’s chat on Fridays over coffee.

Coffee with the Council

This is separate from the city’s Coffee with the Council program, which brings together three rotating councilmembers the first Saturday of every month at Metropolitan Market. This is my individual office hours, every Friday.

At our February 17, 2026 City Council meeting, we discussed whether to proceed with the City’s planned “statistically valid” community survey through Polco. The contract is expected to cost $30,000.

This comes at a moment when every expense needs to be defensible. We have a structural budget deficit. The prior Council adopted a 6% utility tax in March 2025, and it took effect January 1, 2026. This helped with the deficit temporarily but it didn’t solve the structural problem. Every expense matters.

I support hearing from residents. I do not support spending $30,000 on this survey as presented.

What’s wrong with the survey

The agenda bill explains that Polco uses standardized “National Community Survey” questions, and Sammamish is “unable to modify any of the questions.” The City’s only flexibility is “approximately three-to-five custom questions at the end.”

The process works by mailing paper surveys to 3,000 households. In the 2024 survey the city received 322 completed responses. If we saw the same participation this year, that is roughly $93 per completed response.

While this is a “statistically valid” survey that is weighted to match the demographics of our city, the survey has 5% margin of error. With that kind of margin, year-to-year “movement” is often small and hard to interpret. And even if satisfaction scores moved noticeably, Sammamish would likely still compare well to benchmark cities.

This does not provide the council with actionable guidance for hard choices. Importantly, it doesn’t give you a voice.

You can view the prior survey here.

My view and how I’ll approach the decision

My focus is fiscal discipline and usable feedback.

I will not support the citywide survey as presented, even if we write the best possible supplemental questions. The cost is too high for what we get, and the output does not help Council make the tradeoffs residents actually care about.

More importantly, this is a survey done every two years. I want Sammamish to build a habit of continuous feedback, tied to decisions in front of us, not a biennial snapshot that cannot be tailored to our real policy choices.

What happens next

Council delayed a final decision for about a month so we can consider better options.

During that window, I am preparing a proposal to replace the Polco survey with an approach that gathers more frequent, more decision-focused input:

• Online surveys promoted through the City newsletter which is currently sent six times per year. King County Councilmember Sarah Perry’s survey is a good example, which is currently running here. You can view the 2025 results here.

• Short surveys that force real choices: “How important is this?” “What would you pay?” “What would you cut?” “Would you use debt or fees for projects like roads?”

• Optional, targeted reach: limited social media ads to broaden participation

• Paper copies available at places like City Hall, the library, the YMCA, and interested local businesses.

• Email Distribution: Deliver the survey via email to the addresses we have an file, and continue to grow that email list.

This won’t create a perfect academic sample, but it is dramatically cheaper and will get clear resident input that helps Council choose priorities on the budget, transportation investments, parks decisions, and much more.

And, importantly, it gives residents an opportunity to provide regular and meaningful feedback on the tough choices we’re facing as a community.

In my first month as mayor, a lot happened. Writing this made that obvious. If I wait too long between updates, it turns into one long post and you still feel behind. So I’m going to write these more often.

At the first council meeting of the year, my colleagues selected me as mayor in a 5-2 vote.

Building a Working Council

The Sammamish Independent covered the mayor selection and quoted me saying: “As mayor, my focus will be on bringing the council together to serve residents and helping each council member achieve wins that are important to them.”

Hold me to that.

Briefings and the Work in Front of Us

A big part of this first month (really, shortly after the election results were settled) has been briefings with staff on transportation projects, Town Center code, the budget, site visits. Also onboarding with HR, like any job. Just today, Deputy Mayor Treen and I had a site visit with city staff to SE 6^th Street in the Town Center to see what work was ahead.

I also started pressing on where I think we’re taking too long and spending too much to reach a perfect answer when residents need progress sooner.

Pavement Management Program. At the January 21 council meeting, I questioned the way we’re handling this. I think we’re spending too much time (we have limited staff capacity) and money (the biennial budget overspent revenues by millions) coming up with strategic plans when we have critical work we can identify now. I encouraged us to start aiming for “good enough” on the planning front.

The 120 Building evaluation. I voted to approve the 120 Building evaluation project, even though I disagreed with the scope of the project. Otherwise, we would further delay a decision by months, if not a year or more. I support turning that building into a community center – one that is “good enough” to start with. Improvements later. We have huge community demand; we need to meet it.

Reconnecting Sammamish with Our Regional Partners

Something else I heard early, including from other local and partner governments, is that Sammamish can come across as siloed. They do not hear from us enough.

So I asked the council to create liaison positions, two councilmembers per partner government, with the expectation of regular meetings with their peers. The goal is better coordination, fewer surprises, and stronger working relationships so we can deliver more for residents. Here’s the list.

ICE, Speed, and How Authority Works Here

One of the most challenging issues this month was the council response to ICE.

I partnered with Councilmember Stuart to bring a proposal forward, then worked with Councilmembers Stuart and Lam to draft a council statement for approval. The Council approved the plan and a resource page was in place three days later. But, some residents wanted an official statement faster. I understand that. And it took longer to get out than I wanted.

Before the council can release a statement, all councilmembers need to sign off or we need to hold a vote. To hold a vote, we need to have a council meeting and the timing of this issue put the next council meeting two weeks away. In this instance, staff had to collect approval from seven councilmembers.

There is also a common assumption that the mayor can speak for the city the way a “strong mayor” can. In Sammamish, the mayor does not have “strong mayor” authority. That can be frustrating when you want the city to move quickly, especially on issues people care deeply about.

The Retreat Recording Vote

A controversial topic this month was the council retreat and whether to record or livestream it. The facilitator recommended we hold the retreat offsite and not record or livestream it. I agreed. And we started down that direction.

From my experience running retreats as a business owner and being a participant through my service on nonprofit boards, people need a change of scenery to spark new ways of thinking and they need to feel comfortable to speak their mind.

I felt recording team building exercises would make it much more difficult for the council to open up. Ultimately, I thought we’d have a better chance of bringing a divided council together if no one was concerned a poorly phrased, difficult to articulate thought would be used against them later.

Councilmember Lam and Start raised concerns that discussions around our goals and work plan would not be available to the public. I understood where they were coming from because transparency matters. They made a good case for recording the goals and work plan parts of the meeting.

I still felt that early discussion of goals and work plan items, in the context of team building, can be an emotionally challenging exercise with tough conversation. And, no decisions would be made at the retreat. That staff would just be synthesizing our thoughts to bring back proposals to work through at multiple council meetings before they were adopted.

Ultimately, the council voted 5-2 to audio record the goals and work plan section. While I voted against the motion, I spoke with Councilmember Stuart after the meeting. We shook hands, and I told her I thought it was a fair compromise. I also emailed Councilmember Lam that evening with a similar message.

Why I’m Writing This Blog

I’m starting this blog for a simple reason. You deserve a clearer view of what’s happening, what I’m focused on, and how decisions are made (from my perspective, at least).

The Sammamish Independent also quoted me saying: “I’d like people to look back at my time as mayor as drama free. Where our council pushed projects forward that made the lives of our residents a little better and a little easier.”

That is still the standard I’m holding myself to. The Council Retreat is tomorrow. I am hopeful for a good meeting that results in a council culture that serves residents.

Sources & Links

• Sammamish Independent: “Sammamish City Council chooses Amato as mayor, Debbie Treen as deputy” (January 30, 2026).

• City of Sammamish: “New Mayor, Deputy Mayor” (January 7, 2026).

• City of Sammamish: Immigrant and Refugee Resources page. (link)