Once again, the Kirkland City Council is on the wrong side of an important community issue and once again, the citizens of Kirkland have to fight against their own elected officials. I am disappointed that the Council authorized the use of $250,000 of valuable tax dollars to hire a consultant to do a feasibility study on having buses share the Cross Kirkland Connection (CKC)trail. That money could have been used to keep park restrooms open during the winter or to restore declining service levels in public works and parks.

The recent action on the part of the Council to investigate the possibility of using the CKC doesn’t reflect the citizen’s and neighborhood interests. This is not the solution to traffic issues in Kirkland . The solution to our traffic and parking mess is to stop the increasing density of housing that the Kirkland Planning Board and Council are approving in our community. Do not advocate the proposal to have buses, electric or not, using the CKC.

Additionally, some of the Council recently were quoted saying that they didn’t understand why 66 percent of Kirkland voters voted against the ARC. Here are a few reasons for the Council to consider.

1. We had no financial partners. If a pool is ever going to be constructed, get the LWSD, the Boys and Girls Club and YMCA involved financially. Pools require huge on-going subsidies.

2. The City couldn’t tell voters how much the pool would cost because they didn’t know

3. The City misrepresented the maintenance costs of the pool. Fact check, I called Vancouver and Lynnwood, two cities which were cited by the Kirkland Parks Director as profitable pools and it was confirmed that they do not have full-cost recovery.

4. The public doesn’t trust the Council with an open checkbook

5. The City had options of using city-owned land (Juanita Park) but caved in to nimbi’s

6. The city was setting up a separate funding mechanism in perpetuity without any limits.

7. Kirkland’s budgets are taxing people out of the community

8. Kirkland’s service levels are declining across the board and we are paying more taxes and getting less services.

Stop wasting our tax dollars, working against the citizens of Kirkland. For $250,000, we spend on the CKC study, there are a hundred ways this money could have been better spent in our community. You are enriching a consultant and making the community poorer by your actions.

Patrick Harris, Kirkland