The following are excerpts from an article written by Rob Butcher, first published on www.KirklandViews.com:

There is a great deal of passion surrounding the events of the past four months with regard to the Bank of America / Merrill Gardens appeal. The controversial appeal began in April, and ended Aug. 5 when the City Council voted down the project on the corner of Lake Street and Kirkland Avenue.

The city now waits to see if the developer re-applies, calls it quits or files a lawsuit. It may very well not be as much of a victory or defeat as it first appears. My sincere hope is that we can start anew as a city and attempt to learn what went wrong and apply those lessons toward repairing a process that is clearly broken.

For supporters of CiViK, the appellant, I would imagine they have a somewhat shallow victory on their hands. They believed they had to appeal the Design Review Board (DRB) approval of the project because it violated city codes for what could be built on that site. Now they have succeeded and have won the appeal. But at what cost?

For supporters of SRM, the applicant, I would imagine they are dejected and angry at the circus they have been through during the quasi-judicial appeal. They believe they followed instructions of staff, played by the rules and in the end got nothing for their efforts and at a substantial loss of time and expense.

It is in everyone’s interests to have the development process corrected.

All seven councilmembers will be held accountable for their conduct during this affair – good or bad. If, as some jokingly say, Kirkland’s best product is process, then this process showed us just what we are getting for our money.

The City Council was in a very difficult position during this quasi-judicial appeal. They are not lawyers.

If we do not learn from this event and make permanent changes to how our city moves forward in developing the downtown area, we as citizens of Kirkland deserve no better. It is incumbent upon us, the citizens of Kirkland to change the system, clarify the code, assure transparency for citizen and developer alike and demand accountability from City Hall.

We, the citizens, are ultimately responsible for what takes place in Kirkland. We have the power to shape Kirkland if we don’t like the current circumstances. We all get the government we deserve and I believe we have dropped the ball.

A new era of openness and ethics needs to begin today.

I welcome any and all input on how we, the citizens of Kirkland, can fix that which is broken. May we never again take our eye off the ball.

Rob Butcher is a resident of Kirkland and author of the online forum, www.KirklandViews.com.