UPDATE: The slideshow presented at the Nov. 18th Public Hearing on the 2009-2010 Budget is available in PDF format. Download it here.   The City of Kirkland is facing extremely difficult budget choices ahead. Kirkland is in a ...

Dear Editor: The council is about to adopt a budget that includes higher fees and taxes to make up for their inability to balance the budget. [Editor's note: State law requires the City Council to balance its budget]  Not a ...

  Dear Editor: For 22 years, the council has always proclaimed their budgets were very conservative.  Thanks to this budget session, we now know that wasn’t true.  It was all a lie.  There was money to be spent and lots of it, far ...

The City of Kirkland has just released to 2009-2010 Preliminary Budget and it is a doozie. It has everything you could never want like more tax increases and service level cuts. It is a sign of the times and a dose of reality. This budget still needs approval by the City ...

The City of Kirkland conducted a Tax Burden Analysis as reported in August of this year. At the City Council meeting last night, an update was presented to reflect the impact of the proposed tax policy changes on individual taxpayers. You may download the Tax Burden ...

According to an article by Kevin Ervin of The Seattle Times, King County Executive Ron Sims has called for a cut in funds set aside as incentives to cities to annex urban unincorporated areas. Instead, the money will be ...

  Monday night is the last public meeting regarding the budget mess Kirkland faces. The first meeting was held on the same night as several major events in the city and it has zero attendance. If you have an interest in the financial health of our city, ...

The Kirkland City Council held a Special Council Meeting to answer questions of the Juanita neighborhood held Thursday evening at the Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in Juanita. Each council member spoke briefly about an issue and the audience was allowed to ...

ow would you feel if you threw a party and nobody came? The city sent every household the “Special Budget Edition of the Kirkland City Update” to inform citizens of the serious $13M to $17M budget shortfall (about 12%) and to get feed back from citizens and commercial...

I have been watching with great interest the whirlwind surrounding your recent decisions relative to annexation and downtown development. As a 20 year resident of Juanita (the last area to be annexed by the city), I am appalled at the...

The City of Kirkland is hosting two Budget Open Houses to share the City’s current and future financial condition, explain the challenges it faces for the upcoming biennium budget, and to discuss the proposed strategies that, if implemented, will balance the 2009-2010 Budget...

It’s time for Kirkland citizens to get past the city’s budget propaganda. Is there a deficit or not? Only if you don’t know what’s going on. Budgets are created to tell the citizens just how much the council needs to run the city. Audits make sure the budgets are ...

King County encourages Bothell to move swiftly in considering adoption of the Kirkland Potential Annexation Area (PAA). King County Executive Ron Sims has written to the Bothell City Council encouraging them to adopt Kirkland's PAA...

The recent Kirkland City budget controversy reminded me of some lessons that we all learned in civics class. These lessons are timeless but they seem to get forgotten every now and then. It is important that we remember from where...

The City of Kirkland has conducted a Tax Burden Analysis to help the City Council make decision with regard to Kirkland's $13.8 million budget shortfall. Some interesting numbers show up in the report. Of particular interest is Exhibit 5: Residential and Commercial Contributions to Major...

Change is good, right? Our recent budget mess means things are going to change whether we like it or not. What advise would you give to our City Council as they struggle to dig ourselves out of the current budget mess? What do we need to improve for the betterment ...

Both Seattle and Kirkland have found themselves in difficult financial situations as the economy has slowed. Interestingly, the two cities plan to deal with their problems quite differently. Kirkland plans to both raise taxes and lower service levels...

A recent Kirkland Views article has caused some concern, confusion and even consternation on the part of a few of my friends employed by the City of Kirkland. The post referred to the unsustainable nature of Kirkland's financial "gap" and a primary cause for...

The City of Kirkland is facing a $13.8 million deficit for its 2009-2010 budget. In the language of financial analysts, this is known as a doozie. The City is conducting a massive communications effort to inform the people of Kirkland of the looming budget shortfall...

Mr. Asher made statements that reassured me of his understanding of why we have governments and their purpose. Not degrading response times of fire and police must be a priority. Also, he inferred that the city’s way of doing business resulted in a budget gap greater than the ...