SRM Development, The City of Kirkland and CiViK have reached agreement on a modified plan   Documents just received from the City of Kirkland shed light on rumors that there has been progress in settlement talks surrounding the SRM Development v. ...

SRM Development has filed a petition with the Superior Court of Washington against the City of Kirkland and Citizens for a Vibrant Kirkland (CiViK) claiming a violation of constitutional rights in the appeal of SRM's Bank of America/Merrill Gardens...

Will the citizens work together to find common ground or will we split further apart? There is a great deal of passion surrounding the events of the past four months with regard to the Bank of America project. This appeal process began in April, and it was evident last night ...

By a vote of 4 to 3, the Kirkland City Council decided to end the Bank of America appeal and send the project back to the Design Review Board... unless SRM Development decides they have a better chance in Superior Court. SRM presented their final modified proposal to the Council ...

Concerned citizens gathered at City Hall to attend a special meeting of the Kirkland City Council. The atmosphere was congenial as people of many political stripes waited in council chambers for the meeting to begin. After a slight delay the Mayor opened...

SRM Development has requested that Councilmember Hodgson "be prohibited from participating further in this appeal in any manner." SRM documented their objection as follows: 1. Disqualification and Recusal of Councilmember Hodgson...

More light has been shed on the events surrounding the Bank of America Appeal. It appears that both SRM and CiViK agreed to a series of Question and Answer rounds following the July 11 quasi-judicial hearing. Kirkland Views has obtained additional...

A series of questions were posed to SRM Development during the July 11 hearing before the Kirkland City Council in the CiViK appeal of the Bank of America project. Kirkland Views has obtained a copy of SRM Development's response to these questions....

To say that the events surrounding the City Council quasi-judicial hearing of July 1, 2008 have been bizarre would be an understatement. Kirkland has been witness to high drama in the Council chambers the likes of which we hope to never see again. This is a disturbing course...

"Mr. Hodgson's waiver of the City's attoney-clinet privilege was unliateral, unauthorized and not an effective waiver. It was clear at the time Mr. Hodgson provided you with the Memo that his attempted waiver was opposed by a majority of the Kirkland City Council.."

  What role does anonymity play in the course of public debate? Does one have a responsibility to identify oneself when making potentially injurious claims against others? Or, is one immune to the mores of a civil society simply because they are able to hide behind a cloak of anonymity? I pose these questions because of the continued blowback surrounding the City Council’s May 6 decision in favor of CiViK (the appellant) over SRM Development (the applicant) in the Bank of America appeal. The fallout has been hitting our local newspapers and the blogosphere ever since. Citizens have written letters from all sides of the issues, most of which have been expressions of opinion. However, there have been a few letters of anonymous origin that have made claims as to the propriety of individuals in our community. These anonymous letters have raised an issue that needs to be discussed.

The citizens of Kirkland have a penchant for appealing stopping projects they don’t like: Lake and Central in 2004 map, the Bank of America Project 2007 map, and most recently, the pending the McLeod Project map. Two of these three downtown developments have been successfully appealed stopped by CiViK. The McLeod project is currently on appeal by another group of citizens and the outcome is still to be determined. A recurring theme of the appeals to these projects has been the emphasis of the impacts on life in general in Kirkland:  too big, too much traffic, too little parking, wrong type of retail, etc. There is one argument, however, that is seldom heard: “it will block my view”.

At 12:37AM the gavel came down as the Kirkland City Council ruled in favor of CiViK in their appeal of the mixed use project on the Bank of America site map in downtown at the corner of Kirkland Ave. and Lake Street South map. This project was to be the second phase of the Merrill Gardens senior housing now topping out next door. The Kirkland City Council voted in favor of the appellant by a vote of 4 to 3.

Round two of the quasi-judicial hearing before the Kirkland City Council is scheduled for Tuesday, May 6th at 7:30PM. Round one needed to be continued as it became obvious that the proceedings could not be completed ...