This is incredible! And related to CAO Fw:Update from FOTL - Part 1 - Traffic & Redmond Ridge East

Saturday night, March 12, 2005

Item: Part 1 of 2 of "Update from Friends of the Law ("FOTL") - Part 1 - Traffic & Redmond Ridge East". Part 2 in next post.

Subject: More King County "smoking guns" that relate to/amount to the principles that supposedly justify the CAO being ignored for big developers; violations of the Public Disclosure Act; honest and ethical King County employees being retaliated against for "whistleblower" actions to get the truth out about traffic problems being covered up; etc. ad nauseum.

Dear Colleagues in property rights and honest government,

The below was just forwarded to me and is more fuel for the fire re: King County, the CAO (Critical Areas Ordinance), etc. I had no idea this was going on. Did any of you?

Joseph Elfelt and his colleagues have been at this for something like 10 years.

It'll take a while to go through all the material in the email and to read what is available by going to the links, etc., but it's pretty powerful material.

See also the next post for Part 2 of Joseph Elfelt's two emails.

This is as good a time as any to mention that there are a lot of other things going on with me and my lawyers by way of all sorts of folks making contact "off the record" with one thing after another related to Sims and King County. It seems like there is a tidal wave of problems ready to hit the press. There's just no question now that the corruption, waste, inefficiency, lying to citizens, cover-ups, orchestrated and manipulated studies, hidden agendas, etc. as manifested by the CAO, Tent City 4, Brightwater, the stadiums, and so on are just the tip of the iceberg of how bad things are.

Simultaneously, my sense is that, as I thought all along was likely to be the case, there are many good people in King County government who want to do the right thing, who see the inefficiencies and outright wrongdoing and are coming forward, at some personal risk.

Check it out and leave a comment. By the way, and I apologize in advance for the inconvenience, but I had some "problems" with inappropriate "anonymous" comments being posted and so I've gone to a simple registration system to avoid having inappropriate content ending up being published on my blog site. I don't intend for my blog to become a forum for just any mean, spiteful, untrue words someone feels like posting that are not even relevant to the issue(s) at hand.

Armen Yousoufian

-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
To: ayousoufian@comcast.net
Subject: Fwd: Update from FOTL - Part 1 - Traffic & Redmond Ridge East
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:23:40 +0000

Greetings Armen,
Yet another SCAM from KC.


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Attached Message
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From: Joseph Elfelt
To: Joseph Elfelt
Cc: Steve Shifton
Subject: Update from FOTL - Part 1 - Traffic & Redmond Ridge East
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 15:54:24 -0500


Part 1 of 2 parts
Update on Redmond Ridge East and traffic mess on Novelty Hill Road & Union Hill Road
March 11, 2005
By: Joseph Elfelt, for Friends of the Law (FOTL)

This update describes for the first time a major dishonest and illegal scam the county is running to falsely claim area roads can handle all the traffic from Redmond Ridge East as well as Trilogy and Redmond Ridge. To get on FOTL’s e-mail list for future updates, send me an e-mail ( jelfelt@cnw.com ).

Please forward this to others you know that commute on Novelty Hill Road, Union Hill Road and related streets. If you have a Homeowner’s Association, please ask the president to forward this to all the members. Everyone deserves to know the truth about how King County is continuing to cook the books to help Quadrant make traffic on our roads much worse than what you see today.

Since FOTL is a 501-c-3 charity, contributions are tax deductible and Microsoft (as well as some other firms) will provide matching funds. See the end of this update for info on how to donate. Although Steve Shifton and I (FOTL directors) are donating our time, our attorney does have to get paid. Please donate. FOTL is the only group fighting to prevent gridlock.

In the existing Redmond Ridge and Trilogy developments there are at least 1,800 homes not yet occupied. Most of those are not yet built. In addition, Quadrant has applied for permits for a new development called Redmond Ridge East (RRE) which will have 800 additional homes.
1,800 + 800 = 2,600 additional homes.

In the spring of 2002 the county said version 2002a of its traffic concurrency computer model showed that Novelty Hill Road could handle the traffic from full buildout of Redmond Ridge, Trilogy and Redmond Ridge East if (1) there was a center turn lane from Avondale to these projects and (2) certain intersections like 208th were widen to 5 lanes and then narrowed back down to 3 lanes. In the fall of 2002 the county relied on its 2002a traffic model and issued certificates of traffic concurrency for the Redmond Ridge East development. If the county had not cooked the books and denied these certificates of traffic concurrency then Quadrants application for RRE would have been incomplete and never would have been processed by the county.

In 2003 five county traffic engineers filed a whistle-blower complaint detailing how the county cooked the books in its 2002a traffic concurrency model in order to falsely claim that Novelty Hill Road, Union Hill Road and other area streets could handle an unlimited amount of additional development.

The link in the above paragraph will take you to the whistle-blower complaint which is posted at
http://www.friendsofthelaw.org/flyers/flyer-111703.html

The county ombudsman investigated the whistle-blower complaint and issued a report dated June 18, 2004 stating the “Ombudsman has completed its review”. The report recommended the 2002a traffic concurrency model pertaining to Redmond Ridge East be re-done with substantial in-house or consultant oversight . That report was sent to the county council, executive Ron Sims, and others. The ombudsman is employed directly by the council to conduct independent investigations.

On February 28th the county hearing examiner hosted a meeting at Evergreen Jr High. Thanks to all who spoke on traffic issues! You did make an impact on Mr. Smith, the examiner, as he referred to that input as the hearing continued during the week. The examiner’s job is to determine if the proposed RRE and its 800 more homes is in compliance with the county’s regulations including those pertaining to traffic impacts.
On March 1, 2 and 3rd FOTL’s attorney David Bricklin and I participated in the examiner’s hearing which reconvened in Renton at the county building department (DDES). That portion of the hearing was just on traffic concurrency which is the notion that state and county law prohibit proposed developments from being approved unless area roads can handle the additional traffic.

On March 1st two of the traffic whistle-blowers appeared at the hearing and testified before the county hearing examiner. One of them has a Ph.D in this field. Among other items they say the county cooked the books in the 2002a concurrency model in favor of RRE by:
1. Failing to include increased traffic from Snohomish County in the model
2. Deceasing the speed coded into the model for Novelty Hill Road from the posted 45mph to 35mph
3. Telling the model to assume Avondale was 5 lanes all the way north to the Woodinville-Duvall Road

The model assumes people will drive the route that minimizes travel time. When the model runs, it goes through a number of iterations as it reassigns trips to various roads seeking to reduce the total travel time for everyone. The above model inputs described by the whistle-blowers tricked the 2002a traffic concurrency model into assigning fewer trips from Duvall and Snohomish County to Novelty Hill Road (due to the lower speed and thus longer travel time) and more trips to Avondale (due to the 5 lanes all the way north). By manipulating the trip assignments in this manner, the model created the illusion there was a bunch of idle capacity on Novelty Hill Road that was available for use by the 800 homes of RRE.

Surprise!

On the next day of the hearing, March 2nd, the county introduced exhibits showing that earlier this year they took the “2002a” concurrency model, corrected the above three defects identified by the whistle-blowers, and re-ran the model. I’ll call this the 2005 model. Although this 2005 model shows much higher volumes on Novelty Hill Road than the 2002a model, the county says the 2005 model still shows that the RRE site passes the traffic concurrency standards.

Under questioning by FOTL’s attorney it quickly became apparent to everyone that the documents the county provided from the 2005 concurrency model were inadequate to show that the RRE site passed the traffic concurrency standards. In particular, FOTL showed that the county had produced an incomplete Trip Distribution map. This map shows how the 2005 concurrency model forecasts that RRE trips will be distributed over area roads.

Sure enough, when the hearing reconvened on March 3rd the county produced a complete Trip Distribution map from the 2005 model. Obviously FOTL had no opportunity to analyze these new documents or to compare them to the other traffic related documents we have collected. Also on March 3rd the county explained how they “validated” the traffic model by comparing its output to actual traffic counts collected in 1998. The examiner asked the county to provide an exhibit showing those actual 1998 counts. In mid-afternoon on March 3rd the traffic concurrency portion of the examiner’s hearing concluded and David and I left. The hearing continued last week and most of this week with issues being raised by the City of Redmond.

Last weekend I started looking at the documents we had been provided from the 2005 concurrency model. I was not surprised when I discovered that the county is running a major scam in both the 2002a and 2005 models in order to falsely claim RRE passed concurrency. In my opinion this newly discovered cooking-of-the-books is more significant than the defects the whistle-blowers identified. I’m guessing they missed this since it is fairly deep in the model and you also need specific knowledge about wetlands on the site as well as some knowledge about what Quadrant is actually proposing.

FOTL might have been able to identify this new major scam much earlier. In 2003 FOTL served a freedom of information request on the county for information from the 2002a model. The county replied by falsely claiming they had provided FOTL with the requested copies. FOTL wrote back and said we never received any such copies. Those copies (including the complete Trip Distribution map) were not provided to FOTL until the examiner’s hearing this month.

Here’s the scam.

The model includes a road that does not exist and is not funded for construction. This road would start in the existing Redmond Ridge development and run east across wetlands and into the RRE site. It would roughly parallel Novelty Hill Road some distance to the south. By including this road the model was tricked into forecasting that in the afternoon rush hour all the traffic heading to RRE will turn right off Novelty Hill Road at Cedar Park (first Redmond Ridge access) and travel east through Redmond Ridge and then on the new road across the wetland to reach RRE.

Here are the reasons this is a major scam.

First, the state Growth Management Act and county law absolutely forbid unfunded roads from being in these traffic models. The whistle-blowers showed that the 2002a model was illegal since it included an unfunded project to widen Avondale to 5 lanes all the way to the Woodinville Duvall Road. The county corrected that error in the 2005 model. For the same reason, the county should have also removed this unfunded road-across-the-wetland before running the 2005 model.

Second, if the road-across-the-wetland is deleted from the model then all the RRE trips have to stay on Novelty Hill Road past Redmond Ridge and will then turn right on an extension of Trilogy Parkway which would be the main entrance to RRE. However, it is obvious that if this additional traffic flow is added to this section of Novelty Hill Road, then the entire RRE site will fail the traffic concurrency standards. Both state and county law prohibit the approval of developments that fail the traffic concurrency requirements.

If you want to know more details of how the county cooked the books in other ways also, see the next e-mail update with "Part 2".

So what’s next?

On Monday morning March 14th FOTL’s attorney will file a motion asking the hearing examiner to re-open the traffic concurrency portion of the hearing. (We asked the county and Quadrant to agree to re-open and of course Quadrant refused. The county did not give a definite answer.) The motion will point out that it was impossible for FOTL to raise the above 3 scams during the hearing since the county withheld the relevant information until the last minute.

Please make a tax deductible donation to FOTL. We are the only group fighting to prevent total traffic gridlock far worse than anything you see today. We are working on two fronts:

• Appearing before hearing examiner to challenge the traffic concurrency certificate the county issued for Redmond Ridge East - 800 more homes.
• Lawsuit awaiting decision by state supreme court. See details on our web site www.friendsofthelaw.org If successful then Redmond Ridge East will not happen and further development of Redmond Ridge and Trilogy will cease. We already won half of the issues at the state court of appeals.

Donations are tax deductible since FOTL is a 501-c-3 charity.
FOTL is 100% volunteer. All contributions go to pay our legal bill.
Microsoft and some other employers will match your donation.
FOTL’s treasurer will send you an acknowledgment of your donation for your tax records.

Make your check payable to “FOTL” and mail to:
FOTL
PMB 193
16149 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052

Thank you!