Good... Enough
Sammamish is celebrating its 10th anniversary. I know this because when I went to download the Parks and Recreation guide, it had 10th anniversary plastered all over it.
Well, la-di-da!
I grew up when this town was unincorporated King County and if you were in dire emergency you called Dominos, not the police, because the delivery driver would reach you much faster. People had chickens and horses and roosters and goats and old chevys and outnumbered them new Microsquashians moving in.
My, how things have changed.
Now I'm in a slightly-remodeled 1970's rambler squished between McMansions and track tract* homes, one of very few single mothers (or at least it feels like it) and one of the few without an HOA. (They have one for my block, I'm not part of it, it's a LOOOOOOOOOOONG story).
Sammamish initially said it would incorporate to leverage the tax system to improve the roads. That it did, no argument there. But it also said it wouldn't bother with its own police and fire departments (2 years later, it did, which is good) and we now sport a swanky new City Hall (several story and moderny with lots of windows). We have an actual Parks and Recreation guide, a farmer's market, a city 4th of July festival, a city Haunted Celebration, a city Winterfest, and a city New Year's celebration. We sport two public high schools that play off at homecoming and the winners throw a street parade from their school to the loser's school, which ties up traffic for 2 hours during rush hour. We have two competing megamarts and gas stations, and some decent Thai food.
Yet, like a balding mid-40's CPA with a decent savings and an exceptionally nice car, we have the faint air of apology and the secret knowledge we will never be quite as sporty as Bellevue.
We do have a farmer's market... but any sammamishite will tell you it's not as big as that which you'd find in Issaquah or Redmond, and the prices are not much different. We do have a Parks & Recreation guide... 1.3mb in total, and Redmond's is 13mb plus. We do have a library... slightly smaller than my house (a new one is planned). We do not have a decent craft store.
OK, that last is my own personal bent.
I happen to like the farmer's market here, small as it is; the P&R guide is thinner but offers more than you think a fledgeling city would. My issues with Sammamish are not around if we rate as a Bellevue or Redmond or Issaquah, but that we (and I say "we" meaning "they") seem to aspire to this. We already have an alarming SUV-to-human ratio and our coffee quota has long been surpassed. We have competitive preschools and water towers with murals painted on them so they blend in with the topographically deserving trees. We have water rationing days and two weekly circular newspapers which will both earnestly tell you that Ms. Agnes P. Ditherton, on 220th street, has successfully navigated her 92nd birthday, love Paw; or that Jennifer Smitherton who graduated from Eastlake High School met and married a successful John Doe from Harvard and that she plans to puruse a career in fashion design from their new abode in Westchester.
We have long since arrived, we really need to not keep going...
*edited later: Yes, it's "tract" homes, not "track" homes. I... sometimes suck at teh spelling.
