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october 29, 2015
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KingCo cross country meet highlights, page 14
Council backtracks, will rethink plans for Sahalee Way By Tom Corrigan tcorrigan@isspress.com
Gaelic football sparks Irish president’s visit to Skyline By Neil Pierson npierson@sammamishreview.com There are only seven schools in the Seattle area that have integrated Gaelic football into their physical-education classes, said Terry Lynch, and that fact helped put many eyes on Skyline High School during Irish President Michael Higgins’ visit to the area last week. Lynch, who works with the North American County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association, has helped spread the world about sports like Gaelic football and hurling that aren’t commonly played in the United States. Lynch’s group has helped P.E. teachers learn the rules and fundamentals, then teach them to students. It’s a different way than the traditional model of forming youth leagues to attract young players, he said. Prior to Higgins’ three-day visit to the area, which included a meeting with Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and visits to the Space Needle, Pike Place Market and the Microsoft campus, Lynch received a call from Ireland’s consulate general, based in
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San Francisco. He was told Higgins wanted to visit a Seattle-area school that played Gaelic football. “I steered the president toward Skyline because this has been a program that has been of long standing here,” Lynch said, dating the school’s partnership with GAA back to 2008. Gaelic football has roots that stretch back hundreds of years, but it’s still widely unknown outside Ireland, where it’s strictly an amateur sport. It contains elements of American football, soccer, rugby, basketball and volleyball. “The important thing is the students love the sport – it’s very dynamic, it’s fun to play,” Lynch said. “The entry barriers are extremely low. It’s quick to learn.” Neighboring Eastlake High School is also teaching the game to P.E. students, and while it didn’t work out to have Eastlake and Skyline students stage a match, Skyline P.E. students played games as Higgins watched. The Seattle Gaels, who promote Gaelic sports locally under the umbrella of the North American See IRELAND, Page 2
See SAHALEE, Page 2
Environment, land use and transportation were keys in developing comp plan By Tom Corrigan tcorrigan@isspress.com At an Oct. 13 special meeting, the Sammamish City Council passed its 20-year comprehensive plan after months of delay. Judging from the comments of council members, environmental regulations got the most attention in the hours upon hours of review. Mayor Tom Vance spoke of adding to and relooking at all the city’s environmental rules. “What we’ve got sets the stage for the tree ordinance,” Vance said. In a unanimous vote the council recently passed a treeretention ordinance, which Vance has referred to as the toughest in the state. “I think the biggest change
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By Greg Farrar
Irish President Michael Higgins (left, with wife Sabina Coyne) shakes hands with Skyline High School physical education teacher Brendan Hyland, after meeting and posing for photos with Skyline P.E. students after they played Gaelic football as Higgins watched during an Oct. 22 visit to the school.
Sammamish City Council members basically called a doover Oct. 20 regarding their plans for rebuilding Sahalee Way Northeast. During their regular meeting Oct. 6., council voted 4-2, with one member absent, to accept what they called the final scoping plan for the proposed $15.7 million upgrade to Sahalee Way.
On Oct. 20, Councilwoman Nancy Whitten summed up what she, and apparently others, saw as a problem, stating the city had acted without a full measure of public input. At least two Sahalee residents spoke out against council’s actions during the meeting and there probably would’ve been more rancor had the council not acted early in the session to reverse itself.
to the plan was … very simply, clarity,” Deputy Mayor Kathy Huckabay said, adding the the plan is written in such a way staffers cannot misunderstand the council’s intentions. “There is no need for interpretation,” Huckabay said. Cities must update their comprehensive plans every eight years under the state’s Growth Management Act. The deadline for King County cities was June 30. But Sammamish is not facing any sanctions, Jeff Thomas, the city’s community development director, said over the summer. “There are provisions that do outline potential penalties against municipalities that are late,” Thomas said. Cities that See PLAN, Page 3
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