Residents pack council hospital hearing
March 26, 2008
By Ed Farrell
More than 30 speakers, out of a crowd estimated at about 200 who packed the commons room of Snoqualmie Middle School Thursday, addressed the Growth Management and Natural Resources Committee of the King County Council.
Most took the opportunity to speak either for or against a proposed extension of the Snoqualmie Urban Growth Area, specifically a 73-acre parcel along Interstate 90 proposed as the new home of Snoqualmie Valley Hospital and an extension campus of Bellevue Community College.
Because it was the first of a number of meetings scheduled regarding the county’s overhaul of the Comprehensive Plan – which must be done every four years – speakers from throughout King County addressed the board on a number of proposed changes. Given the location, most of the comments were directed at County Executive Ron Sims’ recommendation to expand Snoqualmie’s Urban Growth Area to include the 85 acres located at state Route 18 and I-90, but to zone the property for rural-area residential, with a maximum of one dwelling unit per 5 acres.
Unless the County Council votes against Sims’ recommendation, the hospital’s expansion plans – in what were determined the best location – are dead as it stands right now.
The hospital plans to build a new 25-bed facility on 73 acres, with the balance going to the community college, a hotel and two residential care facilities.
The project has also been identified as a pilot project and has been subjected to a requirement to purchase additional acreage at a ratio of 4-1, meaning the developers would have to acquire an additional 240 acres to be placed into the county’s Transferable Development Rights program. That requirement, however, further limited the hospital to develop only 20 percent of the 73-acre site.
Hospital Superintendent Rodger McCollum said the current facility, constructed in 1983, is in the process of being sold to the Snoqualmie Tribe for $30 million. The tribe plans to use the hospital for a new tribal health care complex.
“The agreement should be finalized some time this week,” he said during a telephone interview Monday.
The tribe’s vision, McCollum said, “is remarkable and we’re trying to support it.”
The hospital is located on a 50-acre site on Southeast North Bend Way, within a mile of, but not contiguous to, the tribe’s 57-acre reservation, and home of the Snoqualmie Casino.
Tribal Administrator Matthew Mattson was unavailable to discuss specifics of the deal. But in published accounts, Mattson has described the facility as a combination of Western medicine with traditional Native American customs, such as native healing practices and nutritional education that incorporates Native American foods.”
A sweat lodge is also being considered for the site.
Casino revenues will pay for the entire $23.9 million cost of the purchase and redevelopment, according to published accounts.
McCollum said a lease-back provision is included in the sale with the tribe, which means the hospital will continue operations for years to come at its present location.
“We have years in the agreement to actually operate the hospital,” he said, adding there will be no impacts on hospital employees.
“In fact, when we build the new hospital, we’ll be hiring more employees,” McCollum said.
In August 2007, residents of King County Hospital District 4 rejected a ballot measure, with an overwhelming 69 percent majority against, to authorize an increase in the property tax levy from 43 cents per $1,000 assessed valuation to 75 cents.
Several residents who spoke Thursday cited that defeat as proof of how the district’s 21,000 registered voters stood.
The levy increase was expected to produce, along with the $30 million from the Snoqualmie Tribe, to cover the estimated $35 million purchase price for the 73-acre parcel.
McCollum said the district, which roughly mirrors that of the Snoqualmie Valley School District, covers 428 square miles of eastern King County.
With the sale of its old facility imminent, and the fate of the proposed site not subject to a vote until November, McCollum said, “Plan B would be to locate a property inside the UGA of an existing city.”
The state Route 18/I-90 site, he said, “is not the only available property, but it is the only one that makes sense for us.”
Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson urged the Council to reject Sims’ recommendation and the 4-to-1 TDR requirement.
“This hospital is a public need,” Larson said.
Teaming up with BCC, he said, would create “a profound synergy” on the dual campuses, particularly in light of what Larson termed “a deficit of nurses.” The senior assisted living program would also be Snoqualmie’s first, Larson said.
“This would offer cradle-to-grave services,” he said.
Larson added that given the Snoqualmie Tribe’s announced intention of enlarging its reservation, city officials have become nervous.
If the state Route 18/I-90 deal “should unravel, these parcels would become available,” he said, “and the tribe has a strong interest in this site.”
Others, such as Snoqualmie resident Michael Peterson, urged the council to reject the proposal.
The hospital, Peterson said, “is a barely viable entity,” which has actually closed on two occasions in its 25-year history.
“This is the wrong place for this concept,” Peterson said, adding that “the city of Snoqualmie cannot be trusted.”
Several speakers noted that it was unprecedented to ask so much from a publicly supported institution such as a hospital.
Cynthia Johnson, of Fall City, called the county’s position not a pilot program, but what “appears to be a prevention program.”
Previous plans, Johnson said, had always exempted tax-payer funded agencies from TDR requirements.
The proximity of the site to a proposed new 150-bed Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah – a process that the Snoqualmie Hospital district opposes – was yet another reason to reject the proposal, according to Gene Pollard, of Snoqualmie.
“I very much support the TDR policy,” Pollard said. “Sixty-nine percent of the people said ‘no,’ and that was before this scheme of hotels and restaurants were presented.”
With Swedish “building a new hospital 7 miles away,” Pollard said, “there is no compelling public interest” in moving forward with the Snoqualmie Valley Hospital proposal.
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