1. Name as it will appear on the ballot
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First Name |
Middle Initial or Nick Name |
Last Name |
2. Office sought (include office, jurisdiction, position/district number):
3. Are you the incumbent? Yes No
4. How long have you resided in this district/city?
5. How long have you resided in King County?
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25 years |
6. Is the office sought partisan or nonpartisan? Partisan Nonpartisan
CAMPAIGN CONTACTS
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Campaign Name: |
Mark Cross for Council |
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1. Beginning with the most recent position, please list public offices which you have held. Include positions on appointive Boards or Commissions.
Public Office |
Elective or Appointive? |
Dates Held |
Leadership Role (if any) |
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I am currently serving as Mayor for 2007 as elected by city council
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2. If you ran for public office but were not elected, please list those races below:
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In this section, we are seeking responses that reflect the four ratings criteria: involvement, effectiveness, character, and knowledge. These are defined as follows:
1. In a page or less, why are you running for this office? (Note: the interview committee will be given a copy of this statement before your interview; at the beginning of your interview you will have the opportunity to expand on this statement in any way you wish.)
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I ran for office four years ago because I wanted to open the East Lake Sammamish Trail for public use. I knew this trail would be a great public recreational and transportation facility for the residents of the City of Sammamish and all of King County. The trail has since opened and been a very positive and successful park and trail. It gave me an opportunity to work with leadership from King County and the Cascade Land Conservancy. I helped extend this cooperation to the purchase this year of the 17 acre Kipper property to provide a link from Beaver Lake Preserve Park to King County’s Section 36.
I found that my background in Urban Planning provided me the skills to contribute to the city council in a unique way during the formative years of this young city. Issues of traffic concurrency and park acquisition and public process have been areas where I made contributions to the city council and to its direction.
I am running for re-election for a number of reasons. There are still many issues that I want to contribute to as a council member. We are working on the development of a Town Center plan. The success of this plan will depend on our ability to work with citizens, coordinate with public and non-profit agencies and to address issues of transit-friendly design and the development of a connected, walkable core to our city. My professional experience as a planner at the city and county level is significant in helping the city council work through the many details in approving a plan that will be successful in its design while protecting our natural environment.
There are at least three parks that are going to be developed over the next council term that will require cooperation with other jurisdictions including King County and the cities of Redmond and Issaquah. The Lake Front Park on Lake Sammamish, the Evans Creek Preserve and potential improvements to Section 36, owned by King County. I want to use the credibility and good will that I have developed with these jurisdictions to develop joint design and operational plans that will benefit all our constituents.
Challenges remain in allocating road and park funds for needed projects. I want to be involved in working with the State Department of Natural Resources and King County in the acquisition of additional parks and open space. I worked very hard to forge agreements and cooperation from the two school districts that serve our plateau. As a result we have been able to develop two full size turf fields with lights at each high school, Eastlake and Skyline. We are working currently with the new Eastside Catholic high school to develop a joint private/public sports field to help meet our need for additional sports fields at a lower cost. I want to help follow through on these projects as a council member over the next four years. |
2. Describe your most important personal characteristics or traits as they relate to the office you seek.
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I want to mention two characteristics that have helped me succeed as a city council member and now as mayor. First is a desire to open public process. Most of our difficult decisions include balancing interests. Without open review and comment by the public, citizens loose confidence in the city to carry out important public projects. The development of a much needed park, Ebright Creek Park, was delayed by such a process. I helped define a new process for review and cooperation with neighbors that has allowed this park to proceed to construction. The park was opened in May and provides needed facilities for a wide range of citizens.
My professional career as an urban planner has included planning work at both the city and county level. I currently work as a planner in the Long Range Planning Division at Snohomish County in Everett. My background and experience in planning and the view to the future that I bring to the council helps frame the debate and decisions around the kind of city we want to be in 20 or 50 years. It is important to have this perspective and to be an advocate for the future generations of residents as we balance current projects with the importance of securing park and public land for future needs. In many cases before those opportunities to buy land are gone forever.
I would also list my experience working across jurisdictions both as a planner and as a council member. By finding the value and positive aspects of cooperative development of parks and other public facilities, we have been able as a council to build sports fields on school property and to provide a new home for our King County Library on the city hall campus. |
3. Please describe in sufficient detail, one to three accomplishments or contributions of which you are most proud. These examples should illustrate effective skills and capabilities you think apply to the office you are seeking. These accomplishments may have occurred at any time in your personal, professional, or public life.
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Three significant accomplishments during my professional and elected career include receiving a Certificate of Appreciation from the Issaquah City Council for my work as a senior planner in the review and processing of two Master Planned Developments. This work in the early 1990s included numerous night meetings with the City Development Commission, Planning Commission and finally with the City Council. I consider this effort to be the most important and complex project review that I have accomplished.
As a council member I am most proud of my work to open the East Lake Sammamish Trail. This trail is open and provides an important recreational and transportation link for Sammamish and all of the county. This has lead to joint efforts with King County to plan a Lake Sammamish waterfront park along our northern shore.
I focused council attention on the opportunity to cooperate with the school districts in the development of new sports fields at each of the public high schools on the plateau. This cooperative effort has opened the door to other projects that include joint development of facilities. The success we have had also builds trust with prospective partners that we can be a good partner in the development of facilities that benefit the public. |
4. Please list or describe your current and past activities in the community in which you have acquired skills that relate to the office you seek. Include your role in the activity and the year(s) in which you were involved. Involvement consists of many areas such as family, neighborhood, community, employment, or public life.
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From my years of work as an urban planner at the city and county level, I have learned how to work with citizens on difficult issues and how to work across disciplines with engineers and other professionals. My experience as a city council member has widened my experience working across jurisdictional boundaries to develop complex public projects.
I have hundreds of hours of experience in public meetings both as a planner for the City of Issaquah and Snohomish County and as a council member and mayor. This experience has helped prepare me to facilitate key public meetings and hearings. Good public projects and good public policy have to be built upon open public process. My experience has helped me apply the principles of public involvement to a range of public projects and policy initiatives.
As a citizen activist working to open the East Lake Sammamish Trail and as an advocate for incorporation, I learned what it is to be a citizen participating in the process of public projects and policy. It has served me during my time as a city council member to provide access to the public process for others with development and policy issues coming before the city council.
Serving as a council member and currently as Mayor has given me front line experience with the development of the annual city budget. This experience combined with my planning experience has helped me provide leadership on park acquisition and development along with key traffic concurrency and land use issues.
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The most important, single duty a council member has is to provide for the public safety, both fire and police. There is a fiduciary responsibility of council members to spend public funds in an open and responsible way. This duty is done in the form of an annual budget and cooperation with our service providers, King County Sheriff’s Office and Eastside Fire and Rescue. Beyond that responsibility is the responsibility to provide for construction and maintenance of a wide range of road and park projects, permitting of development and the securing of state and federal funds for public purpose.
I also see a responsibility to balance short-term interests of citizens with the long-term interests of the community and generations to come. Providing leadership by considering and providing for those longer term interests I see as a very important aspect of being a city council member of Sammamish, especially during these early years of incorporation.
I would list as significant the responsibility that council members have to open government and public process. Without both of these, public trust in government is diminished and the ability of citizens and councils in the future to act in the public good is reduced.
In recent years, there is a responsibility to work across public and private boundaries to provide the range of public services and facilities in the most cost effective way. |
EDUCATION BACKGROUND SUMMARY
The Municipal League’s Candidate Evaluation Report is distributed to voters in print and/or on our website. It includes a summary of the candidate’s education. Please summarize your education in 120 characters (letters, punctuation, and space all combined). The League will delete material that exceeds the space limit by beginning with the last entry. Suggested order is (degree) (subject) (school) (year, if desired).
Note: If this question is left blank the League will not include education information in your candidate profile.
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BA in Urban Planning, 1972, University of Washington Member American Institute of Certified Planners, AICP, 1994 |
FOR PUBLICATION IN CANDIDATE EVALUATION REPORT
The Municipal League’s Candidate Evaluation Report also includes a summary of each candidate’s civic involvement. Please summarize your civic involvement in the space below. We will make every attempt to include the information in the Candidate Evaluation Report as submitted. Due to space restrictions in the Report, your response is limited to 500 characters (letters, punctuation, and spaces all combined). It is important that you list your involvement beginning with the most important and ending with the least important. If you exceed the length of response permitted, or if the League should find it necessary to shorten responses for publication purposes, deletions will be made beginning with the last item listed.
Note: This information will appear verbatim on the League’s Candidate Evaluation Report. If this question is left blank, the Municipal League will not include information on your civic involvement in the Report.
Check here if you would like the Municipal League to copy the first 500 characters from Question 4 to paste into this section.
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Member of the Sammamish City Council since 2003. Elected by the council as Mayor for 2007. Worked on effort to incorporate Sammamish as a city starting in 1994. Alternate member of the King County Growth Management Planning Council. Member of AICP since 1994. |
Finished!
If at all possible, send your response to the Municipal League electronically as an attachment, or insert it into an e-mail message (cec@munileague.org). Mail and fax numbers are listed below. If the League has not contacted you to schedule an interview, please call the League office at your earliest convenience.
Don’t forget to send the following to the Municipal League: a resume, a photo, campaign literature, and, if you are an incumbent, constituent newsletters and other materials. Please use the check-off list on the cover sheet of this packet to indicate which items you have sent.
Candidate Evaluation Coordinator: Jason Thibedeau
Seattle, WA 98104-1614 Fax: (425) 671-0506 Website: www.munileague.org