Black Diamond’s old mayor and the previous city councils that approved YarrowBay’s plans were victims of group think. It made them blind.

Reasonable growth is fine but 6,000 units in Black Diamond are just too much. The traffic impact alone has both Black Diamond residents and the Maple Valley City Council fighting to scale things down.

We need to get rid of the mayor and her group of council members who think like she does about YarrowBay. We need to vote out Mayor Olness and vote in the three reform city council candidates.

Remember the old pro-YarrowBay council signed us up for a horrible plan. Every one of our citizen appeals of the permits along the way have created more protections and benefit for the region. They resulted in conditions like additional traffic analysis and most recently required the developer pay for and replace the Rock Creek bridge. This bridge alone is a value of $500,000 that the old mayor and her group-think council candidates would have just let YarrowBay get away without paying.

With a new mayor and the right council we won’t have to rely on citizen appeals to protect us. We can have an administration that requires more of the developer whenever the city has discretion. We can’t afford to have a government by YarrowBay.

I’m voting for Dave Gordon, Carol Benson, Erika Morgan, and Janie Edelman.

Gary Davis

Black Diamond