For me to adequately represent the Issaquah community in the State Senate I need to focus on two issues. The first is to make sure that I am reflecting the will of the majority of people I represent when I vote on statewide laws. The second is to make sure the tax dollars the working families in Issaquah send to Olympia come back to benefit our local community. Today I would like to talk about this second element of my job.
During my first Senate session in 2013 I was able to pick up on a project that had started while I was on the Issaquah City Council, which was to find a way to work with Costco to make sure that Issaquah was their global headquarters for the future. To put in the new road system around Costco’s headquarters was an expensive project, and Costco paid for the vast majority of these efforts.
Where the state was able to play a role was to provide $5m to help mitigate the environmental impacts of the new elevated roadway and roundabout we put in by the freeway undercrossing next to the Post Office. These funds were a drop in the bucket of a larger $45m road improvement project, but they sent an important message to Costco.
What the public dollars from the State and the City of Issaquah said to Costco is that we value having Costco in our local community. We were taking the exact opposite approach we have seen from the Seattle City Council to some of their larger employers.
I was able to successfully make the argument in Olympia that this was also a benefit to the State of Washington because we should never take for granted that every business that started in our backyard will stay in our backyard. We are always on a quest to attract new businesses to invest in our State, but our first priority should always be making sure that the businesses we already have know how much we appreciate them.
Going forward, a top priority for me will be to leverage State dollars to find ways to keep I-90 from dividing Issaquah. The undercrossing by the Post Office was a great start, but we need another undercrossing between the Post Office and SR 900, and I believe the State should help provide financial support to make that happen.
-Sen. Mark Mullet