Sammamish considered safest city in Washington while neighboring Redmond has six times the crime

(The Center Square) – Sammamish is ranked as the safest city in Washington state for the second year in a row, while neighboring Redmond has over 400 crime reports so far this year.

The City of Redmond has seen 464 crime reports from Jan. 1 through Feb. 12 this year, according to its crime dashboard. Out of the 464 reports, there were 292 cases of property crime, 11 cases of violent crime and 161 “other” crimes.

Just south of the home of Microsoft, the City of Sammamish has witnessed 77 crime reports through Feb. 12, according to King County Sheriff’s Office statistics. Four of the reports were labeled as violent crimes.

Moneygeek’s 2022 analysis of safe cities in the country ranked Sammamish as the 13th safest city in the U.S. and the safest in Washington state.

Sammamish and Redmond are similar in size. The city of Sammamish’s population is nearly 10,000 less than Redmond, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau’s.

Both cities’ median personal income are higher than the King County average of $59,800 in 2021 dollars. Redmond’s last reported median household income was approximately $72,900 and Sammamish’s was $79,000.

The two cities differ in policing. Sammamish’s law enforcement services are contracted through the King County Sheriff’s Office, whereas Redmond has its own police department. Redmond officials previously reported that its police staffing remained flat while the city has grown by 20,000 residents in the last 10 years.

Last November, Redmond voters rejected a public safety tax levy that would have generated $10.4 million a year for the police and fire departments. The levy would increase the city’s property tax by $0.366 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. For a $750,000 home in Redmond, the levy cost would be nearly $23 a month, or $275 a year.

The $10.4 million generated revenue from the tax would have been distributed towards adding mental health responders to respond with police officers, the hiring of firefighters for two of the city’s fire stations and body-worn cameras for the police department.

Sammamish was the only Washington state city to be ranked in the top 100 safest cities in the country in the Moneygeek report. A similar analysis by Safewise has ranked Sammamish as the safest city in the state for the past two years.

Redmond was not ranked in the Safewise and Moneygeek analyses.