John Galvin, who has spent years complaining about and alleging that Sammamish flouted its own procedures and the law in the Town Center process, flouted the law when it came to his own candidacy for the Sammamish City Council.
Galvin declared his candidacy May 12, in opposition to incumbent Nancy Whitten. Under state law–and clearly defined for new candidates on the Public Disclosure Commission website–Galvin had 14 days to file is paperwork with the PDC. The paperwork is called a C-1, which lists his candidacy and his campaign treasurer, and an F-1, which is a financial disclosure statement.
The C-1 and the F-1 were required to be filed by May 26. He did not file and the PDC was alerted to this failure the next day. The PDC then contacted Galvin, and he finally filed his paperwork dated May 31 and received June 1. Here it is: Galvin PDC Candidate Filings.
Galvin has a history thinking that the rules don’t apply to him. Throughout the last decade, Galvin has routinely shouted out from the back of the city council chambers, disrupting the meeting. The City Council, Planning Commission and Park Commission all have time limits for public comments so no one member of the public monopolizes the time. The public comment period, three minutes for individuals and five minutes for a representative of a group, is timed and a bell goes off when the time is up. The Mayor and chairmen routinely let the speaker go perhaps 30 seconds over to complete his or her thought but Galvin routinely abuses the process. He not only ignores the time limit and the bell, he often also ignores the admonition to wrap up. He routinely goes two-three minutes over the time and in one case talked for 12 1/2 minutes. (Mayor Gerend deserves blame for indulging this frequent, routine, blatant and egregious violation of the rules.)
Galvin has proved over and over that rules and courtesy don’t apply to him. Now he’s demonstrated the state law doesn’t apply to him, either. This is not a person citizens want or need on our city council.
Sammamish Comment 
Right on. Your last sentence was perfect. I couldn’t have said it better myself. He won’t get my vote – EVER! Thanks for the honest and accurate reporting.
You may not like John because he is outspoken and is a thorn in the side of the city, but I find his research to be very informative. He does his homework and asks questions that makes the city uncomfortable. Yes, he comes across as abrassive at times, but at least he expresses his frustration with the lack of progress. It’s easy to dismiss people you don’t agree with, but at least he does not give politically correct statements and platitudes about how wonderful everything is. So what if tells you something you don’t like to hear. After 10 years of meetings, I suppose everyone thinks the plan for a city center is on track?
So he goes over his time limit – so what? That’s a big deal to you? What about the lack of progress, that’s not? Heaven forbid someone doesn’t agree with you, then you can make a big deal out of not filing paperwork on time and insult them with your passive aggresive smear. Keep voting for people who blow smoke up your butt and see where it gets you. What about the issues? I thought everyone was for diversity – doesn’t that include diversity of opinion?
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This has nothing to do whether I like or dislike Galvin (which I don’t) or whether I agree or disagree with him on the issues–in fact there are some issues with which we do agree, which I have noted but which he has not. On those occasions where Galvin did stick to the issues, a reasonable discussion could follow. Unfortunately, there are way too many times in which he verbally abuses those he disagrees with.
This is not a personality you want overseeing the staff that is hired or the commissions that are appointed.
This is about a personality and his fitfulness for public office. Police have been placed on standby at public meetings because of his manner. He verbally accosted the wives of two planning commissioners because he disagreed with their husbands on the commissions, and following the second incident, the police were at the next meeting. There are two years of emails in which he has verbally abused the staff, council members and commissions.
Then there is his high-and-might lecturing about proper procedure and disclosure. The first thing he did as a candidate was flout the law on filing the required papers. Then, after as recently as this year, criticizing campaign contributions disclosed in PDC filings, he files under “mini reporting” so nobody can see who contributes to his campaign. This hypocrisy is endemic to Galvin who now, as a public figure, has a higher standard and should disclose his campaign contributions.
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