The Sammamish-led votes for the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area (PAA) and the Initiative/Referendum finish up today. Ballots must be postmarked today or dropped off at the Sammamish City Hall.

Initiative/Referendum

I’ve been running an unscientific poll whether the Sammamish City Council should give citizens the right to Initiative and Referendum. The vote today is an Advisory Vote, not a binding one. The result of the unscientific poll: support for the Initiative/Referendum has been running around 80%, give or take a point or two at any given time.

Previous polls I’ve done, while also unscientific, have correctly predicted trends in final votes. The first results will be posted by King County tonight about 8:15pm.

Controversial to begin with, the topic became even more so when Council Members refused to say they will abide by the outcome of today’s election.

Controversy heightened when it was revealed by Sammamish Comment that the City engaged in a stealth campaign to silence critics, the Citizens for Sammamish, supporters of the Initiative, discussion at community groups and to deny CFS a place to meet.

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Klahanie PAA

The vote by citizens in the Klahanie PAA has been far less controversial. Having twice rejected annexing to Issaquah, most recently in February 2014, expectations are high that voters will welcome tying up with Sammamish with open arms. They are tired of King County’s neglect and Sammamish doesn’t have new debt to layer on Klahanie, as did Issaquah.

Furthermore, Sammamish has pledged improvements for Klahanie, instead of milking Klahanie for everything it can get, as Issaquah clearly planned to do.

As with the Initiative results, King County Elections will post first results about 8:15pm tonight.