Sammamish Comment recommends John Murphy for election to King County Council District 3, which includes Sammamish, Issaquah and adjacent unincorporated areas.

Lambert has been the District 3 Council Member for 16 years. Before that, she was a state legislator.

As a matter of preference, The Comment would rather see new blood come in after four terms. This has been true on the Sammamish City Council level and for other elective positions.

John Murphy

We prefer fresh eyes, fresh perspectives and new blood after long tenures by incumbents. Challenger John Murphy has a good record of public service, including as a first responder (as fire fighter). He provided thoughtful answers to our Questionnaire. Lambert, secure in her position as an incumbent and likely feeling a safe reelection, didn’t respond to our Questionnaire.

Lambert ably has looked out for Sammamish interests far better than her predecessors who represented the City on the County Council. On a Sammamish-specific issue, King County Parks’ behavior toward East Lake Sammamish Trail residents, Lambert has been helpful to them while threading the needle to a County department.

We don’t have any special quibble with Lambert. But as a career politician, it’s time for a change.

The Seattle Times endorsed Lambert, in part writing, that Murphy’s “experience doesn’t match that of Lambert.” We find this to be weak. By this reasoning, few if any challengers of incumbents would be preferred by The Times.

We are disappointed in each candidate, whose campaign websites said virtually nothing about protecting the environment–always a critical issue for their constituents, in a three bears kind-of-way: is there too much protection, not enough or just about right.

On his website, Murphy is for clean water–who isn’t?

On her website, Lambert is against inspection fees for septic systems in unincorporated King County and she’s for waste-to-energy.

And that’s it. Neither candidate impresses on the subject of the environment.

The Comment supports Murphy to bring a fresh perspective to the County Council.