A precinct-by-precinct analysis of the Nov. 3 Sammamish City Council election demonstrates that 
Ramiro Valderrama faced only token opposition, and therefore Sammamish Comment hasn’t spent a lot of time analyzing his race against Hank Klein. Klein dropped out of the race too late to take his name off the ballot. He didn’t campaign or raise money.
Here’s what The Comment’s analysis found:
The final results of the Nov. 3 Sammamish City Council election confirm Christie Malchow, Ramiro Valderrama and Tom Hornish the winners over Mark Cross, Hank Klein and Tom Vance.
King County Elections posted the results shortly after 4pm today.
As Sammamish Comment reported on Election Night in calling the winners as noted above, the final results didn’t vary more than 1%-2% from Election Night. The three winners increased their vote tally margin daily until returned ballots trickled out.
Sixty-five percent of the votes cast in the Sammamish City Council races were cast for Christie Malchow,
Although Valderrama is an incumbent, he was isolated by the ruling majority of the Council and members worked hard to find a challenger to defeat his bid for reelection. His reelection is a blow to the ruling majority’s ambitions to maintain control and eliminate a challenger to the status quo.
The election of Malchow and Hornish, allies of Valderrama, cement voters’ message of change.
Illustration of Intelligent Transportation System. Image via Google images. Click to enlarge.
Sammamish’s new Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), intended to speed traffic along the main arterial, 228th Ave., through the City, has generated enough complaints that a refresh is likely, officials say.
The ITS is intended to synchronize traffic lights based on traffic demand through the entire corridor. The problem: left turn signals don’t “trip” as often as before, sometimes leading to three full traffic light cycles before left turns are permitted, according to some City Council Members at a recent Council meeting.
Complaints appearing on social media point to longer cross street red lights, even when there is little or no traffic on 228th.
On other occasions, cross streets have the green even when there has been no traffic.
City transportation officials are well aware of the problems.
Click on image to isolate from text, then click on image again to enlarge.
With one week to go to the certification of the Nov. 3 election, ballot counting is all but over in the Sammamish City Council races.
Only 10 votes were added to the count from Friday to Monday. Christie Malchow, Ramiro Valderrama and Tom Hornish added two, three and four votes respectively to their total gap over their opponents, Mark Cross, Hank Klein and Tom Vance. Vance and Cross have yet to concede to Hornish and Malchow.
Only two more ballots were received from Sammamish Monday, the first since last Thursday. There are about 200 ballots still to be counted, but not all voters have been voting in the City Council races.
Sammamish Comment 