Baughman for Sammamish City Council Position 1

Mark Baughman

Sammamish Comment endorses Mark Baughman for Sammamish City Council Position 1.

Baughman (pronounced Boff-man) is a newcomer to Sammamish public service. His profession in development may seem to be blasphemous to the Sammamish residents who cringe at the clear-cutting, road-congested environment that overwhelms citizens, but hear this out.

First, Baughman is not your average developer. He is a “LEEDs” certified professional, which means “green” building. The company he works for is a green builder.

His answers to our Primary questionnaire demonstrated the best grasp of issues important to Sammamish, growth, development, traffic, concurrency and related issues of any candidate.

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Recommendations for Council begin tomorrow

Sammamish Comment will begin making its recommendations tomorrow for the Sammamish City Council and King County Council District 3 elections Nov. 7.

There are four City Council seats up for election, Positions 1, 3, 5 and 7.

Here’s how The Comment proceeded to come to its recommendations:

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In rarity, Sammamish voters have eight good choices

Sammamish Comment begins publishing its endorsements for Sammamish City Council on Wednesday.

Position 1 is followed by 3, 5 and 7 through Saturday. How we arrived at our decisions will be explained tomorrow.

For the first time since Sammamish was incorporated in 1999, citizens have a full slate of candidates that no matter who wins, they will be well served.

In every election in the past where there has been competition (a few elections had unopposed incumbents), there were weak, unqualified, token or self-interested/self-dealing candidates on the ballot.

This isn’t the case this year. Each candidate brings a level of knowledge and expertise that is complimentary in some cases and similar in others.

This doesn’t mean The Comment likes them all equally. We don’t. We will explain why in our endorsements.

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Ballots coming, check out Candidate Questionnaires

Ballots for the Nov. 7 election arrive this week.

Sammamish citizens will be voting for four positions for City Council, one for the King County Council District 3 and a special election for the balance of the State Senator for the 45th Legislative District.

Sammamish Comment published candidate questionnaires for City Council during the primary and general election periods.

Below are links to the general election questionnaires, which have links to the primary questionnaires and to ones submitted to Sammamish Friends.

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Robinson: door-belling an ‘unproductive use of time’

John Robinson

John Robinson, one of the candidates for Sammamish City Council Position 7, doesn’t view door-belling in this election as a good use of time.

He is running against Pam Stuart, who says she has door-belled 3,500-4,000 homes. Robinson says he’s door-belled 1,000 homes.

Door-belling in a local, city council election, is one of the most common campaign techniques—retail politics as its most basic.

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