Tag Archives: Citizens for Sammamish

Four council members declare support for Initiative

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Four of Sammamish’s seven city council members said they will support giving the right of Initiative and Referendum to voters following approval in the Advisory Ballot last Tuesday. The council has to adopt an ordinance before citizens obtain the right.

Members Valderrama and Whitten previously declared support for the I&R. Don Gerend and Bob Keller told Sammamish Comment Friday they will support the I&R now. The measure passed with about 55.4% of the vote. Ballots are still being counted and the election won’t be certified until May 12. Ballots continue to trickle in and the outcome won’t change materially from the election night on April 28.

Council Member Tom Odell could not be reached over the weekend. Mayor Tom Vance and Deputy Mayor Kathy Huckabay did not respond to an email asking their position. Continue reading →

Klahanie annexation, Initiative win

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Update, April 30:

  • Initiative: Roughly another 400 votes counted; percentages largely unchanged.
  • Klahanie: Roughly another 150 votes counted; percentages largely unchanged.

This ends our coverage; even as more votes are counted, there is enough in the way of changes to the election night results to be material.

Update, April 29:

  • About 700 votes were counted in Sammamish with no appreciable change in the results.
  • About 240 votes were counted in Klahanie with no appreciable change in the results.

Original Post:

It’s been widely expected: the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area and the Advisory vote for whether Sammamish should have the right of Initiative and Referendum have both won in landslides.

  • Klahanie PAA residents voted to approve annexation to Sammamish with 86.83% of the vote.
  • Sammamish residents voted to approve the right of Initiative and Referendum with 55.25% of the vote.

Election night results reflect the early main-in ballot returns. Turnout for these special elections was low, typical of April elections in which no electoral races are on the ballot.

  • The Klahanie turnout was 2,480 out of about 6,220 voters, or a 40% turnout.
  • The Sammamish turnout was 5,747 votes out of 28,665 voters, or a 20.24% turnout.

By the time all ballots are counted over a two week period, turnout typically doubles from election night. Although turnout was low and there are ballots to be counted, the election night results were so heavily weighted toward Yes votes that I declare the two ballot issues as won. Final results rarely vary by more than a percent or two.

The I&R vote, while a 10 point spread, was not as broad a victory as had been expected: most, including at least one City Councilman, expected an 80% Yes vote. Continue reading →

Huckabay professed neutrality on Initiative while working against it, emails show; misrepresents City Attorney opinion, too

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Sammamish Deputy Mayor Kathy Huckabay wrote a planning commission on February 4 that she felt an obligation to remain neutral on the Initiative and Referendum once the City Council approved placing the April 28 ballot as an Advisory Vote. The Council approved doing so February 3.

Within days, Huckabay was surreptitiously  engaged in a campaign to defeat the measure and to deny the Citizens for Sammamish (CFS), the sponsoring organization, places to meet.

New emails released by the Sammamish City Clerk’s office reveal the extent of Huckabay’s activities, which I first revealed April 20 in an investigative report. Continue reading →

Favorables/Unfavorables of incumbents going into November Sammamish City Council election

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Council Time

Click in image to enlarge.

Three Sammamish City Council Members are up for election this November: Tom Vance, Ramiro Valderrama and Nancy Whitten. Whitten has been on the Council since 2003. Vance served on the Planning Commission and other council-appointed committees before being elected four years ago. Valderrama is completing his first term.

None has announced if he/she will seek reelection. Whitten has alternately indicated she may not seek reelection or she may switch seats and challenge Vance. It’s expected Vance will seek reelection, according to City Council Members I’ve talked to.

Only one candidate, Christie Malchow, a newcomer to the local political scene, has announced. She hasn’t announced which seat she will be running for.

So how do the favorables/unfavorables stack up for the three incumbents? The last time I polled the entire City Council ratings was in November 2012. I’ve run a new poll during April. Here are the results and the comparisons: Continue reading →

Initiative/Klahanie votes today: Unscientific poll shows ~80% support for Initiative

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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. Continue reading →