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.
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.
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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 issued this statement on its website last week:
The Sahalee Way Open House report previously scheduled for the Nov. 17 City Council meeting has been postponed. That report, which will summarize resident comments received at the Nov. 4 Sahalee Way Open House and other public input opportunities, will be scheduled for later this year or early next year. The delay will provide more time for staff to properly tabulate the high volume of comment received and also give incoming City Council members a greater opportunity to take part in the decision process. The city will provide advance notice when the new report date is set.
This is the right decision. As Sammamish Comment previously reported, the City was rushing to approve the contract this year on a schedule that allowed virtually no public input before the decisions were made.
At the Nov. 4 Open House, at the Boys and Girls Club, the turnout was far more than expected. Getting to the tables with the preliminary plans was difficult. Although a few residents complained about the lack of a formal presentation, it’s clear from the turnout and the City comments above that the Open House was useful and productive.
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Vote counting for the Sammamish City Council is all but over. There are very few new ballots from Sammamish coming into Elections now. Only three more ballots were accounted for from Sammamish from Sunday night to Monday night, according to County data. There were some 200 ballots that hadn’t been counted during the same period, however. On Monday, a total of 339 new votes were counted, meaning an additional 100+ came in on Monday for counting.
As has been the case since the election, Christie Malchow, Ramiro Valderrama and Tom Hornish padded their vote totals over their opponents.
Sammamish Comment 