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.
Although votes are still being counted and the election results won’t be certified until Nov. 24, Christie 
Malchow and Tom Hornish have been elected to the Sammamish City Council; their Election Night margins were too great for Mark Cross and Tom Vance to overcome. Their vote tallies have only increased each day additional votes have been tabulated.
So the questions become, What’s next? What’s next for the balance of 2015 in what is now a lame duck period of the City Council, and What’s next in 2016?
Click on image to enlarge.
How did two veterans of Sammamish public service lose their bids for election to the City Council in the Nov. 3 election to two unknown newcomers to the City?
They also had an unwitting helping hand from their own Deputy Mayor, whose obsessions galvanized the opposition to upset her allies.
This is the inside story of how Mayor Tom Vance lost to two-year resident Tom Hornish and how former Mayor and Council Member Mark Cross lost a comeback bid to a feisty young Mom in tennis shoes, Christie Malchow, invoking remembrances of another tennis shoe Mom campaign in Washington long before Malchow moved here.
The median age in Sammamish is 38. The City has more young adults and children (18 and under) than any other city in the state. Our City Council’s average age is 66. Image: Sammamish Concert in the Park. Photo via Google images.
The Sammamish City Council is highly representative of senior citizens and grandparents.
It’s not at all representative of the demographics of the City: median age of 38 with children of high school age or less.
Three seats are up for election Nov. 3: Positions 2, 4 and 6, held by Nancy Whitten, 69, Ramiro Valderrama, 55, and Tom Vance, 63, respectively. Whitten is retiring after three terms. Valderrama and Vance are seeking reelection, each to a second term.
Sammamish gave City Council candidate Mark Cross one week to remove this sign at Inglewood Hill Road one block east of the roundabout despite being in the public right of way and blocking the line of sight for cars entering Inglewood. This photo is taken from the driver’s seat of a car aligned with the stop sign’s white road stripe. To see westbound traffic on Inglewood, it is necessary to pull well forward of the stop sign’s white stripe. Cross’s opponent was given 48 hours to move a similarly sized sign out of the right of way on Sahalee Way. No safety issue was involved. Click on image to enlarge.
Sammamish gave former City Council Member and former Mayor Mark Cross five days to correct a code violation for two large billboard style campaign signs erected in a public right of way (ROW), but opponent Christie Malchow and Council Member Ramiro Valderrama, running in a different race, were given 48 hours to correct similar violations, Sammamish Comment has learned.
Cross’ signs blocked the line of sight from the cross street looking east on Inglewood Hill Road, requiring the driver to pull well forward of the painted white line aligned with the stop sign in order to see westbound traffic on Inglewood Hill Road.
Signs erected in different locations by Malchow and Valderrama did not have line-of-sight issues. Malchow and Valderrama said they were given 48 hours to remove their large signs in a public ROW.
Chris Hankins, the City’s code enforcement officer who handled the three cases, said that when Cross’ signs came to his attention Monday, Cross was notified that the signs had to be moved “immediately, but no later than Friday,” five days after the violation was recorded. He said “there’s absolutely no preferential treatment” that was afforded Cross despite the disconnect between the deadlines given Malchow and Valderrama of 48 hours to comply with City code.
“I would disagree with that” characterization of a disconnect, he said. He could not explain why Valderrama and Malchow were given a 48 hour deadline. “That’s a good question. It’s decided on a case-by-case basis,” he told Sammamish Comment.
“Just to be clear, there is absolutely no preferential treatment,” he said again.
Sammamish Comment 