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Christie Malchow, Ramiro Valderrama and Tom Hornish continued to increase their lead over Mark Cross, Hank Klein and Tom Vance in the Sammamish City Council race from Tuesday’s election.
New data released at the end of Thursday’s business day shows a modest increase in the vote totals of the first three over the second three. The percent margins changed fractionally.
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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.
Christie Malchow, Position 2 winner
Our first analysis of last night’s election results for Sammamish City Council is that Christie Malchow and Tom Hornish are the winners over Mark Cross and incumbent Tom Vance.
Tom Hornish, Position 6 winner
Ramiro Valderrama faced token opposition from Hank Klein, who dropped out.
Given the wide margins for Malchow and Hornish, reported by King County Elections, their win is clear and unambiguous. (Neither The Sammamish Review nor The Sammamish Reporter wrote this; each merely said Malchow and Hornish were leading.)
Based on voting history since incorporation in 1998, the final voting figures approximately double from Election Night results. Based on this, Sammamish Comment estimates total votes cast in the City Council races should be in the low 10,000 range.
Based on this estimate for the Malchow and Hornish races, Sammamish Comment estimates that Malchow’s opponent, Cross, would have to win just under 69% of the remaining votes to be counted in order to reverse the Election Night results. Hornish’s opponent, Vance, would have to win just over 60% of the remaining vote to defeat Hornish.
Tuesday is Election Day, but ballots have been out for more than two weeks. As we count down to Tuesday’s voting for City Council, a few closing thoughts are in order.
Stepping up to the front lines
By Scott Hamilton. Photo via Google images.
First, I want to say right up front that as much as I have come to disagree with the direction of the current City Council, I respect and applaud each member’s willingness to step up, serve and be in a position to take the criticism that comes with a public position. Having served eight years on the Planning Advisory Board and the Planning Commission, I was subjected to more than my share of abuse from the public. But let me tell you: each person serving on any city commission and on the City Council deserves the recognition that too few people step up to do the job, and those that do deserve at least a modicum of respect and thanks for doing so.
New Voices, New Perspectives Needed
Having said that, our City Council needs new voices and new perspectives.
I’ve chronicled all year issue after issue on which this City Council and its leadership has failed its citizens. Public records obtained through the Public Records Requests, documents on the City website and through interviews paint a picture of a City Council that has lost touch with its citizens and which has become more interested in maintaining its own power structure and agenda.
Even though the self-branded environmentalists indignantly protest criticism over a belief they have strayed from their brand, the evidence is compelling. The variances routinely granted by staff on traffic and environmental issues in approving development are well documented. Where have these self-branded environmentalists been in providing the oversight of the City Manager, and through him, the staff, for which they are responsible? One letter writer to The Sammamish Review supporting Mayor Tom Vance for reelection said the next council needs to focus on the environment. That’s what this Council and this mayor were supposed to do. The letter writer wrote, “Soon the current city manager will be leaving and I’m hoping that a new era will start – one that focuses on the environment and the original intention of incorporation.” Where was Vance’s leadership, as Mayor for two years and a Council Member for four years, in upholding the “original intention of incorporation”? There has been a huge failure of leadership–Vance’s leadership–and of the self-branded environmentalists on the current City Council. Why reelect the failed leadership in hopes of a “new era?”
When you have a staff that routinely ignores City codes in traffic and environment, and follows unwritten policies, something is very wrong.
When you have a Council that still does not get that the movement behind the Initiative and Referendum was the manifestation of citizens feeling unheard—not because of any burning issue to put up to an Initiative–something is very wrong.
When 55.5% of the people who voted approved the I&R and you still have members of the Council who attempt to diminish the result, something is very wrong.
When you have City Council Members who try to throw a planning commissioner off the commission because she supported the Initiative and Referendum, something is very wrong.
When you have the mayor of the City (not Vance in this case) calling the school superintendent to discipline a school principal because she supported retention of the Eastside Fire and Rescue in contrast to the mayor’s position, something is very wrong.
When you have scores and scores of property owners pleading with the City because King County is trashing the environment and over-reaching on property concerns to build a freeway-like lake trail, only to be ignored until it is too late, something is very wrong.
When the Ruling Majority blithely dismisses the minority members because they can, something is very wrong.
When you have members of the Ruling Majority undertake frontal and covert assaults on one Council member through front-people filing massive email Public Records Requests in an attempt to dig up dirt that doesn’t exist, something is very wrong.
When you have a City Administration and City Council give lip service to disaster preparedness, something is very wrong.
The examples go on and on.
With six days to do to the November 3 election, in which three positions for the Sammamish City Council are on the ballot, City ballot returns through Oct. 26 are a dismal 7.8% of registered
This is fractionally behind neighboring cities, Issaquah, Redmond and Kirkland, which are hovering around 8% ballot returns. Bellevue is slightly higher at 8.4%. All of King County, including Seattle where there are City Council races, is hovering around 8% ballot returns so far.
Off-year elections typically have dramatically lower voter turnout than presidential years or mid-term years in which the top of the ballot has a US Senator race. In Washington, the governor is elected in the same year as the president and mid-term elections have a US Senate seat at the top of the ballot.
City Council races are in the odd years, and don’t draw much in the way of turnout. Top top-of-the-ballot office races in King County are for Assessor and Director of Elections, two yawners that won’t help draw voters.
The top ballot initiative this year is I-1136, another Tim Eyman tax initiative that most people believe will be ruled invalid in a court challenge should it pass. A number of arcane advisory votes are on the ballot.
Eighty five percent of Sammamish voters typically turn out in a presidential election. This historically drops to 50% or less in an odd-year election. But since the City Council races are “down ballot,” by the time voters get down to these races, the actual voter participation is even lower.
Sammamish Comment has charted the statistics in three recent odd-year elections:
Sammamish Comment 