Thirteen candidates filed for four positions on the Sammamish City Council, the most since 1999 when 40 people filed for seven positions for the first Council.
This means there will be primary races in the August election for each seat up this year. The top two of each race will advance to the November general election.
Analysis
With Saturday’s declaration by Sammamish City Council Member Tom Odell that he will not seek reelection in November, this assures a major power shift is coming.
Three other incumbents previously said they aren’t running again. They are Mayor Don Gerend, Deputy Mayor Bob Keller and Member Kathy Huckabay.
Figure 1.
Five candidates already announced candidacies to run this fall (Figure 1). At the moment, one—John Robinson—hasn’t identified which seat he will seat, but with Odell dropping out, no candidate is identified with Odell’s Position 7. Robinson is likely to go for this open seat.
Sammamish has hired its first emergency preparedness director.
Andrew Stevens, the emergency manager of Downey (CA), starts work April 17. He holds
Andrew Stevens, Sammamish’s first full-time emergency management director.
the same position in Downey (CA).
“I’m very pleased that we were able to attract and hire Andrew Stevens to the position of Emergency Manager,” Sammamish City Manager Lyman Howard wrote in an email to The Sammamish Comment..
The folks on the interview panel were impressed and delighted as well. I’ve also heard positive comments from the regional Emergency Management community, that we made a good choice. Andrew starts April 17th.”
The appointment comes nearly two years after The Comment revealed Sammamish was going skip a multi-state, multi-jurisdictional, Canadian-US earthquake disaster drill called Cascadia Rising. Sammamish scrambled to join after the revelation.
Tom Vance
Tom Vance, who was defeated in November 2015 in his reelection bid for the Sammamish City Council, is gearing up to run against King County Council Member Kathy Lambert, say people familiar with the situation.
Vance has been soliciting endorsements for a run, people tell Sammamish Comment.
He also dropped an expansive Public Records Request on Lambert’s office for 16 years of data for travel records and meeting attendance.
Vance served on the Sammamish City Council from 2012 through 2015. He was mayor in 2014-15. He lost 54%-46% to Tom Hornish. Vance ran for Council in 2009, losing to John Curley 55%-45%. In his successful 2011 campaign, he defeated a weak and unqualified candidate 68% to 32%, only to drop by 22 points in his losing race against Hornish.
Special Report: (10 pages when printed.)
Hillary Clinton’s email was a story that wouldn’t die in the presidential campaign, dogging her right through the Nov. 8 election.
The City of Sammamish has its own problems over emails. Council members routinely used private emails for city business and when it comes to complying with the Washington State law for Public Records Requests (PRR), some members aren’t always forthcoming with documents.
One City Council Member was explicit that a controversial topic should be discussed using private emails to avoid public disclosures through City emails.
The City Attorney’s position on compliance in responding to Public Records Requests appears inconsistent.
The issue is about transparency in government and complying with the law.
Requirements to hand over emails from personal accounts is well established in Washington State. A Bainbridge Island case is illustrative. See here and here.
Sammamish Comment 