Many results expected in primary races affecting Sammamish
August 17, 2010
New: Aug. 17, 10:03 p.m.
Results in the Aug. 17 primary fell in with what was expected by political watchers. While the results from mail-in ballots will continue to trickle in for weeks until the Sept, 1 certification, most races have clear winners who will move on to the general election Nov. 2. Read more
Kevin Haistings makes a run in the 45th District
August 16, 2010
New: August 16, 1:56 p.m.
Partisan gridlock and difficult budget battles don’t scare Kevin Haistings.
He’s found himself in the middle of a lot worse conflicts, having cut his teeth as a young officer for the Seattle Police Department in Rainier Valley during the height of gang violence there.
“I’m still alive today,” the prospective state house representative said. “I can’t tell you the number of fights I’ve jumped in the middle of … If I could do that then I can do it in Olympia.” Read more
Roger Goodman wants another term in the 45th
August 11, 2010
New: Aug. 11, 11:07 a.m.
Roger Goodman prefers this Washington to that one.
“You can feel the palpable effects of (state) legislative work,” the former assistant to two east coast congressmen said. “At the federal level it was so remote you could never tell if you were doing any good out there.” Read more
Mark Isaacs announces bid for house seat in 45th District
July 6, 2010
New: July 6, 1:24 p.m.
It may be thousands of miles away and many degrees warmer, but Mark Isaacs has his native home of Jamaica on his mind as he runs for a spot in Olympia.
Isaacs, a home builder and real estate agent in Kirkland since 1983, is running as a Republican for a position in the House 45th legislative district against incumbent Larry Springer, the Democrat who has held the seat since 2004. Read more
November’s races are on
June 15, 2010
Let the campaigning begin.
June 11 marked the last day for candidates to register for November’s election.
In the 5th Legislative District, which covers most of Sammamish, incumbent Republican Jay Rodne will face Democract Gregory Hoover for the first House of Representatives position. In the district’s second position, Democrats Dean Willard and David Spring will face incumbent Republican Glenn Anderson. Read more
Sammamish’s own Dino Rossi announces U.S. Senate bid
May 26, 2010
New: May 26, 10:22 a.m.
Dino Rossi — the former Sammamish representative in the state Senate and the Republican nominee for governor in 2004 and 2008 — has entered the race to unseat U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.
In a short video posted on his campaign website early Wednesday morning, the Sammamish resident joined a crowded field seeking the GOP nomination — and ended months of speculation about whether he might enter the race. Read more
David Spring enters 5th District race
January 26, 2010
Another democrat has entered the race to unseat incumbent Glenn Anderson (R-5) for the November general election.
North Bend resident David Spring will challenge Anderson and fellow democrat Dean Willard. Spring lost to Anderson in the 2008 general election by 3.16 percentage points. Read more
Dean Willard to challenge Glenn Anderson in 5th District
December 29, 2009
By Warren Kagarise and Laura Geggel
The race to represent Sammamish in Olympia kicked off this month.
Dean Willard, a Sammamish resident, former T-Mobile executive and Democrat, entered the 2010 race for the state House seat held by Glenn Anderson.
Anderson, a Fall City Republican, was first elected to represent the 5th District in 2000, and re-elected subsequently. Most of Sammamish is in the 5th District. Areas north of Northeast 16th Street are in the 45th District.
Willard said the district has changed since Anderson was elected almost a decade ago. The first-time candidate said he would work to convince voters to send “a more moderate representative” to Olympia.
Willard cited population growth in the district, and said new residents helped shift the character from rural to suburban.
Voters “are looking for a pragmatic Democrat who is interested in solving problems,” he said.
Anderson filed paperwork in June with the state Public Disclosure Commission in order to raise money for a 2010 re-election bid. The incumbent had raised about $19,000 by late December, records show.
Anderson plans to step up campaign activities after the legislative session wraps in the spring.
Willard, a former vice president at Bellevue-based T-Mobile, works as an information technology and security consultant. The local state Democratic committeeman volunteered for Joe Mallahan, the T-Mobile executive who lost a bid last month to become Seattle mayor. He also volunteered for Democrats in past 5th District races.
Willard said as a Democrat he could be a more effective representative than Anderson. Democrats control both houses in the Legislature. Gov. Chris Gregoire is also a Democrat.
Anderson was re-elected last year. He garnered about 52 percent of the vote over challenger David Spring.
The race to represent Sammamish in Olympia kicked off this month.
Dean Willard, a Sammamish resident, former T-Mobile executive and Democrat, entered the 2010 race for the state House seat held by Glenn Anderson.
Anderson, a Fall City Republican, was first elected to represent the 5th District in 2000, and re-elected subsequently. Most of Sammamish is in the 5th District. Areas north of Northeast 16th Street are in the 45th District.
Willard said the district has changed since Anderson was elected almost a decade ago. The first-time candidate said he would work to convince voters to send “a more moderate representative” to Olympia.
Willard cited population growth in the district, and said new residents helped shift the character from rural to suburban.
Voters “are looking for a pragmatic Democrat who is interested in solving problems,” he said.
Anderson filed paperwork in June with the state Public Disclosure Commission in order to raise money for a 2010 re-election bid. The incumbent had raised about $19,000 by late December, records show.
Anderson plans to step up campaign activities after the legislative session wraps in the spring.
Willard, a former vice president at Bellevue-based T-Mobile, works as an information technology and security consultant. The local state Democratic committeeman volunteered for Joe Mallahan, the T-Mobile executive who lost a bid last month to become Seattle mayor. He also volunteered for Democrats in past 5th District races.
Willard said as a Democrat he could be a more effective representative than Anderson. Democrats control both houses in the Legislature. Gov. Chris Gregoire is also a Democrat.
Anderson was re-elected last year. He garnered about 52 percent of the vote over challenger David Spring.
Reporter Laura Geggel contributed to this story.
Greg Hoover runs against Jay Rodne in 5th District
December 29, 2009
By J.B. Wogan
Greg Hoover, a Sammamish resident, announced Dec. 22 that he would seek a position in the state House of Representatives.
Hoover, a Realtor and real estate attorney, will run in 2010 against Republican Jay Rodne for one of the two 5th Legislative District seats.
Most of Sammamish is in the 5th District. Areas north of Northeast 16th Street are in the 45th District.
Hoover is casting himself as a tough business professional with an optimistic streak.
The state is facing a predicted $2.6 billion budget deficit that will surely dominate the 2010 legislative session.
What does Hoover propose to do about these tough times? His early positions are based around things he won’t do, like raising taxes.
He said he is against introducing an income tax, too.
“It’s going to cost a lot of money just to get it started,” Hoover said, adding that it was a less convenient revenue source than the sales tax. “It’s a tax that’s hard to collect on.”
Hoover has a master’s degree in tax law, in addition to his general law degree.
Hoover also said he wouldn’t vote for deeper cuts in state education funding and was against teacher-to-student ratios ballooning beyond what they currently are.
Hoover also wouldn’t be in favor of tolling Interstate 90.
“I think that would ask way too much of people on the Eastside, specifically in the 5th District,” he explained.
He said he was less sure of whether the state should toll state Route 520.
Hoover described himself as a moderate Democrat, with the emphasis on moderate. While he was glad Referen-dum 71 passed in November, he would not vote in favor of a gay marriage bill, he said.
He said he was pro-choice, but felt conflicted about the position, given that he is also Catholic.
Hoover’s opponent, Rep. Jay Rodne, declared his candidacy in early December and has raised $9,400 so far, according to the Public Disclosure Commission.
Rodne was appointed to a seat in the Legislature in 2004 when then-5th District representative Cheryl Pflug became a state senator.
Rodne won an uncontested election campaign in 2006 and defeated Democrat Jon Viebrock in 2008 by more than 19 points.
Greg Hoover, a Sammamish resident, announced Dec. 22 that he would seek a position in the state House of Representatives.
Hoover, a Realtor and real estate attorney, will run in 2010 against Republican Jay Rodne for one of the two 5th Legislative District seats.
Most of Sammamish is in the 5th District. Areas north of Northeast 16th Street are in the 45th District. Read more
County executive candidates shift focus to Eastside
October 13, 2009
By Warren Kagarise
King County executive candidates Dow Constantine and Susan Hutchison are engaged in a down-to-the-wire push to appeal to Eastside voters. But political experts said the effort by the candidates, both Seattleites, could be difficult.
Voters will decide between Constantine, chairman of the King County Council and a former state lawmaker, and Hutchison, director of the nonprofit Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and a former KIRO news anchor. The next leader will oversee about 300,000 people who live in unincorporated King County, where the executive functions almost as a mayor. About 1.8 million people live in the county.
Voters knocked the Eastside candidates — state lawmakers Fred Jarrett and Ross Hunter — out of the race in August. Jarrett and Hutchison took Issaquah precincts. Constantine won most of Seattle.
Despite the candidates’ efforts to generate regional appeal, Issaquah voters “still have a sense of being a long, long way from downtown Seattle and the courthouse,” Seattle political consultant Cathy Allen said.
Constantine and Hutchison have high hurdles to overcome. Allen said voters wonder if Constantine represents the ineffective status quo and whether Hutchison is competent to lead.
Neighborhood issues
Talk turns to rural land use, transit and the future role of county government when the Eastside is discussed.
Klahanie Park and 38 other parks are set to close Jan. 1 under a plan unveiled in August by King County Executive Kurt Triplett.
Constantine and Hutchison said Klahanie Park could be kept open if a deal could be struck with a nonprofit organization or residents to maintain the property.
“Each park is going to have a different solution,” Constantine said. “My point to the executive was, you shouldn’t just shutter these parks having not given enough time for those very complicated deals to be negotiated.”
Hutchison also said the soon-to-close parks would be a high priority in her administration.
“My promise is that we’ll get those parks open by May,” Hutchison said. “We’ll work through the winter months to put together those partnerships, whether they be with nearby cities or companies or organizations or with management groups.”
Issaquah and Sammamish have annexed unincorporated areas into their respective cities, but the effort to bring Klahanie into Issaquah was rejected.
Constantine said he would work with state legislators and officials in Issaquah and Sammamish to determine where Klahanie would best fit as the county encourages cities to annex unincorporated urban land.
“We will have to scale our services and change the character of them to meet that particularly rural governing need,” Constantine said. “At the same time, we have an opportunity as the only truly regional government here to work with the 39 cities, work with the special-purpose districts, work with the tribes to figure out how, in a new era, with limited resources, we can deliver services to people.”
Hutchison stressed the importance of annexations as a way to slow the growth of county government and shift some responsibilities to cities.
“This is not new. This annexing of these various properties throughout the county has been going on for years,” Hutchison said. “That area that is the county jurisdiction to govern has been growing smaller. However, county government has grown at more than twice the rate of inflation, and that’s what we’ve got to get a handle on. We cannot continue to grow government at twice the right of inflation and expect it to be sustainable.”
Promises to change tone
Calls for cooperation between county officials and municipal leaders are a hallmark of both executive campaigns. Constantine and Hutchison also acknowledged the frayed relationship between county government and pockets of rural residents.
Opponents dubbed Constantine “Chairman Dow” during the ugly 2008 debate about the Critical Areas Ordinance, a measure to limit land clearing and establish buffers around wetlands.
“I took what was a very rough package, unfinished package of ordinances that the executive sent to us in 2004, and I’ve shouldered the responsibility of leading the council around the county and hearing from some very angry and frustrated residents about the contents of that package, and also the way they’ve been treated over the years by the county’s building department,” he said.
Constantine said he would reform the Department of Development and Environmental Services, so building permits are processed cheaply and quickly.
“I represent rural landowners on Vashon and Maury islands, thousands and thousands of them,” Constantine said. “I’ve been with them for my time in the House and the Senate and on the County Council dealing directly with their issues about developing their land. I know these things personally.”
Hutchison said the attitude of county government in relation to municipal officials and residents needs to change.
“As a county, we have to start working more closely and more cooperatively with the state, but we also have to work more closely and more cooperatively with the cities,” she said. “Everywhere I go in King County, all I hear about is how the county is arrogant, disdainful, disrespectful of the cities, elected officials and county citizens.”
Calls to overhaul transit
The candidates said more mass transit options are critical to serve fast-growing Eastside cities.
Hutchison suggested installing GPS units on Metro buses in order for riders to track buses and better plan trips. She said she would create a panel of bus drivers to determine better fare enforcement.
Hutchison said the transit agency should improve how it collects fares, and consider demonstration routes — or add service along a route for six months to gauge how successful it could be. If a route proved a success, she said, service could be increased. If not, Metro could retool.
“Our Metro system is one of the most expensive in the country,” Hutchison said. “Because of that, it costs more to move a passenger on our system. We need to — with the use of the auditing teams and the traffic engineers and good business principles — we need to cut back on the cost of running Metro.”
Constantine said the transit model should be updated to reflect where growth has occurred.
“This is the moment when we begin to retool our regional institutions to view King County as it is and not as it was,” Constantine said. “As it was, it was one city surrounded by bedroom communities. As it is, it is a couple dozen or more urban centers … that need to be served by infrastructure, including particularly high-capacity transit infrastructure.”
Both candidates support tolling the state Route 520 bridge to raise money to build a replacement structure. But the challengers differed on whether to toll the Interstate 90 bridges.
“I think that if you toll 520, you have to look at the impacts on I-90,” Constantine said. “If the impacts slow down traffic for the folks who currently use it, to congest [Interstate] 405 as people try to avoid the tolled bridge and get to the untolled bridge, you have to consider tolling on I-90 to avoid that effect.”
Hutchison said officials could be tempted to divert money raised by tolling for bridge construction toward other projects.
“I tie tolling to construction projects,” Hutchison said. “In other words, there is always this danger when government has access to fees or taxes of treating that as the goose laying the golden egg. I believe that when we move to rebuild the 520, it would be appropriate to toll the 520.”
Warren Kagarise: 392-6434, ext. 234, or wkagarise@isspress.com. Comment at www.issaquahpress.com.
King County executive candidates Dow Constantine and Susan Hutchison are engaged in a down-to-the-wire push to appeal to Eastside voters. But political experts said the effort by the candidates, both Seattleites, could be difficult.
Voters will decide between Constantine, chairman of the King County Council and a former state lawmaker, and Hutchison, director of the nonprofit Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and a former KIRO news anchor. The next leader will oversee about 300,000 people who live in unincorporated King County, where the executive functions almost as a mayor. About 1.8 million people live in the county. Read more
