March 29, 2006
Lindemulder re-elected to King Conservation District board
Snoqualmie Valley farmer Bobbi Lindemulder was re-elected yesterday as a Supervisor of the King Conservation District, defeating former Seattle Monorail lobbyist Kevin Raymond 518 - 316. KCD District Co-Coordinator Geoff Reed e-mailed this reply to my inquiry about the election results:
the reason we are not on the general election is rcw.89.08 which tells us not to be. Being on a general ballot in King county is EXTREMELY expensive - it would take our whole budget to be on the general ballot if state law allowed it. Most people do not know how much elections cost - it is quite interesting. Please feel free to contact me anytime. We return phone calls and run a good operation. David Irons is our newest Associate boardmember.
More detailed election results from KCD posted
here. Nearly all of Raymond's votes were cast at the Seattle City Hall polling place.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 29, 2006
11:36 AM | Email This
1. I was out sick yesterday and found out about the election today - too late to vote. Thank goodness Bobbi won, despite the efforts of Seattle voters.
2. I voted a little after 5 pm in the lobby of Seattle City Hall. Everytime the elevator opened up, out came a few city workers who got in line, no doubt to vote for one of their own, Mr Raymond.
Next time, they should move the downtown voting location to someplace other than the belly of the beast. Like the monstrous library.
P.S. -- That was my first time in the new City Hall. As Dan Savage called it when it was in the planning stages, what a "civic Versailles" it is!
3. woo-hoo!!!! Hooray for the good guy!
4. Hmm. Another former monorail official without a city or county job. Does this mean that there will soon be a new position opening up with
Washington Biodiesel?
5. Hey let's all congratulate KLOWNstein on his failed efforts to get his hand-picked OBSTRUCTIONIST Kevin Raymond elected to the Conservation Board.
If KLOWNstein is for you, who can be against you??
Apparently the answer to that is:
THE VAST MAJORITY!!
6. As a 30 something who voted in Carnation, I'm concerned about the rural v. urban age demographic, the election was held at the senior center, and I'd say most of my fellow rural voters had at least 30 years on me.
What will a similar vote look like 30 years from now after 60 years of liberal KC land use regulations? I mean if we're still allowed to use the land. Will there be enough voters in rural areas to fight the urban myopia?
7. 1 I received an email about the election some time after 2pm on Monday Mar-27
2 Because the election did not start until 11am and I had a 4pm at the SnoKing border, I couldn't express bus downtown and back out at the morning rush hour
3 I did email a friend about carpooling downtown and splitting the parking cost, but he also received late notice of the election and had prior committments
4 I looked briefly at rcw.89.08 which KCD District Co-Coordinator Geoff Reed refers to and did not see anything about them being prevented.
5 Also it seems the expense would be minor if
they piggyback on the KCE or school board elections
6 I also did not see anything in rcw.89.08 about the means of notifying voters of the election
7 Help me out here. Is this the case "that if it had teeth it would leap off the screen and bite me" or am I in the wrong webpage?
8. Probably explains why the election was clean - David Irons was part of the process :-).
I only wish he had won last November :-(.
9. Amen Cynical!
Congrats, nice one rural King County!
You flung manure in the face of Progressives like Goldstein.
10. Hmmmm, an election that was clean AND was NOT run by Dean Logan.
Coincidence???
11. "Being on a general ballot in King county is EXTREMELY expensive..."
Yeah, and the hour I spent driving all the way out to Carnation and back was completely without cost.
12. Thanks for making the effort TB and everyone else who took the time to participate. Let's make sure that the Millions of Dollars that the KCCD dispenses annually is done without RON SIMS and his minions influence. Everything appears to be feeding the monster that Ron has created at KCDNR without regard for the property rights
of the rural citizens of the county.
13. Yes, thanks to all who made the effort to vote for a very unpublicized election. Nice turn-out! It is good to have victories... even small ones count.
Please all make an effort to find, and determine if you want to sign on to, two important initiatives to the people of our state...
1-932, County Choice Initiative, and I-933 the Property Fairness Initiative.
14. Interestingly, the important section of law controlling conservation district elections is not 89.08 at all; it is RCW 29A.04.330(1)(b), which specifically exempts three different types of districts from having to hold their elections at the same general, primary, or special election dates as other districts: (1) public utility districts, (2) conservation districts, and (3) districts in which the ownership of property in the district is required in order to vote. That is why the conservation district is able to pick its own date and polling places.
Some thoughts on this.
First, in a conversation district as big as King, they should be required to have more polling places, more conveniently distributed. I will work on a bill for that for 2006.
Second, they should NOT be able to run this as a "stealth" election. Every eligible voter should have to be notified by mail that the election is being held, and the location of their nearest polling place. I will work on a bill for that for 2006.
Third, this notion of requiring people to own property in a district in order to vote in that district's election sounds attractive -- something our founding fathers would have approved of. Maybe we should use it more -- such as when the vote has to do with taxing property in the district. Today, far too many people are forced to pay taxes on property they own but for which they don't have a vote because their primary residence is elsewhere; should EVERYONE who is going to have to pay a tax have a voice in whether or not that tax is imposed? And why do people who would not be subject to paying a tax get to vote on imposing that tax on others? Liberals are fond of saying "people should be able to choose to tax themselves for X, Y, or Z"; well, let's implement that, and limit it to that!
15. Hey Toby;
Since the KCCD is actually an entity of the State, how about strengthening its autonomy and getting Ron Sims off of their back. Last years appropriation process almost led to a court fight over distribution of the funds. While Sims is the collection agency, he should not be able to influence the spending and programming to the extent that he does. King County does staffing, programming and acts as a service provider and literally pays itself to run a good portion of its flood control and Salmon recovery efforts with a budget of 50 million a year. Perhaps the "mission" is better served through Washington State Extension Service and others.