April special election results: King County public safety radio network levy winning big

Min­utes ago, King Coun­ty Elec­tions pub­lished the results of the first round of bal­lot count­ing for the April 2015 spe­cial elec­tion. While there are no offices up in this elec­tion, vot­ers in a num­ber of juris­dic­tions were asked to decide the fate of a num­ber of bal­lot mea­sures, includ­ing a coun­ty­wide levy to replace a major por­tion of the region’s aging pub­lic safe­ty radio net­work (King Coun­ty Propo­si­tion #1).

NPI sup­port­ed a “Yes” vote on this mea­sure, and we are delight­ed to report it is pass­ing with an over­whelm­ing mar­gin of near­ly two to one. Here are the results:

Approved: 64.99% (162,458 votes)
Reject­ed: 35.01% (87,527 votes)

In a state­ment sent to NPI, King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine praised the lop­sided yes vote, say­ing it was crit­i­cal for first responders.

“A reli­able emer­gency radio net­work is the life­line that keeps all of our com­mu­ni­ties safe, used thou­sands of times a day by police, fire­fight­ers and medics in every cor­ner of our coun­ty,” Con­stan­tine said.

“I want to thank the vot­ers of King Coun­ty for acknowl­edg­ing the need to replace a dan­ger­ous­ly out­dat­ed sys­tem and ensur­ing that our first respon­ders have the tools they need to com­mu­ni­cate dur­ing life-threat­en­ing emergencies.”

In the City of Sam­mamish, vot­ers are giv­ing the thumbs up to a non­bind­ing plebiscite ask­ing whether the city should cre­ate an ini­tia­tive and ref­er­en­dum process. 55.25% cur­rent­ly stand in sup­port of bring­ing direct democ­ra­cy to the city, while 44.75% are opposed. Around 5,500 of the city’s res­i­dents have weighed in, with more votes to be count­ed in the days to come.

In Kla­hanie, an exur­ban neigh­bor­hood bor­der­ing Sam­mamish that has been part of unin­cor­po­rat­ed King Coun­ty since it was built, res­i­dents are over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ing a pro­pos­al to join the City of Sammamish.

A stag­ger­ing 86.83% of Kla­hanie vot­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the elec­tion are back­ing annex­a­tion, while just 13.17% are opposed. Around 11,000 peo­ple live in the area that will be added to Sam­mamish. 2,156 of those who are of vot­ing age are back­ing the pro­pos­al to join Sam­mamish. Just 327 are opposed.

The loom­ing annex­a­tion will bring Sam­mamish’s pop­u­la­tion to around 66,000, sur­pass­ing near­by Red­mond (although per­haps not for long).

In greater Cov­ing­ton, a pro­pos­al to increase the sales tax to pay for road main­te­nance is fail­ing, 53.27% to 46.73%.

Pro­pos­als by South King Fire and Res­cue and the Emu­nclaw School Dis­trict to issue bonds for fire equip­ment and school mod­ern­iza­tion aren’t doing well, either. To pass, a bond propo­si­tion has to win a six­ty per­cent yes vote in an elec­tion with forty per­cent min­i­mum turnout — the so-called sixty/forty rule. Nei­ther of these bond propo­si­tions is cur­rent­ly meet­ing the 60% thresh­old, though both are close.

Enum­claw’s bond pro­pos­al is cur­rent­ly get­ting a 58% yes vote. The South King Fire & Res­cue bond is receiv­ing a 57% yes vote.

A propo­si­tion to renew the Vashon-Mau­ry Island parks levy, on the oth­er hand, was clos­er to pas­sage, with 59.52% vot­ing yes (60% need­ed). 1,657 votes have been cast so far in sup­port and 1,127 in oppo­si­tion. The mar­gin of pas­sage will need to tick up by about half a per­cent­age point for the mea­sure to succeed.