Snohomish County’s 5th District PCOs meet to choose nominees to succeed Dave Somers

Good morn­ing, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus to fill the coun­cil vacan­cy cre­at­ed by the elec­tion of Dave Somers as Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive. This spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus has been called by the Sno­homish Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee in accor­dance with state par­ty rules, to select three nom­i­nees to present to the Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cil. The Coun­cil will then appoint a suc­ces­sor Coun­cilmem­ber from among the three nominees.

In many ways, this spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus is an echo of the recent elec­tion that replaced John Lovick with Dave Somers. Dur­ing Lovick­’s term, ten­sions were high between the Exec­u­tive and the Coun­ty Coun­cil, includ­ing dis­agree­ments involv­ing plans for a new cour­t­house in Everett. The estab­lished Democ­rats stood behind Lovick; how­ev­er, there was strong grass­roots sup­port for Somers.

Somers won the elec­tion, leav­ing a vacan­cy on the Coun­cil. The like­ly top two can­di­dates in this race, Guy Palum­bo and State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Hans Dun­shee (D‑44th Dis­trict), have drawn sup­port from dif­fer­ent quarters.

Dun­shee has the sup­port of many fel­low leg­is­la­tors and oth­er elect­ed offi­cials, but a strong grass­roots coali­tion sup­ports Palumbo.

The 1st Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Democ­rats endorsed Palum­bo by a wide mar­gin. Inter­est­ing­ly, at least one of the rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the 1st LD, Derek Stan­ford, is endors­ing Dun­shee, con­trary to the 1st LD endorsement.

There’s a packed room here at the Labor Tem­ple in Everett for this spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus. I will pro­vide updates as the cau­cus progresses.

UPDATE, 10:08 AM: Sno­homish Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Chair Richard Wright began by read­ing off the pur­pose of the meet­ing and the rules for PCOs dur­ing the pro­ceed­ing. Can­di­dates have five min­utes each to speak.

Wright also read aloud the instruc­tions for both Method 1 and Method 2 for vot­ing, as pro­vid­ed by the state par­ty’s rules. Richard stat­ed that the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee selects the vot­ing method. A vote was tak­en and Method 2 was selected.

UPDATE, 10:20 AM: The Cre­den­tials Com­mit­tee report­ed that there are thir­ty cre­den­tialed PCOs present. The tem­po­rary chair for the cau­cus is Rick DeWitt.

Guy Palum­bo and Hans Dun­shee were nom­i­nat­ed. Then Mark Hintz was nom­i­nat­ed. Richard Moralez nom­i­nat­ed Palum­bo and spoke very high­ly of Palum­bo. DeWitt attempt­ed to lim­it Palum­bo’s speech because he count­ed Moralez’s speak­ing in favor of Palum­bo’s nom­i­na­tion as part of Palum­bo’s speech.

Palum­bo had to cut his speech short, which was unfortunate.

UPDATE, 10:25 AM: Speak­ers are now speak­ing on behalf of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Hans Dun­shee. Dun­shee began his remarks by voic­ing oppo­si­tion to the stunt that Repub­li­cans pulled by essen­tial­ly fir­ing our Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary. Hans men­tioned his endorse­ments from Stan­ford and Moscoso, which con­flict with the 1st LD Democ­rats’ endorse­ment of Guy Palumbo.

UPDATE, 10:32 AM: Mark Hintz just spoke on his own behalf. His speech was very short and impas­sioned. Vot­ing on green slips of paper has occurred and the tal­ly com­mit­tee is busy at work count­ing ballots.

As we wait, rep­re­sen­ta­tives are speak­ing to the crowd. A lot is being said regard­ing the Repub­li­can stunt to fire our Trans­porta­tion Secretary.

It is also being said that we can expect much more from the Repub­li­cans in the way of block­ing Inslee’s nom­i­na­tions. Appar­ent­ly, local Repub­li­cans are bor­row­ing pages from the play­book of our do-noth­ing con­gres­sion­al Republicans.

UPDATE, 10:46 AM: Elec­tion results are:

• Guy Palum­bo: 17 votes
• Hans Dun­shee: 11 votes
• Mark Hintz: 3 votes

It appears that the grass­roots effort to put Guy Palum­bo over the top first has suc­ceed­ed, and by a wide mar­gin. Guy is the first choice of the PCOs. The final deci­sion, how­ev­er, will be made by the Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cil. They can appoint any of the three nom­i­nees, but they will be under pres­sure to choose Palumbo.

This con­cludes my live report­ing. Thank you for fol­low­ing NPI’s cov­er­age of this spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus to select nom­i­nees to fill the Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cil vacan­cy cre­at­ed by Dave Somers’ elec­tion as Sno­homish Coun­ty Executive.