Clyde Hill News: Elections, 2023 edition
Also: resident questions on a new stormwater utility, and the state legislature fixes drug law lapse
This week, an update on who is running for office in Clyde Hill and the elections ahead, as well as why the city’s approach to a planned “stormwater utility” — and what it’s costing even before it’s in place — should be of interest to residents.
Also: drug possession will continue to be a crime in Washington state after a special legislative session.
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Disclaimer: while I am a councilmember on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the City. City information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about City business I will respond from my City email account.
Clyde Hill Elections, 2023 edition
Clyde Hill residents are looking at three very different races for office in 2023. Based on the King County Elections website just now:
Mayor. One candidate appears to be running unopposed for mayor, just as in the past nine mayoral elections over the last 36 years.1 Steve Friedman, currently representing residents as a city councilmember, appears likely to be Clyde Hill’s next mayor.
Council Position 2. Residents can expect an August primary to narrow the field from three candidates (Ashley Eckel, Spencer Hamlin, and Steve Sinwell) to two, just as in the 2021 election cycle for Council Position 5 when three candidates filed to run.
Council Position 4. Residents will choose between Ryan D. Olson and Mark Kroese in the November general election.
All these positions serve a term of four years. Elections for City Council Positions 1, 3, and 5 were held in 2021, and will occur again in two years in 2025.
There’s no additional public information about the candidates, so there’s not much more to offer at this time.
Question for readers: what coverage would you find useful for these local races?
Stormwater utility 101
Some readers asked about stormwater in the context of last week’s piece about the city’s long-running budget deficit (“Pushing back on the budget deficit,” link).
The short version is that the administration recommended the “formation of a stormwater utility” as part of budget planning last year:
Yarrow Point set up such a utility over ten years ago to fund their stormwater drainage infrastructure needs.
For context, the City of Clyde Hill is responsible for drainage infrastructure (link) to keep rainwater run-off, as it works its way down Clyde Hill, from doing damage.
As one example, some Clyde Hill residents near 17th have had more than a year of flooding in their homes as the result of city stormwater drainage system problems. Here is video of those problems that the administration showed at a council meeting in July of 2021:
Yarrow Point’s utility
Back in 2011, Yarrow Point went from “having discussions” to “having a utility” in about six months. As part of the utility, their ordinance established a resident “Utility Advisory Committee” to recommend utility rates as well as utility policies:
A storm and surface water utility is hereby established for the purpose of protecting public health, safety and welfare by providing a dedicated revenue source for effective management of the storm and surface water facilities and courses the title to which is held by the town. (Ord. 630 § 1, 2011)
Clyde Hill’s plan…
Back in 2021, Clyde Hill’s administration spent $19K on consultants to develop a stormwater utility recommendation (link).
In August 2021, Councilmember Bruce Dodds gave very frank, clear, and negative feedback on that work, asking the administration to do specific work ahead of moving forward with the consultants:
“I quite frankly do not agree with what they’re suggesting… I’m not happy with what I’ve heard tonight so I really want to put them on hold until such time as we get the information that we need, that we can produce, and make a decision as to whether or not we want to spend money with these people to move ahead.” (link)
At the most recent council meeting, the administration asked for approval to spend an additional $50K to work with the same consultants on the same plan (link). After administration officials communicated that they needed outside help to make progress on the issues, council approved their request.
It’s not clear if any of the additional work requested about two years ago has happened.
It’s also worth noting that there’s no public roadmap from the administration to explain the path from where the city is today to a functioning utility.
The topic of a stormwater utility was discussed several times during the development of the 2023 budget as well as during the subsequent meetings, led by Councilmembers Friedman and Jones, to develop specific recommendations to address the city’s budget problems.
Drug possession: still against the law
A few weeks back, I wrote that Clyde Hill and other cities were preparing to act locally if the state did not address the issue of its drug possession law that will expire soon (link).
Drug possession will continue to be a crime, and cities like Clyde Hill will not need to take action with local laws, “after a whirlwind one-day special session” of the state legislature.
Under the headline “WA raises penalties for drug possession, criminalizes public use of drugs” (link), the Seattle Times reported that
After a whirlwind one-day special session, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill into law Tuesday that will raise the state’s penalty for drug possession to a gross misdemeanor and criminalize public drug use. The new law was a hard-fought compromise after lawmakers’ stunning failure to get a deal done last month.
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Dean Hachamovitch
