After
Thursday’s election’s update, a single vote could trigger an
automatic recount in the race for Port Orchard City
Council Position 2.
Incumbent Carolyn Powers has 1,206 votes and 49.90 percent of 2,417
votes total, including 18 write-ins. Cindy Lucarelli has 1,193
votes and 49.36 percent of the grand total.
An automatic recount is triggered when the certified vote count,
due Nov. 24, shows candidates within .5 percentage points of one
another. According to Kitsap County Elections Manager Dolores
Gilmore, write-in votes by law are not factored into calculations
to determine if an automatic recount is in order.
Without the write-ins, Powers has 50.27 percent of the vote, and
Lucarelli has 49.73. If Lucarelli earned at least one more vote
(and Powers earned none), those percentages would change to 50.25
and 49.75 respectively, giving a margin of .5 percent.
Granted, with an estimated 50 votes left to count county-wide,
there are still a number of scenarios that could produce other
results.
Gilmore said races this close are notable but certainly not
unheard-of.
“We’ve seen it where it’s been very close. We’ve had tie races and
tossed coins,” she said.
A coin toss occurs if, after the recount, the race is still tied.
Such situations typically occur in smaller districts, where the
number of votes have a bigger impact percentage-wise. Gilmore has
seen five coin toss races during her career in elections.
Votes are recounted by machine if candidates are within .5
percentage points of each other. They are manually recounted if the
margin is .25 percentage points or fewer.
Stayed tuned for our follow-up coverage of this and other races in
Election 2009.
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Mayor Coppola on the Mend (and Feisty) After Recent Surgery
Port Orchard Mayor Lary Coppola said he’s doing “better every day” after emergency surgery on Oct. 22. Coppola, 59 and otherwise in good health, was admitted to Harrison Medical Center Oct. 20 for treatment of a cyst on his tailbone that had ruptured and become infected.
On his West Sound Politics blog Tuesday, Coppola said it was, “Nothing life-threatening, but fairly serious just the same, and recovery has just been slower than I had hoped.”
Coppola was in the hospital for six days. Throughout the ordeal he dropped 30 pounds, and it shows. He’s been working short days, 7 or 8 hours versus 12 to 15, annoyed with having to slow down and impatient to get back up to speed.
“I expect to be back to full strength in a week or two,” he said.
Coppola, in the blog post, shows himself scrappy as ever, pulling no punches in his acerbic recap of the Nov. 3 election.
On the Bremerton mayoral race, he appeared to criticize both candidates, calling Patty Lent, the apparent winner, “a nice person, but not really what I would term a decisive decision maker.” He handed Will Maupin a sideways compliment, saying, “I believe he is the best qualified for the job. However, based on my own personal experiences, his uncompromising, ‘My Way of the Highway’ style wouldn’t play well with the other electeds he’d have to deal with. For this reason alone, Bremerton may be better off with Lent at the helm.”
Coppola had a similar assessment of Becky Erickson, who ousted incumbent Poulsbo Mayor Kathryn Quade. Coppola wrote, “While Erickson is very smart and very resourceful, her highly aggressive personal style isn’t going to play well with the other electeds she has to work with in order to get anything done. Quade didn’t just lose here — I think Poulsbo did.”
Speaking of having to work with people, I asked the mayor if he wasn’t worried about burning political bridges. Coppola had no worries on this count. He said he’s simply providing a political analysis, and nothing that hasn’t been said before. “I don’t think I’m the only one to say that out loud,” he said of his comments about Maupin and Lent.
Closer to home, Coppola conveyed in no uncertain terms his dismay over results of the race for City Council Position 6, in which incumbent Fred Chang easily beat challenger Amy Igloi-Matsuno.
Coppola in his blog elaborated on his decision not to endorse Igloi-Matsuno, even though he endorsed incumbent Carolyn Powers over challenger Cindy Lucarelli in the position 2 race. “I believed Amy should win on her own. I didn’t want her tarred with any negativity that could be attributed to me.”
What negativity? I asked.
“I knew that Fred Chang was out there talking about the mayor’s salary,” Coppola said, referencing the council’s decision to give full-time compensation for the mayor’s position for the first six months of 2009. The decision, the council discovered on closer look at the WACs, will remain in effect through the remainder of Coppola’s term. The law allows a council to increase a sitting mayor’s salary, but not to reduce it until the seat comes up for election.
Coppola in his blog slammed Chang, saying “… what has disturbed me the most were reports from people who stated that when doorbelled by Chang, he claimed to be ‘…the only council member who opposed the Mayor tripling his own salary.’ It doesn’t get much sleazier than that.”
The factual inaccuracy of the statement in quotes is that the mayor doesn’t adjust his own salary the council does.
I asked, could those who bent the mayor’s ear by chance have misinterpreted Chang? Coppola said several people called him during the campaign, and the message was similar enough to convince him that Chang had been using the mayoral salary issue as a political wedge.
Chang today said he he knows full well how the process works and would not have made such a statement. He has always supported the idea of a full-time mayor, he said. But he has always felt the matter should be put to a vote of city residents (as does Fred Olin). Chang said he probably did agree to the concept of a full-time mayor in the September work study session Coppola mentions, but it’s also true he voted against two ordinances related to the mayor’s salary when they came before the council.
“I don’t think I’ve ever made it (the salary issue) personal about the mayor,” said Chang, who hopes he and Coppola can resume the “productive” working relationship they had before the election.
Coppola, too, said election-related prickliness won’t change dynamics on the council. When the dust settles, it will be business as usual.
On the topic of endorsements, I asked Coppola if, in endorsing Powers, he didn’t worry she, too, would be harmed by the “negativity” he feared would harm Igloi-Matsuno’s campaign. He didn’t.
“Carolyn is not a political neophyte. Amy was,” he said.
“I wanted her to win if she was going to win on her own terms.”
Here’s One Government Official Leading the Charge on Social Networking
The hitch is, he’s got a way bigger budget than Bud Harris, Kitsap County’s director of information technology, who recently reaffirmed his message of caution on mixing social networking with government.
Bill Schrier, chief technology officer for the City of Seattle, on the other hand, openly embraces new media. Schrier, who writes the Chief Seattle Geek blog, in a recent entry discussed the concept of an “open city,” in which information is shared via the Internet, now accessible 24/7 via laptop and desktop computers, as well as Blackberries, iPhones, cell phones etc.
Schrier writes:
“The theme is consistent: city governments, by opening their information, their data, their engagement processes, can generate a wealth of new ideas and understandings which make them more efficient and effective, and more robust, exciting places, with improved quality of life.
The old model, used for 250 years or more, is for a City is to collect as much data as possible about problems, its responses, services it provides and the general city environment. Then the typical city hires analysts or consultants – experts, if you will – to pore over the data and discern patterns. These experts then make recommendations for policy, action or changes.”
Schrier writes of applications that allow for public discussion of ideas and ranking of concepts through a “public engagement portal.” His department uses a model, Ideas for Seattle, that allows for some limited input online from people, and he hopes to see that concept expanded. Other governments are working on similar programs.
Pursuing this technology will provide a better community process than what Schrier calls “death-by-PowerPoint presentations and long lines of people trooping up to the microphone to give their 2 minute NIMBY mini-speeches,” he said.
Fourteen departments within the city, including police and fire, have blogs, and the city uses Twitter to communicate in “almost real time” about traffic tie ups and such. There’s also, for example, an arts blog to reach a “targeted community.”
The blogs link together on a single page. The city’s policy on social networking assures uniformity in how social media are employed and makes sure its use actually meets constituents’ needs, Schrier said. Public comments on blogs is limited, however. If a department wants to allow comments, they have to be moderated and approved before they’re put up. People who want to make comments can fill out a form on the Web site.
In today’s story on kitsapsun.com, Harris said he’s not against social networking, but, given the county’s budget struggles and his department’s own full plate, he lacks the resources to develop policy and software to cover the county on both free speech and open records issues. In Kitsap County, the public already can comment via e-mail or sign up for listservs from given departments, said Harris.
In fairness to Harris and his department, Schrier is working with a much larger budget, $57 million, about 70 percent of Kitsap’s total 2010 budget, and he has 205 employees.
Port Orchard Council to Vote Tuesday on Tax Ordinance
The Port Orchard City Council on Tuesday will vote on an ordinance declaring substantial need to raise taxes up to one percent. In past years, the city has automatically been able to do so. But this year, an ordinance is necessary because of negative inflation and the fact Port Orchard’s population has increased beyond the threshold that triggers a vote in such a case.
Read the complete story here.
Also at the meeting, the council will issue proclamations recognizing November as Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and recognizing Deliah Rene Luke for spearheading the Paint the Town event in August.
I’ll be at the meeting. Comment here, or e-mail me with your questions for the council, chenry@kitsapsun.com.
What Would You Pay to Play at Horseshoe & Wildcat Lakes?
In today’s story on the likelihood that Kitsap County will close Horseshoe Lake and Wildcat Lake parks for the 2010 season as a cost-saving measure, South Kitsap Commissioner Charlotte Garrido raises the question of whether the county should charge admission fees to keep the parks open.
The two parks were targeted by parks officials because, unlike other large parks, they don’t have rental facilities that could generate revenue. They are remote and therefore more costly to maintain. And there’s been gang activity at Horseshoe.
Several people commented on the fee issue. One suggested $5 a carload. Another said they would be willing to pay $5 per person, $3 for students, with children and seniors free. Yet another person said any fee would be prohibitive. Another person said, if the county institutes fees, they should apply to all parks, not selectively to the two that don’t generate revenue.
I called Garrido this morning about whether and how hard she would pursue the possibility of fees. With the new parks director Jim Dunwiddie arriving on Monday, she said, she will wait to comment further. But “nothing is off the table,” Garrido said, and instituting fees would definitely be part of the discussion county commissioners will have with the parks department.
What do you think?
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Polen Comments on SKSD Board Race Results
Incumbent South Kitsap School District board member Naomi Polen, who was appointed to fill an unexpired term in 2008, has been edged out by former board member Chris Lemke. Polen has served on the board for 18 months. Lemke was among those who asked to be considered for the appointment.
Lemke had earned 60.24 percent of the vote in unofficial results Tuesday. Polen took 38.67 percent. A total of 11,403 votes had been counted.
On Wednesday, Polen said she was “disappointed.”
“I really enjoyed the time I was working with the board,” she said.
“I was really looking forward to seeing some of the projects
through.”
Specifically, Polen has been a strong advocate of policy governance, an operational model under which school board members would set out broad policies and goals, then give the superintendent wide authority to meet the goals.
The district is taking a year to draw up goals for policy governance with input from district staff and community members. Polen said she’ll stay involved in the monthly “Call to Action” meetings that are open to the public. She expressed confidence in Lemke’s ability to pick up the baton and keep the momentum going.
“Once Chris gets on board, I’m sure he’ll see the importance of it and get involved,” she said.
Lemke has said he sees advantages to policy governance and is comfortable with the concept as long as the board retains oversight of the superintendent through regular reviews.
Polen said the board will need to remain attentive to the “constant battle” of promoting community involvement on decisions and actions that affect the district.
She also plans to stay involved in the district’s “Whole Child” initiative to hook students and their families up with community resources outside the classroom. The district has a link to resources available through volunteers and other groups on its Web site. Aspects within the Whole Child program include mentoring — Polen mentors a seventh grader — food through Backpacks for Kids, medical needs and more.
“I’ll stay active,” Polen said. “I’ll just keep my ear close to what the board’s doing. I’m grateful for the time I had. Apparently God had a different plan for me.”
Lucarelli-Powers Race Too Close to Call
Incumbent Fred Chang is beating challenger Amy Igloi-Matsuno, despite her heavy investment in the campaign. Igloi-Matsuno spent $18,662 to Chang’s $9,212, for a total of more than $27,000. I’d say it’s safe to say that’s a record for campaign spending in a Port Orchard council race. In unofficial results, Chang had 54.57 percent of votes counted to Igloi-Matsuno’s 45.10 percent.
Kitsap County Elections Manager Dolores Gilmore on Tuesday evening reported that 35.77 percent of votes in the City of Port Orchard have been counted so far. There are 5,082 registered voters in the city. The county auditor’s office is expecting a 50 percent turnout, Gilmore said.
In the race for city council position 2, incumbent Carolyn
Powers, seeking a sixth term on the council, held a sliver of a
lead over challenger Cindy Lucarelli.
Powers had 50.35 percent of the vote to Lucarelli’s 49.01
percent.
“I don’t think I have any choice but to wait and see what comes
tomorrow,” said Powers, who has served on the council since
1988.
Lucarelli, who was defeated in 2007 in a race against veteran
councilman John Clauson, was optimistic about the results.
“I’d like to have it the other way around but, hay, that’s pretty
close, and there were a lot of ballots that were mailed in late.
I’m hoping it gets turned around,” she said.
The auditor’s office will post revised counts daily at 5
p.m.
“By Friday, we should have the majority of the ballots to be
counted,” Gilmore said.
A Turf Field for the Wolves in This Economy?
By Chris Henry
chenry@kitsapsun
SOUTH KITSAP
Heading into playoff season with a 9-0 record, the South Kitsap
Wolves football team would seem to have nothing standing in their
way. But Coach D.J. Sigurdson says the grass field at Joe Knowles
Stadium, looking these days like a mud bath, is selling the players
and other South Kitsap athletes short.
South Kitsap is one of fewer than a dozen 4A schools in the state
that hasn’t already converted to turf fields. Sigurdson says it’s
time.
Coaches raised concerns about shortcomings of the field and other
district athletic facilities during recent contract negotiations,
said Ron Ness, president of the South Kitsap Coaches
Association.
“Safety is an issue and making sure we can provide adequate
resources for our athletes and the community,” said Ness.
With cuts to South Kitsap School District’s budget this year
totaling $6.8 million, no one who uses the fields expects the
district will ask voters to approve a capital facilities bond in
the near future. So a facilities task force, made up of coaches,
maintenance staff and community members, has taken matters into its
own hands. They are seeking outside funding for a turf field and
more.
At a meeting Monday, the group came up with a lengthy wish list,
including upgrades to tracks and ball fields at the junior high and
elementary schools, improvements and renovations to the pool,
installed in the 1970s, scoreboards, lighting, public restrooms and
storage.
The group agreed that district facilities should be made available
for community use whenever possible.
Installation of a turf field at the high school would cost an
estimated $1.7 million. The turf would need to be replaced in 10 to
12 years, but with infrastructure in place, the replacement cost
would be about half the original price, said Brad Martin of Martin
Victory Products of Kent, a turf manufacturer’s representative.
The high cost of installing a turf field would be offset in the
long run by lower maintenance costs, said Kathleen Simpson of
Fields Today, Fit Tomorrow. Her nonprofit group is coordinating
with area sports clubs, local governments and other groups on the
installation of turf fields throughout the county.
The annual maintenance cost on the grass field at the high school
is $23,000. A turf field costs about $5,000 per year to
maintain.
Turf fields present revenue opportunities, Simpson said. Her
low-use estimate for one field would be about $57,000 in income for
the district per year.
Fields Today, Fit Tomorrow had a hand in the
recently opened fields at Battle Point Park on Bainbridge
Island. The Bainbridge fields were built despite opposition
from a group called Plastic Fields ForNever whose members link
artificial turf to lead poisoning, cancer, skin burns and
injuries.
Sigurdson said he hadn’t heard of environmental or disease hazards
of turf fields. Injuries were a problem in the early days of the
technology, but substrate, made of ground up tires, provides a more
natural playing surface, he said.
The facilities task force will meet monthly. The public is welcome. The next meeting is 6 p.m. Dec. 7. For information, contact South Kitsap High School Athletic Director Ed Santos at (360) 874-5736 or santosjr@skitsap.wednet.edu.
Take the poll on the blog homepage: Does South Kitsap need a turf field?
The Chang – Igloi-Matsuno Race: A Footnote
Tomorrow evening, we’ll know the outcome of the race for Port Orchard City Council Position 6 between incumbent Fred Chang and challenger Amy Igloi-Matsuno. I’d like to address a comment posted during the campaign on a letter to the editor.
As I wrote in my coverage of the race, Port Orchard Mayor Lary Coppola has been clear he admires Igloi-Matsuno’s business savvy and community involvement. But he has not officially endorsed her, as he has incumbent Carolyn Powers in her race against Cindy Lucarelli for Position 2. That has raised public speculation about the possibility of Coppola’s providing behind-the-scenes support to Igloi-Matsuno’s campaign.
Kkurly, in a comment on an Oct. 8 letter to the editor, questioned Igloi-Matsuno’s use of Coppola’s Wet Apple Media for graphic work related to her campaign, suggesting it would be a gift. Kkurley said, “Let’s ask Amy to do this before the election….pay her bill to Wet Apple printing.” In fact, a filing submitted Oct. 27 to the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission shows she has. The statement of revenue and expenditures from Igloi-Matsuno’s campaign treasurer Jennifer Christine shows the bill for $5,075 was paid Oct. 16. Services were for “graphic design for all printed materials and Web site design.”
For the record, Christine is a Wet Apple employee who also volunteered for Coppola’s campaign in 2008. She said she does not make filings on company time.
