Traffic, tolls key in 2 House races, Senate race in 1st District
Published 1:30 am Monday, October 24, 2016
BOTHELL — The 1st Legislative District straddles the Snohomish-King County line, with its puzzle-piece shaped boundaries taking in communities of Brier and Mountlake Terrace, as well as Bothell and Kirkland.
Voters will sort through the views of six candidates to select representatives for two state House seats with two-year terms and one state Senate seat, with a four-year term.
The Senate race began with two Democrats battling in the primary to succeed retiring Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell. She had endorsed Rep. Luis Moscoso, who had won the election to the state House in 2010 and was re-elected twice.
Snohomish County fire commissioner Guy Palumbo ultimately won the close primary election contest. Now, he is facing off with Republican candidate Mindie Wirth in the general election.
Palumbo said after knocking on more than 15,000 doors, the most important policy issues facing voters are transportation, traffic and I-405 tolling, themes echoed by all six candidates running in the 1st District.
Growth has meant surface streets are increasingly backed up, has caused school overcrowding, and created issues with open space. Community groups are trying to have more say in how their area grows, Palumbo said.
Palumbo said he has heard from few voters wanting to discuss Sound Transit’s $54 billion plan, with tax increases, to pay for expansion of Sounder, light rail and bus routes in the Puget Sound region.
He said they’re more focused on issues close to home, such as the Highway 522 bottleneck, with a proposed, but as yet unfunded, widening of roadway to four lanes between Paradise Lake Road and the Snohomish River.
Palumbo has served on the county planning commission since 2011. He previously worked for Amazon and now operates a kennel business in the Maltby area.
Wirth is senior program manager at Microsoft. She was recently selected as co-president of the Northshore Council PTSA. This work has helped her better understand education issues statewide, she said. “I think there are things we can do to really make education in Washington a showcase,” she said.
Wirth said she’s opposed to the Sound Transit tax proposal known as ST3, due to its impact on families and those on fixed incomes. She said voters have told her: “I don’t know how I can afford an additional $800 a year in property taxes.”
Legislators have been struggling to find ways to comply with a state Supreme Court mandate to adequately fund public education. The improving economy is putting state revenues above projections, which will provide some help, she said.
Wirth said she didn’t think the education funding issue was the linchpin to turn public support for a state income tax. The state needs to continue to push for enforcement of sales tax to be collected from online businesses that have customers in Washington, she said.
In the Position 1 race for state House, it’s political newcomer Neil Thannisch, a Republican, facing off against Democratic incumbent Derek Stanford.
Thannisch said the district is split politically, with the east side “solid red, the west solid blue and Bothell kind of a purplish color.” The issues he’s heard most about also have some geographic divisions, he said. Those on the east side of the district are concerned with I-405 tolls, those on the west side concerned with the Sound Transit expansion and tax proposals.
“They are designing it for today’s work centers and that may not be tomorrow’s work centers,” he said of the proposed transit plan.
Thannisch, an independent information technology consultant, said that state funding for public education has grown from $6,800 to $9,600 per student over the past four years.
He said he’s concerned that there will be a move to try to institute a state income tax to come up with the money to fulfill the state Supreme Court ruling to increase funding for public education. That, he said, would bypass the will of the people. Voters rejected a proposal to impose a state income tax in 2010.
Stanford was traveling on business and couldn’t be reached for comment. He has served three terms in the state House. He is vice-chairman of the Capitol Budget Committee.
In a report sent to people living in the district, Stanford said he worked on a bipartisan effort to remove tolls on I-405 on evenings and weekends and to approve money that will help pay for expanding general purpose lanes on the highway.
He supported state funding for a $1.3 million revitalization project for Main Street in Mountlake Terrace; $492,000 for preservation of Hooven Bog off Highway 522; and $1 million for preservation of Wayne Golf Course in Bothell as green space near the Sammamish River as part of salmon restoration effort.
The Position 2 race has Republican Jim Langston and Democrat Shelley Kloba running for the seat vacated by Moscoso when he decided to run for the state Senate.
Langston, who helps run a family childcare business, has never before run for public office. He said he and his family are dedicated to public service. His grandfather was elected to the Montana Legislature. He is founding director of the Monroe Public School Foundation and is a Boy Scout master.
Although the district is geographically diverse, he said he’s found “everybody wants to know what’s going to happen to education.” The constitution calls it the state’s paramount duty, he noted, “but decades ago it got set aside and forgotten.”
Langston said he wants more time to go through the state budget and analyze it like a business plan, looking for efficiencies, before suggesting how to find more money for education.
Langston opposes the Sound Transit proposal as being “too expensive for what it’s offering.” If it fails, the state needs to move quickly to provide other solutions, such as adding a lot of buses, he said. For people to use mass transit, it has to be inviting, convenient, and cost effective, he said.
Kloba is a member of the Kirkland City Council. She said the issue of funding public education has been around since she joined PTA when her daughter was in second grade. That daughter now is in college. Some $3.5 billion of additional money is needed to meet the state Supreme Court’s requirement to adequately fund public education, Kloba said.
A number of steps will likely be needed to fill the spending gap, such as growth in state revenues from a strong economy and reforming the state’s business and occupation tax to make it more equitable, she said.
Kloba said she supports the Sound Transit expansion proposal. “I think it comes down to the cost of not doing it,” she said. Adding more buses makes sense in areas where surface streets are “still somewhat reasonably navigable,” she said. There, buses make sense because they’re inexpensive and routes are flexible, Kloba said.
In areas with heavy congestion, trains are the way to cut through traffic, she said. San Francisco is experimenting with micro transit, a smart phone app that allows people to put in where they are and want to go in the moment and a route is formed to gather up eight to 10 people on a bus, a concept that could be applied to van pools in the Puget Sound area, she said.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.
District 1 State Senate
Name: Guy Palumbo
Age: 42
City: Unincorporated Snohomish County
Party: Democrat
Website: www.guy4senate.com
Name: Mindie Wirth
Age: 37
City: Bothell
Party: Republican
Website: www.WirthTheVote.com
District 1 Position 1
Name: Derek Stanford
Age: 45
City: Bothell
Party: Democratic
Website: www.DerekStanford.com
Name: Neil Thannisch
Age: 53
City: Maltby
Party: Republican
Website: www.RestoreTheHouse.com
District 1 Position 2
Name: Shelley Kloba
Age: 49
City: Kirkland
Party: Democrat
Website: www.votekloba.com
Name: Jim Langston
Age: 50
City: Unincorporated Snohomish County
Party: Republican
Website: www.electjimlangston.com/#meetjim
