PUD’s Vaughn may be out, Darrington fire levy may be in

EVERETT — The senior member of the Snohomish County Public Utility District commission was in serious danger of being unseated while a proposed levy increase for the Darrington fire district was passing by a single vote in Friday’s tally of ballots.

PUD Commissioner Kathy Vaughn, who is pursuing a fifth term in District 2, trailed two challengers but wasn’t ready to give up.

Rebecca Wolfe is winning the primary with just under 31 percent followed by David Chan with 28.4 percent and Vaughn with 28 percent. Vaughn led Chan in the initial vote Tuesday but was behind by 183 votes on Friday.

Countywide an estimated 500 ballots are left to tally, according to Snohomish County election officials.

“I am an optimist. I am not willing to concede at this point,” Vaughn said Friday. “It is pretty close. We’ll wait until the last ballot is counted.”

Vaughn, the first woman elected to the commission, won her seat in 1994 and has been re-elected three times in District 2, which covers southwest county, including Lynnwood and Edmonds.

Chan, a business consultant, is an elected member of the South County Board of Fire Commissioners. If he wins the PUD seat, he said he will serve in both positions. He said his fire commission term ends in December 2019.

Chan won re-election to the fire board last fall in spite of a controversy in which he was reprimanded by fellow commissioners for racially insensitive comments he made in a private conversation with another commissioner.

During a break in a fire commission meeting in March 2017, Chan joked with Commissioner Bob Meador about hiring Mexicans as cheap labor for the fire district, which at the time was short on paramedics. The microphones were still on and the comments got broadcast online and later circulated publicly. Chan and Meador later apologized.

In the race for the commission’s District 1 seat, Commissioner Sid Logan is leading challenger Mary Rollins after trailing her on Election Night.

Logan, appointed to the post last year, has 30.7 percent to Rollins 30.2 percent. Bruce King is third at 27.8 percent.

District 1 covers the northern half of the county, including Everett, Marysville, Arlington, Granite Falls and Darrington, as well as Camano Island in Island County.

Meanwhile, the fate of the levy increase sought by Fire District 24 in Darrington is still in doubt.

Proposition 1 was passing by a single vote — and it’s due to a small bloc of voters in the sliver of Skagit County served by the fire district.

Results released Friday show the measure passing by 17 votes in Skagit County and failing by 16 votes in Snohomish County, where most of the district and its voters are located. It was not immediately known Friday how many ballots remained uncounted across the county line.

The department was asking to collect $1.25 per $1,000 of assessed property value, which was a rate increase of about 58 cents. It asked for the same amount in February, when the proposal failed by 11 votes.

In other races, Republican Savio Pham of Everett appears to have sewn up a spot in the general election against state Sen. John McCoy, D-Tulalip.

McCoy had 40.1 percent and Pham was next with 30.7 percent. Democrat Bruce Overstreet of Everett, who held the second spot on Election Night, is now in third, 390 votes behind Pham.

In the 39th District, state Sen. Keith Wagoner, R-Sedro-Woolley, maintained his grip on the second spot ahead of fellow Republican Elizabeth Scott.

Democrat Claus Joens, of Marblemount, was ahead with 38.2 percent. Wagoner, appointed to the seat in January, is next with 29.3 percent followed by Scott with 27.4 percent. The district covers rural areas of Snohomish and Skagit counties and a sliver of King County.

And in the 32nd District, Sen. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds, fell behind fellow Democrat Jesse Salomon, of Shoreline, by 68 votes after having been ahead by 669 votes on Election Night. Both will advance as Republican James Wood is a distant third.

Through Friday, Snohomish County election officials reported tabulating 167,151 ballots for a 36.8 percent turnout.

Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@herald net.com. Twitter: @dospueblos.