Three new Lynnwood City Council members will take the oath of office Monday.
Newly elected Council members George Hurst, Shannon Sessions and Shirley Sutton will take the oath Monday along with re-elected incumbent Councilman Benjamin Goodwin, who has won a tight contest from the Nov. 3 general election after a recount last week that showed him defeating challenger Chris Frizzell by 21 votes out of 5,303.
The new council members won’t actually start their duties until the Jan. 4 Council meeting.
Hurst defeated incumbent Councilman Syd Roberts, Sessions defeated incumbent Councilman Van AuBuchon, and Sutton defeated incumbent Councilman Loren Simmonds.
Sessions said Sunday that she is excited to get to work.
She said that she wants to join first-term Mayor Nicola Smith in forging what she called “a new day for Lynnwood.”
That includes an emphasis on what Sessions called “regionalism.”
One issue that Sessions said certainly would come up is whether to work with nearby communities on forming a regional fire authority involving other parts of South Snohomish County. Goodwin said Monday that Lynnwood has to make sure that city residents keep control over fire service and that the city gets the best possible service at the best possible price.
Sessions said that she would recuse herself from any issue specifically involving the fire department because her husband is a Lynnwood firefighter.
Goodwin and Sessions both said that they hope the city can develop enhanced civic engagement, something that they hope will raise Lynnwood’s continually low voter turnout.
Lynnwood had a November turnout of 35 percent. In addition, more than 14 percent of Lynnwood voters left at least one Lynnwood council contest blank.
Sessions said that she didn’t know why Lynnwood voters had voted out three incumbents and barely kept another, but she pointed to a “newsletter” that former Councilman Ted Hikel had sent to voters. She said that otherwise all candidates for all of four Lynwood council positions had run positive campaigns.
Simmonds had called Hikel’s “Lynnwood News and Views: Special Election Edition” a deceptive use of the city logo.
Lynnwood Mayor Smith, who was not on the 2015 ballot, sent a message to voters before the election to distance the city from Hikel’s newsletter, saying that Hikel had used a city logo without authorization.
Hikel then told the Lynnwood Today web site that he didn’t think his newsletter would confuse voters.
Simmonds, who has defeated Sutton 57 percent to 43 percent, had led Sutton in a three-way August primary by a 44 percent to 38 percent margin.
Goodwin said that he didn’t know why three incumbents had lost and why he was the one survivor.
Goodwin won his close November victory after trailing Frizzell in a three-way August primary.
Maria Ambalada, who ran behind Simmonds and Sutton in the August primary, said Monday that Goodwin had been the only incumbent who hadn’t been a target of negative campaigning.
Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.
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