Shortly after tonight’s 8 pm voting deadline, King County Elections released the first round of results in the presidential primary:

DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Joseph R. Biden Jr. – 195,549 – 84.21%
Uncommitted Delegates – 23,574 – 10.15%
Dean Phillips – 5,698 – 2.45%
Marianne Williamson – 4,713 – 2.03%
Write-in – 2,693 – 1.16%

REPUBLICAN PARTY
Donald J. Trump – 54,171 – 61.01%
Nikki Haley – 29,810 – 33.57%
Ron DeSantis – 1,979 – 2.23%
Chris Christie – 1,272 – 1.43%
Vivek Ramaswamy – 943 – 1.06%
Write-in – 671 – 0.70%

The ballots in tonight’s count represent a 23% turnout so far; here are the latest ballot-return stats. To see the statewide results, go here.

P.S. Here’s our report on the first night’s results four years ago.

If you plan to vote in our state’s presidential primary, tomorrow (Tuesday, March 12) is the deadline. As with other elections, you either need to ensure your ballot has a USPS postmark no later than tomorrow, or put it in a King County Elections dropbox by 8 pm Tuesday (West Seattle has three, plus there’s one each in White Center and South Park). If you haven’t voted in a Washington state presidential primary before, note that it’s unique in one factor: You have to declare a party, and then vote on that party’s section of the ballot, for your vote to count. (Your party choice will remain on the record for 60 days.) And yes, as has been pointed out previously, the ballot contains some candidates who’ve withdrawn – each party had to finalize its list by January 9 as part of the ballot-printing process. These and other questions are addressed in the FAQ on the Washington Secretary of State website. It even includes past presidential-primary turnout stats (49 percent four years ago) and current ballot-return stats (23 percent as of last Friday).

A reader texted us this morning to report getting email saying their ballot had been sent – for the “February 13 special election.”

Aside from the fact that February 13 was nine days ago, our area wasn’t involved in the special election. So we checked with King County Elections, to see if perhaps that was meant to be an alert of ballot-mailing for the upcoming March 12 presidential primary. KCE spokesperson Courtney Hudak confirmed that: “We’ve heard from voters who received email alerts that erroneously included information from the February Election. The team has since sent an updated email alert with the correct date, which, as you say, was supposed to be for the March Presidential Primary! Ballots have been mailed for (that)! Voters should receive their ballots by Monday. If they have not received their ballot by then, they should give us a call at 206.296.8683.”

Also of note – your ballot will include some candidates who have withdrawn from the race since qualifying for the ballot. The KCE website explains why: “The list of eligible candidates was provided by the State Democratic and Republican Parties on January 9. After that date, there was no opportunity to withdraw a name from the ballot.”

By Sean Golonka
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

Local members with the 34th District Democrats, the West Seattle area’s largest political organization, received a wide-ranging presentation on Gaza during the group’s online-only monthly meeting on Wednesday night, through a conversation that focused heavily on the Israel-Hamas conflict’s effects on families in Gaza.

Several candidates for statewide office — including Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal and Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti, Democrats who are both seeking re-election — also made appearances at the meeting, a sign the election season is getting underway, with the primary election set for August 6.

Focus on Gaza

Rachel Glass, the 34th DDs’ first vice-chair, said the conversation was motivated by an “urgent need for dialogue and education” to understand the complexities of the ongoing conflict, and the pre-meeting program featured two local community activists with longtime ties to Palestinians.

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Just one scripted shoutout to West Seattle in Mayor Bruce Harrell‘s State of the City speech today – in the context of the planned Sound Transit light-rail extension. Other topics in his speech, delivered at the Museum of History and Industry in South Lake Union, were familiar and timeless, public safety chief among them – he hailed some ongoing changes, like the creation of the CARE Department (with 911 and a crisis-response team), and said – as we’d heard last week – that Seattle’s Park Rangers will soon be working citywide. He also promised to convene a public-safety forum next month to hear from community members. And he said that when he proposes the next transportation levy, it will focus on “the basics” – repaving, bridge maintenance, signage and striping, potholes (District 1 City Councilmember Rob Saka got a shoutout there), etc. And he acknowledged that the pressure is on, since he can pretty much count on support from the mostly-new City Council: “There is a new level of expectations.” On homelessness, he hit the points made in the media briefing we covered last week. Read the speech here (or watch the video above).

P.S. Set your calendar – the mayor said the next citywide Day of Service is set for May 18th.

(WSB photo, City Council chambers, last month)

When we talked with District 1 City Councilmember Rob Saka the day he was sworn in, he promised to open a district office. No word of the location for that yet, but he’s launching “office hours” next week – regular times where constituents can make appointments to talk with him in the district, rather than having to go downtown. According to Saka’s weekly newsletter, his first office-hours dates are February 23 and March 6, at the Southwest Customer Service Center (same building as the pool and Teen Life Center, 2801 SW Thistle). According to the signup form for the first date, hours will be 11 am-1 pm, at least for starters, and he’s booking 20-minute windows, either in person or via videoconferencing. He’s also planning South Park office hours, starting March 23 at the Duwamish River Community Hub.

(WSB photo: Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington, right, with Office of Housing director Maiko Winkler-Chin)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

In advance of Mayor Bruce Harrell‘s mid-term State of the City address next week, his administration says its homelessness response is making progress.

To elaborate on that, the mayor’s office invited reporters to a City Hall briefing today. The mayor wasn’t there – he was out planting trees – but Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington, whose portfolio includes the homelessness response, presented updates and answered questions. Video recording wasn’t allowed. We were there; here’s what we heard.

A key point: The city has developed a database that allows them to track actions, statuses, and results. Before the database, Washington said, it was all tracked by hand, and not very well at that. Building the database took up much of this administration’s first year, she added. Among the toplines they’re touting are these stats from the Unified Care Team, the multi-department city task force that handles encampments (not to be confused with the crisis-response CARE Team):

Another major change: Washington says they no longer remove encampments based on who’s complaining the loudest. That wasn’t fair, she said, since the loudest usually meant those who had the luxury of the most time on their hands to complain. Now they have criteria. That was part of the briefing, to review how they evaluate encampments for removal, or at least cleaning. For one, the assignation of points:

But, she said, it’s not just a scoring system:

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After six years on the Seattle City Council, North Delridge resident Teresa Mosqueda moved to the King County Council last month. Following her November election win with 55 percent of the vote, she took office last month in the District 8 seat vacated by Joe McDermott after 13 years. As shown on this map, her district stretches far beyond West Seattle, also encompassing much of downtown, as well as Georgetown, South Park, Tukwila, Burien, White Center and the rest of unincorporated North Highline, plus Vashon and Maury Islands. As she had said during the campaign – announced almost exactly a year ago – her big focuses are on health and housing, but there’s a lot more to pay attention to. We sat down with Councilmember Mosqueda for a half-hour video-recorded chat at the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse this past Thursday. The unedited video is above; below, key points from our conversation.

We asked what the transition’s been like. She had words of praise for the county staff having to bridge such geographic and political diversity. She’s already been back to a variety of places around the district and is scheduling community meetings. “What I’m hearing in these meetings is what I heard in the campaign,” she says – concerns related to her signature issues. But economic challenges are a major concern, and she says she’s talking with businesses and workers about how to support what they’re doing. The county itself is facing a budget crunch, which Mosqueda points out could shut down public-health clinics on which tens of thousands of people rely for health care, she says, so she’s been lobbying for state action that would enable a tax-collecting boost by the county (but this Seattle Times story the day after our chat suggests it’s not happening), and talking to the feds too.

Also on the topic of health, she’s been elected as chair of the Seattle-King County Board of Health, and says a current priority is addressing the “shadow pandemic – isolation, depression, behavioral health, substance-use issues.” She also chairs the council’s Health and Human Services Committee. One major task ahead is the implementation plan for the Crisis Care Centers Levy that voters approved last year, meant to combat the lack of places to take people to get the care they need. Before the brick-and-mortar facilities are opened, she said, there’ll be a “mobile response.” The levy also funds “workforce training … so that [more] people are able to provide services” early on. She says the implementation plan should be complete by the end of the second quarter.

On housing, a major topic we tackled was the King County Comprehensive Plan update, which is currently before the council – “really important decisions that will be made for the unincorporated areas … more walkable, livable neighborhoods,” Mosqueda summarized it. She says it could lead to more affordability and, just to pick one unincorporated area of note, a “new vision” for downtown White Center; she recounted a conversation with a local doctor who hopes that’s what will happen. She says the review of the comprehensive plan has just begun, so she’s joining at an opportune time. She hopes to hear from community members about their thoughts about the next 10 years, too (the period the plan update is to cover).

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As announced last month, District 1 City Councilmember Rob Saka is chairing the Transportation Committee – so you might not be surprised to hear he’s just hired a former top-level SDOT manager to join his staff. You might even recognize her: Heather Marx was the most visible SDOT manager during the 2020-2022 West Seattle Bridge closure, as the head of the bridge-stabilization-and-repair program. So visible, that her name appears in WSB archives 105 times – although the first few mentions are from her pre-bridge role as Downtown Mobility Director during the Highway 99 viaduct-to-tunnel project. Most recently, Marx has been working at the Seattle Police Department. And now she’s Policy Adviser for Councilmember Saka, who announced this in his latest newsletter, sent this afternoon. From the announcement:

Heather brings 25 years of city policy experience to the role, with a particular focus on transportation. Before joining our team, Heather served as Strategic Initiatives Director at the Seattle Police Department, and as the Program Director for Seattle Department of Transportation’s West Seattle Bridge Safety Program. While at SDOT, she led the Department’s efforts to successfully reopen the West Seattle Bridge. She brings a wealth of policy expertise in the critically important issue areas of public safety and transportation. Heather is a long-time resident of District 1 where she raised two children in Seattle Public Schools and lives in the Fauntleroy neighborhood with her husband.

Marx joins Councilmember Saka’s two previously announced staffers, Chief of Staff Elaine Ikoma Ko and District Relations Director/Scheduler Leyla Gheisar. You can see Saka’s full newsletter here.

(WSB photos, video)

Our area’s U.S. House Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a West Seattle resident when not in D.C., held a town hall meeting Wednesday night in her home neighborhood. She and her constituents brought up a wide range of issues, from the Israel/Hamas war to college costs to health care to UAPs (aka UFOs).

Rep. Jayapal said the community meeting at The Hall at Fauntleroy was one of more than 100 town halls she’s had since taking office seven years ago. “We may not agree … but whatever it is, I want to talk about it.” We recorded the town hall in two parts – first, her half-hour introductory remarks:

For those who don’t have time to watch, here are our notes:

She said “funding for community-based projects” is part of the job – and that she has helped secure $50 million, with $17 million to come “as soon as we pass the government funding (legislation).” She mentioned food-bank funding and emergency housing as some of what that money goes toward. Other funding on which she’s worked included something showcased at a port event earlier in the day, %18 million toward truck electrification.

If you are associated with a nonprofit, she said, her office can help you look for federal grant money. And for individuals, they can help you navigate federal agencies. “Our job is to try to help you navigate what is sometimes just crazy bureaucracy,” or inaccessibility. They won’t necessarily be able to solve every problem for you but they can at least help you get an answer. This includes Social Security, Medicare, and immigration issues, she added. She hailed her staff’s tenacity in pursuing solutions for constituents. Specifically, she said, she’s hearing from constituents who have felt strong-armed into Medicare Advantage plans – or are having a tough time getting back onto traditional Medicare. She says she’s been pushing to get the federal government to crack down on Medicare Advantage-related fraud – she thinks those offerings shouldn’t even have Medicare in their name.

On other matters, she said this has been the least productive Congress ever – barely 20 bills passed by both houses and signed into law in 2023. Funding to keep the government running is usually finalized by year’s end, but isn’t yet – “this is the craziness we’re dealing with, we still have not funded the government.”

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