Ok, so it isn’t exactly secret… But there’s an election Tuesday, March 16th to elect a new member to the board of supervisors for the King Conservation District. But you won’t be receiving a ballot in the mail. If you want to participate, you’ll have to make your way to one of seven libraries.
Closest Polling Locations:
Downtown Seattle Public Library
1000 Fourth Avenue, Seattle
Poll hours 10:30am – 7:30pm
Shoreline King County Library
345 NE 175th , Shoreline
Poll hours 10:30am – 8pm
It can decide how millions of natural resource dollars are spent and the majority of people I’ve talked to have never even heard of it. It’s mentioned on the King Conservation District website and they even put out a press release. This doesn’t seem to have gotten the word out though.
The Seattle Times did cover the story but they mostly just highlighted how few people participate in the election. 2,757 voted last year and that was leaps and bounds above 2008 (198 people) or 1988 (14 people). The apparent argument for this process is that the King Conservation District is able to save a lot of money compared to a full county ballot but when only 14 people are voting, how is that money being spent?
If you want to know more, the King Conversation District website has bios on their Meet the Candidates page. I’ve also seen other sources, such as the Washington Conservation Voters who have endorsed Max Prinsen.
By random coincidence I was downtown for jury duty and was able to vote at lunch. There was a line but it moved quickly and it sounds like 5-600 had voted by then.
Max won!
And the turnout was amazing (at 4200) compared to previous years. Over 50% higher than last year which is great. Though obviously still way too low…
I wonder if there’s a tipping point where it becomes more expensive to run it in person vs. get it on the ballot if they have to deal with larger and larger crowds.