Voters Favor King County Children's Levy, Seattle Elections Measure

King County's $390 million levy focused on helping children get a strong start in life, and an initiative to change the way elections in Seattle are financed were passing in the first results from Tuesday's elections.

King County Best Starts For Kids Levy

The $390 million levy had 53 percent approval at the first ballot count on election night. It would raise the money over six years to pay for an array of services aimed at improving the prospects of disadvantaged children.

Identifying and treating developmental delays early is one of the goals of the Best Starts for Kids levy on King County’s fall ballot. Created by county Executive Dow Constantine, it would pay for a wide range of prevention and early intervention services for children and families.

But critics say the tax could hurt the very people it purports to help and would fund services that already exist.

Initiative 122

Under this ballot measure, called Honest Elections, every voter in Seattle would be a donor. The vote in Tuesday night's count was 60 percent yes to 40 percent no.

Before a city election, voters would receive four $25 vouchers in the mail. Voters pick their favorite candidates and mail in their vouchers.

The effort attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, most from a few East Coast donors.

Alan Durning, the executive director of the Sightline Institute, said campaign vouchers would be a first in the country. Durning said these groups hope to replicate the vouchers elsewhere if the measure passes.

The initiative goes beyond the vouchers to implement other changes to ethics, transparency and lobbying rules. It would cap campaign contributions and ban city contractors and business partners from donating to campaigns.

The initiative would impose a property tax (about $8 per year for the median homeowner) to generate $3 million to fund the vouchers. All voucher donations would be tracked and publicly reported, and backers expect to create an online system for making the donations in addition to the paper one mailed to voters.

King County Council

District 6: Incumbent Jane Hague was trailing challenger Claudia Balducci, 59 percent to 41 percent, in the race to represent Bellevue and other Eastside cities.

Balducci is the Bellevue mayor and former head of King County jails. Balducci has accused Hague of missing too many council meetings and sponsoring too few pieces of legislation.

Hague responded that Balducci is distorting her record, and that if she’s missed meetings, it’s been to advocate on issues nationally and to help constituents solve their problems.

Snohomish County Executive

Dave Somers, the chair of the County Council, was leading County Executive John Lovick, 57 percent to 42 percent.

Lovick is a former county sheriff and state patrol officer. Somers has been described as a “rumpled policy wonk.” He said he’s familiar with the land use issues which are such a big deal in Snohomish County. They’ve scrapped over the county’s financial health and soaring costs on a new county courthouse.

Tacoma Minimum Wage Initiative

A two-part minimum wage initiative was before voters in Tacoma. The first question was whether to bump up the minimum wage. That question had 59 percent approval.

But an effort to move the wage to $15 hour this year was losing to a competing plan from the Tacoma City Council to raise the wage to $12 over two years. The vote was 72 percent for the $12 plan.

Fircrest Alcohol Measure

This Pierce County town is the last in Washington with a ban on alcohol -- but that might be over. Voters were overwhelming approving alcohol sales there by 76 percent to 24 percent.

Produced for the Web by Gil Aegerter.