It’s been a full week since our Feb. 10 special election and I think for folks who were supporting either the Sequim School District’s construction bond or the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center’s levy (or both), the defeats are starting to set in.
Both proposals earned the majority of ballots turned in with — oddly enough — nearly identical rates of 57.5 percent of about 12,600 votes. Those numbers are impressive considering last year’s much larger school bond garnered less than 45 percent “yes” votes and the last time SARC ran an levy proposal election back in 2002, it was soundly defeated (just 46 percent yes votes in September that year, just 44 percent yes votes two months later).
From 2003 on, SARC officials tried to make a go of it and did an admirable job keeping the facility open — no easy task, considering how money pits like pools simply aren’t operated without some sort of subsidy.
Expect both school bond and SARC levy supporters to come up with another plan (or plans) starting this week. The SARC board of commissioners is kicking around ideas at 5 p.m. today (Feb. 18) at the facility’s gymnasium, while the school board meets an hour later, its first gathering since election night. Both entities have fairly strong advocates on their side and, as Sequim school officials said after 2014’s bond effort came up short, the needs haven’t disappeared.
Turnout, tuned out
This seems to give new meaning to the term, “No taxation without representation.”
Clallam Country residents filled out 23,575 votes for the Feb. 10 special election out of 45,005 eligible.
That’s just under 52.4 percent. Seriously.
That leads me to wonder what exactly happened to the 21,430 residents who didn’t “get out the vote.” Well, in this state, that means they didn’t “get out the pen” or “get out a stamp.”
So what happened? Did you fall asleep … for three weeks? Forget to check your mail … for three weeks? Got lost on the way to the ballot drop off? Ran out of ink? Forgot how to sign your name?
Consider for a moment how precious the right to vote — and vote freely, without the likelihood of repercussions — you have right now. On Feb. 3, clashes between rival supporters in the northern state of Kaduna, Nigeria, left eight people dead. A day earlier, three people were killed and 18 injured when a suicide bomber struck close to a campaign rally.
Last June, Afghanistan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah narrowly survived an assassination attempt and saw three of his bodyguards die in the attack.
And if you live in North Korea or Qatar or Cuba, enjoy the choice of no choice.
I guess that’s the long way of saying, you know, vote. Please.
We’re No. 3! We’re No. 3!
In another in a never-ending list of obscure e-mails I get from websites I’ve never seen, heard of or likely will go to in the future, I recently received a note from the fine folks at SmartAsset (make puns here). SmartAsset has released a study that ranked the 10 best places to retire in Washington. The study considered four main factors: taxes (both income and sales tax), the number of doctors’ offices and opportunity for recreation and a social life.
No. 1 on the list? Gig Harbor with a “Best Place to Retire” index of 91.2. No. 2 is Clarkston (85.6 points) and Sequim comes in at No. 3 (84.1 points), ahead of Snohomish, Chehalis, Poulsbo, Olympia and the three ports: Port Angeles, Port Townsend and Port Orchard.
Enjoy the top spot, Gig Harbor. We didn’t see you on the Huffington Post list. And good luck with that No. 2 spot, Clarkston … you, without the longest natural sand spit in the United States. Don’t get too comfy.
Sign of the apocalypse
“Exploding Kittens,” an online card game dreamed up by video game designers Elan Lee and Shane Small, is now the most backed campaign in Kickstarter history, in terms of the number of backers, according to the crowd-funding platform. And it’s No. 2 in terms of money, raising $4 million since its Jan. 20 launch — far exceeding the initial $10,000 goal.
Kickstarter spokesman David Gallagher confirmed the game, which has everything from magical enchiladas to cats that can kill you, had set a record for the most individual donors. More than 173,000 individuals have pledged as of Feb. 17.
Enjoy the bloodbath.
And finally …
A Gazette reader urged me to remind our faithful readers to not throw their old phone books away.
For one, it’s simply the only way to get a hold of folks who have kept their land line but somehow got missed in the new phone book publications. Two, if we gather enough we can build a whole new support for the Railroad Bridge over the Dungeness River.
Reach editor Michael Dashiell at editor@sequimgazette.com.
