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“Retain” landslide
“Yes, we can change!” Obama said in his victory speech tonight.
“No, we will not change!” the citizens of Ocean Shores shouted, regarding Weatherwax.
Shortly after 8 p.m., the Grays Harbor County Auditor’s online site reported that with 2,010 votes cast, 1,383 (66.49%) voted “retain” on the Weatherwax advisory vote. “Sell” received 697 votes (33.51%). The total of votes counted was right around two-thirds of Ocean Shores’ registered voters, and most felt it was a clear, resounding message from the citizens to City Council: don’t mess with Weatherwax.
Larry Phoenix, leader of the Voice for Positive Change group that urged a “sell” vote, did not question the results. “The citizens of Ocean Shores stated what they wanted to do, and that’s fine with me . . . the vote came out to retain, that’s a closed issue for us, we’ll move on to other issues.”
John Clark, who with his wife Catie founded Ocean Shores Citizens for Balanced Growth to protect the Weatherwax, said the vote was “extraordinary. Two-thirds to one-third! That’s better than I ever thought we would do. I knew we would win this, because civic pride leads you to protecting things like this . . . What this vote tells me is people really understood what was going on.
“I love the pride of these citizens of Ocean Shores. The message obviously is not to sell it. What ‘retain’ means to them will be clarified in the future. But it can’t mean anything to any serious city council person except protect it for nature and green space.”
Dave Creighton is in his 12th year as a city council member. The sell-or-keep Weatherwax issue “reared its head a few times over the years. Maybe this will put it somewhat to rest. . .
“From a personal standpoint, I had given thoughts to some golf holes being moved and things around those lines. But to be honest, all I wanted was whatever the people of Ocean Shores wanted. . . .. For me it’s a win. We brought it up to the people, and they decided.”
Mayor Dean Bunkers said he was surprised by the early results. “I didn’t think it would be that big of a split. … That certainly has sent a clear message to the city council. It’s kind of done what we wanted it to do, to get an idea what the citizens wanted.”
It is interesting to see the argument I used to describe the prior election of Veitz, Vela, Patrick and Johnson when they were elected and felt they had a mandate being used here to contest the Weatherwax vote. Maybe people should work to get more participation and thus a better representation of the citizenship. However, citizenship has a duty to vote, sit on juries, and participate in public debate on the issues. Do we have our High School Students register to vote when they turn 18? Do we see register to vote tables at IGA, ACE, Ocean Shores Theater, McDonalds, or the various coffee shacks? Maybe we should promote it more. Voting by mail could not be easier. Maybe we need to have the ballots already stamped. It would cost us more, but maybe it would increase response. Who knows. We can only hope that the current economy will drive people to future pollings. You can lead a horse to water, but you can not make it drink.
Mr. Stermer-Cox, I just checked with Mr. Spatz again, he verified the number of ballots mailed to Ocean Shores as 3,279. Not sure where you’re getting the 4,000-plus figure. -tom
After another conversation with Grays Harbor Elections folks this morning, the 772 ballots in question were possibly returned as undeliverable. Whether someone fails to vote because they don’t care or didn’t keep their address correct is moot. The fact is that over half of Ocean Shores “active registered” voters failed to cast a ballot and, thus, 34.1% of active registered voters got Weatherwax passed – far from a majority of those who are able to vote. I don’t think this is what the founders of this country had in mind.
That’s odd because I called the Grays Harbor County Elections office on Friday and was given a district by district count of registered voters and THAT count totaled 4051. Makes me wonder what happened to the other 772 ballots???
See post above:
According to Vern Spatz, Grays Harbor County Auditor, 3,279 ballots were mailed to Ocean Shores residents.
The statement: “The total of votes counted was right around two-thirds of Ocean Shores’ registered voters..” is incorrect. There are 4051 REGISTERED voters in Ocean Shores. If 2010 voted that means that means that only 34.1% of the registered voters shoved Weatherwax down our throats. That’s the problem with participatory democracy – more than half didn’t even bother to participate.