A watershed night
A watershed night
11:15 am post and later posts are below the 7:30 am post
7:30 am
Dan Pike walked into the Courthouse rotunda a few minutes after the first voting results showed he had a 58% majority. And pe
7:30 am
Dan Pike walked into the Courthouse rotunda a few minutes after the first voting results showed he had a 58% majority. And pe
11:15 am post and later posts are below the 7:30 am post
7:30 am
Dan Pike walked into the Courthouse rotunda a few minutes after the first voting results showed he had a 58% majority. And people in the packed rotunda started to applaud. And those close to him backed off a few steps and more applauded. Some cheers went up. Dan stood there with a boyish grin and nodded slightly to us - while he soaked it in. The applause went on - with everyone in the place giving a warm welcome to our new Bellingham Mayor.
A watershed night. Bellingham is on a new track. Dan Pike won by articulating how he would run the office of mayor - not by how Bellingham would be changed under his guidance. Pike told us he would be fair, that all of would be allowed to participate, that city hall would be open and friendly, and that he would administer our city departments in a professional manner. We want that.
We citizens of Bellingham have our visions of our future. We don't need a single leader who knows better than we do. We need an administrator who will help us all to work together to shape our vision of our own future. We live in paradise and we live in a democracy and we all want to have good local government so we can play fair with each other and with our competing ideas. It is as simple as that. Bellingham is loaded with visionaries. We need someone who can help us all to realize our future. And now we have that person in Dan Pike.
The courthouse rotunda was packed last night from shortly after 8 pm till almost 10 pm. The best I have seen in at least 10 years. With so many open seats and so many new political players it seemed many wanted to be there and meet others. I have not yet looked at Scott Ayers' blog, but he was busy all evening talking to people and then walking over to the high counter at the information booth and typing in post after post on his laptop computer. I'm hopeful he captured some of the great ambience of the evening. It was local politics at its best.
11:15 am - posted down here to leave congratulations to Pike on top
Damon Gray has posted a gracious congratulations to Stan Snapp. These two guys ran very good clean campaigns and respected each other.
Noon
Yesterday I posted that with about 8,000 ballots received Tuesday that we had a "modest" surge. Today I have to say that was wishful writing. With only 2,256 more ballots received this morning, I have to think there is no surge at all. We may not reach 40% return and probably not my 42% guess of last Saturday. The total return of ballots as of noon stands at 38,833 of 102,721 issued, for a return of 37.8%.
5:15 pm
Afternoon vote tally is posted by the Auditor. Only about 2,000 more votes were counted today. They have counted 28,912 ballots so far. No races were changed.
Meanwhile, 8,000 more votes arrived after the 2,000 received in the mail this morning, giving a total of 10,250 ballots received today, and giving us 46,827 ballots cast in this election so far. So - there was a surge. And there should be less than a thousand more ballots arriving. This gives 18,000 ballots that still have to be processed and counted. I suspect the Auditor staff came to work late today after the late night Tuesday. But this means we will see the total votes counted increase by 4 to 6 thousand each day this week through Saturday. Good grief. There has to be a better way to get a prompt vote count.
7:30 am
Dan Pike walked into the Courthouse rotunda a few minutes after the first voting results showed he had a 58% majority. And people in the packed rotunda started to applaud. And those close to him backed off a few steps and more applauded. Some cheers went up. Dan stood there with a boyish grin and nodded slightly to us - while he soaked it in. The applause went on - with everyone in the place giving a warm welcome to our new Bellingham Mayor.
A watershed night. Bellingham is on a new track. Dan Pike won by articulating how he would run the office of mayor - not by how Bellingham would be changed under his guidance. Pike told us he would be fair, that all of would be allowed to participate, that city hall would be open and friendly, and that he would administer our city departments in a professional manner. We want that.
We citizens of Bellingham have our visions of our future. We don't need a single leader who knows better than we do. We need an administrator who will help us all to work together to shape our vision of our own future. We live in paradise and we live in a democracy and we all want to have good local government so we can play fair with each other and with our competing ideas. It is as simple as that. Bellingham is loaded with visionaries. We need someone who can help us all to realize our future. And now we have that person in Dan Pike.
The courthouse rotunda was packed last night from shortly after 8 pm till almost 10 pm. The best I have seen in at least 10 years. With so many open seats and so many new political players it seemed many wanted to be there and meet others. I have not yet looked at Scott Ayers' blog, but he was busy all evening talking to people and then walking over to the high counter at the information booth and typing in post after post on his laptop computer. I'm hopeful he captured some of the great ambience of the evening. It was local politics at its best.
11:15 am - posted down here to leave congratulations to Pike on top
Damon Gray has posted a gracious congratulations to Stan Snapp. These two guys ran very good clean campaigns and respected each other.
Noon
Yesterday I posted that with about 8,000 ballots received Tuesday that we had a "modest" surge. Today I have to say that was wishful writing. With only 2,256 more ballots received this morning, I have to think there is no surge at all. We may not reach 40% return and probably not my 42% guess of last Saturday. The total return of ballots as of noon stands at 38,833 of 102,721 issued, for a return of 37.8%.
5:15 pm
Afternoon vote tally is posted by the Auditor. Only about 2,000 more votes were counted today. They have counted 28,912 ballots so far. No races were changed.
Meanwhile, 8,000 more votes arrived after the 2,000 received in the mail this morning, giving a total of 10,250 ballots received today, and giving us 46,827 ballots cast in this election so far. So - there was a surge. And there should be less than a thousand more ballots arriving. This gives 18,000 ballots that still have to be processed and counted. I suspect the Auditor staff came to work late today after the late night Tuesday. But this means we will see the total votes counted increase by 4 to 6 thousand each day this week through Saturday. Good grief. There has to be a better way to get a prompt vote count.
