From Stark
At a meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. today (Monday, May 14) Port of Bellingham commissioners are scheduled to take up the issue of adding two new commissioners to the three-person panel.
It’s an idea that has been flickering on the margins of local political consciousness for years, but it flared up in the past couple of months, fed by dismay over commissioners’ 2-1 decision to sack Charlie Sheldon as executive director.
Concerned citizens have been gathering signatures to force a public vote on the port commission expansion, but they have also invited commissioners to simply place the matter before voters themselves.
Backers of an expanded port commission had expressed the hope that they could get the measure to voters this August, and then elect two new commissioners in the November 2012 general election. But County Auditor Debbie Adelstein tells me her staff would be hard-pressed to meet ballot publication and overseas ballot mailing deadlines for an August plebiscite on the port commission.
If backers do manage to get port commission expansion to voters in August, and voters agree to it, the resulting election for port commissioners would be a bit unusual. There would be no primary round. The top vote-getters for the two positions would assume their seats on the port commission. That means someone could be elected with a small fraction of the votes cast, if there are a lot of candidates. But let’s cross that bridge when and if we get to it.
This reads to me that if the petitions are submitted 61 or more days in advance of the primary that it must go on the primary ballot and then to the General.
http ://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=53.12&full=true#53.12.061
Remove the space after http and follow the link
53.12.115
Increasing number of commissioners — Resolution, petition — Ballot proposition.
A ballot proposition shall be submitted to the voters of any port district authorizing an increase in the number of port commissioners to five whenever the port commission adopts a resolution proposing the increase in number of port commissioners or a petition proposing such an increase has been submitted to the county auditor of the county in which the port district is located that has been signed by voters of the port district at least equal in number to ten percent of the number of voters in the port district who voted at the last general election. The ballot proposition shall be submitted at the next general or special election occurring sixty or more days after the petition was submitted or resolution was adopted.
At the next general or special election following the election in which an increase in the number of port commissioners was authorized, candidates for the two additional port commissioner positions shall be elected as provided in RCW 53.12.130, and the voters may be asked to approve the nomination of commissioners from district-wide commissioner districts as permitted in RCW 53.12.010(2).
[1994 c 223 § 86; 1992 c 146 § 7.]
This expansion is sorely needed because constituents are fed-up with irresponsible and unaccountable 2 to 1 voting results,
especially when they oppose the outcome.
It’s much better instead to have a 3 to 2 or 4 to 1 voting result outcome that constituents can oppose.