Puyallup council: Bring Rick Hansen on board
THE NEWS TRIBUNE
One of the unfortunate realities built into elections is that the winner always takes all and the loser always loses all.
That the right outcome when the returns reflect a clear public preference for one candidate over the other. But when elections are close, the result hardly represents the overall will of the people. When they are extremely close – close enough to have turned on a few misaddressed ballots or other glitches – then the “loser” hardly deserves that label.
Such was the case with Washington’s incredibly tight governor’s election in 2004. It’s also the case with the recent election for the at-large seat on the Puyallup City Council. But in Puyallup – unlike the governor’s race – winner-takes-all doesn’t have to be the result.
The race pitted Kathy Turner, an incumbent seeking to switch seats in mid-term, against Rick Hansen, a businessman with eight years of prior experience on the council. Both were excellent candidates, a fact reflected in the outcome: Out of more than 8,000 ballots cast, Turner wound up ahead by only 12 votes after the recount was finished.
Any number of accidental factors – a few hanging chads, so to speak – could have produced that 12-vote margin. The 12 ballots amounted to 15 thousandths of a percent of the total cast. Somebody had to be the winner, but the result was a statistical tie.
As it happens, there’s now an open seat on the city council – the very seat in District 2 that Turner abandoned to run at large. The council must appoint someone to it, and that someone ought to be Hansen.
He’s the only one out there who showed enough interest in the position to step forward and fight for it. He very nearly got it; the returns prove that he won considerable public support.
More important, he’s simply an excellent prospect for the council. When The News Tribune’s editorial board endorsed Turner last fall, it did so only after long and conflicted deliberation. Hansen was an intelligent and thoughtful candidate with strong credentials for the job.
With the impending departure of City Manager Jim Bacon, the city council faces the critically important decision of hiring a new executive. Its members need good advice from whomever they pick for that empty seat. Hansen can provide it, and he’s got a better claim on the position than anyone else in the district.
