Marysville, country races on August primary ballot

Ballots for the August primary have been mailed out and include races for the Marysville City Council and Snohomish County Council as well as a levy measure from the Getchell Fire District.

Ballots are due by Aug. 6.

Local drop boxes include those at the Arlington Library at 135 N Washington Ave., Arlington, Marysville City Hall at 1049 State Ave., Marysville, and the Smokey Point Lowe’s at 3300 169th Place NE, Arlington.

Washington state uses a ‘jungle primary’ system which means that in races with more than two candidates the top two vote receivers will proceed to the general election in November, even if they are in the same political party.

Getchell Fire Levy Measure

Snohomish County Fire District No. 22 will run a levy that allows the district to collect property tax at $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The Getchell Fire District covers the area just east of central Marysville’s city limits.

“This is an opportunity for the voters to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ to bring the levy rate back up to $1.50,” said Fire Chief Travis Hots.

“It has eroded from $1.50 in 2008, the last time the voters approved a levy, to $1.12 in 2019,” he said.

The state’s system naturally reduces the amount of the rate that fire districts can collect.

“Because of I-747 we are limited to the amount of property tax collection we can increase each year to 1 percent,” said Hots.

The 1 percent allowed increase is typically always outpaced by inflation.

For just the raises that staff will receive next year the district has to budget about $9,000 more, said Hots.

“And that eats up the majority of that 1 percent increase,” he said, without even accounting for other costs that increase because of inflation.

Hots said that the levy will help maintain the current services that the district provides.

“Without an increase in the levy rate, at some juncture we are going to run out of money,” he said.

“We would have some difficult decisions to make in the near future,” he said.

The fire district currently keeps four employees on around the clock “and we would hate to cut down on that,” he said.

County Council District 2

County Council District 2 covers Tulalip, north Everett and Mukilteo and has eight candidates running.

Incumbent Brian Sullivan is prevented from running due to term limits.

The candidates for the race are Democrats Louis Harris, Jennifer Gregerson, Cecilia Wilson, Megan Dunn, Alex Lark, Sharita Burton and Tyler Verda and Republican Anna Rohrbough.

County Executive

Incumbent Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers is running unopposed.

Marysville City Council Pos. 5

Marysville City Council member Rob Toyer is running for Snohomish County treasurer in November and not for his current City Council seat, leaving no incumbent in this race.

The five candidates running for the seat are Gary Kemp, Todd Fahlman, Leguang “Noah” Rui, former City Council member Jeff Seibert and Kelly Richards.

Marysville School District

There are two races for the Marysville School District board of directors that have three candidates each.

The District 2 seat covers the north Marysville area and is between Paul Galovin, incumbent Mariana Maksimos, and Kona Farry.

District 5 is on the south side of Marysville and covers the Sunnyside area primarily.

Candidates running for that seat include Ryan Muri, incumbent Tom Albright, and Halleh Stickels.