Councilman John Dulcich announced that he will file for re-election this spring.

Dulcich began serving on the City Council when the city incorporated in 1994. He retired from his post in 2007. After a few years away from local government, Dulcich was elected to the council in 2009. He served as the mayor for two terms from 2002 to 2005 and again from 2010 to 2011.

He currently occupies position No. 7 on the council. His current term is set to expire at the end of the year.

Election Day is Nov. 5. The deadline for candidates to file for election is May 17.

Learn more about the upcoming election in the May edition of the Newcastle News.

Newcastle resident John Drescher announced that he will run for a City Council position in the upcoming election.

Drescher was appointed to the Newcastle Planning Commission in 2010 and currently serves as the advisory board’s chairman.

“At the urging of friends and family, and because I care deeply about helping to make Newcastle a great place to live and raise a family, I have decided to run for the Newcastle City Council this year,” he said in a statement.

Drescher will file for position No. 6 on the council, which is currently occupied by Councilman Bill Erxleben. In the April Newcastle News, Erxleben announced that he will not file for re-election.

Election Day is Nov. 5. The deadline for candidates to file for election is May 17.

Learn more about the upcoming election in the May edition of the Newcastle News.

Newcastle resident Mark Greene announced that he will run for a City Council position in the upcoming election.

“The importance of keeping our unique stature as a city is a major reason of why I decided to run, though not the only,” he said in a statement. “If elected to the council this year, I will focus on infrastructure, safety and environmental issues.”

Greene will file for position No. 6 on the council, which is currently occupied by Councilman Bill Erxleben. In the April Newcastle News, Erxleben announced that he will not file for re-election.

Election Day is Nov. 5. The deadline for candidates to file for election is May 17.

Learn more about the upcoming election in the May edition of the Newcastle News.

Mayor Rich Crispo announced that he will file for re-election this spring, when he addressed the audience at the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce’s April 10 luncheon.

“I am going to run again,” he said. “I really like the people in the city, I really do. I’m involved in a lot of stuff and I meet a lot of folks and I just love it.”

Crispo was elected to the Newcastle City Council in 2009. He became the mayor in 2012.

He currently occupies Position No. 5 on the council. His current term is set to expire at the end of the year.

Election Day is Nov. 5. The deadline for candidates to file for election is May 17.

Learn more about the upcoming election in the May edition of the Newcastle News.

King County voters could decide next month to increase the property tax rate in order to prepare the criminal justice system for the decades ahead.

The ballot measure Proposition 1 asks voters to approve a $200 million property tax levy to fund a replacement for the aging Youth Services Center, a juvenile detention facility in Seattle.

“We have a fairly good court system. We have a good prosecution office. We have good sheriff’s deputies. But this facility is the leak in the pipeline,” King County Councilman Reagan Dunn said in a July 13 interview. “For criminal justice to work effectively — especially with the increase in crime we’re seeing right now — all aspects of that pipeline need to be operating effectively.”

Dunn is Newcastle’s representative on the council.

If the nine-year levy is passed, homeowners can expect to pay about 7 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or about $20 per year for a home assessed at $350,000 in 2013.

The replacement plan is a long-held goal for county leaders. Officials started planning to replace the Youth Services Center years ago. The project has ranked as the county’s highest-priority capital project since 2008.

The existing Youth Services Center is not designed to handle a hectic caseload. Judges and commissioners at the juvenile court on site handle 3,700 cases per year at the facility. Officials said courtrooms and waiting areas lack enough space for juvenile offenders, family members, attorneys and others.

The detention facility houses about 65 children and teenagers from throughout King County.

The proposal calls for replacing decaying buildings constructed in the 1950s, 1970s and 1990s. Officials deemed the electrical, plumbing, and heating and cooling systems as beyond repair.

“It’s a facility that when I joined the council eight years ago was a dump then, and it’s in a very serious state of disrepair,” Dunn said.

Officials said replacement costs for the systems could reach more than $20 million.

“It’s just like an old car — you keep trying to repair it, but after awhile it’s more economical to buy a new one,” Dunn added.

(Dunn, a Republican, is running for state attorney general against a council colleague, Democrat Bob Ferguson.)

If voters approve the measure, a replacement facility is scheduled to open in 2019.

Measure attracts support

The latest ballot measure comes after a failed attempt to raise replacement dollars. In 2010, voters rejected a broader sales tax package meant to raise dollars for criminal justice services and replace the Youth Services Center.

“We did a lot of work to scale back the size of the project,” Dunn said. “It wouldn’t have been fair to the taxpayers to propose the Taj Mahal, so we proposed what I think is in the middle range of what was necessary for voters to consider.”

Councilwoman Kathy Lambert joined Ferguson and councilmen Larry Gossett and Joe McDermott to introduce the legislation. The council agreed in a unanimous decision to place Proposition 1 on the August ballot.

The measure attracted broad support from leaders in local government and the criminal justice system.

County Executive Dow Constantine, Prosecutor Dan Satterberg and King County Superior Court judges support the measure.

The authors behind the statement supporting Proposition 1 in the county voters’ include former U.S. Attorney John McKay and former state Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge.

“Despite decrepit conditions, our court is leading in innovations for juvenile and family justice,” the statement reads. “The new CFJC will better serve families and child advocates by co-locating services like medical treatment, counseling and placement. The new design will improve safety, privacy and dignity. Combining services will save millions in duplicative service providers and offices.”

Opposition to Proposition 1 is more difficult to ascertain, especially because most voters did not learn about the measure until ballots arrived.

The voters’ pamphlet statement against the measure does not directly address the juvenile detention facility and instead focuses on property tax increases in general.

“Again, the council has declined to propose a sales tax increase, opting instead for the property tax increase it’s confident will pass because homeowners constitute less than half of registered voters,” reads the statement against Proposition 1. “Further, since the council is indebted to public service unions for the support which re-elects its members, there’s been no action to reassign any governmental service to the private sector where it might be delivered more economically.”

The bid to increase the property tax rate in a difficult economy initially gave Dunn pause, too.

“I am going to vote for it,” he said. “I wasn’t certain when I voted it out of the council that I was going to support it, but I knew it was a serious enough proposal that it needed to go to the voters.”

The summer campaign season is close at hand, and July 9 is the deadline to register to vote or update registration information for the Aug. 7 primary election.

Voters can check to make sure if registration information is current by using My Voter Guide, by calling the Voter Hotline at 206-296-VOTE or by visiting King County Elections weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 919 S.W. Grady Way, Renton.

“We’ll be mailing ballots for the primary election soon, so it’s very important that voters’ names, addresses and signatures are current,” Elections Director Sherril Huff said in a statement. “If you’ve moved or changed your name recently, you need to update your voter registration.”

Signatures tend to change over time, so it’s also important for voters to update the signature on file at the elections office. The update helps avoid problems when the office reviews and verifies each voter’s signature before the ballot can be counted.

Voters who miss the July 9 deadline to update registration should still contact the elections office to update information for future elections.

King County residents not registered in Washington can register in person after July 9 at the elections office through July 30.

In order to register as a Washington voter, a person must be a U.S. citizen, a Washington resident, at least 18 by Election Day and not under the authority of the state Department of Corrections.

In Washington, voters do not register by political party or declare political party membership to vote in primary or general elections.

The approval rating for a $97 million school bond in the Renton School District continued to increase today as unofficial election results continue to trickle in. The bond reached a 60. 55 pass rate with 10,246 voters in favor of the measure, with 6,676 residents voting against it.

The results will be finalized April 27.

Voters in the Renton district cast ballots for the second time this year April 17 that would finance a new middle school in Newcastle and facility improvements to Lindbergh High School’s pool, among other projects.

The bond needs a 60 percent yes vote and a minimum turnout of 10,582 people. More than 22,200 ballots were cast in the election.

The bond originally came up two points shy of the 60 percent needed to pass in the Feb. 14 special election.

Citizens for Renton Schools Chair John Galluzzo said a major setback to gathering enough support for the bond the first time was not giving residents a clear picture of what the bond would mean to them financially.

The election was about 335 votes short of the ballots needed to approve the bond, he said.

While a $219 million school bond on the April 17 ballot from the Issaquah School District is heavily favored by voters, a $97 million construction bond in the Renton School District is too close to call after the second day of election results.

The Issaquah bond is passing by 69 percent, and the Renton bond is just more than the supermajority needed to pass at 60.28 percent, according to King County’s special election results.

Issaquah School District

The Issaquah electorate faces a choice on a $219 million school construction bond in the April 17 election.

More than 21,200 ballots have been cast in the election. The bond requires a 60 percent yes vote and a minimum turnout of 12,229 voters.

Numbers issued by King County at  just after 4:30 p.m. Wednesday show the bond issue is passing easily with 14,763 votes in favor compared to 6,416 votes against.

The Issaquah school issue needs to win the approval of a supermajority of 60 percent of those who vote in order to pass.

Prior to the election, bond backers said based on the number of registered voters expected to cast ballots, the bond issue would  need about 14,000 “yes” votes in order to win approval.

For Liberty High School, passage of the bond would mean completion of the reconstruction and modernization plan now under way thanks to a 2006 voter-approved bond.

At the same time, Apollo and other elementary schools in the district would receive sizable space additions, making room for 120 additional students at each building. Apollo and other schools would benefit from some much-needed maintenance, according to the principals of the schools.

Outside of schools being rebuilt or transplanted, Liberty, Apollo and Issaquah Valley Elementary are the three individual school facilities that would receive the most attention in terms of dollar value should the district win passage of its current bond proposal.

Renton School District

Voters in the Renton district cast ballots for the second time this year on a $97 million school construction bond that would finance a new middle school in Newcastle and facility improvements to Lindbergh High School’s pool, among other projects.

There were 9,778 people who voted in favor of the measure, while 6,442 voted against it.

The bond would need a 60 percent yes vote and a minimum turnout of 10,582 people. More than 14,100 ballots have been verified in the election.

The bond originally came up two points shy of the 60 percent needed to pass in the Feb. 14 special election.

Citizens for Renton Schools Chair John Galluzzo said a major setback to gathering enough support for the bond the first time was not giving residents a clear picture of what the bond would mean to them financially.

The election was about 335 votes short of the ballots needed to approve the bond, he said.

King County Council members decided Monday to put a $200 million property tax levy to construct a juvenile detention facility on the August ballot.

The proposal is to fund a replacement for the aging Youth Services Center, a juvenile detention facility in Seattle. The facility is a collection of decaying buildings constructed in the 1950s, 1970s and 1990s. Officials deemed the electrical, plumbing, and heating and cooling systems as beyond repair.

Judges and commissioners at the juvenile court on site handle 3,700 cases per year at the detention facility. The complex houses about 65 children and teenagers from throughout the county.

If the nine-year levy is placed on the ballot and passed, homeowners should pay about 7 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or about $20 per year for a home assessed at $350,000.

In unanimous decision, council members placed the measure on the ballot. The primary election is scheduled for Aug. 7.

Councilwoman Kathy Lambert joined Ferguson and councilmen Larry Gossett and Joe McDermott to introduce the legislation.

“The issue of building a new Family Youth and Justice Center in Seattle is now in the hands of the voters,” Councilman Reagan Dunn, Newcastle’s representative on the board, said in a statement. “I urge the public to take a close look at the ballot measure and make an informed decision on this important levy.”

In the existing facility, county officials spent millions addressing ongoing mold and moisture lingering from a 2006 flood. In 2010, officials suspended court operations at the facility after a water main broke outside the building.

Ballots should start to appear in Issaquah and Renton school district voters’ mailboxes in the days ahead.

The Issaquah electorate faces a choice on a $219 million school construction bond in the April 17 election. (The school district stretches from Preston to Newcastle, and from Sammamish to Renton.)

Voters in the Renton district will cast ballots for the second time this year on a $97 million school construction bond that would finance a new middle school in Newcastle, among other projects.

Issaquah School District officials opted not to pay to include a voters’ pamphlet alongside ballots.

“Vote and return your ballot as soon as possible,” Elections Director Sherril Huff said in a statement. “The earlier voters return their ballots to the elections department, the better. We check every voter’s signature before opening the ballots and have a limited amount of time to contact voters if there are any issues to correct.”

Voters can return completed ballots at a drop box or through the mail. Mailed ballots require a 45-cent first-class stamp.

The elections office plans to open a ballot drop box at Issaquah City Hall, 130 E. Sunset Way, on Thursday. The ballot drop box in Issaquah and other locations countywide remain open until 8 p.m. April 17.

King County Elections is also opening the accessible voting center Friday.