SNOHOMISH — In first-night primary results, City Council incumbent Steve Dana and challenger Karen Guzak have outpaced challenger Tabitha Baty for City Council by some 200 votes.
Meanwhile for mayor, incumbent John Kartak and Linda Redmon are far ahead of Sam King. King has less than 5 percent of the vote so far.
Meanwhile, voters so far have said yes to continuing a city sales tax for funding road paving.
Some 1,510 of Snohomish's 6,791 registered voters are included in this tally, or about 22 % who can vote this year.
* In City Council primary between Baty, Dana and Guzak, both Dana and Guzak are neck and neck. Dana leads the race with 568 votes to Guzak's 556. Baty, who is president of Snohomish For Equity, has 347 votes, or about 24 percent.
Guzak and Dana both have logged three terms on the City Council. Guzak bowed from the council in 2019 after three consecutive terms and endorsed her successor, Judith Kuleta.
* In a council primary that wasn't, for Position 5, David Flynn holds 50 percent of the vote to Kari Zimmerman's 35 percent. Third candidate Becky Perkins has 20 percent of the vote. Perkins formally withdrew her campaign but was too late to get off the ballot. This election is for the council seat held by Linda Redmon. Redmon months ago began a run for mayor instead of defending her council seat.
* In the race for mayor, Linda Redmon leads incumbent Mayor John Kartak 786 votes to 628 votes.
Sam King ran a self-funded, plucky campaign under the goal of changing Snohomish into a "direct democracy" where the public at-large is polled to determine city policies, instead of having elected City Council members making these decisions under the traditional "representative" form of government.
* Transportation Benefit District: In the public decision whether to continue a 0.2 percent sales tax for road improvements, the vote is currently almost a 60-40 split in favor. The measure needs a simple 50% majority to pass.
The next tally of ballots will come out Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m.
