Thursday, September 2

An interview with Kathy Huckabay (D-WA 5th LD)

Kayne: Good evening, this is Kayne McGladrey of Pleasing to Remember. This is our second in a three part series on the contenders in the Fifth Legislative District. Tonight, I'm speaking with Kathy Huckabay, who's running for the Washington State Senate. Good evening, Kathy.

Kathy: Hello Kayne.

Kayne: Hi.

Kathy: I'm delighted to talk with you again.

Kayne: Good to see you again - it's been a couple of weeks. I know most of your background, so this interview is mostly for other folks. You were the Mayor of Sammamish, right?

Kathy: Yes.

Kayne: How many terms?

Kathy: One term. We have a city manager form of government, so we have a professional city manager and we have 7 council members and each year the council members elect a mayor and a deputy mayor. So this is my first year as Mayor, and that term will end on December 31st.

Kayne: So you've been elected before.

Kathy: Yes. I've been elected to the city council for two terms. I was one of the founding members of the city of Sammamish. After working very hard to create the city, I decided to run for election, was elected in 1999 to an interim city council, which lasted for 18 months, ran again and was elected to a four year term. I was the highest vote getter out of the seven people who ran.

Kayne: All right. Name something specific that you did as Mayor of Sammamish which you're really proud of, and will endure beyond your term as Mayor.

Kathy: I think what I'm most proud of is the fact that we had a long and arduous relationship with the county council, particularly on the Sammamish trail issue. Coming into office I've been able to change that relationship and we're moving forward as rapidly as we can to allow the trail to go to the city. That is a legacy that we're going to leave for our children. We're also working with the King County Council on obtaining some of the property in Soaring Eagles Park, which is a 640 acre parcel just to the northeast of the city for ball fields. Again, it would be a true legacy. I guess the other thing I'm truly proud of is we were able to bring Beaver Lake park into the community as well and to provide that for our citizens.

Kayne: Good, so you've done a lot of things involving parks and trails out there, and Sammamish is a beautiful city.

Kathy: Thank you.

Kayne: That's great to see. And now you're moving onto bigger and better things, running for the Senate. How long have you been campaigning for?

Kathy: Well, I started talking with people a year ago now. So I began laying the groundwork for that campaign by going out and speaking to people. I spoke to Loren Skaggs, who had run for the State House prior to this, with Judy Clibborn, I met with Ross Hunter, and Paul Berendt, to get an idea on whether it was even a viable possibility of winning this position. And at that time, we were talking about a House position. We did not know that Dino Rossi would be stepping aside to run for Governor, so we were considering a House position. Everything was very encouraging, I heard a great deal about the changing demographics of the Fifth District which would tend to indicate that our district would be more Democratic leaning. Certainly the issues that everyone laid out were the education issue, and the health care issue; two leading Democratic issues which are big concerns for a candidate. So, I formally decided to start running and have been running now for four months.

Kayne: So you're keeping busy. Let's talk about a current issue and then we'll talk about some policy things. Yesterday, I was a guest on the Robin and Maynard show - it's a radio call in show - a guest with Secretary of State Sam Reed. It was a conversation about Washington's new Primary election system. Secretary Reed said that he fully expected that I-872, which is put out by the Grange to rescind the new Primary and give us a top-two vote getter primary would go ahead. What would you do if you were elected in the Senate and the will of the people was to go ahead with a top two? Would you support a challenge to it or would you go with the Initiative?

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