It turned out to be a short Kent City Council campaign for candidate Rich Brandau.
Brandau said on Monday he has pulled out of the race against Bailey Stober, Hira Singh Bhullar and Tina Budell for “personal reasons.” Brandau’s name will still appear on the Aug. 4 primary ballot because he missed the King County Elections deadline to withdraw.
“I don’t intend to campaign,” Brandau said in an email when asked about his reasons for no longer running for the seat currently held by Deborah Ranniger, who decided not to seek reelection.
The two candidates with the most votes in the primary advance to the Nov. 3 general election.
Brandau is retired and has lived in Kent for 20 years. He served 22 years in the Air Force as a navigator, a command and control duty controller and a contract division chief before retiring as a lieutenant colonel. His contract division helped manage $4 billion in contracts. After retiring from the Air Force, he was hired by Boeing in the marketing department for proposal development and moved to Kent in 1995. He later joined a consulting firm and has 14 years of business management experience.
He told the Kent Reporter last month he decided to run to be part of the solution to the issues facing the city.
The council seat is a four-year terms and the part-time position pays $13,752 per year.
The only other council race features Councilwoman Brenda Fincher against Toni Troutner in the general election for the remaining two years on a four-year term. Fincher was appointed by the council last year to replace Ken Sharp, who resigned in 2014 after only two weeks in office because of stealing money from his 93-year-old mother’s bank accounts.
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