A lack of volunteers to interview candidates caused The Municipal League of King County to drop Kent election races this year from its annual candidate rankings.
That means voters will not have any Municipal League rankings to consider before they pick among the 12 candidates for the Kent City Council or the five Kent School Board candidates. Ballots for the Aug. 16 primary (that includes three council races) were mailed last week by King County elections. The general election is Nov. 8.
Loren Tierney, office coordinator for the Municipal League in Seattle, explained the decision to drop Kent from the rankings in a July 27 email.
“Unfortunately, the Municipal League was not able to rate candidates from Kent races this year,” Tierney said. “Being an almost completely volunteer-run organization, the races we are able to cover depend largely on our volunteer base, and this year we did not have enough volunteers to extend as far as we would have liked into King County.
“The races we do cover are likewise dependent on our volunteers and where they reside. This year we had a large percentage of volunteers from North Seattle and the Eastside, which is why we chose to cover Shoreline City Council as well as a few Eastside races.”
The Municipal League released candidate rankings in July for races in Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, Shoreline, Renton and Federal Way.
More than 80 volunteers were part of the Municipal League’s candidate evaluation committees to study public records, review candidate questionnaires, speak with primary character references and conduct interviews with candidates.
The rankings grade candidates from a low of “not qualified” to a high of “outstanding.”
“We would love to be able to rate more candidates in the future, so if you know of anyone interested in volunteering in (spring) 2012, please encourage them to apply on our website,” Tierney said.
For more information or to volunteer, go to www.munileague.org.
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