If Roberts wins county job, what would happen to Council seat?

By Evan Smith

A couple of commenters on this site have asked what would happen to Chris Roberts' seat on the Shoreline City Council if Roberts wins a county position on the fall ballot.

Roberts is one of three candidates on the August 4 primary ballot to replace retiring King County Elections Director Sherril Huff. Two of the three will advance to the November 3 general election.

If Roberts would win in November, he would need to resign his city council position before taking the county office in early January.

The elections director, unlike other elected officials, is not allowed to hold any other public office, even a part-time one.

Roberts said last week that this rule is designed to protect the elections director’s impartiality.

State law allows other elected officials to hold more than one office as long as no more than one office is full time.

A Roberts resignation from the city council would mean that the remaining six council members would have 90 days from the time of the resignation to appoint a replacement. That usually includes seeking and accepting applicants, interviewing candidates and appointing a successor by giving him or her at least four votes.

Voting by six-member councils can lead to repeated ties as in Edmonds last year, when that city's council took 59 ballots to replace a councilman who had resigned.

Roberts said that he already has told current council members that they should let the council members elected in November control the process, although he suggests that the old council prepare the way by having application material ready.

If the six-member City Council can't get a majority vote for one candidate within 90 days, the nine-member King County Council would have a new 90 days to decide. If the County Council couldn't decide, the governor would decide.

The appointed council member would serve through certification of the 2017 general election, when voters would choose someone to fill the new term plus the last few weeks of the four-year term that Roberts won in 2013.

Elections for nonpartisan positions in non-charter cities like Shoreline are held only in odd-numbered years.

Local positions could be on this year’s ballots for the last two years of the terms if the incumbents had resigned before the start of the May 11-15 filing week.

Roberts noted Monday that he wouldn't have resigned before filing week because no one knew about the county vacancy until Huff announced after filing that she wouldn't seek another term.

Until a few years ago a city council position or nonpartisan office that became vacant between the filing week and the primary could appear on the November ballot after a special filing period during primary week. The legislature changed that law after five candidates ran to replace Scott Noble in the nonpartisan position of King County assessor in November of 2009 with current Assessor Lloyd Hara winning with 32 percent of the vote.