POULSBO — Rep. Sherry Appleton and Loretta Byrnes advanced Aug. 2 to the general election in the campaign for state House of Representatives, position 1, from the 23rd District.
Appleton, a Democrat seeking a seventh term, and Byrnes, a Republican and former agricultural program officer and state labor analyst, were the two top vote-getters in the primary election.
As of 8:15 p.m. election night, Appleton received 9,549 votes, Byrnes received 4,550. April Ferguson, a Republican and member of the Suquamish Citizens Advisory Council, received 2,321. Jack Carroll, a Democrat and Navy retiree, received 1,350.
The other 23rd District legislators, Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, and Rep. Drew Hanson, D-Bainbridge Island, are unopposed for reelection.
State representatives are elected to two-year terms and receive $45,474 a year and $120 per diem.
Appleton served on the Poulsbo City Council before being elected to the state House in 2004. In the latest legislative session, she served as chairwoman of the Community Development, Housing and Tribal Affairs Committee, and member of the Public Safety and State Government committees.
Among the bills she sponsored this year: integration of treatment systems for mental health and chemical dependency; providing increased in-school guidance supports, housing stability, and identification services for students who are homeless; creating more protections for victims of sex crimes; providing court-based and school-based intervention and prevention efforts to promote attendance and reduce truancy; providing procedures for responding to reports of threatened or attempted suicide; developing a model policy on school infrastructure recovery after a natural disaster; providing for less restrictive involuntary treatment orders; and making the period of time that students are provided access to morning foods part of instructional hours if students are provided the opportunity to engage in educational activity while they eat.
Appleton sponsored the legislation that established Silver Alert in Washington, a public notification system in the United States to broadcast information about missing persons – especially older persons with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia or other mental disabilities – in order to aid in their being found.
“Sixty percent of people with Alzheimer’s and dementia wander,” she said at a candidate forum July 14 in Poulsbo City Hall. “We have been very successful in rescuing these people.”
Byrnes initially announced her candidacy for the position 2 seat from the 23rd District, but later chose to challenge Appleton. She ran unsuccessfully for North Kitsap School Board in 2015 and has attended numerous school board meetings, which she said helped inform her position on educational issues.
On her website, Byrnes boiled her platform down to K-12 education, transportation, and workforce development.
Of education, she wrote, “We could save resources and improve accountability and oversight by merging all [teacher] bargaining units into one, implement one state test, and establish one entity for curriculum selection and procurement.”
Of transportation: “Our ferries are critical to keeping us connected with the other side and to not adding to the growing Puget Sound congestion. As a state, we need to maintain the quality and safety of our basic infrastructure and reduce congestion.
Of workforce development, she wants to see “more focused, practical and engaged teaching, as well as improved technical support for online courses. Just because campuses expand and the number of programs increase, that does not mean the teaching is of high quality. The first two years of a college education should not be the equivalent of the last two years of high school.”
Appleton and Byrnes differed mostly on where to get the money to fully fund education and improve services for people with mental health issues.
“Closing exemptions and [establishing] a capital gains tax,” Appleton said. “We’re not going to be able to meet the court’s [mandates] without extra revenue. In a sales tax-based economy, it’s just not going to happen.”
Byrnes’ response: “The economy is better, so there will be more revenue. But we first need more efficient management.” She wants the state to “stop wasting money on transportation projects that are not well managed,” “more fiscal responsibility,” and hiring of department heads that are better qualified.
Appleton said she and her colleagues “are very outspoken about what we feel and how things affect our constituents,” adding that the speaker of the House had called her “the conscience of the caucus” because “I try to bring in what all of you feel” to discussions about proposed legislation.
“I’m passionate about social justice, about unions and working families and wages, and I’m also passionate about the elderly, the voiceless and vulnerable in our society.”
