King County Councilmember trying to ‘stop the spread’ of city policies to suburbs

After early results from the primary election Tuesday, some people came up short and aren’t going on to the general in November. But others did well, including King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn.

Dunn is leading in the race for County Council District 9 with 56.84% of the vote. His closest opponents are Kim-Khanh Van (21.15%) and Chris Franco (16.26%). District 9 covers southeast King County.

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Dunn and KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson have spoken in the past about how the King County Council is increasingly becoming removed from the suburbs and rural King County.

“The Seattle City Council is moving everybody farther to the left in the urban core, and the King County council is sadly attempting to emulate that,” Dunn said. “And it’s been a little bit like, … every time we have an election, we lose another sort of moderate or conservative councilmember.”

“So it has been very, very frustrating and we’re doing our very best to keep sanity on the council,” he added. “It is still more moderate, however, than the Seattle City Council, thankfully.”

Dori pointed out that other cities in the United States have essentially made the city its own county, which then allows suburbs and rural areas of the county to have a government that better reflects the population. Could something like that happen in Seattle?

“Well, I would certainly support that,” Dunn replied. “And it’s been done in a lot of communities across the country, including Baltimore, where the city of Baltimore is separate from the county of Baltimore around it. And as we see Seattle City Council and city leadership drift off into socialism and defund their police to a point where crime is going to be record number of homicides this year, record number of shootings, crimes at a 30-year high, they continue to go that direction, [we] may be forced just out of the basic community safety sense to move into separate jurisdiction.”

“And I think that’s fair for people to talk about and advocate for,” Dunn noted.

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As far as his role on the King County Council, Dunn says part of it is trying to prevent the spread of the city policies out to the suburbs.

“If you want to know what I do on a day to day basis as a King County councilman is I am trying to stop the spread of those failed policies out into the suburban and rural areas of the county and beyond,” he said. “It is a full-time job, not particularly gratifying, but it’s important work that we do to preserve our quality of life.”

Also up for re-election to the King County Council are Pete von Reichbauer in District 7, and Kathy Lambert in District 3. Lambert and von Reichbauer are leading their respective races in early results.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.