EVERETT – Snohomish County voters will decide five ballot measures on the Nov. 3 general election ballot stemming from the decadal Charter Review Commission which was conducted earlier this year.
The five ballot measures on the Nov. 3 general election mail in ballot involve proposals such as shifting all County elected offices to Non-partisan races, requiring an 80% supermajority for the County Council to pass a tax increase, and establishing an emergency fund in case of natural disaster like an earthquake, flooding or landslide like the catastrophic Oso deluge in 2014.
The Snohomish County Charter Review Commission meets every 10 years to consider changes to the county’s home rule charter. The Snohomish County Home Rule Charter serves as the county’s constitutional framework, defining its local governance, organizational structure, and official election methods. Charter Review is intended to be an opportunity to keep county government updated with technological advancements or other contemporary political priorities that have developed in the intervening 10 years.
The following five propositions will appear on ballots for all registered Snohomish County voters. In interviews with the EverettPost.com, the 2026 Charter Review chair, Mark James, and vice-chair, Janelle Cass, spoke in favor of the five propositions listed below and Charter Review board member, Robin McGee, spoke in opposition to all five.
Proposition No. 1: Adoption of a Foundational Government Services Policy
Described on the ballot and the voter’s guide, “This proposition would require the County to adopt and maintain a Foundational Government Services Policy that prioritizes funding for essential state-mandated services—such as public safety, courts, infrastructure, public health, and core administration—before expanding discretionary programs, while promoting long-term fiscal sustainability, budget stability, and reserves.”
James says, “So before the (County) Executive or the (County) Council could dip into the budget, we wanted to make sure that the essential services were considered first before that discretionary spending.”
Cass offered, “The way I see it is kind of verbalizing and putting it in the charter that budgets will be established by prioritizing the need over the want. Making sure you’ve got the meat and potatoes of the budget before you order dessert. Both the executive and the legislative branch would both have to adhere in the charter.
McGee countered, “The commission removed Human Services (from the priorities list). (It) was originally on the list of offices within Snohomish County government to prioritize. The commission intentionally removed Human Services.
In opposition to Prop 1., McGee says the key phrase involves the line “‘including, but not limited to” the entire list of county departments. “If two people on that County Council don’t want Human Services prioritized, they can absolutely refuse to approve it. Or if the County Executive did not want Human Services–and maybe I’m picking on Human Services (in this example), but they were included in the original (Charter) proposal and then were removed. And I think that’s unfair. So, I think that’s, that’s a real problem.”
Proposition No. 2: Prioritize Funding of Budget Stabilization Funds
On your ballot, it reads, “This proposition would require the County to maintain primary and secondary budget stabilization funds to address emergencies, disasters, severe fiscal disruptions, and continuity of essential services; require a supermajority Council vote to spend from those funds; require replenishment plans following withdrawals; and mandate annual public reporting on fund balances and performance. “
Cass begins, “The way I see the budget stabilization portion is you strengthen our financial reserve for a major emergency, like an Oso or everybody talked about the earthquakes that we’re due to have in our region. And we’ve experienced all the flooding last year.
James says, “When you have an emergency of that magnitude, I would hope that politics would take a back seat. This is definitely not a partisan issue. This is safety of the people and major disaster relief. And there’s no new taxes or increases in fees or anything to fund this. It was going to be funded from interest from other funds. That’s a big set aside for this purpose, so it isn’t going to cost the taxpayers anything.”
McGee argues against Prop. 2 saying, “There’s an emergency fund that the County Council already has access to and now what this proposal is for it to be a second emergency fund, which would also require four of the five council members to vote in the affirmative to use.”
“We’re all sympathetic to another emergency happening. Absolutely. We want to make sure that we’re prepared,” McGee underscores. “However, to put money into the fund is to take the interest earned from the first emergency fund that already exists and then put that into this new emergency fund. And that’s how money will just start growing over there. The promise of fund number two is that it will not raise taxes. But I’m here to tell you, unless money is going to fall from the sky into this fund, somewhere, the money is coming from other parts of our budget. And so, we’re either going to be cutting programs or we’re going to raise taxes to fulfill this fund. One of them has to be true.”
Proposition No. 3: Converting All Elected County Offices to Non-partisan Offices
The ballot text says, “This proposition would make all Snohomish County elected offices non-partisan by removing political party designations from the ballot, updating vacancy procedures, and phasing implementation for County Council, County Executive, and Prosecuting Attorney elections through 2030.”
If approved, James says, “It’s going to be phased in over the next few years, because they’re staggered elections right now. But once it’s fully phased in, on the ballot you won’t be seeing partisan identifiers. If somebody is affiliated with a party, it’s easy enough, if you’re interested to know, is easy enough to look and see. You go to PDC (Public Disclosure Commission) or you just look at the material that the person is putting out. You see who they’re associated with. It’s not hard. We’re not trying to hide anything. We’re trying to actually make it more open and transparent so that people will look at the person running for office rather than the letter (of the political party next to their name) because people look for the letter, and then they’re guided by that, and we don’t want that to be the designating factors what the person stands for, what they’re running for.”
In opposition, McGee asserts, “These positions make legislation. The policies that are part of the platform of these parties matters in these particular positions. It doesn’t matter in the position of sheriff, prosecuting attorney, assessor all these things. These people don’t make policy. But in positions where somebody makes policy, then, if they have a political affiliation, you as a voter have a right to know what types of policies are they going to be leaning towards. So it’s all about, um, informing people. And so it shouldn’t be any surprise that the Republicans at the table were pushing for this. Trying to remove that party affiliation. So, all it does is it hides party affiliation. It does not make these people in these positions all of a sudden start behaving in a non-partisan manner. All it does is take away party affiliation from the ballot and from the voter pamphlet.”
Proposition No. 4: Increasing Public Access to County Financial Transparency
The ballot reads, “This proposition would require the County to maintain publicly accessible, searchable, and downloadable financial transparency tools that provide information about county-funded contracts, grants, expenditures, recipients, and related financial activities, utilizing existing data systems where reasonably practicable and allowing phased implementation as systems are modernized.”
Cass brought this measure to the Charter Review commission for consideration and says, “To discover where the county was spending money. Listening to other people trying to figure out where would some of the grant money (be) going. Where was the 1% sales tax going that’s supposed to support people dealing with substance abuse disorders? I did come across a web portal that has some contracts, but it didn’t have very clear forward-facing metadata, The county is required to have and required to make public this information. Facts about the contract weren’t easily accessible. You couldn’t really do a sort, a filter, or search on a website all in one place, combined, so people can see it all, where are their tax dollars all going.”
Speaking in opposition, McGee says, “The problem is, there’s no teeth behind it. All it says is ‘do their best effort’. They could literally put up a little web page where you input your information and have to write what you want, and they can reply back to you when they get around to it and say, ‘that was our best effort’. There’s no guidelines as to what the best effort is. All of the information that they’re trying to make super available on this web portal is already available. You just have to ask for it.”
Pursuant to that accessibility, McGee says, “The (Prop 4) ask is to make information that is already available, (to) make it more accessible on the web portal. But again, it is just for them to put forth their best efforts. And in those (Charter review) meetings, the implication was that the county, is spending money on the down low and we don’t know where they’re spending it. Well, they’re already transparent, but you just have to ask for the information and they’ll tell you. This is a solution looking for a problem, but it doesn’t exist. “
Proposition No. 5: Requiring a 4/5 Supermajority Council Vote to Increase Taxes
The ballot language is thus, “This proposition would require at least four affirmative votes (a 4/5 supermajority) of the County Council to create or increase new councilmanic taxes after January 1, 2027, while exempting existing councilmanic taxes and renewals or reauthorizations that do not increase the tax rate.”
Cass views Prop. 5 as a fiscal issue, saying, “ A lot of people are just talking about feeling overly taxed; lots of seniors having so much concern about being able to afford to stay in their home.”
“you want to make sure you have a robust discussion and collaboration on what to do with those funds. And it seemed to make a lot of sense, but there should be a lot of robust discussion and agreement when the County Council is going to ask taxpayers to pay for more things. We’re seeing this everywhere. People just really struggling financially. It should take more agreement with that.
Acknowledging the opposing view, Cass adds, “There’s some argument that people are making that ‘Oh, now you’re asking for 80 percent (super majority of council members to approve a vote)’, well, it’s really just one more vote.”
McGee counters, “So, if you have three people to agree that it makes sense for the good of our community, for my district, to raise taxes because we want to make sure that we’re able to keep these services and, right now, prices are going up across the board, right? We’re all feeling it. And so, this would make it such that if a councilmember says, ‘yes, inflation has made it such that we need to raise taxes…to make it so we can continue the current services’, that we have just to maintain, right? And if three council members who agree that they want to raise the taxes, but people represented by two (councilmembers) who say, ‘no, I don’t want to’. It puts the power in the hands of the minority. That is not fair.”
The general election is held Nov. 3. All ballots must be postmarked or deposited in an official drop box by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2026, to ensure your vote is counted accurately.
Voting began on October 16. October 26 is the final day to register to vote or update your existing voter registration address online via VoteWA or by mail. Mailed forms must be physically received by your local county elections office by the close of business on this day.
While ballots can be mailed up until Election Day, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and the Secretary of State recommend mailing your ballot at least 8 days before Election Day, which is October 26.
If you missed the October 26 deadline, you can still register to vote or update your information in person at a county elections office or voting center up until 8:00 p.m., November 3, 2026.
Ballot Drop Boxes: Your ballot must be dropped into an official ballot drop box by 8:00 p.m. sharp, Nov. 3.
Mail Returns: Ballots sent via U.S. Mail must be postmarked no later than November 3. No postage stamps are required.