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Following a mandatory machine recount that showed her winning by 20 votes, Sam Doyle was certified Tuesday afternoon as the winner of the Mountlake Terrace City Council Position 1 race.
The recount by the Snohomish County Elections Office confirmed that Doyle received 2,674 votes, while incumbent Rick Ryan received 2,654 votes.
“I am honored, humbled and thrilled to be elected as your newest councilmember, Mountlake Terrace residents,” Doyle said in a statement to My MLT News. “Thank you for all of the in-person conversations, emails and meetings in the last six months — I will carry all of these with me as I begin my term next month. I worked hard for this seat (with the support of many volunteers) and I will continue to work hard as your councilmember.
“I tip my hat to Councilmember Ryan for his 17 years of service to our city,” Doyle added.
A key issue between the two candidates during the campaign was the City Council’s decision to employ the Flock license plate reader system, which has come under fire for sharing data with federal immigration officials. (The City has since paused using the system.) Doyle has been adamantly opposed to Flock while Ryan has supported it.
A Mountlake Terrace resident since 2012, Doyle has three children in the Edmonds School District. She has worked as an oncology advanced registered nurse practitioner for almost 20 years.
Ryan, who was first appointed to the MLT Council in 2008, is a retired public schools educator.
City of Mountlake Terrace spokesperson Sienna Spencer-Markles said that Doyle will be sworn into office during the Thursday, Jan. 8 Council meeting. Ryan will be acknowledged for his years of service at the Dec. 18 meeting, she added.
If anyone “earned” the votes they got, it was councilmember-elect Doyle for actually running a campaign. The incumbent was the one who “received” votes merely for existing.
This use of language is as undermining as calling councilmember-elect Doyle “Sam” during the all candidates forum while referring to her counterpart as “Mr. Ryan.”
I’m not sure why this paper continues to treat Ms. Doyle with less respect than Mr. Ryan, but it’s getting tired very fast.
My sincere apologies for the impression that there was disrespect by using different words in describing how the candidates acquired their votes, but we have addressed that by using the same word for each candidate. As for the candidate forum — I take personal responsibility for not being consistent is using either titles or first names throughout the forum, for each race. It should be one or the other for everyone, all the time, and it was not — Teresa
Congratulations to our new councilmember-elect Sam Doyle! Unlike her opponent, she actually put in hard work, time and effort running for this office. We can look forward to her valuable contributions as our newest City Council member.
When I saw the same humble & hardworking Sam Doyle I had seen in local volunteer tasks was running for City Council I could hardly believe it. I also particularly enjoyed the handwritten postcard her campaign sent to her house, and was pleased to lend her our household’s vote. I hope she’s able to bring a thoughtful and nonbiased perspective to the Council. Nice work, Sam.