City of University Place announcement.
Pierce County Elections has certified the results of the Nov. 2 ballot and confirmed that Ed Wood has been elected to Position 4 on the University Place City Council. He will be officially sworn in on Nov. 29 during a special Council meeting that is being held due to technical difficulties that occurred during its last meeting on Nov. 15. Wood will assume his duties that evening, replacing Council Member Howard Lee who was appointed to fill the position vacancy left by the illness and passing of Ken Grassi.
Per the final vote tallies, Wood garnered 65.30 percent of the vote with a total of 4,951 votes. His opponent, Joey Jones received 2,595 votes, or 34.23 percent of those voting. There were 36 write-in votes.
“I am humbled by the trust expressed by the people of University Place in electing me to Coun-cil,” Wood said. “I will honor that trust by helping build a stronger community while acting as a faithful steward of our resources. Together we can continue to grow our city into the future.”
Incumbent candidates Javier Figueroa (Position 1), Steve Worthington (Position 3) and Denise McCluskey (Position 5) ran unopposed and will be sworn in for their next terms at the City Council’s first meeting of 2022 on Monday, Jan. 3.
I find it interesting that you’ve published the result of University Place’s Council contest, but have ignored the result of the Ethelda Burke’s University Place’s School District Board contest—especially since you provide her opponent with wide exposure via publishing her opponent’s‘supporters multiple articles, while publishing only one such Burke supporter article—even though several such Burke supporters’ article were submitted to you!
Gerald. Perhaps I missed the City of University Place’s announcement about the other UPSD content that included Ethelda. If I did miss the announcement, I apologize. It was accidental, not intentional. I’ll see about posting the final results of all local elections. As for supporter articles… I stopped publishing all election and candidate related letters to the community ahead of the election. The vitriol, especially in the comments, from all sides was too much for me. Signed, Ben Sclair.
Just curious, but …. why was Mr. Wood (who I voted for, by the way) sworn in now instead of in January 2022? I thought that the place holder (for the late Ken Grassi), Pro Tempore Councilmember Howard Lee’s term was not fulfilled until the end of the year.
Chris – State law requires that if a councilmember passes away while holding office, the councilmember pro-tem can only hold the seat until the successor election is certified. The election was certified on 23 November and I was sworn in at the first council meeting following. I will swear in again on January 3rd to begin my first term, along with the other councilmembers who were reelected. (Thank you for your vote!) Signed, Ed Wood.