KING CITY, Ore. — An election in King City that could unseat a majority of the city council remains too close to call based on early results posted Tuesday night, with all four recall campaigns on the ballot leading by less than 2% and one of them separated by just a single vote. Ballots are still being counted, and the next update isn't scheduled to arrive until Thursday afternoon.
Councilors Laurie Petrie, Smart Ocholi, Kate Mohr and Jaimie Fender — who currently holds the council's rotating mayor seat — were all targeted by recall campaigns because they voted in favor of a planned road extension that opponents say will damage a natural area near the Tualatin River and funnel increased traffic through the city. Turnout in the Feb. 13 special election was 45.9%, according to Washington County.
The recall sponsors have argued that the councilors defied the will of the city's voters by approving the road extension, while Fender and some of the other councilors have said the recalls are being pushed by just a few landowners and are an inappropriate response to a council vote on a plan that was developed with public input.
King City is located between Tigard and Tualatin next to Highway 99. The city of about 5,200 was originally an age-restricted community, although those rules were lifted in the 1980s. The city's current western border is about a mile west of Highway 99, but the city is working on a long-term plan to guide development of the 528-acre Kingston Terrace area that extends further west out to Roy Rogers Road.
The specific issue that set off the recall effort was a council vote to include an extension of Fischer Road in the Kingston Terrace Master Plan. The street runs west through the city from Highway 99, serving as the main access road for many of the city's residents, but it ends at the power transmission corridor that marks the city's current western edge.
"We have no problem with growth; it’s going to happen, but they want to put somewhere between 3300 homes, and they have to get them to and from the access roads," said Dan Simpson, a King City resident of 14 years.
The extension in the master plan would connect it all the way through the Kingston area to Roy Rogers Road, which opponents argued would bring too much through traffic to what is currently a local street. The recall group's website argues that the city's original plan for the street wouldn't have extended it all the way to Roy Rogers Road, preventing it from becoming a direct connection between the two larger roads.
Six of the council's seven members voted for the master plan, but the group leading the recall effort only targeted four of them. One of the other two resigned in December, The Valley Times reported, and the other was not targeted because the group pushing for the recall said he had shown sufficient willingness to listen to community feedback.