Nov. 4 election certified; Oliver and Sharp prevail as mayors

EPHRATA – Grant County officials on Tuesday certified final results from the Nov. 4 general election, with no significant outcome changes from Election Night.

Steve Oliver is now Ephrata’s mayor-elect, outpolling incumbent Bruce Reim by 118 votes, 937 to 819.

Oliver, 58, a local tattooist and artist, will take office for the four-year, non-partisan position on Jan. 1. During his campaign, he called for “fresh ideas” and “needed change” at city hall. Oliver did not reply to email and text requests for comment earlier today.

For Reim, 73, the election loss marks the end of his 10-year tenure as mayor, after previously serving 13 years as a city councilman.  

In an email reply to GCJ.news, Reim said, “I wish to thank all the people who have reached out after the election. Not just from Ephrata, but from all over the Basin. Very touching. I have always felt that Ephrata is a special place.” 

In other mayoral races around the county:

• Soap Lake mayor Peter Sharp shed his interim appointee status by winning election to a two-year unexpired term. Sharp finished with a 20-vote lead, 206-186, over final write-in tallies which presumably favored declared write-in candidate and council member Karen Woodhouse. The names of write-in candidates are not formally declared unless results show them prevailing over other candidates in a contested race, said county elections administrator Kaylyn Orozco.
• Incumbent Quincy mayor Paul Worley easily won re-election, outpolling challenger Manny Rodriguez, 626-354.
• In Grand Coulee, interim appointee Ruth Dalton will continue as mayor for a two-year unexpired term with her 124-106 win over challenger Chantel Crowe.
• The Town of Coulee City will have a new mayor in the new year with longtime councilman Don Rushton defeating incumbent ShirleyRae Maes, 182-77.

In other locally contested races:

• Challenger Pamela McLaren defeated incumbent Danny Bohnet, 1,892-675, for the commissioner No. 2 position with Grant County Hospital District No. 3, which operates Columbia Basin Hospital and its related facilities in Ephrata;
• Challenger Brian Black outpolled incumbent Kevin Danby, 338-182, for the commissioner No. 3 seat with Ephrata-based Grant County Fire District No. 13;
• Tyler Chase won election to the commissioner No. 1 seat with the Ephrata Port District, besting Jordan Hansen, 1,364-601;
• The Soap Lake School Board will have a new member in Rebecca Leavell, who finished with a 410-314 advantage over Mark Novik for the Director No. 5/at-large position. Both Leavell and Novik advanced to the general election after finishing ahead of incumbent Dwight Deines in the August primary.

Among money measures listed on the Nov. 4 ballot:

• Columbia Basin Hospital’s proposed $30 million construction bond was voted down a second time, garnering only 43.4% of the vote, short of the 60% needed for passage. The measure was also rejected by voters in the Aug. 5 primary election by a similar margin.
• In the Mattawa area, a proposition to lift the property tax levy lid for Grant County Hospital District No. 5 failed with only 34.6% of the vote. The district, which operates a local medical clinic, wanted to raise the levy rate in 2026 to its maximum regular amount of 65 cents per $1,000 of assessed property valuation.
• Wilson Creek voters approved a one-year, maintenance-and-operations tax levy for the local cemetery district. The measure passed with nearly 79% of the vote and will collect $11,500 in 2026 at an estimated rate of 17.5 cents per $1,000 of assessed property valuation.

Elsewhere, Grant County’s 14 cities and towns all had multiple city council positions up for election but only nine seats were contested: three in Quincy; two in both Coulee City and Electric City; and one each in Grand Coulee and Moses Lake.

Numerous other nonpartisan elective positions featured single candidates in uncontested races for cemetery, city council, fire, hospital, port, school, and water districts.

In Ephrata, unopposed candidates include school board members Jim Adams, Casey Devine, and Matthew Truscott and city council members Phil Borck, Kathleen Harris, and Matt Moore, along with council newcomer James Mathis. In Soap Lake, unopposed candidates included city council members Andrew Arnold and Kayleen Bryson and school board director Donald Clark.

Overall, voter turnout in Grant County for this month’s general election was only 30.5%. Of the county’s 52,158 registered voters, less than 16,000 ballots were returned and counted.

Of those who did cast ballots, 63.4% of Grant County voters opposed Washington’s lone statewide measure – Senate Joint Resolution 8201. However, the resolution received 57.8% approval statewide. SJR 8201 will amend the state constitution to allow public monies dedicated to Washington’s long-term care fund to be invested in the stock market. The measure earlier received strong bipartisan support from state lawmakers, but needed simple-majority approval by voters for enactment.