UPDATE: ‘Kind of excited.’ Longtime Richland councilman looking forward to change

Longtime Richland Councilman Bob Thompson is ready to make his exit from the council.

While Thompson said it’s possible he may get a flood of votes from uncounted ballots, he said his competitor Jhoanna Jones is likely too far ahead for him to overcome her lead.

“I think it would be a real stretch for me to find my way back into second place,” Thompson told the Herald on Wednesday.

After the initial count on Tuesday, Thompson was in third place, behind two business owners, Jones and Chaune’ Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald, a Richland business woman and community organizer, is leading the race for Position 1 with 4,195 votes, or more than 43 percent.

Jones trails her with 3,128 votes or 32 percent, and Thompson had 2,316 votes or nearly 24 percent.

Thompson, who was first elected to the council in 1994, served as mayor from 2000 to 2004. Then, he served a second four-year term that ended in 2020.

He has been an advocate for expanding retail and improving infrastructure in the city. The end goal has been to move the city away from its heavy reliance on property taxes to a healthier split of tax revenue.

Thompson also has been involved with advocating for stabilizing the 56 million gallons of liquid nuclear waste at the Hanford nuclear site. He said that was why he ran again for the council.

In the last year, Thompson also has been an outspoken critic of Gov. Jay Inslee’s decisions around the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

Now, Thompson said he’s happy about the prospect of having an extra 15 to 20 hours in his week.

And he’s excited to see the winner of the two-women race bring new ideas to the city council.

“I think they both come at the world with a fresher viewpoint about what city government should do,” he said. “I’m kind of excited. No matter which one of them wins, it will be a unique change on the Richland City Council.”

Incumbents trailing

Thomspon wasn’t the only incumbent trailing challengers Tuesday night.

Marianne Boring is in second place behind former Tri-County Partners Habitat for Humanity CEO Theresa Richardson.

The top two candidates will move on to the general election in November.

The Benton County Auditor’s Office said they counted 29,852 ballots and still had an estimated 8,000 remaining in the primary. It’s unknown how many of those were cast in Richland.

Richardson leads the in race for Richland City Council Position 2 with 4,914 votes, or nearly 51 percent of the votes.

Boring was in second place with nearly 39 percent of the votes. Security professional Mike Luzzo had 593 votes.

Elijah Stanfield, who was on the ballot but didn’t want the position after filing, got 376 votes.

The winner of the race in November will serve out the remaining two years of Brad Anderson’s term on the council after he left in 2020 for health concerns.

This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 8:53 PM.