Ebersole Claims Tacoma Win -- Former Speaker Elected Mayor

TACOMA - Brian Ebersole coasted to victory over a self-proclaimed David who cast the former state House speaker as Goliath in the race for mayor of the state's third-largest city.

Ebersole, 48, who said he brought a University of Washington branch campus and other major projects to the city as a legislator, won yesterday with about 65 percent of the ballots, compared with 35 percent for Gary Conklin, 51, a retired deputy fire chief.

Mayor Harold Moss, appointed to the post by the City Council in January 1994 following Jack Hyde's death of a heart attack after two weeks in office, was ineligible to run for re-election.

Merger measure rejected

SPOKANE - Spokane County voters turned down a measure that would merge city and county governments in an attempt to streamline local bureaucracy.

Bill First, co-chairman of the anti-consolidation group We the Taxpayers, said the better-financed pro-consolidation campaign apparently failed to make much of an impression on voters.

Voters were presented a proposed county charter written by 25 elected freeholders who spent more than two years considering government reforms. The charter would have replaced the existing seven-member Spokane City Council and three-member County Commission with a 13-member council.

Proponents, who had a large fund-raising advantage in the campaign, contended the measure would streamline a local bureaucracy plagued by inefficiency and inadequate representation.

Critics countered that the measure would create a bloated bureaucracy and could lead to higher taxes.

GOP hangs on in Legislature

Democrats came close but failed to make a dent in the "Republican Revolution" that transformed the state Legislature last fall.

Barring reversals due to late vote counts this week, Republicans have managed to hang on to two Senate seats the Democrats had targeted in special elections yesterday.

Heading into the 1996 elections, the Republicans will continue to hold a 62-36 stranglehold on the House of Representatives, and Democrats will hold a 25-24 razor's edge majority in the Senate.

Democrats had wanted to gain some breathing room by picking up two Senate seats in Southwest Washington.

In one race, Vancouver businessman Joseph Zarelli defeated former state Rep. Jim Springer, a bowling-alley owner from Kalama, for the 18th District seat vacated by Linda Smith when she was elected to Congress. Zarelli had defeated appointed Sen. Hal Palmer, R-Longview, in the September primary.

Appointed Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester (Thurston County), was edging Democrat Lois Lopez, also of Rochester, for the 20th District seat vacated by businessman Neil Amondson.

In the only House race, appointed Republican Rep. Mark Sterk, a Spokane police officer, easily won election over Democrat Mary Austin.