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Karen Howe (Sammamish City Council Position 7, Washington, candidate 2025)
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Karen Howe is running for election to the Sammamish City Council Position 7 in Washington. She is on the ballot in the general election on November 4, 2025.[source]
Howe completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Karen Howe provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on October 5, 2025:
- Birth date: November 24, 1955
- Birth place: Seattle, Washington
- High school: Mercer Island High School
- Bachelor's: Whitman College, 1978
- Gender: Female
- Profession: Business Executive
- Prior offices held:
- Mayor and Councilmember (2021-Prsnt)
- Incumbent officeholder: Yes
- Campaign slogan: Forward Together
- Campaign website
- Campaign endorsements
- Campaign Facebook
- Campaign YouTube video
Elections
General election
The general election will occur on November 4, 2025.
General election for Sammamish City Council Position 7
Karen Howe and Debbie Treen are running in the general election for Sammamish City Council Position 7 on November 4, 2025.
Candidate | ||
Karen Howe (Nonpartisan)  | ||
| Debbie Treen (Nonpartisan) | ||
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| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Endorsements
Howe received the following endorsements. To view a full list of Howe's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. To send us additional endorsements, click here.
- Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates of Washington
- Washington Conservation Action
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Karen Howe completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Howe's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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My vision for Sammamish is to remain safe, beautiful, welcoming, and environmentally and fiscally sustainable for the long term. I’m committed to keeping Sammamish livable with efficient connections to jobs, schools, businesses, and parks. I led the City to add Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging to the City’s workplan during my first month on the job. And we have no intention of backing away from being a welcoming city.
I continue to prioritize community needs like more housing options, so longtime residents can downsize, and local workers and young families can thrive. I will continue to push for more transit through my work on the Regional Transit Committee and leverage my strong partnerships with legislators that have helped us secure significant grants and disaster relief. Additionally, I will continue to pursue progressive revenue options to ensure our reliable, high-quality public services without relying solely on property taxes.- I am an affordable housing advocate and am working to add a variety of housing types to Town Center so that older residents can downsize and still stay in the city they love. I believe we can grow responsibly AND preserve our natural environment at the same time. We cannot stop growth, but we can plan. I support adding more diverse housing types and encouraging cottage housing, duplexes, and mixed-use buildings in our Town Center and neighborhood centers. Whether aging in place or downsizing to a walkable neighborhood, I want to see more home choices that allow our adult children to live here, to ensure that workers at the local grocery and teachers in our schools have places where they can live, thrive, and frankly, afford.
- A priority for me is fiscal sustainability for the long term. We cut the General Fund budget by over $8.9 million for the 2025–2026 biennium as part of a plan to address a long-term structural budget imbalance. Importantly, we were able to do this without a service level reduction as residents are clear they expect high quality services – and no reduction in safety standards. 63% of our budget comes from property taxes. As a former tech CEO, I'm not OK with just one source of revenue. We need to reduce our reliance on property taxes and the most obvious boost to sustainable revenue is a successful retail core in Town Center.
- I want to find a way to fund the creation of a community center for seniors, teens, and families. We already have the space but need a plan for how the center will function and at what cost.
Land use planning, zoning regulations, building codes, and thoughtful design are powerful tools we can use to meet environmental goals and create a sustainable community. By encouraging compact housing footprints, reducing dependency on personal vehicles, conserving natural resources, and engaging residents in meaningful ways, we lay the groundwork for an environmentally responsible future.
Sierra Club
Washington Conservation Action
MLK Labor
WABikes
King County Democrats, King County Young Democrats, 5th, 41st & 45th LD Democrats
Eastside Business Alliance
National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington
State Senators Manka Dhingra, Victoria Hunt
State Representatives Roger Goodman, Janice Zahn, Zack Hall, Lisa Callan, My-Linh Thai
King County Councilmembers
Sarah Perry, Girmay Zahilay
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Other survey responses
Ballotpedia identified the following surveys, interviews, and questionnaires Howe completed for other organizations. If you are aware of a link that should be added, email us.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
Footnotes
