Candidate Ben Thomas, running for the District 1 seat on the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners, headlined a program of the Port Townsend Indivisible group July 9 at the Unity Center. His only opponent, Heather Dudley-Nollette appeared at a previous meeting.

Thomas is currently serving on the Port Townsend City Council. He grew up in Jefferson County and worked as a crab fisherman among other jobs. He founded the Vigilance alternative newspaper and ran it for five years. Then he left to learn winemaking and vineyard management, his present occupation. “I moved back because what made it special then makes it still special now.”

Building community resilience was a theme in his remarks. As a member of the Port Townsend City Council, he said he stressed building government from the ground up and transparency in government.

Asked what work he was particularly proud of on the council, he responded that a requirement for landlords to notify tenants of upcoming rent increases helps to build better communication. He also said he worked with different groups to find a satisfactory compromise regarding the future of the golf course.

One problem he said he would like to address as a commissioner is helping people out in the county with permitting procedures. He said that over the years he has seen people skip permitting steps. “That can lead to problems in the building,” he said. “Then they sell and leave because they couldn’t get back up” to compliance.  He suggested a possible amnesty as a solution.

He discussed his experience as chair on the Jefferson Transit Authority Board, agreeing with an audience comment that the county runs big buses even with few riders. “We’ve been trying to get smaller buses, about half the size and weight,” he said, but the state requires funding be spent on replacement buses of the same class. “That has to change,” he said. Because the county commissioner job is full-time, he said that if he is elected he will train someone for his current winemaking position and work on a consulting basis.

Thomas’s appearance concluded Indivisible’s spring elections programs of presenting Democratic contenders in the upcoming elections. Tuesday, Aug. 13, the group holds its fourth annual picnic and potluck at the H.J. Carroll Park Rotary Pavilion.

Gina McMather is chair of the Leadership Team for Port Townsend Indivisible.