It’s election season and time for change on Port Townsend City Council. 

I’m cautious of dramatic changes and usually support only modest departures from the status quo, but the status quo is what has gotten us into our current dilemma. We’ve put most of our city’s financial eggs into the tourism basket, so the folks who are sufficiently well off to vacation here end up wanting to live here. They are doing so in droves (welcome, new folks!), but we’ve made little effort to support the retail and service industry workforce that creates the environment to attract tourists.

The maritime trades, public schools, the mill and the hospital provide solid careers but even many of those well-compensated staff cannot find a place to live here and must commute. 

Do you want Port Townsend to be another Aspen or Telluride, where all but the wealthiest live elsewhere? If our workforce has to commute to work, they build their personal lives in other communities and we lose the benefit of that diversity of opinion and experience. And worse, we lose our young families that keep us from becoming just another retirement community.

A conversation with candidate Tyler Myles Vega reminded me that we need not fear having someone on the council who is not a member of the conventional political class, someone who will advocate for creative solutions to these and other difficult problems. 

There is little risk of overreach as we have six others on the council to buffer those ideas for solutions, and excellent new staff leadership to help incorporate the best ones into practice. 

Let’s do more than talk about sustainability and resilience. Vote for new ideas and fresh enthusiasm. Vote for Tyler Vega. Let’s have a little more visionary and a little less status quo.

Deborah Jahnke
PORT TOWNSEND

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