PORT ANGELES — There was a lot of consensus between the three primary candidates for the Clallam County Commissioner District 2 seat, with housing emerging as a top priority in response to audience questions.
Incumbent Randy Johnson, Port Angeles Mayor Kate Dexter and Sequim resident Anders Tron-Haukebo all voiced concerns for several of the same issues for the county during a Port Angeles Business Association meeting on Tuesday.
Chief among them was housing.
Asked what they would do with a theoretical gift of $10 million to the county, both Johnson and Dexter said they would pursue some kind of housing project while Tron-Haukebo cited increased funding for mental health services within the sheriff’s office as well as housing.
“What is the county really good at? We provide seed capital,” Johnson said. “Housing is an issue related to everything we’re looking at. If I could put seed capital, I’d put seed capital towards housing in hopefully a lot of different areas across the county. Also, childcare continues to be a major issue.”
Dexter gave a similar answer but said she’d want to build a multifamily apartment building as a sample project for the viability of denser housing.
“I think I would partner with the city and a developer to have a multifamily building built as a sample for the fact that we can build multifamily housing in Port Angeles,” Dexter said. “And I would put a childcare facility on the main floor so people who live there can drop their kids off on the way to work.”
Tron-Haukebo said peace and citizen safety is a priority, and he said he would like to spend the money on mental health professionals working with law enforcement.
“I don’t want to see any tragic situations, I want to see the sheriff’s department engage with mental health professionals to work with people that are in trauma, people that are in crisis, so that we don’t have unfortunate situations,” Tron-Haukebo said.
Johnson, an independent and county commissioner since 2017, said his priority for another term would be continuing to work on housing and childcare for the local workforce.
“How do we continue to take our housing solutions committees and continue to provide the seed capital for expansion, whether it’s Peninsula Behavioral Health or Peninsula Housing Authority or Habitat (for Humanity)?” Johnson said. “We don’t have the money to do anything but help jumpstart those kinds of projects.”
Dexter, a Democrat, has served on the Port Angeles City Council for the past seven years, with five of them as mayor, and works for Peninsula College as a nursing program specialist.
“I feel that the county commission is sort of a perfect marriage of the work that I have been doing the last seven years and would love the opportunity to do that on a full-time basis,” Dexter said.
A newcomer to elected office, Tron-Haukebo declined to answer several of the questions asked of candidates at the meeting, saying he didn’t have enough information but that he was looking forward to diving into the nuts and bolts of each issue.
“I have an experienced history of getting involved with people as closely as possible, of serving the citizens,” Tron-Haukebo said.
He cited his experience in gathering signatures and urging the county prosecuting attorney to take action on the Midway Metals property on U.S. Highway 101 which had become an environmental health concern.
Commission meetings aren’t conducive to public engagement, said Tron-Haukebo, a Democrat, and that commissioners should follow the will of the community.
“Clallam County is very heavily skewed towards an elderly population,” Tron-Haukebo said. “So I think that we have to have a very close listening ear to the senior citizens as well as what’s going on day to day.”
The primary election is Aug. 8, and Washington’s open primary systems means the top two vote-getters will move on to the general election in November.
More candidate information and voter registration is available at votewa.gov.
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached by email at peter.segall@peninsuladailynews.com.
