PORT ANGELES — Candidates for a third Clallam County Superior Court judgeship had nowhere to run Monday after county commissioners postponed funding the position.
Commissioners will wait at least until September to get a clearer picture of their 2007 budget.
Or they may put off the court’s $190,000-plus cost until 2008.
Their first alternative would place the position beyond the wishes of voters this fall.
Gov. Chris Gregoire would appoint a judge to the new bench. The appointee would have to run for the position in a special election in 2007 to keep it, and run again in 2008.
The second scenario would make the job an elected one on the fall 2007 ballot, with the judge’s term to start the next year.
The commissioners’ decision Monday disappointed Judge Ken Williams, who with Judge George Wood said about three-quarters of the new court’s cost could be recouped from other sources.
It also was disappointing to the two announced candidates for the job, attorneys Hugh Haffner, who also serves as a Clallam County Public Utility District commissioner, and Brent Basden, president of the Clallam County Bar Association.
The three county commissioners, though, were apprehensive of a looming loss in sales tax revenues with combined with increases in retirement contributions and cost-of-living increases for county employees.
