Jefferson County Republicans say are pleased that the county’s Democratic Party chairman will step down before taking the reigns of the business-building Economic Development Council.
Marty Gay will resign from his top post with the Democrats on Feb. 8, the same day he will begin duties as interim director of the Economic Development Council.
He will succeed Ann Avary, who will resign at the end of this month to take on a new undisclosed job.
“I think the fact that he would resign is appropriate,” Republican Party Chairman Ron Gregory of Port Ludlow said Monday.
Still, Gregory said he has an underlying concern that Gay will bring a partisan ideology to the nonpartisan EDC.
Gay is the husband of Port Townsend Deputy Mayor Michelle Sandoval.
With that in mind, Gregory also wondered out loud if Gay will be “Port Townsend-centric” in his EDC activities.
Gay discounted the concern, saying he will give everything coming before the countywide EDC a fair shake.
“If I were to try to make it partisan in any way, I’d be booted,” Gay said Monday.
“And if it were the case I did that, I should be booted.”
——————-
The rest of the story appears in the Tuesday Peninsula Daily News Jefferson County edition.
