PORT ANGELES — Derek Kilmer’s final floor speech on Friday was filled with references to his hometown of Port Angeles, the North Olympic Peninsula and the many local partners with whom he worked during his 12 years representing Washington’s 6th Congressional District.
His farewell was written as a letter to his children Sophie, 18, and Aven, 15. It was the culmination of a practice, he said, that began the first time he left to fly to Washington, D.C., and had continued on every trip ever since.
“It has been the honor of my life to represent my hometown and our entire region,” the six-term Democrat said. “I would like to hope the work I have done has provided more opportunity for folks who deserve it.”
Among the achievements he listed were investments in broadband, funding for ports, advocating for community hospitals, stronger federal assistance for the recovery and restoration of Puget Sound and support for tribal trusts and treaties.
Kilmer traced his interest and desire to make things better for the area and for the country back to when he was a student at Port Angeles High School at time when the timber industry collapsed. He saw his friends’ parents and his neighbors lose their jobs.
“It had a big impact on me,” he said.
Kilmer reminded his children of the many things they had to be grateful for living in the Olympic Peninsula region; “the most beautiful national park on earth,” Hurricane Ridge and the Hoh Rain Forest. He also pointed out it was “home to more military veterans than nearly any other place in the country.”
One of the most important things he learned in Congress, he told his children, who were 6 and 3 when he was elected, was stewardship. People had to be “loving critics” of the communities, organizations and institutions they cared about if they wanted to improve them, he said.
“Tearing things down is easy. Building things up is hard.”
Kilmer ended is floor speech by referring to the work of Rabbi Johnathan Sacks.
“He wrote that optimism is the belief that things will get better, and hope is that if we work hard enough, together we can make things better,” Kilmer said. “It does take a great deal of courage to hope. The task outside this building is to be a part of that, to work together, to make things better, to have hope.”
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
