PORT TOWNSEND— Many residents think they live in the coolest small town in the country, but Port Townsend placed a distant sixth in a national contest.
For at least the fourth consecutive year, Budget Travel magazine named Port Townsend as a contest finalist.
But the town’s boosters weren’t able to mobilize the votes.
The contest closed Tuesday.
“I’m really proud that people pulled together and got out the vote,” said Port Townsend Marketing Director Christina Pivarnik.
“We came in sixth place out of the 647 towns nominated, and that’s really phenomenal.”
Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Teresa Verraes said she was disappointed, wondering whether residents saw the value in the contest and questioning whether people abstained from voting because they want to keep Port Townsend a secret.
“Maybe we should have put out an equation, ‘Budget Travel equals mass media coverage that can help the town,’” she said.
“But can we afford to turn people away?
“Winning this contest would have brought more people into town, which would have benefitted us all.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Port Townsend had earned just 2.8 percent of the vote.
With 344,368 total votes, this means 9,642 were cast for Port Townsend, which had the highest population of any finalist.
This compared to the front-runner, Beaufort, N.C., which gathered 122,939 votes, or 35.7 percent.
Beaufort was trailed slightly by Hammondsport, N.Y., with 35.5 percent.
Near the beginning of the contest Port Townsend was in fourth place and Hammondsport was neck and neck with Weaverville, Calif.
But Weaverville’s totals have fallen to 13.4 percent.
Port Townsend’s strategy resembled that followed by Beaufort and Weaverville: Using the Chamber of Commerce and social networking mobilize votes, contacting former residents and family living outside the area and generating local media coverage.
Carteret County (N.C.) Chamber of Commerce membership director Julie Naegelen said her organization didn’t hear about Beaufort’s nomination until the contest was under way, but then marshaled all its resources to get out the vote.
“We contacted a lot of people who have spent some time here and remember it fondly, so once people started voting it got bigger and one thing led to another,” she said.
“Whether we win or not, the contest has already done a lot for us.”
Sherry Kack, who with video blogger Jack Olmsted posted a series of videos promoting the contest, said she heard many excuses about why people didn’t vote.
“People said they didn’t have time, or that they didn’t know that the contest was still going on,” she said.
“I tried to get people to vote, telling them that if we won it would bring more attention to their business, but maybe they all thought that sixth place was good enough.
“But we still are pretty cool.”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
