PORT TOWNSEND — Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Scott Rosekrans is stepping up.
Rosekrans, who has served as deputy prosecutor for Juelie Dalzell, who is retiring, is the new Jefferson County prosecuting attorney.
Rosekrans held an unbeatable 7,765 votes, or 56.61 percent, to Port Townsend attorney Paul Richmond’s 4,701 votes, or 34.27 percent of the 13,716 ballots counted Tuesday night.
“We made a decision early on to concentrate on the issues and my experience and not go negative,” Rosekrans said.
“We stuck to our plan and had a lot of good folks working for me.
“We had a good organization and didn’t allow ourselves to get derailed.”
Richmond said that many people didn’t expect him to win.
“I ran a good campaign. I was the underdog, and I was running against the party machine,” he said.
“There are a lot of people who are genuinely concerned about the charging decisions of this office and how much money it is spending, and that will become more apparent in the coming months and years.”
Rosekrans, 58, and Richmond, 49, ran for the $123,572-a-year position that is now held by Dalzell, who did not run again for the job she has had since 1996.
Rosekrans said Tuesday night that his first order of business will be to find alternative funding for a domestic violence grant that had just expired.
On Tuesday night, the Jefferson County Auditor’s Office counted 63.07 percent of the 21,761 mailed to registered voters.
The office had 981 ballots in hand, and Auditor Donna Eldridge expected to receive another 2,500 before the next count at about noon Friday.
Rosekrans ran as a Democrat and was endorsed by the Jefferson County Democratic Party.
Richmond, though a member of the Democratic Party at the beginning of the campaign, announced his party preference as independent and courted votes from both major parties as well as those who are unaffiliated.
On Oct. 18, Richmond resigned from the Democratic Party.
Dalzell hired Rosekrans to fill the chief criminal prosecutor post. He moved from Texas to Port Townsend in 2008.
In Texas, he served as an elected prosecutor, defense attorney and, prior to earning his law degree, a Houston policeman.
Rosekrans successfully prosecuted Michael J. Pierce for the murder of Pat and Janice Yarr in April and declared his candidacy two weeks after the verdict, in an announcement that coincided with Dalzell’s intention to retire.
Richmond had challenged U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, in the 2008 primary and announced his intention to seek the prosecuting attorney position hours before the candidate filing deadline.
Richmond said he had worked as a news reporter before earning his law degree and has worked in private practice since 2002.
If elected, he resolved to be more selective about which cases were prosecuted, saying that the current prosecutor had wasted money in the pursuit of cases that should not have been taken on.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
