PORT LUDLOW — Anji Scalf, a lifelong Jefferson County resident, is planning to run for the District 3 position on the Board of County Commissioners.
Scalf said she took a long time mulling over the decision.
“I ultimately made my decision to run because I think that I have the skill set that will serve the county in this really important time,” she said.
Scalf said her priorities center on people, infrastructure and financial sustainability.
She wants to see the world-class agricultural community further promoted, supported and connected, and said she sees the importance of placing further emphasis on wildfire prevention and access to healthcare, especially in the more rural part of the county.
Scalf said she would plan to enter the role with a focus on listening to the community to better understand what it wants and needs.
“We need to listen to our people and share what they feel about, and that helps our legislators as well,” she said.
Scalf said she already has an extended network of people in the county and that she goes to where the people are, whether they’re at public meetings or in local restaurants.
While she would enter the role as a listener, Scalf also feels she has an already cultivated perspective on many parts of the county.
In her previous role as the finance administrator for Jefferson County’s WSU Extension Office, Scalf gained valuable insight into navigating human resources, building a departmental budget, and county financial and grant systems.
“I understand how the budget is built from the very inside, how we use the different software systems to track expenses and revenue, and how the different grant landscape is utilized,” she said.
WSU Extension’s array of grants make for a complicated process, Scalf said.
When the position came open, Scalf applied for the role of WSU Extension 4-H coordinator, where she works with experiential education, youth programming and animals.
“I teach about livestock, but I’m mostly a horse girl,” Scalf said.
Scalf attended the University of Hawaii, where she studied environmental science and education.
Her passion for education and the environment came from participating in local programming as a child.
She remembers coming to an understanding of the value of hands-on education when she participated in Dragon Tracking, a program created by sculptor Tom Jay for Wild Olympic Salmon. Jay sculpted bronze-caste “dragon footprints,” which were located to be found in different locations across east Jefferson County.
The project was designed around the idea of exposing participants to the complex natural water systems present in the area.
“Because it was so much fun, it planted the seed in my brain that learning should be fun,” she said.
The Scalf family has been in Jefferson County for three generations. Her grandfather drove a logging truck and a school bus for Chimacum School District, she said.
“I think he did that specifically to be able to go to my dad’s basketball games,” she added.
When she was young, Scalf’s dad, Al Scalf, was a member of Jefferson County’s roads crew. He later became the director of Community Development for the county.
Her exposure to county processes was shaped by kitchen-table discussions and attending planning commission meetings as a child.
“One time I was in the back of planning commission meetings and somebody asked what the agricultural setback for a well was, and I hollered out 35 feet,” she said.
Scalf’s mother, Cheri Scalf, won the Port Townsend Marine Science Center’s 2019 Eleanor Stopps Environmental Leadership Award for her work protecting salmon and restoring their habitat.
After she returned from college, Scalf lived in Port Townsend and worked as a preschool teacher at the now-closed Neighborhood Schoolhouse. Then she managed Mountain View Pool for 20 years before she decided to go back to school.
Scalf did her post-graduate work at the University of Victoria and Harvard Business School. She paused going to school when she was offered the role of executive director for Sequim’s Chamber of Commerce, a rewarding role, which she described as being very challenging once COVID-19 began.
Scalf’s choice to pursue a commissioner role is like all of the other steps in her life, driven by a sense of calling, she said.
Scalf lives in Port Ludlow with her partner and their two dogs.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
