Earlier report:
PORT ANGELES — The contest for the title of Best Town Ever from Outside magazine has grown into the most exciting voting campaign that has hit Port Angeles in years.
In the final round of Outside’s fifth annual contest, Port Angeles is competing with Chattanooga, Tenn., a former winner — and Port Angeles supporters have pulled out all the stops.
“It’s a phenomenon. We’ve come together like I’ve never seen before,” said Mark Ohman, Revitalize Port Angeles website manager and member.
Final votes must be cast by 8:59 p.m. tonight — and the winner will be known shortly after 9 p.m.
EDITOR’S NOTE — To vote, go to http://tinyurl.com/pdn-best. You can also get current vote totals there.
At stake are bragging rights and a profile in the September edition of Outside, a nationally recognized outdoor and adventure magazine.
One vote is allowed per electronic device. Additional votes from the same device are not counted, according to the magazine.
Chattanooga, with a population of 170,000, overwhelms Port Angeles’ population of 19,000, even when surrounding Clallam County areas are counted.
However, the community has shown that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog.
As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, Port Angeles had received more than 30,000 votes over how many people it has living within its city limits: 50,395.
Despite the effort, Port Angeles still trailed Chattanooga, which had received 53,746 votes and 51.61 percent of the votes to Port Angeles’ 48.39 percent with mere hours remaining.
It’s not too late, said Leslie Robertson, moderator for the Revitalize Port Angeles website and one of the leaders of the effort to secure the title of Best Town Ever for Port Angeles.
“The [first round of] the contest was going for a couple of days before we got started,” Robertson said.
Outside’s contest uses brackets modeled on the NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournament. Editors selected 60 cities or towns, seeded into four geographic regions.
Four additional wildcard locations were selected by magazine readers, one in each region.
Port Angeles began as a long-shot wildcard entry, 16th and last seeded in the western region, in the contest that began May 4.
In the first round, Port Angeles was up against Santa Barbara, Calif., which Ohman termed the “crown jewel” of California’s outdoor towns.
Robertson noted that despite the late entry to the effort and Santa Barbara’s No. 1 seed, Port Angeles pulled it out at the last minute, winning by 28 votes.
Fans of Port Angeles have since outperformed voters from Bainbridge Island; Glenwood Springs, Colo.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; and Bar Harbor, Maine, in online voting for the American town with the best outdoor attractions.
Flagstaff pulled out the big guns, with Sen. John McCain throwing his weight into the fight, but Port Angeles managed to win with 36,139 votes to 34,803 votes.
In addition to the posting of thousands of showy photos of Port Angeles-area locations on www.Outside.com’s discussion board attached to the contest, the competition also has revealed the fierce pride residents and former residents have in Port Angeles and its surroundings.
Signs of support have cropped up throughout town — on business readerboards, in windows and even on a driveway sign posted by a resident on Olympic Hot Springs Road.
They all share a single message — variations on “Vote Port Angeles as Best City.”
Supporters have held “Tweet-a-thons,” and enlisted the aid of Gov. Jay Inslee, the band Emblem3, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, and Congressman Derek Kilmer — a Port Angeles native — who have all tweeted their support and asked their followers to vote, too.
Emblem3 member Wesley Stromberg tweeted: “I used to live in this town. This town has been a huge part of shaping who I am. Vote for Port Angeles!!”
Inslee tweeted: “Port Angeles made it to the FINAL round of Outside Magazine Best Towns competition. Cast your vote for PA by Thurs[day].”
Community organizations Revitalize Port Angeles and the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, and businesses such as Black Ball Ferry Line, have jumped onboard with strong efforts to promote the city’s chances to win the title of Best Town.
“This is absolutely a total town effort. We have talented people using that talent to go and get our message out,” Ohman said.
There are no lead groups, with the whole effort being very “democratic,” he said.
Ohman said that while everyone is pulling in the same direction, each person does it uniquely.
Jacob Oppelt, owner of Next Door Gastropub, not only filmed a video to demonstrate what a person can do in Port Angeles in a single day but also traveled to Chattanooga to drum up support for Port Angeles in the heart of “enemy” territory.
Experience WA — run by the Washington Tourism Alliance — also has promoted Port Angeles in the contest.
Even the Port Angeles School District sent a newsletter message to parents to encourage them to vote in the contest.
Seattle news outlets have added their voice. The Seattle Times noted the contest, and KING-TV and Fox TV each have aired segments featuring the contest.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
