SEATTLE — Dana Roberts, a Port Townsend community leader and Jefferson County Public Utility District commissioner who pushed to get the PUD into the electric service business, died Friday evening at Harborview Medical Center after suffering cardiac arrest Nov. 6 and lapsing into a coma. He was 74.
Died peacefully
His wife, Carol Ann Modena, who was beside her husband when he died in the intensive car unit on life support, issued a statement Saturday afternoon through PUD President Wayne King.
She said that her husband had died peacefully at Harborview in Seattle, the city of his birth.
“He tried to exit more dramatically on Friday morning, Nov. 6, when his heart stopped in Port Townsend, but modern medicine delayed things a little while,” she said.
“He sure got a fighting chance, but when it became medically clear that he would never regain consciousness, we acted on his clear wishes and let him go.”
King, still reeling from the loss of a colleague and friend, said the PUD staff was in a somber mood last week, hoping that Mr. Roberts would quickly return to health.
“We’re going to miss him like you can’t believe. He was such a good guy to work with. It will be tough to have to replace him,” King said Saturday, adding he was helping Modena with arrangements.
Mr.Roberts had been a strong advocate of the PUD taking over electric service authority from Puget Sound Energy in East Jefferson County — a move that voters embraced and that the PUD is working to accomplish now.
An elected PUD commissioner for about five years, he was nearing the end of his first six-year term as PUD District 1 commissioner and was believed to be considering running for a second term.
He had served 24 years on the New York State Public Service Commission’s staff before he retired in Port Townsend.
Mr. Roberts was active in important leadership and community gatherings, appearing at a joint City Council-Jefferson County commissioners meeting just hours before he stricken.
“I just dread the meeting Wednesday,” King said of the next PUD commissioners meeting, which Mr. Roberts would miss.
King said he was unsure there would be any discussion of appointing Roberts’ successor. He said he was too upset to think about it.
Modena found her husband Nov. 6 unconscious and gasping for air early that morning and she phoned emergency 911 for help.
Mr. Roberts was flown by Northwest Airlift to Harborview, initially diagnosed as going into cardiac arrest.
Modena thanked all those who showed they cared.
“We have felt and received more support than we could have believed possible,” she said.
‘Circle of white light’
“Wayne King told me that [we] better have our sunglasses on, we were being held in such a huge circle of white light by so many.”
In her statement, Modena said a celebration of Mr. Roberts’ life would be scheduled later and asked that, instead of sending flowers, mourners make contributions of time or money to a local good causes of their choice.
“He would like that,” she said. “He has always walked the talk and believed in thinking globally and acting locally.”
Modena can be contacted at 438 22nd St., Port Townsend, or waywardfarm@olympus.net.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.