PORT TOWNSEND — Fred Obee, Libby Urner Wennstrom and Neil Nelson have been elected to the Port Townsend City Council.
Obee won with 71 percent of the vote over his opponent, Dylan Quarles, for the Position 1 seat.
Wennstrom, in Position 5, and Nelson, in Position 2, both were unopposed.
Joining the city council will mark Obee’s first elected experience.
“There will be a learning curve. I am certain of that,” he wrote in an email. “I come to this position with important skills in leadership, budget management and communications that I think will serve me well.”
Obee was a reporter, editor and manager for small newspapers for 40 years, including 20 years with the Port Townsend Leader, for which he started as a reporter and eventually became the general manager.
After he left the Leader, Obee became the executive director of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association.
He retired from that position in 2024.
Obee said he has a laundry list of changes he would like to make, but his priority is to develop good working relationships with the rest of the council.
The city faces many challenges, Obee said, including encouraging affordable housing and substantial maintenance needs for infrastructure.
“I also think we need to be more transparent in our deliberations so people can fully understand the actions the city is taking,” he said.
In addition to keeping up with the city council and various committees, Obee said he read various reports and studies relating to policy issues the council will address.
Obee said he also engaged in conversation with many in the community on topics such as affordable housing, agriculture and economic development and business.
He said his decision to run was motivated in part by concerns of the direction the council has gone on a number of issues in recent years.
“Then, two years ago, four seats were up for election and not one council member drew an opponent,” he said. “They were all unopposed. I just don’t think that is healthy for our democracy, so I decided to step up.”
Obee plays guitar and mandolin in his free time, and he and his wife enjoy weekly visits from his grandchildren.
In Quarles’ first campaign for elected office, he said he knocked on hundreds of doors across multiple Port Townsend neighborhoods.
“The most striking insight was how many people were hungry for substantive policy conversations,” he wrote in an email.
Voters wanted to understand the mechanics of affordable housing, he said.
When he took the time to explain how system development charge deferrals work, why impact fees make sense or what multi-family tax exemption does, people engaged deeply, he said.
Quarles said he advocated for aggressive expansion of middle housing.
“Housing affordability is the defining challenge,” he said. “When median home prices are $647,000 and median household income is $60,000, we’re pricing out the teachers, nurses, service workers, and young families who make Port Townsend function. This isn’t just a housing crisis — it’s economic displacement that weakens our community’s foundation, and exacerbates homelessness. Solutions exist.”
Quarles said his preparation for the election included attending city council meetings and planning commission meetings, studying Port Townsend Municipal Code — particularly code pertaining to housing and land use — and engaging with affordable housing developers.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
