PORT ANGELES — Ten candidates have filed in four City Council races, with four setting their sights on the position that will be vacated by Larry Williams.
That race, for Position 2, will be on the ballot in the Aug. 18 primary election. The top two vote-getters will run in the Nov. 3 general election.
Former council member Edna Petersen, Peter Ripley, Max Mania, and Rick Burton are running for the seat vacated by Williams.
The other contested races, which have only two candidates each, will be first seen on the general election ballot.
The end of the week-long filing period on Friday left none of the four races uncontested.
The City Council’s three most senior members will step down from the seven-member council after this year, leaving only one incumbent with her hat in the ring.
Deputy Mayor Betsy Wharton faces challenger Brooke Nelson, a real estate agent, in her bid for re-election to the Position 4 seat.
Running for Position 1, which will be vacated by Mayor Gary Braun, are Cody Blevins and Larry Little.
Competing for the Position 3 seat, which will be vacated by council member Karen Rogers, are Harry Bell and Patrick Downie.
Each of the council members serve 4-year terms and can serve up to three consecutive terms.
There is no limit on terms as long as the council members step down after every third consecutive term.
Position 1
Blevins, 28, said he will base his votes on common sense if elected, and wants to support locally-owned businesses.
“I see so many of them, they start up and they die off. I don’t know if it was a bad idea, but also I think sometimes they [the city] make it to easy for big businesses to come in and just take over,” he said.
Blevins, a Port Angeles native, is a sales staff member at Hi-Tech Electronics.
Little, 54, is a retired dentist and is the director of the Volunteers in Medicine of the Olympics and the Port Angeles Marathon Association.
Little wants to take a larger role in influencing city government, he said.
He hopes to bring a “big picture” approach to the council.
“The first thing that needs to be done is to build a consensus of a ‘like vision,'” he said in a May interview.
“What I want to see in a City Council person is just some vision of where we want to be in five, 10 years in the future. And I think that vision is what I want to contribute to the process.”
Little has also served on the city Parks, Recreation and Beautification Commission and the Clallam County YMCA Board of Directors.
Position 2
Petersen, the owner of Necessities and Temptations gift shop in downtown Port Angeles, served on the City Council from July 2006 through 2007 after being appointed following former City Council member Lauren Erickson’s resignation. She was defeated November 2007 by present City Council member Dan Di Guilio.
Petersen, who is also the co-chairwoman of “Our Community at Work: Painting Downtown,” said she is running again because she enjoyed the job and, “I like to know what’s going on and being involved.”
Petersen said she considers Port Angeles an “untapped resource” and wants to help the city meet its potential.
This race will be Ripley’s fourth attempt to be elected to the City Council.
He is the founder and chief executive officer of the Disabilities Assistance Trust Organization.
He said he suspects that some council decisions are made in closed-door executive sessions.
He also said: “There’s this perception in some circles that decisions are being made before meetings.
“I want to bring that out and for debate.”
Ripley, 48, wants the city to attract more maritime industry, and hopes to use a position on the City Council to influence disability law at the state level.
Mania, 41, is a member of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center Board of Directors and Port Angeles Arts Council. He organized the Flipper Over Festival in June 2008.
Mania — who said that is his legal name — feels the city should do more to promote tourism and art industries and cooperate more with Clallam County government, as well as other cities in the county.
If elected, Mania said he would work to restore city funding for the Fine Arts Center, which was cut by $27,500 — half of its city funding — this year, with the possibility of elimination of funds in 2010.
But he said he would likely have to recuse himself for any votes on the matter since he sits on the Fine Arts Center board.
“Funding for the Fine Arts Center is essential,” Mania said.
“It’s a huge cultural resource and tourism draw to the town.”
Burton, 40, a part-time employee at Nippon Paper Industries USA who once worked at the now-shuttered KPly mill, said the city should prioritize its spending better.
He takes issue with the city spending about $6.1 million on The Gateway transit center — and then being unable to fund William Shore Memorial Pool.
“They spent money on The Gateway transit center and turn around and want to form a tax district for the swimming pool,” Burton said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Burton doesn’t think the city should have formed the Port Angeles Harbor-Works Development Authority, but said that he would support the public development authority if that’s what the community wants.
Burton added that the city should attract more maritime industry and better promote itself as a tourist destination.
Position 3
Bell, chief forester for Green Crow, said his focus would be to create family-wage jobs and encourage transparency.
“I think we need to look at all opportunities, including opportunities to make sure we keep and support family-wage jobs,” he said.
Particularly, he said, the city should do what it can to support the natural resource industries because of the jobs that they create.
Bell, 63, also sits on the Lake Ozette Sockeye Recovery Plan board, represents the timber industry on the Puget Sound Partnership regional board, and is a member of the North Olympic Salmon Coalition.
He also worked for ITT Rayonier as a technical serves manager for about 16 years.
Downie, 67, is a former city Planning Commission chairman, the organizer of Paint the Town, which is a volunteer organization that paints homes for elderly and disabled people, and program coordinator for Catholic Community Services.
Downie said the city needs to work closer with the county, neighboring cities, and tribes. He said he will work to make Port Angeles recognized as a “business-friendly, senior-friendly and family-friendly place.”
“I’m running because I have a vision, that in the near future, Port Angeles will be recognized nationally and honored as one of the best small towns in America,” he said.
Position 4
Nelson, 37, who is a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Uptown Realty, said the city and business owners need to work together to improve the local economy.
“I want a community that is blessed with an economy and an environment that takes fiscal accountability, planning, stewardship and economics,” she said.
“It’s going to take a collective effort, and I think the business owners and the city are going to be able to develop a solution that will work. I think we will achieve it.”
Wharton, 49, said she is running for a second term, “because I am enjoying it and because I think I am doing a good job.”
On Saturday, she declined to say what she hopes to accomplish if elected to another term because she is still developing those goals.
Wharton once worked as a nurse for First Step Family Support Center and sits on the Port Angeles Farmers Market, Clallam County Health, and Arthur D. Feiro Marine Life Center boards. She is also the chairwoman of the City Council’s Solid Waste Advisory Committee.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
