PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend City Council races have already been decided.
Mayor Michelle Sandoval and City Council members Kris Nelson, Catharine Robinson and Mark Welch are each running unopposed in the Nov. 3 general election.
However, Sandoval said she still wanted to take time to update people about the state of the city and, along with Nelson and Robinson, fielded an hour’s worth of questions about the city Monday afternoon at the Port Townsend Chamber of Commerce weekly luncheon.
For the most part, the questions focused on the city’s role in stimulating the local economy.
“This is a very exciting time to me,” Sandoval said.
“We’re fixing sidewalks in town block by block and getting downtown looking nice, and the problem’s rectified.
“Also Upper Sims Way is under way, and that is a local, local, local stimulus project because Seton Construction is the contractor.
Sandoval said improving local infrastructure was the main goal of the city, but the way to help business flourish in the area was to lure businesses with more than just Port Townsend’s beauty.
“We need to work closely with the school district,” Sandoval said.
“That is the basic building block of any community — strong schools.
“Also we can’t have industry without establishing affordable housing.”
Sandoval said she hoped to keep a partnership with schools at the top of the council’s goals for 2010 and touted the recently developed public development authority as a way of developing affordable housing and creating jobs.
Robinson agreed, saying the public development authority, or PDA, had the opportunity to help stimulate the local economy and preserve local assets.
“There are many opportunities that come with creating a PDA,” Robinson said.
“By working with the woodworking school at the fort [Worden], we create opportunities for historic preservation and economic growth.”
Historic buildings
The PDA looks to use the school as a way to restore historic buildings in town and train local workers to be historic preservationists.
Still, the council agreed that in the coming years, the main focus will remain infrastructure.
“The near future is lots of work, lots of studies and lots of feasibility of this and that,” Nelson said.
“In the next three years or so, we are going to see more road construction, more ferries being built and more cityscape improvements to the town.”
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Reporter Erik Hidle can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at erik.hidle@peninsuladailynews.com