Three Long-time Port Townsend Residents Vie for City Council Seat

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Candidates Fred Obee, Miki Porter, and Dylan Quarles (L-R) will appear on Port Townsend resident’s primary ballot next week. [/caption]

News by Scott France

In the only contested race this year for a Port Townsend City Council seat, three people are competing in the primary election on August 5.

The three are: Fred Obee, formerly a journalist and general manager for The Leader newspaper; Mikki Porter, who has worked for the Washington State Ferry system for 15 years, currently a deckhand; and Dylan Quarles, a writer who has authored books and screenplays.

In speaking to their inspiration for running, each of the candidates cited increased transparency and responsiveness to citizens as a vital element in working towards a more responsive representative decision-making council.

Obee said that the City’s website “could do much better at providing information in a more accessible way. I don’t see much effort in telling people, ‘this is where we are, this is what we are trying to do, this is where we are going’.”

Housing affordability was voiced as a top priority by all of the candidates. “With a three-year-old, I have a lot of skin in the game,” Quarles said.

“I see dense housing and commercial nodes springing up in town,” Obee said, citing the corner of F Street and San Juan where a a 240-home project is proposed, and has a commercial presence across the street.  But he and Quarles would not like to see the city develop housing on any part of the City-owned golf course. Porter supports inclusionary housing and zoning reform.

Obee and Quarles believe that the city should not be spearheading the development of housing related projects, but should be supporting the companies and organizations for whom housing development is their business or core mission. Quarles draws from his experience overseeing a portfolio of properties as Facilities Coordinator for Sound Mental Health in the Seattle metro area. He said that he believes that the city should be more proactive in requiring or incentivizing development of affordable housing, saying that “the city has ways to sweeten the deal if it needs to given that Port Townsend is an attractive place to be, and to build.”

Porter voiced displeasure with the lack of activities for children in and around Port Townsend. “It’s rough for kids,” he said. “There’s not a lot for them to do here”.

Porter said that buy-local efforts and small grants could spur economic development. He believes that Port Townsend needs a long-term plan and clear priorities to tackle the backlog of repairs to roads and sewer infrastructure. “The roads are borderline hazardous,” he said

His plan for increased city transparency is through more public meetings and surveying citizens, utilizing social media and online forums. “I think that Port Townsend should be a cultural hub where people from all walks of life and every family can live and thrive.”

Obee referred his “years of experience in business, nonprofit management and community involvement as the main thing that differentiates me from my opponents.”

After Covid, Quarles said, “It seemed that priorities shifted to solving problems through growing tax revenue, and moving in a direction that didn’t leave much room for our workers, artisans and crafts people. This is what Port Townsend is known for, but it seems like it’s not being advocated for in a meaningful way.”

Quarles suggested that the affordability challenges in these times demand that we meet this moment in with new ways of thinking.  “I think that there is absolutely a large contingent of  people and workers who would be happy to occupy a tiny home or mobile home community that is different from how we traditionally think of those types of living arrangements, Quarles said. And I think that there is such a great opportunity for a private, hopefully local investor to create such a space.”

Quarles said, “I think the city could be doing a lot more to support off-season tourism, that with a little calculated injection of attention and funds could be strong points.”

Success in a first term for Obee would translate into a more transparent city council with outreach that is more effective than it is now. His basic approach, said, is to ”identify a problem, identify solutions, arrange solutions. You pick a solution that seems plausible and affordable and then put it in place. How do you measure progress of the goals.”

Obee is concerned about the City’s financial situation, saying that the city needs to start living with its means and that it can’t keep down reserves.

Quarles said “I’d like to bring some balance to Port Townsend’s growth model. I see the City now chasing a specific type of growth. Modernization of systems and infrastructure is a good thing and preservation of Port Townsend’s historic façade is massively important, but it can’t come at  the expense of affordability. I empathize with what people need and I want to put people at the center of decision-making, and to treat them with dignity and respect.”

Porter says, “I’m here for the working person. You see all this crazy stuff that’s happening and wonder why the working person gets screwed all the time, and nobody cares for the day-to-day working person. So I realized I wanted to get involved. I think it’s important to have someone who understands how difficult it is to work full-time and stay in this town.”

Jefferson County elections will mail out ballots for the August 5 primary on Friday, July 18.