PORT TOWNSEND — The three candidates vying for Port Townsend City Council Position 5 in the Aug. 3 primary election will appear in a public forum Thursday, and voters are encouraged to send them questions by Tuesday at noon.
The Jefferson County League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women-Port Townsend will host the event from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Zoom; the link can be found on the league’s website, lwvwa.org/Jefferson. Questions should be submitted to lwvjeffcowa@gmail.com.
Position 5 is the only City Council seat on the Aug. 3 primary ballot, because it’s the lone race with more than two candidates. The hopefuls are vying to succeed council member Pamela Adams, who announced earlier this year she wouldn’t run for a third term. The candidates are:
• Sky Hardesty-Thompson, 39, a nine-year Port Townsend resident and small business owner running for office for the first time;
• Tyler Myles Vega, 44, a computer technician at Dailey Computer Consulting and a six-year resident who has previously run for Congress and for City Council;
• Libby Urner Wennstrom, 58, a self-employed technical writer and vice chair of the Jefferson County Democrats who has lived in Port Townsend for 23 years.
Janette Force will moderate the forum. The candidates also will give timed opening and closing statements and answer questions from the public.
In addition to Zoom, the forum will be broadcast live on KPTZ 91.9 FM, the noncommercial radio station licensed to Port Townsend. The event will also be recorded, edited for brevity and eventually linked on the league’s website.
Concise, unbiased questions from the public will be given priority, according to a league press release. Some questions may be combined, and efforts will be made to cover a wide range of subjects, the press release said.
The two position 5 candidates who earn the most votes in the all-mail primary election will advance to the general election on Nov. 2.
Two more City Council seats are open this fall: Position 2, for which Aislinn Diamanti, 37, is running unopposed, and Position 1, whose candidates are Ben Thomas, 49, and Cameron Jones, 33. After filing for candidacy, Harold Sherwood withdrew from the Position 1 race in May.
Council member Ariel Speser announced this spring she would not seek re-election to Position 2, while Mayor Michelle Sandoval did the same for Position 1.
Ballots for the primary election will be mailed starting July 14 and must be turned in by Aug. 3.
Voter registrations, made online or by mail, must be received by July 26, while in-person registration at the Jefferson County Courthouse, 1820 Jefferson St., is possible between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. weekdays through Aug. 3.
The League of Women Voters of Jefferson County plans other candidate events in September and October in advance of the November general election, its press release noted.
________
Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
Tyler Myles Vega.
Libby Urner Wennstrom.