Candidate for Washington State Attorney General Manka Dhingra (D-Redmond) and local resident Heather Dudley-Nollette (D) running for the open District 1 County Commissioner seat, introduced themselves to voters at Port Townsend Indivisible’s meeting June 11. The program, open to the public, featured the candidates’ individual presentations followed by questions.

Manka Dhingra currently serves as Deputy Majority leader of the Washington State Senate where she is Chair of the Law and Justice committee, and also serves as a member of the Health and Long Term Care, and Ways and Means committees. She summarized her experience as a King County Senior Deputy prosecuting attorney prior to running for a seat in the 45th Legislative District in 2017 in Olympia. In winning the election she flipped a Republican-held seat to the Democrats.

“I’m honored to have been the rep who works on tough Issues” she said, noting key priorities have been access to reproductive health care, access to mental health care and voting rights. “Our next attorney general will have to be a good litigator,” she said. “I’m so concerned with what’s happening in our nation... The attorney general will have to be ready to go on Day One to protect Washingtonians.” (Current attorney general, Bob Ferguson, is leaving the position to run for governor.)

Dhingra stressed three key areas she would focus on as AG: consumer protection, access to health care across the spectrum and environmental protection. She related how she was born in Bhopal, India, the site of the 1984 Union Carbide massive toxic gas leak. Her father worked for the Union Carbide plant and died from colon cancer at the age of forty. Her mother emigrated to the U.S. with her children to join relatives. Hence Dhingra’s insistence that Washingtonians have clean water, air and soil and that polluters be held accountable.

Heather Dudley-Nollette took the podium to tout her experience with Bayside Housing Services, where she serves as deputy executive director. She previously founded the CoLab co-working and meeting space and served on the Main Street Board.

She said as a member of the Board of County Commissioners, Port Townsend and District One would not be her only concern. “Communities across the county are quite different in needs and culture,” she noted. “I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work.”

Asked about her ideas for increasing county revenue, Dudley-Nollette said people sometimes ask her if she is prepared to run the county “like a business?”

“While that is a useful perspective, government is not a business,” she replied. “But it does need to be run efficiently.”

Dudley-Nollette gave an example of how needs and available revenue must each be carefully examined. “We need to go line by line and see how we can get creative,” she said.

Elections will be the focus for the next Port Townsend Indivisible meeting set for July 9 at 5 p.m., when Ben Thomas will speak.  A vineyard manager and winemaker as well as a city council member, he is also candidate for District 1 on the County Commission. The meeting will be at Unity Center, 3918 San Juan Ave. Also scheduled is an information session on statewide ballot initiatives. The public is welcome. Refreshments and social time will follow the program.

Gina McMather serves as Leadership Team chair at Port Townsend Indivisible.