Jeff Randall

Sarah Wright photo

Local community organizer, renewable energy advocate, and current Jefferson County Public Utility District Commissioner Jeff Randall will seek a second term as commissioner for District 1, representing the Port Townsend area.

“Over the past six years, the PUD has grown and improved in many ways,” Randall said. “I would be honored to serve another term as your representative to the PUD board.”

Randall, a 25-year Jefferson County resident and a native of Washington state, resides in Port Townsend with his 13-year-old son, Soren. He moved to Port Townsend in 1997 to take a job with the planning department of the city of Port Townsend, where he rose to serve as the Building and Community Development Director. 

Randall holds a law degree from the University of Washington and worked as a city and county land-use planner for 13 years before entering the renewable energy industry at the end of 2006. For 11 years, he was employed as a solar system designer for Power Trip Energy — a Port Townsend-based photovoltaics installation company — before being elected to the PUD board in 2016.  

“I ran for office because I was concerned about the PUD’s performance after it assumed provision of electrical services from Puget Sound Energy (PSE) in 2013,” Randall said.

“I am glad to report that the PUD’s situation has improved dramatically. Our finances are solid and our financial audits are clean,” he added. “Our customer service is better and power outages are shorter and less frequent than they were with PSE. We now have the capacity to take on important projects to help our local economy, like building a new water tank in Quilcene, operating the tri-area sewer system once it is completed, and providing high-speed fiber broadband throughout the county.”   

Over the past year the PUD has obtained $23 million in state and federal funding to build high-speed fiber internet infrastructure for Jefferson County residents and additional state and federal funds have been obtained for water infrastructure and energy efficiency programs. 

“I try to bring a spirit of collaboration, curiosity, and creative problem-solving to my work as Commissioner,” Randall noted. “We are a rural county with limited local funding. We can only address complex problems by working together. If re-elected I will continue to work hard to collaborate with other agency partners to make sure we continue to be successful now and into the future.”

The climate crisis is the ultimate complex problem for Randall. 

“The power we receive from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is 95 percent carbon free. To reduce our local greenhouse gas emissions, we must use more of that clean electricity to replace the fossil fuels that now heat our buildings, run our machines, and fuel our transportation system,” he said. “Ensuring our local grid can deliver this additional needed electricity will be a significant challenge I look forward to tackling.”

Candidate Filing Week closed
May 20, and Randall was the only person to file as a candidate for the District 1 position.