Quilcene resident Marcia Kelbon announced her candidacy for the Washington State House to represent the 24th Legislative District in this year’s election.
The seat, left open by Steve Tharinger, has drawn interest from five candidates so far.
“The reason to run at all is really driven by the fact that I have adult children, and a grandchild, and hopefully more grandchildren in the future, that live in this area, and I just don’t see the same opportunities for them that I had,” Kelbon said. “I’m interested in trying to address some of the issues that I see that make it challenging.”
Kelbon holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering, as well as a law degree from the University of Washington. She has previous experience working as a civilian engineer for the U.S. Navy, a patent attorney, a senior executive and general counsel for a biopharmaceutical company and has served as a Quilcene fire commissioner since 2022.
A longtime Republican and former vice chair of the Jefferson County Republicans, Kelbon intends to run as an independent.
She called the current partisan climate “damaging and destructive,” and said she’s always leaned more toward the middle than either side.
“On the one end, at the federal level, we have a single party in control, and that party and its leadership are going to some extremes that trouble me,” she said. “And on the state level, we have the other party in control, and that party and its leadership are going into extremes that trouble me.”
She believes most voters land somewhere in the middle.
“That’s where I want to operate,” she said. “That’s where I think our citizens are best served. That’s where I think the country is best served.”
Kelbon said a mix of state regulations, zoning limitations and rising construction costs has made it increasingly difficult for young people to put down roots here.
“There are regulatory variables on where you can build under the Growth Management Act, and again, that’s not a bad thing overall to limit sprawl – I don’t want to be Silverdale where every single corner is built on,” she said. “But, if we don’t create some smaller zoning lots that people can actually afford to buy and build on in their 20s, 30s, we’re really doing a disservice.”
Among her proposals are allowing smaller lot sizes, expanding opportunities for multifamily housing and encouraging the use of prefabricated houses.
“We just need to loosen up restraints on building so somebody has a chance of getting into a home in the $200,000 to $300,000 range as opposed to the $500,000 to $600,000 range,” she said. “There’s a place for subsidized housing, but if you’re trying to build a life here, long term, that’s not a solution; it doesn’t let you build equity, it doesn’t let you start that starter home and move up.”
She said housing affordability is directly tied to wages, and that she’d like to see an influx of ‘real jobs’ locally.
“When I say ‘real jobs’ I don’t mean to demean any jobs,” she said. “We used to have a resource-based economy, and that paid great wages, and we still have some of that. That’s why I’m a supporter of the
Port Townsend Paper mill, despite the odor. Those are actually living wage jobs.”
She praised the Port of Port Townsend’s efforts to build a light industrial park near the Jefferson County Airport and expressed a desire to lower permitting barriers to encourage business growth.
“Anything we can do to ease the construction of homes, anything we can do to remove the burden on businesses, anything we can do to spur local jobs,” she said, asked about how she would measure success if elected. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but if we can make incremental improvements on those, I’ll consider it a success.”
Mallory Kruml, covering rural Whatcom and Skagit counties for Port Townsend Leader, is with the Washington State Murrow Fellowships, a local news program supported by state legislators.
