Marcia Kelbon

Drug Policy

Law enforcement and courts must also be empowered to give users of hard drugs a choice of treatment or incarceration. In either case, individuals sickened by addictive drugs would be provided a chance to break temporarily free of addictive substances, and these individuals should then be encouraged to continue in their recovery. If they remain clean for a year, and have not committed other crimes, their drug possession convictions should be expunged so that they can move on in life. Manufacturers, importers, and distributors of hard drugs must be held legally accountable for the significant harm they cause. Learn more

Economy

We should ensure that our local community college system is positioned to partner with industry to provide job training in fields such as CNC machining, 3D printing, software development, and other clean technology applications. Learn more

State law and regulations concerning the hospitality, restaurant and adventure industries should be reviewed to make sure that the tourism trade that is so vital to the more remote areas of the Peninsula is fostered. We also need to support the formation and growth of technology and clean manufacturing businesses on the Peninsula to provide good-paying career jobs while retaining the rural nature of the area and protecting our environment. Learn more

Education

Parents need to be involved in their children’s education, to supervise homework and to support and demand achievement. Washington law and policy should fully enable this involvement, rather than limiting it. K-12 curriculum should be refocused on English, math, science, and vocational-technical learning. Contracts with administrators and staff should be renegotiated to reward high-performers, ensuring that bright and capable teachers are not lost to more lucrative fields, while demanding accountability and dissuading low performing administrators and staff. Public schools must be strongly supported so that all children receive a sound education in a safe facility. In view of low current performance, parents should be supported if they choose to educate their children in private or charter schools. Learn more

Address the skilled- and educated-labor shortage for electrical, plumbing, and construction trades and healthcare, law enforcement, fire/EMS, and engineering by sponsoring legislation to create a state education and training exchange. The exchange would be primarily funded by employers in need, and would provide low- or no-interest loans to fund vocational-technical, community college, apprenticeship, and state university training and education to develop the necessary skills and credentials. Upon student/trainee graduation, employers that paid in would have priority hiring, and the loans would be forgiven in exchange for a commitment to work a set number of years for those employers. Employers (e.g., commercial businesses, unions, trade associations) This program would be limited to high-need fields with a clear path to developing the needed skills and credentials, as opposed to other areas of study that do not fill these needs. Hand-in-hand with this approach, cut back or eliminate subsidy programs that encourage working-age people to stay home and state funding for educational programs that do not fill these high-need areas or otherwise result in living wage employment. Learn more

Major cell phone manufacturers should be approached to enable a standard parental control feature that parents may choose to utilize that limits device usage time by minors for other than calling and texting. Legislation would be an option but voluntary industry compliance should be possible. Learn more

Due to limited capacity, it is difficult for students to enroll in certain high-demand degree programs at our state universities, such as engineering, computer science, and nursing. These programs should be expanded and enrollment priority at both our universities and our community colleges should be provided to Washington residents who will stay after graduation to fill our needs in fields that are in high demand. Learn more

Healthcare

Foster telehealth services for population sites that are far from existing hospitals. Make sure that zoning and building regulations do not impede the siting and operation of satellite clinics. Support living-wage business growth, resulting in a greater percentage of privately insured patients. Improve ferry reliability for accessing specialists in the greater metropolitan Seattle area. Increase the supply of available housing for healthcare workers. Learn more

Housing

Legislation that ends up limiting rental housing stock needs to be avoided, and this includes limits on background checks by landlords, eviction moratoriums, and rent control measures. Learn more

Just as low income seniors are eligible for reduced real estate taxes, landlords that rent to such residents, including mobile home parks, should receive similar exemptions. Learn more

State and local regulations and policies that add cost to construction without significant corresponding safety or environmental benefits should be wholesale revised. Statewide pre-approval of low-cost septic alternatives should be adopted for implementation in rural environments that are not subject to the intense degree of development seen in urban areas. Less-costly building techniques, such as modular homes, container homes, and 3D printed homes, should also be approved at the state level. Learn more

But the majority of unsheltered individuals are sick – either mentally ill, addicted to substances, or both. To simply hide these individuals away in shelters without fully addressing their underlying conditions is inhumane. They will emerge just as sick as they went in. Rather than building ever more shelters, at great cost and with a negative impact to surrounding communities, we should use our compassionate dollars to treat the underlying conditions. This can be done by compassionately holding people accountable and conditioning state-supported shelter access on some basic rules. These rules should include, at a minimum, a prohibition against drug dealing, a requirement to participate in behavioral health screening, and a requirement to actively partake of mental health treatment and/or substance abuse treatment where warranted. Hand-in-hand with this approach, we need to ensure that there are adequate community recovery centers as well as in-patient and out-patient mental health treatment facilities. Learn more

Provide tax and regulatory exemptions to spur free-market lower-cost housing options, including the installation and maintenance of manufactured home parks, the relocation and renovation of existing houses, and self-help programs such as that run by Habitat For Humanity. Learn more

Infrastructure / Transportation

Highway transportation funds should be used to enable underpass/overpass exchanges on the Olympic Peninsula including Highways 101 and 104. Our State Ferry system should rehire, to the extent possible, staff that were let go due to COVID mandates; funding should be made available for training and qualifying new staff; and ferry construction dollars should focus on reliability of existing and new vessels as the preeminent concern rather than focusing primarily on the conversion to electric propulsion. Learn more

Legislation

Amend the GMA so (i) that it becomes mandatory for counties to expand the size of urban growth areas (UGAs), rural village centers, and other local areas of more intense rural development (LAMIRDs) when the developed status of these areas reach 85% or greater of space within these zones, and (ii) increase residential and light commercial development capabilities within LAMIRDs to match those of UGAs. Learn more

Social Services

Homelessness, addiction, and mental illness are often intertwined. Effective mental health treatment centers need to be reestablished and expanded so that we can compassionately treat those afflicted with mental illness. Learn more

Taxes / Budget

The exemption from sales tax on groceries and certain other classes of goods should be expanded to include prepared foods, clothing, and school supplies. Additionally, periodic sales tax “amnesty days” on all goods would spur business while giving relief to consumers. Learn more

Participation in the State’s long-term care program and the associated payroll taxes should be made optional. Learn more

Washington’s carbon “cap and invest” program should be repealed. It has resulted in our state having amongst the highest gasoline and diesel costs in the country. This hits people in rural areas, such as the Olympic Peninsula, hard given the distances that must be traveled daily for employment and necessary trips such as to the food store and for medical care. Learn more

The “excise tax” (income tax) on capital gains should be repealed. It provides a disincentive to entrepreneurs looking to start and grow businesses in the state, something we have enjoyed to date and should not lose. A broad variety of energy generation and distribution technologies should be fostered. Learn more

Tax credits should be provided for small in-home licensed daycares to both lower cost and increase availability. Learn more

We also absolutely need to resist legislative attempts to initiate a mileage tax on automobile, truck, and other vehicle travel. Learn more