With four city council seats and the mayor’s office up for grabs, the city of Ocean Shores could see a tide of fresh faces in political positions come 2024.

That will be true, at least to some extent, regardless of election outcomes, as two of out five of those races have no incumbent. In the other three races, all candidates hoping to retain a seat were appointed by the city council to their positions within the last two years.

But by and large this group of candidates is no stranger to the city’s political realm or to winning elections: three out of ten total candidates are total newcomers, with all others having served stints on the council sometime within the last 10 years.

Ocean Shores mayor

Among the slew of city races, the mayor’s race perhaps looms largest, with city councilor Frank Elduen challenging current mayor Jon Martin.

Martin has held the seat since late 2021, when he was unanimously appointed by the city council following the death of mayor Crystal Dingler. He first joined the city council in 2015 and began serving as mayor pro tempore.

Martin is also a commissioner of the Grays Harbor Public Utility District, vice chair of the economic development agency Greater Grays Harbor, a member of the Grays Harbor County Solid Waste Committee, and owns a liquor store in Ocean Shores.

According to Martin, the city’s financials have improved during his tenure, including a reduction in debt and of the city’s levy rate.

During a candidates’ forum earlier this year, Martin listed erosion prevention, the city’s abatement code for problem properties and making Ocean Shores a “livable city” as three of his top priorities should he be elected to a four-year term.

He said the city has “done a lot in a year and a half,” since taking over as mayor. He worked to negotiate the final right-of-way easement needed for the High Dune Trail, which is now nearly complete. He also worked to update the city’s abatement codes in an effort to clean up dilapidated and nuisance properties.

“From day one I have been very aggressive doing things the former mayor didn’t do,” Martin said in September. “We have the opportunity to be one of the greatest cities around.”

Until recently, Martin worked as a corporate manager for McDonald’s, at one point managing about 400 employees as the company’s regional manager in Alaska. He had a similar role for McDonald’s locally, but gave up the position after the city council granted him a raise, bumping his salary from $12,000 to $65,000 — the highest salary of any mayor in Grays Harbor County — and assigning more duties to the mayor position, which coincided with the restructuring of the city’s public works department. That salary will remain following November’s election.

In his campaign, Elduen has vowed that he would serve as a “full time” mayor, and knocked Martin at a forum for the mayor’s list of other duties.

Elduen has held position 3 on the city council since 2019, but chose to vacate the seat earlier this year in lieu of a mayoral bid. At a forum earlier this year, Elduen said he chose to run for mayor “because I believe in the potential of the city and the people who call it home,” and “the citizens should have a voice in their government, and I believe that’s not happening at this time.”

Elduen has several local involvements, including president of the North Beach Booster Club, volunteer football coach at North Beach High School, vice president of a local car club, a member of the Eagles and Elks Clubs and as a local radio DJ.

In 2017 Elduen retired from a 43-year career in the electrical field. Living in King County, he rose through the ranks to superintendent and took on the responsibility of managing multi-million dollar projects and 300 employees, according to his campaign biography.

He said that experience would give him the ability to find or negotiate with unions and find lower prices on public works projects.

Elduen was endorsed by his former employer, a local electrical workers union, and Jeff Albertson, candidate for North Beach School Board and the board’s current president.

Increasing citizen involvement in city processes has been a major part of Elduen’s platform, and has said he would introduce “town hall” style meetings to open dialogue between taxpayers and people running the city.

Elduen has also said the city should take on a greater role in bringing healthcare to Ocean Shores, specifically with an urgent care clinic.

“I personally see no reason why the city could not assist or facilitate meetings with providers … to help bring in an urgent care to Ocean Shores,” Elduen said in September.

As of Oct. 18, Martin’s campaign had spent $10,325, while Elduen’s had spent $5,383.

City Council Position 2

When current Ocean Shores City Council member Kathryn Sprigg decided she would not seek another term in 2023, it left Position 2 up for grabs, and another former councilor, Bob Peterson, along with a longtime law enforcement officer, Tom Taylor, are now vying for the spot.

Peterson was elected in 2016 and again in 2019, but resigned in August 2022 short of fulfilling his second term, citing a health issue in his family.

He talked about his work on the council during a candidates’ forum earlier this year. He helped gain support for a school-based health center at North Beach Junior/Senior High School, a state Legislature-funded project through Grays Harbor County Public Health that began operations this year. Peterson spent a long career as a school psychologist, including 10 years of involvement with the school district in Ocean Shores.

“It all starts with listening, which is something I always try to do,” Peterson said in September. “Before I usually speak at a council meeting, I always listen to what everybody else has to say. … I wanted to see if my thinking was with their thinking, and there’s something that I needed to rethink, or if I had convinced them to do something else. So it’s a matter of being malleable, of doing what’s best in the situation that you have.”

Peterson’s opponent is in the minority of candidates in this year’s field without council experience, however, Taylor has spent a lifetime in public service, including 22 years as a deputy sheriff and detective in the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office, and the last eight with the Hoquiam Police Department as a code enforcement and animal control officer.

He said that experience will allow him to be better informed in decisions regarding the Ocean Shores Police Department.

At a forum in September, Taylor mentioned several solutions to current city problems he coined as “outside the box,” including recruiting recent graduates of medical school or interns to help provide health care in the city, and using the city’s public works employees to perform annual maintenance on the Oyehut Ditch, which accumulates mud and debris, instead of hiring the job out.

“My reason for running for this position is to get the citizens back into it, give them a voice, give them the ability to tell us what they want us to do, not us tell them what we want to do,” he said in September.

City Council Position 3

Position 3 on the Ocean Shores City Council opened up when Frank Elduen opted to run for mayor instead of seeking reelection, paving the way for a race between a pair of former councilors, Susan Conniry and Lisa Griebel.

After serving on various local boards, Conniry was elected to the council in 2017 and served a four-year term before losing the seat in the 2021 election. Since leaving the dais, her involvement with city council has continued through frequent attendance and public comment, and she’s continued to host community meetings of her own.

Conniry is active in her work with seniors in a variety of ways. She’s the executive director of North Beach Project Connect in Ocean Shores, a nonprofit aimed at connecting people with various services, and serves as an advisory council member on regional and state-wide agencies on aging.

Conniry has been an avid critic of current city policy and spending decisions. During a forum earlier this month, Conniry advocated for increasing citizens’ involvement in the city’s budget process, and creating a more open dialogue with the public.

“We need to engage where essentially we’re coming down off the high horse and essentially just talking one on one,” Conniry said.

After her appointment to the city council in 2016, Griebel retained her seat in the 2017 election and served a four-year term. She opted not to run again because of increased responsibilities in her job as a school administrator, but she said more free time recently allowed her to file candidacy in 2023.

Griebel is the principal at Harbor Learning Center, an alternative high school in the Aberdeen School District. She said skills developed during a 32-year career, such as communication and managing large budgets, lend to the ability to be a productive member of the council.

“I believe that with my values of hard work, caring for others and my problem solving skills and the ability to create a positive culture, make me the best choice for seat three,” Griebel said earlier this month.

As a school administrator, Griebel said her style is “not what I would call a top-down leadership style.

“You can’t accomplish anything at a school … unless you have your staff and your community input, and they’re involved and ready to go in the decision. I think I apply those principles to the work in our city as well,” she said at a forum in September.

City Council Position 4

The race for position 4 was the only contested race during the August primary election, when Alison Cline and Caroline Emmert survived with 53% and 24% of the vote, respectively, edging Jennifer Herboldsheimer out of the race by 27 votes.

Cline, who will now seek to retain that majority on Nov. 7, is the incumbent and has close to two years of council experience. In January 2022 she was appointed unanimously to the seat that was formerly Jon Martin’s after his own appointment to mayor.

At candidates’ forums this year, Cline talked about her work on the council supporting projects like the High Dunes Trail and the Oyehut ditch, and her ability to work with other council members.

“I’m very passionate about Ocean Shores,” Cline said in September. “We have done a lot of work, and I want to continue to work for the people of Ocean Shores. I listen to people, I talk with people in the community all the time. I have people call me, I see them out and about. I hear their concerns. Does everybody have the same position on everything, no … listening to all of those people and coming back, being able to take all that information, put it together and vote for different things that come up.”

Cline has two masters degrees in education and works in the special education department at the Hoquiam School District, and is in her 28th year of special education work.

After Cline’s majority result in the primary, Emmert will need to flip or add votes to change the outcome. Emmert lacks council experience, but has said her experience working as an employee for large federal agencies and power companies gives her the tools she needs.

“Anybody who’s ever sat in one of those chairs always had their never-did-it-before moment. I’m a pretty smart cookie — I can learn,” Emmert said at a candidates’ forum in July.

As a previous resident of Battle Ground, Emmert helped start the Just One Thing coalition, an effort to provide food, water and other basic needs to homeless people. Since moving to Ocean Shores two years ago, she said, she’s been involved in the effort to bring more healthcare to the town.

At a forum in July, Emmert advocated for “regular town halls” in order to provide “back-and-forth communication” between residents and council members. During two different forums Emmert talked about the need for a “viable chamber of commerce” in Ocean Shores.

“A chamber of commerce does more than just try to bring in new businesses,” Emmert said in September. “They’re there to support the local business to grow, to encourage them to intermix with each other and help each other.”

City Council Position 6

The race for position 6 on the Ocean Shores City Council is somewhat of a rematch. When Bob Peterson resigned from the seat in August 2022, Richard Wills and Peggy Jo Faria submitted applications to fill the role. The council picked Wills by a 4-1 vote.

With the seat up for election a year later, Faria is making another run.

Wills, who retired as a First Sergeant in the Army where he served for 24 years, said he has attended every council meeting except three since moving to Ocean Shores in 2016. He formerly served on the city’s planning commission and is a five-year member of the Ocean Shores Fresh Waterways Corporation, and has devoted many hours of research to “understanding shallow water body health and dynamics,” according to his resume.

That experience gives him firsthand knowledge about the city’s 23-mile fresh waterway system and the tall task of maintaining its quality. He said at a forum earlier this year that herbicides are a necessary tool in the fight against aquatic weeds, and the money currently devoted to the project is “just barely a start.”

“Solving the waterway issue is not a $100,000 process, it’s not a $1 million process, it could be a 40, 50, 60 million-dollar process,” Wills said in August. “It needs to be done a little chunk at a time.”

Faria’s expertise lies in the realm on the business and economics side. Before retiring and moving to Ocean Shores in 2016, she worked for Costco for 13 years, her time split between work design associate and supervisor, and later as project coordinator for the corporation’s marketing department, where she worked to promote the company’s image and facilitate media and community outreach projects.

She has also been an active member of various economic organizations and business associations, and a chamber of commerce, her resume states. She said those skills could be applied to the city if she were elected.

“I do believe that it falls upon the city as an entity to market itself in a friendly, outgoing way to encourage people to come in,” Faria said in August.

“This upcoming election is of utmost importance to the taxpaying residents,” Faria said. “Many feel as though their voices are being lost in the shuffle. To be clear, this election is not about me, this election is about you and your right to be heard,” she told attendees of a forum.

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.