Peter Goldmark announces his retirement as Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands

Wash­ing­ton State’s incum­bent Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands has just announced via Face­book that he’s decid­ed to step down and will not seek a third term in 2016.

Peter J. Gold­mark, six­ty-nine, has served as the state’s inde­pen­dent­ly elect­ed chief of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources since Jan­u­ary 2009. He was orig­i­nal­ly elect­ed in 2008, defeat­ing incum­bent Repub­li­can Doug Suther­land. He was reelect­ed in 2012, defeat­ing Repub­li­can chal­lenger Clint Didier.

In a state­ment, Gold­mark said:

After talk­ing with my fam­i­ly, I have now decid­ed not to seek a third term as Washington’s Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands. These last eight years have been the high­light of my near­ly 40 years of pub­lic ser­vice. Thank you to the many friends through­out the state who sup­port and guide me. The ded­i­cat­ed staff at DNR are an inspi­ra­tion every work­ing day. And my grat­i­tude goes to the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton, who have twice giv­en me the hon­or of choos­ing me to serve. I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing that ser­vice until Jan­u­ary 2017.

Gold­mark, who owns a ranch in Okanogan Coun­ty and ran against Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers for Con­gress in 2008, is the only cur­rent mem­ber of the exec­u­tive depart­ment who hails from East­ern Wash­ing­ton. (The oth­er eight mem­bers — Jay Inslee, Brad Owen, Bob Fer­gu­son, Kim Wyman, Troy Kel­ley, Jim McIn­tire, Randy Dorn, and Mike Krei­dler — are from West­ern Washington).

Two indi­vid­u­als besides Gold­mark have filed so far to run for Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands in 2016. They are Karen Porter­field, a Demo­c­rat who unsuc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Dave Reichert in 2012, and Steven M. Niel­son of Port Orchard, who iden­ti­fies as a Lib­er­tar­i­an. Porter­field has raised $7,300 to date, accord­ing to Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion data. Niel­son has not report­ed rais­ing any mon­ey so far.

Gold­mark’s announce­ment is like­ly to prompt addi­tion­al can­di­dates to seek the job of Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands. It’s not often the posi­tion comes open.

Also retir­ing from their posi­tions in the exec­u­tive depart­ment this year are Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Brad Owen, Trea­sur­er Jim McIn­tire, and Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Randy Dorn. Troy Kel­ley has­n’t said he’s retir­ing, but we can’t imag­ine he’s going to seek reelection.

If Kel­ley does­n’t file for reelec­tion, it will guar­an­tee that a major­i­ty of the posi­tions in Wash­ing­ton’s exec­u­tive depart­ment will be turn­ing over as of next January.

We at NPI thank Peter Gold­mark for his many years of ser­vice to our state as Com­mis­sion­er and wish him the best in retirement.