A retired Washington city employee is seeking to return to city hall with a bid for the Ward 3 City Council election on March 2nd.

Illa Earnest, who retired as city clerk in December after working 36 years for the city, is running against Haleigh Brockman to represent the southeast quadrant of Washington in a term that ends December 2023. Earnest was born and raised in Washington and has volunteered and served on several boards including Habitat for Humanity, Lending Hands Adult Day Center, Washington Betterment Foundation, and the Chamber of Commerce tourism committee. Earnest says she wants to use her knowledge of the city to help its future development, “Obviously the new business park is going to be having some expansions. There’s continuing improvements in the infrastructure, the water/sewer mains, streets, and then with the city having the NLW subdivision which is in the third ward and then the Bell property developments and there’s another phase of the downtown enhancement project planned. So I’m interested in working with citizens on their concerns and needs but also continuing with the city on a lot of the interesting and exciting projects that are going on.”

Absentee voting for the election is available weekdays from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. this Friday and February 26th at the county auditor’s office. You can hear more from Earnest in today’s Halcyon House Washington Page on air and at kciiradio.com.