Your monthly support provides voters the knowledge they need to make confident decisions at the polls. Donate today.
Tim Payne (Port of Tacoma District Commissioner Board Position 1, Washington, candidate 2025)
 |
Special state legislative • Appellate courts • State ballot measures • Local ballot measures • School boards • Municipal • All local elections by county • How to run for office |
 |
Tim Payne is running for election to the Port of Tacoma District Commissioner Board Position 1 in Washington. He is on the ballot in the general election on November 4, 2025.[source] He was on the ballot in the primary on August 5, 2025.[source]
Payne completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Tim Payne provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on July 7, 2025:
- Birth date: October 14, 1962
- Birth place: Concord, California
- High school: Thomas Jefferson High School
- Bachelor's: Seattle University, 1984
- Bachelor's: Seattle University, 1985
- J.D.: University of Arkansas, School of Law, 1988
- Gender: Male
- Religion: Christian
- Profession: Executive
- Prior offices held:
- Gig Harbor City Council Member (2006-2017)
- Incumbent officeholder: No
- Campaign slogan: More jobs, Stronger economy. New Leadership.
- Campaign website
- Campaign endorsements
- Campaign Facebook
- Campaign Instagram
- Campaign Twitter
Elections
General election
General election for Port of Tacoma District Commissioner Board Position 1
John McCarthy and Tim Payne are running in the general election for Port of Tacoma District Commissioner Board Position 1 on November 4, 2025.
Candidate | ||
| John McCarthy (Nonpartisan) | ||
 | Tim Payne (Nonpartisan)  | |
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Port of Tacoma District Commissioner Board Position 1
John McCarthy, Tim Payne, and Randy Wilson ran in the primary for Port of Tacoma District Commissioner Board Position 1 on August 5, 2025.
Candidate | ||
| John McCarthy (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Tim Payne (Nonpartisan) | |
 | Randy Wilson (Nonpartisan) | |
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
To view Payne's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. To send us an endorsement, click here.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Tim Payne completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Payne's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
My creative, collaborative, and practical leadership style is built on a blue-collar foundation. As a union tugboat deckhand and dock laborer, I worked in the Alaska Arctic and paid my way through college and law school. My first job at age 13, I cleaned sail boats at Crow’s Nest Marina off Marine View Drive in Commencement Bay. Growing up, my dad worked for Crowley Maritime. As a child, I followed him around on docks, cargo ships, tugboats, and barges in Tacoma, Seattle, San Francisco, Anchorage, Miami, and Singapore. I literally grew up in ports. I dedicated 14 years as a board member & chair in the development and guidance of ECOSS, a Puget Sound non-profit that fosters collaboration between business, diverse communities, and government agencies to promote environmental education and cleanup. In recent years, Mayor Woodards hired me to facilitate the Tacoma, Port, Puyallup Tribe, County, & Fife to align on the Tideflats subarea plan.
My career and record of community involvement positions me to serve on the Tacoma Port Commission and grow jobs and business for the citizens of Pierce County. My wife, Stephanie, and I have lived in downtown Gig Harbor for 30 years, where we raised our two sons.- Job Growth is my "North Star." If we focus on my #2 & #3 priorities, we will bring as many as 10,000 more family, living wage jobs to our County and region. In addition, we must fight hard to claw back cargo traffic lost to Vancouver and Prince Ruppert, BC. 340,000 containers a year are lost to Canada. The average container ship carries up to 2,400 containers. Every ship that comes to our Port affects 100 port-related jobs. This does not take into consideration the espresso stand, the diner, or the grocery store impacted by those workers. There is a ripple effect to our County. The speed of cargo through our Port and the cost are key issues. I will only make decisions that promote job growth on our working waterfront.
- Let's grow the Port's capacity for business by cleaning up the remaining 10 major contaminated Port properties that currently are abandoned acreage. One of these properties has sat empty producing no income and no jobs since 1984. We must have a plan and execute that plan to accelerate clean up and make these properties available to new tenants who will generate new businesses and family wage jobs. Taxpayers deserve a Port that is working all of it's assets to build our county's economy and generating family wage jobs. The Port is in a strong financial position to do this and has the capacity to start this plan immediately. We need more jobs in the County for people who live in Pierce County.
- Increase Market share of cargo – The Port business has slowly eroded over the past 10 years due primarily to competition from Canada. I will focus on reversing that trend. We are a discretionary port (not all the goods that come into our port are consumed here) which means that we must be more creative and aggressive to attract business. We need to draw cargo through the Port more quickly and efficiently. I have spoken to Port leadership and State House Speaker, Laurie Jinkins about this. We need the governor, the legislature, Pierce County, the Tribe, and Port of Seattle to develop a sustainable economic development that includes developing areas east of the mountains to assist in cargo distribution, manufacturing, and warehousing.
Beyond this, I believe the Port Commission has an obligation to educate the public about the Port's business, represent the Port on various neighborhood and community boards and activities, engage with business, labor, and other government agencies to insure alignment of priorities, and opportunities for collaboration.
While on City Council, I reviewed and supervised the City budget of $143M, providing services to 72,000 citizens and unincorporated residents who viewed Gig Harbor as their economic and social center. In that time, Gig Harbor maintained 12 years of surplus ending budget balances, ample reserve "rainy day" funds and increased bond ratings to Aa2 (Moody’s) and AA (S&P Global).
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Other survey responses
Ballotpedia identified the following surveys, interviews, and questionnaires Payne completed for other organizations. If you are aware of a link that should be added, email us.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
Footnotes
