2-6-2019

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — After seven years in office, Mayor Kelli Linville is retiring.

Linville announced she will not seek a third term and plans to retire in December 2019.

Linville was born and raised in Bellingham, graduated from Bellingham High School and Western Washington University, and became the City of Bellingham’s first female mayor in 2012.

She also served in the Washington House of Representatives for one term in 1992, and then again from 1995-2010 before losing her re-election bid to Vincent Buys in the 2010 election.

“It has been a huge honor and a very special experience to be Mayor of the town where I was born and raised . . . this has been a very difficult decision to make because this is the best job I’ve ever had,” she says.