KINGSTON — Mary McClure is unopposed in her campaign to succeed Pete DeBoer as Port of Kingston commissioner, and she wants to lead the community forward.

Having lived in Kingston for more than 20 years, McClure thinks she knows what needs to be done.

“Port of Kingston is the heart of Kingston,” McClure said. “The community is strong and in need [of] someone to appreciate its full range of what the port could do, someone who understands government process with a means to communicate. And I think that’s me.”

The general election is Nov. 3. Port commissioners are elected to six-year terms.

McClure has been involved in just about everything the port touches economically. She has had her boat moored at the port since 1989, and is a founder of the Kingston Farmers Market, which takes place in the port’s Mike Wallace Park.

“How could I not do it with a community I love?” she said. “It’s going to be hard work, but it feels like it’s what I’m supposed to being doing next.”

After living in New York for 10 years, she moved to Seattle, working with Alaska Airlines.

“I didn’t even know Kingston existed until I met my husband who had property over here,” she said.

On her first visit to Kitsap, she knew this is where she wanted to raise her family. She said she wanted to be able to raise her son in a place where he could run wild in the woods rather than live a life that’s regimented. Plus, the view isn’t bad. As McClure describes it, “It’s the most lovely spot in the morning.”

McClure wants to take that beauty and help Kingston grow while working closely with its residents.

“The port needs to be partners with the community,” McClure said. “I have a sense of what’s possible, but it has to fit with the community.”

Some of what she believes possible is evolving. McClure helped with the Bremerton passenger ferry expansion and has ideas to help Kingston move in the same direction.

“If we added fast-food high rises, people won’t recognize it,” she said. “But if we leave it the way it is, there are empty business opportunities. It could be a thriving place that is less dependent on traffic than on the people who live there. People go out to eat in Poulsbo or Port Gamble; they should say, ‘We’re going out to Kingston.’ ”

McClure wants to address the damage caused by the conflict between Kingston Adventurers and the Port of Kingston.

“That tangled the community up in the most painful way I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I have worked with a lot of the community. It was the ugliest thing. It became neighbor versus neighbor, and people ended up taking sides. “We need to move beyond it. I have the skills I think to help us move beyond it. I think it’s possible to break communities and [it’s] possible to rebuild.”

Regarding economic development: “I want to have an open house where people of the community can come talk about what they see, what they want to change or stay the same. At meetings, it’s the same cast of usual suspects. I want to hear from a much broader group who are really looking forward to enlightening everyone and making points not directed at an opponent but at our future,” McClure said.

McClure has a reputation in Kingston for being able to get things done and bringing people together. Or, as she describes it, it’s a huge magic wand with a lot of expectations attached.

If elected, McClure will be the only female commissioner on the board and the first since the early 1990s. That will be important for women in the community.

“I have a unique set of experiences. I have worked with and thought about a lot of it — the parks and the ferries. It’s a very broad menu of, not choices, but responsibilities. Every color on that plate is different,” she said.

She believes that her experience will help her lead Kingston in to the future.

“I think the Port of Kingston has done so many things well. It is heartbreaking for the community that so many lost sight of that. All that’s left at this moment is struggle. Time to move beyond it,” she said.

“I know I’ll have a lot dumped on my plate as an elected official, but I’m doing it for the right-now reason and my love for the community. I want to make a difference and I think we can.”