OLYMPIA -- A retired state department official and a county prosecutor are Gov. Jay Inslee's picks to fill two openings on the state Liquor Control Board.

Inslee today nominated Jane Rushford, a former deputy director of the Department of Enterprise Services, to be the chairwoman of the board, and Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge as a board member.

Rushford has a long resume in state government that include acting director of the old Department of General Administration, senior policy adviser to the Department of Natural Resources and staff coordinator for the House of Representatives. Hauge has been elected county prosecutor five times since 1994, which Inslee said gives him the strongest public safety resume of any liquor board member in recent memory.

The three-member liquor board has a reduced role in its namesake commodity after voters decided to privatize the wholesale and retail liquor business. But it gained oversight of the state's recreational marijuana businesses in 2012 with the passage of I-502. 

Two of the three members of the board who shepherded the development of the recreational marijuana system, Sharon Foster and Chris Marr, are retiring this month. Rushford will replace Foster as chairwoman, which comes with a salary of  $56,990; Hauge will replace Marr as a board member, with a salary of $51,600.

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