PORT ANGELES — The U.S. Border Patrol is seeking a new headquarters with enough space for 50 agents to cover Clallam and Jefferson counties because, it says, that’s the minimum capacity required for new stations.
A complement of 50 would double the number now based at the downtown Richard B. Anderson Federal Building.
That doesn’t matter to opponents of the move.
Members of the Port Angeles group, Stop the Checkpoints, said they will attend today’s City Council meeting at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
They will express concerns about relocating the Border Patrol to the Eagles lodge a mile east, Stop the Checkpoints coordinator Lois Danks said Monday.
Then at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, the group will conduct “informational sign waving” at the Fraternal Order of Eagles building site at 110 Penn St., near First Street, which is U.S. Highway 101.
The informational signs will come out at City Hall during the Sept. 7 City Council meeting, she added.
“We want to call on the City Council to not have a Border Patrol station built in our area,” Danks said.
But just because the Border Patrol is seeking space for 50 agents, is expansion imminent on the North Olympic Peninsula?
“I don’t have any information to say, if and when, we will go beyond the manpower we currently have,” agency spokesman Doy Noblitt said Monday.
“Until headquarters tells us we are going to receive additional manpower, we don’t know that is going to happen.
“A 50-man station is the smallest thing we do,” he added.
Noblitt said the 50-agent level is the minimum capacity space requirement for all newly built U.S. Customs and Border Protection stations.
“A 50-man station is the smallest thing we do,” he added.
“Both the Bellingham and Port Angeles stations and the Lynden station were designed when the sector was much smaller.”
The quarters at the federal building at the corner of First and Oak streets were designed to house four agents.
That’s how many were stationed there until 2006.
By April 2009, the number swelled to 24.
‘Militarization’
Danks said she isn’t buying Noblitt’s explanation about no immediate plans to increase the number of agents.
“My comment to that is, ‘Trust me, I’m from the government,'” Danks said.
“It’s just that whether it’s now or in the near future, we just don’t want to see more militarization up here,” she added.
“We don’t want [the new station] in any neighborhood. We don’t want to destroy the atmosphere and diversity in the community here.”
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection public notice announcing a July 27 meeting about the move alarmed opponents of stepped-up Border Patrol activities.
“The existing Port Angeles station doesn’t meet the needs for the current and anticipated levels of agents operating from the station due to the inadequate amount of office and parking spaces,” the notice said.
“[U.S. Border Patrol] needs a new station that will accommodate an overall station staff level of 50 agents.”
Lodge members
The agency has issued a letter of intent to make an offer on the 3.4-acre Eagles property and lodge building, which is listed at a combined $1.99 million.
Pili Meyer, the listing agent for the Eagles club property, said Monday she expects an offer by the end of the month.
Meyer was planning to attend an Eagles meeting Monday night “to try to calm things down,” she said.
“This is a recipe for making people upset,” she said, adding she was referring to too much information on one hand, not enough on the other and “wild rumors circulating.”
Another environmental inspection of the site is expected this week, Meyer added.
Charles Parsons, environmental program manager for Customs and Border Protection, has said the building would likely be renovated rather than razed.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also in the federal building and also will move, with plans to begin the process of finding space to lease later this fall.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
