PORT ANGELES — Organizers of the apparently failed effort to pass a $4 million, 20-year bond to renovate Civic Field might try to include the facility in the William Shore Memorial Pool District as they ponder their options for the future, bond campaign organizer Steve Zenovic said Wednesday.
“One of the ideas is, do we put it in the pool district?” Zenovic said.
“I’m not willing to throw in the towel on getting Civic Field improvements, I’ll put it to you that way.”
The bond was losing by 2,047 votes, or 55.55 percent, to 1,638 votes, or 44.45 percent, as of Wednesday’s count of Tuesday’ ballots.
Approval of a bond issue requires a 60 percent supermajority.
The Clallam County auditor’s elections office received 4,408 additional ballots from the mail and drop-box locations Wednesday, bringing the total number of ballots returned to 19,992, or 43.58 percent of the 45,879 voters who received ballots.
Wednesday’s ballots will be opened by 4:30 p.m. today or by Friday morning, County Auditor Patty Rosand said Wednesday.
The vote was citywide. The city has 11,158 voters.
Bond supporters will soon regroup and have not given up the fight, Zenovic said.
“We put the information out for the citizens, and they made the call on what they think is appropriate,” he said.
“Now we step back and see what other opportunities there are to do it.”
The Civic Field bond would cost about 18 cents for every $1,000 of property valuation, or $36 a year for the owner of a $200,000 home.
The bond would have paid for artificial turf that would make the field usable from November to March and conform to Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association rules that do not allow grass for post-season tournaments.
That would be a boon to restaurants, hotels and other businesses who would benefit from increased foot traffic, said supporters, including the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Port Angeles Business Association.
The bond also would pay for new field lighting and a new boiler for the locker room, which does not have hot water.
“It’s important that we not drop it and look for other ways to fund it,” Zenovic said.
Funding opportunities that will be explored include grants and private funding, but the effort will be challenging, Zenovic said.
“We’ll look at every option we can to move forward in some manner.”
Zenovic said those options will include exploring whether Civic Field could be absorbed into the William Shore Memorial Pool District, which was formed by a citizen vote in 2009 to operate, maintain and improve the pool.
He questioned if the district could lease or outright purchase the field, which if renovated could be used by schools throughout Clallam County for postseason play and for increasingly popular field-oriented winter sports such as soccer and lacrosse.
There may be a hurdle to overcome, he said.
When citizens approved taking over the pool from the city, the pool district was intended to cover only the pool, Zenovic said.
“A year from now, it may be appropriate to look at a broader population base and sharing of costs,” he said.
Pool district board Chairman Gary Holmquist took a wait-and-see attitude on the idea.
“It’s something that obviously should be looked at and considered, but I don’t have a strong opinion at this point,” he said Wednesday.
Holmquist said he might be influenced by how the discussion among bond committee members proceeds and what community costs would be incurred.
An affiliation between Civic Field and the pool was discussed when the pool district was formed but never reached fruition, Holmquist recalled.
“My sense is that it would have to be put before the voters of the community to make that decision,” he said.
“We obviously do not have the financial resources to absorb something the size of Civic Field.”
The district was specifically directed toward operating and maintaining William Shore Memorial Pool, he added.
The legal document forming the pool district also included a maximum tax rate of 15 cents per $1,000 of property valuation, Holmquist said.
City Council member and new Pool District Commissioner Brad Collins said there have been discussions at the city level regarding a larger park district, but the decision has consistently been made to maintain the status quo.
“With the bond issue not getting the 60 percent supermajority, I’m sure people will go back to the drawing board to try to figure out what to do next,” Collins said.
“Whether that starts at the pool district, it probably does not, because of how the pool district was formed.”
As of Wednesday, Zenovic said he hadn’t really thought about whether organizers should have run a different kind of the bond campaign.
There was no formal opposition to the measure.
“I’m not convinced we would have done anything different, given what we knew, what our goals were,” Zenovic said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
