PORT ANGELES — Clallam County has taken the first major step in dissolving the cash-strapped Clallam Business Incubator.
The three commissioners Tuesday passed a resolution absolving the Incubator of the $750,000 that the county loaned the private nonprofit organization with state Department of Commerce funds in 2004.
The move is contingent on the Port Angeles School District — the incubator’s landlord — assuming the debt.
The school district would not be responsible for paying off the loan.
Clallam County would pay off the loan with payments of $48,194 per year, including 1 percent interest, until the loan is retired.
Functions of the Clallam Business Incubator, which has been mothballed since October 2009, would then become part of the existing Business and Community Development Center at the Lincoln Center at 905 W. Ninth St., Port Angeles.
Peninsula College would assume some of the functions of what the Incubator was intended to do in the first place: provide economic development resources.
The Incubator facility would be run for at least one year by the Peninsula College Business and Community Development Center, which already operates out of the Lincoln Center and has a full-time director.
Different model
Commissioner Mike Doherty said the move is basically a transition to a slightly different model.
College interim President Brinton Sprague told commissioners Monday that the school favors the new model.
“We’re all grateful to the community college,” Doherty said Tuesday.
“In some areas, the model is more efficient. It still accommodates some small-business start-ups, some help with workforce training — those types of things — in a setting that’s available to people all across the county.
“And since the college will be operating it, it’s a two-county college district, so possibly people from Jefferson will also access this for small-business help.”
The county needs a public entity to place the debt in its name because it can’t forgive a loan to a private group.
Letter to Ecology
In other action, county officials continued to revise a letter to the state Department of Ecology on the state’s draft Dungeness water management rule for Water Resource Inventory Area 18.
Commissioners discussed the letter for more than two hours in Monday’s work session. They resumed discussions after Tuesday’s business meeting.
“We’re still working on the second or third draft,” Doherty said.
The county has until Friday to submit comments to Ecology on the preliminary Dungeness water management rule.
About two dozen citizens spoke out against the draft rule in a public forum hosted by the county last week.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
