PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County Economic Development Council board has taken a step toward reducing the organization’s reliance on government funding and being supported mostly by membership dues by mid-2017.
At its Thursday meeting, the board unanimously approved a reorganization plan that would cut the board from 28 directors — three of whom are nonvoting — to 13.
That will make the board more “nimble” and the EDC more appealing to dues-paying businesses, said Jim McEntire, a board member and one of the three Clallam County commissioners.
McEntire presented the proposal.
“It is the intent to weight the budget more so with private funding,” board President Brian Kuh, a banker, said Saturday.
“That is a longer-term objective. It’s certainly nothing that can happen overnight.”
Board members hope to redefine the structure of the EDC by the end of the year, Kuh said.
Said McEntire: “We need to get away from a large, cumbersome governing board”
He expanded on that notion in an interview Friday with the Peninsula Daily News.
“The idea is to make it more nimble and be able to achieve the overall strategy objectives and so on,” McEntire said.
“The idea there is to make it obvious in terms of the value to that organization or that business enterprise to be part of the EDC to improve the overall economic picture of the county for everybody.”
McEntire said he consulted with the EDC executive board and the organization’s funding partners before presenting the board reorganization plan for approval Thursday.
Public outreach
Board members Kaj Ahlburg of Port Angeles — a retired New York investment banker and attorney and the Port Angeles Business Association representative — and Port Angeles City Councilman Brad Collins cautioned that a change in structure will require extensive public outreach.
Ahlburg said the EDC has been remiss in informing the public of its mission.
Collins said a change should include “a public vetting process.”
Bylaws and dues still must be established.
Public participation will be a component of the process, Kuh said.
“There is universal agreement about ensuring public participation and a mechanism for input, not only now, in the next three months, but ongoing, [and] next year, with this structure being identified as transitional, making sure that input component remains,” he said.
100 businesses
About 100 businesses in Clallam County are EDC members, Executive Director Bill Greenwood said Saturday.
Dues are as low as $75 but are more commonly $500 to $1,000, with some at least $5,000, Greenwood said.
“What we hope for are bigger checks than [$5,000] over time from the major businesses,” he added.
Under the plan presented Thursday, dues for individuals who are members would be $100 a year and for a business at least $500 a year, possibly scaled by gross revenue or net profit.
“The organizational realignment is going to happen fairly quickly,” McEntire predicted, adding that he hopes a new board will be named by Nov. 30.
However, “the financial transition on how the EDC will be funded in the future is gong to have to take some time to work out,” McEntire said.
“We will ramp down public funding ideally and ramp up private funding over time as the organization demonstrates a better level of performance.”
EDC funding
This year, the organization will receive $153,036 from tax-supported entities and $19,275 in memberships as part of its $172,311 budget.
It will get $56,036 from the state Department of Commerce, $30,000 from Clallam County, $25,000 from the Port of Port Angeles, $15,000 from Port Angeles, $15,000 from Olympic Medical Center, $7,000 from Forks and $5,000 from Sequim.
The 2014 budget also consists of interest income and annual-dinner proceeds.
The present board of directors includes five representatives of Native American tribes and one each from Peninsula College and the University of Washington’s Olympic Natural Resources Center in Forks.
According to the EDC website at www.clallam.org, which Kuh said is outdated, it includes government representatives from the port, Clallam County government and the cities of Port Angeles, Sequim and Forks; Olympic Medical Center; the county’s five tribes; and Peninsula College.
The new board will include at least six non-government-related representatives: one from each of the three commissioner districts who are appointed by the county commissioners and one each from Port Angeles, Sequim and Forks who will be appointed by the city councils.
Most of the non-governmental representatives will be from the private sector, Greenwood said Saturday.
The board chairman also will not be from government.
Other members will be a representative of area tribes, as well as of Peninsula College, the Port of Port Angeles and Olympic Medical Center or Forks Community Hospital; and a City Council member, a Clallam County commissioner or county administrator, a mayor or city manager representing the three cities and a non-voting “senior policy adviser.”
‘Senior policy adviser’
McEntire said Thursday the policy adviser would be someone who has extensive experience with the EDC.
“The idea of transitioning from a historic organization to different and new organization is to not lose people that have long experience,” he said.
The plan envisions members serving on business cluster committees that would provide reports on activities and results to the governing board.
All cluster committee members would be on a panel that would devise an EDC strategy that would be approved by the board, McEntire said.
A public infrastructure committee — “the pure government part of it,” McEntire said — would include an elected official or top city or county manager from each city and the county, and the Port of Port Angeles, he said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
