PORT TOWNSEND — The city of Port Townsend is preparing criteria for selecting an organization to replace KPTZ Radio as the station plans to leave the Mountain View campus and move to Fort Worden.
Space at the Mountain View commons is in high demand, City Manager John Mauro said at Monday’s City Council meeting, and with the radio station leaving at the end of July, the city wants to find a replacement that will serve the community.
The city is drafting a request for proposal document to be released later this month.
On Monday, Carrie Hite, the city’s director of parks and recreation strategy, asked council members what they’d like to ask of potential applicants. The RFP will have scoring criteria a committee will use to score and select a future tenant.
“We would put a committee together and score that to make sure that we could get the best fit for Mountain View,” Hite said. “If there’s duplicative services that applying for Mountain View and there’s a gap in our community for services, we think that we’d rather have somebody that fills that gap.”
The city offers leases at the campus at a subsidized rate in exchange for an organization that offers services to the community.
Some of the criteria on the draft RFP included questions about hours of operation, how long they’ve been in business and whether or not they can afford three years worth of rent and the leasehold excise tax of 12.8 percent.
Most of the draft questions focused on business operations and past rental history.
Council members asked for questions that would help differentiate the organizations under review.
Council member Libby Wennstrom asked for questions that would let the organization describe why the Mountain View space would be important for them.
“I guess what I’m looking for is a little more of a follow-up question that might be a little more open ended that I think might tell the committee a lot more about the applicants,” Wennstrom said.
Council member Ben Thomas suggested having the space work as something of a business incubator for the city, and giving extra consideration to new businesses still trying to find their footing.
Council member Monica MickHagger, who works with KPTZ, said that was the situation the radio station was in when it first started.
“It was because the city was so supportive, it helped us grow in those first 12 years,” MickHagger said.
Hite said the RFP will be released at the end of the month, and that the criteria used to select a replacement organization will establish a process for reviewing future vacancies at the site.
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached by email at peter.segall@peninsuladailynews.com.
