PORT ANGELES — The three Port of Port Angeles commissioners remain at odds about the idea of changing their meeting dates.
On Tuesday, James D. Hallett spoke against Commissioner Connie Beauvais’s suggestion of moving meetings from Tuesdays to Fridays, while Colleen McAleer supported it.
Being considered is relocating regular meetings to 1 p.m. on the second and fourth Fridays of each month and adding regular work sessions on those same days beginning at 9 a.m.
Commissioners directed staff to develop a resolution changing the date and times of regular meetings and adding work sessions. They will consider it at 9 a.m. Jan. 26 at the port administration building, 338 W. First St.
While discussion on the matter is expected to continue, a vote on the resolution might be delayed until February, McAleer said.
A balancing act
McAleer said she has “a full-time job that keeps me traveling in Olympia and Seattle and across the state Monday through Thursday, so Friday does work well.”
Beauvais said she also has a full-time job that keeps her busy during other workdays and that Fridays would be a good time for her to meet as well.
Hallett questioned whether the change is simply for the convenience of both Beauvais and McAleer.
It is “my understanding this is being done primarily to accommodate your personal work schedules,” he said.
“I haven’t heard yet any particular reason why having meetings on Fridays is in the public’s best interest.”
Hallett said he is “quite frankly surprised because I think our current structure works just fine.”
The call for “all-day meetings where you meet in the morning and again in the afternoon — maybe there is a semantic difference there, but I am not sure . . . what the benefit of that is,” he said.
McAleer said the additional work sessions “create every opportunity for this port to be more transparent and have the business of the port be done in a transparent way.”
Said Beauvais: “What I am looking for with these meetings is having a work session in the morning, and that’s where we . . . can ask all of our questions and we can get all of our answers and have a working dogma that may not be finalized before we take action.
“Personally, I see these business meetings as being rather short because the discussion will already have taken place that morning or two weeks before, and we can move more rapidly through our business items.”
Changing meeting days to Fridays also would allow staff members and members of the public to attend both county commissioner meetings, held at 10 a.m. every Tuesday, and port commissioner meetings — something not currently possible, McAleer said.
And, she said, “I think there [are] fewer public meetings scheduled on Friday.
“That is part of the reason that I like the idea of Friday, and have been talking to staff about that.”
Hallett said it appears no other port districts in the state meet on Fridays.
Legal representation
Also of concern to Hallett is that port counsel Simon Barnhart, along with many other local attorneys, typically have court appointments on Fridays.
Said Barnhart: “The civil motion calendar in Clallam County . . . is on Friday . . . at 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.”
As such, Hallett said he is concerned that “if we go to Friday, we are going to lose our legal representation. I find that disconcerting also.”
Barnhart said he hasn’t “really had a chance to consider how” the change will affect his ability to attend port meetings.
The “prospect of twice-monthly meetings here makes that circumstance more manageable, so I don’t anticipate it will create a significant interruption, but I haven’t had an opportunity to give any thought to that,” he said.
________
Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
