PORT ANGELES — The Harbor-Works Public Development Authority will ask for more money from the city of Port Angeles and the Port of Port Angeles, the board chairman said.
The City Council and port commission approved the formation of Harbor-Works on May 20, and have each loaned the public development authority $150,000 from its economic development fund.
Harbor-Works’ 2009 budget will include additional funding requests from both the city and the port, said Orville Campbell, Harbor-Works board chairman, on Tuesday.
Planning for Harbor-Works’ 2009 budget and work plan will be a topic of discussion at the board’s regular meeting at 2:30 p.m. today in the Vern Burton Memorial Community Center meeting room, 321 E. Fifth St., Port Angeles.
Campbell did not know on Tuesday how much the board will request.
As of Jan. 7, Harbor-Works had spent $30,624.62.
Campbell said that neither the budget nor the work plan — which will lay out what the board intends to accomplish this year — will be ready to be considered for approval for another two weeks to one month.
“It’s not going as rapidly as we would like,” he said last week.
“We’re doing the best we can at the moment.”
Campbell said funding for the 2009 budget may also come from a $250,000 grant from the state Department of Ecology to carry out its due diligence of the 75-acre Rayonier Inc. property on the Port Angeles Harbor at the end of Ennis Street as a prerequisite to acquiring any portion of the former mill site.
If Harbor-Works acquires any of the contaminated property, which it may do to assist in the cleanup of the site, it will become a liable party, according Ecology.
The funding could be available to Harbor-Works even though the public development authority is not being considered by Ecology as a candidate for receiving a remedial action grant during the next two years.
The two grants are different.
The remedial action grant would pay for about half of its cleanup costs if it acquires contaminated property.
Harbor-Works is chartered by the city and port with assisting in the environmental cleanup of the Rayonier property, directing its redevelopment and assisting with harbor-wide planning.
The Rayonier property is contaminated with PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and other toxins from the 68 years Rayonier’s pulp mill operated on the property before closing in 1997.
It has been an Ecology cleanup site since 2000, with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe as a partner.
Remnants of an ancient Klallam village are buried under some of the property.
Executive director
The board also will discuss at today’s meeting what it will do about lacking an executive director.
Harbor-Works’ interim executive director, Jim Haguewood, stepped down Jan. 15 after serving for about six months, and the position has not been filled.
The five-member Harbor-Works board originally planned to select a permanent executive director during the first week of December, but decided to hold off until the Port Angeles City Council held a meeting that same month to resolve the questions of some of its members about the formation and goals of the public development authority.
The City Council officially announced it had resolved those questions by unanimously voting in support of Harbor-Works on Jan. 27.
Campbell said that the board members, who were appointed by the City Council and Port of Port Angeles Commission, have a few options.
They could consider hiring another interim executive director, select an executive director from candidates chosen as finalists in November, or re-advertise the vacant executive director position to find new candidates.
The permanent executive director position is budgeted at $144,000 a year.
Haguewood was paid $2,000 a month.
Rayonier meeting
At the meeting, Campbell will give the board a presentation on a Jan. 15 meeting with Rayonier executives in Jacksonville, Fla.
Campbell joined four city staff members and two City Council members to meet with Rayonier about acquiring a 5-million-gallon tank at the former mill site to resolve the city’s sewage overflow problem.
The city is under an Ecology order to nearly eliminate untreated sewage from entering marine waters during periods of heavy rainfall by the end of 2015.
The Rayonier executives verbally agreed to a three-year lease of the tank to the city, and city staff members expect to present a lease agreement to the City Council for consideration this month.
Although there was no mention of it at the joint City Council and port commission meeting on May 20, acquiring the tank was the impetus in the formation of Harbor-Works, said Bill Bloor, city attorney.
Bloor told the council at its December meeting on Harbor-Works that city staff approached Rayonier in December 2005, offering to assist in the cleanup of the company’s Port Angeles property in exchange for getting the tank at no cost.
The city decided to use a public development authority as the vehicle in which to do so and also direct redevelopment of the property and assist in harbor-wide planning in April, he said.
Approval of spending
The board will consider approval of vouchers for the last month.
Expenses already approved by the board include:
•âÇ$11,271.25 in payment to Haguewood.
•âÇ$9,500 for one year of insurance.
•âÇ$5,036.84 for city staff time.
•âÇ$2,261 in payment to Harbor-Works attorney Rob Tulloch.
•âÇ$943.20 in payment to Karen Kilgore for clerical services.
•âÇ$436 in advertising for the executive director position.
•âÇ$924.58 for meeting recording equipment, lodging for three executive director candidates, supplies, domain name and e-mail and refreshments during a meeting.
Also on the agenda is:
•âÇConsideration of contracting additional legal services relating to tribal law.
•âÇConsideration of a resolution that would set terms, conditions and policies for expense accounts for board and staff.
________
Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
