PORT ANGELES — “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other is gold.”
The Girls Scouts song, which rather seamlessly entered the conversation, captured one of the themes of a town hall meeting: bring new businesses to Port Angeles while keeping the long-standing industries alive.
Bob Schroeter, executive director of the Clallam County Economic Development Corp. (EDC), facilitated a discussion about economic growth opportunities in Port Angeles on Thursday.
An audience of community members, city government officials, law enforcement officers and small-business owners congregated in the courthouse meeting room.
Placed around the room were posterboards marked with “Who are we? What makes Port Angeles special?,” long-term economic development ideas in Port Angeles and short-term ideas.
“I want to think of us as painters, and we have a blank canvas,” Schroeter said. “Every idea is a good idea today.”
The “canvases” left the room with a flurry of ideas and a few common threads.
Ideas for long-term economic growth in Port Angeles included creating a “rapid response” team to nurture new business ideas and lift them off the ground; bringing sustainable industries to the area, especially those in the tech sector; Port Angeles businesses, the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce and the EDC working collaboratively; and training youths in skills such as coding, welding and masonry.
Their short-term counterparts included valuing the timber and tourism industries, rather than putting them at odds; making Port Angeles a gathering place for the tech community; enhancing local public transit; and showing youths an economic future on the North Olympic Peninsula beyond the mill or the military.
Out of the brainstorm emerged some common ambitions: creating jobs for the current and future workforce, modernizing approaches to business and resisting the urge to “just say no” to new ideas for economic growth.
Living-wage jobs in Port Angeles remained a thread throughout the conversation. Questions, such as “Where are the jobs? Where is the training? What are the industries we need and we can accommodate?” yielded a range of ideas.
Several community members brought up the “untapped skills” of the workforce in Port Angeles. Others argued youths do not have the soft skills needed to pin down a long-term, living-wage job — thus, the Port Angeles schools system should focus on training soft skills in early education.
Matthew Rainwater, Pennies for Quarters founder and chairman of the Clallam County Republican Party, brought up the idea of middle school students spending a half-day at local businesses to shadow the owners, gain valuable hard and soft skills, and experience a “quasi-apprenticeship.”
The idea expanded into offering more high school internships for the same purposes.
A few individuals focused on the high career prospects for those who learn coding and cybersecurity — and the fact that these jobs can be performed anywhere in the world.
Port Angeles also could become a gathering place for the tech community, they said.
Port Angeles School Board member Sandy Long said unlike metropolitan cities such as Seattle, Port Angeles does not have a large community space where people can gather.
Schroeter wrote “confirm space” on a poster and posed a future performing arts center as a potential gathering place that could host tech groups and others.
Tourism also was mentioned as an important economic driver in Port Angeles.
“We make money from people across the Strait [of Juan de Fuca], from people elsewhere, from the Sequim Lavender [Weekend], from ‘Twilight,’ ” Schroeter said.
Tourism attractions, such as the waterfront, Olympic National Park, “rich native and lumber history,” outdoor recreation and art emerged in response to the question “What makes us special?”
Schroeter also briefly spoke about the potential for a commercial passenger airline in Port Angeles.
“I’m going to show you my hand,” Schroeter said. “My hand is that we need all forms of transportation.”
A majority “voted” in favor of a commercial airline during an impromptu call to raise hands.
“I want to compliment what you’ve got here,” Richard “Doc” Robinson said, noting that these types of discussions should be acted upon.
“We are collaborative, but we don’t end up with collaborative decisions,” Robinson said later.
Schroeter agreed about the need for collaboration but said the government process is necessary. Public discussions, he said, simply can’t occur at every minute step of the decision-making process or else nothing would be accomplished quickly.
“It’s like watching sausage being made,” he laughed.
At the end of the meeting, Schroeter reiterated his opening comment that every idea will be considered.
“We’re not going to cross ideas off,” he said.
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Reporter Sarah Sharp can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or at ssharp@peninsula dailynews.com.
