OLYMPIA — The 24th District’s three legislators are wary of Monday’s open house and Transportation Commission meeting in Port Angeles, but they are continuing other avenues to get answers about the abandoned graving yard project.
“I talked to DOT Secretary Doug MacDonald when he went from three to four commissioners, which would make it an open meeting,” said Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam.
“I told Doug it might just be a mistake, but he disagreed. He thought not that many people would show up.
“But I didn’t think it would be like that. He thinks it is a good thing,” she said.
Kessler, along with Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, represent the 24th District, which includes Clallam and Jefferson and part of Grays Harbor County.
The state Transportation Commission, at the request of Gov. Christine Gregoire, is hosting Monday’s session in the upstairs banquet room of the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant, 221 N. Lincoln St.
Kessler said she is concerned that if emotions surrounding the graving yard issue get too heated by meetings such as Monday’s, future negotiations with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe about the future of the Port Angeles waterfront will become impossible.
“But MacDonald doesn’t work for the governor, although he might by the end of this session,” Kessler said.
At behest of commission
MacDonald is hired and fired by the independent Transportation Commission, which is appointed by the governor.
HB1642, introduced Feb. 1 by House Transportation Chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, would allow the governor to hire and fire the transportation secretary.
Kessler noted that Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, has asked the Transportation Performance Audit Board to conduct a performance audit of DOT.
Perhaps enough people will be looking into the issue to get some answers, she suggested.
Buck said he wants the audit board to investigate because Monday’s session will not produce answers to any relevant questions.
“To me, that meeting’s not an inquiry,” he said.
“An inquiry is asking questions such as who did what when, and who had the authority.
“No one has come up with an answer to that, which is what everyone wants to know.”
What needs investigated is what happened and why DOT didn’t let the Legislature — or anyone else — know there was a problem in time for lawmakers to do something about it, Buck said.
‘Going to get earful’
“I think MacDonald’s wrong that not many people will show up, and I think he’s going to get an earful from people up there,” Buck said from Olympia.
“Maybe this is what needs to happen for him — to start taking us seriously.”
The Transportation Commission also meets Tuesday and Wednesday in Olympia.
The meeting begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday and reconvenes at 8 a.m. Wednesday.
Both days’ meetings are at the Transportation Building, 310 Maple Park Ave. S.E.
Tuesday’s agenda includes a legislative session update at 9:45 a.m.
Wednesday’s agenda includes a public and legislator comment period beginning at 1 p.m., followed by MacDonald’s report to the commission at 3:45 p.m.
The graving yard could come up at any of those times.
The graving yard — a giant onshore dry dock — was canceled Dec. 21 at the request of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe after thousands of artifacts and hundreds of remains were unearthed from an ancient waterfront village.
The cost of the canceled project is estimated at $58.8 million.
Meaningful clause
Hargrove said Gregoire’s Feb. 4 letter to the Transportation Commission says she wants the graving yard project to remain on the North Olympic Peninsula, which is meaningful.
“Anyone who is anyone” wants to keep the graving yard project on the Peninsula, although that will take a lot effort, Hargrove said.
Hargrove said he has spoken with U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, about long-range solutions for dealing with archaeological discoveries uncovered by construction projects.
