PORT TOWNSEND — Port of Port Townsend Commissioners on Wednesday reviewed the second draft of the 2025 budget which anticipated operating revenues of $8.8 million and operating expenses of $8.1 million.
Director of Finance and Administration Connie Anderson said she and port staff recommended a conservative approach to next year’s budget.
They looked to the year-to-date forecasts for 2024, she said, rather than what was actually budgeted, in making their projections.
“The budget represents the impact that we’ve seen over the last couple of years with inflation,” Anderson said. “Costs have increased across the board. We’ve been increasing our revenues, but they haven’t necessarily stayed in step with the increase in expenditures.”
Rates and fees will increase 3.8 percent in 2025, Anderson said, and any tenant rate increases will be based on the CPI adjustment published in January.
The port has $15.7 million in construction projects scheduled for 2025; about $1.1 million of which has yet to be secured. The $5.23 million stormwater improvement project at Port Townsend Boatyard will start next summer. The $1.955 Sims Gateway and boatyard expansion project is also set to get underway next year.
The revised 2025 draft budget will be presented at a public hearing Oct. 22 at 5:30 p.m. at the Pavilion Building at Port Hudson, 355 Hudson St.
• At their morning workshop, commissioners recommended eliminating the monthly summer rate for transient recreational moorage. At $753.82 per month, the May to September summer rate was significantly lower than the nightly rate of $68 a day.
This sometimes created problems, harbormaster Kristian Ferrero said, when recreational boat owners extended their original number of nightly stays to the point where it was cheaper to stay a month and then subsequently demanded the monthly rate. Or, recreational boat owners who only wanted to stay enough days to be able to pay the monthly rate, leaving an empty slip the port couldn’t lease to other transient boat owners.
Removing the summer transient rate would add clarity to pricing and free up moorage during the peak summer season, commissioners said. It would also align them with other ports in the area that didn’t have a summer rate.
At their afternoon meeting commissioners requested a rate card based on slip length be put together so they could compare it to the ship length rate the port currently charges.
• Construction of a new boat ramp at Gardner has been moved to next summer, Capital Projects Director Matt Klontz told commissioners.
The port had planned the project for this winter, Klontz said, but the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife had identified the area as one where the sand lance — also known as the sand eel — lays its eggs, so no in-water construction can take place during those months.
The port’s best option, Klontz said, was to seek bids later this year and aim for construction to start July 15, the first day of the in-water work window.
“The downside is that’s the time of year that the ramp is being used, which we were trying to avoid by doing it in December or January, but it’s the best we can do,” he said.
• Executive Director Eron Berg said port staff and volunteers had cleared “mountains of reed canary grass” from about a mile of Chimacum Creek, which flows through Short’s Farm. Berg said the reed canary grass would be composted and wood from the buildings that had been torn down would be repurposed for other projects. A new driveway was also installed and the house had been prepped for tenancy. Berg reminded commissioners that hunting on the property would start Saturday.
• Berg said no one had come forward to purchase the St. Peter or the Elmore boats the port had impounded, but failed to find buyers for at public auction. The St. Peter, a 62-foot-long commercial fishing boat, is for sale for $30,148.02. The 70-foot, 150-ton Elmore, built in 1890, is one of the few surviving wooden vessels to have sailed Alaska during the Klondike era. The port had hoped its $10,000 asking price would attract a buyer interested in restoring it.
The longer it holds onto the St. Peter and the Elmore, the more it costs the port. The space they occupy in the Port Townsend Boatyard is worth about $4,000 a month.
The port has the funding to demolish both and that is their likely fate, Berg said.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com
