PORT TOWNSEND — Negotiations between the city of Port Townsend and Port of Port Townsend on a land swap for the port’s Kah Tai lagoon have produced a proposal that doesn’t go far enough, port Deputy Executive Director Jim Pivarnik said.
The city offered swapping a low-grade wetland at the Boat Haven that the port could use for development in return for the city taking control of the 22-acre lagoon, which is highly valued by city residents and also may become the site of an aquatic center fueled with membership dues, not taxes.
“It’s a matter of scale,” Pivarnik said Friday. “They need to bring a little more to the table than that.”
Mayor Michelle Sandoval said that’s just Pivarnik’s opinion.
“He doesn’t make the decisions,” Sandoval said.
‘Policy decision’
“That’s a policy decision. All we have decided to do as a group is to start a conversation and allow our staff to begin a conversation.”
Sandoval and Pivarnik agreed in separate interviews that a land-swap agreement, regardless of the form it might take, is a long way off — as is construction of an aquatic center that may replace the Mountain View School pool, which is now leased by the city.
The school is closing at the end of this school year but may reopen some time in the future if warranted by enrollment, Port Townsend School District Superintendent Tom Opstad said last week. It includes an adjacent gym and a cafeteria.
The school district and the city are negotiating a contract to lease the property after the school closes.
“We are at least going to go into a lease that will be fluid enough if they decide to reopen,” Sandoval said.
“We want to keep the pool open. We would like to see the YMCA have a home, so they would take over the gym and the cafeteria.”
As with negotiations between the city and port, Sandoval said, “the only direction we’ve given is, ‘Let’s have a conversation here about what we can do as a community.”
Make Waves
Long-term effort is also the catch-phrase for Make Waves, the community group that’s carefully laying groundwork for a proposed nonprofit pool at Kah Tai at 12th Street and Haines Place at the entrance to Jefferson Transit’s Haines Place Park and Ride, group coordinator Karen Nelson said.
“We are just waiting for the memo of understanding between the port and the city and the various entities, and that’s in the works,” Nelson said, adding that the pool would be built for $10 million in 2012 or 2013 with donations and grants.
“Make Waves’ understanding is that the different government agencies are on board with this, and that they want to all sign an agreement and that we are all working toward this end, to have the facility located at that location.”
But city Public Works Director Ken Clow said he was unaware of a memo of understanding being written or considered.
City Manager David Timmons was in Europe for International City Managers Association meetings and was unavailable for comment.
Membership fees at the aquatic center would be no more than the $65 for 20 swims charged at Mountain View, Nelson said.
Make Waves commissioned a $25,000 feasibility study that concluded the aquatic center would be viable, Nelson said, adding that the study found that the potential market of swimmers was “greatly under-served” to the extent that the center could run solely on membership fees.
For an example, she pointed to the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center, which as a park and recreation district has the capacity to levy taxes but doesn’t.
If the Make Waves aquatic center had at least 2,000 memberships, it would be self-sufficient, she added.
“A lot of people are going to SARC in Sequim,” from Port Townsend, Nelson said.
“It’s a big leakage. The reason is that SARC is just a nicer facility. Kids like SARC instead of Mountain View, which is basically a lap-swim pool. SARC is the model we are using.”
The aquatic center would include a lap pool, a kids’ pool that would double as a therapy pool, a daycare room, and a hot tub, sauna, steam room and gym.
While many pools are tax-supported, the aquatic center will work not only because the swimmer base is there but because it will be a matter of 25 to 50 feet from the Park and Ride, making it accessible to bus riders and eliminating the need to build a parking lot for the center, Nelson said.
In addition, Nelson expects the town’s existing pool will be “kind of an orphan” once Mountain View closes.
The pool was built in 1963, according to the Jefferson County Historical Society Research Center.
It was upgraded in 1981 with revenue generated by the makers of “An Officer and a Gentleman,” which compensated the district for filming scenes in the pool.
“The city has stated that, barring extraordinary expense, they will keep it operating until they have a new facility up,” she said.
Sandoval took a not-so-fast approach.
“This is a long process,” she said. “It’s a long, considerable process we need to go through before we know Make Waves will be at Kah Tai. There’s not a certainty that Mountain View School won’t be a school again. There are so many uncertainties. We can’t even say that Make Waves would be there.”
The main goal is to keep Kah Tai as a nature park “in a wild state and in public use as a park,” she said.
“We can’t start talking about a pool there until the actual process is laid out for a land swap. Some people are up in arms about a pool being there, but that is so far off in the future, I can’t get too excited about that yet.”
Sandoval said she doesn’t have an opinion about what else the city might have to offer the port in exchange for city ownership of Kah Tai.
Pivarnik said the port would like to see some development at Kah Tai, which includes a 200-foot buffer around the lagoon.
“The port commission has in concept agreed with Make Waves, and they would like to move forward in principle,” he said.
“The biggest problem for Make Waves is to get money to move forward with the center. There are so many pluses where that would be the hub of recreation there that would make it a perfect place.”
Pivarnik lauded the effort put forward by the city and port staffs to work out an agreement.
But he said the port is seeking a balance between providing a benefit to the entire county, not solely Port Townsend residents.
Kah Tai is worth $5 million, with road frontage on Sims Way, making it valuable to all county residents, “although nobody wants to see that developed with a high rise,” Pivarnik said.
“The port is countywide. Port Ludlow owns Kah Tai as much as Port Townsend. We need to make sure as a port district we are providing benefits to all county residents, not just city residents.
________
Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
