PORT ANGELES — Organizers of a fundraising effort to keep Hurricane Ridge Road open year-round are confident they will reach the top by Monday.
That’s when Port Angeles City Council member Cherie Kidd expects to announce to a Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce weekly luncheon audience that $75,000 has been raised to supplement $250,000 the federal Department of the Interior has pledged to keep the road open daily — weather permitting — from late fall through the beginning of spring.
The luncheon starts at noon at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant at the Red Lion Hotel, 221 N. Lincoln St.
“We are so close,” Kidd said at a meeting with Chamber Executive Director Russ Veenema and City Manager Kent Myers in Myers’ office Monday afternoon.
Myers, Veenema and Kidd said they had $62,000 in hand as of Monday afternoon
By Monday evening, Kidd had secured $5,000 more from the Sequim City Council, which voted the pledge to help promote winter tourism.
The Department of the Interior wants to determine if keeping the road open leads to greater revenue in winter months for area hotels and other businesses, agency officials have said.
Kidd said hotels have pledged to market ski packages if the 17-mile road is open year-round.
“The ball is already rolling on marketing,” she said.
Myers urged anyone who wants to donate to the cause to contact him, Kidd or Veenema by 5 p.m. Friday.
Donations can be made at Chase Bank in Port Angeles, 101 W. Front St., or online at the website of Washington’s National Park Fund — www.wnpf.org — by clicking on “Donate Now,” selecting Olympic National Park and specifying the donation is for Hurricane Ridge Road.
In addition to Sequim’s Monday night pledge, contributions have included $20,000 each from Clallam County and the city of Port Angeles and $3,100 from the Olympic Tourism Commission.
Individual donations have ranged from $25 to $1,500.
A July 30 fundraiser at the R Bar tavern in downtown Port Angeles netted $9,000, Kidd said.
Another fundraiser is at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Bar N9ne, 229 W. First St., Port Angeles.
And another fundraiser is slated Friday, when $25 appetizers will be offered during a “pub crawl” of downtown establishments during the monthly Second Friday Art Walk.
CPI Provisioning Inc. of Port Angeles also is auctioning off construction of a fiber optic network to a business and a year of free service, with a combined value of $12,000.
In addition, the Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club is collecting donations.
The minimum bid is $2,000.
“I’m very excited,” Kidd said.
“This is going to have such a positive impact on Port Angeles. This shows what we can do when we all pull together.
“We want our park open. It’s our park, and we are going to get it back.”
The road is now open from Friday through Sunday from November through March, weather permitting.
The National Park Service will make the funds available next year, also — but the community will again have to raise $75,000 again, and possibly in 2013, when another $75,000 would have to be generated — unless federal government funding comes through.
U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, who represents Clallam, Jefferson, Grays Harbor, Mason and Kitsap counties and part of Tacoma in Pierce County, is trying to secure funding to cover 2012 and 2013, Veenema said after the meeting in Myers’ office.
“We should know in the spring” whether Dicks’ effort is successful, he added.
“Right now, I’m just worried about this year,” Veenema said.
“One year at a time.”
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Senior Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
