PORT ANGELES — Contracts for tourism marketing and operation of the Port Angeles Visitor Center have been delayed pending a motion for injunction.
Port Angeles City Attorney Bill Bloor told City Council members Tuesday that a hearing is scheduled at 1:30 p.m. Friday.
“We expect that the matter will be resolved by the next council meeting” Feb. 3, Bloor said, as he told council members the matter had to be pulled off the agenda.
The motion for a temporary injunction was filed Jan. 14 in Clallam County Superior Court by Dale Wilson, publisher of the free monthly newspaper Port O Call, along with Jessica Elliott, an unsuccessful bidder for the visitor center contract.
The motion alleges the city picked “the highest, worst bidder” to run the visitor center — namely, the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The council decided in split votes Dec. 16 to award the visitor center and tourism marketing contract to the Chamber of Commerce.
Wilson’s motion said he “entered a responsive and timely bid with the city for operation of the visitor center.
“It was a lower and better bid than the bid accepted by the city and, without this injunction, about to be contracted to the highest, worst bidder, the chamber,” Wilson added.
The city’s Lodging Tax Advisory Committee placed Wilson’s and Elliott’s proposal last in the three visitor center bids, after the chamber and Necessities and Temptations gift shop through Soroptimist International Port Angeles Jet Set.
The chamber received 314 points in the committee’s ranking; Necessities and Temptations, 306 points, and Wilson and Jessica Elliott, 208 points.
Council members Brad Collins, Dan Gase, Cherie Kidd and Mayor Dan Di Guilio backed the chamber for marketing services, with council members Sissi Bruch, Patrick Downie and Lee Whetham voting against it.
On the visitor center issue, Collins, Di Guilio, Whetham and Gase voted for the chamber, with Bruch, Downie and Kidd opposed.
