SEQUIM – To keep flying people onto the North Olympic Peninsula, Kenmore Air needs a three-city push — or else all of Clallam County could miss out on planeloads of tourists, said Jeff Robb, Port of Port Angeles airport director.
Robb asked the Sequim Marketing Action Committee on Monday for $10,000 in lodging-tax revenue as a show of support for the port’s application for a $400,000 federal grant.
That sum, Robb said, would be poured into a campaign promoting Kenmore’s delivery of people to the whole Peninsula via William R. Fairchild Airport in Port Angeles.
The $10,000 would be Sequim’s contribution toward the $40,000 “local match” required by the federal Department of Transportation, which makes the grants to help small towns keep their small airlines.
The marketing committee members, after nearly an hour of debate, voted 4-1 to supply only $7,000 toward the local match.
That’s the recommendation that will go to the Sequim City Council on Monday for a final decision. The council will meet at 6 p.m. in the Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
Marketing committee member Jean Wyatt cast the dissenting vote because, she said, Sequim should contribute the full $10,000. She believes the return — an increased flow of tourists to Sequim — would far exceed the initial investment.
The city of Port Angeles, the port and Kenmore itself have agreed to supply $10,000 each, Robb said.
Although he emphasized that he sought countywide support for the grant application, he said the port will make up what the cities don’t put toward the local match.
His application is due Aug. 28, and the grant winners will be announced in December.
With Kenmore’s passenger numbers slipping, Robb said, “We are trying to demonstrate that this community supports commercial service and that we’re all in this together.”
But several marketing committee members seemed unmoved.
Among them was Damian Humphreys, marketing director for the Quality Inn & Suites and the under-construction Holiday Inn Express in Sequim.
He believes Port Angeles stands to reap more benefits if the grant is won, so Sequim should be asked for a smaller contribution than its neighbor to the west.
‘Poor relative’
Olaf Protze, owner of the Red Caboose Getaway in eastern Sequim, also objected to the $10,000 request. He likened Port Angeles to a “rich uncle,” while Sequim is a “poor relative.”
Robb also has asked the city of Forks for a contribution, but “they indicated they have no money at all,” though Mayor Nedra Reed said last week she’d be pleased to provide a letter of support.
Committee member Sherry Schubert took issue with that, saying she thinks Forks should furnish at least some cash.
Besides, she added, “we don’t have the money” in the lodging-tax fund.
Then Karen Kuznek-Reese, the Sequim city clerk, interjected that a fund balance of $180,000 is projected at the end of this year.
And Diane Schostak, executive director of the Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau, urged the rest of the marketing committee to stop contrasting Sequim with other Clallam County towns.
“The question is for us, today,” she said. “It’s not what the neighbors are doing.”
Erik Erichsen, the Sequim City Council member who chairs the marketing committee, suggested asking for some money from the city itself to supplement the lodging-tax contribution.
“The general fund is pretty skinny,” Schostak said.
Both Schostak and Linda Herzog, Sequim’s interim city manager, were emphatic that this region cannot afford to lose Kenmore.
“We don’t have a line item for marketing,” Herzog added.
She reminded Erichsen of her recent report to the council that Sequim faces an $850,000 revenue shortfall going into 2010.
‘Watershed moment’
“This is a real watershed moment for Sequim,” Herzog said.
“It will be a terrible mistake not to give support to this.”
To her mind, the grant is akin to “free money” from the federal government, money that could give a powerful boost to economic development across the county.
“The benefit to the community of having scheduled air service is huge,” Schostak added.
“The consequences of not having it would throw us back 30 years.”
Robb added that some small towns abandoned by their airlines have had to pay one to start flying in.
“Moses Lake is an example,” he said, that “put up $500,000 of community money to bring a carrier in.”
Two years after the now-defunct Big Sky Airlines pulled out, SkyWest of St. George, Utah, began flying into Moses Lake this summer; 108 local businesses pledged $517,000 to attract the carrier.
“We would be in that position to get somebody to come back in” if Kenmore’s planes leave, Robb said.
“If we don’t do anything, I’m pretty sure Kenmore will go away.”
Kenmore future
Craig O’Neill, Kenmore’s marketing director, couldn’t forecast the future of Clallam service.
“I don’t want to come out and say Jeff is wrong,” he said, but “we’ve never made a dime of profit out of the Port Angeles market.”
O’Neill praised the Port of Port Angeles as a “fantastic partner. They’re sensitive to the reality that we do need to make a profit,” though there’s no agreed-upon deadline for that.
The grant is a stellar opportunity, O’Neill said. “But is this the last roll of the dice? We don’t see it that way.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
