Update:
PORT ANGELES — A Clallam Business Incubator board meeting scheduled for Wednesday to discuss the organization’s continuing financial problems has been postponed.
The board was slated to meet at the Lincoln Center, 905 W. Ninth St.
In an e-mail, board president Craig Johnson said the meeting will be rescheduled.
“I will request that it be rescheduled in the next two weeks,” Johnson said today, adding that too few board members were available for Wednesday’s meeting.
“The board needs to make a decision on the direction [Clallam Business Incubator] is going to take,” Johnson added.
Earlier report:
PORT ANGELES — A continuing discussion targeting the Clallam Business Incubator’s survival and $709,306 the nonprofit group owes Clallam County will resume at a board meeting Wednesday.
“There will be continued discussion on the viability of the incubator,” board president Craig Johnson said Monday.
The meeting begins at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Lincoln Center, 905 W. Ninth St., but it is not open to the public.
“There may be a decision, there may not” on dissolving the organization Johnson said.
He took over for former board president Mike Rauch, who resigned from the board in August, saying he did not have enough time to dedicate to the program, which nurtures startup businesses by providing common facilities and advice.
The incubator has $3,687 in checking and savings accounts and is owed $20,324 from various sources including renters and the city of Port Angeles, Incubator board member Jim Jones, Clallam County administrator, said Monday.
That’s out of an original $750,000 state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development loan that’s being secured by Clallam County through the county’s sales-tax-fueled Opportunity Fund.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t basically say that this will be our next to last meeting,” Jones said.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all.”
In 2004, the Incubator was slated to receive the loan to complete the unfinished portion of Lincoln Center for Incubator offices and workspace, which it rents out to beginning entrepreneurs.
But a deputy attorney general said the state agency could not loan money to a nongovernment entity, so Clallam County stepped in.
County Commissioners Steve Tharinger, Mike Doherty and Mike Chapman approved a “pass-through” $750,000 loan for the incubator, making the county liable for the entire amount, Jones said.
The state funds were routed to the county Opportunity Fund, then to the Port Angeles School District to pay contractors doing the remodeling work, Jones said.
The Opportunity Fund receives about $900,000 a year in sales tax revenues out of the state portion of sales taxes generated throughout Clallam County.
The county Opportunity Fund pays about $48,000 a year on the state loan.
The county is “stuck” paying the loan if the Incubator doesn’t, Jones said.
The Incubator board was “caught in the bad economy that prevented them from getting grants to help continue the operation,” Jones said.
Jones said he’s hoping the school district and city of Port Angeles will step forward to help the struggling organization.
“The county can’t do it alone,” he said.
In November 2009, the board was reorganized.
Four entrepreneurs resigned, and Peninsula College, the county, the Port of Port Angeles and city of Port Angeles were added.
In March, the board decided to wait until this summer to first hear from residents on the Incubator’s importance to the community.
In August, the incubator received scant attention at an unprecedented countywide Economic Development Council summit in Sequim.
In a recent nonscientific survey of city of Port Angeles residents, 46 percent of respondents said funding should be discontinued while 31.7 percent said they had no opinion.
Little more than one in five respondents — 21.6 percent — said the Incubator should receive funding.
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Senior Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
