Purchase of Rayonier Mill Site

The Harbor-Works Public Development Authority might soon be purchasing the 75-acre site of the former Rayonier Mill.

Orville Campbell, board chairman of Harbor-Works, said a sale agreement with Rayonier Inc. would allow Harbor-Works to begin the due diligence process before they acquire the property. PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and other contaminants have accumulated during Rayonier Mill’s 68 years of operation.

Harbor-Works was created by the City of Port Angeles and the Port of Port Angeles to help direct the cleanup process and the future use of the site. Orville Campbell said he couldn’t estimate how long this process will take. “We'll have a decision point at the end of that about whether or not we go ahead with the acquisition and control of the property.”

According to Rayonier’s vice president of corporate affairs, Charles Hood, there's nothing definite about the sale; it was only discussed in “very general terms.” He said: “In my mind so far, acquisition of the property is nothing more than hypothetical at this point.”

If the Rayonier site is purchased and cleaned up, it would have great potential for some combination of retail-residential-office-industrial use. But in today’s PDN there was a letter warning that trying to develop the Rayonier site would be nothing but a “money pit.”

What do you think?

Bubble Building Still Looking for a Home

The Port Angeles City Council has voted to postpone a decision on where to put our “free” albatross, the Bubble Building. It probably wouldn’t look right to finance a portable indoor arena for a few hockey moms while William Shore Memorial Pool — used by hundreds of residents — is in danger of closing.

Karen Rogers made the motion to postpone the decision because there are still too many unanswered questions. She said “I’m perplexed frankly why it was brought specifically to us, knowing these questions are not resolved.”

James Schouten from Friends of the Fieldhouse said all of the City Council’s questions had been answered or would soon be answered. Mayor Gary Braun then declared Schouten out of order for interrupting the City Council’s discussion.

The Bubble Building is still in storage while it waits for a home. Erickson Park is the most likely location if and when funding gets resolved. Other possible locations include Volunteer Park near the airport.

Being Panhandled While You're Paying Record High Food Prices

I haven’t thought of anything to post about from the PDN in the last few days. (Remember, suggestions and off-topic comments are always welcome.)

So for now I'm just going to agree with one of the ranters in last Sunday’s Rants and Raves: Supermarkets who hit up their customers for donations while they're in the checkout line. That’s just too tacky.

You're already paying all-time high food prices, possibly worried about whether you'll still have a job or a home, and on top of that you get “would you like to round that up to the next dollar figure to help out our _________________ fund?”

You can either grit your teeth and say “oh, sure, go ahead,” or you can say no and look like a Grinch in front of twenty or thirty other people standing around.

Stores, you know who you are. Safeway. Enough already.

Two Views on Port Angeles’ Budget Priorities

This post has nothing that I've written. It’s a reprint of two excellent letters in Friday’s Peninsula Daily News. They're both about Port Angeles’ budget process and funding priorities:

“I would very much like to see an expansive overview of the City of Port Angeles’ budget proposals.

I feel that I'm only getting a very small view of this huge problem and really have no opinion at all except that if the elected city officials and the highly priced city department heads can't figure it out, what's the use of hiring or electing such inept people to run the city and community? We could be hiring less expensive people to do the same thing.

It would help the community to help itself by getting the information out to the general public so that these tough financial decisions can be voted on or we the citizens can contact our elected officials to make our voice heard as to what we want and don’t want to fund.

Sorry, the public funding party is over for pet projects. Hard financial decisions must be made to get Port Angeles back on track to financial responsibility.”

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The next letter has been abridged:

“……….....…Now I understand the city pool is to be closed for lack of funding.

This is the last straw. How dare the city fund pork-barrel projects and staff and then close something as base to our health and community as the pool.

The city needs to formally retract its recent piecemeal budget decisions that simultaneously benefit only questionable business interests and damage the taxpayer.

The city then needs to redistribute public funds in a responsible manner that reflects community will, including funding the city pool. If the city and its council fail to do this in a timely manner, the citizens of the North Olympic Peninsula need to take action with a citizen initiative to revamp the city budgetary process and follow Shirley Waters-Nixon and Norma Turner’s lead and formally request the state auditor and governor’s office investigate the city’s budget actions over the last five years.”

Testing Port Angeles Properties for Dioxin

The Port Angeles City Council has reversed its earlier decision. Now it will allow the Department of Ecology to test the soil on some city-owned properties for dioxin.

In August the City Council had denied this request from the Dept. of Ecology. Their reasoning was that if dioxin contamination was found, it could jeopardize property values in an already-crumbling economy.

Public health and the local economy — they're both serious issues. What do you think they should do?

Forming a Parks District to Save the Pool

About two hundred people met last Friday night to come up with a way to save William Shore Memorial Pool.

Three possibilities are: raising donations; forming partnerships with Peninsula College and the Coast Guard, which uses the pool for training purposes; and creating a parks district. The parks district (proposed by County Commissioner Mike Chapman) was the most popular idea.

This is the method Sequim uses for funding the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center.

If this parks district is formed, it will be able to levy up to 75 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value without a public vote. The owner of a $200,000 home would pay an additional $150 per year. But the parks district itself can only be formed with approval from voters.

This vote would take place in a special election this February.

For updates on saving the pool, write to savethepoolpa@hotmail.com.

Saving William Shore Memorial Pool

There'll be a meeting this Friday, October 3rd, at Vern Burton Memorial Center, 308 East Fourth Street, P.A. at 5:30 p.m. It’s a brainstorming session for coming up with ways to save the pool.

Mark Houseman, recreation coordinator for the pool, said: “Mainly, this meeting is a chance for people to make suggestions because they weren’t able to talk at the City Council’s budget work session.”

There's also a petition being circulated. Port Book and News, among other places, has the petition at their premises.

If additional funding isn't provided, the pool will probably close on December 31st of this year. And if some of the pool staff quit their jobs before that date, the pool might close even earlier, since they're required to maintain certain staffing levels for liability purposes.