New Business Development Director for PDN

The Peninsula Daily News has hired Katherine S. McKelvey as the Director of Business Development (New Media). The PDN’s website had 589,213 page views this past July. That’s almost 50% more page views than they had in July 2008.

Sometime in the past few months the PDN started updating its website a lot more frequently. There seems to be a new or updated story almost every time I go there.

For example.

And another example.

Farmers Market at Gateway Permanently

Hooray!

A majority of the Port Angeles Farmers Market’s vendors has voted to make Gateway their permanent location. Several longtime vendors who voted not to relocate, will not be joining the market at Gateway.

City Manager Kent Myers said the Gateway pavilion will be reserved on Wednesdays and Saturdays for the Farmers Market in a contract (which hasn’t been signed yet).

And speaking of farmers markets and the revitalization of downtown: My wife and I were in Olympia yesterday and the day before. That city has a huge thriving farmers market which is open four days a week. It’s part of a much larger downtown/waterfront complex of pedestrian walkways, shops and restaurants.

I’ve heard that Olympia used to be a lot more rundown and crime-ridden; that these changes are recent. I wouldn’t know, but if that’s true, the city has sure fixed itself up. Olympia’s population is just over 40,000 (according to the 2000 census) — just a little more than twice Port Angeles’ population.

Pacific Unity

Pacific Unity is a humanitarian training exercise involving Coast Guard cutters from the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan and South Korea.

They’ll be conducting training exercises in law enforcement, search and rescue, navigation, and security operations.

Congressional Boost for Olympic Discovery Trail

A federal designation will provide more funding for the Olympic Discovery Tail, which will ultimately go from Port Townsend to LaPush.

This funding will enable all portions of the 100-mile trail to be connected.

Other Uses for Gottschalks Building

The K.O. Erickson Trust — which owns the building where Gottschalks used to be — is losing hope of finding another department store chain to occupy the building.

They’re considering revamping the building to make it compatible with other types of tenants, and they’ve hired an architect to determine how to do this. It’s a dilemma since changing the layout of the building will probably make it impossible for a future department store to be located there.

A grocery chain — Grocery Outlet — was considering the Gottschalks building, but decided against it because of the parking situation.

Platypus Marine Gets Federal Funding

Platypus Marine, Inc. will receive federal funding — $73,000 — for the purpose of upgrading their equipment. The shipyard employs 48 to 62 people, depending on the season.

The funding was awarded through the Maritime Administration's Supplemental Grants for Assistance to Small Shipyards program, which is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Senator Patty Murray, who helped push for the funding, said: “Our small shipyards are a critical piece of our domestic maritime industry — and of Washington state's economy. Especially while our economy is struggling, these grants are important to help our domestic shipping industry stay strong and competitive.”

British Columbia Closes Its Tourism Agency

British Columbia’s provincial government has shut down Tourism B.C., the corporation that’s responsible for promoting British Columbia all over the world.

Tourism is a ten billion dollar industry in B.C.; it's the fourth largest industry in the province.

It doesn’t sound like a smart move to me; I hope they know what they’re doing.

Federal Watch List for Thirteen Peninsula Schools

Thirteen schools on the North Olympic Peninsula are on a federal watch list because of test results during the 2008-09 school year.

These schools have fallen short of the target for “adequate yearly progress” mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Quilcene is the only Peninsula school district that doesn’t have any schools on this federal watch list.

I haven’t followed school/education issues for a long time, so I don’t really have an opinion on WASL or the No Child Left Behind Act.

What say you?

Local Psychic Predicts How Many People Will Show Up for Demonstration

Now, I'm willing to take the Republican Party's word for it, that all of these anti-health reform protesters are just regular everyday working folks who are deeply concerned about government bureaucrats taking over their health care. Let's just disregard those tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories about corporations and lobbying groups "orchestrating" these protests.

And yet, in today's paper, a local Republican leader is quoted as predicting that about fifty people will be showing up tomorrow to demonstrate along the Waterfront Trail while Norm Dicks is speaking at the Red Lion. Since there isn't any sort of big bad Astroturf group masterminding these demonstrations, this must mean that tomorrow morning, fifty local people will simultaneously be overcome with fury at the thought of government bureaucrats meddling in their health care. They'll get up from their chairs, quickly grab a placard and scrawl a protest message on it, and make a beeline for the Waterfront Trail.

Wow!!! How does he know this? He must have a crystal ball or something.

Norm Dicks: No Town Hall Forum on Peninsula

Norm Dicks has decided not to discuss health care reform at a town hall-type meeting on the Olympic Peninsula, as originally planned. For security reasons, he’ll instead be having an invitation-only meeting this Friday at the Red Lion, from 9 a.m. to noon.

One of the invitees is Clallam County Republican Party Chairman Dick Pilling. Pilling organized a demonstration on July 17th outside of Dicks’ office, and predicted that Friday’s meeting will attract some demonstrators, probably along the Waterfront Trail.

He said: “I would be very surprised if people were not there trying to make sure he understood that not everybody agrees with his stance.”

Not to worry, these spontaneous demonstrators are getting their message across loud and clear.

Harbor-Works Gets The Money

The Port of Port Angeles has approved a $500,000 loan to Harbor-Works Development Authority.

Interim Port Executive Director Bill James will have the discretion to decide how to pay for $160,000 of the loan. The Port's 2009 budget already has $200,000 committed to the Public Development Authority. It also has $140,000 remaining from $200,000 that was allocated in 2009 to "flexible projects."

How to cover the remaining $160,000? Either by taking out an advance on the Port's 2010 budget, or by taking money from 2009 projects that probably won't be completely spent.

James said: "I can't tell you exactly which ones they are, and exactly what categories they're going to come out of. The $160,000 could come from either one of those sources."

Port Angeles Benefiting from Cash For Clunkers

Politicians and TV talking heads may argue about whether “Cash For Clunkers” is working or not. But if you ask local auto dealers and their customers — it’s working.

David Price, owner of Price Ford Lincoln Mercury, said: “Customers absolutely love it.
They are replacing old cars, which are costly to maintain, with new ones with factory warranties and extremely high gas mileage.”

Howie Ruddell, owner of Ruddell Auto Mall, said: “The challenge is that we will run out of stock by the end of August.”

Chris Koenig, general manager of Koenig Chevrolet Subaru, said: “I think they're happy to get out of less fuel-efficient cars and into something safer and more fuel-efficient.”

Dan Wilder Sr., owner of Wilder Auto, said: “With the state and county revenues in dire straits, this will be our biggest sales tax deposit in months.” He also said he’s had to hire additional staff because of the increased sales.

Evaluate the Parks & Recreation Department

If you’d like to give your evaluation of the Parks and Recreation Department, go to this website and click on the Parks & Recreation Survey button.

The survey will run until Labor Day.

Grim Message at City Hall Budget Meeting

About thirty-five people attended last night’s budget meeting at City Hall. Basically, Port Angeles will have to tighten its belt another notch next year.

Finance Director Yvonne Ziomkowski drew a financial “picture” for the audience: “You have some revenue going away. You have some revenue shrinking. You have some revenues which are not growing, and on the other side, you have services and demands for service which is going up and up. There's no way not to have this [financial] gap.”

At the end of this year the general fund will be about $150,000 in the red.

Referring to the meeting, City Manager Kent Myers said: “I think this is a good start to the process, and we're just hoping to get public input. We think it's important for the public to understand the challenges we are facing and help us work through the difficulties that we will be addressing over the next several months.”

NOAA Not Coming to Port Angeles

Thanks to two commenters at the previous post, I've learned that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will not be relocating to Port Angeles. They'll be moving to Newport, Oregon instead.

Here, here and here are the links they provided.

Town Meeting on City Budget

City Manager Kent Myers and Finance Director Yvonne Ziomkowski will be leading a Town Meeting on the city budget. The meeting will be this Thursday, 6 to 8 p.m. at the City Council Chambers, 321 East Fifth Street.

The meeting will be open to the public and will include a question-and-answer period.

Former KPly Mill Should Be Reopening Soon

Peninsula Plywood Group LLC has signed a lease with the Port of Port Angeles for the former KPly mill. The lease requires the company to hire forty-five employees within ninety days of the signing of the lease, which was last Friday.

Josh Renshaw — who has worked for over a year to take over the mill after it was closed — said that no employment applications have been taken yet and that more details will be released in the next few weeks. He said: “We're pleased that the purchase agreement and the lease were concluded today. These represent major milestones in creating a significant number of jobs for the community.”

The plan is to reopen the mill under its original name, Peninsula Plywood. They hope to have 172 employees and produce 5 million board-feet of plywood per month.