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.”

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.

Port Angeles City Council: Fewer Meetings, More Public Participation

Last Tuesday the City Council discussed — but hasn’t yet acted on — eliminating all except one of their committees. They also discussed having more informal discussions with the public before their meetings.

Both of these ideas were first brought up during the April 18th retreat with City Manager Kent Myers and City Council members. (This article was in Thursday’s PDN but isn’t available online.)

The Real Estate Committee is the only committee that hasn’t been proposed for elimination. Committees that might be eliminated include finance, parks, human services, economic development and solid waste.

Council member Dan Di Guilio said that with fewer committees and more issues discussed by the entire council, “the public would understand what issues we are dealing with. I think it’s important that they at least know what the council is discussing.”

He noted one example, that the City Council’s Finance Committee discussed stopping the funding for William Shore Memorial Pool a month before the idea was brought to the full City Council.

City Manager’s Vision for Port Angeles

City Manager Kent Myers spoke yesterday at the weekly Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Red Lion. Among other things, he said: “I keep hearing the term ‘languishing.’ There is kind of a lack of consensus as far as a vision for the community.”

He also said he doesn’t think the city will pay for the Rayonier cleanup; it’ll be paid for by Rayonier and the State of Washington. One can hope.

He said Port Angeles “has a lot of potential” — location, walkability, outdoor activities, etc. But the city needs to “get a handle” on finances and finishing certain projects such as [ahem] Gateway. Buses will start using the new depot next Monday, but it’s still going to be awhile before the parking spaces and the pavilion are in use.

He said the city intends to carry out some of the suggestions made last month by the American Institute of Architects. And he stressed the need for transparency in the city government: “We're getting a lot of requests from the community for public records. We've basically got to open the doors at City Hall.”

He encouraged people to use the city’s website to contact him and other city officials. He said, “There is somewhat of a lack of trust in city government. I think we have a lot of rebuilding to do with our citizens.”

For now, a video of his speech is available at the PDN home page.

Gateway Pavilion Could Be Used for Downtown Events

If/when the Gateway Project is finally up and running, the city plans to lease the Gateway Pavilion for festivals and art events. City Manager Kent Myers intends to make the pavilion “the heart of downtown Port Angeles.”

He said: “The goal is to have something down there all of the time. It’s going to be a busy place. Visibly, you will see a lot of activity.”

Tentatively it would cost $75 a day to rent the pavilion, but that amount hasn’t been approved by the City Council yet.

Myers also said the city wants the Port Angeles Farmers Market to use the pavilion instead of their current location at Clallam County Courthouse parking lot. Farmers Market Vice President Jane Vanderhoof said she isn’t sure the pavilion would be right for the market; there isn’t any feasible location where vehicles can pull up and load/unload their produce. But it would certainly be nice to have them back in town.

Arts in Action has expressed interest in using the pavilion; they currently use City Pier for their annual event. And Ann Manildi, executive director of the Strait of Juan de Fuca Festival, said she might use the pavilion as one of their stages during their annual Memorial Day weekend festival.