$900,000 Projected Deficit for 2012

The City of Port Angeles is expecting to be $900,000 in the red next year. City Manager Kent Myers said:

“We're being faced with an increase in costs without the ability to finance that with additional revenue.”

City Finance Director Yvonne Ziomkowski said $600,000 of the deficit is the result of increased personnel costs. Another factor is the expected loss of sales tax revenue when Price Ford Lincoln moves to a new location outside the city limits.

Downtown Association Passes City Audit

City Hall has decided that the Port Angeles Downtown Association is in compliance with its contract with the City, but that there is room for improvement.

This was the conclusion of City Manager Kent Myers and Finance Director Yvonne Ziomkowski. The City's audit itself was the result of 81 downtown business owners signing a petition expressing their dissatisfaction with the Port Angeles Downtown Association's leadership and effectiveness.

The City's audit did recommend that the Downtown Association board members communicate better with the membership by meeting at least once a year with each member. And the PADA's regular board meetings should be held in a downtown public location, e.g. a restaurant, instead of the PADA's tiny cramped office, which appears to make non-Board-members unwelcome. And the audit very gently and indirectly suggested that maybe the PADA could make a tiny, uh, effort to obtain some of the tens of thousands of B&O tax dollars that are available to the downtown of all members of the Washington's Main Street program. To date,the Downtown Association has NOT done this.

The PADA executive director said these recommendations will be considered.

Economic Plan for Clallam County

The 69-page plan for Clallam County’s economic development was completed last week by BergerABAM and has been e-mailed to the Clallam County Economic Development Council.

The plan is expected to be made available for public viewing. The City, Port of Port Angeles and Clallam County each chipped in $8,000 for the report.

The plan will be discussed tomorrow by Kent Myers, EDC Executive Director Linda Rotmark and BergerABAM Vice President John White.

Port Angeles Economic Summit

Kent Myers wants to hold an economic development summit in early April. Tentatively it’ll be April 1st at the Red Lion. The meeting is for the “entire community to tell us what they want from economic development in the next five to ten years.”

The following day there’ll be a meeting of local stakeholders to develop an action plan, which is supposed to be completed by June.

(This was from today’s PDN; it’s not posted on their website.)

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.