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.

“Twilight” puts Forks and Port Angeles on the Map

This article from MSN isn’t the first national publicity that Twilight has gotten. But you’ve probably never seen Bella Italia, Lincoln Theater or the Port Angeles Downtown Association linked in a nationwide article before.

Twilight opens tomorrow night at the Lincoln. We’ve been discovered.

Graffiti in Port Angeles

Finally it gets acknowledged in the PDN. Peak’s Pub sure seems to be a favorite target for graffiti “artists.”

This article quotes the police department and the Downtown Association as saying the best way to deal with graffiti is to paint over it quickly. “It discourages taggers from continuing. They don't tag along on it. Someone puts it up and somebody else wants to have their two bits worth. Clearing it up tends to discourage an expansion of the graffiti.”

And yet earlier in the article they said Peak’s Pub was tagged right after the owners had painted over the old graffiti. Wanda Smith — she and her husband Ed are the owners — said: “We got hit a couple of weekends ago, so Sunday we repainted the whole side of the building and by Monday, they’d hit us again. Before the paint dried, they did it again.”

The article also didn’t mention that if your building gets tagged, YOU are in violation of the law until you’ve painted over the graffiti. That’s sort of like prosecuting a mugging victim for vagrancy.

It’s hard to know how much impact there is from graffiti and similar crimes. There are obviously a lot more serious crimes than that. But according to the Fixing Broken Windows theory, these crimes do have a large impact. “Minor” crimes like graffiti, a broken window, garbage on the streets, etc. are causing a blighted appearance which will set the stage for more serious crimes.

This problem needs to be dealt with.

Gateway Groundbreaking Ceremony

The Gateway groundbreaking ceremony was right on schedule this morning at 9 a.m. About fifty people attended. Speeches were given by Mayor Karen Rogers, City Manager Mark Madsen and Kevin Thompson, President of the Downtown Association, among others. The event was also attended by:

Members of Clallam Transit, Primo Construction, several former Port Angeles mayors, members of the City Council, Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Association; and representatives from the offices of Norm Dicks and Patty Murray.

According to the City of Port Angeles website, the construction chaos won't start getting worse until around mid-August. Their website will continue to provide updated information on Gateway. This site also has photos of the groundbreaking ceremony.

Downtowners' Meeting, April 25th: NOT!

OOPS! There's been a change, or a "misunderstanding," or something. Turns out April will have a standard Morning Mingle after all. Same time, same station: Landings, 8 a.m. on Wednesday April 25th. We'll try to get this new evening format started in May (hopefully), pending PADA Board approval.

Thanks to all of you who responded in support of a new format. We'll let you know as things progress.

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EVENTS THIS WEEKEND:

The Port Angeles Kayak Symposium, April 13th through 15th at City Pier and Hollywood Beach. For more information click here and here.

Check it out. And let's hope this brings a big influx of people into downtown Port Angeles this weekend.

Downtown/Gateway/Parking/City Council/ PADA

Things are heating up again in Downtown Port Angeles. Gateway Center construction will be starting soon, and the downtown parking situation will be Godawful. As you probably know, there's a disagreement (to put it mildly) between the Downtown Association and the City Council, regarding the parking situation.

In a nutshell: How much of a priority is it to provide parking for customers shopping downtown?

There have been long-term agreements between the City Council and the Downtown Association, stipulating that the Gateway construction will cause no net loss of parking spaces downtown. But several downtown parking lots have already been condemned (to make way for the Gateway project) and sold. This has created a loss of parking revenue for the Downtown Association, not to mention the huge loss of parking spaces for downtown customers. Just think how much worse it'll get when the construction actually starts. What happened to those agreements???

The Downtown Association wanted to go through the mediation process with the City Council to work out their disagreements on downtown parking. This mediation was to be an alternative to litigation. The City Council turned down the mediation request. So, where do we go from here? Litigation? There might be a meeting between the City Council and the Downtown Association — will this meeting be public or private? Will it be on the record or off the record?

What do YOU think should be done?

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UPDATE: The Port Angeles Farmers Market will be returning downtown on Wednesdays. This will begin in early June. They'll be using the parking lot at the corner of Laurel and West First Streets. Saturdays are unlikely any time soon, at least for that particular parking lot. However, the Farmers Market WILL be downtown (at that same parking lot) on Saturday, April 21st. That's because the Courthouse parking lot, where the Market usually sets up, will be closed that day for a car show.

So come on, Port Angeles residents, be sure to come into town on Saturday April 21st, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to check out the Farmers Market at West First and Laurel. It'll be just like the good old days. And be sure to do lots of shopping and dining and strolling while you're here.

Gateway Center

This is a separate post regarding the Gateway Project. It's probably a done deal, but it's generated a lot of anger and frustration (which has never been heard or cared about by the Powers That Be).

So, are you for it or against it? How will it affect Downtown Port Angeles and the surrounding neighborhoods? How about traffic and parking? Who benefits from the Gateway Project, and who gets screwed?