Friday, April 24, 2015

Is Clallam County Smarter Than Boeing? Or Just a Good Place to Make a Scam Fly High?

The recipe is pretty basic: Stupid, cooked up in a base of no hard facts, smothered in a thick sauce of nepotism, and served with a side of "jobs, jobs, jobs" for the suckers in the audience...

A proposed composites recycling center in Port Angeles will move $1 million closer to construction if a Clallam County advisory panel gets its way.

The Opportunity Fund Advisory Board voted 4-1 Thursday to recommend that county commissioners advance that amount to finish a 25,000-square-foot shell building at William R. Fairchild International Airport.

If the port receives the Opportunity Fund money and another $2 million from a federal grant, construction could start in July, with operations opening in January.

The center initially would employ six people, with 111 working there within five years at annual incomes ranging from $35,000 to $72,000, its backers told the advisory board.

Companies that include aerospace firms in the Puget Sound region could spool their trimmed material like ribbon and store it in refrigerated semi-trailers parked at their factories.

The port would ship the trimmings to Port Angeles — initially about six truckloads a month — where it would be wound onto mandrels for reforming or be chopped or ground into pieces suitable for making new sheets of material and eventually manufactured items for the cycling, water sports or agriculture markets.

Including the cost of refrigerated shipping, the port could acquire composite material — worth $44 a pound in its raw form — for $10 a pound and turn the savings into family-wage paychecks.

The proposal wasn’t without its critics.

In a letter supporting her “no” vote, OFAB member Sharon DelaBarre questioned whether the materials could be transported easily to Port Angeles, and whether a skilled workforce could be recruited in Clallam County. 

Sequim resident Bob Lynette said he worries whenever academic institutions partnered with governmental agencies on projects like the recycling center because, he said, they seldom do adequate research.

“Why hasn’t Boeing and these other companies said, ‘Yeah, we’ll put in hard cash to get this going’?” he asked.


29 comments:

  1. Is this an example of chrony capitalism? These people are so intertwined with each other. Is the "public trust" being trampled? Is this a legacy corporation being
    created using public resources for the benefit of a few insiders? Are these people pushing this composite recycling scheme going to have any responsibility if it fails? Is Boeing setting up secret sweetheart payouts to the port to take their toxic garbage off their hands? If it is such a lucrative and fantastic idea why hasn't a private company tried to capitalize on this opportunity? Is Clallam County, port, city, college, so financially lucrative that they can risk the loss of these funds? Is this the best use of the public trust we have given to these folks?
    What environmental consequences will this idea put on the neighboring community and businesses that live and work by this new toxic wasteland?
    Has an environmental impact study been done on this new industry?

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  2. Another Scamarama. See if you can get any of these backers to put up their own money. Then you will see whether this is a good project or another scam to send tax money to the well connected. The way I see it is the port is about to put one of their buddies in a business at taxpayer expense. They set everything up, get the business running, decide it is not a money maker and sell it off to the guy behind the curtain. Works every time in Clallam County.
    First question to ask, if this is so lucrative why isn't Boeing doing it for themselves and monetizing their own waste material? How much to keep refrigerated trucks idling in the alley? How much to ship materials to PA?
    Why spend this kind of money with absolutely zero guaranteed product to recycle. Another pipe dream.

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  3. Foolish, foolish, CK...OF COURSE a Clallam County advisory board is smarter than the Boeing Co....at least in Clallam County.

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  4. Shouldn't Mr. McAleer have a conflict of interest voting to fund the port where his wife or daughter is a commissioner? Is this the same advisory board they voted to disband last month? All they all of a sudden "all wise" again. Commissioner Hallet is a financial advisor, is he advising his clients to buy into this venture. Would he. Let's ask him to put his investing reputation on this venture.

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  5. This is the greatest deal the Port of Port Angeles could ever cook up. They get their unfinished building finished, they get a tenant to charge rent, and when it all fails they still get the assets. Why wouldn't they be pushing this. What surprises me is that Bill H. bought this crap, he must be getting the contract to haul the HAZARDOUS waste.

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  6. If it were so easy to turn $10 into $44, one of these composites companies would have done so already. Or another local (King/Pierce County) company.

    They could set up shop next door, acquire the materials for nothing, AND essentially eliminate shipping costs, AND be located next to the end customer (composites factory) or a major port.

    It's very, very difficult to believe that some of our local bozos have figured out something that just slipped by Boeing and their like. Very, very difficult.

    On the other hand, how difficult is it to imagine this is yet another money-grubbing, grant-chasing, and eventually bubble-bursting crock? Well that is not at all difficult to imagine.

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  7. Mr. Woods, does anybody know this guy? He's a self-proclaimed expert looking for a job. His previous business had no sales, be wary of him please.

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  8. Well, the Boeing angle is a good question. Boeing is partnering with others to recycle composite materials. Has anybody, I don't know, discussed things with them? Or is this more pie in the sky "Build it and they will come" thinking? Running a search turns about nothing.

    Seriously, if the Port is really committed to this, why wouldn't they talk to Boeing? I hope I'm wrong on this...

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  9. I seem to remember similar high hopes and promises of jobs associated with a little thing called Pen Ply....Now, all we have left is their utility debt to the city, that we're stuck paying off.

    BEWARE.

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  10. Thanks for this blog, CK. It's provided a lot of needed clarity for me over the last year or so. Now, after too many years in Port Angeles, I am finally moving on. Onward and upward. After the end of this month, I hope never to see this place again.

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    1. Thanks for the kind words, and best of luck with your move. I'm still so incredibly glad I made mine.

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  11. Someday, somebody should compile a list of all the hare brained schemes that have been promoted by one entity or another in Clallam, that never went anywhere. I think it could serve a useful purpose. Could be the basis for a reference point by which future proposal are judged.

    Does this pass the smell test? Nah, stinks just like all these others. Same people saying the same things, using public money to promote salvation.

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  12. I've said this before but CK is a straight up genius. I have no idea how he has all this inside information but it's very impressive. This blog/CK has predicted a number of things since it's debut and they have all been dead nuts! I'm thankful I got out before I was a target. :D

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  13. Something is very wrong with this picture. Total corporate welfare scheme. Boeing has a $6 billion maintenance budget. This venture is a rounding error to just one day of this one budget. There has to be more to this story. Toxic waste imported to Port Angeles. Boeing, Lockheed, General Atomics fart more money away than all of Clallam County is worth.

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    1. "There has to be more to this story."

      In Clallam County, there always is. In this case, hmmm, I wonder how the McAleer family is connected to whomever is going to launder the money for this little scheme. I suspect that is the "more" here...

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  14. bottom line, NO PRODUCT, NO EXPERTISE NO MARKET, NO PROFIT

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  15. I read Mr. Rauch's (ACTI ceo) letter, everyone ignored it because they didn't want hear what he had to say. He is our local advanced composite subject matter expert. I hope the commissioners at least listen to him

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    1. Where can we see a copy of this letter? To whom was it written? Who has a copy?

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    2. the EDC Director provided t

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  16. Here's a list of recent scams worthy of an attorney general's look-see:
    Gateway Center $15 million
    Business Incubator Project $8 million
    Harbor Works $5 million
    First Dump Repair $10 million
    Second dump repair $20 million
    Chamber Promo Contract $4 million and mounting
    CSO project $52 million
    There are others but I'm getting tired just listing them. What we've got here is a wonderful population of pretty docile people who just want to enjoy a good life without too much trouble. The ruling elite realize there will be little to no push back from these docile souls so they run through every scam known to man and no one takes note. The daily paper should keep a tally and criticize every scam that comes down the pike but John Brewer is either in on the scam or is so fucking lazy as to allow it to happen without raising a finger to sic Paul Gottlieb onto them. Shame on the greed heads who continually take from this wonderful community but even more shame on the folks in positions who could stop it. I'm talking about the judges, mayors, prosecutors, civic leaders--almost anyone with 20=20 vision can see these fine folks are getting screwed every trip of the "JOBS" train. Yet the only blow back is this semi-private blog and a monthly paper. Gawd Heppus.

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    1. Don't forget the millions (local and state) wasted on the sure-to-fail Pen Ply fiasco. The Port got soaked for unpaid rent; the City got stuck with $300,000 worth of unpaid utility bills; the state poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants; etc.

      Don't forget Nathan West's Boardwalk and Beach bundle.

      Don't forget all the City contracts Karen Rogers voted on that benefited companies she was getting money from. Don't forget Edna voting for City contracts that went to Primo Construction, where her son works. (I like to think the current McAleer-Composites Recycling-OFAB set-up is a sort of homage to Edna's nepotism.)

      Don't forget the Port ignoring all advice and pleas from other governing bodies to give away all those acres of property to Dan Morrison for his idiotic sprint boat bullshit.

      Hell, don't forget the bubble house scam. Small change, yes, but part of a larger pattern of grasping graft, outright theft and the unhealthy nurturing of greed and stupidity above al else.

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    2. What I originally also wanted to list were all the "Light Up the Lincoln" and "Dans Tram Fanatasy" kind of projects that have been proposed over the years, that have sucked up so much of the community's time.

      Remember the aircraft carrier that was to be parked at the former Rayonier site? The guy who had an office downtown to promote the Kalakala being located downtown? The Mag-Lev train line that was going to take shoppers and tourists to the former Rayonier site?

      What else?

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    3. The port divested itself of the sprint boat property so they can later say, "we must extend the runway so we have to take over Lincoln Park." By shedding the property to Morrison they ensured the extension could only go one way--through the park. They are thinking a decade ahead of us and have all the pieces in place before word leaks out of what they have planned. Why do we have an empty building sitting idle all these years at the port. So they can rush in with a composites scam to fill it. It is really simple in its own slimy way.

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    4. 11:27 AM ... whuuut?? The sprint boat park is not in the way of the runway. Dry Creek is what's in the way.

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    5. even Dry Creek is not in the way as its only a few hundred feet from the Lower Elwha Rd

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  17. anon 8:36am, if you want you comments respected.. you should make sure they are accurate. i know for sure your incubator number is off by 700%

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    1. And the bill for Harbor-Works was around $1.2M. Yes, all pissed away. But no, no need to exaggerate.

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