Two: The results of the State Auditor's report clearly show this not to be the case. From the PDN: "The Port of Port Angeles continues to violate state law and be noncompliant with port policies on lease contracts...Violations included contracts that were under fair market value and lacked adequate security bonds..." (See below for examples.)Three: Isn't this the same Port that just lost their air carrier? The third air carrier in a row to leave Port Angeles?
Four: Some have suggested that the best, most sure way for the Port to have gotten Kenmore to stay would have been to subsidize them. Is one of the reasons the Port didn't even consider that is because it was too busy giving away property at below market value, and thus didn't have the cash on hand?
Five: Of course, these would-be worldly, pro-Capitalism types might well have bristled at subsidizing a private business to bribe it to stay...
Six: Except that's exactly what they were doing by giving out cheap land, isn't it?
Seven: What does it say about the Port and about Port Angeles in general that even when the powers that be are literally giving it away, the town still can't make a go of it, or attract new businesses to come there?Examples of your Port at work:
Magna Force was being charged $179 a month for 3.78 acres.
The Civil Air Patrol was allowed to occupy a building - for free.
Shepherd & Thunderbird got a 2,647 square-foot building for $181 rent.
High Tide Seafoods got a 6,000 square-foot warehouse, on a 7,000 square-foot lot, for the low, low price of $1,910 a month - and still they were (are?) delinquent on the rent.
I think the port commissioners would say that all capitalists are created equal, but those that offer kickbacks are a little more equal.
ReplyDeleteThey also sold 89 acres of industrial-zoned land by the airport to Dan Morrison for his EXTREME SPORTS PARK that's busy about twice a year too.
ReplyDeleteDon't even get me started on that goddamned sprint boat backroom deal clusterf**k idiocy.
DeleteNot that I have an opinion on it or anything...
It says a lot about this place that users and losers like Jim McEntire and Jim Hallett can so easily rotate between various elected positions. Remember all those needless and questionable "expenses" that McEntire charged while he was a port commissioner? It didn't prevent him from taking his "experience" - self-serving greed on a personal level, budget-busting professional irresponsibility - into the county courthouse, where he can participate in wrecking things on a whole new level.
ReplyDeleteNot to blame the victims, but, this really does come back to the voters. If they are continually willing to sabotage their own interests by electing the same circle of crooks and creeps over and over again, well then, they get what they asked for, I guess. But the rest of us have to suffer with the results as well.
Garbage in, garbage out. And that's how we get garbage bluffs and turd tanks.
As you correctly point out, you know you have a problem when you can't make a go of it, even when you are giving it away for free!
ReplyDeleteIf it weren't for all the grant scams that bring in so much "outside money" into the area, there would be nothing going on here. As little as there is.
It would be interesting to see a listing of all the grants the various entities in the area get. County, City, School Board, Port, Wa State Extension, etc. And then list out all the government agencies in the area. And the psuedo governmental social services. And on, and on.
Audit all of them, to see if there is a similar pattern of "generosity".
Something that comes as a surprise is that the State Auditor's Office actually found and disclosed these examples of longstanding waste and corruption.
ReplyDeleteFor too long, port officials have been allowed to operate under the impression that insiders all the way through the system - including state government auditors - would simply ignore improprieties.
Did the SAO issue findings this time only because the details of wrongdoing were so publicly served-up for them in the Whistle-Blower report? Or could there be a glimmer of hope that the new State Auditor has more professional integrity than his predecessor?
It is an outrage that the Port of PA has been allowed to operate in this corrupt manner for so long.
This is called "Breach of Duty" and, in Washington, commissioners are PERSONALLY LIABLE for looking out for the public's money. If they are inept then they should pay out of their own pockets. It's in the law. If we had a prosecutor worth his salt then perhaps we could get some of this money back.
ReplyDeleteIF we had a prosecutor "worth his salt" clearly, ours isn't worth a piss.
DeleteAnd former port exec, Jeff Robb, under whose tenure the sweetheart deals were made and who perpetuated the self-dealing institutional culture, is laughing all the way to the bank. To add insult to injury, sleazy cronies on the Port Commission paid Robb an outrageously high salary and kept him on the payroll doing imaginary work for a year so that he could max-out lucrative 30-and-out public pension benefits.
ReplyDeleteDespicable.
Agreed, and that's what makes it all the more painful that Jim McEntire is sitting in the county courthouse, adding to his second (or is it third?) government pension. Sickening is just the start of describing these greedy sleazebags.
DeletePort "Poor"? Looks like they have nothing BUT money. So much, they can afford these free lease deals.
ReplyDeleteHigh salaries for people who sit at home, and no need for income, so they lease out properties for either free, or just about free.
(How much does Magna Force make each year?)
See? Port Angeles is doing just great! Why all the concern?
Come on.
ReplyDeleteWho the Hell cares?
Screw Clallam County!
And let's not forget the logs, logs, logs that Grant Munro ships, ships, ships using equipment he (illegally) plundered from the blunder that was Pen Ply. That was yet ANOTHER example of our Port pissing money away on sure-to-fail "economic development" pipe dreams. The State, Port and City, and the few actual private investors all had to "pound sand" and eat Pen Ply's debt, while Munro essentially stole the log loader that should have been sold to start paying back the huge amounts of money Pen Ply owed.
ReplyDeleteBut no. The Port let him roll the log loader right over to himself. And everyone else is still very much "pounding sand."
And, isn't the entry way to the Port Angeles SO attractive these days, with Munro's log operation there?
ReplyDeleteNothing matters but these guys making their money. The rest of the community can go to hell, for all; they care. And, it shows it.
New slogan for the Chamber of Commerce (or whatever they're going to be called) to consider: Go to Hell, welcome to Port Angeles!
DeletePDN considers it "good news" when a debtor is only $22,000 behind in its payments...
ReplyDeletePen Ply must have been really, really, really good news then, eh?
Delete