In their third and final listening session regarding the future of John Wayne Marina on July 2, Port of Port Angeles commissioners asked for — and received — an earful from Sequim residents in a packed Sequim Transit Center meeting room.

Port commissioners handled a series of questions and comments from many of the 90-plus attendees of the listening session, the majority of them asking commissioners to keep the facility and land public while dismissing the idea that county residents would approve a tax measure to make necessary facility upgrades.

Cheryl Bell of Sequim said she uses the park as a place to go and relax. She urged commissioners to look to the marina as a draw for tourism dollars.

“We have a jewel here,” Bell said. “We need to be looking at (tourism dollars) to support John Wayne Marina.”

Bell said she thought the Port’s consideration of a tax levy is disingenuous.

“It’s a red herring to think we’re going to raise taxes from Sequim out to Forks … to raise money for John Wayne Marina,” she said.

Kris Ecklund, a Sequim Bay Yacht Club member, urged port commissioners to delay any kind of tax ballot proposal for two to three years until Washington state’s education funding of the McCleary decision is settled, and after other local ballot measures are decided.

“We know that if our fire district doesn’t pass (a measure) this year, they will desperately need a levy lid lift (soon after),” Ecklund said. “I think it would be very unwise to consider a ballot measure until 2022, or at least 2021.”

Liam Antrim, a 30-year Sequim resident who used to moor a boat the marina, said the port’s consideration of selling the marina jeopardizes not just those with boats but also commercial opportunities such as crabbing.

“It sounds like the Port (needs to) look at their strategic plan,” Antrim said.

Don Hatler, also from Sequim, who said he had built and operated a marina, surmised that a private owner would likely uproot the south-end parking lot for condominiums.

“If’ you’ve been there during halibut season, vehicles are clear up to (Highway) 101.”

Hatler added that the commissioner’s figures for revenue and expenses were “hand-picked and misleading.”

Susan Sorensen, chair for the yacht club’s annual Reach and Row for Hospice fundraiser, noted that the event has raised nearly $360,000 over the past 26 years for Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County.

If the marina were sold to a private owner, she said, “this race could disappear” and the hospice group would lose a source of funding.

Duane Webb, a doctor who lives in Sequim, said he moved to the area primarily because of John Wayne Marina.

“We feel you can’t compare Port Angeles, a shipping port, to John Wayne Marina, a recreational marina. It’s not designed to be a profit center. There are other factors at stake here besides money.”

Sharon Laska, who has a boat moored at the marina, urged caution in making a decision about the future of the Sequim facility.

“You’ve heard the saying, ‘It takes a village’? You should ask this village for help. A solution may take time.”

Others, such as Ron Fairclough and Mac MacDonald, urged the commissioners to take their time and consider possible changes for the 300 slip marina. MacDonald said change — including change of ownership — isn’t the worst thing that could happen to the entity.

“I’m all for seeing this place (run by) a fine organization,” MacDonald said.

The meetings Monday completed Phase 2 of a three-part process that began with information gathering as Phase 1 and could reach fruition July 12 with a board decision as Phase 3.

Commissioners look to keep it public

Port commissioner Steve Burke said that while commissioners could make a decision about the future at the Port’s next meeting set for July 12, they would likely take their time.

“I don’t think we have a deadline (and I) don’t think there’s any rush on this,” Burke said. “John Wayne Marina is an iconic entity. It needs to stay an iconic public entity that anyone can use.”

Colleen McAleer, District 1 representative (Sequim), echoed Burke’s sentiments.

“We’re not in a rush to do this,” McAleer, stressing the marina needs to remain in public use.

“I want you to know I heard you,” McAleer told the audience. “I can’t imagine representing Sequim and voting to not keep it in public hands.”

Port seeking options

Sequim residents have been uniformly against selling the marina to a private buyer, saying at previous meetings that they fear the loss of public access to what they say is a community and tourist resource as the port considers selling the facility to a private buyer.

Port officials have said they are committed to ensuring public access regardless of who owns the facility.

The port began considering non-port-ownership options after a potential private buyer stepped forward in October, and two more such buyers have expressed their interest since then.

Port commissioners could make a decision July 12, which could result in putting the marina up for sale or putting a levy on the Nov. 6 general election ballot.

They face an Aug. 7 deadline to submit a levy resolution for the election.

Port officials had little positive to say about the facility at the meetings in Forks and Port Angeles, saying that the marina doesn’t fulfill the mission of the port to spur economic development.

They also said they weren’t keen on putting forward a levy questions on the Nov. 6 general election ballot to fund $22 million in needed improvements.

The marina is responsible for 73 direct jobs, 92 percent of which are recreational.

The port has not recovered $1.3 million, not including interest, from $6.2 million in capital outlay the port put into the marina from 1982-88, when it was built, port Controller Melinda Smithson said at the presentations.

The port’s share of property taxes is now 2 percent of a county property owner’s tax bill.

The levy would add 6.4 cents per $1,000 valuation onto property owners’ tax bills countywide.

The owner of a $250,000 home would see a tax increase of $15.92 a year, a 36 percent increase from $44.77 a year to $60.69 a year.

“That’s a pretty big increase to be putting into an asset that isn’t creating a lot of jobs,” port Executive Director Karen Goschen said in Forks, the first of three meetings across all three districts on July 2.

“We have less money to invest into things like a recreational marina,” Goschen said.

Reaction in Forks, PA

The chance that voters across Clallam County will vote on a levy increase to fund improvements for John Wayne Marina gained little traction at listening sessions in Port Angeles and Forks.

Participants at the sparsely attended meeting at the Rainforest Arts Center in Forks said they rarely use the 300-slip Sequim Bay facility.

Phil Sharpe of Forks — one of six participants at the meeting, two of whom were from Sequim — said he is “dead set” against a levy increase to fund improvements to the marina, located 76 miles from where Sharpe spoke.

“I do not want an increase in property taxes to support a marina,” he said.

Candice Lohneis of Beaver said the small tax increases seem to never end.

“If the port has reached a position where it cannot financially sustain a marina, then maybe it’s time to look at getting rid of the marina,” Lohneis said.

But Birdig James of Forks said she fears the result if a corporation takes over the facility.

“I don’t want to see something that belongs to all the people go to a corporation whose only interest is in making money and lets it go by the wayside,” James said.

Participants in Port Angeles included speakers who praised the facility’s amenities and saw it as far more than a collection of boat slips.

But they, too, saw little chance a levy would pass.

“It’s a gorgeous marina,” said tenant Joe Walsh, one of a dozen participants at the Port Angeles meeting, a number that matched the dozen port staff and meeting consultants who were on hand.

But a levy to support improvements is a different matter.

“I don’t think it has a chance of passing,” Walsh said.

By July 3, port board President Connie Beauvais said she was against the port commissioners putting the measure on the Nov. 6 ballot.

“I don’t really think that it would pass, nor do I personally think it would be good to ask for people to pay for with the other infrastructure needs of the community (such as) schools, fire district equipment and the library,” Beauvais said.

But

Beauvas said the port commissioners are open to discussing an option that has come up in the past in an iteration that was considered for the taxing district’s marina in Port Angeles: Having the 300-slip John Wayne Marina, valued at $7.7 million by the Clallam County Assessor’s Office, operated by a public co-op composed of the public and boat owners.

“We were talking about forming a co-op when we looked at doing an agent agreement with Masco [Petroleum] at the Boat Haven,” Beauvais said, noting that option came up at the listening sessions. “Now they are talking about doing that at John Wayne Marina. That’s definitely another option that we’ll take a look at and give them time to form their proposal.”

The PowerPoint presentation given at all three meetings Monday for Phase 2 is at https://tinyurl.com/PDN-Marina2.