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Port of Port Townsend administration and commissioners got an earful during a two-hour meeting Oct. 11 as tenants voiced their concerns about a lease rate increase.

The port’s rates had been about 6 or 7 cents per square foot, so the 64-cent rate has been a shock, tenants told commissioners.

Port Townsend Boat Haven tenant Ernie Baird questioned higher lease rates.

“If you raise rates to the point that it doesn’t make sense to either invest in or create the kind of sweat equity that has built the marine trades, you kind of wonder who will come here to do business,” Baird said.

A 3 percent surcharge like the one that had been used to pay for the Travelift boat hoist could help pay for port costs, he suggested.

Baird said the port can collaborate with the Northwest Maritime Center (NWMC) and the marine trades to solve problems. He said the port should let the NWMC raise money to pay for the Point Hudson breakwater.

“If these capital projects are … an existential threat, I think you’ll find people are willing to collaborate rather than being run out of business and run out of town,” Baird said.

Pete Langley of the Port Townsend Foundry said more community collaboration is needed.

“We have continuously undermined the ability of … some of our political officials by rumor mill,” Langley said.

POOR MANAGEMENT

Port commissioners and staff, Langley said, were forced to deal with a “great big flaming ball of crap from 17 years of really piss-poor management from somebody who didn’t really care about this community.”

“We’ve got to make it work for all of us. The port has to be successful,” Langley said.

Eric Elliott, who runs the Boat Haven fuel dock, said the marine trades and the port need to work together and communicate better.

“I feel like I haven’t had many interactions with the port up until all these rumors started going around,” Elliott said.

“And now it’s created this tension. I’m nervous. What’s going to happen when my lease comes up for renewal? Because none of us are getting rich. I don’t know, maybe some people are. I’m not,” he said, his last comment eliciting a chuckle from the crowd.

Elliott said he didn’t know if he could afford to live in Port Townsend and said he might have to move to Seattle if his lease went up.

Inger Rankins said the port needs to charge lower prices to get more tenants.

“A lot of us are small businesses, and we don’t make much money. And if we’re going to have to pay more, we’re going to make even less,” Rankins said.

Arren Day of the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op said the port needs to do a better job of working with the marine trades and to involve its members in the decision-making process.

“Anytime I’ve been angry in an argument – whether it was with one of my business partners, a client or my wife – it’s always been because the communication wasn’t clear,” Day said.

“Nobody’s evil here,” Day said of port staff.

“I don’t think you’re bad people. I think you’re great people. I don’t think you’re doing as good of a job communicating with the people in this room as you think you are.

“My criticism is not about the rates you want to increase, it’s about the communication with us … a lot of people here, myself included, have been blindsided by a large rate increase without having it explained to us,” Day said.

‘HORNET’S NEST’

Martin Mills of the Shipwrights Co-op said some people won’t negotiate lease rates, but will just determine they can’t afford the new rates and leave.

“You’ve got a big hornet’s nest here, and we’re all behind you … but this is business, and we need to make this work,” Mills said.

Joel Goldstein questioned why the port said $37 million is needed in a 10-year cost plan, noting that infrastructure often lasted 20, 30 or 40 years. The costs should be spread out over the full life term of the structure, not just 10 years, Goldstein said.

Corey Armstrong of ACI Boats told commissioners he was glad he wasn’t sitting in their seats and said a lot of people in the marine trades did not make a lot of money.

“Two or 3 percent is often all that’s there,” he said of profit margins. “And, in fact, a few points is kind of what makes the world go round.

“So these big numbers, they won’t work for my business either,” Armstrong said.

His business is negotiating with the port, and Armstrong said there are other places from which businesses could work.

“Some are as attractive, as not costing anything for the space and then rolling it in over a period of two, three, five years or what have you, to a market rate to attract business,” Armstrong said.

With a 64-cent rate, the Port Townsend yard isn’t full, he noted. The port should look at finding other sources of revenue, he said.

One of the benefits of the Boat Haven is the good mix of complementary businesses, Armstrong said, and he feared higher rates could kill that synergy.

Chris Brignoli of the Shipwrights Co-op said it took him a year and a half to decide whether or not to buy the Townsend Bay Marine facility at the Boat Haven. When he first reviewed the numbers, he thought there was no way it could be done.

“It was tight and it was really close in whether we could do it,” Brignoli said.

But with the new lease rate, “If we were facing an order-of-magnitude lease rate, or even half of that, it wouldn’t have flown and we wouldn’t have moved. There’s just no way. Absolutely not a viable option. If we had to pay 5 percent of gross revenue, we wouldn’t have been able to do the move. No way. We went from a business … we had seven or eight people and now we have 42 employees. Forty-two families are being fed, and we are keeping shipwrighting alive. We’re keeping the marine trades alive. We’re a huge contribution to the community and we couldn’t have done it without a reasonable deal,” Brignoli said.

He said he understood the port needs to raise rates, but said his business couldn’t afford it. The port would only attract large businesses from outside the area at those prices, he said.

“We want to attract the arts … everybody here thinks of themselves as an artist. That’s what brings the clients here,” Brignoli said.

There are from 1,000 to 2,000 feet’s worth of fishing boats at the Boat Haven – clients he said he could lose very quickly if he had to pass on higher costs.

GETTING EMOTIONAL

Joe vonVolkli said he hadn’t heard any plans for how to address the problem from the audience other than “let’s all get emotional and yell at the port.”

“I know you guys [commissioners] stepped into a ball of poo. We understand that,” vonVokli said.

“Why don’t we try jamming the boatyard with boats, maybe a reduced rate … activity breeds activity,” vonVolkli said.

“Twenty-five cents is better than nothing. Yeah, maybe you could say, ‘But this property is worth a buck.’ Who’s giving you a buck? Nobody. Why don’t we try 25 cents … a stored boat will eventually be worked on,” he said. 

Mark Burns, who used to run Innovative Marine and Port Townsend Boat Works in his 40 years at the port, said he stopped at every harbor and marina during a trip down the coast last year.

“And I can tell you that there is nothing like Port Townsend probably in the country. But on the West Coast, there is nothing comparable. We have a very dynamic business community and port here,” he said, adding that to Port Townsend, the port is like Amazon’s importance to Seattle.

The port would go in a “death spiral” if it charged rates above market, he said.

“It’s important that you keep the rates within the market window,” Burns told port commissioners.

“We’re all here because we want the same thing … we can work together to achieve this if we’re brought into the process so that we can help … the port get to where it needs to go,” Burns said.

Suzi Clinefelter, who is Port Commissioner Brad Clinefelter’s wife, said the Port Townsend Marine Trades Association needs to raise money to market the marine trades.

“It’s our time to step up … and not just point out a few people and say, ‘Hey, I don’t like what you’re saying. That scares me,’” Suzi Clinefelter said.

“Well, yeah, this is all scary. This is a very, very scary world right now. Who knows where we’re going. But if we don’t set our path, nobody else is going to set it,” she said.

Suzi Clinefelter said previous port administrators spent money on a new administration building, “but they didn’t spend it to take care of your breakwater out there. They didn’t spend it to repair Travelifts. They just spent it. Now it’s gone. It’s our time. We’ve got to step up, and we have to make a plan and we have to work with the administration and the commissioners. And if we don’t do this, then we really will lose and it really will be our faults.”