PDA plan was flawed from the start | Letter to the editor

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Agreed with Richard Lindgren who laid the PDA failure at the feet of Dave Robison, City Council, and PDA Board — but he left out Washington’s Parks and Recreation Board that allowed it and the legislator who cut parks funding and me for voting for the same Legislatures that let this happen.

The public’s benefit from this collaboration would be that a PDA could generate revenue to sustain itself and pick up the $89 million in delayed maintenance. Washington State Parks could then spend their Worden’s expense elsewhere in the state.

To financially kickstart the PDA, Dave Timmons and the city kicked in $500k and the state forgave the Discovery Pass requirement on the PDA managed portion of the campus.

The revenue was to come from the mission whose statement was “destination learning programs, retreats, conferences, events and self-guided site experiences,” which the PDA and partners like Centrum, Madrona Mind and Body and School of Wood Working, etc. were to provide. These partners in turn were able to rent space at the fort for a fraction of local retail space cost.

Mr. Robison states that he took the PDA from 14 employees operating at $1 million to 140 employees at $7 million. That would be fine except up to 2017 Mr. Robison doesn’t reveal net revenues were negative since inception, where the original business plan showed positive cash flow in the second year. 

By the way, annual loan payments on $1 million at 4 percent for 30 years is roughly $57k and for 15 years, $89k. So who couldn’t see that consistently negative revenues and increasing debt wouldn’t lead to bankruptcy? Forget the COVID excuse. This was clear in 2017.

We participated in the initial meetings to prevent the PDA first because the city didn’t really want the oversight responsibility but did want the tourism income and, secondly, the PDA is allowed to incur debt with no real way to stop them other than your faith in the board.

Gregg Knowles
PORT HADLOCK