Can someone please tell me why a private company (SAFE Boats International) is able to legally extort money from the taxpayers of Kitsap County to repair damage done by its boats to the Water Street boat ramp in Port Orchard?

I realize SAFE Boats is an important employer here in South Kitsap and is threatening to move its expanding operation elsewhere if the ramp is not repaired from the damage reportedly caused by them, but do we have it in writing that they won’t still move even if the ramp is fixed?

I understand SAFE Boats recently changed owners, but it seems — given its ultimatum regarding the ramp repairs — the ownership change is for the worst.

SAFE Boats is the beneficiary of huge amounts of taxpayer money already in the form of government contracts for its boats.

Is SAFE Boats that greedy that the owners can’t buck up to fix the ramp on its own?

The profit from just one of SAFE Boats’ huge, 39-foot boats launched there would probably cover it.

Is this the kind of business leadership we want here? Get as much money as you can and screw the taxpayers?

Please tell me why this type of extortion is a good thing for our community?

It’s time for the new owners of SAFE Boats to do the moral and ethical thing and fix the ramp themselves and stay in the area where they achieved their initial success.

It just makes me sick to see once again the destructive behavior some business owners will engage in toward pursuit of even greater profits than they are already have.

When is this going to be unacceptable?

BRUCE GIESE

Port Orchard