POULSBO – The Poulsbo Port Commission is expected to finalize its proposed annexation boundaries and consider a public-outreach proposal by the Rockfish Group, a local public relations firm, at a special commission meeting at 2 p.m. April 15.
The meeting, in the port’s floating conference room at the Port of Poulsbo Marina, is open to the public.
Port Commission President Stephen L. Swann said April 12 that the port will ask voters to expand the port district’s boundaries to the city limits, including areas within the Urban Growth Area. The proposed boundaries do not include Lemolo, Scandia and Virginia Point, three areas that voted overwhelmingly against the 2014 measure. Meanwhile, the measure lost by about 60 votes within the city limits.
Currently, about 50 percent of the city is in the port district. The annexation measure is proposed for the Nov. 8 ballot.
“Many reasons exist in support of this initiative,” Swann writes in his Scuttlebutt column for the April 15 Herald. “For example, many of the direct beneficiaries of our first-class marina provide no financial support [for it] … This is patently unfair to residents of this relatively small [port] district.”
Residents of the port district help support it with a property tax of 30 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation. Swann said the extra revenue generated by a larger district – he guesses it will be an additional $200,000 a year – will be necessary in the next two or three years when the creosoted breakwater pilings are replaced. Swann, a retired Coast Guard commander, estimates the new breakwater will cost $5 million.
Port officials say the breakwater is old, and the creosote used in the pilings are considered detrimental to the marine environment.
“We all need to share this tremendous financial burden,” Swann wrote.
In a phone interview April 12, Swann said he’s confident the measure will pass this time.
“I think people [outside the port district] take the port for granted because it doesn’t cost them anything,” Swann said. He said residents of the expanded port district will be able to vote for port commissioners and will have more of a voice in port affairs.
He also believes annexation will bolster the port as a force for economic development – the reason port districts were created.
“The merchants on Front Street directly benefit [from the port],” Swann said. “Last weekend, we hosted a major sailing regatta. We bring people to town that otherwise wouldn’t come to town.”
Public assets that the port districts owns and manages: Port of Poulsbo Marina, with 254 permanent moorage slips and 130 guest moorage slips; an FAA-designated seaplane base; a public parking lot on Jensen Way; and what is believed to be the last tidal grid, for vessel inspections and light-duty maintenance, in the Puget Sound region.
