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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2018
Port keeps grant spigot running at airport
Local match for
federal money
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
The Port of Astoria Com-
mission voted Tuesday to have
their cash-strapped agency
spend up to $230,000 to stay
in the pipeline for several mil-
lion dollars in Federal Aviation
Administration grants.
The Port, facing a lack of
money to fix its infrastructure
and a log export market drying
up because of proposed tariffs,
had faced some consternation
over whether to pay the large
local match for the federal
program that funds most of
the maintenance at the World
War II-era Astoria Regional
Airport.
The airport is set to lose
more than $30,000 a year
from operations, but brings in
the vast majority of the Port’s
grant revenue, largely because
of its use by the Coast Guard
and military units. The Port
has received more than $12
million in federal grants at the
airport so far.
The Daily Astorian
The Astoria Regional Airport has attracted more than $12 million in grants from the Federal Aviation Administration
The $230,000 match will
allow the Port to receive $4.1
million in the 2019-20 fiscal
year. The match also makes the
Port eligible for another $3.7
million supplemental grant
with no local match required.
Port Commissioner Bill
Hunsinger, the lone abstention
in the vote on the local match,
has argued that the Port should
not be spending money on an
airport that loses money.
John Raichl, a former Port
commissioner and member of
the Airport Advisory Commit-
tee, said that while the airport
does struggle to break even
for the Port, it generates a lot
for the community. The airport
hosts the Coast Guard’s Air
Station Astoria, the Life Flight
Network medical evacuation
service, electric airplane tug
manufacturer Lektro, UPS and
the Columbia River Bar Pilots.
“In short, the airport sup-
ports a wider array of people,
businesses and industries than
any asset the Port owns,” War-
Port: Agency is waiting on a report from state
Continued from Page 1A
Alan Brann, owner of
Kiwi’s Water Taxi, which fer-
ries people to and from ships
in the Columbia River out of
the Port’s mooring basins, said
he spends between $35,000
and $40,000 per year on fuel,
moorage and power. But since
being told to relocate after the
causeway’s closure, Brann
said he stopped buying fuel
from the Port, instead going
to Wilcox & Flegel Oil Co.
downtown.
“My opinion of the Port
of Astoria right now is pretty
much zip,” he said.
J.D. Moreland, who has
three commercial fishing boats
at the East Mooring Basin,
said he has been there since
2003 and has no other place
to go.
“We’re just disgusted with
how that has went down there,
slowly downhill,” he said.
“Our rates have gone up. The
service has gotten worse.”
Many boat owners have
thrown cold water on the
Port’s argument that the cause-
way is too dangerous to even
THE DAILY
ASTORIAN
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walk on. They called on the
Port to at least allow them a
liability waiver to reach their
boats.
Knight cast doubt on
whether a lawyer would
approve liability waivers, but
said the Port is dedicated to
getting the causeway open as
soon as possible. The prob-
lems at the causeway and
in other areas of the Port’s
crumbling infrastructure are
decades in the making, and the
cash-strapped agency needs
help from the public in arguing
for more assistance, he added.
Commissioner
Bill
Hunsinger, a withering critic
of Knight, blamed him for not
taking responsibility for the
Port’s issues over his four-year
tenure or providing a plan to
fix the causeway.
He called on the Port to
have professionals plot a path
between the weakest portions
of the causeway for boat own-
ers to use. He offered to donate
$3,000 to help with repair
efforts, later saying he’d need
to be paid back.
The Port is still wait-
ing on a report from the state
Department of Transportation
on what needs to be fixed to
reopen the causeway, Knight
said. The agency has sought
help from local marine con-
tractor Bergerson Construc-
tion, which performs much of
the local dock work, to look at
the structure.
Greg Morrill, co-owner of
Bergerson, said the company
has looked at the state’s previ-
ous report and disagreed with
some of the dire warnings.
Frank Spence, the presi-
dent of the Port Commission,
said the agency should hold an
emergency meeting once the
state recommendations come
back so the agency can take
immediate action. Port Com-
missioner Robert Stevens even
warmed to the idea of allowing
boat owners a liability waiver
to access the causeway.
Floyd Holcom, owner of
the Pier 39 waterfront com-
plex just east of the marina,
and architect Nik Sernande
recently approached the Port
about leasing and operating
the East Mooring Basin under
Fishermens Wharf — Astoria.
They want to develop more
slips, install floating homes,
add retail spaces and poten-
tially create a new cruise ship
terminal along a breakwa-
ter owned by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers.
The Port is hoping the part-
nership will provide the mil-
lions of dollars in private cap-
ital to overhaul the causeway
and enliven the marina.
Holcom, who has been
providing skiffs for tenants
at the East Mooring Basin to
reach their boats, said he was
shocked to learn of the cause-
way’s closure and hopes to
work with the Port to solve the
issue.
“Ours is about 650 feet
long,” he said. “It goes out to
Pier 39, and we have mainte-
nance guys on it all the time,
as well as a beer truck that’s
about 40,000 pounds.”
About half the audience left
the meeting after discussion of
the East Mooring Basin ended.
On his way out, Dave Dens-
more, who has been using a
skiff to reach his live-aboard
boat, offered Port commission-
ers a ride out if they want to
look underneath the causeway.
renton Mayor Henry Balen-
sifer, an employee at Lektro
and a member of the advisory
committee, wrote for a recom-
mendation in favor of the local
match. “Including the U.S.
Coast Guard, it enables over
425 permanent, full-time fami-
ly-wage jobs actively working
on the airport alone.”
The Port Commission also
passed a motion Tuesday to
form a task force that will look
at how to make the airport at
least break even.
Airport Manager Gary
Kobes said that while the air-
port is set to lose between
$35,000 and $37,000 from
operations, new hangars being
built for Life Flight and former
Nirvana bassist Krist Novosel-
ic’s company KAST Han-
gars will add about $10,000
to $12,000 in revenue. A rent
credit given to the bar pilots
for improving their space will
also expire in April, adding
another $2,700 a month in rev-
enue, he said.
If the Port could lease an
upland parcel in its industrial
park just outside the airport
fence, that would go pretty
far toward making the facility
break even, Kobes said. The
Port has struggled to find ten-
ants for the so-far empty indus-
trial park, which is largely in
the tsunami inundation zone.
The agency has looked at turn-
ing much of the site into wet-
lands surrounding an environ-
mental research station for rent
to local research groups.
Store: ‘A burden well
beyond what Grocery
Outlet can handle’
That proposal would also
require state approval, Plan-
ning Director Kevin Cup-
ples said. “I don’t know what
ODOT would say to that but
they’d have to approve any-
thing done in the roadway,”
he said.
Chris Hoth, the commis-
sion chairman, and Commis-
sioners Carpenter, Teri Car-
penter, Lou Neubecker and
David Posalski unanimously
approved the request, with
the conditions of a turn lane
or right turns only out of Ave-
nue N.
“If they don’t like the con-
ditions of the proposal, they
can appeal it, or come back
to us,” Posalski said before
the vote.
Continued from Page 1A
Michael Ard, an engineer
representing Main & Main
Capital, argued that the turn
lane “was not essential.”
The multimillion-dollar
cost to extend the turn lane is
“a burden well beyond what
Grocery Outlet can handle.”
Ard said the city could
approve the project “even
absent that turn lane, and
that’s what we’re requesting
tonight.”
Commissioner Bill Car-
penter gave developers
another option, proposing a
right-turn in, right-turn out
configuration with a bar-
rier to allow traffic to flow
through the intersection.
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