Even as a year-long legal battle with developers Riverwalk on the Columbia LLC finally draws to a close, for the Port of Camas-Washougal, another fight is just beginning.
And this time, it isn't a judge in a court of law that this public agency has to convince – rather, it's East County taxpayers, who in a clear signal of disapproval over the failed real estate deal, voted two Port commissioners out of office during last year's elections.
"One the major lessons we learned is that we need to have more public involvement on projects of this sort," said Port executive director David Ripp, referring to the now-defunct $350 million Riverwalk mixed-use development. "There was lots of public input after the project began, but none beforehand."
The Port will again return to court Friday, Jan. 8 to begin the process of recovering $607,852 in attorney's fees from Riverwalk LLC, the principals of which include Mark Benson and John McKibbin, investors in what some real estate observers saw as a misguided live-work-play development along 65 acres of riverfront property.
A judge awarded the fees to the Port of Camas-Washougal after ruling in favor of the Port last month.
Though Riverwalk was a project plagued almost from the beginning by a sinking real estate market and the failure to purchase privately-owned riverfront property, Ripp told the VBJ this week he still sees a combined commercial and residential development in the Port of Camas-Washougal's future. "It's a riverfront property, it's gorgeous and it's what people want," he said. "Commercial and residential real estate remains the highest and best use of the property."
But according to a Port survey completed last month, of the 242 respondents, 72 percent said they felt the public agency should focus on retaining firms already located at the Port – not on expanding operations or acquiring new property for development.
One of the new commissioners, retired real estate sales professional Mark Lampton, called his election the natural result of what he called the Port's lack of focus on regional economic development. "I think the public has spoken and they consider their Port system to be fundamentally broken," Lampton said.
A key goal in his four-year term, Lampton said, was to restore public confidence in the Port Commission and its ability to perform.
Now in its 75th year of operation, Camas-Washougal isn't the only port looking to increase public outreach in 2010. According to Nelson Holmberg, a spokesman for the Port of Vancouver, the new year promises to bring a reinvigorated effort to reach out to commuters, business owners and residents – many of whom are almost completely unaware of the public entity's operations.
"One of the challenges is that there isn't a great amount of understanding about what happens here," Holmberg said. "In terms of our importance as to the regional economy, that is something we can do better."
For example, the Port of Vancouver held a groundbreaking event last summer of a rail link to the newly-constructed Terminal 5 – a project touted by port officials, members of Congress and former Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard as possibly creating as many as 1,000 badly-needed full time "family-wage" jobs.
And as another way to help reinforce the ports' role as regional economic engines, both Ripp in Washougal and Holmberg in Vancouver looked to the impending 100th anniversary of the signing of the Port District Act.
However, that celebration is likely to be tempered by continuing uncertainty about the ports' future in a rapidly-changing global economy.
In one of Lampton's first items of business, he will join fellow Port commissioners, local mayors and council members at a Jan. 19 meeting with Columbia River Economic Development Corp. president Bart Phillips – perhaps a signal of a new regional focus to the Port's operations.
"It's who we work with, and how we work with them, that will be important in the future," he said.
