Down at the Port

Hopefully, March will be going out like a lion albeit a tame one, in order to get all of those kites airborne for our Kites Over Kingston event on March 29. The Downtown Kingston Association, whose mission is to make our little town an enjoyable place to live, work and play, has been working with Port Manager Mike Bookey to get a few more events “happening” in Mike Wallace Park and for that matter all over town.

The “Wearing of the Green” took on a different sort of flair this year for the Kingston Port Commission. On St. Patrick’s Day, we found ourselves in Governor Christine Gregoire’s office as she signed into law House Bill 2730: An act relating to the provision of ferry service by port districts. The Governor was wearing a very nice, green business suit with some sort of green-flowered corsage for the occasion. Her statement to me was something like “this has taken long enough, it’s time to move forward.”

Our 23rd District Representative Christine Rolfes was also there as was port manager Mike Bookey. Rolfes co-sponsored the bill with Sherry Appleton. In the short period of time we were in her office, the Governor was very social and made us all feel totally welcome. Hopefully, sometime soon the pictures will arrive.

So, what does this mean for the future of passenger-only ferry service between Kingston and Seattle? It means a lot! As you know, the federal department of transportation has authorized a $3.5 million grant to the port for the purchase and construction of ferries and facilities. That funding is still tied up in technicalities, which are slowly being worked through.

This new law, however, gives the Port of Kingston the statutory authority to operate a ferry system. One of the major parts of this legislation also requires the Washington State Ferries system to “collaborate with new and potential passenger-only ferry service providers for terminal operations at its existing terminal facilities.” That is pretty big.

After leaving the Governor’s office, the three port commissioners looked at each other and agreed that we’ve got a lot of work to do.

In order to accept the $3.5 million grant for capital investment, we are required to come up with a 20 percent match from local funding. You may have read that the legislature awarded the port a grant of $750,000 in “toll credits.” What’s a toll credit? A toll credit account isn’t like a checkbook of funds from which to spend money. It is kind of like the legislature saying ‘this is a good idea and we will issue these credits to insure that the federal grant monies are brought to the project.’ So there is our 20 percent match.

Unfortunately, this is not an account we can draw on to start up operations. It could be the next legislative session before we see any supplemental funding from the legislature to operate the Kingston-to-Seattle passenger-only ferry. The sale of one or some of the surplus vessels held by the Washington State Ferries could change this situation.

The fact is that Kingston is a whole lot closer to having a solution to the passenger-only ferry needs than we have ever been in the past. Man, these things take a lot of time. And a big debt of appreciation is owed to Kingston citizens like Tom Waggoner, Sonny Woodward and Nels Sultan of the Kitsap Express organization, who have kept the pressure on in Olympia and throughout the region to get us to where we are today.

So, what else has been going on down at the port? The Paddle Kitsap event seems to be taking shape and will bring quite a crowd of visitors to our town the first weekend in August.

We always thought the summer concert series, Tunes on Tuesday, was pretty neat but when you are getting off the boat after a hard day’s work and the event is already half over, it could be discouraging. We are looking in to having some Saturday evening concerts and shows for the whole family. Someone has brought up the idea of projecting a good family movie on a screen in the park several evenings in the late summer as well.

April brings a lot of activity and beautiful spring flowers to our town. Earth Day festivities will include the annual EcoFest at Stillwaters Environmental Education Center and the first of the Kingston Farmers’ Markets. I see that the little sail boats are already back in place so it won’t be long before the kids are out learning the ropes.

Speaking of ropes and strings and lines and things, here is the April 2008 Nautical Term of the Month: TELLTALE - A length of yarn or other lightweight material attached to the sails, shrouds and other parts of a sailing vessel used as a wind flow indicator of the apparent direction of wind.

So there you have it for another month. These are pretty exciting times in Kingston. Thanks as always for reading this stuff. I’ll be seeing you around town.

Contact Pete DeBoer, Port of Kingston Commissioner, at pete@petedeboer.com.

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