Grapeview June 13 workshop on comp scheme, goals

Port’s Wi-Fi telephone pole has been installed

Kirk Boxleitner | Jun 01, 20230

The Port of Grapeview has decided a review and update of the port’s comprehensive scheme is warranted.

During the port’s May 16 meeting, Commissioner Mike Blaisdell included his draft of an update to the port’s goals and objectives for the commissioners’ review.

Commissioner Jean Farmer, attending the May 16 meeting via Zoom, suggested board commissioners schedule a special workshop to review the draft update, “all three of us, in person, reading page by page together.”

Farmer had already looked at the draft update of the port’s goals and objectives, and praised Blaisdell for producing a document that left her with a positive initial impression. She added that “sometimes, when you do that (conduct a group review), you see things you may not see just by yourself.”

Farmer said she wishes to ensure “all three of us are on the same page, and that we all agree on the whole thing.”

Because all three commissioners agreed the workshop should be conducted before the port’s next scheduled meeting June 20, the board of commissioners’ special meeting for a planning workshop has been scheduled for June 13 at 7 p.m. in the Grapeview Fire Hall and Horton Community Center, with an option to attend via Zoom.

“That way, it’ll all still be fresh in our minds by the June 20 meeting,” Farmer said.

The workshop will be open to the public, however Blaisdell said the meeting is not an opportunity for the public to offer uninvited testimony.

“If the commissioners request input from individuals in the audience, those people may speak,” said Blasdell, adding that the workshop’s principal purpose is to allow the board of commissioners to communicate with each other, answer each other’s questions, and solicit one another’s opinions regarding the port’s goals and objectives and other potential updates to the port’s comprehensive scheme.

“And again, please note that this will only be a planning workshop,” Blaisdell told the Journal. “Before any amendment can be made to the port’s comprehensive scheme, a public meeting must also be advertised and held. At that time, the draft document will be made available for review on the port’s website.”

Prior to the Port of Grapeview scheduling the workshop’s date, Commissioner Art Whitson reported the port is “pump-out station ready,” meaning that “the infrastructure is in place, except for the tanks.”

Farmer said the Port of Allyn already serves as a pump-out station, and based on her prior experiences as a Port of Allyn commissioner, “You don’t even want to go there,” given the leaks and other problems she cited with maintaining such infrastructure, even before she added that, “without staff to manage it, it can become a colossal mess, literally.”

Farmer was more encouraged by Whitson’s news that the port’s Wi-Fi telephone pole has been installed, and its associated equipment is set to be “all ready in the next month,” by Whitson’s estimates.