Grapeview reviews proposed maintenance plan

Port’s next regular meeting set for Aug. 15

Kirk Boxleitner | Aug 03, 20230

The Port of Grapeview reviewed updates for the port’s maintenance plan and comprehensive scheme of harbor improvement at its July 18 meeting.

Port Commissioner Art Whitson said he contacted the maintenance department at Mason County Public Works for catch-basin maintenance in June, but hadn’t heard back on when they’d be able to do it. He said he’d follow up.

Whitson said he needs to develop a tailored maintenance plan for each item of equipment or infrastructure under the port’s purview, which he added should be approved by his fellow port commissioners.

Whitson said he plans to conduct boat ramp repairs in August, using the month’s low tides to work on the floating dock, while also adding gravel to the end of the ramp.

Whitson has scheduled the port’s fish sampling for the first weeks in August, and in preparation for the port’s intertidal report that’s due in October, he plans to have rough drafts ready for fellow port commissioners to review in September.

After noting the need to replenish plants that have died, albeit without having a cost estimate yet, Whitson said he’s been pitching in during off-duty hours to aid the port’s landscaping person in taming invasive plant species such as blackberries and Scotch broom. Whitson hastened to add that the landscaping person is “doing a great job,” which Commissioner Jean Farmer seconded by describing the parking lots as looking the “nicest” they have “in 30 years.”

Whitson also expects this month to have designs to improve and expand those parking lots, which he doesn’t believe will “cost a lot of money,” although he doesn’t plan to order any gravel until those renovations take place. The lots will need to be “re-graveled” afterward anyway.

Commissioner Mike Blaisdell praised Whitson for getting “a lot accomplished” with the port’s maintenance plan, but Whitson demurred that “I’m not proud of it yet.”

Moving to the comprehensive scheme, when Blaisdell recalled that Farmer had requested data showing how the port is affecting economic development in the area, Farmer clarified that she was concerned more specifically with commercial operations such as Taylor Shellfish, which launch their geoduck and oyster harvesting vessels from the port, and account for “a lot of money.”

Blaisdell confirmed that the comprehensive scheme also factors in water-quality testing for local lakes, and then pointed out the passage of any amendments to the comprehensive scheme must be preceded by at least one advertised public hearing, with a prior notice of 10 days and the draft document of the proposed amendments posted on the portofgrapeview.com website.

With the Port of Grapeview’s next regular meeting scheduled for Aug. 15, Farmer expressed interest in conducting more than one public hearing in August, in two separate locations, that could capture all three of the port’s geographic districts.

Port of Grapeview Managing Official Amanda Montgomery said she would check the availability of Aug. 22 for one of those public hearing dates and Blaisdell relayed his findings — from having conferred with the Municipal Research and Services Center — that the port is allowed to convene multiple public hearings on its comprehensive scheme.