PORT ANGELES — The head of the Clallam County Economic Development Council has misgivings about using public funds for a proposed Port of Port Angeles composites recycling center.
Bill Greenwood, director of the nonprofit organization that aims to foster economic growth in Clallam County, said he has reservations about using county Opportunity Fund money.
The funds would help complete a 25,000-square-foot building at 2220 W. 18th St. near William R. Fairchild International Airport.
“There are a multitude of risks associated with this project,” Greenwood said Wednesday in an email to Clallam County commissioners, who will discuss the $1 million Opportunity Fund request at their Monday work session.
“I firmly believe that no venture investor or normal investor would give consideration to the [Composite Recycling Technology Center] in its present state,” Greenwood said.
His comments came under harsh criticism from proponents who say the proposal would generate growth and create jobs.
Developed by the port through a state-chartered, nonprofit corporation, the composites recycling center eventually would house Peninsula College composites classrooms and laboratories.
It also would be home to carbon-fiber composite-recycling machines and startup space for manufacturers who would transform the lightweight, high-strength product into such products as snowboards and bike frames.
The allocation was recommended 4-1 by the Opportunity Fund Board and commissioners are on track to approve the funding at their May 12 meeting, Commissioner Mike Chapman said last week.
Greenwood also expressed concerns about the project in his report to the EDC board, which met Thursday, saying the composites center would compete “very strongly” with a tax-paying company, ACTI, “for very scarce employees.”
“Do we really want to use public dollars to support a nonprofit company that would make life difficult for one of our largest and fastest-growing private employers?” he said.
Greenwood said that “of particular concern is the public funding of a nonprofit startup which would then compete for new employees with a for-profit, tax-paying company [Angeles Composite Technologies Inc.] that is one of our fastest growing major employers.”
Greenwood said Friday he was expressing his personal opinion — not his views at EDC director — from a vantage point of having been an investment banker and former manufacturing company owner before he became EDC director in March 2014.
“I’m coming at it from those two standpoints,” he said.
“I’m not taking my words back at all.”
Greenwood said he supports the EDC in any effort to create jobs.
He said, for instance, that the EDC is hosting a visit by the CEO of a four-star hotel company in May who wants to locate a hotel in Port Angeles and an official from a U.K.-based bush pilot school who may locate a training facility on the West End.
Opportunity Fund proceeds consist of sales taxes returned to the county by the state Department of Commerce.
The Opportunity Fund Board considers applications for infrastructure-project funding that are reviewed by the EDC to ensure they comply with state-mandated guidelines but are not ranked or judged by the EDC board or Greenwood, board Chairman Alan Barnard said Friday.
“As far as I am concerned, if he wants to weigh on this, it has nothing to do with the Opportunity Fund Board,” Barnard said.
Michael D. Rauch, a minority co-owner, CEO and president of ACTI, was reluctant to comment on Greenwood’s take on the Opportunity Fund grant.
“That’s Bill Greenwood’s opinion,” Rauch said, refusing further comment.
But Greenwood was harshly criticized by others.
Port Commission President Jim Hallett said Greenwood’s opinion left him “speechless.”
Hallett said the Opportunity Fund grant fulfilled the fund’s goal of providing infrastructure to improve the economy and generate jobs.
The recycling center would employ six people at the outset and 111 workers within five years at annual incomes ranging from $35,000 to $72,000, project proponents told the Opportunity Fund Board on April 23.
“It strikes me as kind of odd that the . . . director of the EDC is somehow thinking everyone else got it wrong,” Hallett said.
“Where is the economic development leadership in that?
“The private sector sets the standard on what they want to pay, and for him to resist that is appalling.”
ACTI is using “public sector infrastructure” owned by the port, he added.
“ACTI is leasing stuff the public has paid for.”
County commissioners appear headed toward approving Opportunity Fund money for the project.
Chapman said the commissioners have supported it for years and that he was “confused” by Greenwood’s position.
“If the EDC executive director does not support a project like this, it makes me wonder what he would support,” Chapman said.
“It seems to fly in the face of economic development.”
Commissioner Bill Peach said he viewed the project in a favorable light.
“I see a lot of opportunity here,” he said Friday. “I’m OK with the risk.”
Commissioner Jim McEntire said he understands those who see the risks of the composite recycling center, but is inclined personally to approve the money for infrastructure.
“That’s an asset that will be usable by the port no matter what happens with the compsite recycling business,” he said, adding, “I wish that every success for sure.”
Construction could start in July, with the center opening in January.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.