PORT TOWNSEND — During poor economic times, the government is ready to help, Rep. Norm Dicks said Tuesday.
“In a recession, the government’s job is to cut taxes and increase spending in order to create jobs that will get people back to work,” Dicks, D-Belfair, told those at a Port Townsend Rotary Club luncheon Tuesday.
“We don’t sit around thinking of ways to spend money,” Dicks said. “People come to us and tell us what they need.”
The representative of the 6th Congressional District, which includes the North Olympic Peninsula, also visited two projects on Tuesday, one for which he had already secured support.
‘Phenomenal project’
“This is a phenomenal project,” Dicks said as he stood on board the Adventuress, which is preparing for a launch this week after its port bow and stem were rebuilt.
“I can’t wait to see all the kids out on the water, benefiting from its educational programs.”
Built in 1913 and now owned by the nonprofit Sound Experience, the schooner Adventuress has been in dry dock this year at the Port Townsend boat yard undergoing $360,000 worth of work as a “centennial restoration project.”
Dicks was instrumental in securing a $180,000 National Park Service “Save America’s Treasures” grant for the project.
Phase two of the project for the boat that is used as a floating maritime classroom on Puget Sound will be done in 2011. That will involve replacing the starboard bow and transom.
Dicks later visited Fort Worden State Park, where he toured the Joseph Wheeler Theater and the Port Townsend School of Woodworking. Port Townsend Mayor Michelle Sandoval accompanied him.
The State Parks Commission’s goal is to eventually have Centrum, a nonprofit center for the arts located at the state park, manage Fort Worden as a lifelong learning center, with year-round programs in arts, crafts and music.
The newly created Port Townsend’s newly created public development authority, will work with fort officials over the next six months to help them meet the goals.
Dicks said he would like to see the park become an arts center, like Wolf Trap in northern Virginia. He also said the park reminded him of San Francisco’s Presidio.
As for the small theater, Dicks said he had already supported the rehabilitation of the Admiral in Bremerton and the Pantages in Tacoma.
The theater needs to be brought up to accessibility codes and construct a fully functioning box office in order to succeed commercially, Fort Worden Parks Manager Kate Burke said.
“We have a lot of buildings here,” Burke said.
“The question is, how do we take these buildings that are about to be mothballed and prepare them for practical use?”
Health care bill
Dicks said at the Rotary luncheon that a necessary part of economic recovery was the recent passage of the controversial health care bill, which he compared to past programs that are now considered to be essential.
“Social Security was not popular when it was created,” he said. “For many years, and through many election cycles, it was opposed, as was Medicare.
“But we passed a good bill, and it enabled us to go forward,” he said.
Dicks is glad the process is over, so he does not have to address any more town meetings. Contentious town meetings were held in Port Townsend and Bremerton on Aug. 31.
“The one thing I did that was smart was to have both town meetings on the same day,” he said, “so afterwards I could go to a bar and forget the whole thing.”
“I’ve run for election 17 times and 30 percent of the people in my home town, Bremerton, have always voted against me,” he said. “They were all there that night.”
Dicks has taken the health care message personally, and has lost 25 pounds since those meetings through diet and exercise.
He said he spends as much time as possible in the House of Representatives’ gym, “which I have to pay to use.”
“There are a lot of positive things that are coming out of the bad economy,” he said.
“All the programs that are really essential are getting funded and are taken care of. “
Cut military waste
Dicks said that his new position as the chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee will benefit his constituents, since cutting military waste will leave more funds available for local programs across the country.
At the Rotary luncheon, Dicks opened up the floor for questions “under the rules of the U.S. Senate, which means that questions don’t need to be relevant or related to anything that was said before.”
When asked about Hamid Karzai, he said that Afghanistan’s president “may not be as bad as he seems but he is unpredictable.
“He has been elected twice, so we need to deal with him.”
Dicks said he’d like to get rid of Afghanistan’s reliance on poppy farming, which provides the basis for the world’s heroin supply.
“I wish we could educate them as to what else they could grow instead,” he said.
“If there is anything the United States knows how to do, it’s subsidize agriculture.”
Dicks, 69, was first elected to congress in 1976. He became the representative for the North Olympic Peninsula after a 1992 redistricting.
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Jefferson County reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.