PORT TOWNSEND — Pennco Transportation Inc. has ceased operations after state officials determined that the company cannot legally use an alternate shuttle service after Pennco’s state-required liability insurance lapsed.
“That is the position they have taken, and we feel it’s very unfair and wrong,” Kevin Harris, a Port Townsend businessman and Pennco’s president, said Tuesday.
Harris on Saturday said his company chartered another state Utilities and Transportation Commission-registered company to transport passengers to and from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and elsewhere along Puget Sound while Carlsborg-based Pennco awaited paperwork processing related to its insurance problems.
Instead, the shutdown idles 20 Pennco employees, Harris said.
He acknowledged Tuesday that Tacoma-based Bill Anderson Insurance was working with state Utilities and Transportation Commission officials on his behalf to re-establish insurance coverage.
That will allow the North Olympic Peninsula door-to-door shuttle operation to be state-certified once again to take passengers to Seattle.
“It’s very difficult for us,” Harris said. “I am incredibly disappointed in the UTC.
“They say their goal is public safety. . . . We feel we should keep the business in business.”
‘It isn’t legit’
Bonnie Allen, Washington Utility and Transportation Commission regulatory analysts in its transportation division, said “it isn’t legit” for a transportation company to use another company’s drivers, even if the second company remains state-certified.
“There is no provision to allow a certificated company to subcontract its operations,” said Allen, adding that as of Tuesday Pennco had not filed its insurance application.
Allen, however, said she had been contacted by Pennco’s insurance company on Tuesday for the first time, and the matter could be settled by as early as today or later this week.