PORT ANGELES – Continued funding from the city, extended hours and a gift shop are highlights of a new operating agreement for the Arthur D. Feiro Marine Life Center.
The agreement, which runs through the rest of the year, was unanimously approved on Tuesday night by the City Council as part of the consent agenda, a list of routine items that are approved with a single vote.
“I’d like to say thank you for the city’s continued support of the Feiro Marine Life Center,” Mike Kesl, a Friends of the Feiro Marine Life Center member, told the council.
The living classroom and waterfront attraction on City Pier, a cooperative effort between Peninsula College and the city of Port Angeles, celebrated its 25th year of operation in 2006.
The city’s 2007 general fund budget includes $45,000 for the marine center’s operation.
The funding will allow Peninsula College to develop an educational program and provide regular staffing a minimum of eight hours a day, six days a week, wrote City Manager Mark Madsen in a memo to the council.
The city and college had signed a three-year agreement in 2004.
Peninsula College used to contribute money to the center, but now receives money from the city with the college contributing the infrastructure and administration.
In late October 2006, representatives of the city, Clallam County, state, Port Angeles School District, Olympic National Park, Battelle Laboratories and citizens’ groups met to discuss the center’s future.
A second meeting in December 2006 lasted all day, with topics including long-term and short-term plans and potential funding sources.
Mayor Karen Rogers said on Tuesday that she was pleased with the agreement and that negotiating a new operating agreement with Peninsula College always had been the city’s intention.
