PORT TOWNSEND – Leave the Boat Haven marine work yard rates alone for a year and add two new port staffers, one that would benefit the yard as a hoist operator.
Those were two of port Executive Director Larry Crockett’s recommendations for the port commissioner Wednesday as the port commissioners prepare to tackle its 2008 budget.
Longtime Port Commissioner and Quilcene resident Herb Beck balked at Crockett’s suggestion that the port commissioners hold off on work yard rates or other rates for port-owned and operated Hudson Point and Boat Haven marinas.
“I think we should get it over with and bite the bullet,” Beck told fellow commissioners Bob Sokol and Dave Thompson, adding that the port’s three-year system of rate review has worked.
Beck said the port commissioners have built in periodic review, that allows them to adjust rates any time within that three-year period.
Crockett also called for allowing the yard rates to remain the same for a year “to see where we are in the market.”
The port commissioners boosted yard rates by about 40 percent last year.
