PORT TOWNSEND — When Larry Crockett and David Timmons sit down to talk over a beer tonight, the events surrounding the failed bid to lure a California shipbuilder to the Key City are surely going to be part of the discussion.
Crockett is executive director of the Port of Port Townsend, and Timmons is Port Townsend’s city manager.
One of them has agreed to buy the first round.
“It’s going to cost me a couple of bucks, but it’s going to be worth it,” Crockett said Wednesday afternoon.
Their planned meeting follows a fiery City Council meeting Tuesday during whcih former Mayor Kees Kolff talked about his role in Santa Maria Shipping LLC’s bid to be a Port tenant to build container ships.
After Kolff’s comments, about 40 people — some critical, some supportive of the former mayor — appeared before the City Council.
Santa Maria President Stas Margaronis claimed that Kolff, who still sits on the City Council, made him feel like his company wasn’t wanted by some of the people in the community.
Kolff on Tuesday night said he had been “eager to work with them to help avoid land mines.”
Kolff apologized for meeting privately with the president of the shipping company that chose the Port of Willapa Harbor in southwest Washington over the Port of Port Townsend.
The decision cost Jefferson County up to 100 jobs paying around $40,000 to $50,000 annually.
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The rest of the story appears in Thursday’s Peninsula Daily News Jefferson County edition.