PORT TOWNSEND — Answering a City Council candidate’s criticism that Port Townsend is in a financial “mess,” City Administrator David Timmons said Wednesday that the city received an “A” bond rating from Standard & Poors.
“For a candidate to claim we’re in a mess … If you’re in a mess, then why would you be able to extend an A rating?” Timmons said.
Timmons referred to a quote in council candidate Sydney Lipton’s campaign brochure.
The quote was questioned during a Tuesday Port Townsend Rotary Club City Council candidates’ forum at Fort Worden Commons.
Lipton defended the statement, which other candidates disagreed with.
“When I left the council in 2001, I left the place in good order. Now it’s a mess,” the brochure quote says.
Lipton defended the remark, saying that when he left the council, Port Townsend’s general fund balance was at more than $1 million. Today, he said, it is less than $500,000.
Timmons, however, said the balance Lipton refers to was a “fluke,” the result of a windfall that came after the city privatized its solid waste pickup.
With that privatization, $400,000 from reserves was transferred to the general fund, he said.
“That was wiped out the next year by past billings on jail services” from the county, Timmons said.
“So it’s kind of a little bit of a stretch.”
Contacted Wednesday, Lipton said he took exception to that remark, saying he recalls that “some detail was work out by our police chief that showed they were overbilling us.”
Lipton said the city uncovered mistakes made by both county and city officials that resulted in less costs to the city for jail services.
Lipton said Timmons owes a lot to the legacy left by the previous council upon which Lipton served.
“The rating was good all through the years,” Lipton said.
“And that’s the point. It was based upon the fact that we were allowed to spend all this money on bonding, but it was not.”