PORT ANGELES — City of Port Angeles and Clallam County officials have selected a site for a planned Joint Public Safety Facility and authorized beginning the process of purchasing the land for $300,000.
After a long search, the two entities met for a joint meeting Monday night and agreed to purchase private property on the 2000 block of West Edgewood Drive behind Airport Garden Center.
The property has been vacant since the 1940s and meets the necessary criteria of being between 3 acres and 5 acres with access to the Fairchild International Airport and high-speed internet for the facility.
The estimated $13 million facility would house the Clallam County Emergency Operations Center, which is activated during disasters such as a massive earthquake or other emergencies, as well as the Emergency Management division of the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office and Peninsula Communications (PenCom, which handles 911 calls). In the future, a westside city fire station could be added.
Clallam County commissioners unanimously approved the purchase on Monday while most of the Port Angeles City Council members voted in favor of it. Deputy Mayor Brendan Meyer voted no on the purchase, wishing for the city to purchase the property for the full price rather than split the cost with the county.
From the beginning of the process of discussing a Joint Public Safety Facility — a discussion that began in 2019 — Meyer has been in favor of the city owning the property outright.
“I’ve been vociferously in favor of the city owning the property outright. I made the motion last year to use the volunteer field lot site and build the kids a new ball field. That motion died from lack of a second. Monday night was just the culmination of the site selection and the last chance to pursue that,” Meyer said in an email on Tuesday.
Meyer moved for the city to purchase the property outright, but again did not get a second and the motion died.
“I look forward to working with the county in negotiations for the management contract/responsibilities if that occurs before the end of my term,” Meyer said.
The purchase cost will be split between the two entities, including any of the required closing costs.
The property closing date is May 1.
While the two entities have agreed on the property and it meets the requirements for the facility, both agreed it wasn’t perfect.
“It’s not my favorite site,” Council member LaTrisha Suggs said.
Suggs voiced some concerns about traffic along Edgewood Drive during peak traffic times as well as stormwater run-off.
“It would have been impossible to find a site that met every single criterion, so inevitably what we are looking for are different kinds of compromises and try to find the compromise that makes the most sense and that allows us to move forward in a way that will see this facility built for the community,” Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias said.
“This site hits on all the important, I think, elements in terms of accessibility, proximity to the airport, and other resources and utilities,” Ozias said.
Mayor Kate Dexter agreed.
“I feel like the pieces we said we needed to agree with on this site have been met and I feel comfortable with the site we are on given what everyone else has said, which is that there is no perfect site, but here we are,” Dexter said.
In addition to agreeing on the purchase, both entities agreed to co-ownership of the property and building, entering into a Tenants in Common agreement wherein each tenant owns the estate in the whole and termination of ownership is by partition.
This portion of the agreement was at the recommendation of City Attorney Bill Bloor and County Attorney Bert Boughton.
“It’s a simple way to do it (joint ownership) and we also recognize that this will require that there will be a comprehensive agreement between the city and county that talks about how we’re going to manage the facility going into the future,” Bloor said.
Initially, one party, presumably the county, was going to take ownership of the property with an agreement extended to the other party.
However, both attorneys agreed that joint ownership would make the most sense and presented four possible joint ownership options, recommending the Tenants in Common option due to its simplicity over other options.
Apart from the Tenants in the Common option, Bloor and Boughton presented the Joint Tenancy option, wherein each tenant owns the same ownership interest. This agreement would have required a written agreement and follows common law termination doctrines.
Bloor said that while this was taken into consideration, it was determined not to be the best fit for this relationship.
Bloor also presented the Cooperative Association option for joint ownership of the property.
The cooperative association would require the formation of a new entity or “association,” would be regulated by state statutes, and would require regular filings with the secretary of state.
“We looked into this quite a bit at the start, but it’s more complicated than it needs to be,” Bloor said.
The final option presented was the condominium option wherein it would also require the formation of another entity, in this case, a unit association which would be regulated under the Washington condo act with numerous procedural and alternative requirements and an onerous termination process.
“There are some advantages to this for each party, but again proved to be too complex over time,” Bloor said.
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Reporter Ken Park can be reached at kpark@peninsuladailynews.com.
