PORT ANGELES — City Manager Mike Quinn said Wednesday that City Hall was fielding numerous telephone calls from residents in the unincorporated area east of the city in the wake of Tuesday’s impasse over a new wholesale water agreement with Clallam County Public Utility District.
“As far as the city is concerned, the ball is back in the PUD’s court,” Quinn said. “We gave them compromises for those things they were concerned about.
“We tied the no-protest annexation agreements to the sewer project. And we said we would talk about long-term solutions.”
The compromise proposed by Quinn was that Clallam PUD water customers east of the city limit still would have to sign no-protest annexation agreements to receive new or upgraded water service.
But those agreements would not become active until the city built a sewer line to the Morse Creek area.
Business and economic development leaders have said they see the sewer line as essential to business development along U.S. Highway 101 east of the city limit.
But Dennis Bickford, Clallam PUD general manager, disputed Quinn’s account, saying that everything agreed to by city and PUD staffers one day was removed from the draft contract by the next day.
He said PUD commissioners have proposed they sign the current contract covering the 18 months to the end of 2005 but without the no-protest annexation agreement clause.
Quinn said the no-protest annexation agreements can’t be left out of the contract because the city is seeking the same agreements in its sewer line negotiations with Clallam County.