Commission Meeting Agendas - Regular Meeting

all the commissioners are here except for brian fawcett and he is zoomed in hi brian good morning just a heads up that i have a chance of a phone call that i have to take i don't know if it's coming this morning or not but if i'll slip out if you disappear we'll come right back okay sounds good and do we have any additions to the agenda And comments from the blank? None? Yes. One. Come on up.

Hey, Scott Samson. I have the privilege of speaking to you before.

Yes. Welcome back. You know how badly I speak. Man, I apologize for the sunglasses. I broke my other glasses. It's the way it is. I come to talk about the partial privatization of the marina. So I'm just going to speak a couple of general things and then one specific thing with what we're doing there. Governments are stewards of the public assets. And this is kind of outsourcing those duties. I know that you're under monetary constraints here with the marina and you're doing it what could be termed for efficiency. I'm not sure if It's efficient in the short run, but I don't know if it's in the long run it is, because typically that means lower wages for people and lower benefits. So in the end, if they cannot make a livable wage, they do come back and typically end use government programs, which I don't think is all that efficient myself. also uh if you hire someone to do that you pay somebody and if they have work done a lot of times they'll sub that out so It can be kind of convoluted to see who is speaking to the counselor to see who's responsible if something were to go awry. So, you know, you have a subcontractor pointing at, you know, your contractor pointing out here, you know, just a lot of finger pointing and just worried about, you know, people taking responsibility. that um there is some loss of control of what you know is done there because obviously without the um a contractor would have you know have some autonomy you know for day-to-day operations it's also kind of a tool home for more privatization and uh um you do lose some, you know, the public loses some transparency because this is a private entity, so they don't have to be held to the same standards of account that, you know, the public officials have. Again, this is I'm going to be a little more specific, but it's my own opinion. So everything is on that level, but I have used threats Marina in the past. And I just want to say that the. The boat launch there has been in a state of repair disrepair for a number of years when it's low water, it's difficult to get it out and. So it's a little concern for safety. And to me, rather than mitigate the issues of that, they've gone and put up use at your own risk signs, photocopied paper signs. I don't know why it just appeared all of a sudden. So I'm not sure if there was some type of, something happened or what, but I just don't think, To me it speaks of if you can't keep your own house in order, how do you expect to keep their house in order? How do you expect them to keep yours? Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comments.

Any other comments? Anyone online? Okay, moving forward and send agenda. Do I have approval of amendments, items A, B, and maybe C? Anything in C that applies to you, Robert?

I'm not aware of any. If so, I hope to declare that I'm a principal owner of a class can I build or supply, and any checks to that would benefit me. I don't think there are any.

or not and they've uh in a nice addition finance department started putting a little asterisk at the end which says no class can i pull this thank you i'd like to make a motion to adopt a b and c it's been moved got a second moved and seconded all in favor all right all right um

Prove the old business. Columbia Pacific Bio Refinery. Doug Lentz. Welcome, Doug.

Thank you for having me. So, as most of you are aware of, we started the new contract on April 1st with Poet Biofuels. We currently have gone with that contract. We've received 12 unit trains, that's a little over 1,000 cars, 5.5 million gallons of ethanol, and we've just loaded our fourth vessel, just completed, and without any safety or environmental incident. In June, we participated with the state and federal regulators in our tabletop exercise to exercise the facility response plan and received all full credit for that. That completes my report.

Doug, I want to ask you a question. Last week, I think it was, there was a unit train that came through St. Helens around lunchtime. And I haven't seen a train come during busy times, either lunch or early in the morning or late at night for a long, long time. And it really was causing a huge traffic impact. I know that you don't have any specific ability to change that, but it would certainly be nice if you mentioned to them that that does cause a huge problem here in the town.

I will pass it on and you're exactly right. I have no control over.

There's a federal railroad, but as much as I would like to trust us too, but it never hurts to put in a word.

I was curious on the status of the tank bill.

Uh, the, our, our permitted tank new tank build.

Correct.

Yeah, so we're holding the permit as you guys are very much aware of. There are some state. Exercises that we're currently going through and we have and until such time as we get clarity on what that looks like. I believe we are kind of put a pin in the new tanks until such time as we get through all of these state new requirements.

Okay, can you keep us updated on that?

Yeah, this will be an ongoing process as you are fully aware.

Great, any other questions? All right, thank you so much, Doug. Thank you. And Marina update.

Well, not fully where I wouldn't ask it so. Like, his answers.

Morning commissioners there with Peter. Hello. We'll soon be known as the Marina operator. Under the terms of the leads. So, I wanted to 1st, provide a quick context on what we're doing with the Marina operations lease. 1st of all that this whole process didn't start with the lease or with Peter. This has been a very long public process approaching about 2 years at this point. 1st, we did a comprehensive Marina study. with an experienced marina consultant. That consultant looked at the entire marina operation, including the financials, and that was presented to the Commission in a public meeting in early 2025. The major findings of that study was that the port was losing approximately 550,000 dollars per year operating the marina, which equates to about 1500 dollars per day. which caused the Commission to take a hard look at how the marina should operate going forward. The Commission established a public marina planning committee, which was made up of marina tenants and community stakeholders. The committee met regularly in public for months, looked at the marina, its future, and different operating options. After all of that process that eventually led us to Peter and this new owner operator model. Peter himself has appeared at several public commission meetings over the last few months as we've explored the ideas and we've been in negotiations with him. On August, the 12th, our last commission meeting, the commission discussed this model and direction in a public meeting and with the important point, giving direction to move forward for an actual lease. So, today's update is another step in this long 2 year process. That's been going on publicly and it's not the beginning of the process at all. I wanted to pause here and ask commissioners if there's anything you wanted to add at this point about the process or how we got here. If you don't, that's fine too, but I thought I'd give you the opportunity. We've made considerable progress since August 12th, which was when the commission discussed this that same day. We had 2 internal meetings. Uh, commissioner and ward were here in the 1st meeting. and then Commissioner Sorver joined in the second meeting with Peter, which also included port staff, and which was much more detailed, really getting into things. But those meetings on August 12th really moved us forward from discussing the concept to working through how it would actually operate. Who does what, who pays for what, and how the responsibilities are divided. So the basic structure and the principal business terms are now largely established. Slide. So, this is the owner operator model. This is not a conventional lease. We have a lot of commercial leases here at the port, but this was actually, there wasn't any agreement that fit what we're trying to do here. with this concept of the port owning and Peter operating. So the real drafting work in this new document has been defining what owner and operator mean in practice. As I said, who operates, who maintains, who pays, who controls, and who assumes responsibility when something happens. Slide. Peter takes over the private mortgage operation that includes the customers mortgage agreements billing and collections maintenance and repairs and the day to day Marina operation. While the port continues operating the boat launch rv park parking and public facilities, so the general approach is to put the day to day operational responsibility with Peter and allow him to operate the Marina. slide. The port remains the owner and retains appropriate oversight of port property. That includes inspection rights, approval of major alterations, compliance with requirements, and control over major capital decisions. If a significant capital project comes up, the port will decide whether it moves forward and how it is funded. Peter can also propose improvements, including improvements at his own expense, but that is always subject to port approval. The lease itself, through the negotiations, we've worked out during the first 3 years, the rent will be the 1st year is $3,000 per month. 2nd year $3,250 and the 3rd year $3,500 per month. And then we built in a 1 year review because this is a new operating structure for both parties. So we want to have the time to take a look at it, figure it out. So that initial term is 3 years, and then there can be up to 3 additional 3 year terms by mutual agreement. Neither party is locked into 12 years today. And then, in terms of adjustments, when we talk about the, the annual adjustment to that rental amount, we've worked out a 3% annual cap on that number at this point. Slide. This is exhibit A to the lease, which was nicely crafted by both Miriam House and Lindsay Wilson here at the port after several different kinds of tries, because it's a real kind of a complicated picture, but it gives you a picture of what we've been negotiating. The yellow area is Peter's Marina operating area. Blue identifies the port areas and facilities. And green identifies shared use areas. You can see in green there, we're going to share use in the office building, the corner of the office building, and then also in the port owned boathouse out on EDOC. Those are the shared use areas. The public walkway is identified in orange. And that will be Peter's responsibility to maintain. And then the public kayak launch area. Which is next to the paddle shack boathouse will be maintained by the port. I think I'll stop at this point and ask Peter if he has anything he'd like to add about where we are. Getting ready for the transition.

Well, I think you did a good job, Bob. Thank you. We are getting ready staffing-wise and we already have our morage reservation system up and going right now and we're starting to plan how that start is going to happen. Officially, we are looking at November 1st. So, do you guys have any questions so far?

I would say the only thing that I wonder about is this 3% cap. We're living in really tumultuous economic times, and everything I see forecasted is increases in that. Why would we limit ourselves? Why would we lock it in long term rather than reviewing it year to year?

um i think because this is such a different model here because it's really kind of a partnership between the port and peter that that was just a result of the negotiations basically um that we agreed that the three percent on that number is not such a large you're saying why would we what if it goes above the three percent we can take a look at that yeah for instance the marine i live in has a cap of six percent

And of course that doesn't mean you have to go to 6%.

It does give some leeway. Is that your 6% on your HOA dues or?

No, it's a 6% on rent. You don't have an HOA.

And we would have a one year review on all these matters to begin with. Yes. So we're protected in that light if we see.

Well, you're not protected if it goes above 3%. That's my question.

The increase in rent, you'd want to see it go higher.

You know, I'm not a big proponent of CPI to begin with, you know, your costs do not include bread and milk. You know, so I find it to be an erroneous. Figure to begin with, and then to lock it in on a 3 year basis, rather than on a year to year. It just seems sorry.

Good. Well, we can. I'm open to evaluating that on an annual basis. And if CPI is coming in higher, we can have a. Rent negotiation of what that increase should be. The fall down of that is if CPI is going higher, mortgage rates are going to have to go higher.

Yeah, for sure.

It's still a three-year term of agreement up to 12. So it'd be an open negotiation at the end of three, at the end of the term to begin with. So it would be kind of things that, as you stated, it's a very unique lease situation, more of a partnership on year one. I'm assuming we're going to have a hard look at everything. I can, yeah, I understand what you're saying.

I think the shared expenses are also something we're evaluating in this, which is going to be an ongoing process of how do we split up the shared increase of the septic pumping portion of this. So there's going to be increased costs that are getting passed on to me that I'll have no control over that are based around Your services that you're providing, right? So I won't have control over some of those costs. So we're trying to keep it at a minimum right now just to see how this 1st. Year of costs play out.

So I'm so old that I remember days of 12% insulation. So that really gets my attention when I see 3%. Because we just simply don't know what's coming down the pipe.

thank you that is noted i mean the commission will have to approve this lease so this is why we brought it to make sure we had your input i'd like to suggest a six-month check-in very informal like a lunch or something with you guys just so if you have starting to see issues where we are we have time to look into them for your one year because at one year you're going to want to make some changes or we are if somebody is if there's a problem so

I would hope being that this is the part I agreed, but I hope. This is a unique partnership and we're a phone call away. I would, I would share.

So that would be the best informal check ins or whatever. Be great. I think that's something that I will do. Yeah. Yeah. And we can do that. There's going to be a lot more check ins during this 1st, 12 months and just a couple get tweaked and working. Right? Yeah.

Well, and I wish Scott was still here because, you know, to me, this whole gentleman that came. Yes. Yeah. He brings up really valid points. And what I would also like everybody to understand is this is very much based on you as a person. This is not a big corporation. This is an individual that we're dealing with. I think that is a totally unique approach. And I feel much more comfortable about accountability, knowing that we have a person, not a president, not a corporation, not a board of directors. We have you. And I think that does make a very big difference. And it also puts a lot of burden on you. I get that. And the fact that you are not used to dealing in a public entity where everything comes under scrutiny, everything is out in the public. I mean, this is obviously a challenge for you. to contend with the parameters that we are doing business under. So I think having grace on both sides is really important to make this partnership work.

Thank you. Slide. Okay, so the finish line, we have 3 principal dates ahead of us, as I mentioned on October 14th, that's our commission meeting. So it'll be the lease will be here for consideration approval by the commission. And then we're going to do a Marina open house at the Marina on Saturday, October 24th. And then we'll have operations transition on November. 1st. So between now and October 14th, we'll continue finishing the lease and the transition work. And really, as you just did, I just point out that today's really the day for the commission to give us direction on comments. If there's anything else that you're thinking about, today's the day as we go forward. Slide. It's my favorite Marina picture. That's gorgeous. Looks a little fake, though.

Yeah. We wish the water looked like that.

Any other questions for Peter here this morning?

So how does this roll out of the reservations? That's the part that, to me, is brought with difficult possibilities.

Seems like November is a good date, activity-wise.

A lot less traffic, certainly. That's kind of why we picked a later date. Um, Through this process, the existing mortgage leases in place are staying in place and getting assumed by us. And then what will happen is we'll put them electronically into our system and start to communicate through the next 60 days after that about trying to get everybody electronically set up online with these. But for now, all of the leases don't change in the transition. They'll just be in electronic format. So that's our first process with the transition is to kind of get everything in the system so that we can kind of coordinate that. Getting the office set up so we can have scheduled hours, availability, face-to-face time with everybody to come down and discuss their, you know, desires and plans and challenges. And we'll have to just work through that So we meet them.

And where is your office going to be?

It's the corner of the, in that marina office, the marina down there.

The one with the?

The green. Yeah, Loose Bay Watershed.

Yeah, Loose Bay Watershed.

Yeah, in the backside of it there.

So you, will you have an office or will you just have a desk?

Yeah, we're going to have both. Okay. We're going to have a little office area so that we can.

It'll be portioned off? Yeah. Oh, good. Okay.

would be available for meeting and going through their mortgage agreement, any of the insurance documents that need to be dropped off, brought in, a place to go to drop off a check if need to, or meet to pay your bill. And that will be that transaction area for that.

What are your office hours going to be? Do you know yet?

We don't know yet. We're working through that. That friends were on the weekends, which is a good time for feet people. I know that you guys have been not that much on the weekends. We're going to do a little bit of both weekdays and weekends. We're going to be scheduling coordinating schedule will have Um, 1 of my staff being taken a few of those days, and I think we're going to be talking with, and I'll be there a few of those days and then we'll have a. A weekend guy that might be there once in a while. Depends on the winter time, but we're working through that scheduling right now. I think that'll be a discussion point that we'll have at this open house.

It's.

Introducing ourselves or, you know, understanding people's schedules, you know, what do they think about it? Right. What days are better?

Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

And airport update. Good morning.

Good morning.

First day of school.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. Over the past several weeks, I've been focused on keeping our current projects moving forward, communicating with tenants and stakeholders and building partnerships and continuing to develop my knowledge as an airport manager. I've continued planning meetings with the project for the east side pavement maintenance. The project will begin following the grand reopening after looking at safety issues construction materials on site the need for space on the east side apron for the all of our wonderful participants who will be flying in it is in the in the best interest of everybody to push that project a little bit farther out um so we're looking at it into september start date The runway rehabilitation project has been a big focus for the last several months. The construction was completed on the 25th of August and the runway has reopened as I've stated. The only thing remaining at this point is the final coat of striping, which will require a full day closure, which is noted and has been communicated. And lastly, the commissioning of the PAPI light system, which will require the FAA to fly over from Oklahoma and do three test passes with the electricians, Northeast Electric on site to adjust as needed. So this is, we cannot commission these until the FAA signs off on them. I would also like to thank our staff. This was a, it took a very proactive approach to planning and communicating this project. So the support staff team has been amazing, maintenance, communications that have been distributed and our finance department making sure our RFRs or requests for reimbursements have been on time. We have such large amounts of reimbursements. So that's been amazing and everybody's flexibility has been much appreciated. I am participating in planning with the County and State Emergency Management and the Oregon Disaster Relief Response Team for a disaster response exercise scheduled for October 13th at the airport and Trojan power plant. The exercise will simulate a disaster response in Columbia County with the Scappoose Airport serving as the aviation staging and transportation point. Depending on the exact scenario that we decide to go with, ODART may conduct multiple fixed-wing flights to transport emergency supplies personnel or equipment with potential rotor wing flight. So the idea is that there will be quite a few fixed wing aircraft that fly into Scappoose Airport with supplies as the training, and then a helicopter will take those and transport them up to Trojan, simulating a closed highway scenario so far. There's still more planning details that are coming out on this that we're working to make sure, communications will be key for this exercise coordination, what our role is as an airport in this regional response. Very excited about this, been working for a long time to get this going with the county and the state. So, and we're happy that Trojan is willing to offer their site. Any questions about that? As a reminder, the 99s will be at Scappoose Airport on September 20th to repaint the Scappoose identifier on the ground. We have continued planning with NWAC for their grand reopening on September 27th. And our advisory committee meeting, our next advisory committee meeting will be on October 5th at 5 p.m. here at the port office. Lastly, I just want to share that I participated in a week-long training with the American Association Airport Executives Airport Certified Employee Program, which was a training and then a certification. So I've now gained my Airport Certified Employee General Aviation Management Certificate. I'm really excited about that. That was a very long process, and I feel very official about that. I think my key takeaways for that was AIP funding, so airport improvement program funding through the federal government, and then revenue disbursement and how that works.

There's a lot of takeaways, but those were my two keys.

But overall, it's been a fairly busy few months, six months, year, and I feel like it's been very productive at the airport. We've completed significant airport project, and we're continuing to move to another project. We've strengthened our partnerships, our communication with our tenants, and I feel like we're building more trust with our transparency and communication out there. Does anybody have any questions?

No, but congratulations on that. I'd really like, if you have time, to give us more detailed information about what that looks like. Sure. Yeah, I think it's very, very important that we're keeping up with the times. I mean, for a little airport, yeah, this is great.

It was very enlightening.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you. good morning i emailed back and forth with steve nelson he's out uh this week or he'd be here um he uh we got pictures of bag house components coming in uh just right here in the parking lot so um much of that is still happening as far as getting all that you know they brought some of that from some other facilities of theirs um i'm not sure how local but uh they transferred some of that equipment Uh, I don't have a schedule yet as far as when they plan to get it installed, waiting for him to let us know that we can get him here next month to talk with you. So, and I won't wait if I find out more about that. I'll let everybody know. Kim, I would wanted to call on you to ask if you had anything as far as genetics goes any anything that to share from the city's perspective.

I do not.

Okay. You're here, so I figured, you know, we'd have you weigh in.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, so I'll keep you posted on that. As you know, we're seeing big, maybe you don't know, big piles down at Clearwater. And same in Rainier. We've seen the Teevens piles pretty big, and we're pretty sure it's because of the dino wave incident, the Nippon dino wave incident in Longview where they're not accepting. So a lot of the wooded ships are sawdust or going elsewhere or accumulating, I guess, but it's affected our harvest as well out at the tree farm, so.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, so I think, well, obviously their wood chips are for making paperhead upstream, so they're probably having extra because of the extra amount, I'm guessing. Yeah, more to follow on the genetics. We'll keep working it, make sure we're going to get some improvements. In the summer here, so the pressure's on for them, so.

Good, thank you. And tourism update.

Clipboard. Found that in the supply closet. It's very handy. Hi, how is everyone? And Brian online. All right, Columbia County Tourism. So, Wella is not here. She had a pre-scheduled Alaska vacation, which is her daughter. But I'll have her do updates or we'll do them directly in the future. But for today, it will be me. I brought props. I wanted to give you guys a brief update on our progress getting Columbia County tourism efforts back up and running through the port. Since starting in mid-August, the initial focus has been on rebuilding the basic infrastructure of the DMO. We finalized all the administrative pieces, established the tourism email, the social media backup and running filing system, et cetera. And we began rebuilding our countywide tourism business and stakeholder contact list. And we also received existing tourism assets and big thank you to the City of Scappoose, Lori and team and Sierra and County Commissioner Garrett and actually Commissioner Smith was there as well that day where we transferred like physical assets like these and Commissioner Garrett helped us with the digital assets also. They were stewards or sort of babysitters of the tourism assets from CET when they shut down. sure mr commissioner smith oh kelly joe oh yeah commissioner yes yes we have a new port commissioner smith you haven't met them i forgot kelly joe's last name she's there also and then um yes commissioner garrett was uh helped us with the digital assets very much appreciated uh and i'll just share this right now well so we have um just some physical assets and i thought i would take an opportunity to just tell you a little bit about the tourism brand travel oregon gave CET money to develop the countywide tourism brand. So that is this, and we've all seen this around, but just to be clear, this is the regional tourism brand, but also is used to promote regional economic development. Essentially, it just brands the region. It's not for, for example, county services, but it's for promoting Columbia County as a region for tourism and economic development. And the I Wander stickers that you've probably seen, this is, it's essentially the tagline, Wander Columbia County, or I Wander, so. Just for clarity, I thought I would props are always good when you're speaking. Okay, we've also been we connected with each city and, of course, the county to share the news. Well, it has been out there talking to everyone. I physically have spoken with North county Jasmine all the way through the county and we'll head out to with her at some point also, but she's on top of that. She's been great. We've been also reconnecting Columbia county with our state and regional tourism partners. So Travel Oregon and Travel Portland have been notified that the port's now serving as the countywide DMO. And we've been added to their industry collaboration platform. This has allowed us to catch up on opportunities and information that were missed during the hiatus. One of the big focuses is the OTIS system, O-T-I-S, the Oregon Tourism Information System. And you get the data in there, basically, and it propagates across the internet. And journalists pick things up from that That's sort of the original data source that is spread everywhere. And this feeds business attraction and event information into Travel Oregon's statewide tourism network. We've updated, you know, we're just updating things throughout the county. There's a lot that was missed in there. For example, the paddle shack wasn't even there. So we have that updated along with, we're working through each city, North County, South County, and Vernonia. We also, well, put out a countywide tourism industry survey on social media to gain feedback. And the next phase will focus on outreach and visibility. We will finalize legally securing brand assets and work through the legal paperwork to officially be the DMO with Travel Portland and Travel Oregon. We'll be sending out a monthly tourism newsletter. We're going to apply for, there's a grant opportunity with CRPUD. So we're going to apply for a $5,000 Columbia River PUD grant application to help support eligible DMO operating expenses. And that's about it. These first few weeks have really been about rebuilding the foundation and reconnecting. And then from here, we're going to shift towards business engagement, promotion, and identifying opportunities like the infrastructure, the chunks of infrastructure money that is obviously on our radar also. Do you guys have any questions?

Yeah, I'm interested in how it's going with Travel Oregon and Portland.

So we have spoken with both of them. They know what's going on. And Bob is back. So I'm going to talk to him about some of the legal, you know, any paperwork that we need to do to get that designation, the DMO designation officially. But they're aware and, you know, on board and everyone's excited about it. Oh, good. Yes. Okay.

Yeah, it's been well received and you have contacts you're dealing directly directly with now we do.

Yes.

So it's not just you just well, it's also you and Sean.

Yes, Sean. Yes.

Good. Good.

Yeah, we are working through that and we will definitely keep you posted on that specific aspect.

All right, thank you so much. It's fun. Okay, let's get up and let's sit back down.

Okay, Community Giving Awards. This is our second round of the Community Giving Awards, and we are doing $2,000 twice a year, $1,000 for two people, but we carried over $250, so we have $2,250 to give. And the two awardees that were selected this time are one from Basin Rainier, the 11th Hour Response Team, for $1,125. The 11th Hour Response Team serves seniors, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and survivors of domestic violence throughout Columbia County. They provide handyman and property assistance to people who can't afford it or aren't physically able to do it. One of their big focuses is building wheelchair ramps, for example. They also do home maintenance and repairs, winterization, things along those lines. They also provide the materials and the equipment needed to complete the projects. They serve roughly 200 people a year, and our funding will be used to purchase an electric push mower, roof patching supplies, and additional batteries for their tools. This is the first time they've received it, the second time they applied. Their work supports livability in our region by helping our most vulnerable residents and is based in Rainier. That's sort of the connection with the mission, a little bit of tending to our vulnerable citizens. The second award is the St Helens Main Street Alliance, also for 1,125. And it's for the Imagine Your Business Here initiative. It's a year round program focused on reducing commercial vacancies in Holton and Riverfront districts of St Helens. It places branded signage in the vacant storefronts to promote those spaces as business opportunities. It connects prospective entrepreneurs with available properties, and it brings property owners together to share information and identify ways to attract and retain tenants. The program expects to directly serve about 30 to 50 property owners and prospective business owners each year. The court's award will help fund the storefront signage and property owner convenings. This is also the first time they're receiving it and the second time they've applied. And this program obviously has a very direct connection to economic development that's quite obvious. And yeah, we're excited about both of these guys and thank you to them for applying. And that's it, unless you have any questions for me. Oh, that's great.

All right.

It's fun stuff. All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Resolution 2026-23, Mr. Glenn.

Good morning, Commissioners. Winnie? I'll be brief, but if you do have questions, I'll be glad to answer them. Before you this morning is Resolution 2026-23, adoption of a plan of action from the Oregon Secretary of State. Secretary of State requires an adopted plan of action whenever significant deficiencies, material weaknesses, and recommendations for improvements have been reported by auditors and associations with a financial statement audit. Supports auditors at Kern Thompson, identified a material weakness and significant deficiency in the Ports fiscal year 2025 audit, which was submitted to the Oregon Secretary of State on March 20th of this year. Kern Thompson presented the audit during the Ports Commission meeting on May 13th. To comply with state requirements, we have developed a plan for corrective action The plan and resolution will be sent to Oregon's Secretary of State once adopted. And I'm recommending adoption of Resolution 2026-23. And can I answer any questions you have?

Yeah, you didn't actually define the deficiency?

It's in the plan, but I didn't know how much detail you wanted to go into.

I think just for the record, it'd be nice to just have a summary of it.

There was within each the material weakness and then there's a significant deficiency and there were two items included with each of those areas in the report. I can go into the first one is on the American Jet Center loan receivable and disposition of assets. We recorded that.

We had it in corrected.

amount in our books. We didn't reduce the value of our asset after it was sold on the balance sheet. So that was one. The other one was insurance proceeds from the Port Westward dock incident. Those funds were put into operating revenue instead of non-operating revenue. That was in our financial system, but I did note it on all the statements that I provided to a commission meeting here that it was included in operating revenue. It just wasn't recorded correctly. Interest expense and revenue related to interpretation of the Port Westward conduit debt obligation, and that's for the money that we receive. Where does it come from? But to pay off the loan that was originally in place that has been put into... Global Rail Loan. Yeah. And so that goes out to the local districts around the Clouds Canine area there. And so we had recorded it the same way as we did the year before. But then when we recorded it this year, they said it's more... more of a debt like a loan than than how we were recording it even though it's not a loan anyway so they wanted us to do that differently this year and then the last one is they wanted me to do an analysis on the our accounts receivable and determine any uncollectible accounts receivable and We're supposed to come up with a plan on that every year. And in the past, when our AR was a lower balance, we just adjusted it the fiscal year in. But they would like us to do that every month. So set up a target for the whole year and then divide it out per month so that we're technically mitigating for any potential uncollectible accounts receivable.

It's amazingly detailed that they care that much about.

The auditors ultimately work for you as commissioners.

No, I mean that the state cares. I can understand why the auditors care, but why does the state care so much?

We're not supposed to make mistakes.

I just don't view those insurance issues as mistakes, Guy. We knew that would be. extremely difficult to work through. So it's considered advice. I mean, more than advice, but corrections maybe that just don't see it as, I don't see it as a mistake. And it's going to be very, very tricky. The way that operation works, we're funding through third parties and being reimbursed and

I don't want to make any mistakes, but they were made. So this plan just complies with the requirements by the Oregon Secretary of State.

Right. Thank you very much. Do I hear approval of Resolution 202623? Moved. Moved and seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you so much, Guy. Executive director report.

Good morning again. Get that on the real quick while we're waiting for that to come up. We have a city county October 6th here in Columbia City.

We're going to do it at the Elks.

At the Elks. Okay. That's good. Columbia City hosting at the Elks. Close enough. Any takers on that at evening at 10-6?

I'd like to go, but yeah, if I'm around, I can make it as well.

Robert?

Yeah, I would like to.

Brian? I think it's good. We can do it. It doesn't, you know, we don't have to. No, we can all go.

I know. I'd like to make it. I'll see. I have to check my schedule when I get back.

On the calendar run. Robert, Nancy, Brian.

Yeah, we might have a full house. That's good. Uh, I know other places do that. They send multiple folks too. So that's good. Um, also with the, um, celebration of the airport reopening on the 27th. We'd like to know who on the commission would like to go for an airplane, right? I know Robert say yes. What day is it? Saturday the 20th. Sunday the 27th.

I mean, Indiana, or I would do it in a heartbeat. I'm not taking your ride for you, Robert.

I'm not going to do it.

You should. No, everybody should go. Sorry, I can't be here. Anyone else?

Any takers? I'm good. On the 27th, you said? Yeah. I can be there. Yeah.

27th?

Yeah, Sunday. Yeah, I'll definitely be there, but I'm not flying, so...

i'll take video if you'd like all right should i ask who the pilot is okay all right student pilot student pilot i want to fly the drone that's that's what i want to fly uh slide please

That's the fanfare out there. That was the vessel that just loaded, by the way. Thank you, Sam. We've seen that class vessel back in the ethanol days from before, too. I don't know if we've seen the fanfare, but we definitely saw a whole slew of those same branded vessels back in the day. So folks making the same run to Asia. Elliot, where did that vessel end up going? Do you know? I haven't seen where she's going yet. OK. Asia. We know they're going Asia, though. Yeah, so that's trickling out. What do we have, about every six weeks or so, roughly?

It's been a little slower than that, but expecting significant volume increases over time. Nice.

Okay, go ahead, Sam, with the slide. That's an interesting picture. We've got closure coming, interesting, on part of that site out there, the Beaver site. which as many of you remember that particular footprint was where some of those silos were. If you saw the old pictures or those little domes that they were storing ammunition in, Army came in and took those out, put a bunch of dreads, spoils, I think, in there and got the site all leveled and built the tanks to 1970 standards. And here they are coming down now with just the shift in their fuel, right? They started out being able to do Bunker C, natural gas and diesel, and now Beaver's limited to just natural gas. So they can't even burn diesel. I think their generators, I believe, will burn diesel, their backup generators. So that's an interesting shift, a metamorphosis, an evolution, if you will, for the site. And as you know, Port Westford wanted to only burn natural gas as well. So yeah, interesting history happening out there. Uh, you can see the meetings that we've had, uh, the Northwest Area Commission on Transportation. There are our region, the other seven regions in the state. The Northwest Act is one we're part of. Commissioner Ward sits on, represents, um, getting ourselves ranked with the, they're, uh, ranking our, our region, our Northwest Act regions, um, projects, which was the last meeting. And then yesterday you, uh, did you attend that meeting? Uh, where I think it's, it's everywhere, right? It's the whole state where they're talking about. Yes.

Yes, that was very interesting. And it was interesting to me that they just recently, I think just this last round, did they include new people on the panel, the judging panel, like the League of Oregon Cities and a couple of other people like that? And it's like, I'm real curious about how that came to be.

Yeah, people want to seat at the table. I don't know that answer, but we could find out how that expanded. I just saw the breadth of projects. I pulled the list up earlier in the meeting here because Bill Jablonski from ODOT sent out a list. Yeah, it's a huge list. It's all the regions, all the projects ranked. So we feel good about our project, but I don't think we know yet. When will we know, Elliot, on the Connect? I think it'll be early October. Okay, early October for Connect. Hey, Sean.

Yes, sir. I received news this morning that we made it to the second round, so I'm not sure if that had been communicated yet, but we made past the first cut for the Connect Oregon project. Okay.

Thank you. I didn't get through all of Bill's email.

I was trying not to be too distracted here, but I was excited for that.

So, yeah, thank you, Brian. Second round.

That's good.

Okay. The federal coordination committee, I want to tell you a little bit about that. That's that's where the. There's the executive committee, there's 4 of us and we talk with the folks back in D. C. that represent our interest back there and.

There's, as you can imagine, there's just a lot of consternation right now in D. C. and we're tracking some, some items that.

Uh, you know, may affect ports, but the big things were to, you know, the Water Resource Development Act and getting that through and approved.

So the core can be consistently funded.

Next couple of fiscal years, so the next biennium, so they, uh. They do a lot of good workforce there. I think my challenge will be figuring out how to leverage some of their work and the Salem lobbyists work and injecting myself into some of that as well. So I look forward to doing some of that. I know PNWA does more trips back to DC. A lot of those are focused on not necessarily just navigation. They've got You know, they got the other interests, the ag stuff. So. Selectively looking at some of those trips, maybe, but then definitely getting down to Salem during the session.

So I'll be gone a little more.

Uh, slide please. All right, we do have the annual PNWA convention coming up in October. I didn't put that on the calendar yet, but Nancy's been representing the port on PNWA, and I think that's going well, but you're welcome. It's closed. If you'd like to come and check out what they're doing, let me know. We can get any of you registered for that to attend. It's a couple of two and a half days, I think, or at least one and a half. Where is it? Vancouver at the Hilton. You always do it at the Hilton.

Always worthwhile.

So I'll send out some more ticklers on that. If you guys want to register, we can get you registered for it. It's a lot of homework, though, for that. That's an indebted. Yeah, yeah. They do good, they do good work. It's really good. Oh, fascinating.

You just sit there and one speaker after another comes in and gives you this unbelievable overview of everything that's going on. It's tremendous.

Yeah. Great organization. Any questions on my calendar? I got the next, the upcoming month calendar in front of you there. Anything of significance? Oh, we should find out now. September 23rd would be our scheduled work session. It's TBD. I don't know if we have a work session topic, but just want to find out here now if we wanted to hold a place for that. And if you had anything that you would like to talk about, we could get some stuff together for that. But if not, we can, we're going to have the open house coming up. I'm just trying to think of a couple other get togethers that we're going to have. So it's up to you guys if you want to do a work session.

I think it kind of depends on where we go with the marina, if there's anything we need to come back together for and have a public discussion on. That's the only thing I can think of.

Okay, this is in two weeks currently.

Because I know we have some things pending that have not been resolved yet. And so would that be a good opportunity to go over those finite issues?

Either that, or we can assemble the Marina team also at your guys call. But yeah, if you want public dissemination, that's pretty big.

This is, you know, I would. Think that every commissioner would be interested in. This final final, because it will be our last. Chance to bring up any questions or pose any issues that.

Also necessary Christian word. I think your point is good because typically we give you 14 days to review these. So. If you were to get it the day, at least you have the option to approve it, but you also.

Have 14 days, so potentially, I don't know where we'll be in 2 weeks, but so I'm meeting with Peter on Friday and the result of those, then I've got to go back to this lawyer. So we'd have to have the thing on the set, the agenda sent out a week from today for the 23rd. I don't think we'd make that deadline just because I got to go through Peter and then his lawyer. I won't be done in a week, in other words.

Some of these issues, Bob, I point out, too, are kind of what we call minutiae. They're kind of legal issues.

Business. I call business terms a lot. There's about three big ones. So more accurately might be... You know, a week or 2 later after the 23rd, whatever those dates are. I don't think we'll have it ready by the 23rd to handle with our normal or next commission meeting.

Yeah, probably. I mean, I don't know. We don't know what we don't know. So let's just. Play it by ear then and say, if we need 1, it won't be in 2 weeks, but it could be in 3 weeks. I just don't want to I don't want to preclude the option.

I wouldn't preclude the option if it fit the circumstances to have a phone call in single topic. It goes anytime if you have a marine topic needs resolved. I understand.

But I also think that it's very important that the public be included because this is something brand new. And building trust and transparency to me is very important in this whole process with something we have never done before. Just my personal view. But let's just wait and see.

So I would say the potential for the 30th, not the 23rd. If anything, the 30th. Then you've still got two weeks before the next meeting.

I'm available via phone call if something needs to be discussed, if we need to take a vote on that. Yeah.

OK. Can do. I have one question on the next 106 MOU discussions. How are those going? I know it's been messed up a little bit in terms of guidance.

Elliot, would you mind that? He's been representing us on that. But actually, it's good to point out we have stewardship solutions is actually our consultant that's working with folks.

Maybe it's an intro of what it is.

So the Section 106 is basically they're consulting with the tribes on how to preserve the cultural resources of the area. And so this is actually stewardship is shepherding the process. It's an Army Corps process. And stewardship is working for Next under this because it's their... It's their permit, their consultation, so we are not sitting in. All the meetings, because there's some. We're excluded because the tribes are somewhat sensitive. About discussion of what artifacts may or may not be on this. Area keeping that where it is. So, our discussions are mostly along education, developing curriculum. things like putting placards up to talk about what was there and the peoples there and that kind of thing. There was a little bit of misunderstanding that BDIC thought it was specifically about the canals or the ditches. It's not, it's more of these cultural things that I'm describing. So it's a very slow process. meeting again next week. But again, I'm not sitting in with... Some tribes attend the meetings, but the people we talk with are like the Historical Society and the BDIC attended the last meeting. And there was a representative from the Grand Ronde at that meeting. But the bigger group of tribes is meeting independently of us.

So it's not just one tribe, it's...

In the side group, it's, I think, three.

Umatilla, Grand Ronde, and Cowlitz.

I don't know if Umatilla is shown. Grand Ronde, Cowlitz. Cowlitz has been there, Grand Ronde, and I'm forgetting the third.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Unless you have questions.

Question? OK.

moving on to commissioner reports brian why don't you take the lead on this love to see your face if you if that's possible you can do it i'm not somewhere sunny and warm i uh i don't actually have any update though good to see y'all looking good though you look good john jamie's over there

Robert, yeah, a couple of things. 1st of all, I'd like to congratulate Lacey on her. Individual effort and accomplishment to secure that awards.

Accreditation that's fantastic.

My biggest point I want to raise today is I. It may be my perception, but I'm feeling from the, from the tenants at port westward. I'm not feeling the love it's a commission or it's a, it's a policy level at all. Now, I understand that the parties are working quite well, I believe, with Elliot. I'll let him speak. But technically, we're working well. And you see some of that with Mr. Lensner, who is not the communicator that we had before, period. But I understand that Global is working well with you on operational stuff and things going on. And when he says things like, as you are aware, I'm not aware or I wouldn't be asking you. And it's not a failure to communicate. It's that they deal on a technical level, and I want to know at the policy level what the plan is. And to be blunt, and those tanks have been discussing, they've held the permits for how many years now? And they've come to some of us several times with the urgency. We've got to get something done with the BDIC, and we've got to get these things done. And then we do them, and nothing comes of it. So I expect a little more, and we just aren't hearing from... from Boston much. PGE is the same way. We've asked the update on the tank stuff. And I know they're working operationally with you, but what's the grand strategy? When are we taking down water tanks? Someone was asked to be present. We haven't heard yet. We asked them, their specific government affairs lady, I cannot remember who it was because it changes quite often, but the tax implications to the taxing districts on the value of those tanks, which could be zero and it could be huge. For 1 year, I've seen before when they've done a 1 year reduction that 1 year, they didn't feel all the tanks up. They applied for a rebate from the county, which cost all the districts. A lot of money, I can't remember the numbers back then, but that could happen again this year or not. And I've asked and they offered that information and then never come up with it. So. And next energy to me is just radio silent. I. Some of you got to meet with them. I didn't. I put in a call, almost a return call. It hasn't happened yet. So I understand there's not a lot going on. I understand there's a lot of things to do, but it just feels like all of the tenants out there are, when I first came on this commission, it's kind of that way. They ran that place. They really didn't want the port in their business. And And that's not the business model we're under anymore. And I don't like to see that. If we're gonna talk about environmental stewardship and all the things we're here for, we need to be not only aware of, but ahead of what's happening out there. I'm not sure that's what's going on. When's the last time Global sent a delegation out? We were meeting quarterly. And maybe it doesn't need to be quarterly, but somehow we need to know what's going on. They've had a lot of personnel changes. And frankly, I'm not very clear who's who anymore. I'm not sure if they are. Maybe it's still sorting out. But on all three of these, I think they just could do a lot better job. And to Next Energy especially, your communication strategy is pretty confusing to me. And not only with the commission, but the public with what's going on. I mean, I don't know how many times you guys get stopped in the grocery store and the post office asked about the project, but it's every day for me. And having to say I don't know and having to read about things is not the position I want to be in. So I'm not sure how we get around that, but I think it's something. PGE is taking down their tanks. Yeah, that's correct. Halfway through or so, sort of, maybe. I would like to get some new aerial photos of that area too. The water tanks, they told us. was scheduled to be demoed soon and i said we might have an interest of being out there and watching them and then their pipeline i mean are you is it in the long range plan to demo that or when it's on our property can we find out is there a secondary use for it is there use for the stands i mean all these things so oh yeah maybe some of that's not fair to what it's happening at your level

Maybe I need to communicate more with you. I mean, on the operational side, the communications between us are actually pretty good. That is what I'm hearing, to be fair. So we do talk quite a bit with the guys at the dock. I mean, CPBRN, PG saw them yesterday. As for downtown Portland, I would agree with your assessment. I can't say how they were prior to my time, but I don't feel those are particularly great. But I don't know if there's any initiatives that we don't really know about. I'll do a better job of communicating them upward. And definitely CPBR, there's But the guys on the plan are having the same issue. With Boston, if they need something. Sometimes it's hard to get answers out. If Boston wants something, then of course, they, they. They do communicate pretty well, but they do. We've been working diligently actually trying to. Find a good move forward on this. I mean, you know, they have come through on grant commitments. I say that. So. But it takes an effort to get that right. It's not like 1 phone call.

It's not the 1 you've been struggling with a long time. Yeah.

So, yes, there is some challenge there, but we're not alone in that. I don't think it's specifically them again with the port. I think it's really just. They're having a big digestion of these terminals and in Texas and the Gulf, and that's got their attention.

Again, I would like to say that I don't contribute any of this to bad actors or ill will, but I have noticed that when we don't assert ourselves somewhat, we get lost in the shuffle. We're smaller. I totally understand that. We're probably a pain in their backside for both PG and global, but that's their problem.

I've got an idea, Robert, that... that kind of hopefully would address this. But, you know, we have the oversight committee that talks about the O&M operations maintenance and stuff out there. They meet annually. What we don't have is a regular meeting of the next level up, like the decision makers. where we all get together because like we talked, Nancy, you remember on the call we had with, when Chris didn't show and we were talking with Austin and I said, you know, we're tired of the rock mentality, moving a rock when we have a project and you say, that's not, we can't do that when we do studies. Why don't we just get together and say this is an energy facility to energy park? What is going to work? What's not going to work? Where should it go? Get their buy in so that maybe they feel a part of what we're trying to do out there, even though it's our property, but. Their stakeholders, then there's infrastructure that'll be needed to be shared as we know with these agreements, but we get that next level get together where we have. I mean, maybe we have to. Before that, go to Boston and bum rush them, I guess, and say, hey, you know, we're still in this together. We got a lease for another however many years and try to get that direct connect. But I think if we can hopefully get those right decision makers, you know, because even Austin at the plant level, he doesn't have any awareness of the tax implications of the tank farm. Right. But we were promised that. That's what frustrates me.

Yeah. Sometimes if the answer is we don't know, that's a good answer, a fair answer. That's the answer. But it makes me decide how I want to spend money and time and efforts. I suspect that the tank farm issue is because they haven't committed commodity-wise. I don't want to speak for them, and clearly they're well above my pay grade, but I've just seen such a reluctance to commit. But this is the first time I've ever heard it was based on state safety studies or whatever you say.

Yeah, he's I think he's referring to Oregon Senate bill 1567.

But, uh, and that may be news. I haven't heard it free to be an issue if they'd have built them when they got the permits things have changed. And now with the big tank farm gone, which was never really viable, but. It's interesting. I mean, for example, some of the implications are the fire district that I serve on owns two of the three known pieces of fire equipment to fight those fires effectively west of the airport. I'm going to have tank farms anymore. Now we have, you know, they're doing an ethanol shipment, which is good. And these will work quite well for that. But, you know, if they decide to start moving something non flammable, we've got a lot of training money and things tied up in something we don't even have anymore. So it'd be nice to know that a little bit ahead.

I'll send a link to the meeting and say, I'll save them some time. They can fast forward to director's comments and to the government relations person that we'll find out their name and Katie. and say, hey, we want to have some more flow of communication here.

We understand you're busy, and we understand that we're a small part of a giant portfolio, but we are a part, and we need to know what we're doing.

I think that question, like Austin may not know, but he is incredibly responsive. And if we put that question to him, if he doesn't know the answer, he would get it.

I think he was in the meeting when somebody promised us that answer, another person. And maybe they're not sure what I'm asking yet, but it could be a huge thing and I don't want to say we were sitting around here and watched it happen. So, yeah, I do find Austin extremely helpful. He's very helpful. And I think Mr. Lensner is probably quite good at what he does, but he's not good at what Dan used to do for us. So not yet anyway.

We did also propose a meeting in Boston in October, but have not received a response to that. So we're trying.

Let me know those dates, would you, Chris? October 7th, if I'm not mistaken, or 8th? 8th, 9th. I have a meeting in Boston in October, maybe so.

Anyway, that was my thought there. So whatever we can do to put the attention back on, I think will be helpful for us.

All good points. That's it.

Thank you both. I don't have any at this point.

OK. Well, I will say in the meeting with Mr. Eifert, there isn't a lot going on. It's waiting, waiting to see what happens with this last permit. And they do expect, they're hoping, that by the end of the year, they will have an answer. He also talked about they sold Red Rock. And so they're no longer involved in that particular issue. And that right now they're just, they have cut as much to the bone as they possibly can to save as much money as they can while they wait. And he also mentioned one thing that I thought was very interesting. He said, you know, I don't really blame Oregon. we didn't really have a permitting problem with oregon our permitting problem is with the federal government with the army corps and it has been arduous as you know you know the gold post again has been moved several times so you know we're all just sitting and waiting i don't want the state to get cocky but you know it's it's uh good to parrot that that it's not the state our state agencies that that have held them back

Because I think they get a lot of unfair criticism, but also some.

And we all do kind of lump not getting a permit into Oregon. And of course, that's absolutely not true. And this has been particularly difficult for whatever reason. And it's going to be, you know, it'll be interesting to see if this affects, you know, the outcome and what that outcome is going to be waiting and waiting and waiting. commissioner that could see the project at his living room window would like to hear from him once in a while yes on all three of these boats yes absolutely all right and executive session oh i'm so sorry um nothing echoing what robert uh said there about lacy's achievement excellent job and

Airports open that's exciting. I know that was a long haul for everyone to endure and very excited about our new direction with the marina and new operator and hopefully we can get things straightened up soon enough. So, and appreciate all the staff's work on that and the slides and.

That's it, I think it's fair to give Bob some credit here because he's no, absolutely tirelessly with Peter back and forth and she has really appreciated his efforts and a full time job.

Summer of the marina.

Yeah, yeah. We're glad we're not paying you separately for those.

Should be.

No kidding.

Oh, and I did forget to mention how fun it is to have tourism now. It's really exciting to hear something that we can see the results of very quickly, rather than 10-year waits to move the goalposts. So yeah, good work. And now we're ready.

Do you like me to read the script?

I would love for you to read the script.

What do you read? Florida, Columbia County. Yes.

I just interrupted, but you sent out the three issues, right? And so if we had questions, I didn't have questions on any of them. Others may, but I didn't. Yep, others do.

Port of Columbia County will now meet an executive session pursuant to ORS 192.660 subsection 2E to deliberate with persons designated to negotiate real property transactions and 2F to consider exempt public records including written legal advice from Port General Counsel. Representatives of the news media and designated staff are allowed to attend. Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the discussions or deliberations that occur during this or any executive session. The port will return to open session after the executive session and will announce any decisions that are the result of the discussions. We do not expect to announce any decisions. Any persons excluded from executive session are welcome to return to open session when it is resumed. Thank you.

Oh, say it again, would you, Nancy?

Meeting adjourned.