For Immediate Release
For More Information:
Carolyn Casey, Port of Bellingham, 360-676-2500
Encourages Staff to Pursue Other Job-Creating Uses
[Bellingham, Wash.] The Port of Bellingham's Board of Commissioners decided Wednesday that they will not submit a formal protest of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) site selection and lease acquisition process.
The key reason the Commission did not submit a protest was because analysis demonstrated that Bellingham likely would not be chosen even if it won a protest on several technical rating issues. Pursuing a protest could cost up to $300,000 in Port funds, according to legal experts the Port consulted with prior to the decision.
The state of Oregon provided nearly $20 million in bonding capacity to the Port of Newport's project, which allowed Newport to greatly reduce its project costs. This state assistance resulted in Newport's lease proposal being $1.5 million a year less than the Bellingham offer.
The Commission voted on a motion to cease all spending on the effort to protest the NOAA site selection after more than two hours in an executive session to discuss the legal issues at stake.
"While we are very disappointed that Bellingham was not selected, we do not believe it is in the best public interest to launch a legal protest," said Port Commission Vice President Jim Jorgensen. "We believe that a protest might result in moderate changes to our odds, but would not cause NOAA to change its site decision in favor of Bellingham."
The legal protest that was being considered would have cost about $25,000 for the initial filing and could have cost between $200,000 to $300,000 for the full protest effort.
In the public meeting that followed the closed session, the Port of Bellingham's Attorney Frank Chmelik showed detailed charts that showed how the Bellingham and Newport sites were assigned rating points on about 30 different elements.
The Newport site rated higher both in the site technical comparison and in the price comparison, Chmelik said.
"The Port and our community did everything we could to submit a proposal that demonstrated the quality of our project, the benefits of our community, the strength of our site and the skills of our team," said Commissioner Doug Smith. "But none of that could fully compare to Newport's proposal, which included underwriting by the full state of Oregon."
Last week NOAA announced that it had selected Newport, Ore., for the Pacific Research Fleet homeport facility. The facility is currently located on Lake Union in Seattle. The Seattle location, as well as the Port of Bellingham and the Port of Port Angeles were all in competition with Newport for a 20-year lease for the ships and their upland facilities.
On Monday, Port officials travelled to Seattle for a three-hour debriefing from NOAA about its selection process. In that debriefing, Port officials were told how the Bellingham Shipping Terminal ranked in a long list of categories, in comparison with the other locations.
Port Interim Executive Director Fred Seeger recommended the Commission not pursue a protest of the site selection process.
"We have spent the past two weeks gathering information and have learned that -- even if we proved there were discrepancies in the technical evaluation process -- that likely would not overcome the significant price difference being offered by Newport and the State of Oregon," Seeger said. "We also learned that we would not be able to recover our costs in submitting a proposal, so we would be spending public money - especially in these difficult economic times -- without a chance of regaining any of it."
Both Commissioners told Seeger that the Port's priority now should be on pursuing new job-creating opportunities for the deep-draft shipping terminal. They noted that the terminal now is at full occupancy providing moorage for several large vessels and that Port staff is in conversation with several potential new businesses for the site.
Port Commission President Scott Walker was unable to attend the meeting due to a death in his family. Chmelik said Walker had been briefed on the issue by phone earlier in the day.
