The Grays Harbor County commissioners approved funding for Greater Grays Harbor Inc. and received bids for the third court room expansion.
A visitors information center is situated in West Aberdeen near the Hoquiam border. That visitor center is run by Greater Grays Harbor Inc.
The city of Aberdeen and the county in years past have split a $40,000 annual bill for the visitors information center.
On Monday, Nov. 13, the commissioners approved $20,000 in lodging lax funding for the visitors information center. The funding had been recommended by the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee.
Commissioner Wes Cormier was the lone dissenting vote.
Cormier also serves on the LTAC board and had voted against the measure before it came to the commissioners. He said his vote with the commissioners was an effort to “stay consistent.”
“I voted no at the LTAC meeting,” Cormier said. “I have historically voted no about this because it gets 5,000 visitors a year and Aberdeen contributes $20,000 and now tourism contributes $20,000, so $40,000. As I’ve said in the past I think that we’re moving away from visitor information centers, and that’s how I’ve voted historically.”
By Cormier’s math, that works out to about $8 spent per visitor.
“For me, on top of the $88,000 we give them, I especially can’t see giving them another $20,000 to fund their operations,” Cormier said.
The $88,000 — which Cormier also voted against — was granted from the .09 fund (for economic development) and covers a portion of the salary for Greater Grays Harbor Inc.’s CEO Dru Garson. The .09 fund is a separate fund from the lodging tax fund. Allocations are not interchangeable between the two funds — .09 funds can only be spent for economic development, and the lodging tax can only be spent to further tourism ventures.
Commissioner Randy Ross disagreed with Cormier’s opinion that visitor’s centers are outdated.
“There are still a lot of visitors who come through the county looking for things to do and places to see, and not everybody uses a smartphone or the Internet,” Ross said. “I still think we’re getting a good value.”
Third courtroom
The commissioners received two bids on Nov. 13 for a remodel project in the county courthouse in Montesano that would see the addition of a third superior court courtroom.
The county is required to build a third courtroom as part of a settlement to a lawsuit filed by the Grays Harbor County Superior Court judges.
The county’s third courtroom project had been fourth in line to receive funding for construction through the state’s historic preservation fund, but following budget concerns, only the projects ranked in the top 3 will receive funding (when the state’s capital budget is passed).
While state funding is not completely off the table it also looks unlikely at this point, and the commissioners are pushing forward with the project anyway.
Using $500,000 from the public safety sales tax, and additional funding from a special fund for the project, the commissioners plan to fund the project without state funding. The project has been estimated at $613,000.
The two bids were on either end of the $613,000 estimate. Local contractor Rognlin’s Inc. had the high bid at $750,000. Construct Inc. of Tumwater submitted a bid of $574,000.
Not only will the courtroom serve as a third superior court courtroom, it also will serve as a courtroom for the county’s pending drug court.
The county has received a grant of nearly $400,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice to fund drug court operations, but drug court has been on hold as the county trains staff and awaits the third courtroom.
The commissioners have said they are hoping drug court will launch in early 2018.
