It was a very contentious Port commission meeting tonight with Jeff Bishop reducing the proceeds to that of a schoolyard brawl by resorting to name calling. In yet another desperate plea the Port has paid for an advertisement, the eighth in an occasional series and Bishop elaborated on his authorship by labeling people who disagree with the Port’s positions NIMBYS in a power point presentation. Bishop’s salary is paid for by port district residents and calling your benefactors names is both impolitic and extremely unprofessional so naturally the commissioners went right along with it.
There were a lot of nuggets in tonight’s meeting and amongst them was the revelation that Jordan Cove has paid the Port $11 million towards the now terminated Weyco land deal. Most of this money passed through the Port to Weyco but Bishop claims the Port netted $3 million allowing them to spend on consultants and feasibility studies. That’s $11 million wasted on a now defunct land deal and not a single local job came out of it.
Bishop also took a swing at renewable energy projects as requiring too many tax subsidies while ignoring the much larger fossil fuel subsidies. Is Bishop really this uninformed about natural gas?
Long ago I worked in the commercial real estate development field as a financial officer and controller for some big California developers and I can hear their speech patterns and thought processes in much of Bishop’s babble. Frankly, you have to question the wisdom of a business plan that deliberately takes the hardest path. 
Look at Jordan Cove’s business plan as an example. They fully expect to spend years and risk millions with no guarantee they will ever receive a permit. Even if they get a permit they are now dependent upon someone else to obtain rights to hundreds of miles of private property, spending more years fighting angry landowners and regulatory agencies along the way. Then they will spend billions (albeit heavily subsidized) only to be subject to the volatility of a commodity from foreign countries that really don’t like the US very much.
Surely there are easier and less risky ways to make billions. Oh yes! There are and they often involve investing in local small businesses and renewable resources. ( this is actually one of the subjects of a book I have been working on for some time)
Think how many local jobs $11 million would have produced had it been invested in local small businesses as low interest loans and how many real jobs that might have created. The Port views itself as an economic development agency but it has a worse track record than SCDC yet they expect the public to sit quietly without question, (rather like the Port commissioners) while Bishop tries to lock the Port into 19th century technology in a 21st century world.
The meeting was packed with ORC employees dressed in black and before I forget, the commissioners blithely agreed to risk public funds on no-bid contracts to benefit an undisclosed private firm’s perceived emergency and everything else on the agenda, as usual.
The Port likes to think it is a ‘vocal minority’ who disapprove of their judgment, however, there is a large majority standing behind the no-lng spokespeople
Please join others and write the governor and encourage him to replace the local commission… they have run amok too long
My favorite part of the meeting was watching the looks on the faces of the audience after Jody spoke and mentioned the amount of the signatures gathered on the petitions. That wiped the smugness off quite a few faces. How the hell can they think we’re against jobs or progress? They are the ones living in the past and thinking we will gain from this project. No one knows who will end up owning any part of the project or the gas rights even if they export. China is buying up what it can in the US. You have to ask why the sudden need to sell this stinker to the public again, and why spend money on ads to do so?
As an economic development group the Port is actually much worse than SCDC at creating jobs. Like SCDC, the Port boasts zero job creation but they have spent millions more failing in the exercise. In 2008, $22 million of $58 million in ARRA funds spent on Coos County went to Port related expenditures… the list gets bigger and fault of the commissioners is they have set to goalposts or a measuring stick by which to assess the success of Bishop’s programs. In Niagara Falls, the City Council reduced the salary of their economic development chief from $100,000 to $1.00 because he was a failure at economic development
Rose late today with kidney stone pain only to read mgx and Drudge. Would be interested some day in article authors extensive resume. Bishop may believe that we who do not support that Port feifdom blindly are idiots as one of the local newspaper folks apparently does. We are not. This Port District resident employer of Bishop, a resident that does not oppose the local LNG terminal, who opposes the insanity of LNG vessels in the narrow and shallow channel, knowing that the LNG terminal will be under water at the time of the next tsunami – that may not occur in my life time – believes that it is time to stop standing by as our employee bad mouths us. Those of us who believe that the Port would be of more benefit to the local people who are paying the big bucks in taxes to assure Bishop’s exorbitant salary and perks – knowing that he has his resume on the street and has interviewed for at least one other position – should accelerate the effort to return the port – from the governors selected few political appointees to all of the local people. Sadly, you may have another opportunity to embrace one of these political appointees who aspires to be your next county commissioner.
Is it safe to say you felt Bishop was out of line?