My understanding is Port of Coos Bay commissioners are appointed by the governor and are volunteers and therefore unpaid for their public service. The current crop of commissioners, Brady Scott, Dan Smith, Jerry Hampel, Dave Kronsteiner and Caddy McKeown were appointed by former governor, Ted Kulongoski.
Recent public comments by Port management and commissioners as well as paid advertisements making provably false claims about public safety, taxation, job creation and financial markets raises concern about the competence of those administering Port funds and assets. Jeff Bishop, salaried director of the Port earning six figures, has exaggerated the number of new jobs and downplayed the risks of the proposed Jordan Cove LNG terminal.
Opponents of the terminal don’t know whether Bishop simply hasn’t read the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) as well as the testimony and evidence uploaded by Jordan Cove Energy Partners or if he is deliberately misleading the public. The same holds true with claims about local taxation, engineering designs, geological studies and tsunami modeling.
At the last Port commission it became apparent the commissioners who vote on the critical issues probably don’t read the data either begging the question, just what do they base their decisions on? The Port filed as an intervenor on behalf of the Jordan Cove FERC application. An intervenor is a a party who does not have a substantial and direct interest but has clearly ascertainable interests and perspectives essential to a judicial determination.
As an intervenor, the Port is heavily involved in the permit application and they have submitted comments and testimony to FERC in support of the Jordan Cove project. In addition, the Port has developed an entire business plan to develop a container dock that is contingent upon the Jordan Cove terminal. Commissioner Caddy McKeown appears not to know the Port is an intervenor or if she does, doesn’t understand what it means when she claims the Port is not involved in the permit process.
Caddy: I just want to clarify something and I am getting the impression from the way some of this conversation goes that you are assuming it’s our permit. This is Jordan Cove’s permit. We have the land but the process for the permitting is not ours. And I think there seems to be some confusion about that, uh, (mumbled) they, that’s their job to do… they have to prove that they’re worthy. FERC will reward a permit, that’s not ours. We are not involved in that process. We are involved in owning a piece or having an option right at this moment on a piece of land. And I think a lot of this comes to us maybe inappropriately because this is not our process to go through, its Jordan Cove’s process to go through.
The commissioners, having accepted the appointment to the board, also have a responsibility to the public. They may choose to support the Jordan Cove project but they must also look out for the Port and the public. Governor Kulongoski and the State Attorney General both question the failure of the permit process to properly establish need for an import terminal before taking public land via eminent domain.
While I am not unalterably opposed to the LNG resource being part of the Oregon energy mix, the failure of the permitting process to address whether there is sufficient demand and need for LNG in this region is a serious shortcoming of the FERC permitting process.
The Oregon Department of Energy analysis concludes that the market in the western United States may support, at most, one LNG facility of the size of the three facilities proposed in Oregon. Yet, all three different sites remain under active consideration by FERC. The proposals are requiring local governments and state (and federal) agencies to devote scarce
resources from other pressing problems to evaluate projects that in all likelihood may never be built. FERC’s own website states that:“The market ultimately determines whether an approved LNG terminal is ever built. Even if an LNG terminal project receives all of the federal and state approvals, it still must meet complicated global issues surrounding financing, gas supply and market conditions. Many industry analysts predict that only 12 of the 40 LNG terminals being considered will ever be built.”
The approach of approving far more facilities than will ever be built is unacceptable 10 me. The people of Oregon deserve better. Facilities like LNG terminals, which have the potential for significant environmental impact should only proceed if it is determined that natural gas is needed and after a comprehensive review that determines both environmental and market
objectives are met.
Bishop stated more than a year ago during a Coos County Urban Renewal Agency meeting the Jordan Cove terminal may not be built for twenty years. “These people take the long view”, he said. Of all the feasibility studies paying outside consultants hundreds of thousands of dollars for solid waste disposal plants and container docks on the North Spit the feasibility of building a LNG terminal in a designated hazard zone is not one of them. Yet the commissioners agreed to commit the Port as an intervenor on the Jordan Cove application.
Who is minding the store for the public?
Dear Agahst: Sadly, NO. You can see this throughout the county. She would be expected to recuse herself if there is a perceived conflict of interest. Best example, lovely professional politician Mike Lehman, overpaid county HR manager and airpeort board chair.
If McKeown applies and, god forbid, is appointed to the county commission, would she have to resign from the port commission?
Agreed, fred, it is hard to reconcile how the first selection committee could have chosen some of their finalists and that McKeown could have been one of the top two is scary…
It would be prudent if a letter writing campaign were to begin to offer suggestions for talented and competent replacements. That will be the hard part.
Reverting to an elected commission might be the best solution ultimately but that will obviously take a lot of time… the Port is a train wreck waiting to happen and time is a luxury we don’t have.
Next week I have a meeting with someone who is an expert on how economic development agencies work the system and I hope to learn a lot about econ development in general
Re the letter writing. There is too much misinformation being sent out by Bishop and by others who support and oppose the Port. I realize that the local daily Coos Bay paper considers locals be be uninformed and stupid, but. First, it does not say much for County Commissioner Main’s ability to select a qualified commissioner candidate when his selection is one of the people who you – and I – and many others believe should be replaced at the Port. Perhaps before the letter writing campaign, the people of Coos County should be educated in the “Port District” monster that some of them created by a 1987 vote. Any person reading that 14 year old ballot measure and the promises made to the people will see that the people did not get what they were promised. They should understand “urban renewal” and enterprise zones and how the people are getting screwed. They should understand that it’s a coincidence that the company of the Port board chairman is a beneficiary of Port work. They should understand that the 400 acres of North Spit land that is owned by one Port commissioner and their family is not a part of the planned LNG factory site – perhaps part of the envisioned container / cargo terminal site. They should understand that the LNG factory was desperate for a west coast of the USA home and would have paid us big bucks for the opportunity to site here – but our superb Port board negotiators decided to give the LNG man 15 years tax relief instead. Most people have no idea that the Port does not belong to all people of the county. Most paying the high taxes do not benefit from the Port. The $4 million annual tax that is collected and sent to the Port comes primarily from Coos Bay / Empire and North Bend. That the people sending that money get absolutely no vote in matters governing the Port. That the local taxpayers are treated as trailer trash by the governors political appointee commissioners. Do the folks struggling to support their family on $9 / hour wages and no benefits understand that Bishop is receiving more than $100,000 annually, is getting pay raises, is getting car allowances and other perks, and has accomplished very little since he arrived here. Does he survive because he has an 8 X 10 glossy photo of somebody in a compromising position? And, so much more.
Methinks it might be prudent to start a letter writing campaign to call the new governor’s attention to the Port. Perhaps, as Kulongoski did, Kitzhaber may choose to clean house.
Then the problem is who would he put in there?
The public are coming around and are taking notice of the port for the first time
The public is coming slowly but surely. There will be an effort to place a ballot measure before the people undoing the decision to form a Port District of 13 years ago. People are studying the matter now. The old way did not work. The same professional politicians who were running the port prior to the current bunch ar still local professional politicians. The current way does not work.