Your Daily Patella, or "Why I hate the Port of Vancouver, and you should too!!!"

[Chief]

http://www.westerndredging.org/cgi-bin/mail.cgi/list/Local/

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Here is reason # 3 why you should vote no on the Port’s attempt to raise without a vote of the people, your property taxes. Remember as you read this, it is me speaking to the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce.

REASON # 3

Need another reason to vote NO on the Port’s outrageous attempt to increase your property taxes 132% over the rate they now collect? Do you really believe that the Port had no choice but to rush into this deal with out consulting the people? We don’t. Not for a minute. In what appears to be a good old fashion “deal con-cocked in the proverbial smoked filled backroom”, the Port decided without seeking any input from the taxpayers to impose a property tax that would net them more than 78 million dollars to buy a 48 million dollars property that has been on the market for years with no other apparent buyers.

(Note): They must not have read what President Calvin Coolidge said:

“Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery”.

When we asked why? The Port’s answer was they want to create jobs. Yet, they neglected to disclose to the voters when they rushed to pay a premium price for the property in question, they did not have any prospective employers, and they may not have any for years to come.

How can he say that you are thinking? I can say that because the port, for whatever reason, also neglected to disclose to the people a 150-page settlement agreement approved by Port Commissioners on October 10, 2003 with Columbia River Alliance for Nurturing the Environment (CRANE). This agreement was entered into, in my opinion to keep Mr. Paul King from delaying the deepening of the Columbia River Navigation Channel (Note: Brian Wolfe, Port Commissioner confirmed my suspicions).

It appears to me that sections of this agreement makes the development of the areas the port wants to purchase virtually impossible over the next six years, if ever. As I read this document, it became apparent that Mr. King holds all the aces. May I be so bold to ask how many of you have read this document, (I asked)? (Note: Only one of the more than 15 GVCC Board members raised a hand. She was a port employee).

There appears to be in this agreement, numerous environmental restrictions cleverly placed in the path of Port Development. That development is further complicated by the fact that the port must have the approval of Mr. Paul King of CRANE, before any development of parcels 3, 4, and 5 can proceed.

The agreement also states that an amendment to the agreement approved by CRANE is required to make any changes to the agreement’s environmental restrictions. If such an amendment has been made it was not included in the packet I purchased.

Note: Although this debate was to supposed to be between those against the 132% tax levy increase and Citizen for a Strong Economy, their speaker, when asked a question was unable to deviate from her script and, Port Commissioner Brian Wolfe sped to her rescue and attempted to answer all the questions asked by the Chamber Members. He, in my opinion, glossed over the negative impact the 150 page agreement will have on the proposed development.

Look for reason # 4 tomorrow. Vote NO Early. Don’t help them tax you out of your home.


Larry Patella
CDR USN (ret)

[Chief]

A few thoughts...

When I quote or refer to any document here at Clarkblog, it is my practice to post it, along with an applicable URL back to the original source, so that you can read the original material, in context, for yourself. I still do not know what this document is that Commander Patella purchased, where he got it, who wrote it, or anything else about it. Since he has not posted it online, I cannot determine if his interpretations are accurate or not.

I have an information request in to the Port of Vancouver this morning, to see what they have in their archives on this subject from the time that the Port Commissioners first considered this issue. I will share whatever I get back.

I also have a request in to the Port to see if Commissioner Brian Wolfe agrees with Commander Patella's assertions, and analysis of what happened at that meeting of the Chamber of Commerce.

I am told that after the good Commander finished his presentation, the Chamber of Commerce voted to endorse the Port's IDD Levy, and that speaks volumes abut what they really thoguht about this "line of thought".

Finally, I have tried to avoid making too many comments about Commander Patella's writing style, because the regular readers of this blog know that I am NOT the Spelling Nazi...

However, if you chose to comment on a serious Public issue in a Public place, it is most definitely in your best interests to make sure you have (and use) a good word processing program. I use Microsoft Word, because it checks my spelling, and my syntax. I use the thesaurus to avoid most of the obvious writing errors that people ususally commit. The point is, I at least try to write in a manner that is not painful for people to read.

It's unfortunate, but Commander Patella is running a close second (behind Lou Brancaccio) as the worst writer that I have ever seen published on a regular basis. His writing is so poor that the columbian has to severely re-edit the letters he submits to the paper, in order for them to make any sense at all. In that process the columbian changes the message Commander Patella sends, so that people may tend to give him more credibility than he is due. Commander Patella is still the most frequently published letter writer to the Columbian in Clark County.

In any case I cannot wait for another installment tomorrow. I personally believe that Larry Patella is doing more to demonstrate how far off base the opponents of this IDD Levy really are, and if what I hear is correct (that Commander Patella is the voice behind Jerry Oliver's Campaign) then IMHO, Larry Patella is the best friend Port Commissioner Arch Miller has, and is doing more to guarantee Arch a landslide victory than I am...

Most definitely developing...

[karma]

Let's top this off now with more taxes for a 'New' Jail?? Didn't we just build something?? But heck if we can give over 100% for the Port, why wouldn't we start funding all the County's projects too?? How about more money for Parks and all those no where roads?? Let's just add some more bridges to no where and sell out our downtown since nothing will be going in there?? Ya know I'm taxed out and I'm not supporting anymore!!

[Chief]

Neither the parks or the jail issue have anything to do with the Port of Vancouver. That's one of the problems we have with the IDD all along, is the constant mixing of messages on this, and the beating of the Port over issues they have no interest in or cotrol over.

[karma]

Chief, I'm not mixing apples with oranges I'm just stating that taxpayers are tired of being taxed to death!! If you allow one thing then they keep adding and I'm sorry but my wallet is closed. I'm betting folks are going to get tired of all these taxes and we will see a bust here shortly.
It's been coming for a long time and those in power have just kept adding more taxes and not living within their means. The IDD is a bad idea with the economy headed sour.

[Chief]

Did you read the morning rag, and see the story about the developer that is suing the county, because his appraisal up in Battle Ground increased over 800% in two years??

That is the real problem here in the County, and everyone just seems oblivious to what the Assessor is doing to people. The Assessor really is taxing people out of their homes, and the Port of Vancouver simply is not.

We have to separate these issues and discuss them on their merits alone, instead of beating the Port over the sins of other agencies that have nothing to do with the Port.

[karma]

:'( Chief, ya know I hate reading this early in the morning. I already have been awaken to all that dreaded noise now you want to torcher me more?? I know but the message is 'open your wallet' as everyone wants more money and not looking at how they can fund their needs. As a business owner and home owner it's just boggles my mind that I'm no longer being able to live in an area I was raised in. I know the price of land in that some has seen as a gold rush to build house make it's all the more a bedroom community of Portland when we opened the barn door with elected officials that don't care about it's own citizens. I can go on but I keep adding to the long list of what happening and you want to deal with single issues, it's all tied into taxing the citizens out of their homes due to personal agendas of agencies that have screwed up in the past??
I'm being polite as I can on this, enough is enough!! Will ya respect me in the morning?? ;)

[Chief]

Here is reason # 3 why you should vote no on the Port’s attempt to raise without a vote of the people, your property taxes. Remember as you read this, it is me speaking to the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce.

Once again the Commander has reverted to the same old misleading statement that he used during the petition campaign. The petition drive was to put a measure on the ballot. That drive succeeded in collecting enough verified signatures, so indeed Proposition One is in fact on the ballot on August 21st. What we the People are in fact deciding on August 21st is exactly what Commander Patella insists on claiming that the Port tried to prevent. His argument makes no sense.

And as I pointed out earlier, it is my understanding that the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce voted overwhelmingly in favor of endorsing the Port of Vancouver's proposed Industrial Development District Levy ballot measure, <a href="http://clarkblog.org/index.php/topic,1743.0.htmll">PROPOSITION ONE</a>.

Need another reason to vote NO on the Port’s outrageous attempt to increase your property taxes 132% over the rate they now collect? Do you really believe that the Port had no choice but to rush into this deal with out consulting the people? We don’t. Not for a minute. In what appears to be a good old fashion “deal con-cocked in the proverbial smoked filled backroom”, the Port decided without seeking any input from the taxpayers to impose a property tax that would net them more than 78 million dollars to buy a 48 million dollars property that has been on the market for years with no other apparent buyers.

(Note): They must not have read what President Calvin Coolidge said:

“Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery”.

First, I'm sure Calvin Coolidge is a favorite President of Commander Patella, because as I recall President Coolidge was a big supporter of that Era's "Great White Fleet", in which Commander Patella may have no doubt started his long Naval Carreer...

Commander Patella consistentently claims that the Port of Vancouver attempted to "impose" this property tax without "consulting the people". Yet I every time I appear at one of the regular meetings of the Commissioners of the Port of Vancouver, Commander Patella is consistently absent. I talked about the Port session when the Commissioners voted to approve the IDD Levy with Port Executive Director Larry Paulson, and he said that he was amazed that there were so few people there, and that the ones who were didn't have much to say at the time anyway.

The truth is that the Port of Vancouver is the most accessable Government entity that I have ever been associated with. Like Commander Patella, I too have a long, and highly successful Naval career, and I have seen all kinds of different bureaucrats and leadership styles in my day too. I have lived in a lot of different communities in my day and rubbed elbows with a lot of public people. I was fortunate to be involved in the hurricane planning for the Tidewater Virginia area in 1994, and I got to meet and work closely with officials from the National Hurricane Center, the Virginia State emergency planning officals, and was an active participant for NAS Norfolk for that year's Hurricane Drill. It was a tremendous learning experience for me, and it taught me a lot about how local Governments operate, and inter-operate. It was also a good tool for comparing how one set of public officals did business along side of another.

The bottom line is that Larry Patella has an opportunity twice a month, usually every other Tuesday, to go down to the Port of Vancouver, and talk to the same people I do and get his facts straight. He consistently refuses to do so rendering that particular argument baseless and completely untrue.

When we asked why? The Port’s answer was they want to create jobs. Yet, they neglected to disclose to the voters when they rushed to pay a premium price for the property in question, they did not have any prospective employers, and they may not have any for years to come.

How can he say that you are thinking? I can say that because the port, for whatever reason, also neglected to disclose to the people a 150-page settlement agreement approved by Port Commissioners on October 10, 2003 with Columbia River Alliance for Nurturing the Environment (CRANE). This agreement was entered into, in my opinion to keep Mr. Paul King from delaying the deepening of the Columbia River Navigation Channel (Note: Brian Wolfe, Port Commissioner confirmed my suspicions).

Sorry folks, but this is the poor format, sentence structure, lack of punctuation and so forth, that renders this entire passage painful to read, and embarrasing to publish.

In fact CRANE was a study that primarily dealt with the Columbia Gateway Project, and not the Alcoa Evergreen property at all. It’s also my understanding that the agreement essentially says that the port can’t develop the industrial part of Columbia Gateway until the habitat restoration/wetland mitigation portion of Columbia Gateway is finished. That process is underway, has been for quite some time, and I believe is being supervised by the full time Environmental Director that the Port of Vancouver has on Staff. Those items seem to have been conveniently overlooked by the Commander in yet another attempt to bolster what is a weak argument in the first place.

Further, Commander Patella is cleary stating that all of this is "in my opinion", and since no supporting documentation is supplied with his "opinion" this doesn't mean much of anything at all. Again, a document that nobody else has seen, heard of, or read, is absolutely useless no matter how much you paid for it Commander.

I also have a number of inquiries out for formal comment, including a request to Commissioner Brian Wolfe, to see if the Commissioner actualyy confirmed the Commander's suspicions about anything...

It appears to me that sections of this agreement makes the development of the areas the port wants to purchase virtually impossible over the next six years, if ever. As I read this document, it became apparent that Mr. King holds all the aces. May I be so bold to ask how many of you have read this document, (I asked)? (Note: Only one of the more than 15 GVCC Board members raised a hand. She was a port employee).

There appears to be in this agreement, numerous environmental restrictions cleverly placed in the path of Port Development. That development is further complicated by the fact that the port must have the approval of Mr. Paul King of CRANE, before any development of parcels 3, 4, and 5 can proceed.

The agreement also states that an amendment to the agreement approved by CRANE is required to make any changes to the agreement’s environmental restrictions. If such an amendment has been made it was not included in the packet I purchased.

Once again, without any idea what Commander Patella is quoting from, and no way to check the date of it's publication or it's references, it is impossible to clearly understand the point he is trying to make.

What is important to understand is that the Environmental efforts out at Columbia Gateway are fluid, have been ongoing for years, many facets of it include ongoing environmental monitoring, ground water sampling and other measures that are too complex to fully explain in this posting. The Port has a full time Environmental Staff that does nothing but actively manage a number of ongoing and long term projects of which CRANE is only one. There are stautory requirements placed upon all of the Ports in Washington by Local, State, and Federal Authorities, and although the good Commander may disagree with some specific aspects of these ongoing efforts, most of them are mandatory, and regulated by legal and widely recognized authorities that the Commissioners of the Port of Vancouver simply cannot igmore.

I think it is highly likely that the Commander's purchased report is not completely up to date, and that there are very likely further developments that have taken place since it was published that the Commander has failed to consider.

Note: Although this debate was to supposed to be between those against the 132% tax levy increase and Citizen for a Strong Economy, their speaker, when asked a question was unable to deviate from her script and, Port Commissioner Brian Wolfe sped to her rescue and attempted to answer all the questions asked by the Chamber Members. He, in my opinion, glossed over the negative impact the 150 page agreement will have on the proposed development.

Look for reason # 4 tomorrow. Vote NO Early. Don’t help them tax you out of your home.


Again, without a transcript, or a video of this "presentation", all we have is the good Commander's interpretation of what really happened at that meeting of the GVCC. And since he is factually wrong and missing even a shred of proof on any of his points so far, I am reluctant to accept his interpretation of what Commisisoner Wolfe said or did about anything.

And in closing, the Commander lets us know that he still isn't finished with his reason, but that doesn't stop him from urging everyone to vote NO anyway, even before he finishes presenting his own case.

We have gone from merely irritable, to outrageous, to amusing, to ridiculous, to public spectacle with the e-mailed rantings of Commander Larry Patella. I will continue to rebut these non-snensible rantings for as long as he insists upon sending them out. Depending on when you ask him, the Commander has claimed in the past to have an email list of between 1500 and 3000 addresses. If he is sending out that many copies of this nonsense, it deserves to be rebutted with the facts immediately, and I will continue to do so.

I will have more to add on this subject as I get responses and more information back later today.

Stout Hearts...

Chief

[Chief]

Some of my sources are responding to my questions and I have a couple of points that i need to reinforce about this particular chapter from Commander Patella.

It is my understanding that the agreement with Boise Cascade, BNSF railroad, and the City of Vancouver, had a deadline date for commencement and completion of moving the rail out of the waterfront properties that Boise was selling to Gramor Development. I have some familiarity with how tough negotiations with the railroad can be, and the Port of Vancouver has been trying to coordinate a number of separate projects that all have to be done in such a way as to not interfere with the main railroad right of ways.

There are two businesses that are serviced by the BNSF on the west end of the property, and Boise was selling, and the railroad would not agree to the sale unless the Port of Vancouver participated in moving their rail line and providing continued service to those two companies. It is my understanding that those requirements were sufficient to kill the deal completely and were instrumental in getting this entire complex deal approved by all parties concerned in the first place.

The cost of that rai line into the Port, $30 Million Dollars, is included in the plans for the IDD levy.

The land purchase part of the overall package, specifically the Alcoa/Evergreen parcel, and in order for the Port of Vancouver to meet the dates for beginning and completing the rail access project; the Commissioners had to take action immediately so that those opposed and wanting to vote would have the required timeline to gather the petition signatures. That imposed yet another deadline on the Port, in addition to the Statuatory June 1st requirement that we discussed here yesterday.

The Port of Vancouver needed the August primary vote to allow them to meet the other deadlines. It doesn’t matter whether anyone agrees with the waterfront development at the former Boise Cascade site or not, the Port had no control over what Boise did with their land, or what terms the City of Vancouver was negotiating separately with Gramor Development.

I will accept that last comment personally, and in the spirit in which it was delivered, because I have long been a critic of the Boise Cascade site, and have taken the opportunity to actually talk to people at the Port about my concerns; something I have repeatedly urged Commander Patella to do along with me.

I got my concerns addressed, and I am satisfied that the Port of Vancouver is not entangled un-neccessarily at the Boise Cascade site, in fact quite the opposite, I think the Port should be commended for finding a way to successfully navigate that maze down there, and as a result is the only entity who is ready to break ground down there on anything.

One last point that I need to emphasise out of all of this whole house of cards that Commander Patella has constructed here. The CRANE agreement has absolutely no application to the Alcoa/Evergreen Property, and you can take it from me that I am satisfied that assurance comes from the very best of authorities on the subject. I would not make a declarative statement like that if I did not know for certain that I knew what I was talking about.