Port of Orcas Musical Chairs, Part Two

— by Katie Wilkins, Orcas Issues Reporter —

The Port of Orcas held its regular meeting on February 14 at the airport conference room. Despite the snowy conditions, all port commissioners were present, as well as airport manager Tony Simpson and five members of the public. The main business of the meeting was continuing to resolve changes in staffing and commissioner positions following the resignations of Tony Simpson and of port commissioners Brian Ehrmantraut and Shawn Simpson.

Bea vonTobel was sworn in as port commissioner, filling Brian Ehrmantraut’s chair. Clyde Duke was previously sworn in on February 7, bringing the total number of commissioners back up to the full complement of five. For the moment, that is.

Unfinished business from the last meeting included Clyde Duke’s motion to hire Dwight Guss as “interim” airport manager for six months, with the requirement that Tony Simpson stay on to help with job training. At this meeting, the motion was further refined to include an executive session for commissioners to set the terms of hire, including compensation for Guss and Simpson. The motion passed, pending the executive session and Dwight Guss’ acceptance of the terms of hire. Dwight Guss and Bea vonTobel both abstained from the vote. The executive session is scheduled to take place during a special meeting on February 21 beginning at 4:30 p.m. at the airport conference room. The meeting, which may include other business, is open to the public, while the executive session is closed to the public.

Dwight Guss will be required to recuse himself from his commissioner seat during this process. It is possible that, should he decide not to accept the job of interim airport manager, he could be reappointed to his chair. The combined recent changes mean that this coming November, there will be four out of five port commissioner seats up for election. As temporary appointments, Clyde Duke, Bea vonTobel, and Dwight Guss would all need to run for their seats if they want to keep them. Greg Sawyer’s seat could be contested as well, since his current term expires at the end of 2019.

Another new topic of business concerned a plan by Aeronautical Services to expand their facility further south adjacent to their existing space. It would add a new 12’x72′ loading dock with room for six additional vans, as well as two more loading docks onto the side of the existing building. Aeronautical asked the port for permission to contact the FAA for approval, with the understanding that Aeronautical would be responsible for all permitting and building costs. The port approved this request. There was some discussion that this might be a band-aid solution, if the new airport master plan ends up requiring Aeronautical to move to a new location. Aeronautical expressed awareness of this risk, and is willing to go ahead with the project anyway to have a more functional work space, since they have outgrown the current one.

Once the dust settles on the various changes with port commissioners and airport manager, the public can expect more attention to return to the airport master plan. The final draft is scheduled for completion in March of this year. Be on the lookout for more on this in upcoming articles.