Port of Olympia didn’t have a signed contract to bring large ship here, commissioner says
The Port of Olympia didn’t have a signed contract in place to bring a large ship to the marine terminal last week, a port commissioner said Monday.
The Olympian reached out to the commissioners for their reaction after a layberth arrangement seemed to materialize and disappear within hours.
The Olympian was unable to reach Commissioner Bob Iyall, but Commissioners Joe Downing and Amy Evans Harding shared their thoughts about the process.
A layberth agreement, in which a ship ties up for an extended period of time before it is needed again, was about to bring a 680-foot ship and $1.2 million in revenue to the port as early as the morning of May 16.
Then the ship “Maunalei” didn’t arrive. About mid-day, the commission learned it wasn’t coming at all, Evans Harding said.
Downing said the deal got away from the port because there was no signed contract, with staff “working on the details up to the last minute,” he said.
“(Executive Director) Sam (Gibboney) was doing a really good job of working it before it got away from us,” Downing said.
Downing said he got up early May 16 to see the ship arrive and called the moment it wasn’t coming “extremely painful.”
“The port just needs to do a better job of nailing it down,” he said about such layberth agreements, which have eluded the port twice before.
Evans Harding said the news the ship wasn’t coming was disappointing for port staff.
“I really appreciate the hard work the staff put into it,” she said, citing the effort of marine terminal senior manger Afsin Yilmaz.
Should the port take a different approach with potential layberth agreements?
The “Maunalei” was set to spend just a under a year at the marine terminal. Based on the shorter duration, the deal could be approved by staff instead of by the commission, a port spokeswoman said.
If that’s the case, why not hammer out all the details before it’s brought to the attention of the commission?
Evans Harding was open to the idea, although the port has to balance public disclosure with securing new business.
“If staff has the authority to execute a contract, I encourage them to do that and seize the opportunities,” she said.
Downing believes the port needs to be a little more astute in its deal-making.
“We need to be smart about these things,” he said. “When you’re inside a week, you should have a contract.”
Still, he’s not ready to give up on a future layberth agreement for the marine terminal.
“One of these days we’ll get one,” he said.
This story was originally published May 23, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
