No accountability at the Port with McGregor

I have received expensive literature in the mail urging the re-election of Commissioner Bill McGregor. I surmise that the benefiting parties to the public subsidies (e.g. Weyerhaeuser) are financially backing McGregor for obvious reasons.

McGregor continues to tout the same old, and worn out themes that have kept the Port in a financial mess. Instead, good governance by the Port Commission would require accountability and remedial action for non-performance. To illustrate this non-accountability, one only needs to look at the Port’s 5-Year Plan of Finance (2017 to 2021) and compare it to the draft 2018 budget on the port’s website. The 5-Year Plan called for the operational performance to move from a negative (-21.9 percent) Return on Revenue in 2016 to a positive 5.0 percent in 2021. The goal for 2018 was to reduce the negative return to (-6.5 percent). However, the 2018 budget documents show a negative return of (-20.2 percent), or about 300 percent short of target. Some accountability!

The major contributor to this financial debacle is the Marine Terminal, budgeted for a negative Return on Revenue of (-45.3 percent). Wow, and if that’s not enough, the port plans to spend an additional $2 million for new log loaders. No wonder why Weyerhaeuser loves Bill McGregor.

Vote for financial accountability at the Port of Olympia. Vote for E.J. Zita and Bill Fishburn.

This story was originally published November 2, 2017 at 3:32 PM with the headline "No accountability at the Port with McGregor."