By Kiera Morgan
The Port of Newport Board of Commissioners met on Friday and approved a memorandum of understanding between the port and Silvan Forest LLC. They are a broker out of Bellevue Washington with facilities in Coos Bay and six other locations in the Pacific Northwest and have a strong reputation. Silvan will be working with Teevin Bros and the port in a public private partnership. Silvan has agreed to pay $2.5 million into an escrow account that the port could use for construction of a staging facility, in exchange for access to the Port shipping staging area facility.
This is contingent upon the port receiving the TIGER funds and a Infrastructure Finance Authority loan from the state. The port would be responsible to hire an additional employee who would oversee the shipping facility operations. The port will also be paying $60,000 a year as interest on the loan until it is fully abated. Kevin Greenwood Port general manager pointed out that the agreement will allow the port to be able to pay down its loans in getting the international terminal finished, but it won’t bring about a lot of money for the port right away.
“It’s not going to produce a golden egg that is going to replace every dock at the port and pay off all of our debt.” “What you are looking at is a 6 to 7-year commitment to developing this new business unit for the Port of Newport to then generate some serious income for your goals.” During public comment Bud Shoemake port of Toledo manager said “when considering this agreement the port should also recognize the commercial fishing fleet and their contributions and have balance so as not to loose the deep draft vessels.”
Yale Fogarty said the terminal was built for shipping and fishing purposes. Shipping will bring millions of dollars to the community and new family wage jobs.” He also pointed out that when it comes to dredging dollars it is based more on cargo than fishing. Rex Capri a local fishermen stated “the terminal dock should be used by both the fishermen and for shipping and other opportunities like it had been before. It is not a private dock. The port should work to create as much use as possible.”
Commission Chair Walter Chuck said “this has been a 5-year ordeal trying to work this out. He said he is looking forward to having a new revenue source for the port that can also create jobs.” With that Commissioner Ken Brown made the motion to approve the MOU with Silvin. It was seconded and passed unanimously. The hope is to have the contract awarded for the start of construction this summer and have the facility completed and start with shipments going out by this winter.
