State of Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson visited Grays Harbor County Friday. His first stop was Greater Grays Harbor, Inc. (GGHI) in Aberdeen, where he participated in a roundtable discussion with business leaders, local government officials, and educators.

After introductions, Gov. Ferguson made opening remarks and discussed the challenges he and his administration have faced since his inauguration two months ago.

After the governor’s remarks, he listened intently as officials from the Port of Grays Harbor, the cities of Aberdeen and Hoquiam, and Grays Harbor County outlined some of their important initiatives and updated him on their challenges. Kyle Pauley, GGHI’s board of directors chairman, moderated the roundtable.

“Thank you, governor, I know that it has been a whirlwind of a first couple of months. Between the local businesses, our taxing authorities, municipalities, we’ve all got all of our own issues,” Pauley said. “You have had all of the issues of the entire state to focus on for a couple of months, we’re very glad to have you and (for you) to hear from us.”

Big challenges

“Thanks for putting this together, organizing this, and welcoming my team as well, we really appreciate it for what is hopefully the first of a number of visits to the area,” Gov. Ferguson said. “We’re facing some pretty big challenges as a state. My personality, I try to be pretty clear-eyed about challenges and do my best to address them. I am not a big believer in trying to postpone difficult choices.

“I believe in leaning into things. We have sort of a double-whammy right now, the budget as you well know, $15 billion shortfall for the budget we’re putting together in the next couple of months. We have to adopt a balanced budget as a state. As difficult as our budget situation is, there’s the potential for cuts to dollars coming into our state from the federal government. All sorts of programs we care about. The potential is there for our budget situation to go from quite serious to dire just to be direct about it.”

Gov. Ferguson discussed long- and short-term problem-solving and pointed to finding a way to repair the Upper Hoh Road to the Hoh Rainforest as a recent success.

Darrin Raines, the chief executive of GGHI explained the organization’s role in supporting local businesses in the County.

“Greater Grays Harbor is a local economic development association for Grays Harbor, and we are also the Chamber of Commerce, we are an ADO, an associate development organization,” Raines said. “As the ADO, we coordinate business recruitment, retention, and expansion and provide export assistance working with all of our partners here on a daily basis trying to improve the economy for the County, not just the economy but also the quality of life. The services GGHI provides are vital to Grays Harbor County. We have a 7% unemployment rate, and we are one of the highest in the state for low to moderate income.”

Permitting reform

Brian Shay, the city administrator for Hoquiam, discussed issues and roadblocks to obtaining permits and the need for permitting reform.

“I want to thank you for recognizing the importance of permit reform and making that one of your first acts as governor in your executive order to improve transparency and build efficiency in the state’s permitting and licensing processes,” Shay said. “As a coastal community, we have unique challenges associated with development, which add to the complexity of the permitting process. These challenges often lead to delay, increased cost, and lost opportunities, impeding economic development in Grays Harbor.”

Shay discussed projects that have either been delayed or canceled due to permitting and appeal process issues and highlighted the importance of the North Shore levee project and the U.S. Highway 12 railway separation initiative.

“In my inaugural address, I talked about the need to reform our system when it comes to permitting, licenses, permitting construction, whatever it is, it just takes too dang long,” Gov. Ferguson said. “If I was a builder and asking for a permit, I know the longer it takes for me to get that, the more money it would cost me. This is achievable. We really can do this. Some of these processes are important. You have to have some oversight, but somehow too many barnacles got put on the ship, we need to find a way to get things constructed that are going to help us out.”

Affordable housing

Josh Martin, CEO of Summit Pacific Medical Center, discussed the lack of affordable housing and its implications for the community’s overall health.

“I’m an expert in healthcare, but I’m here talking about housing. Regarding healthcare, we want to set the stage for the importance of healthcare and the economy. There’s a direct correlation,” Martin said. “As a hospital, we’re very involved with housing, childcare, and workforce, interfacing with everybody here in the room to create jobs. The healthier the community, the healthier the hospital, and the healthier the hospital, the healthier the community. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

“We believe there is over $1 billion in needed infrastructure in Washington state for rural hospitals. Washington state ranks 50th in the country for hospital beds per capita. My hospital is currently doing a $60 million expansion to double the size to save lives. We’re doing it without tax dollars, something we’re very proud of. The thing we’re really grappling with is housing. We have these great workforce programs; we’re growing our own, and we’re trying to recruit to Grays Harbor County. (When) COVID hit everybody who wanted to or could live in rural (areas) did. Now we have all these bedroom communities, you can live on the beach and remote in to work, cost of living and quality of life with good access to healthcare. We didn’t have enough houses to support that demand. Housing is a huge priority for us. We are equally concerned with the funding cuts that will impact hospitals, and the concerns for losing rural hospitals is significant right now.”

Gov. Ferguson said that help may be on the way with regard to housing initiatives across the state.

“On the housing issues, when I was running for governor, I went to all 39 counties, housing, cost of housing, affordable housing, was the issue I heard the most,” Gov. Ferguson said. “Denny Heck, who’s our lieutenant governor, widely respected public servant, I asked him to lead our efforts on the housing front. The good news is there are a whole bunch of bills that are moving through the Legislature. No one bill is going to solve this problem … but I do feel like the Legislature gets that this is a problem, for sure, lots of good bills are moving that will help on this.”

Port of Grays Harbor

The Port of Grays Harbor highlighted its seven lines of business, discussed its ongoing terminal expansion project with Ag Processing Inc., and the importance of rail service in and out of Grays Harbor County.

“There are 75 public ports in the state, and the one thing we have in common is we’re charged with economic development, and we take it very seriously,” said Kayla Dunlap, Director of Government and Public Affairs for the Port of Grays Harbor. “We have seven lines of business. Up at Satsop, it is incredibly well poised; we have some great opportunities up there. Going back to the marina, Westport is a community of 2,200 people, the commercial and recreational fishing support about 2,700 jobs, it is the backbone of that community. Our marine terminals are by far our largest line of business. We are shovels in the ground on our largest expansion in Port history. It’s a really big deal.”

Aberdeen

Aberdeen’s city administrator, Ruth Clemens, discussed the vacant buildings along the U.S. Highway 101 corridor and the North Shore levee and rail separation projects.

“We’re the largest city in Grays Harbor, we’re also the commercial hub of Grays Harbor, and our collective levee project with the city of Hoquiam is our greatest priority. It will spur not only a lot of housing but business development, we have a lot of vacant buildings, dilapidated buildings that have been largely ignored because of the cost that’s triggered by the floodplain threshold,” Clemens said. “We’ve done a great job leveraging federal and local dollars to fund these projects, so any investment by the state would be a major lift to get that project to the finish line, which will allow Grays Harbor to further contribute to the state economy. The U.S. Highway 12 project is another priority for our city and the port as well, it ensures the safety for 5 million vehicles and decreases the likelihood of any disruption to the economic efforts of the (Port of Grays Harbor).”

Grays Harbor County

Grays Harbor County Administrator Sam Kim discussed the importance of infrastructure improvements.

“Grays Harbor County is a crown jewel I did not know existed,” Kim said. “All these great opportunities … we need to have that ecosystem. We have crumbling infrastructure. We have the highest number of people of capable, able educated workers not working in Grays Harbor County. We have to get our people working. We need to get moving on this.”

Annette Roth, the executive director of the Pacific Salish Economic Development District, discussed the purpose of her new organization.

“We are launching right now; we’re in the middle of writing our application that we have to submit to the federal government. One of the most critical pieces of that application is a support letter from our governor,” Roth said. “What we’re doing supports Grays Harbor, Thurston County, Mason County, and also Pacific, making sure we’re part of that ADO network and bringing federal funds into the community.”

Power

Ian Cope, the communications and government relations director for Grays Harbor PUD, discussed the challenges in delivering power to everyone who needs it, especially with increased demand on the horizon.

“Unfortunately, power has been in the headlines lately, with the cutbacks, we were elated to see some probationary employees were going to be brought back on, or at least have the opportunity to come back on,” Cope said. “When it comes to energy and the demand for it, it’s not going down, it’s only going up. Data centers and AI (artificial intelligence) facilities are going to be a major drain on the resources we have here in Grays Harbor; we have enough energy with our current Bonneville (Power Administration) contract. We can bring on all the new energy we need and getting from generation to the major hubs of use, there isn’t enough transmission.”

Education

Turning to education, Dr. Carli Schiffner, the president of Grays Harbor College, discussed the school and its role in the local community.

“Our college has been responsive to workforce retraining and to other needs as the community continues to grow,” Schiffner said. “We are a comprehensive community college with associate to baccalaureate degrees and our goal with our baccalaureate degrees is to retain our talent here, to make sure our local community doesn’t have a ‘brain drain.’”

Communication

The governor emphasized keeping communication open between Grays Harbor County and his team in Olympia and offered to help with issues facing the county’s residents.

“We’ve been taking notes on the specific examples that you raised, the team will be reporting back and checking into that. We just want to reemphasize if there is something specific, whether it’s a permit or if something is bogged down, ‘Hey Bob, can you guys do something?’ Maybe sometimes we can’t. If we can, we will. That’s something we want to be doing.”

Toward the end of the session, Leonard Barnes, the Port of Grays Harbor executive director, asked the governor, “You’ve heard from all of us today, but what can we do to help you be successful?”

“Conversations like this help me and my team, it’s a big state, it’s a big, diverse state, some issues overlap, housing, and some are unique, maybe a certain project they’re trying to make happen, so having that feedback and staying in touch with my team is super helpful,” Gov. Ferguson said. “We’ll look into the issues raised, we’ll report back, and we’re just happy to work with you on trying to solve those, keeping those lines of communication open is hugely helpful. Finding areas we can work on. You have the local expertise and the contacts here to help, hopefully, at the state level, we can be helpful, not get in the way and be helpful as well.”

At the conclusion of the roundtable discussion, Gov. Ferguson posed for photos and then went on to his next stop, Hoquiam High School, to discuss higher education financial assistance programs. He finished the day with an exclusive interview with The Daily World’s editorial board (an extensive question and answer session will be published in the Thursday edition).

Grays Harbor County Administrator Sam Kim and District 1 Commissioner Georgia Miller represented the County at the Greater Grays Harbor Inc. roundtable with Gov. Bob Ferguson.

Dr. Carli Schiffner, the president of Grays Harbor College, addresses Gov. Bob Ferguson.