PORT ANGELES — Calling him an innovator, creator and an inspiration, Mayor Cherie Kidd proclaimed Saturday as Paul Cronauer Day in Port Angeles.
Cronauer, who has owned The Landing mall on Railroad Avenue since 2006, has been diagnosed with cancer, but he made no mention of his illness Saturday as he accepted the honor before more than 100 in attendance at the mall that he has developed into a city center.
“I couldn’t list all the things you did for the city,” Kidd said.
“I just wanted you to know you are really loved in this community,” she said.
Accepting the honor, a modest Cronauer gently turned the spotlight on those who were cleaning up Port Angeles on Earth Day. They had collected about 3,560 pounds of litter that went to the landfill, he said.
“It just shows we all do good things as groups, as families,” Cronauer, 62, said.
He urged those in the audience to look at each other to see those who helped make his visions possible.
The mayor’s proclamation said Cronauer “is well recognized in the Port Angeles community as an innovator, and a man who has accepted the challenge that Earth Day is a day intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s natural environment.
Quoting the late Oscar A. Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, the mayor’s proclamation states, “Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond, No statement says all that could is said. No set of goals and objectives including everything. This is what we are about.
“We plant the seeds that one day will grow.”
Kidd called Cronauer “a seed planter in its truest sense.”
She invited all in the audience to “celebrate his innovative, inspiring, creative and unique spirit, and his persistent long-standing positive impact and devotion to Port Angeles and our working waterfront.”
Cronauer and his wife, Sarah own Wine on the Waterfront, a wine bar with food and live music.
They also made space for galleries in The Landing mall between Downriggers and Smuggler’s Landing restaurants.
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2390, extension 5052 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
