PORT ANGELES — A fiery Jan. 21 letter and memo to Gov. Christine Gregoire from a group of 13 local business and government leaders blasts the state’s decision to abandon the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard project in Port Angeles — and asks that the closure be reconsidered.
The one-page letter, written by Port Angeles Mayor Richard Headrick, accompanied a two-page memo, “Principles for Resolution of the Port Angeles Graving Yard Situation.”
The letter also was critical of both the state and the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe for supposedly not honoring what was described as a binding agreement regarding the project.
The tribe has denied Headrick’s accusation.
And the letter’s requests are apparently going nowhere.
The governor rejected any possibility of restarting the project.
“To have the mayor say, and I gather from what his letter is intended to convey is that we still want to go there, this is not an option at this point,” Gregoire said in a telephone interview with Peninsula Daily News.
Mayor’s response
On Thursday night, Headrick said that he had heard that Gregoire had taken that position even before he wrote the letter last week.
He says he is not giving up on getting the project restarted.
“We are still working on it,” Headrick said, referring to the City Council and other business and civic leaders.
Asked what new information he would present that might get the project restarted, Headrick said:
“If I knew what it was, I would tell them. That’s why we’re working on this.”
The memo and cover letter also were sent to Clallam County’s three state legislators: House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam.
Headrick wrote that, as a retired judge, he is “particularly bothered” that despite a legal binding agreement with the tribe, the state is walking away from a $58.8 million state and federal investment to avoid “bad publicity.”
