Toxic pulping liquors have been removed from the former Samoa Pulp Mill site. Image courtesy Harbor District.

Last week the Outpost analyzed the larger context of this year’s election for three seats on the five-member Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District (aka Harbor District) Board of Commissioners. That post also previewed the race among the three challengers for the 1st Division seat.

Dale (left) and Angeloff.

Today we take a look at the 2nd Division race, which sees business consultant Nick Angeloff challenging incumbent commissioner Greg Dale. Angeloff lives in Rio Dell and owns Redwood Empire Services, an economic and business development consulting firm in the same town. Dale, of Fortuna, is the Southwest Operations Manager for Coast Seafoods, Humboldt Bay’s largest oyster company.

Angeloff announced his campaign last Wednesday with a press release saying that, if elected, he’d work with the County of Humboldt and City of Eureka to develop “an integrated plan” focused on increasing business and employment on the harbor.

“The Harbor District hasn’t updated its strategic plan in years and the harbor is operating at less than 10 percent capacity,” Angeloff said in the release.

He also went after the Harbor District Board for considering Garberville’s Wonderland Nursery as a potential tenant at the former Samoa Pulp Mill site, which the District acquired two years ago in hopes of transforming it into a business and innovation park. 

“This spring, the Board negotiated with a marijuana grower to lease coastal-dependent industrial acreage,” Angeloff said in the release. “Even the Coastal Commission objected to this potential use. The District should focus on its mandated purpose. Rather than speculating, the board should concentrate on increasing shipping and ensure timely, consistent dredging of the harbor by the Army Corps of Engineers. The District needs to serve dock owners and the fishing fleet by keeping the harbor dredged.”

As reported previously, the Harbor District acquired a $2 million dredge from PG&E last year in exchange for taking on the responsibility of dredging the Fisherman’s Channel in King Salmon. Harbor District CEO Jack Crider said dredging will be more regular and economical once the appropriate permits are squared away.

In a phone interview last week, Angeloff said Humboldt Bay is rather unique in that much of the surrounding property and infrastructure is privately owned, and he believes that by forging a tighter relationship with Central Valley agriculture producers the Bay could realize an increase in shipping exports.

“I see, in my mind, that we are going to be absolutely necessary in the future of California’s — and the nation’s — export and import industry,” Angeloff said. 

In recent years Angeloff has been an ardent proponent of building a new rail line running east-west from Humboldt Bay to the national rail system south of Redding. He has served as a board member of the UpState RailConnect Committee, an organization dedicated to that project, and even traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby lawmakers. (He reported to the Rio Dell City Council in 2012 that he’d received “bipartisan support” for the east-west rail.)

In last week’s interview, Angeloff said the UpState RailConnect Committee is still trying to find funding for a feasibility study. “But that’s not the point of this campaign at all,” he said. “That’s not where I want to focus my time and energy for this campaign.”

Instead he’d like to focus on trucking goods over State Route 299 from the Central Valley and exploring the possibility of opening a biomass energy plant along the Bay. Angeloff said it could be “another industry in our diversified set of industries that we need to keep this harbor and economic engine healthy.”

Angeloff complained that the current Harbor Commission Board has lacked transparency with the development of the former pulp mill site. “I follow meetings, and the minutes — there haven’t been minutes published [online] in a long time.”

The Harbor District website published minutes from late January through late March just last Wednesday, around the time of the Outpost‘s interview with Angeloff. Crider said via phone that he’s had to fire two clerks over the past year, largely because of issues with the minutes. He expects the minutes to be up-to-date and accurate soon, he said.

Angeloff also serves as chair on the Rio Dell Planning Commission and president of the Rio Dell-Scotia Chamber of Commerce. In 2013 he applied for a $350,000 grant from the Headwaters Fund in hopes of establishing a regional center that could accept investment money from foreign citizens seeking U.S. visas.

Angeloff formerly worked as historic preservation officer for the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria and CEO of the Wiyot Tribe.

Dale, meanwhile, is approaching the end of his first term on the Harbor Commission. A Coast Seafoods employee for the past 25 years, Dale said he had twice participated in strategic planning for the harbor before being asked to serve on the commission by former Harbor Commissioner Roy Curless.

Dale feels that the District is moving in the right direction. “Things are moving forward,” he said. “From my perspective, the District has done a lot in the last 40 years, and it needs to continue moving forward. It’s not the 1950s anymore. We can’t do the same thing over and over. We gotta change, gotta grow.”

How does that relate to the proposed east-west rail? Dale said it’s a “cool idea” but the economics have to pencil out. “Financially it’s got to pay for itself.,” he said. “There’s been lots of disagreement about it and not a whole lot of information, so we comissioned $20,000 study. It was telling. You can build it — you can build anything — but it will struggle to pay for iteslf unless it’s subsidized pretty heavily. What do you move? And you’ve got to compete with other ports that are faster, closer, cheaper, all the above. It’s a pretty good long shot.”

The District is better off focusing on further developing its coastal-dependent industrial sites around the bay, exploring wood product exports and doing what it’s already doing well, Dale said. “Water quality — we’ve spent a ton of money and time improving and maintaining that so the shellfish industry and the resources in bay are gonna thrive, and they honestly have been thriving,” he said.

The District has been losing an average of $275,000 per year since the 2000-2001 fiscal year, though things have improved some recently. “We’ve slowed the bleeding,” Dale said. “They were going backwards pretty hard until the last four years or so.” Years ago, when Humboldt Bay saw 20 or more ships per year and dredge spoils could be dropped on the beach, things were easier both financially and practically. But Dale is confident that the former pulp mill site will prove to be a valuable asset for the District.

The biggest challenge, he said, was getting rid of the four million gallons of toxic pulping liquors on the site. “That’s all cleaned up, thanks to the District,” Dale said. “It really stuck its neck out there. That was a very nerve-wracking place to be. But the EPA stepped in, helped us out. There are still things that need to be fixed, but somebody will move their business in there.”

The District has been promoting the former industrial site to a wide variety of potential tenants. Dale said he expects a wood products company to move in, whether it’s one that deals with pellets, chips, fire logs or something else. “There’s people continually kicking the tires,” Dale said. “One of ‘em’s gonna stay.”

The current Board of Commissioners doesn’t always agree on issues, but they’re able to sit down and listen to each other, Dale said. “We’ll come out on the other end with something we all support. That’s been the case with every single issue over last four years. You just don’t see that in government these days.”

Lastly, Dale said he’s running again because many things are still undone.

For anyone hoping the 2nd Division candidates would have incendiary Facebook content like those in the 1st, no dice. Both candidates appear to use the social networking site mainly for family photos.

Stay tuned for our final Harbor District election preview, which will look at the three candidates running in the 5th Division. Election Day is Nov. 3.

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