Not wanting to bore the readers, I slacked off from picking on Port of Peninsula Manager Jay Personius and the other two commissioners for their failure to include the public. I do applaud the port for the recent boat removal but most of the credit should go to the sheriff for his involvement.

However, with the boat now sitting in the ports yard and no sign of anyone paying for the removal, storage, or eventual disposal, the port will be strapped with those costs, which could be well in the thousands. The fact is previous boats washed up have been removed privately or with state funds. This boat was not even owned by the guy aboard and was one of many derelict boats found in the Portland area. There was a “Go Fund Me” account set up that gained $312, but I don’t know where even that small amount of money went. It wasn’t much and I don’t think the guy was going to be able to buy his sailboat he talked about buying.

Looking at how Personius has been able to march along creating problem after problem, it’s simple — he has one if not two commissioners on his payroll. When Bonnie Cozby was the commissioner, she always received less than half of what Phil Martin received monthly but yet the state set salary and per diem is the same for all of the Port of Peninsula commissioners, as it should be.

The exception to that is the per diem when a commissioner goes to a meeting to represent the ports interests. In nearly all public offices that green light to go to a meeting and get compensated for the per diem is done in a public meeting, since tax dollars are being used for the trip. But not at the Port of Peninsula where commissioners are getting paid by Jay for such things as to watch a boat being launched or to the recent boat removal off the beach. In my opinion, commissioners should not be compensated for anything outside of a public meeting unless it’s approved by the board ahead of time. This allows the public to ask “why are you going or why do you need to be there?”

Here is how Jay Personius is able to do things without being questioned. Jay is the one who approves the per diem and writes the check to Phil Martin, so at times Phil’s salary is triple that of mine or when Bonnie was in office. For Phil to continue to receive that added salary, he needs to keep Jay happy and would therefore not challenge Jay. To have your boss working for you and depending on the added income is role reversal that is not only legally questionable, but ethically wrong. I’ve never in over 35 years of public administration seen anything like this where a manager has groomed a commissioner financially to play along.

A derailing of this relationship requires discussing it in a public meeting — the need for added per diem and what it’s for. The public’s involvement now is to write down your questions and place it into a box at the table. But how would that impact a decision being made at the meeting? The vote and decision would be over and the public’s input would be useless. Let’s work to clean up this mess and make it a port serving the communities’ needs in a fair-to-all atmosphere.

CHUCK MIKKOLA

District 2 Commissioner

Ocean Park