Othello port meeting canceled

OTHELLO - Lack of a quorum led to the cancellation of a Port of Othello meeting Tuesday.

The regularly scheduled meeting was slated for 10 a.m. Tuesday.

"We've got three commissioners and we have to have two present to have a meeting," explained port Director Michael F. Beardsley. "(Commissioner) Kenny Schutte is a full-time farmer and found out he was short-handed and there's work that has to be done, so he's taking care of business. And then (Commissioner) Sam Garza, who has his own insurance company, informed me he absolutely had to be somewhere else. That was a last-minute development."

At the meeting, Beardsley said, Land Strategies representative Jerry Hann was going to present the latest site plan for the Othello Business Park, the port district's project which includes residential, commercial and industrial development. The port held a public announcement regarding the project in August.

The site plan is in its fourth edition, Beardsley said.

"It's usually a good idea to not just hand somebody a site plan, but to take a few minutes to explain how it all works, what the features are," Beardsley said.

The site plan includes a clock tower in a commercial area with apartments nearby, including pathways opening up into the commercial area.

"It's designed to be a very residential-friendly neighborhood type of shopping center, and one where traffic is managed effectively, too," Beardsley said.

Beardsley said the meeting is being rescheduled for a special meeting Oct. 16. The port meets twice a month, on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, but the regularly scheduled meeting Oct. 9 has been canceled for the Oct. 16 meeting.

"I'm going to cancel the first regular scheduled meeting for October because this is the second meeting in a row where I haven't had a quorum, and I need to get business taken care of - the whole business of getting the business park annexed into the city and making commitments," Beardsley said. "I can't make any decisions, it's the commissioners that make the important decisions. It's difficult to operate without commissioners being present, but we're moving ahead with our plans because we've got an aggressive schedule and we'll just make up for lost time at the next meeting."

Beardsley said the building will be in construction in 2009. He hopes to have roads and utilities in 2008, but he does not have a timeline from the engineers, he said.