Unanswered questions remain for Crescent Bar

CRESCENT BAR — Crescent Bar residents would like to know how to proceed with the Grant County PUD ending the Port of Quincy’s lease in 2012.

The lease expires in two years and was considered only a ground lease for 400 leaseholders, not a lease for the structures.

Grant County PUD commissioners unanimously agreed Monday to not extend the lease with the Port of Quincy.

But a preliminary plan and schedule about the island doesn’t have a reference to existing amenities, said Dorothy Harris, a Grant PUD spokesperson.

It appears to be the next step in the process.

“It’s exactly what we have to figure out,” said Kelly Larimer, a lands and recreation manager for the utility. “I think it’s going to start with the (PUD) commission.”

A final plan and schedule is filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in October.

Larimer anticipates a public comment process before the final document is submitted.

The PUD also needs to have conversations with the Port of Quincy, Harris said.

A transition plan to discuss maintenance on the island between now and 2012 needs to be discussed.

While FERC isn’t asking residents to leave, they are asking the PUD for a plan and a schedule, Larimer said.

A transition plan comes with a “pretty big price tag,” Larimer said.

Regardless, the issue has been “really difficult for commissioners and hard for staff,” she says.

Without keeping people on the island, the PUD expects to spend $38 million to complete 17 recreation projects to meet FERC license requirements.

The island’s septic system also needs work.

The system already exceeds its capacity in the summertime and the treated excess comes out in an infiltration gallery at the south end of the island.

Although the PUD addressed private use on the island with Monday’s decision, a group of Crescent Bar homeowners are still digesting what happened and pondering their future.

“We’re going to get together and decide what membership wants our next step to be,” said Doug Caton, spokesperson for the residents’ Crescent Bar PUD Committee.

They plan to meet in May.

The group is a homeowners association and members must agree on the next steps.

“Our main focus is to continue working with the PUD and finding a win-win solution that works for everyone,” he said.

“We haven’t had much time since then,” Caton commented. “We know what it means on the surface, but we need to do a lot more thinking about what they said.”

Port of Quincy Commissioner Patric Connelly said the port is in the same position islanders are in because the PUD chose to not renew the lease

Although he didn’t know the port’s original investment, the lease was probably not a moneymaker for the port, he says.

“There’s nothing for us to take, keep or sell or whatever,” Connelly said.

It’s a waste to tear the condos down and he mentioned perhaps they could be used as rentals for recreation.

“I would think the stores and the golf course would have to stay, to have some sort of infrastructure,” Connelly commented.

But he doesn’t know if there’s enough interest to sustain them, as there was a “captive audience” with the RVs and the park.

Day use traffic alone may not be enough to keep the businesses going, he said.

Port of Quincy Commissioner Curt Morris said the port needs to meet with the PUD.

“As far as I know, I don’t know what the plans are at the end of the lease on what to do, it may or may not involve the port,” Morris said. “We’re here to affect what ever the solution is.”

Questions remain regarding the existence of the golf course and if someone is needed to manage and maintain it.

“We’re tenants just like those people are tenants.” Morris said. “If the landlord is telling us they’re not going to lease it to us anymore, I get it.”

If the port can enhance what the PUD wants to do, “that would be fine,” he says.