Port candidates split on event center; marina infrastructure and transparency top priorities

Port Commission candidates at the Anacortes Chamber forum put marina infrastructure and clearer communication with users at the center of their campaigns, but they disagreed over whether the port should take an active role operating a new event center.

Mary (last name not specified on record), a long-time marine-industry participant who said she has worked 38 years in the marina and served on the Port of Anacortes Marina Advisory Committee, told the forum transparency and infrastructure are the port’s top priorities. “Transparency is a big problem in the port... We have 5 years. We don't have 10. It's a $70,000,000 project,” she said about the North End marina replacement. Mary emphasized the port’s working waterfront and the economic value of marine trades: “58% of our revenue comes from the marina to the port, so we have to protect our infrastructure.”

Terry Carol Gillis, a Navy veteran and candidate for Port Commission position 1, said she supports the broader concept plan that includes an event center and redevelopment of surrounding parcels and argued the project could unlock other revenue-generating sites. “The development sites around the event center… are revenue generators,” Gillis said, outlining improvements such as realignment of Ninth Street and formalized parking that she said would enable development and protect the heavy‑haul route.

The candidates differed on whether the port should directly build and operate an event center. Mary said she would prefer a private-sector solution because event centers typically depend on hotel and restaurant revenue to be financially viable and she worried about marina parking impacts. “If you don't have the income from the hotel and the restaurant, they are a loser,” she said. Gillis contended the port has a mandate to pursue the concept as part of long-range port planning and land development and emphasized that the port and city have worked more collaboratively in recent years.

Why it matters: the marina and waterfront redevelopment are core to port revenues and local maritime jobs. Candidates’ competing views on the port’s role in event and waterfront projects signal different priorities for balancing commercial marine operations, public access and potential tourism development.

Forum participants encouraged the public to engage in the port’s upcoming comprehensive-plan outreach and noted several grant-funded projects in the port’s capital-improvement plan were in process. No port policy changes were adopted at the forum.