The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Port of Walla Walla commissioners' management decisions have come into question recently over excessive executive salaries, trips to the director's condo in Phoenix and the director's unprofessional behavior, etc. As with most things, there is always more to the story. The Port of Walla Walla's three commissioners oversee the executive director and have set his salary at nearly $160,000 per year. That salary is higher than Washington state's attorney general, all 174 Superior Court judges, and over three times our state legislators salary. No question, the port director is extremely well compensated by our commissioners.

The bigger question is, why did the port commissioners fail take decisive action when the director "allegedly" had an inappropriate relationship with a direct subordinate last year? In 2009, the YMCA board unanimously and swiftly fired its director and his subordinate because the YMCA was "dedicated to enforcing their Employee Code of Conduct" and to maintain the integrity and values of the organization.

So why have our Port of Walla Walla commissioners apparently chosen to ignore the port's employee code of conduct and not taken decisive action to protect its staff and the integrity and values of the organization?

What our current Port Commissioners have done through their mismanagement, is to put the port into a very precarious, very costly position of liability. If this were a private company, stockholders would be outraged. In this case, it is taxpayers that should be outraged.

Mike Morris Walla Walla