Gig Harbor Canoe and Kayak team still waiting on Ancich Park

The Gig Harbor Canoe and Kayak Racing team will have to hold on a while longer for its new home at Ancich Park.

The Gig Harbor City Council passed a budget on Nov. 25 that tied construction of the desired human powered float system to the completion of a feasibility study, leaving the team in a now familiar waiting game.

An amendment was put forth by Council Member Michael Perrow that read “this budget item shall not be undertaken until the completion of the Ancich Fisherman’s Homeport Feasibility Study and public input/visioning process.”

Perrow said that the “main thrust” of the council in his eyes “was to focus the attention of the project on two different facilities, on two sides of the site, as has been the plan for years.”

The budget with Perrow’s amendment would end up passing by a count of 6-1. The sole no vote, in his final vote on the council, was council member Spencer Hutchins.

Hutchins spoke out against the budget and said his no vote was due to the handling of Ancich Park.

“Unfortunately, I will be a no vote on the budget and it’s because I think what has been done on Ancich Park is so substantially at variance with what is good government, a wise course of action, and tuned to the purposes of the Ancich Park project,” Hutchins said. “What we’ve undertaken in this budget is serious enough for me to be a no vote on the entire budget. I’m sorry that that’s true but it simply is.”

Before the vote the coach of the team, Aaron Huston, was one of many at the meeting who spoke about the issue.

He spoke from a unique perspective being involved in both stakeholder communities who were impacted in the decision. “I married into a commercial fishing family and I’m also the head coach of the kayak team,” Huston said at the meeting. “The bottom line is that if we want to insist that Gig Harbor is the maritime city, we have to do more than lip service to that. We have to take bold steps to get both docks done and at the end of the day, that’s what both groups want. The kayak club and I have met with the commercial fishermen.”

The team is practicing out of Skansie Park and had hoped to move to Ancich as the team had outgrown their current location.

The team does have an existing lease agreement that has them paying monthly while remaining unable to have access to Ancich Park.

“We’d like to start using the waterfront facility that we’re paying for,” Huston said. “The kayak club is paying $1,500 a month right now to use that facility and we’re not able to do so.”

Kirsten Gregory, a member of the Gig Harbor Canoe and Kayak board, was also in attendance at the meeting where the budget was adopted.

She spoke following the meeting about how she did not expect the amendment tying the two items together and expressed concerns that it would further delay any work that can take place.

“At the conclusion of the votes, I would say we are disappointed. The team is disappointed and feel like that the action that the council took to condition any work or any money being spent on the paddlers’ dock upon completion of the feasibility study and visioning for the fishermens’ dock...we think that was unnecessary and likely to delay work on the paddlers’ dock,” Gregory said.

“It was definitely surprising and we see it as a step in the wrong direction only as that it unnecessarily ties down making any more progress at the paddlers’ dock. We definitely are in full support of the visioning process and the feasibility study going forward as quickly as possible for the fishermen. But tying those two things together just increases potential obstacles and delays that really don’t need to be there.”

Alan Anderson, who founded the club in 2002 and coached until 2016, echoed these concerns but expressed hopes that the team will be able to work with the incoming council. “I’m just hoping the new council members come in and they have courage and the energy and the desire to move this thing forward,” Anderson said. “Work with us and let’s finish this thing.”

The new council members are Robyn Denson, Le Rodenberg, and Tracie Markley. Gregory also noted that these new members are ones she believes could be open minded and knowledgeable about their position. “We’re very optimistic about the new council,” Gregory said. “We’ll learn more from them once they start their terms in January and we see what they have to say about it. But we’re very optimistic that they have been very involved in sitting in the council meetings and I think they’ll come in very well informed.”

Anderson, who has helped build the program to be one of the best in the country, still has confidence in his team to be successful even amidst the uncertainty and questions he has to answer.

“We’ve been successful where we are in the corner of a park or the parking lot,” Anderson said. “People want to know what’s going on with the politics. Everybody wants to know, why don’t we have a home? What’s going on? What’s the hold up?”

Amidst all the struggles, Anderson sees this as a chance to grow and work even harder in their pursuit of being competitive on an international level.

“I have to address that but the way I’m going to address it is it’s the struggle to get something that makes life worth living,” Anderson said. “It might negatively affect some of the kid’s attitude towards city leadership. Why? Why is this constantly happening? But I think it makes them fight a little harder, train a little harder.”