HERMISTON — The Port of Umatilla Commission is apparently feeling heat from the Columbia Development Authority’s March 26 decision to force two of its five members out of use of industrial lands.

CDA Chairman Kim Puzey wrote in a May 7 news release, “Two unprecedented line items were significantly increased based on uncertainty about the future within the Columbia Development Authority.”

Probably more revealing is Puzey’s remark about legal expenses for the Port of Umatilla Commission, “that are typically anticipated to be approximately $70,000 annually, were increased to $350,000.”

Puzey wrote, “Additionally, a new line item for CDA operations and maintenance was added for $2 million.”

According to Puzey, those two items in the port’s budget stem from fallout from the 3-2 vote on March 26 that divested CDA partners Umatilla County and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation from owning the site’s industrial land.

The Columbia Development Authority partners are Umatilla and Morrow counties, the ports of Morrow and Umatilla and the CTUIR.

Umatilla County Commissioner John Shafer said he agreed with J.D. Tovey, the CTUIR’s new interim executive director and CDA representative, that the county should own 20% of all CDA lands.

Tovey is interim executive director of thr Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and Shafer and Tovey voted against the land division at the March 26 meeting. Shafer called the vote illegal, and on May 1 the Umatilla County Board of Commissioners agreed with his assessment and decided to pursue legal action against their three partners in the CDA.

Shafer said consulting with Umatilla County counsel Doug Olsen, “We’ve decided we do have enough there that we could file an injunction to prevent that land transaction.” But the county has opted to retain outside counsel to handle this.

“We have a meeting with that counselor coming up next week, I believe,” he said.

Shafer said the five CDA members need to rescind the vote.

“Four years ago this exact same scenario happened, and Kim Puzey back then made the motion to rescind the vote, ‘in the best interest of the region,’” Shafer said.

Puzey said he directly offered Shafer and Umatilla County Commissioner Dan Dorran a pledge “to work with them,” but he was ignored.

Puzey’s pledge to work with Umatilla County and CTUIR does not include rescinding the March 26 vote.

Shafer said a part of the rush to judgment in three-out-of-five CDA partners wanting to abruptly distribute property could be the snail’s pace of commercially developing the huge area while bills pile up.

CDA Executive Director Greg Smith cited some examples of ongoing costs.

“I have to maintain insurance, of course. When you’re dealing with thousands of acres of industrial land, the insurance cost of $70,000-$100,000 a year doesn’t surprise me,” Smith said.

He has also had to make commitments that have price tags.

“Just this morning we opened up bids for the construction and renovation of a piece of real estate for the Oregon Trail,” Smith said. “I’m anticipating that project is going to run between $750,000 to $1 million. I’ve opened up the bids and I’m in the process of selecting an engineer.”

. Smith said he met with the CTUIR tribal council last week speaking with them for an hour.

“At the very end, the chair expressed, ‘Greg, would you please take this back to the board, that we feel betrayed?’ I said I would take that message back to the board,” Smith said.

At the moment Puzey appears to feel buffeted from the controversy.

“I expressed my willingness to work with them,” Puzey said. “I have not been on a quid pro quo basis in the print media or broadcasting. I have let them say whatever they wanted to say and I have neither deflected nor absorbed that. This is not good for the region, but I can’t control the behavior of other people.”