Pamplin: I'll keep Ross Island

After years of talks, offer to donate land to city appears dead in water

By Nick Budnick

The Portland Tribune, Jun 1, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (27 Reader comments)

L.E. Baskow / Portland Tribune

Part of Ross Island, which sits in the middle of the Willamette River, would have become city property under a donation proposal made by landlord Robert Pamplin Jr. in 2001.

Robert Pamplin Jr. has officially called off talks over the transfer of Ross Island to the city of Portland, blaming the city, “untruthful” press and “special interest groups.”

“The Pamplin family has grown weary and disenchanted (just plain fed up) with the current process,” he wrote in a May 30 letter delivered Thursday to the office of Mayor Tom Potter. “They wish me to convey emphatically that there will be no discussions in the future.”

Pamplin told the Portland Tribune that his company, Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co., already has spent more than $20 million restoring the island, as well as tens of thousands of dollars negotiating with the city. Pamplin also owns the Portland Tribune.

He said issues raised by the city in the past year of correspondence with him failed to balance his company’s jobs and the environment. He said his firm would adopt its own conservation plan for the island prepared by a “nationally recognized conservationist.”

“I really believe that we’re going to do a better job than the city, and we’re going to prevent people from trampling all over the grounds and disturbing the wildlife,” he said. “It’s better for the city and its citizens for us to spend our money maintaining the land rather than the city spend its money.”

What’s colloquially known as Ross Island actually is two islands that were joined artificially in 1927, creating a stretch of 175 acres of land that nearly surrounds a 106-acre lagoon.

One of Pamplin’s companies, Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co., mined Ross Island for more than 70 years. The undisturbed portion of the island is home to bald eagles and contains a blue heron rookery, and the lagoon has become a nursery for endangered chinook salmon and steelhead trout.

The proposed transfer of the island has been the subject of on-and-off negotiations with the city since 2001, when Pamplin and then-Mayor Vera Katz first announced the handshake deal publicly.

Before Thursday’s developments, Katz told the Tribune that she has been devastated by how talks over the island have deteriorated.

Potter drafted a response while on vacation in Italy that expressed “profound disappointment” and defended his efforts to protect the city from accepting costly liability. “I cannot accept anything on (taxpayers’) behalf without absolute clarity about the legal obligations I am accepting as well.”

He publicly reiterated a request that already had been made by staff members, saying, “In the spirit of honoring the many years of hard work that have gone into this conversation by so many in our community, I am asking Dr. Pamplin to meet with Mayor Katz and myself next week to explore how we can overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of his gift to the people of Portland. While I understand his concerns about the process up until this point, I remain optimistic that a mutually agreeable solution is still possible.”

Environmentalists cooperated

Travis Williams of Willamette Riverkeeper, meanwhile, called Pamplin’s letter disingenuous, and questioned Pamplin’s faulting of special interest groups for the halting of talks. Williams cited environmental groups’ cooperation in a restoration plan widely believed to have saved Pamplin money.

“The guy has saved tens of millions of dollars in his restoration permit because of these ‘special interest groups,’ ” Williams said. “Give me a break.”

In the letter to Potter, Pamplin wrote that “the reason why the negotiations dissolved was the result of lack of response by the city. There were occasions when the City could not return our phone calls or respond to our letter.”

Moreover, Pamplin said the city kept trying to include new concepts in his proposed donation agreement, such as a “management agreement that reaches far beyond the scope of the Donation agreement.”

He stated that talks over the transfer of the island had been consistently misportrayed in the press, specifically citing The Oregonian and its columnist Steve Duin.

He said his offer of the island always had been conditional on whether “the City and the Company could come to a mutually satisfactory agreement,” he wrote. Moreover, it always had been for “a portion of” the island, not the entire thing.

In an online response, Peter Bhatia, executive editor of The Oregonian, responded: “With all respect, Dr. Pamplin is engaging in a classic case of shooting the messenger. The paper’s reporting on Ross Island has been honest, truthful and in depth.”

Pamplin elaborated somewhat on his letter in a telephone call to the Portland Tribune. However, he declined to answer follow-up questions by the Tribune.

In the interview, he said that the decision was based on a combination of factors, including what he said were new issues raised by the city.

“That’s always been a concept of mine that when somebody gives you something you say thank you or no thank you. You don’t say, golly, I wish you’d put bells and whistles on this gift, it would sure make me feel good,” he said.

Pamplin responded to criticism from environmental groups that a more detailed tentative agreement announced last October fell short of what they understood his earlier proposal to be.

Last October he and the city tentatively agreed that the portion of his island to be donated would be about 45 acres initially, followed by another 15 acres of land that had been reclaimed and restored.

As far as the 45 acres, he told the Tribune he was trying to be helpful to the city. “I was seeking to gift something that was free of any environmental concerns, and this was a piece that was in its natural state.”

He seemed to be attributing the issues raised by the city in part to pressure from environmental groups, such as a comprehensive management plan that the city wanted Ross Island to agree to regarding the entire island, not just the part Pamplin had proposed donating to the city.

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