No Covid Funds For The Guemes Ferry?
In today’s Skagit Valley Herald there was an article about the Board of Commissioners' work session held Monday on how to distribute the last of the COVID relief funds.
As you know, the Guemes Island Ferry did not receive a dime of this. As far as I could find in my ferry research, we are the only ferry that did not receive any funding. I know the Lummi Ferry was fighting to get their losses reimbursed and I recently found a letter from a citizen that indicated they finally received $400k, but I haven’t been able to confirm that so far.
What we do know to be true is that in the 2020 and 2021 Ferry Fare Revenue Target Reports, farebox revenue shortfalls are squarely blamed on COVID. These shortfalls are exactly one area that covid relief dollars were intended to offset. At a minimum, the farebox revenue shortfalls of $296,847 from the 2020 and $185,587 from 2021 should be reimbursed to the ferry. The Washington State ferry system received nearly $100 million dollars in federal relief funds throughout 2021-2022. Guemes Island Ferry received nothing.
The Board of County Commissioners has an opportunity to right this wrong. I encourage island residents to write to our Board of Commissioners and ask them to reimburse the Guemes Island Ferry the revenue lost during the pandemic as was the intent of our nation’s leaders and most likely benefitted every ferry but ours.
–Cindy Kamp