WALDPORT — The Port of Alsea board will interview three candidates for the port manager position during a special meeting Tuesday.
The candidates are Ron Graves and Lynn Bisby of Waldport and Peter Adolph of Yachats. Graves and Adolph were applicants for a vacant board position last fall, but board members selected George Gray of Waldport.
Current manager Roxie Cuellar is retiring after nine years on the job and the hope is to have someone hired who can begin part-time in April so they can learn the ropes before taking over in October.
The new port manager will ease into the position by working part-time, taking on normal port maintenance duties and shifts at the Dock of the Bay shop two days a week and working one day in the office under the tutelage of Cuellar.
The position is probationary and pays $19 an hour. Whomever is chosen will work through spring and summer to learn all the elements of the job, which include the budgetary process and administrative duties. If the person is a good fit they would take over as manager in mid-October.
Once on the job the salary would come in just under $65,000 a year, although the exact amount would depend on experience, aptitude and negotiations with the port’s five-member board. The manager’s only benefits would be paid vacation and sick days.
Much of the job is administrative, doing payroll, reconciling bank accounts, making moorage reservations and selling annual launches, Cuellar said. The port is a government entity which means a state required budget process and annual audits.
The Port of Alsea district stretches from an area south of Seal Rock through Waldport, east to the Lincoln-Benton county line and south through Yachats to Lane County. It is overseen by a five-member board and the manager, who is responsible for preparing the budget, which is about $500,000 a year.
