WENATCHEE (Washington) WORLD

December 15, 2008

No Pangborn cherry camp next year

By Dan Wheat

World staff writer

EAST WENATCHEE — The state is sticking to its plan not to open the Pangborn Cherry Harvest Camp next year.

The state-funded camp for migrant cherry workers near Pangborn Memorial Airport closed Aug. 15. It was supposed to be the end of a five-year contract of state funding and Douglas County operations.

But then growers, the Northwest Justice Project and other organizations asked the state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development to reconsider. The reasoning was that even with permanent replacement housing coming by next spring, the 350-bed temporary tent camp should be continued to prevent illegal camping on state and private lands on Stemilt Hill.

Last week, CTED Assistant Director Will Graham sent Douglas County a letter saying the department would not fund the camp again, given limited resources.
He said CTED will continue to work with growers and nonprofit groups to develop long-term housing options for migrant farmworkers in the Wenatchee area. He noted that the department has invested more than $8 million in the development of seasonal farmworker housing in Chelan and Douglas counties since 2004. That money has resulted in 955 beds for migrant workers on and off farms, he said.

The state budgeted $425,000 for the operation of the Pangborn camp in 2008, but actual costs were closer to $320,000, the county’s camp manager Robert Knowles has said. The camp was on Port of Douglas County property.
On Friday, Douglas County Commissioner Ken Stanton said he doesn’t think the camp will reopen.

“Nothing is cast in stone, but there’s no way the county could fund it. We don’t have the money,” Stanton said. The only other possibility would be for growers or someone else to come up with the money to pay for it, he said.

Kirk Mayer, manager of the Washington Growers Clearing House Association in Wenatchee, said that’s highly unlikely. He said a group of growers was interested last fall in trying to rent it, but it didn’t work out.

Mayer said that when the camp opened in 2000, it was intended to operate for just a year or two. He credited CTED for increasing the number of seasonal beds in Chelan and Douglas counties from 1,121 in 2003 to 2,932 in 2008.

Mayer said the Pangborn camp will be replaced next season by 380 new beds of seasonal farmworker housing in Malaga and East Wenatchee provided by the Washington Growers League and the Wenatchee-Chelan County Housing Authority.