Kalakala owner sues Washington state
He seeks compensation for "negligence" and "mental anguish" because state has failed to preserve and fund the historic ferry.
Steve Rodrigues, owner of the troubled maritime landmark ferry, the Kalakala, is suing state of Washington agencies and others claiming that they have failed in their "duty" to help preserve the historic 1930s-era Art Deco ferry, and that "accrued state and federal statutory negligence" has inflicted physical harm to the ferry and "mental anguish" on Rodrigues. He claims the state especially had thwarted his efforts to preserve the boat.
The suit, filed in Pierce County Superior Court on Monday (July 23), lists the Washington State Department of Transportation, Washington State Ferries, the Washington State Historic Preservation Office, Tacoma Industrial Properties, and Karl Anderson of Tacoma as defendants. Anderson is the Kalakala's landlord and had previously filed suit in March to evict the Kalakala from its moorage for non-payment of back fees and penalties, according to a story in Tacoma's News-Tribune.
The Kalakala is in deteriorating condition and is currently sited on Tacoma's Hylebos Waterway; it is considered a serious potential hazard to navigation by the U.S. Coast Guard. A new mooring system was recently installed to secure the boat. The cost of scrapping it is more than anyone wants to pay.
The ferry has had a number of homes since it was salvaged in Alaska in the 1990s. Various schemes have been proposed to save it and ensconce it as a waterfront attraction from Neah Bay to Port Angeles, Seattle to Tacoma. None of Rodrigues' ideas for saving the ferry have jelled. Given its precarious status and condition, the Kalakala made my 2012 Heritage Turkey list on Crosscut.
If the boat isn't going anywhere physically for now, the Silver Slug is charting a continuing course through the courts, financial woes, and unfulfilled dreams.
The sweeping lawsuit accuses the state of mishandling opportunities to save and restore the Kalakala over the years. It also accuses the ferry system of having failed to protect its historic fleet, including the recent retirement and selling off of the old "steel electric" ferries.
Rodrigues' suit asks that the defendants be prevented from forcing the Kalakala to be moved, confiscated, or sunk; he seeks tens of millions of dollars in "losses" of potential funds to restore the Kalakala, apparently to compensate for the state's failure to protect other historic ferries and to acknowledge the vessel's national significance, and to force the state to pay approximately $50 million for restoration of the ferry under a proposal Rodrigues previously submitted, which was rejected.
Rodrigues concludes by saying, "We pray for any intangible heritage, cultural, social and other past and future human economic estimated project losses that would have become part of the future 21st century Kalakala projects."
An assistant attorney general representing the state's Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation said she had just received the complaint and could not yet comment on it.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Jul 25, 6:51 p.m. Inappropriate
If this whole sordid tale were a movie screenplay, it would be dismissed as being too far-fetched.
Let's get real, folks... the time to save this rotting hulk was in 1967, before it got towed to Alaska and beached. All these supposed plans to restore it are, in a word, delusional. If nobody wants to pay to scrap it, then take it somewhere and SINK IT! All it's good for is an artificial reef...
Posted Wed, Jul 25, 9:54 p.m. Inappropriate
Mr R. has a slim hold on culpability in that it does now seem rather reckless to offer the boat for sale, as opposed to junking it, without being sure it would be sold to a responsible party. As for taking it "somewhere" and sinking it as an artificial reef, lets make sure this is within the same natural environment, either that or all this hysteria about the Japanese floaters is hooey.
Posted Thu, Jul 26, 12:14 a.m. Inappropriate
I think there is a mooring available in Penn Cove
Posted Thu, Jul 26, 12:58 p.m. Inappropriate
What I want to know is if this guy was able to find an attorney to file the suit for him or did he do it himself? Any attorney willing to sign off on such a suit should be disbarred, well at least sanctioned.
Posted Sun, Jul 29, 12:05 p.m. Inappropriate
The name 'Silver Slug' be damned. The perfect place for her is high and dry, close to another Puget Sound icon, the WT Preston in Anacortes.
Orino, did you move here to surf the wave of Grunge? It's attitudes like that that have cost this area some great and unique icons, such as Twin Tepees, the Seattle Supersonics, and others. Kalakala deserves better than to be treated as shoddily as WSF treated the Steel Electric boats and the San Mateo(which right now is being ripped apart near Silverdale).
She deserves better than to wind up sleeping with the fishes with the likes of Wawona, the Skagit Belle, and the La Merced, and the people who love this region, and didn't just move here to make a quick deserve to have history retained.
Posted Mon, Jul 30, 5:02 p.m. Inappropriate
Martineaux, I was born at Swedish Hospital and grew up in Bellevue, thanks for asking. And I've lived in the Pacific Northwest all my adult life, not only in Seattle, but in Portland, Everett and Bellingham, where I moved two years ago.
In fact, my father and I rode on the Kalakala on its last weekend in service with WSF in 1967 (I was 12). It was a decrepit hulk even then, its Anheuser-Busch diesel engine with its broken crankshaft always seeming like it would shake the boat to pieces. I was absolutely terrified, and ran down the gangway in Bremerton as fast as I could once it docked.
Hate to break this to you Martineaux, but the majority of people in Seattle arrived from somewhere else, and even most of the natives don't give a fig about local history. For good reason: I've been to enough other places to fully disabuse myself of this unfortunately prevalent meme known as Seattle Exceptionalism. Seattle is Oklahoma City-by-the-Sound, a totally unremarkable city that happens to be in a really great location. Its 15 minutes were up in 1962. Or possibly when Mike Wallace said on 60 Minutes, "The best place to have a heart attack is in Seattle."
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