The conflict language is already in an official Port resolution
Port Resolution 2023-08 is not activist rhetoric. It is the Port's own record saying the Port Westward rezone had already been remanded by LUBA three times and that the Port was asked to approve a former-client conflict waiver.
The resolution says Spencer Q. Parsons had previously represented the Port on the rezone, then went to work for Columbia County as its land use lawyer, and the County asked the Port to waive any potential conflict so he could represent the County on the same rezone.
One year later the Port shifted real delay risk off the developer and onto time
Port Resolution 2024.03 shows NEXT asked for a rent deferral in late 2023 because the federal EIS was still unresolved. The Port approved a third ground-lease amendment that cut monthly rent from $108,497 to $15,000, retroactive to December 1, 2023.
The Port did not erase the remaining balance. It pushed it forward. The deferred $93,497 per month would continue to accrue with 18 percent interest until NEXT declared a project approval decision.
The Port's own paperwork shows how invested it already was
The same 2024.03 resolution says NEXT had already paid $3,522,452.73 through the site development agreement, ground lease, and rail safety study. The Port's strategic plan says 90 acres at Port Westward are leased to NEXT.
That is the background condition for every later public decision. By the time the Corps Draft EIS fight reached its current stage, the Port was not standing outside the project as a neutral referee. It was already financially and operationally bound up with the refinery's future.
The waiver turned process into leverage in a remand-heavy land fight
The same rezone had already been remanded multiple times when the Port approved the former-client waiver. In a long-running land-use fight, process decisions shape who keeps steering the file and under what cloud.
The Port record now pairs the waiver with repeated timing accommodations while the same permit fight keeps returning.
The public-risk side is bigger than the lease alone
Sean Clark's own August 2024 Port article says Beaver Dock modernization was then estimated at $28 million and remained a significant unfunded liability. The same article says the Port had stopped assessing its property-tax levy in 2019, making the infrastructure burden harder, not easier.
NEXT's permitting fight now sits beside the Port's dock-retrofit bill, limited annual revenue, and a long federal review that keeps forcing timing concessions.
