KINGSTON — The Port of Kingston Board of Commissioners announced this week that it will not “voluntarily” sell to the state the 3-acre parcel that houses the Kingston/Edmonds ferry terminal.

“We use the term ‘voluntarily’ because the state has, on more than one occasion, threatened to condemn the property if we don’t sell it to them,” said Port of Kingston Commissioner Marc Bissonnette. “No one wants this issue to go that direction.”

During the port’s regular meeting July 27, the commissioners approved a formal resolution clarifying their position on the recent request that the port sell the property to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

At a public meeting in June with both the state and port present, WSDOT officials said they would like to purchase the property to help control the ferry system’s costs, strengthen its financial standing and increase non-fare box revenue by bringing in food vendors.

The port has been leasing the property to the state since 1952, however, WSDOT’s long-term lease expired in 1999 and it has been on a month-by-month basis ever since. The two parties have been trying to negotiate a new lease, but the port has been staunchly opposed to the state’s demands to allow development at the site of which the port would have no control over.

At the June meeting, residents gave WSDOT officials a piece of their mind — arguing that the state’s track record in customer service and following through with its promises have been less than ideal.

“The comments and strong feelings expressed by our neighbors at our public briefing in June solidified our position,” Bissonnette said.

The July 27 resolution further called upon the state to continue good faith negotiations on a new lease that would allow mutually-agreed development.

“We need a good and modern terminal and the state needs us,” Bissonnette said. “There are a lot of major businesses out there that lease the land on which millions of dollars of improvements are constructed. We can do the same here, and intend to.”

The state needs to agree to not condemn the port land, he added.

“We can hardly have equitable, good faith negotiations if one party holds that kind of hammer over the other’s head,” he said.