Newport Visitors Center closed

NEWPORT – Visitors seeking information at the Newport Visitors Center have been met with a locked door since late June, when the center closed after losing funding for its lone worker. The money for the position was from a federal Department of Labor program and administered through AARP.

Funding was stopped for the Senior Community Service Employment Program, with little information, Greater Newport Area Chamber of Commerce President Madi Cambell said. The chamber runs the visitor center.

“Unfortunately, we have not heard anything,” Campbell said about the funding.

The Visitor’s Center, located at 325 4th St. in Newport, by the Big Wheel, is currently closed. It had been open three days a week, Thursday, Friday and Tuesday.

Now a sign in the window directs visitors to the Pend Oreille County Historical Society Museum.

“If the Visitors Center is closed, go to the Museum located across from Centennial Plaza (gazebo) for questions, maps and information about the Greater Newport Area,” the sign in the door reads.

Tom Owen is a museum volunteer. “I’ve helped a few people,” he said. “We have brochures and a restroom.”

He says thousands of people stop by Centennial Plaza each year and this year looks no different.

“It’s been a busy a season so far,” he said.

The museum is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 1-4 p.m. Sunday.

Campbell said the chamber doesn’t have money to pay for a staffer for the Visitors Center.

Marcia Martin had been working at the visitor’s center since October. She was let go with just a couple days’ notice at the end of June.

Martin was working 20 hours a week under the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a training program for unemployed, low-income workers 55 and older. Workers were paid the minimum wage and could work 20 hours a week. Martin said she won’t get unemployment insurance even though she was laid off.

“I don’t qualify for unemployment because it was not considered a job,” she said on her last day.

Martin, who had worked 15 years as a substitute teacher, said she enjoyed the work at the center.

“It was refreshing meeting different people and directing them to what they were looking for,” she said.

The Greater Newport Area Chamber of Commerce has undergone some growth this year, says Campbell.

“We have 88 members, when we started, we had about 30 last September,” she said in early June.

Board members are Madi Campbell, president, Jackie Bilaski, vice president, Aimee Hixson, treasurer and April Owen, secretary.

The Chamber meets quarterly, with the most recent meeting July 22. About every other month it has a Coffee & Connect event. They have been held in the morning at different businesses but want to hold some in the evening, Campbell said.