BILL REQ. #:  H-1018.2 

Read first time 01/27/11.   Referred to Committee on Transportation.

     AN ACT Relating to authorizing private operation of state-owned rest areas; and adding a new section to chapter 47.38 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   A new section is added to chapter 47.38 RCW to read as follows:
     (1) The department may develop a comprehensive program that allows private entities to operate state-owned safety rest areas.
     (2) The program to allow private entities to operate state-owned safety rest areas must meet the following criteria:
     (a) In addition to commercial services offered, privately operated safety rest areas must also offer equivalent services, at no charge, currently provided by state-operated safety rest areas;
     (b) The department must lease the rights to operate safety rest areas for a commercially reasonable period of time, but no longer than twenty years;
     (c) The department may lease the right to operate either individual safety rest areas, or groups of safety rest areas, or both, to a private entity;
     (d) Before entering into a lease with an entity, the department must contact food or beverage retailers, restaurants, grocery and convenience stores, lodging, and service station businesses within one mile from the highway exits immediately before and after the rest stop location, in each direction of traffic, and allow these businesses an opportunity to bid or otherwise negotiate with the department to operate the facility. If no business responds with a reasonable bid or offer within sixty days, the department must open up the bid or negotiation process to all interested entities;
     (e) The department must take all necessary action to ensure the most favorable lease rates for the state, whether by bid or other reasonable manner, and to require the lessee to enter into any other contract or agreement to protect the state and its citizens from commercial harm or other type of harm; and
     (f) A lease must allow a nonprofit organization that had previously conducted fund-raising activities on the premises to continue such activities. Alternatively, at the election of the nonprofit organizations, one percent of gross sales must be divided between all of the nonprofit organizations that had conducted fund-raising activities on the premises within the twenty-four months prior to the effective date of the lease. Payments must be calculated and paid every six months on a pro rata basis, whereby each nonprofit organization is entitled to a share of the sales equal to the percentage of time that organization actually spent working on the premises relative to any other nonprofit organization that also conducted fund-raising activities on the premises for the twenty-four months prior to the effective date of the lease.