The Port of Astoria has a maintenance backlog and other challenges.

The Port of Astoria Commission was wise to pause the search for a new executive director.

Over the past few months as interim director, Will Isom has shown he is capable of steering the troubled agency. As the finance director since 2016, he has a clear-eyed view of the challenges the Port is facing. The Knappa native also had finance roles at Columbia Memorial Hospital and the Georgia-Pacific Wauna Mill, two of our community’s critically important private employers.

Waiting until December gives Isom and the Port Commission some breathing room and allows the Port to complete a thorough evaluation of staff.

Being the Port’s executive director is a big job. It may take an experienced, visionary leader from outside the North Coast for the Port to eventually reach its potential. Given the Port’s track record, though, the agency is in urgent need of stability.

We have taken some comfort that the political and legal guardrails in place prevented more dysfunction. For example:

• Voters, in 2017 and last May, removed commissioners whose valid complaints about Port management were overshadowed by poisonous disruption.

• A Circuit Court judge and jury in 2017 corrected the Port’s attempt to fix a bad decision — awarding Brad Smithart the lease for the Astoria Riverwalk Inn — with a worse one — breaking a deal with Param Hotel Corp. to take over the lease.

• A majority of commissioners publicly made it clear in June that Jim Knight no longer had their confidence as executive director, prompting his resignation.

As painful and embarrassing as some of these episodes were to the Port, they were necessary. The Port now has an opportunity to move forward and rebuild its reputation in the community.

The agency should follow the recommendations of the ad-hoc finance committee, particularly the need for greater financial transparency.

The strategic plan should be completed and the Port should concentrate on a measured, yet achievable, blueprint to attack a $20 million maintenance backlog.

Once the Port demonstrates financial resolve, a broader discussion with state and city partners should happen. The land the Port controls along the riverfront has the best potential for redevelopment. But the agency needs state money and city buy-in to make meaningful improvements.

Reimagining the East Mooring Basin through a partnership with a private developer would likely require the Port to create a master plan that satisfies the city.

The Astoria City Council also appears willing to carve out a special plan district for the Port in the Bridge Vista section of the city’s Riverfront Vision Plan. A plan district would give the Port more flexibility to tailor projects outside of the city’s guidelines for waterfront development. But, like at the East Mooring Basin, it would require city approval.

More importantly, it would require trust in the Port’s leadership.

A small, but potentially significant, sign the Port would be in good hands under Isom is the new contract with agency staff represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The contract ties worker pay raises to the Port’s performance, an incentive Isom believes can make the agency more profitable.

“We kind of all wanted to be on the ground level of something good, and show our support to our employers,” said Paul Montgomery, a Port maintenance worker and shop steward.

That kind of faith in the Port’s mission should speak loudly in an executive search.