Harbor Committee - Regular Meeting

Well, according to the official time, it just turned to 4:30. So, we'll call the meeting to order. And the first item on the agenda is to approve the minutes of October 14th. I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes of October 14th. Second. Seconded. Move and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor raise your hand. Say I. Oppos. Carried.

Okay. U new business. U RFP discussion. Oh, you're on. You're on last month. I am. So, it's Emma Weed from the Gulf of Main Lobster Foundation. Yeah. Talking about ghost traps. Okay. Yes. Right. So, here we are. Hi, folks. Can you hear me? Yeah, fine. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for having me uh via Zoom. I got stuck in an event with the Brooklyn Select Board um on the Blue Hill Peninsula. So, I really appreciate you all having me here remote. So, um I work as the program director for the Gulf Main Lobster Foundation. We were reached out to by a local fisherman that we work with out of Northeast Harbor who's interested in doing grappling and some disposal of ghost gear in the area. Um, and we have access to trailers and ways to crush the traps and send them off to recycling to kind of prevent uh traps building up in yards or if you have uh overload of them in the harbor itself uh to help you guys with the disposal costs and get rid of them and then provide some income to the local fishermen during the off season to get those traps out of the water. Um, so we do grappling, gear balls, um, and then voluntary disposal events. And I just wanted to touch base with you all to see if there would be room for any of these um at the the harbor that you all manage. And then also um if when our fishermen in the area that are interested if they could land the traps there, put them directly on a trailer and ship them out if you saw any problems with that. Um so I just wanted to touch base with y'all about our programming. Um, and if you are any any of you were interested in broader things or if it would at least be okay to land some traps there and load them right up out of the harbor.

Open for discussion. Long as they take them right away. You're going to leave a trailer down in the parking lot. That was the idea. Uh, so we would have a trailer come when the guys were coming into port and they would take the time that they needed to load up the trailer off the boat and then the trailer would be gone. um just as long as it took to load the traps from the boat to the trailer. So you'd be you'd be a a set day that you'd be doing this. Yeah, it would be a set day. I The only thing I don't we don't want to tie the dock up with traps. That's all. No, I think she's saying a boat will go tow traps, put them on the boat, come in, trailer back down. Just like if we were bringing traps home,

okay, that we were bringing home. Okay, fine. It's not going to sit there like right all day. And if there were other traps that you had happened to have left or that guys wanted to get rid of, we could trailer those off too at no cost to the the fisherman or anything like that. Um yeah. Um yeah, and we do uh the only other thing would be that when we do grappling uh we return them to the fisherman if they're in fishable condition per main state law. So, we would work with the local uh warden's office to locate the fisherman that they were and get them back to him so he could determine if he wanted them back or not.

But you would still take them away on the trailer. We wouldn't have to hold them until some fisherman decides. Yeah, we we would take them away in the trailer and I would either store them in Stington if you needed a second to get back to them or one of our local fisherman would be willing to hold on to them for the other guy to come get them. Is this part of the uh $6 million federal funding for this that I read about?

Uh I don't believe so. We are under impartially a Noah grant, but it is not $6 million um in any span of the words, but if you have any knowledge about that, we have a grant to do work for three years on Ghost Gear. Um that's going to the majority of our funds go to directly financing Men on the Water. So whether that's through grappling or helping them dispose of traps, stuff like that, partially funded by Noah, some by the Virginia Institute of Math and Science, and then also through some private donors. How does the grappling work? Like how do you know where are that you could find them?

So we base uh how we go out is based on local fisherman knowledge. So either where they've lost traps, where they're hanging down on traps as they're trying to fish, or uh where other recreational boers are kind of common knowledge is of this is a problem area. So we have guys get anywhere from 30 traps to one day I was out on the boat and we got 194 traps out of the water. Um so it really is a span of things, but it's really based on their knowledge of what is a problem area.

And how does one report a problem area if they know of one? Uh I have a lot of people calling me. I have somebody calling me right now to talk to me about it, but they uh a lot of the time they reach out to me or I have kind of a local lead in every port that kind of rounds up the knowledge together. So um the person who connected me with you all is Ronnie Mousetti um who we work with on some other programs. Um and he's we're going through like charts of like here's where gear balls might be, here's like a honey hole of where traps might be. Uh this is what we know about. Um, and then just spending time in the area and trying to talk to everybody. I'm mo I'm most familiar with Ponobscot Bay, but um, just being from Stonington, but I also try to spend time in every area. That's why I was hoping to be there in person tonight, but

what's your time frame for this project? We're going to be uh wrapping up, we assume by the end of June. Uh, we think that it will be the most active between the months of uh, March to April. uh just because that's when the most guys are out of the water. Uh but we can work around you all schedule too. If there's a day or a week or month that you don't want any landings happening, we can absolutely make that happen or not happen. I guess summertime would be confusing on a y I think on the scenario you're offering it really wouldn't matter as long as it wasn't in the summer.

Okay. Yeah. And we think so. We're going to do it uh we started up a little bit in uh October and November in Booth Bay and Stonington and then we're going to continue moving up the coast. So we've got more guys in Stonington and then one in Northeast Harbor uh hopefully starting in December. Um and then we shouldn't be moving past uh the end of May and we can tighten things up earlier or have them land in land them in Stonington instead. Good. Yes. Good program. I'm in favor or make a motion. You say go. Go ahead, Chris. Oh, can I? Yes. So, I'd like to make a motion to accept with coordination approval of the harvester.

I had just one more question before we do that if you don't mind. Um, so do you have to have permitting in terms of dragging or grappling on the bottom because I know like that you know with dredging and disturbs the bottom and all that. Is there is there some permitting process that you go through for example in Northeast Harbor and approval from? I go through the DMR and then also the enforcement agency to get approval for every captain in the area that he'll be grappling in. So, I send over their license numbers, uh, information about the vessel, and then they send back a permit for each vessel, uh, knowing where they're going to be going and what area, and they typically cover areas that already dragged for scolops. Uh, got it. Great.

Sounds like you're doing a really great job. It sounds a big problem here in happy to hear about it. It's a problem with wooden. I fish so I I can give you some where the honey holes, right? Yeah. Reach out anytime if you've all got them. And then I heard about wooden traps. My grandpa's making some wooden traps in Stonington. Maybe they'll take hold again and people will start using them. But it is a big problem. We'd like to get them off the bottom before they wash up on shore. Yeah. How to build them. Anyway, we have a motion on the floor. You want to repeat your motion, Chris? Bypass procedure, but I'm good. Someone else will make it.

Motion to accept with coordination approval of the harbor master. Second. Okay. Move seconded. I'll vote. All in favor raise your hand. Say I. I. Post. Carried. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Am I good to step off now? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you.

Okay. We have the next item is a commercial float opening and uh we have some applicants. This is a not my favorite way of choosing people. But anyway, we're going to have to have a uh envelope selection committee here. We have somebody out in the office that can I'm going to go look right now. So, I've got four envelopes that I sealed over a month ago. Each with each one of the four name standing there. You put the little piece of lead in the one we want to go in, right?

Yeah. This is the new one. Are we going to get a number from the woman that was just on there? Said Ronnie Muse. I don't know if you've person up by Saba. Out of the water or in the water? In the water. I have no idea. Which one is which? That's the winner. There's my choice. Right. Yeah. She said just pull up Ronnie. Thank you. Go ahead, John. Open it up and make the announcement. You do it. Not behind me, John.

We're on camera. This is all legitimate. She's on camera. Jason Clark. Could you refresh our memory what Jason's story is?

He runs a six-pack lobster boat out of Dicearts right now doing lobster tours. He said he's going to do whatever. John will read the official things. He's a He's a good guy. He's worked here before. He's done some captaining for Sunrise before. He follows the rules. He knows what he's doing. He is a Yeah, I think he'd be a good I mean, not that I think any of the other ones would have been bad, but I No, but he's good guy. I haven't got my glasses on. He wants some glasses. Someone that has their glasses on needs to Let's have our secretary read.

I'm good. Everyone think I know how to read. description your trips. Depending on what is allowed by the town, I would like to fill the void left by John Dwelly water taxi service with possibilities of short sightseeing cruises. I think that's what yes the lucky he provided you know everything insurance and his boat which How big is the boat? The boat is I can read it. It's a 32. It's a 30.1 ft boat with a 10.3 beam two foot draft. I assume it's a lobster. Yeah, like a Jones style boat, I think. Yeah, like my boat.

Name is Seven Bells. It was built in 1966. It's a six passenger then. Yes. Okay. Yep. That shouldn't increase traffic very much. Well, no, that's a problem. And honestly, it will fill a void that the delight left, which I think they felt quite a bit this summer over on the island. He didn't talk about running those trips. He just talked about doing sightseeing trips. No, he intended to fill the water taxi void left by delight. Yeah, that was his main goal, I think. Yep. It'll be soon. Okay, so he's accepted. Everyone approved. I guess you guys need to

vote approval. Make a motion that we accept Jason Clark as a lottery winner. Lottery winner. Second that. Vote and seconded. All in favor raise your hand. I opposed. Carried. All right. Um, next item is um general issues. We have any general issues, John? Uh, if you've all been down and looked at the public dock, you'll see that the 3x six foot float has been installed. I've seen it in action. It's doing what you folks had wanted it to do.

I will say, John, I you you got all that done quicker than I thought. I wasn't sure this fall if it would just with fall stuff. So, good job on getting everything painted up and yeah, the dock has also been painted with new stencils with a white background with black. They show up well. They show up pretty well. Uh my only concern is they might be a little slippery.

Don't know yet. Haven't stepped on them when they're wet, but uh there was some other things that you folks said on your list here. I got to look back at my thing. have some extra drip text you can sprinkle in the wet paint next time. I think one of the issues that we is uh so open for discussion is the size of the tenders being used and uh that is your public dock use uh old business number two the tenders or the well I'm talking about the tenders on the commercial float you guys uh tabled it until this meeting I thought that was a 17

17 and under for four hours we tabled it till this meeting So, well, my concern has been the size of the overnight pendas on a commercial float. They're not letly expanding. The big boats down there. Well, there's nothing there's not supposed to be anything overnight over 14 ft anyway. So, it's not permitted. I mean, that's what I'm bringing up. Yeah. So, is it just enforcing what we have? Well, apparently uh yeah, there's there's some boats down there that are more than 14 feet.

Well, we have there's there is 17 and under allowed to dock there pour out out overnight, right? I'm talking I'm talking about I'm talking about the overnight boats. Yeah. And there those overnight boats are supposed to have a permit. Yes. Okay. No. No. So there 14 and under commercial dingies. Yes. Got to have a permit to spend the night. Nothing else should be spending the night no matter what. Say that again. No. Nothing else should be spending the night unless it's a commercial. Ding.

Right. Okay. And so everyone has one of those stickers then theoretically overnight and no one can get a sticker over 14 feet. That's correct. Right. So and we've knocked the commercial dingy permits down to 20 for next season. So, I I don't understand what there's left for us to You guys are supposed to be discussing on whether we're still going to allow the 17 and under for four hours on dock instead of or make it all on the dinghy dock tie up side from the sign out to the end where I just put that new little dot. Thank you.

So, what's that typically for? person would come from the island to pick up thing in town and exactly is 100% for the cranberry. So what we now we're also limiting the commercial dock to 20 votes. We're limiting you guys voted to limit the commercial dingies to 20. You did it at the September meeting. How many do we hand out now? I have been giving out 30. to where the other 10 are going to go. Go north. There's no room north.

Well, unless this someone gets a commercial. There may have. So, a lot of people were coming in and rambling my kids and and getting a permit out of them that probably shouldn't have gotten one. So, were they fishing out of out of the harbor or what what were they doing? They were a lot of them may have been cranberry island fishermen that you know have a moring. Not necessarily, but And then there were some that uh just shouldn't have had one in the get-go. Uh, so you're saying

bunch of different little reasons just, you know, taking advantage of a kid that didn't know what he was doing and he handed out a sticker to them. It always boils down to a handful of people abusing the system and making it bad for everyone else. So, are we go what do we define as commercial? Is it uh commercial fishing? Commercial fishing and commercial operator. So, Rick would be a commercial operator. He's do commercial and someone who has a boat but uh works on out on the islands there as a doing whatever do they they're a commercial business I mean is that a gray area mean like a

I think your commercial fishermen and operators that physically work out of this harbor as their port Yeah. is is the ones that we're worried about. The commercial people, the businesses that go to cranberry, the islands for, you know, services and repairs and building should be renting a spot behind the on the north end. I mean, like Bean Bunker has a commercial dingy partner. Yeah. Because they keep their boats here. Yeah. And they need to be able to get to and from And they're also a commercial business. They are.

You're not They're actually paying to be here. But I guess I guess what you're trying to limit is the fisherman who lives and works out of Islesford and wants a commercial dinghy permit for when he happens to come over and tie up to a moing and have a place to keep his skiff. If they have a skiff on both sides maybe, right? Would it make more sense to have only issued commercial dingy permits to people who have commercial moorings in our harbor?

Our moorings aren't all Everybody that's commercial is their mooring not necessarily labeled as commercial. Yeah. I'm just I'm just trying to limit the scope so that it isn't someone from, you know, Southwest or Cranberry that is a commercial operator but doesn't have any real real uh, you know, so I think the biggest issue is that my kids in the summer have been giving out stickers. I think it needs to be limited to me, Adam or only them out whether they

So, but you're correct in 8.86. So, the dinghy docks dingies used to tend commercial fishing or commercial vessels of moorings in northeast arbor will display an annual decal on the inside of the tracks issued by the harvesters office. So does that. So they will secure their dingy on the public. Big problem solved. Yeah, we're getting there. So it it really is just a 14 and we've limited it down to 20 this year

to see where that takes us. But the point that we're at right now is to talk about whether we're going to allow that 4hour tie up of 17 and under from the sign out to the end. Well, I'd like to widen the discussion a little bit because we're now guaranteeing 20 people a spot and they're not paying for it. We have been forever. We've been That's about the worst excuse. So, we're now narrowing that down. Anything that was overflow there now gets shoved over to the north dock, which is jam-packed already. There's not as much over

want to clarify not paying for it. It's only the fishermen who are not paying for it. Uh, the non-resident fisherman, the non-resident should be paying a $500 fee. Well, I pay a f $500 fee to tie up. Yep. Yeah. 660. So 660. Yeah. I'm sorry. But you get used to the dock. Yeah. You pay that for using the dock, not for using the public float. The commercial float. Well, I'm also look that we built these two big cranes and stuff like that that were originally meant if you were going to use them, you were meant to pay to use them. They don't pay that now at all.

But what what's the point of the payment? Because we're making more than enough money to cover everything. So, what's your point of making people pay more money? You make people to pay in front of the harbor master's office. You're now getting a reserve spot that's just for you. But it's always been that way that it's supposed to be reserved. I know. But always doesn't know. I think I think it's a I think it's a reasonable service to expect that I would be able to have a dingy to get from the shore to my commercial boat. Well, then I suggest we make the north dock to available only to moing owners and not people just to come down and dump a kayak and have it sit there. Well, we don't do that.

So, can we We're I think we were getting off topic. you have you have very valid points that I think we need to discuss at another time.

We've we've made motions and addressed one problem on the commercial end of stuff and it's already in our ordinance like what needs to be done and we're not doing it to the extent. So I I agree with you Jim and that it shouldn't be pushed the problem pushed to another dock and we need to address that issue as well. There shouldn't be people using that just to tie up a skiff that fits the profile so they can have a boat that they use and not have a moing. But we need to address this one problem at a time. We get off topic and we talk these other things out and we don't fix something. Let's fix this and then move on to the next problem. Can you tell me how many commercial fishermen and operators work out of Northeast Harbor?

Because if you have more than 20, where are they going to go? you're you're you're pushing another problem over to another side of the harbor and it doesn't make sense. We do not have more than 20 that have moorings in the harbor. Now, the definition could be determined by the harming means renting off the town, a float mooring or that. That's something yet to be determined. We do not exceed that because most of it's been abused by other people that don't. And we still need to enforce that a lot of people, non-residents, are not paying their $500 commercial usage fee down there. Everybody that is supposed to pay their 500 is paying their 500.

Every non-resident that's down there fisher, we do not charge people that only come over for the winter and they're renting a slip.

I still think that should be covered by that. Anyone that uses the pier, they see because they come over here and use it because it's the easiest way out and it's cheaper than anywhere else. Anyone that comes in and uses it to load a bunch of traps and load a bunch of traps should be charged for that. I think that's something we need to completely clarify because in my vision, if you're paying $3,000 plus dollars for the winter to rent a slip from us, you ought to have use of the pier to come in and fuel your boat and unload your catch. Unfortunately, a bunch of people that don't. They see get a mooring or don't. There isn't there's a lot of people that use it that don't come in and rent a seasonal slip. They come in and bring their traps in the fall, set them in the spring,

but again, we're getting off topic from what this what we're focused on is commercial. Yeah. So, here's my suggestion. We're we're limiting it to 20. We're trying to do better enforcement. Do we want to push this other aspect or do we want to see this year what it looks like the you know with the changes that we're proposing so far and then see if the 17 foot boats are still a burden or do you want to just try to resolve that now? It's it's your guys's you guys are the ones that brought this up removing the seven trying to help facilitate the question that right that takes an ordinance change. So that means we go to town meeting. Right.

And I I think you're on the right. Let's see how things work before we go to try to change an ordinance, but we also are not enforcing what we have written right here. Well, we're we're trying that, right? So, John has made some suggestions of, you know, limiting the permit application to, you know, only a few people can authorize it and and we'll take it from there. And then we'll see there's only 20 people with stickers. and then we can see, you know, how we how it goes from there. I think I'd rather see a bigger number of commercial skiffs allowed there than the 17T skips there. If

if you if we're going to shift if you don't have 20 now, well, I don't know what we have there. But but what they're saying is is there isn't a need for that yet. We don't know that. Well, I mean, I know they have a good I we don't know much at this moment, right? So, we don't know what exactly the need is. It does seem It may seem that way. Do you have a list of I do I have a list, but like I said, when someone comes in and rambles one of the kids, the sticker went out without really knowing who it went to. Yeah. But yes, I have a list of,

you know, Chris has been getting the same number sticker for as long as I can remember. And, you know, it's easy. He comes in and I I say, "Look at the list. give them the number next to. But yeah, you know, it happens. So, I understand that. Gonna lock it down to But no sticker unless it's me, Adam, or Jenny that hands it out as as of this summer. How many did we hand out? 30. 30. Wow. And there's probably five or six. Looking at the list, right? Like commercial B there and the names that I could get. There was a handful that couldn't have had stickers. And then Brian said, "I have no idea who actually got it." Really?

Oh, it sounds like enforcing it like you suggested is gonna be friendship. Yeah, but it's perfect. I mean, the ordinance spells it out. Yeah. Commercial fishing or commercial vessels with moorings in Northeast Harbor. So, it it sounds to me like we're on the right track. And if not to say you've done anything wrong, but better enforcement of it if you can, whatever we can do. And keeping that 17 and under to me is a good idea if because if we don't have a space for them, they're going to tie up on the two-hour float. They're going to tie up on the 15minute end. They're going to

they're still going to try to tie up somewhere. And if we don't give them a spot, it's just going to cause other problems. If we need more dinghy space, then maybe we need to revisit that and get rid of that 17 and have more dingies. But it sounds like maybe we don't. Try it with a 20 and we'll see how it goes. I think that Yeah, I think we're What would you would you say that something that I mean commercial that rents a moing qualifies or rents one of your boats for the season, right? I would say so.

So, would would you be willing to follow that? So, anybody that rents a mooring in the harbor, whether it be for one night or for the entire season has the right to tie up a dinghy, whether it's in the off the north dock for transients or if they're commercial. No, you know, if there's a sticker available, right? But no, I'm saying for the commercial. That should be like one night. So, the commercial dog. No, they're not going to get a one night commercial. But I meant for the transient dog. Yes. We're not We're not in that. We're just dealing with the the commercial. I think if we rent a moing to someone and we say you can rent a moing but we don't have place that's that's not

I'm just talking about the definition of commercial fishing or commercial vessels with moorings in Northeast Harbor. I would say somebody that has rented a moing for the season would qualify. Absolutely. And we probably have four or five of those that I'm Yep. aware of. So, we're willing to limit that the 20 stickers to commercial operators and fishermen vessels that have moorings, meaning either rented seasonal or own the moorings to qualify for the Isn't that what we voted on last time?

I don't know if we got that specific, but that's this is a per order. We we nailed it down what the solutions are. Yeah. Let's go ahead with the changes and recommendations that we've made and see how it works. And uh we know that there'll be abuse of the system by a few and it does hurt everybody. I know that. So I'm I recommend we go along with the changes that we've proposed right now. Yep. Okay. To 20. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. We're the he we're all understanding who what those 20 are correct.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Okay. I don't know if we need a vote or not. You want to I think we already have it with the recommendation of the understanding that by the ordinance or how do you want to say it? You guys just want to take no action on the 17 and under until after next season. See what happens. Right. Right. It's a huge problem. It really is. Oh, we just grown. The pressure on our dock facility is unbelievable. I mean, even if you just had a limited be just the moorings, you would be jam-packed. I agree. You know, though,

I mean, the closing of the fish peers in Southwest and Bass Harbor just pushed the pressure over here. Yeah. I would har be has become non-existent almost. Yeah, there's not a harbor on the east coast or the west coast of the United States that has a dinghy dock space big enough to accommodate a dinghy for every morning that's in the harbor. It's just not That's why we have I know in my old head you don't even take a dingy and show it down there. Yeah, you can't. Well, they the launch services and hats off. Sorry, made me nervous.

Sorry. Okay, thank you very much. That's hats off to the launch service and the people that propelled that and John for sticking with that and dealing with the boat and getting people certified. It's the hard that's the hardest thing I hire for every year. So, if any of you know anyone that wants or has interest, I will help them get their license. I will pay for it as long as they'll guarantee me a few years. I have money in our budget every year to do training like that. Do you advertise for that somewhere? Do you advertise for that somewhere? Exactly. We try everything. Advertising, paper on our Facebook page,

get more out of a free Facebook ads than you ever would paying hundreds of dollars in the Islander or whatever. Responses from ads in the paper anyhow. I'd do better putting a flyer up at the high school talking to one of the right ladies or the gentlemen that helped the kids find jobs and do all that. Do you ever think Do you send something to like the maritime? I have in the past. Yeah. Now, what what kind of job is this? The launch. Launch driver. You need a basic US Coast Guard launch tender captain's license.

It's a two-day course. And the kicker is you got to have, you know, 100 days that you can prove at C. I thought last summer went pretty well, John. I'm not doing it. Okay. Anything else, guys? Very good meeting. Motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Move and seconded. All in favor, raise your hands. I post. Thank you.