Ports and Harbor Commission - Regular Meeting

So call the, oh, what is today? August 31st meeting of Ports and Harbors Commission to order and roll call. All commissioners are present except for Commissioner Kelly and Commissioner Steed. And I believe they're both absent excused because they received notification. Is there any public business from the floor on a non-agenda item? So anything that's not on the agenda to bring forward? OK. The suggestion has been made that since we have some public members here that might want to hear the rate discussion, that we move that forward on the agenda. Are there any commissioners that have a problem with that?

OK.

So we're going to move item number three to item number one, bump it to the start of new business, which is recommendation to repeal resolution 2629, naming rates and fees for use of facilities in the Valdez Harbor and replace with Valdez Harbor full legal rate schedule. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Is there a second? All right, so it's moved and seconded, and first we'll open it up for discussion from the commission, and then we'll move to the public if there's any comments you guys want to make. Commission comments or staff comments as we start the discussion? Yeah, anything from Sarah?

The changes that were made in this, besides the layout, were primarily what was taken away from the previous meeting. with the customer user feedback. So primarily getting rid of the parking, getting rid of the same skip charges, and then just doing some additional minor tweaks here and there. But nothing else that really affected the rates besides those two.

So I appreciate the reconsideration on the Anchorage CPI plus 1%, going to the flat rate at 2%. That's what I understand it to be now, just a flat rate after this last 5% rate cycle, right? So going into 2028. You know, looking at that Anchorage CPI, it's been anything from zero to, 8 that'd be quite a We'd fill this room. I'm sure with an eight or nine percent harbor rate increase if we were to follow that so I also support the removal of the Saints gifts Going back to my time on council and on this commission. We've always allowed them to be able to I guess I'd like to know why we're coming up with a 25% move list fee, $25 fee for the move list.

So not necessarily to be with industry standard, but a couple other harbors are charging for it. It does take quite a bit of time to manage that because ultimately it affects, hey, you try and contact the person first, say, hey, this slip is available. Are you interested in wanting to make the switch or not? And now you're waiting on them to get back to you if you don't reach them right away. And so that holds up me reassigning stuff off of the wait list. So we put the fee in place. You guys direct us. We can take it out if you'd like. It's all based on what the commission recommends.

What's the total? How many times do you do that a year?

Probably about a dozen. Right now, we've only had two new movelist requests that have come in since the fee was in place. But again, I've... You guys direct me.

Madam Chair. Yes, sir. So, you know, I guess that was my question. Is this, you know, something that's chronic or, you know, I mean, it's... We're talking, you know, 50 moves a summer or a year. I don't know. I just... I kind of feel like that's part of the administrative costs of managing the harbor is moving people and accommodating requests. So I wouldn't be in support of that. The other thing that I wanted to talk about was the four-cent-a-gallon fuel. So just can you give me a little bit of backstory on that? issue is in the harbor?

So that primarily was put in place because we do not have a fuel flowage fee for the docks. And this is primarily just for commercial fueling only. I'm lucky if I see it happen once a year, and it's usually the Columbia Queen over at the seawall. But North Pacific Fuel is getting away from that. They're not having to pay that same fee, even though they're still doing commercial fueling within the harbor.

That matches what Crowley's currently doing.

OK. Correct. So I appreciate that. And that was something that, I think it was Wayne Callen started that years ago. And it's always been a concern. So I don't have a problem with that. But I think it needs to be in the definition maybe. Let's clarify that a little bit so that if you have somebody that brings down a five gallon can of diesel to put in their furnace, I've seen that with liveaboards where they put a couple in a sled and take them down and put them in their boat. I don't see the value in the harbor recuperating 20 cents a can. So anyway, that would be my recommendation is we just Clarify that a little bit. If it's fuel in a DOT-approved container, whether it's a 5-gallon can or a 50-gallon drum, and they're just loading fuel, it just takes away that confusion. So that would be my own recommendation.

And I do know that there was confusion when we first put this out. I'll have to find it in here. I'm not really sure where I got it now. But I thought it did say specifically to get in commercial. But yes, I did think that it had the verbiage of commercial. But it does not. So I will get that added in there.

And one more issue, if I may. Or one more comment, I guess. Trolling or fishing from vessels in the harbor. I know that you can blame the FDA for the reason why there's, you know, hundred people in the harbor fishing. But one of the things that I thought might be helpful is, and I don't know if the harbor's done it, I haven't seen it, but have you put out anything that, you know, that would go to the public to encourage them, you know, areas that are fishing is permissible, like the shore side around the back of the harbor. I don't see any no fishing signs on the floats. I mean, if that's the direction the harbor's going to go,

We are looking at redoing all of our signage, so it will be added to it. I know this was a problem 10 plus years ago when Diane was still the director, where we actually had recreational boaters almost running into tenders and tour boats or whatever, just because, fish on, oh my god, everybody get out of my way.

The dolphins were refusing it three days ago.

So what I found is that you can channel them towards areas where fishing is permissible or whatever. So that's all I had. Thanks for indulging me.

Before we move on, can I get three head nods for the remove the transfer fee for $25?

So my question was, before we do just head nods, are we wanting to send this out to council or is it coming back to us for one more review? We'll make the changes now. So should we make the changes now?

So I'll make a motion to remove the $25 fee for the slip transfer.

Is there a second to the amendment? All right. Any discussion on the amendment? All in favor of the amendment to move the $25 fee for move, say aye. Aye. All opposed? I guess we all said aye, so there's no one else here. Okay. Are we comfortable just asking for clarity on the commercial wording, or do you want to do that as amended?

Sorry, I've got two questions. One is related to the RV parking overnight, the $40 fee. I understand that we're trying to get away with having RVs parked. The docks overnight are just being parked there indefinitely, and I'm fine with that. Is $40 going to be enough of a deterrent?

So I had used $40 just because right now, at least talking to some of the RV parks, $45 is kind of the minimum that they charge for dry camping. But usually within that, you have access to shower and restroom facilities, which, yes, restroom facilities you do have with us, but you have to pay to shower. Okay. Again, I'm open to any questions. recommendations or suggestions you guys have?

It's signed no camping down there.

Oh, I understand.

It's one of those things that when it happens, it's like the RV parks want us to be a little more aggressive.

I see it as well. I see the folks camping down there and taking the dog for a walk and I see the RVs camped out there and I think to myself, you know, for crying out loud, just, you know, it's particularly bad when I'm driving, going for, you know, driving out of there and There's an RV in the way, and next thing you know, I'm having a close call with a vehicle that's pulling out on the other side of the RV. So I was just wondering if maybe if we're trying to discourage folks from parking there, buying an RV park, maybe we make it something a little bit more like, say, $100. Put a little sting to it if we really want to discourage it. That's my thought on that.

So we technically have the two different rates in there. One is unauthorized camping, which is primarily in the summer months. We did put in there $40 a night from October 15 to April 15, because the RV parks aren't open then. And usually that's when we get skiers from Thompson Pass that come down and just want to come in, shower, Get some electricity, fill the water.

I think for the authorized during the winter months, during the off-season, $40 is great. Unauthorized, I would move to amend that for unauthorized camping during the prime season, $100 daily. I guess you could say fine.

Is there a second?

So you're talking about a $100 fine for illegal camping?

Yeah, unauthorized.

And to be clear, normally we will tag said RV or camper. It just says, we appreciate that you like our facilities, but there is no overnight camping. And if they're there the second day, that's when we kind of come back and we don't just automatically ding them. Awesome. Okay, so there's a motion and a second on an amendment to do legal

During the right season at $40, and then illegal camping at $100. Mike, do you have discussion or comments?

What's it currently? Illegal camping? $40. Yeah.

It was a nightly.

Yeah.

Sorry. Yes.

I have that same question. You guys are all partnering. Is that enough? Is it not enough? Do we care? Do we not care?

My general philosophy is that the with people, point people in the right direction, but not excessively high. So wrestling with whether or not $100 is on the high side. I wouldn't have a problem doubling it to maybe $80.

Isn't it $60? It's $40. Sorry, yes. Number 25, camping. $60 from May 1st to September 30th?

Correct. Sorry, I thought it was still $40. I missed that. But you said you just wanted to double it, Mike?

Yeah, I'm trying to find out where. And authorized camping. Oh, I'm looking at 31, which is the new proposal.

It's on page 30. down at the bottom, number 25.

If we can pledge to the others .. I'll claim that .. Oh, unauthorized camping, then you have illegal camp. So I guess the question is, can we just .. What's the difference between unauthorized and illegal? They're not.

I think it's the same. It was one of those where Jeremy and I were having a conversation and .. So we'll clean that up.

Which one would you like? What would you like the final one to be?

We already have it as unauthorized camping at $60. And then it goes to $40. I see where that is there. It's just a matter of cleaning up between that. And then I can just withdraw my motion. So I'll go ahead and withdraw my motion.

Does the second agree?

Yeah, I agree. But I would like to see it. either take it as unauthorized or illegal. Your choice. I think having two different... I'll leave that up to... Just make it common. Right. We don't need both of them. It's confusing. We certainly do not.

All right. Any other comments on rates from the commission?

One more.

Yep.

So we did receive a letter from Mike Waller on the fish cleaning. I guess I'd like to just have some discussion on that on the committee level. I think 500 is pretty high. It's 100 now and increasing to...

It's up to 300 at this point in time because it's supposed to cap out in 2028. Ultimately, a lot of the wear and tear gets done on our fish cleaning stations. And... Our waterfront commercial work permittees, like Boat Works, HD Marine, anybody doing work down there, theirs is a $500 cap as well. Ultimately, they're all making money down there, and we don't require the fish cutters to have insurance or anything else, which we've definitely had issues in the past with people drinking while they're delaying fish, getting into fights, arguing with customers and or other fish players.

The

So they're currently charging, what, a dollar a fish still? Or two fish? I think so. That's a part territory, but two bucks is what I paid. And if we're charging them a fee, does that mean that we have any skin in the game for having them there? Like, liability-wise, risk-wise?

There's risk and liability with everything that we do down there. But yeah, the attorneys, they look at this, and they look at our operations. We can make that note of that to them.

And are we safer basically saying it's available for public and commercial? For that, we're not charging a fee, but it's liabilities. You own the liability. Remove the risk from the city and Fort Snyderville.

I think the challenge is to be equitable to other commercial operators in the harbor as well that we're charging something to.

I understand.

So I talked to Mike. I picked up my fish last week. And Mike was having trouble getting fish cleaners at all. And so he thought maybe this would deter people from starting because they have to pay the $500 upfront. So they're working from behind. I don't know if that has anything to do with this, but sometimes the wait's up to four hours, he said, for his people. It's costing him overtime. It's backing up the whole system. He said that they were having meetings or at least some discussions with all the charter boat operators that maybe they'd go back to the deckhands doing the fish cutting. Some years we get three or four fighting over the same spot, and some days, like this year, I guess there's three or

And we actually even have a Coast Guard gentleman who paid the fee because he wanted to come in knowing that Josh was going to be going back to college and he wanted to fill the void.

I do think 500 is high myself.

So I'm going to make a motion that it's increases. I'll let you word an increase of $200. Any all in favor of the amendment?

Anything from the public on rate?

I'm sorry.

One second, Nicky.

I'm sorry. I thought it was on that one. I did have one question about the spill stuff. So a few weeks ago down at the South Basin, I happened to see a dumpster that someone had obviously disposed of, oily waste. And it was leaking out. And I was stoked to see the crew there cleaning it. What bothered me was that the bilge collection facility was 50 feet away. So I was looking at the rates, and I'm wondering, with spill recovery, with that type of stuff, that costs a lot of money. It really does. There's a lot of expense in it, both in materials and labor, and then setting the materials off to be properly disposed of.

Training everybody to do it as well. There's all another.

Yeah. You've got ASWAPR. You name it. You've got the PPE that's involved with it. So my concern was, are we just the one time, the second time, and then the third time they finally get trespassed? Or are we actually able to go in after them for insurance to recoup some of the cost? So I'm just trying to arrive at, you know, how we kind of cover that cost with that stuff. And that might help us better make a choice if we're not charging enough on...

So right now for oil disposal, we have the two different sites, both in the North Basin and the South Basin, and we do not charge anything for that because we want to encourage people to dump their oil properly.

Oh, absolutely. There's no argument on that.

Obviously, in a dumpster, it's really hard for us to know who dumped it when and where. Obviously not where, but when and who it was. Obviously, if there is a boat leaking in the yard, we will have them clean up after it if they are available. If not, our staff will. and use our materials, and they get charged for labor. Our cost plus 15% on top of that for like oil absorbance, sweeps, boom, whatever we need to use. And then most of the higher dollar stuff is when we're working in the water, you know, if a boat sinks, and we're containing it, and reaching out to DEC. And even in the yard, we reach out to DEC, as well as the Water Coast Guard and the National Response Center just

person that puts it in the dumpster that 99% probably knows better.

Yeah, you're talking about negligent act. And then the person that has a boat go down or has something tip over. So I'm kind of looking at the standpoint of, you know, how do we deal with if we were to catch someone in a negligent act or say the city cameras caught them dumping, I might just be squirreling off somewhere.

We've had this happen before. It's not the first time it's happened. three times a year sometimes. Sometimes we'll go here without.

Well, maybe it's just something I shouldn't be chasing for now, but maybe in the future we might want to look at.

Yeah, if they did it on purpose, they could be getting booted by the way.

This is illegal. You're talking 50 feet away at a dump facility where services are provided free of charge. I know. And that to me really bothers me. It really does. It's just lazy.

Do you have a proposal for a new finer fee, or do you want to just sort of bring it forward?

Well, I think we should put it out there that if we have, maybe we should put a fee on there for a fine. Negligent dumping will result in the cost of remediation, plus 10%.

That's already in there. That's already in there. We have a fee in place already. Okay. We got that one. I must have missed that. But you can make it a fine bigger if you want.

Number four. Okay, so we're stuck to capital

That's really too bad because the cost involved with this.

Well, so you're going to get the fine, but then you're also going to get the staff time for health care. Okay. If we have to clean it up or do any remediation along with any of our aspects, it's our cost.

Okay, thank you for clarifying that for me.

And the $500 has to do with the municipal side of things. If we go more, then we have to have prosecutors.

Okay. I appreciate you clarifying that for me, so thank you. I'll rest at this point.

Okay, all good. So for public comment, we are going to ask that you come up to the mic just because we are recording. And when you, as I take my own advice, when you click it, red is on. And I think we're going to go crazy on comments tonight, so I'm not going to time right now. But if we start getting crazy, I'll stop it. So anyway, so Nikki, if you want to head up.

Hey, I'm Nikki Newcomb. I'm a liveaboard in the harbor for 44 years. And I'm curious about what happened with Catherine Walter's concern about the annual upland fee and making it seasonal rather than annual. Did anything ever come of that?

It's not going to be seasonal or annual, but ultimately it's kind of at my discretion. So in the event of like a hardship, something comes up, or your nine months comes up in the middle of winter, we're not going to expect you to go in the water. So at that point, your fees would just stay the same until you're able to go in the water. And at the last meeting, that was part of the discussion between myself and

Okay, now just curious whatever became of that because I didn't see it in here and then the other one was Unauthorized camping is there Authorized people ask me that because I have a camper that I just parked up there and they say you know can you park camp here? and I Don't know anymore. Is there authorized camping even in the wintertime? I mean, are you charging those people, the skiers, $40?

If we see them, like I said, normally we'll go in there. All of our signage says no overnight camping. Yeah, I know. If they come up and say, can I camp for overnight, then we will give them the rate of the $40. And if they need electricity on top of that, that's a separate fee.

Where do they get the electricity?

They usually just plug in over by the building, or there's areas in the yard they can plug into.

Also, the... Oh, can I plug into that overnight occasionally? Sure.

Only if you want to pay for it.

Okay.

But also, just so you know, the city has a camping ordinance, so if it's not signed...

I was curious, because then it was unauthorized camping. And I thought, well, what is authorized camping then?

And then my other one is trolling or fishing from a vessel in the Valdez Harbor. Could you make that be motorized vessels? Because there are people out there in kayaks and things in my harbor trolling around for an hour in their little kayak in my end of the South Harbor. And I was looking at them doing that. And I was thinking, technically, I think that's illegal. Could that be made to motorized vessels?

My only comment would be that in the old harbor, that is more dangerous than a non-motorized vessel because they can't get out of the way. And so that's my concern where there's super high traffic with large vessels, not just ours, but tenders and the things we've seen. Is it just a matter of getting them out of the way quick enough? And that would be my concern. It is more just a hazard in navigation.

Okay, that's true. Like I said, nobody's navigating over in the back door there. The other way. Thank you, Nikki.

Do you have any public comments that you'd like to make? Anyone else? We just need you to state your name for the record.

My name's Marcus Fuller. Thank you for the fisherman-savvy commentary there at the end. Appreciate that. I just want to mention that the harbor has been my home since the late 90s. As a crew member, as a boat owner, it's always like the place that you come back to from the ocean. It should be a safe place where you can gather yourself and some level of benevolence. There's a lot of good people working on the staff. There's good humans. The constant economic pressure against the people that are living and dwelling there is pretty paramount. There's been a lot. I know the relative pressure of economics in the world, but when you have some other way of, like when you're trying to enforce rules and stuff, I can understand that. Just asking for relief on that front from someone that depends on that. Seeing it astronomically increase and a lot of the enforcement stuff over video and having crew members riding on the dock and getting enforced on that. Having the bill come back to me, it's like, okay, well, I understand they're being reckless or this and that. But I think some of that's been worked out directly with the harbor staff and coming to an understanding. Same with reporting a spill. I need to know that a spill came out of my vessel or from some situation. There was a time where I was reported and there was never direct mention of it. It became kind of an after effect. THIS REPORT HAD HAPPENED. I DIDN'T HAVE THE CHANCE TO RESPOND DIRECTLY. AND THEN I HAD JUST A DIFFERENT ISSUE. IT'S EASY TO GET ON ONE SIDE OF THE ECONOMIC THING IN MY POSITION THERE. I WAS JUST CURIOUS ABOUT THE OUTPUT OF THE Seems like Pine Sol and really strong cleaning solutions are being applied to the dock surfaces, Kelsey dock, the cleaning tables. It just seems like progressively in use, strong chemical solvents. Just something that I've noticed in recent times. It just seemed like that had been... It was just a concern, like, caustically, personally, for me to be around that. And then also just thinking about how much is going into the water where we're having salmon runs and, like, what that food is. It was continued upkeep when the cruise ships were coming in or a different cleaning solution or something. That's something that I noticed personally.

We'll find out if that's something we're doing.

Thanks for doing your job.

Thank you for joining us. And I think staff made notes on those comments.

I want to know that, too. You should be just bleached just for sanitizing that. If there's other things on there, I want to know if it was us. Should we just wait?

Yeah, there's just a safe haven in the harbor for humans. There's like a whole collection of humans that work and live here and are dependent on that. And they're the ones that kind of bridge the community. So I understand directing your fees. curve different behaviors and have things aligned. But maybe there could be some kind of incentive, some kind of really good rate, like do these 10 things on the good list, whatever. There's some other ways of assuring this sustainable bottom line going through rough times and conditions.

All right. Thank you. Kyle, do you have any public comments? No. OK. All right. So that has taken through. We've had a few amendments. We've summed the motion on the floor, which is to forward the rates as amended to council. Any other comments from the commission? All right. All in favor of the amended version of the rates, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. I just would like to say, sorry, all in favor, motion passes for the record. Just thanks to everyone who has worked through this process with the commission and with the public to get us to the new rates going to council and the next version. And thank you to the public for coming now and previously to give us comments and feedback. So most appreciated. We're going to hop up to number one, which is that Kelsey Dock Mooring recovering a long-term improvement discussion item. And I don't know if it's Jeremy or Andrew taking the lead on this one, but I'll pass it to that end of the table.

He's been on point for this.

Yeah, so after a lot of phone calls and conversations, I met with a Samson Rope representative a couple weeks ago and was finally presented with a pretty nice solution. And so we're going to... I'm still waiting back to hear from the design team and build team for exactly what the bollard pile that was installed between the ferry terminal and the Kelsey dock is actually rated for. Once I have that number, I'll send it off to this Amson Ropes right here. This is what this infrastructure is rated for. We need ropes that will accommodate and not destroy that infrastructure. And then we'll pair that with what he calls a soft shackle to marry up in eye to eye. So marry a facility line to a vessel line roughly in 115 foot length to basically reaches about to where the dock face is. Longshoremen at that point will interface the facility line with the vessel line. and be able to utilize the pile quality that's been installed as of January this year. So there's a couple of loose ends to tie up. And then the other big thing on that is that the lead time on those mooring lines is six weeks. So unfortunately, we're not going to have that. Yep, we're not going to have that to finish out our season here. But we are going to keep moving forward with this option. of the other options that were presented were not getting much traction and so this at least will give us uh give us an option to do it safely and then go from there and then you eventually get to a long long-term solution for kelsey dock and as far as pilots operators longshoremen everyone is so feeling that we have good agreement that the energy you're putting into it is going to come out to be usable yeah i mean i sent out a a pretty um extensive exhaustive high up and let go procedure maybe uh a little bit outside of the lane that i um currently operate in my my day-to-day job but something on a background i have in and so i presented this to the longshoreman or like the the stevedore manager he said hey this is this is going to be the new new procedure down at kelsey dock um you know, kind of pick through this and see if, you know, start pulling loose strings and see if there's something that I'm missing here that will present, you know, basically a safety issue. He came back and said, no, you know, we can work with this. So the cruise lines haven't exactly agreed to this at this point, but... that is the safest option, and known as presenting, is bringing another solution to us.

Do you think that we need to get every, once we get the line and the blueprints, I think it's time for a meeting to get everybody in a quick half an hour, 45 minute discussion, get everybody in the room, and then make sure that there's no other stumbling blocks.

Just know when we have winners to take those on, make sure we do.

future in respect.

Yeah, to kind of get a little bit into that, the cruise lines have asked for 175,000 pounds of pulling weight. Our current infrastructure is not, that's over what our current infrastructure is actually rated for. And so we will, the lines that we will purchase are going to be rated for the infrastructure that is but it has been constructed and is in place. And so as part of that, kind of get into the weeds a little bit more on that, the fail point in that whole procedure is going to be the soft shackle. So that would be the weak point or the fail point so that we're not damaging vessel lines or facility lines. The soft shackle is... Yeah, the cruise lines were saying they wanted 175,000 pounds. The shackle's like 10 minutes. But yeah, the shackle would be rated just slightly under what the... Oh, shoot. That's not bad at all then. And so the shackle would be the weak point. We'll have spares on hand so that in the event that something does happen, we're able to retrieve the eye back to the dock, replace the soft shackle, and carry on. But yeah, as soon as we do get the specs on everything, I'd be more than happy to share that with the commission. We will put more than one line from the ship on the soft shackle. So the way that... we would do the procedure, at least the way it's working out in my mind, is that it'd be one soft shackle for each mooring line. So each mooring line that's going to secure you, whether it's the headline or the stern line, it would be one-to-one. So one soft shackle from facility I to vessel I, and then another. They typically use two headline or two stern line, depending on how they moor at the dock. But it'd be the one soft shackle.

Okay.

So we'll

line coming off fore and aft with multiple soft shackles running off? Or are we talking more than one?

So we're talking multiple lines off the stern or the head, depending on how they moor up. And then... So the short side baller, we would have at least two lines in place. Right now, the type configuration is two breast lines, and then they have three stern or headlines. And then I would imagine that they'll go two breast line, or sorry, two spring lines, a breast line, and then a headline, two stern lines or two headlines to have five on each end.

No, certainly three, two, two is typical for I'm kind of thinking about pinch points, people losing fingers, that kind of thing. That's a critical juncture where you're absolutely expecting connections. So that's kind of why I'm going to bug you and keep bugging you until I see some of this stuff. I'm just going to put my own eyes on it.

Yeah, so in order to maintain control over those mooring lines, additional messenger lines would then be tied. Individual messenger line would be tied to the eye of the facility line. So you have, of those two lines that are going to be connected to the baller, the short side baller, you're going to have two independent messenger lines that are each attached to both eyes. And then they'll work one of those lines at a time. OK. Thank you.

Mike has a question.

Yeah, so the only question I've got is that, you know, A COUPLE. HOW COMMON IS IT FOR THE PORT TO ACTUALLY PROVIDE AND WHAT'S OUR LIABILITY?

YEAH, I MEAN, THAT'S DEFINITELY A GREAT QUESTION. IT IS NOT COMMON. IT'S JUST, YEAH, IT'S NOT COMMON. In my professional background, what I've seen working as a stevedore and managing stevedores, the lines have always been provided from the vessel. In these conversations that I've been working through with the vessel agent, the vessel would prefer to use their line and have that line go all the way to the shore base ballard right. I DON'T WANT TO POINT FINGERS, BUT THERE'S SOME OTHER SAFETY CONCERNS THAT HAVE BEEN BROUGHT UP ABOUT DEPENDING ON WHERE WE'RE AT DURING THE TIDE OR DURING THE TIDE CYCLE, PULLING THOSE LINES OVER THE RIPRAP AND ACCESSING THIS AREA WHERE THE NEW BALLARD HAS BEEN INSTALLED. THERE'S CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF VEGETATION THAT WE ARE NOT ABLE TO CLEAR, NOT GIVEN AUTHORIZATION TO CLEAR. and go in there. The temporary use permit that we were granted, we've done what the city has been, has exhausted what we have currently allowed to be able to do. And so we're trying to come up with a solution to be able to accommodate some of these 700 foot plus vessels. The vessels have asked certificate of compliance that might not be the right basically all these these lines will come with a certification and say this is what they're rated to this potential strength this is their breakpoint and so when that does happen we'll we'll also provide that information through the cruise line agent travel lips

pockets they go after. The line parts and somebody gets hurt or somebody's damaged. I think, you know, you guys are in a tough spot. I think you're trying to, you know, work a situation that is, unfortunately, it's going to take time and money to fix, you know, the bollard that's broken. But, yeah, anyway, that was a concern that I had.

So over the terminals, when Crowley went away, so did the line boats. On the berths, we have those dolphins that, the offshore dolphins for both stern and bowed tankers. The Marine Department has a system in place to actually get the line there that doesn't involve use of boats. Let me ask around at work, see if we could... arranged for a visit. So you can see the tie up and let go, see how that's actually kind of handled. And that might be an option that we might adopt that type of system to make that work. That way we're not having folks climb down the rip rap through the vegetation. That's all kinds of ugly. And I agree with Mike. I think when we're talking cities use of lines, It is an anomaly in the industry to see that, and we don't want to assume that liability. I'll figure it out here in a couple, I'm off for another week, but when I get back, I'll start asking around and see what we can arrange.

Yeah, I'd be more than happy to see or get exposed to a different solution. Thank you.

Any other comments?

Public comment? Well, yeah. So the next part of the agenda item is to talk about some priority in moving this project forward. That's coming. Okay. Yes.

I just want to make sure there's no comments.

Yeah, we have questions for you guys. Clarity when we get to the end. Okay. So QUESTION THAT I HAD WHEN I WROTE THIS AGENDA STATEMENT WAS, IS THIS A STAND ALONE SEND IT ON TO COUNCIL OR IS THIS A PRIORITIZED LIST OF THE TOP THREE OR FOUR BECAUSE WE HAVE SOME OTHER PRIORITIES AT THE CONTAINER DOCK THAT ARE MAYBE ONE PEG ABOVE THIS WITH THE FIRE LINES AND THEM TRYING TO SHUT US DOWN WITH HAZMAT AND STUFF THIS SPRING. THAT WAS PRETTY SCARY. SO THAT WATER SYSTEM OUT THERE NEEDS TO BE REPLACED. so I just I would hate to say this is the number one project because this is like number 1.2 because like we have two number ones so when we talk about the projects I would hate for them to say okay well we're only going to do one so this is the one we're going to do just caution the commission however you guys want to do it I think they're both going to go through so I'm not I would say I think they both have economic impacts on the communities that are are I think one point three would be the launch ramps. I think all three of those projects will probably make the list.

Are we needing to do a prioritization on those?

At some point we will. The city manager's got the budget now, so he'll have it for a month. We've given him our priorities. Those are on there and on those at the top as a department. The commission, I think the third week of this month, we should prioritize and give them our top five. The city's prioritizing maintenance in their strategic session, so if they're looking for an admin to do up a five-year CIP, I think that five-year CIP will probably be more like eight by the time some of the settlements and stuff come to fruition. And so I think that when we provide that list, we'll give them a five-year CIP, but knowing that probably the construction won't be completed until three years, so I think all those projects, Harbormaster's office is probably in there as well. But we're competing against everybody else.

So I would, at a minimum, I think, yeah, if they all can get funded, that's great. But at a minimum, on this project, we should really have an engineer in.

Engineering and cost estimate. I would say as long as we have momentum.

Yeah, I do too. I know what you wanted.

And communicate the momentum. You wanted more. Yeah, I get it.

I understand.

I think that's the piece that's pretty essential is the communication of the momentum so that frustrations don't build. And Andrew, you've been reaching out to the cruise lines and others. So I mean, I know that's happening. universal between all parties that get to play in the mooring status.

I'll put this on the agenda for the next meeting with the other projects. And then I'll also recap the ones that we're finishing up as well this season.

And I think having that information, having kind of what levels of budget we're looking at as well.

It's nice.

We have a good reserve right now, too. And I think prioritization and us being able to sort of talk about the economic impacts. Because they are drivers as well.

I would love to have this one.

Yeah. I mean, you know, we've made a lot of good progress getting the cruise ships back. So I don't want to see us start going backwards because now we're having infrastructure issues.

Honestly, we're talking the capital cost that's going to last for quite some time.

So I'm like, we're here asking for it every year. Yeah. And I think, by the way, at that same meeting, we'll come back and talk about cruise head fees, too, as well, because ours are kind of low system-wide. I think that will probably pay for it. In the long run, we'll pay for it. We don't need a motion on that.

Nope.

It's just a discussion.

Discussion will bring something back. Good discussion. Thanks.

And so item number two, the 2006 Prince James Sound Pink Salmon disaster.

and this is i'm assuming a discussion item at this point in time just uh hey we're letting everybody know that we've had a bad salmon year and that we're start tracking costs because it looks like we're headed for a big disaster so i guess my question is i know in the

not turning my mic on hopefully you all can hear me in the recording if not ask me to repeat myself um is are we having the discussion looking at relief at this point in time and suggestions for release has council sent this to us i i'm just sort of where where are we i mean i think we all are aware that we're having a disaster especially two of us i anticipate it coming that council is going to want to probably do it again um i'm just ahead of it and

We've talked to the state. They haven't declared yet, so we're kind of waiting for them to declare before we start. The season's not officially over yet, so.

No, we've also got an election year without doing governor, so it'll be his responsibility.

So, yeah, I think once it's done, then we'll go forward from there. I just wanted to be aware it was on our radar. We've had a lot of tears, and I don't think Sam went out of here this year, so. It reflects all the way across.

Yeah, well, I mean, I support doing what we can. It's a city to help with that.

I would just encourage this, and I think the crisis is much larger on the commercial side. I just think on the sports side, the sport commercial operators have had a pretty tough year, too. So I think if we are going to take some action, we should probably look at both. There's been some tough years for some of those as well, so. By all means, the commercial operators on a much larger scale, but I do think having some compensation. If we go there. Charter boats? Yeah. Charter boat operators have had not an easy season either ahead of them as things have happened. Yeah. Anyway, just as we look at things, I would kind of, it doesn't have to be equitable, but some form of recognition that it's not been easy for everyone across the board. Any other discussion? Assuming that will come back to us?

Yep.

Okay.

As soon as everybody gets excited and we move forward, if there's a disaster required, then we'll go forward. If not, we'll wait for council to say, okay, it's fine.

That leads us to reports. I don't know if the three of you have anything that's not In the packet that needs to come forward? It's summer. Any commission business moves, Larry?

No, I'd just say I'm looking forward to working with the harbor staff and the port staff. Yeah, it's been an area that's been near and dear to my heart over the years. I spent a little time on this commission. Pretty impressive, the first packet I received. Informative. Glad to have you, Paul.

It's good to be here, and I look forward to working with all of you, and definitely get a lot of good information, and see where I can help out.

welcome to you both i probably should have started the meeting that way welcome back after a few years of escaping ports and harbors i think i took your seat initially many years ago so nice to have you back so um and with that i think we can um adjourn the meeting so thanks everyone