The Port Townsend Moorage Tenants Union posed both Port Commissioners the following question. Their responses are given below. Don't forget to vote!

The question:

The moorage tenants are the largest user community in the Port, they outnumber the marine trades population. For years, most of them have supported the Port both through moorage fees and as taxpayers. They are the public for whom the Port Commissioners, as public servants, are supposed to serve. Instead, the Port Commissioners and the Port administration has become the adversary, holding hostage the tenants' only access to the Bay.

Many fear an end to their ability to afford the very thing they moved to town to enjoy. They see an administration that is hostile to the needs of its patrons and a commission that refuses to honor the tenants as their constituency.

How do you see yourself improving this situation?


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Forrest Rambo's Response:

Excellent question and I agree with your overview of the situation. Since it's a big question, it's going to take a big answer with several parts.

So, I see myself helping to improve the situation through several approaches.

The broadest and most important is to change the overall operating "culture" of the port to one of providing outstanding service and value to customer/owners and those who visit port facilities. This culture change needs to start with the commission's style of leadership and management then permeate every department and infect every member of the staff. The new credo should be: "OUR public port is here to serve the public, not the other way round." One example being, we need evening meetings as the rule rather than the exception, to encourage more public participation. We need more openness in order to make good decisions supported not only by financial facts but by the perceptions and feelings of the boating and non-boating community. We need "standing" and "ad hoc" advisory groups for each of the major properties and to have one commissioner assigned as a liaison between that group and the commission as a whole. We need to put more effort into broadening access to the water and less effort into attracting high-end chain restaurants. (Case in point: Point Hudson's small boat launch ramp is closed and the top port staff is still enamored of having a restaurant installed in the former shower house.) The moorage patrons at Point Hudson and Boat Haven have, for all intents and purposes, supported all the other marine properties' losses for years. It's time for a commission that welcomes their constituents' ideas and participation as well as their moorage payments.

Another approach is to help inform the people of Jefferson County about the profits and losses of each property; current conditions and future costs, especially related to infrastructure replacement and the effect of all this on rates. I believe that any interested person off the street should be able to walk into the port office and request/receive a FREE copy of a two-page "summary annual report" for the previous year's operations. This report would show where the money comes from and where its goes for each and every port facility; it would show which ones are operating at a profit/loss; how many employees we have dedicated to each and what percentage of administration/staff; and it would show financial performance over the previous five years. It would also show anticipated replacement costs of infrastructure in current year dollars. It's time for a commission that errs on the side of over-communicating rather than under-communicating.

Another approach would be to question the idea that small boats and large boats should pay the same moorage rate per square foot of water occupied.
This is nonsense. Smaller boats should pay less. What's next, a charge per cubic volume occupied? Would this lead to a rate system whereby shallow draft powerboats are charged less than deeper draft sailboats? Consider this: what requires more marina infrastructure support, a single 100x20 power mega yacht (2,000 square feet of water surface) with a 6 foot draft that requires a huge travellift and operators for servicing; or, 2,000 square feet of water space for rowing shells and dinghies with 6 inch drafts that can be manually moved by one person to shoreside? CLEARLY, LARGER BOATS
DRIVE GREATER COSTS! Note, as reported by "Dock Age", "Showboat
International" and several other marine trade magazines, in the past several years the new boat manufacturing segment that has shown the highest PERCENTAGE INCREASE WORLDWIDE is in the 100 FOOT PLUS category!!! Where are these boats going to be berthed and worked on? We need to have a marina design system that is analogous to a parking lot; one area for compacts, another for standard vehicles, a third for trucks and a fourth for the really big rv's with trailers and all the toys. Why should small boat owners pay for infrastructure that they don't need? Why shouldn't larger boat owners pay more based on their need for more infrastructure? It seems to me that the fair way to go about this is to base moorage rates on the size of boat and the infrastructure needed to support its presence in the marina. E.g. if I have a Lightning sailboat I have a fairly modest requirement, but if I have a Nordhaven trawler I have a significant requirement. Why should a small daysailer be charged the same amount per square foot as a 12 meter? It's time for a commission that can balance the needs of the bigger vessels with the needs of the smaller ones and develop marina designs and rates that reflect the infrastructure required for each.

Sorry to have gone on so long, but I wanted to present these "approaches" with my underlying thoughts. Again, I'm glad that you and the other members of the Moorage Tenants Union are doing this. (Kate and I helped start the Liveaboard Association at Shilshole, so I'm sympathetic to these and related issues of public port operations...) I really appreciate being asked for my perspective on possible courses of action.

P.S. If anyone wants to discuss any of these ideas, give me a call at
360-379-2657.

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John Collins' Response:

It seems to me that we are now at a critical junction with regards to Boat Haven moorage facilities, due to the anticipated replacement of the very old A/B docks. That is, I think we need to focus on the future of moorage facilities and costs, rather than focusing any more on the current facility.

I feel strongly that we need much more authentic service moorage tenants engagement and input to the critical decisions that will be made over the next year both in regards to the shape of the replacements docks, and the financing plan for this work. The Boat Haven advisory committee which is meeting with the design consultants seems to be relegated to the role of just responding to ideas put out by the consultants, rather than driving the planning process. The moorage tenants union is now in a position to have a collective voice in this planning, and I would like to see the union engaged in basic conceptualization of the shape and size of the new docks, as a separate voice from the broad but thin representation of the existing advisory committee. As a union member, retired, I value the importance of such a collective voice, and I would move to open up the design process to an active collaboration with the tenants union. It is critical that the new docks provide adequate space for smaller vessels.

The Port staff envisions going out to bid on the new docks in 2009, so 2008 is the critical planning year. At the Commission meeting last night, Bob Sokol moved to reconsider the decision at the previous meeting to raise moorage rates for next year, starting in January, and instead defer raising rates effective May 1 each year. This of course allows either Forrest or me to part of the rate setting, and rates would be raised only once next year instead of an incremental increase in January and another possible increase mid-year as financing the new docks gets on the radar.

The reality we face is that the new docks will probably cost around $10 million. With a 20 year amortization at 5% (just wild guesses on my part), the total cost, principal and interest, would be around $16 million, and would take yearly payments of around $820,000. Next year's proposed budget shows a $340,000 profit in operating the BH moorage plus about $145,000 in depreciation expense which could be expended for dock replacement. Thus, about $485,000 could be generated from the current moorage rate structure to pay off the $10,000,000 in bonds for the new docks. Clearly the moorage tenants union needs to be at the table when decisions are made about how to finance the rest of the approximately $350,000 per year needed to pay for the new docks. Hopefully no one thinks this should be raised totally from rate increases. The consultant made it clear he doesn't think the new docks should be fully paid for by the tenants. So the important question is how much, if any at all, of the $350,000 per year gap in paying for the new docks should come from moorage fees. The answer to this question will be the basis for moorage rates for the next 20 years. I don't have a clear position on this issue at this time, but want to defer to a broader discussion with users. That rate structure needs remain progressive, that is, larger boats pay more per linear foot that smaller boats, but are on a parity based on square footage. The rate structure needs to preserve wide access to the facilities, while to be part of a larger revenue raising plan by the Port to allow adequate maintenance and repayment of debt incurred in building the replacement docks.

I would also like to explore the possibility of having tenants earn credits towards their moorage fees by helping with the dock rebuilding. On Vashon Island, where I lived prior to moving to PT, our yacht club owned the docks where I kept my boat. We replaced the docks through a series of member work parties, supervised by members with professional construction backgrounds. I don't know if this type of sweat equity would work or not, but it certainly is one way to keep the cost of the new docks down.

These are some of my current thoughts on this thorny issue, and I look forward, if elected commissioner, to working closely with users and other public stakeholders in coming up with a long term financing structure for the docks that everybody can live with.

Thanks

John Collins