PORT ANGELES — Dissent is percolating among some boat owners over increased moorage rates approved Aug. 13 by the Port of Port Angeles commissioners.
Boat Haven boaters have scheduled a public meeting for 7 p.m. next Monday, Sept. 17, at the Raymond Carver Room at the Port Angeles Library, where William Spring has promised boat owners will talk about how taxing the increases will be when they take effect Jan. 1.
No one favoring the increase has been invited to speak, but anyone is welcome to attend and express an opinion, Spring said.
“The issue has to do with unfairness and basically, I think, a callous abuse of power by people elected to serve the citizens of the county, including the citizens who have boats,” Spring said.
Commissioners approved the increases 2-1, with commission President John Calhoun and Commissioner Jim Hallett in favor and Commissioner Paul McHugh opposed.
Rates will increase by about 8 percent at the 471-slip Boat Haven in Port Angeles for boats 20 feet and shorter to boats 60 feet and longer.
For a 40-foot boat, the moorage rate will increase from $5.98 a linear foot to $6.47 a linear foot.
That’s a hike from $239.20 a month to $258.80 a month.
The increases do not include a consumer-price-index increase that will be added to the new rates.
The Seattle CPI was 2.8 percent the first half of 2012, according to the Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington.
Moorage rates will increase only for boats 60 feet and longer at 300-slip John Wayne Marina east of Sequim.
Boat owners also must purchase $300,000 in liability insurance.
“They won’t be able to get it or afford it,” Spring said of the insurance.
Spring said the rates are based on a 20-marina survey that is skewed toward more upscale facilities like those in Seattle and not suitable for a community with a far lower median income and higher unemployment than central Puget Sound.
The new rates are 85 percent of the average of the marina rates in the study, which included the Boat Haven and John Wayne Marina.
Spring claimed the Boat Haven already takes in about $1.2 million annually while incurring less than half that in expenses.
And while the port has not imposed increases for three years, including the CPI increase, commissioners increased rates almost 80 percent over the previous four years, lowering marina occupancy, he said.
Calhoun acknowledged Friday that the decision was not without controversy, noting about a dozen people spoke against the increases at the Aug. 13 meeting.
But he said he doesn’t foresee changing his mind, adding that rates were increased as a result of the port’s regular five-year review of the issue.
Many people who testified look at marinas like public utilities, that the port should charge exactly what it costs to provide the marinas, he said.
That doesn’t take into account the fact that the port is funded by taxpayers countywide, he said.
“My view is that it’s an enterprise that the taxpayers have been required to fund by decisions of the port commissioners and that they deserve a market-rate return on that investment,” Calhoun said.
Port Executive Director Jeff Robb, who had recommended the increases, according to Calhoun, said annual Boat Haven expenses of $590,000 do not include depreciation, administration and an annual debt payment of $407,000 a year for $6 million in investment in the marina.
If occupancy levels stay constant, the port will gain an additional $65,000 in revenue from the increases, Robb said.
“Everyone looks at the budget and says we’re making a bundle of money, but when it’s all said and done, that’s not so,” he said.
Rates increased before the three-year hiatus of no increases so the port could “play catch-up,” he said.
The market study also includes marinas such as Neah Bay on the West End Pleasant Harbor on Hood Canal, Robb added.
“It’s the same 20 marinas we’ve been using for rate increases for the last 15 or 20 years,” he said.
“At the end of the day, it costs the same amount of money to own and operate a marina here and build a marina as to have one in Everett and Bellingham.”
As for liability insurance, 17 of the 20 marinas in the study required $300,000 of liability insurance.
“We are the odd marina out,” Robb said.
But Spring said their concerns were “brushed off” and that some boat owners will leave the marina because they can’t afford the rate increases.
Upscale marinas spend money on such amenities as employees who help tie up boats, he said.
“No sensible business operator raises prices to the point where they lose customers,” Spring said.
Boat Haven moorage ratepayers “are being, I guess the word is, abused by a couple of the port commissioners who are ruthlessly imposing moorage rate increases on a very, very economically marginal community and claiming that they are basing those increases on market forces,” he said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
