By Roger Gitlin – EYE ON DEL NORTE – February 17, 2022
Do you want the Monterey-ization seen below?
Hotels, gift shops, restaurants abound. Fishing and vessel repair has long since departed. Monterey is a sea shell of what it once was.
OR
Do you folks want a viable working Harbor with crab and fish processing and vessel repair? Fair questions…What say you folks?
At today’s Harbor meeting, Commissioners danced around the vision of how each sees the future of the Crescent City Harbor.
Two Harbor Commissioners: Wes White and Brian Stone have and continue to do everything in the power to obstruct Harbor business by failing to maintain infrastructure, dragging Commissioners’ feet in Harbor dredging, all with the sole purpose of obstructing the on-going business practices of non-tourist Harbor businesses, with the intent of supplanting many of these lucrative, job-producing concerns.
Both White and Stone have led the Agenda to turn over Harbor renovation to Energy Venture Capitalist Alex Lemus and his Renewable Energy Capital Partners who will undertake the task(s) of meeting with 86 tenants of the two Harbor-owned RV Parks.
At today’s meeting, Lemus faced a few of the RV Park tenants with a “promise” to meet individually and seek their input On a side note, assisting these two misguided Commissioners with the transformation of the Harbor is inept and poorly-trained, short-tempered (and cursive) Harbormaster Tim Petrick. While I was recognized to speak during Public Comments by Harbor president Rick Shepherd during an Army Corps of Engineers PowerPoint presentation on Harbor dredging, Mr. Petrick interrupted my question to the USACE and became hostile in his unsolicited comments to me. Highly inappropriate.
This kind of unprofessional interaction is not only unhelpful but speaks poorly of an individual ill-suited to serve. The question really belongs to you public.
What kind of Harbor do you folks want?
This is in reply to “What kind of harbor do I want”? Does it really matter…for 30 years my family and friends have been coming to Crescent City and putting up with a sub-standard harbor, ruts and pot-holes, stinking restrooms, ramps and docks that gouge the gelcoat on my boat, unlit launch ramp, thievery in the parking lot, homeless sitting and watching like buzzards sitting on a fence waiting for an opportunity. Complaining to the Harbor Master and the office people who gladly take my money for a Harbor Launch Permit could care less, it’s just “Gimme the Money, here’s your permit, don’t let the door hit ya in the ass on your way out”. If I want a Monterey environment, go to Monterey. Put up with the traffic, people, high price of restaurants, expensive parking and everything else that comes with visiting a tourist town. Is it too much to ask the City and Harbor District to simply take care of the facilities they already have and provide opportunities for harbor related businesses? Remember the saying from the movie, “Build it and they will come”? Restaurants, surf and kite shops, sporting goods stores, decent RV Parks, better and cleaner ramps and docks, that’s all that’s needed here. Keep the homeless people managed, provide working opportunities, mental health and drug management programs as well as affordable housing for them, I really don’t think they all like living under the trees. My main gripe is the people that have the responsibility for maintaining the harbor just don’t give a damn! If they can’t get it done, get rid of them and get someone who can get it done for crying out loud!
Sounds like they already made up their minds to go with Lemus. Sounds like his Solar plan turned into a mess and you want to do more business with him? What is the motive of someone from Florida trying to turn Crescent City into a tourist attraction? If one goes around town you might see license plates from every state now–just drive through Walmart’s parking lot. And the vision of more hotels, restaurants, and gift shops only stabs the ones already here in the back. It would take a lot of space to name them near the harbor now, e.g., ever hear of Fishermans or the Chart Room. And who will pay for the traffic lights to get from the harbor onto 101. Eureka had to install one just because of an In and Out Burger. I don’t think we need to attract more tourists. Driving to Brookings yesterday I saw so many Washington license plates I wasn’t sure if I was still in California. Let’s improve what is already here like what Mr Gitlin says the harbor. For what its worth Lemus plan will only create more garbage and my rates have steadily gone up now, not to speak of the other utikities like water.
Lemus is a wolf and does not dress in sheep clothing. The Harbor Commissioners were made well aware of that in a January meeting. Mr. Lemus TAUNTED the fact that no one else but him would give the harbor district a loan due to their bad credit. Mr. Lemus TAUNTED the fact that the solar project went bust and never paid the Harbor $288,000 dollars owed to them from solar project which was initiated by who? LEMUS. And after all of that the Harbor Commissioners got down on their knees to do what? I’m not allowed to say in public forum but you get the picture.
Our Commissioners really need to demonstrate pride and tell Lemus and his shark tank to move on down the road. The Harbor needs to work on getting their finances in order and accomplish one project at a time to get the harbor back into a stable condition. If we ran our households like the Harbor we would all be homeless.