By Roger Gitlin – EYE ON DEL NORTE – April 6, 2022
Tuesday’s Harbor Commission meeting was a big nothingburger as Harbor president Rick Shepherd pulled and rescheduled two very important items off the Agenda:
*To approve Resolution(s) authorizing the Harbormaster to execute a ground lease with Renewable Energy Capital for the development of the Bayside AND Redwood Harbor Village RV Parks.
Those TWO items are scheduled for vote Friday, April 8, at 2pm at the Harbor office. I urge the public to attend and urge Commissioners to delay the vote until REC Capital principal Alex Lemus can specifically outline his plan on how he plans to prioritize the housing needs of those two Parks’ tenants. If Mr. Lemus cannot come up with verbiage beyond, ” Trust Me,” Commissioners must vote NO on these projects.
With those two items off calendar, the meeting was fairly sedate until the issue of progress on Harbor dredging came up.
As a member of the public, I spoke on behalf of tenants who have and continue to suffer because the Commissioners in the past dragged their feet for many years in doing nothing on a bevy of issues including dredging the sand accumulation in front of Fashion Blacksmith pier which prevents this long-time business from taking on larger and more lucrative vessel projects. The Harbor delay for many years, in my opinion, was contrived and supported by two sitting Commissioners: Wes White and Brian Stone. Both Commissions have and continue to support a misguided vision: The complete renovation / transformation of the Crescent City Harbor from a true working Harbor to a distorted cartoon tourist attraction similar to Cannery Row Monterey.
During my short-lived public comments on dredging with president Shepherd, Mr. Stone, who must have thought he was still Harbor president, interrupted our discourse from his Covid 19 ZOOM location. He objected to the very brief exchange president Shepherd and I were having as we shared our frustration in addressing and trying to solve the dredging dilemma.
The next public speaker on the dredging subject was Harbor meeting newcomer Kevin Hendrick who did not talk about the dredging issue but proceeded to admonish Commission president Shepherd on how to conduct a meeting and how to follow rules.
I found this admonishment humorous as Mr. Hendrick displayed his ignorance on meeting protocol. The president of this Governance conducts the meeting and often this flexibility is not only appreciated but welcomed.
Please keep in mind there were perhaps five persons (including me) in the audience. No one was late for dinner Tuesday evening.
Folks, we are about solving problems in our community.
Dwelling on very petty issues is unproductive, unhelpful and obstructive. Commissioner Brian Stone is a candidate for Supervisor Dist. 4. Hendrick WAS an unsuccessful candidate for County Supervisor Dist. 5 in 2020.
Their aberrant thinking has no place in the robust discussion of community challenges from the highest level of Del Norte government.
Roger, at the beginning of the meeting it was literally standing room only. Guess most of us left after we heard the vote on Lemus was postponed. I stayed long enough to hear you talk about Lemus–I personally doubt there will be a “profit” on his plans. As for his “trust me” it reminds me of when the guy bought the Seattle Sonics from Starbucks’ Schultz. He PROMISED they’d stay in Seattle. But when he rejected all their plans he could hardly wait to fill up his moving vans. Now they are the Oklahoma City Thunder. See you Friday!