By Roger Gitlin – EYE ON DEL NORTE – November 2, 2022
Here’s the recap of Tuesday’s Crescent City Harbor meeting:
* After the Commission voted to allocate $40,000 to pay its share of the $160,000 United States Dept of Agriculture Tri-Agency debt, there was no recision of the $25,000 over five year vote in June. I was in attendance at the June meeting and respectfully requested during Public Comments, the Commission make no decision, pending a full understanding of what share of the delinquency the City and County would contribute.
My request was ignored. The vote was 5-0 to contribute $25K over 60 months.
Fast forward to last week’s City/County/Harbor joint meeting whereupon commissioners voted unanimously to contribute $40,000 with the County and City each ponying up $60,000.
At Tuesday’s meeting during Public Comments, I asked about the recision of the $25,000 and Harbormaster Tim Petrick advised me no recision vote was necessary since a previously undisclosed contingency of approval by the and City and County was required.
I do not recall ever hearing the contingency word on the original motion being discussed and wonder aloud if this little tidbit was added to the minutes with no Public notification.
Lots of mistrust abounds in the Harbor.
* The Harbor still suffers from a spending problem when it authorized $1250 to send Brian Stone and the Harbor comptroller to attend West Coast Ports Strategy in Berkeley, next week.
The meeting was also available VIRTUALLY, via ZOOM.
It seems the subject addressed at this meeting is Wind Power. Harbormaster Petrick spoke of his skepticism of wind power as did some of the Commissioners but the Commission felt having a ” …seat at the table” was important since there would be grant funding opportunities to Districts who had “…a seat at the table.”
Here’s my question and I think a fair one: If a majority of the Commission expresses skepticism and doubt about the effectiveness of wind power, why would commissioners seek out grants for wind energy projects? Appears like a wasteful quest for money. That’s an expensive seat at the table.
* The Harbor also announced an 80 percent grant of $7.356 million from the U.S. Dept of Transportation, Marine division for repair and replacement of the 70 year old Seawall, slowly deteriorating. The District will be responsible for approximately $1.2 million for its share of the Sea Wall project.
EYE ON DEL NORTE commends the Harbor for sucessfully winning this grant and other smaller grants. Commissioners spent the next several minutes, patting each other on the back, as if the public was witnessing a Solar Eclipse, congratulating each other for these financial acquisitions.
Isn’t this what we should expect from our elected?
