Harbor Management Commission to Council: Table Fish Pier decision
ROCKLAND — The Harbor Management Commission plans to send a memo to the Rockland City Council requesting that Council table a Fish Pier permitting decision until winter.
When a permit application for one of the two large buying stations was denied to Brian Rockett by the Harbor Master’s Office, he appealed to the HMC on grounds that the two stations were currently occupied by one individual, and had been so for years.
That, he told HMC, makes it a monopoly of a municipal zone.
Rockett did not meet the application requirements, and his appeal was unanimously denied by HMC.
Councilors overturned that decision by a 4 to 1 vote in Rockett’s favor, May 21, allowing for the disruption of the current occupant, whose business is already up and running for the 2019 season.
The City Attorney stated during a May 6 agenda-setting meeting that no paperwork, and therefore no formal rules, existed within the application process. The HMC, however, did have paperwork and specific guidelines.
At that formal appeal hearing with Council, Councilors told HMC Chair, Louise MacLellan-Ruf, that the Council will send the HMC a list of recommendations of how application decisions are made.
A week later, during a May 28 HMC meeting, members agreed among themselves to request that the Council table their decision.
“From the feel of things, and from people talking, everybody that I have spoken to is basically in agreement that the current people that are renting there should not be disrupted,” said MacLellan-Ruf. “Council sees otherwise. But, I do believe what we can do is continue to make our recommendations known, go back into a discussion or deliberation based on what kinds of guidelines that they would like us to follow.”
Though the contract permits are issued annually for the two large and two small stations, the occupants of those stations are employers who’ve taken years to build their businesses. And, because the Fish Pier needs money to function, it is the financial investments of the those occupants that have maintained and grown the Pier.
“This is a lot of money for a year-to-year lease,” said Asst. Harbor Master Mark Tibbetts. “They’re putting a lot of stake in their business for something that may be taken away from them next year by City Council.”
MacLellan-Ruf spoke of disrupting businesses that have worked very well with the City for many years, and telling them that the decision to do so was fair, when the HMC, in fact, does not believe it was fair.
According MacLellan-Ruf, Councilors were given thick packets of paperwork on the issue prior to the appeal hearing and were offered the opportunity to table the hearing until they’d had the opportunity to review the packet. Councilors decided against postponement. During the hearing, councilors had the opportunity to ask questions of everyone involved, which included Rockett and his attorney, the current buying station occupant and attorney, the HMC, and the City attorney. The councilors did not ask any questions, according to MacLellan-Ruf.
At the initial HMC meeting, “we were exploring so many different avenues, asking questions,” said Beverly Cowen. “Who could be moved, and how could this one work over here since his boat is this size and this boat is this size? Could this boat squeeze in here. It wasn’t just a random decision. We really deliberated a lot.”
Overall, though, HMC members agreed that there was no reason to evict any tenant in good standing.
