Author's note: this is a long post
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Moorage rates at the Port of Bellingham get a lot of press these days. I'm asked over and over why I am making such a big deal out of a better rate for commercial fishermen in comparison to other moorage customers. For me, the answer is simple: moorage rates are the "OPEN" sign in the window.
Let me start with an example of what "OPEN for Business" means to me. For several years my former partner and I would make soap, fizzing bath balls and such during the evening hours of the week then hawk it on weekends at craft fairs. Have you ever been to a craft fair? Most of us have. We found out on our very first day that just because a booth is open, staffed and full of pretty things to buy, it doesn't mean you're gonna sell squat.
Oh, we had our OPEN sign out and gorgeous, fragrant products to buy in a well decorated booth but we sat quietly reading in the back assuming our wonderful products would sell themselves, and, yup, you guessed it, we bombed. That first weekend we actually lost twice as much money as we made.
Being the smartie that she is, my partner began wandering through the next fair we worked. She networked, talked and asked questions of the veterans. What we found was those folks who had interesting products at a good price then actively sold them actually made money. So the books stayed in the car, we never sat down, we smiled and said, "Hello", to every person who even looked in the booth. We began to make money, it began to turn into fun and we regularly sold out.
So what's my point? The Port's OPEN sign is our attitude, our product is plain to see. Our attitude toward our customer is first shown in our advertising -- our rates are just one piece of that. Yet more importantly our attitude is shown by our customer service and in our effort to support the Whatcom County economy .
We can always rely on locals to store, moor, launch or otherwise use the waterfront harbors in several locations throughout the county. This also means we can price to whatever level we believe the market will bear. A lack of shorter, recreational boats moored on the water recently has shown us that, when belts tighten, pleasure boaters take a good, hard look at expenses and cut accordingly.
Yet those people whose livelihood relies on a quality harbor close to their fishing grounds that also provides complete support from gear providers to engine repair specialists and fish buyers must stay to weather the economic downturns. A competitive moorage rate gets these people in the door while our local support services keep them here.
When the Port's Marina Advisory Committee (MAC) met during the past year they managed to cobble together an agreement that gives smaller boaters and commercial fishermen a break from the next price increases. And while I do not believe it fairly apportions costs across each user group, it was in the end their choice to present the payment plan that they did. Of course, the commission could choose to accept the plan or not, alter it or create our own. We chose to honor the plan as presented by adopting it unanimously on February 15 of this year.
Where I differ from others on this issue, however, is not just the odd distribution of the costs across differing vessel classes, but also in how some people fail to accurately understand the fishing industry in Whatcom County.
I believe that a boat is a boat. Since I haven't found anyone who can tell me that provision of moorage for one type costs more versus moorage for another, then I must accept that all classes, on a per foot basis, cost the same per foot. Thus, I cannot understand why the following issue has arisen.
Years ago, the Port's commission took a bold step by requiring the marinas to self-sustain based on user fees -- what's internally called the closed loop moorage model. Going back to the point I made earlier regarding a captive customer base, it was fairly simple to extrapolate costs and predict the future. So far, the planning has been working and, apparently, we still have a waiting list so, if anything, our pricing is too low.
Because the moorage model is really just a relatively simple equation the outcome should be simple, too, but it's not. Especially when the outcome is then shifted to a square foot charge created by further mathematical adjustmenst.
What happened in here somewhere, at least as far as I can tell, is that the MAC members took a little and gave a little so that over the next few years smaller boats and active commercial fishing vessels would see no increase in rates after the new rates go into effect in April 2011.
In order to hold certain rate increases to zero and working only from funds paid into the marinas by marina customers, not taxes or other Port divisions, other marina users have to pick up the slack. The MAC agreed to this and I completely disagree.
It continues to be my contention that all boats moored in our public harbors should pay the same rate. I'm told that in order to cover 2012 operations that the rate per square foot charge should be $0.37. Thus, a boat that requires a 50-foot slip, 20 feet wide would pay $370/month plus the inevitable extra fees regardless of its beam, shape or other imaginative options. But that's not exactly what we are planning to do.
Since the formula doesn't use square footage and the distribution of charges isn't spread evenly across each vessel then we get a shift of funding sources where some folks are subsidizing others. When I suggested that the Port of Bellingham buy into the West Coast fisheries market with low moorage rates for commercial fishermen, other vessel classes, especially other commercial operators, turned out to protest because the new moorage rates already shift burdens and a bigger break to one class would affect others even more.
You see, the MAC shifted burdens, voluntarily I will continue to point out, so that over the course of the next 5 years other moorage and marina customers will cover nearly $2 million in marina costs on behalf of the commercial fishery. That's not very fair if you ask me.
I've proposed to deaf ears a flat, square foot moorage fee -- we have a need to cover X millions in costs divided by 1.2 million square feet of moorage space then add in the extras and costs or income that go with the whole ball of wax and BANG, we're done.
There is an effort to overcomplicate the issues of how to pay for marina operations. While I believe in the closed-loop system we shouldn't blame it for the pitfalls Port staff, MAC members and Port Commissioners have to negotiate -- the fault in application is entirely our own.
As to the problem of the commercial fishery moorage rate there is a simple solution: we use other Port funds to buy the business. The Pacific fishery is worth $14 billion dollars per year for California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. In fact, we see and hear so much about fishing in Alaska and yet Washington numbers match or exceed that state's fishery.
According to the IRS, if we look only at tax returns filed where occupations are listed as fishing we see over $41 million in taxable income for Whatcom County alone. Our in-state fishery is worth more than $3 billion, and that doesn't include catch brought here from out of state for processing.
At this point you might say, "Wow, seems like those fishery folks are doing just fine." You may be right to an extent. Giving an additional moorage break isn't likely to overwhelm our harbor with commercial boats but remember at the beginning of this where I said it's our OPEN sign? Well it is.
Whatcom County has an unbelievable geographic advantage that was recognized well over a hundred years ago, the problem used to be the mountains where rail was too expensive to bring here and now it's a border. However, and this is absolutely the most fundamental part of this entire argument - rail access and borders don't really matter anymore.
Ok, so why don't rail and borders matter? We didn't get a rail terminus from the midwest but fish don't travel on trains, they travel in trucks and on ships. Borders matter so little with our established, trusted trading partners that tariffs or fees hardly make a dent in the final cost of a product that you or I buy on store shelves. Which leaves us with geography.
The Pacific Rim countries, especially those north of the Equator have become the center of the world's economy or at least on par with any European influence. When we look at where fish are caught, eaten or shipped around the Pacific Ocean, Whatcom County has an immense geographic advantage for business people eying locations to operate; if I'm wrong then so is SSA at Cherry Point and all the companies who ship to the massive container ports just north of us.
Our advantage is our location, it always was but until lower Puget Sound got too dense it didn't help us much. We here in Whatcom County have every service needed by the Pacific fishing fleet just like Seattle, and much of that is on Bellingham's waterfront where you can see it all up close and personal.
Our local advantage is that we aren't crowded. We actually get fishermen and women, like my Aunt Felicia a Bristol Bay fisher, who fly in from Alaska in the morning, shop for all their gear in a 20 mile radius, then fly home in the evening or the next morning -- you can't do that in Seattle.
Now back to the border and how it actually helps Whatcom County. While the northern border is relatively porous to trade, when it comes to products arriving on British Columbia's shores in containers or manufactured on either side, we can beat BC in one respect -- it doesn't make any sense to send fish to BC for processing if the final destination is the American market.
Costs in BC are not significantly lower, they are just up the street -- literally -- and it's just that much easier to open a business office in the final US market and import fish fresh off the boat directly through a Whatcom County office. We bring it in over our docks, process it here and send it for domestic or in some cases export markets, which either way works perfectly because of, once again, our geography!
Fishing is more and more, at least for the larger boats you'll see on TV programs, a year round operation where specialization occurs in several fisheries not just one. The smaller boats still seem to concentrate on a close-in, coastal fishery where they may go out for as little as a single opening. We can provide for every need of the Pacific fishery right here in Whatcom County and do it better and cheaper than almost anywhere on the west coast of the U.S.
So why should we lower our commercial fishing moorage rates? Not to just buy into the Pacific fishery market and all that comes with part of that $14 billion industry but to solidify our own sustainable bit of that pie.
If we continue to let the industry fend for itself then it will, it will fight for survival but it will do so somewhere else where people funded the improvements, infrastructure and backbone better than we did.
And this isn't good money thrown after bad - economic multipliers abound when we earn and spend locally. For example, according to a WWU study, just $1 spent on waterfront cleanup in Bellingham generates more than $7 in economic benefit. Now, I couldn't find any studies on local fishery multipliers but it's certain that a $1 spent on fishing out of this county has more than $7 in benefit. It's a no-brainer.
Our commercial fishing rates help light up the Whatcom County OPEN sign from Adak to Baja. I believe that if we fail to adequately support promote the men and women who work hard every day to bring fish to our shores then we aren't really serious about being open, we might as well sit in the back of the booth and read a book.
