The Avalon City Council this week unanimously approved a new policy limiting the number of scheduled cruise ship visits to three a week in the summer and three a week in the winter. Additional cruise ship visits would not be allowed unless authorized by the city manager.
“I do not take this decision lightly,” said City Manager Denise Radde.
“I probably wrote this staff report five times,” she said.
According to Radde, the policy is not binding on the council “forever and ever.”
The new cruise ship policy does not address wharfage fees and the city’s “marketing incentive” that returns a portion of the city’s wharfage fees to a cruise line that sends a second ship to Catalina.
Those issues will return to the council in the future.
Business owners, representatives of the Catalina Island Company and Avalon residents have long debated—and continued to debate at the Jan. 21 council meeting—the city’s approach to allowing cruise ships to visit. The issues included the number of ships to be allowed and the process for deciding on the policy. The bulk of the two-hour meeting was devoted to the cruise ship discussion.
According to the staff report by Radde, the new policy will prohibit cruise ships on weekends during the summer season or special event weekends without the approval of the city manager.
According to the report, the recommended policy guidelines also included:
• “Repositioning, infrequent, or small cruise ship vessels (1,000 passengers or less) may be considered for visitation by the Harbor Master, taking into account the day requested, holidays, event(s), harbor activity(ies), impacts to public safety, etc.”
• “The Harbor Master and Finance Director will provide an annual report on cruise ship vessels that includes the number of vessels that visit Avalon, number of passengers, amount of wharfage collected, any safety or security incidents that may have occurred while the ship was in port, as well as projections and scheduling information for the next year.
At the previous meeting, council asked staff to bring back information about the impact of cruise ship visitors on the city’s sewer system, landfill and water supply.
Mayor Anni Marshall asked if the council felt the marketing incentive should go away. Council Member Oley Olsen pointed out that the marketing incentive wasn’t on the agenda.
Glen Gustafson, one of many who spoke at the meeting, said that he likes the quiet time after summer and that his business is not dependent on the cruise ships.
However, he said the community had to face the fact that Avalon is visitor-dependent.
Kathleen Hill Carlisle said she implored the council to step back from the decision to increase the number of cruise ships per year. She asked the council to consider maintaining Avalon’s charm. “There has to be a balance,” she said.
Paula Patterson said she had no objection to cruise ships in the wintertime. She expressed concern that Avalon was pushing its infrastructure to the limit with so many cruise ships. “What do they give the city for using our floats that badly need repair?”
Council Member Cinde MacGugen-Cassidy asked if the tenders that transport passengers from cruise ships pay a fee as well.
“They do not,” Radde said.
Most if not all of the candidates in the March 2020 City Council election also spoke to the issue. (See page ??? for the candidates’’ positions on the cruise ships.)
Mary Stein supported limiting cruise ships to week days in the summertime, but said she would like to see more cruise ships in the off season.
Council Member Cassidy asked if wharfage fees could be directed to a specific project.
Campbell said the council and do that through the budget process, but the project would have to be limited to the harbor.
