The City Council discussed cruise ship wharfage at this week’s meeting.
The council directed staff to come back with a cruise ship wharfage fee increase.
The matter will come back to a future council agenda.
Avalon staff recommends increasing the city’s cruise ship wharfage rate to $7 per passenger.
According to City Manager David Maistros, Avalon receives $5 per passenger. The cruise ships pay $7, but $2 go to Measure H. Measure H is the ballot measure to fund the construction of a new hospital in Avalon.
“Our goal would be to give them at least 12 months if we can get this passed,” Maistros said.
According to Maistros, that would allow the cruise ships to advertise the price increases.
“They’d pay $9; the city would go from five to seven for what we receive,” Maistros said.
Councilmember Mary Schickling said she recalled there was an end date for Measure H, but she didn’t remember it.
“The end date is when the project is paid off,” Maistros said.
City Attorney Scott Campbell said there was a certain end date to Measure H and if the project is not done, then the money goes to Avalon.
(Later, Campbell looked it up. Measure H stays in effect for 40 years or when the hospital is completed or repealed by voters.)
Councilmember Lisa Lavelle favored the $2 increase now so the city could catch up on projects and the maintenance for those projects. “The mole is going to undergo a huge update which the cruise passengers will use and appreciate,” Lavelle said.
Lavelle said the council should look at a cost increase of 50 cents a year.
Lavelle argued that the increase would help cover cost increases without scaring away the cruise ships.
Maistros said this would benefit the harbor fund.
Finance Director Matt Baker said the funds from the wharfage would stay in the harbor.
Maistros supported the idea of an automatic 50 cent increase, assuming the proposed $2 increase passed.
Love Catalina Island CEO/President Jim Luttjohann said they had heard for years that the cruise ships have a minimum 18-month window to build into their emails.
Speaking to Lavelle, he said: “Lisa, I think you and I have talked about this before. A multi-year schedule of increases is exponentially better for everyone one, on all fronts.”
Janey Hall asked the council to look at the impact of the cruise ship industry. “People don’t want to live in cruise ship ports,” she said.
“Yet we have five in a row, we’re having them on weekends, and we are letting them stay longer,” Hall said.
She said all of that detracted from the quiet, calm charm of Avalon.
Hall read from a letter from a boater who objected to cruise ships.
Councilmember Mary Schickling received a text message from a woman who suggested a $10 increase. Shickling did not provide the woman’s name.
According to City Attorney Campbell, the city can only legally recover the cost of the service.
Maistros was comfortable with 50 cents a year.
Councilmember Yesenia De La Rosa brought up paramedic services.
Campbell said the only way to do that with non-harbor impacts would be to go through the California Coastal Commission.
“We had to do that with Measure H, because the hospital’s not in the Harbor,” he said.
Campbell also said the city would have to go through the State Lands Commission.
Hall suggested putting the issue on the ballot.
Hall brought up the city’s cruise ship policy. She said it wasn’t particularly effective.
She was apparently referring to a January 2020 City Council decision to limit cruise ship visits. The council at the time voted unanimously to limit cruise ships to visit three days a week. The policy was not binding on the council indefinitely. (See “Policy limits Avalon to cruise ship visits” at catalinaislander.com).
Hall proposed a ballot measure to vote “yes” or “no” to three days a week for cruise ship visits.
Maistros said staff would bring cruise ship legislation to the council. In the meantime, he said, the city was abiding by the existing legislation.
He said Avalon does not routinely have cruise ships on a weekend. He said sometimes there is repositioning or weather that brings in a request. According to Maistros, the city has granted those requests but they have been rare.
Campbell said there’s nothing that prevents citizens from putting a measure on the ballot.
Hall said the fees should be doubled because the community didn’t know what the cruise ship visits were doing to Avalon’s sewage and landfill.
“We can’t enact any fee based upon what we don’t know. It has to be fact-specific,” Campbell said.
He said lately California courts have been looking carefully at fees that have been enacted. According to Campbell, they (apparently his law firm) would look at the wharfage increase with their “fee people” to make sure anything Avalon does is appropriate.
“Well, that doesn’t sound like great government,” Hall said.
Marshall said staff had their direction.
Maistros said they would bring it back to council at a future date.
