Residents express concerns about transparency of ship visit approval and impact on community
The Avalon City Council will look at cruise ships and discuss possible changes to the municipal code at its first meeting in December, City Manager Denise Radde said at the Tuesday, Nov. 5 council meeting.
The cruise ship issue is not new to Avalon’s residents or its council representatives. Avalon’s economy depends on visitors. According to the Harbor Department, nine cruise ship visits brought 16,828 visitors to Avalon in October. The city website puts the population of Avalon “around 4,000.”
In October, Harbor Master J.J. Poindexter said that the wharfage fees for cruise ship passengers from January to September brought in $722,590 in revenue to the city government.
During the public comment segment of Tuesday night’s meeting, resident Randy Brannock recommended changing the Avalon Municipal Code to allow citizens to approve and disapprove of future cruise ship visits to Catalina.
He began by asking council members for their perfect number of cruise ship visits.
Council Member Oley Olsen said nothing on Saturday and he opposed having more than one cruise ship visit a day.
Mayor Anni Marshall said three or four, depending on the time of the year.
Councilman Steve Hoefs was not present. He left the council meeting following the vote on the Consent Calendar to attend his daughter’s volleyball game.
Council Member Cinde MacGugan-Cassidy said three or four and different numbers of cruise ships at different times of the year.
According to Brannock, a cruise line had contacted officials about a ship visiting the Island in 2021. No items about the issue were on the agendas for next two council meetings. At the third meeting after that, Marshall said the cruise ship was a done deal.
“The citizens were not given a right to be heard,” Brannock said.
At that point, Brannock proposed changing the Municipal Code.
“I don’t see how you could put every decision on the ballot,” Cassidy said.
Brannock said he would be willing to work with anyone to come up with the language to make the code change. He said he thought the Chamber of Commerce had come up with the parameters. He said a previous Chamber survey found 70% of participants had been negatively impacted by cruise ship visits.
Marshall said that when you put something on a ballot, it’s not multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank, the ballot measure has to be specific.
Cassidy said her notes from the council’s previous discussion of the issue showed that the council wanted a discussion of a code change brought back to the council.
The Islander reported in the Oct. 4 issue that the council asked the public (on Oct. 1) to email their “solution-based” comments about cruise ship visits to City Manager Radde.
This week, Radde said the city had received 16 comments. She told Brannock that the majority of the comments were opposed to cruise ships.
Paula Patterson said when a new cruise ship is approved, for transparency, the City Council should approve it.
She said that right now, the way the council currently sits, anything to do with cruise ships would most likely get approved no matter what.
Cassidy said that was unfair. “I don’t appreciate when you come forward and say that you know what our beliefs are when you don’t,” Cassidy said.
Patterson said she was not against cruise ships. She just thinks they should be relevant to “our Island.”
“If we can talk about parking at a public meeting, I think this is a something that would be intense, but …” She raised her hands, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Jani Hall, referring to Patterson’s remarks, said that this was a pro-business council, which she described as “merely a bias.”
“I don’t think she’s saying that you can’t vote fairly on things,” Hall said.
Hall, who has previously expressed opposition to more cruise ship visits, said the council is responsible for infrastructure, safety and possibly housing. “Nobody says that 3,000 people have to be dropped off at your doorstep,” Hall said.
“Let’s fix the infrastructure first,” Hall said.
