_{Thumbnail photo: The federally-funded reconstruction of Citizens Dock is one of the projects the Crescent City Harbor District’s facility plan lists. | Photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews}

Del Norte County supervisors accepted the Crescent City Harbor District’s facilities plan on Tuesday.

A necessary step for the Harbor District to be able to use Measure C tax revenue for maintenance, Board Chairman Joey Borges noted that the previous iteration CCHD officials presented to them in December “lacked a few items.” 

The revised version, completed in May, includes a list of potential projects as well as costs and timeframes by which Harbor District officials would like to see them accomplished, Borges said.

“It basically gives us a way to tie the Measure C money to it,” he told his colleagues, adding that he and District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson met with harbor officials before bringing the facilities plan to the entire Board of Supervisors. 

Approved by voters in 2018, Measure C increased the county’s transiency occupancy tax rate from 8% to 10% with the additional 2% going toward the Harbor District. The tax measure’s goal was to help CCHD pay down a $5 million loan with the U.S. Department of Agriculture as well as pay for repairs and facility maintenance.

A Harbor Facilities Plan that’s accepted by the Board of Supervisors is a requirement of Measure C. In December, supervisors criticized the document’s vagueness and stated that the agency had yet to meet the plan’s first stated priority, which was to make a USDA loan payment.

In a July 8 letter to Del Norte County supervisors, Harbormaster Mike Rademaker said the Harbor District’s USDA loan is current. The USDA has also given preliminary approval to a plan that has the Harbor District paying a required USDA reserve fund over a 10-year period, Rademaker said in his letter.

“For clarity, the USDA ‘reserve fund’ is not maintained as a separate segregated bank account,” he wrote. “Rather, it is a required reserve amount equal to one annual debt payment that must be maintained or replenished according to USDA requirements. Documentation of USDA’s concession will be provided once it is finalized and before any Measure C funds are withdrawn from the County trust account for Harbor Facilities Plan projects.”

In his letter, Rademaker states that the Harbor District expects roughly $30,000 to $100,000 may be available over the next year to begin to implement the Harbor Facilities Plan. 

The Harbor District Board of Commissioners approved the Facilities Plan on May 27. CCHD Board Chair Rick Shepherd and Vice Chair John Evans met with Borges and Wilson on July 7.

That is the funding that’s expected to be available after the Harbor District makes its annual USDA loan payment and establishes the $50,000 reserve that CCHD’s agreement with Del Norte County requires, Rademaker states.

The Harbor Facilities Plan list of projects include the replacement of a failed seawall and the reconstruction of Citizens Dock, both of which are being paid for with about $15 million in U.S. Maritime Administration grant money.

Other planned projects include rehabilitating a public hoist within the inner boat basin as well as replacing a travel-lift and launch ramp. CCHD is also planning to repair and replace its storm drain, electrical conduit system and dock power pedestals and light fixtures in the inner boat basin. The rehabilitation and modernization of a boatyard facility is also part of the Harbor District’s Facilities Plan.

On Tuesday, District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey said that while voters in 2018 wanted to “save the harbor,” they also wanted the intergovernmental agreement between the Harbor District and Del Norte County in order to safeguard taxpayer dollars.

Voters wanted the county to administer those funds and they wanted restrictions on how they could be spent, Starkey said.

“Our role here today isn’t to say, ‘is this a decent harbor facilities plan,’” she said. “It’s to ask (if) the harbor has met the level of accountability expected before those safeguards could be unlocked. I have my concerns about how the harbor operates, however the facilities plan meets the standards of what they were requested to do by voters.”