Members Present: Mike Cienava, Charles Beggs, Fred Clancy, Alan McMullen, Eric Winer,

Others: Tom Leach.

Call to Order: Mike Cienava called the meeting to order at 5 PM. Minutes of the May 1^st meeting were read and approved with one exception from Alan McMullen who moved to strike under heading "Tuna Fee Follow-up" "that the commercial fishing vessels should be brought into line and all boats should pay offloading fees, not have them "incorporated" with the regular dockage". Instead Alan stated that he did not support additional fees for A,C,E,D permits. Alan made a motion to accept minutes as corrected. So voted.

Chairman Cienava welcomed new member Eric Winers onboard appointed by the Board of Selectmen. Mr. Winers is a new resident to Harwich and said that he is interested in boating. His interests include sailing and he moors a Morgan 30 at the Hyannis Yacht Club where he is a member. The chairman also voted that we should send a nice letter to outgoing member Bill Myers for his years of work on the Commission. So voted.

Mike Cienava said he was speaking for the tuna wharfingers when he says that the $8.50 per hour wage paid for monitoring the fish landing is an insult to their intelligence. He suggested that the wages be increased to the $12-$15 per hour range and soon. Fred Clancy says he heartily indorses an increase as he sees these gentlemen exposed to a lot of friendly and not so cooperative types that requires a very strong persona. These men have done a great job keeping the fleet in check, however, now with the Town expecting the full 100 T-Permits to be sold, the levels of anxiety at the bulkhead and pressure on these guys representing the Town will increase.

Fred Clancy said that he had observed last year tuna buyers taking tuna off trailered vessels at the Allen Harbor parking lot. These boats had no T-Permit authorizing this on Town land and he said that he believed the buyer understood that he was pulling a fast one against the Town offloading rules. Fred made a motion that the Harbormaster should send a strong letter to the Tuna buyers advising the ground rules concerning the Saquatucket Landing and those utilizing ramps to exit with fish.

NMFS advised Tom Leach that the trailed tuna boats need not have their tuna fish tagged by the buyers before exiting the water. George Bell, NMFS coordinator, in a previous conversation said this was the case but has now learned that the parent organization has held off on this one. This is why the Selectmen went along with requiring trailor boats buy the T-Permits too. State Access was OK on this also. At this point, NMFS is saying they are not sure but they may inact this rule in August.

Fred Clancy said he was getting pressure from people at Allen Harbor wanting to apply for charter permits to see a way about buying fuel from the tank truck at Town Pier. Of course this type of fueling is limited. Still Fred says he feels that the letter we voted last time to Selectmen needs to go soon. He is referring to: "That C Permits must do a minimum of 30 charter trips per season, otherwise the Town will take back the permit."

The chairman underlined the issue that the Harbormasters Office is short of help, needs more help. Most recently Jenna Bossung, part time principal clerk left the under-funded position for a new position at Woods Hole. The Harbormasters Office needs full time clerical help and more staffing. Why the Harbormaster is doing housekeeping and mowing instead of harbor patrol and getting out and about is wrong according to Mr. Cienava. He then made a motion to send a personal letter to the Board of Selectmen about help. Currently, the Harbormaster has been advertising for a harbor assistant, a part-time clerk, midnight watchmen and part-time harbormaster. This past year the harbors grossed close to $600,000. the Commission feel that somehow this money should be gotten back to pay help and a living wage for a full-time clerk. They expressed disappointment in how the harbor clerks job got railroaded with a dozen other postions in one omnibus article instead of being held off on its one as the police personnel article.

The chairman read a letter from Carl Schoote who is on the waiting list for passenger carrying boats. Mr. Schoote wants this list for prospective passenger carrying interest to be broken into two lists. One list would be for charter boats carrying six or fewer passengers and the second list for boats in D category of 7 or more passengers. Tom Leach said he did not have a problem with this and saw that doing so might head off a problem in the future. Alan McMullen said that he really would hate to see a six-pack license take a D permit out of circulation when it really wasn't of interest. Charlie Beggs made the motion to recommend the Board of Selectmen separate the C and D permit waiting lists. Seconded by Mr. Clancy. Voted 3-0 with Alan abstaining.

Fred Clancy said that he has looked over the Allen Harbor courtesy float as to condition and wear and believes that it is time that the Town consider replacing the 40+ year-old structure. Charlie Beggs volunteered to survey the float and give his opinion as a dock builder. (ed. note - Charlie did look the float over closely the following day and reported to the Harbormaster that with re-decking the float might last another five years assuming the floatation is still OK.)

Mike Cienava pointed out the dangers involved to people crossing Route 28 from the ferry operation center. This issue is not knew and Allen McMullen pointed out that even when they direct customers to walk on the north side of 28 to Lambert's Market where there is a crossing, they will cross to the Brax side and every which way. Tom Leach said the middle of the existing crosswalk is paint right to a telephone pole on the south side of the highway. He sees this as "view blocking" for drivers and pedestrians. It also seems that the side walk project from Saquatucket to Snow Inn Road proposed by the planning department has fallen dead again. This would have definitely been a public safety piece.

Tom Leach said that it has been asked and suggested by many marina boat owners that the front row parking be preserved for boat customer parking. This would protect space when the lot gets busy. The problem occurs regularly when the lot fills up with restaurant customers and Brax employees, ferry customers, party and charter customers and finally market overflow. This consigns marina boat owners to park in back, or worse use the ferry gravel parking lot. The harbormaster believes it would be positive move to block out the first three rows in the west lot and the front row in the east lot for marina regular customer parking. This could be handled by the town assigning stickers (2) for each Dockage Permit holder. No decision on this but the idea of the giving the marina customers some protection has merit. Alan McMullen said that this would be unfair to all "harbor" users. (ed. note - the engineering department intends to carry out refurbishing the west parking lot at Saquatucket beginning at any time. This will temporarily, for about two weeks, mean the parking lot will be extremely limited for customers of vessels berthed only and ramp users.)

Mike Ceinava wants the subcommittee to get moving on definitions. This group which includes Alan McMullen , Tom Leach and ??? needs to get going.

Alan McMullen wanted to know what' up on dredging. The Harbormaster has been in touch with William Kavanaugh at the Army Corps to tell them that the Selectmen voted to make Tuna Permits to all on equal terms. Meaning everyone pays the $500 fee reagrdless. A, C and E permits have already "paid" a fee and were assigned on equal terms from waiting list. So Tom thinks we are over that hurtle. The dredge permits themselves for Andrews River are intact but some permits need renewal in July. Mr. Kavanaugh said that the Curritiuck is intending to head to Sesuit after Chatham he says there is no money that he knows of in the FY'01 budget. However, Mark Forrest from Bill Delahunt's Office said there was. Who's right?

The commission voted that the next meeting will be June 26, 2001 at 5PM in Town Hall.

Committee adjourned at 6:15 PM.

TEL