Sitka Assembly members at a busy meeting on Tuesday approved a memorandum of understanding on cruise ship passenger limits between the city and the Sitka Dock Company by a 4-3 vote.
The vote on approving the memorandum was 4-3, with Chris Ystad, Kevin Mosher, Tim Pike and Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz in favor; and JJ Carlson, Thor Christianson and Scott Saline against.
Assembly members had a lively debate over whether the MOU was needed, but in the end approved the document that will serve as a “framework” for port calls in 2025.
The Assembly this fall directed City Administrator John Leach to negotiate an agreement with dock owner Chris McGraw, in line with achieving Tourism Task Force goals of “flattening the curve,” taking out peak days, shortening the season, and designating quiet days.
As approved, the MOU was unchanged from the draft that Leach negotiated with McGraw, and that Leach presented to the Assembly for approval Oct. 22, three weeks ago. The vote was postponed in order to give the Assembly and public more time for review.
Leach’s memo to the Assembly seeking approval of the document said, “An important factor to be aware of is that the 2025 cruise calendar has already been populated and cruises have already been placed up for sale by the cruise companies. The CBS and (Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal) will work collaboratively with the cruise companies to address any conflicts with this agreement, if approved.”
The Assembly was split on the question of signing off on the agreement with the operators of the privately owned cruise ship terminal.
“I don’t see a lot of benefit for the city, because it’s going to cost us money,” Thor Christianson said. He noted the loss of lightering fees if the city, under the terms of the agreement, limits the number of passengers lightered to the Crescent Harbor or O’Connell lightering docks if necessary to keep the total visitors in one day less than the 7,000 limit in the MOU.
“Seven thousand is probably not the number I would have picked as an ideal number, and if we (McGraw and the city) were both working toward that I’d be much more inclined to vote for this but we’re not,” Christianson said. “It’s all on the city and I don’t think it’s fair and I don’t think it’s a good deal for the city.”
Kevin Mosher offered a different perspective, saying the time is right for this MOU, it’s flexible and can be changed at any time, and it’s important to approve it now, before the cruise schedule is set for the 2026 season, he said.
“No item is perfect, not at all, but I think it’s important, too, for the timing,” he said, noting that the cruises are booked two seasons out. “It’s important to do this because it’s something the community wants and it’s not perfect but it’s fair.”
“This document speaks to what the city is going to do and that’s because it’s the only thing that we control,” Tim Pike said. “I didn’t read it in terms of the city’s giving everything up. I read it in terms of the task force that we established and gave us direction. They said what they wanted, where we needed to go. … It’s not perfect but it’s a step forward.”
A few said the document with the dock company isn’t needed, since it calls for the city’s taking action on large cruise ship days, which the city can do on its own without an MOU.
“Perhaps this isn’t the document we need to make those decisions, but we do it in a fashion that isn’t making promises to a private business owner,” JJ Carlson said. She said the document has some “great strategies” but wondered whether an MOU was the right format, or if the city should explore its own lightering policy that achieves the same goals.
When the MOU was presented to the Assembly for approval three weeks ago it was at the same meeting at which the commission members were being appointed to the new Tourism Commission. The commission has not yet had its first meeting.
The MOU says the city will establish the criteria for planning cruise calls, including not allowing ships with more than 1,000 passengers to dock at the city’s docks if doing so would result in total cruise passenger numbers exceeding 7,000.
On days when 4,500 passengers are scheduled on ships at the city docks, the cruise company won’t allow the docking or tendering of ships of more than 1,300 visitors at the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal, if doing so would result in more than 7,000 in Sitka for the day.
The agreement calls for maintaining a weekend quiet day when the city won’t allow cruise ships with more than 1,000 passengers to dock at or tender to city docks or the cruise terminal “on a weekend day reserved for one ship with a capacity under 1,250.”
Saturday is the designated quiet day in the MOU but there are provisions for changing that day through negotiations.
Another section on scheduling says there will be more readily accessible ship schedules and coordination through sharing quarterly schedules with an explanation of changes, providing the lower berth capacity for each ship during the season and drafting a berthing schedule before the season “no later than 18 months before each season.”
Other requirements for the city and dock company are to notify each other of schedule changes.
Noting the potential losses of lightering fees for the harbor fund due to the city’s limiting use of city docks, Chris Ystad said he didn’t believe the city would lose much and “maybe scheduling would allow us to still reach those numbers.”
“The Port and Harbors Commission is working on different ways of generating revenue,” he added.
Chris McGraw, owner of the dock company, said today he believes the MOU is “a step in the right direction based on work that went on at the Tourism Task Force, which I was a part of.”
“The document works to minimize the number of large days over 7,000 passengers, and creates a quiet day,” he said. “We –– the city and the cruise dock –– are both limiting passengers on the quiet day.”
McGraw outlined berthing policy last year that he still intends to follow, which includes limiting the number of 4,000+ passenger ships per week to four, and no more than one larger ship (4,000+) and one smaller ship (less than 4,000) per day, up to four days a week.
Asked what the city receives in return for hosting cruise ships and passengers, he responded that he believes the cruise industry has provided benefits for the town, in the form of economic activity for local residents, opportunities for young families and “sales tax revenues that fund a lot of city services and infrastructure for the entire community.”
• This article was originally published by the Sitka Sentinel.
