Council extends seine skiff fee exemption

Moorage fees for work and seine skiffs attached to motherships are exempted through 2025.

The moorage fee exemption for work and seine skiffs attached to motherships in the Homer Harbor has been extended through 2025.

The Homer City Council passed Ordinance 24-62 after hearing comments on the issue for more than a half hour from 16 members of the public at their last regular meeting on Jan. 13.

Multiple members of the Roth family — all seiners and/or involved in Homer’s marine trades in other ways — including Steven Roth, sons William and Richard, and William’s wife, Kaytlen, provided testimony to the council.

William Roth said that five vessels previously based in Homer have relocated their operations to Valdez due to the cheaper moorage in the Valdez harbor. He suggested as a compromise to the full exemption that Homer adopt a moorage fee policy similar to Kodiak, which does not charge for seine skiff moorage from March 15 to Nov. 15.

“We could even drop that back to Oct. 1, from March 15 to Oct. 1,” he said.

Megan Corazza, who also testified, is one of the seine operators that moved to Valdez.

“There is a significant price difference in what I pay in moorage in Valdez, either in the harbor or dry-docked,” she said. “Right now my boat is dry-docked in Valdez for $120 a month. In the Homer Harbor, I pay over $600 a month for my boat — and that’s transient, not a stall. So if I add a skiff onto my 52-foot boat, my monthly rate is going to be $800-900. It is cost-prohibitive to have our skiffs charged as well as our boats.”

Corazza also spoke to the challenges that Alaska’s fishing industry has been and continues to face.

“We don’t really know what’s going to happen next, but all of us are trying to hang on,” she said.

She said that she would like to see Homer implement policy and “industry standard” similar to what is in place in Kodiak, or Cordova or Valdez, to make it “financially feasible” for seiners to run their businesses.

Others who testified also noted space issues within the harbor. Some seiners store their skiffs on the stern of their boat so as to take up less space, but that’s not feasible for everyone.

Kaytlen Roth shared a photo with the council of William’s boat with the skiff stored on the stern.

“The scuppers are inches from the waterline if your skiff is on the back of the boat,” she said.

According to the ordinance, work and seine skiffs attached to motherships were exempt from Homer Harbor moorage fees prior to January 2023 — an exemption that had been in place for at least 40 years, according to Port Director Bryan Hawkins. The exemption was removed in January 2024, when Tariff No. 1 was revised, but the council ultimately postponed implementation until Dec. 31, 2024, when they passed Resolution 24-057.

The Port and Harbor Advisory Commission reviewed the tariff at their September meeting and recommended both that the exemption be removed, supporting the original tariff revision, and that Resolution 24-057 be extended until Dec. 31, 2025, in effect extending the exemption for one more year.

Port and harbor staff, according to a Dec. 3 memorandum, recommended that that council not extend the moorage fee exemption through 2025 in order to “ensure that moorage fees apply to all vessels equitably and fairly.”

“In our opinion, the current exemption for work skiffs and seine skiffs does not align with the core mission of the Port and Harbor Department. Specifically, it fails to meet the fairness and equity standards expected from our tariff system,” Hawkins wrote in the memo.

Among the factors behind staff’s recommendation to not extend the fee exemption, Hawkins noted the labor demand on staff conducting the moorage collection process, equity in service among all boats using the harbor, and peak use and space constraints in the harbor.

“The seine vessels and their skiffs primarily occupy harbor space during peak periods, specifically in the spring and fall. During these times, we face significant challenges in meeting the moorage needs of all harbor users,” he wrote. “To clarify, if vessel owners require their skiffs to be in the harbor, we will accommodate them. However, we believe that a 55-foot seiner with a 20-foot skiff occupies 75 feet of harbor space, and should be charged accordingly to reflect the full use of the available space.”

Both discussion among the council members and comments from the public suggested that a different, long-term solution was needed in future.

“That was generally the consensus that I came away with as well, seeking to find a compromise,” Hawkins said Friday. “We will work with the seiners and the council to try to come up with something.”

Find Ordinance 24-62 and backup memorandums in full and hear public comments from the Jan. 13 meeting recording at www.cityofhomer-ak.gov/citycouncil/city-council-regular-meeting-317.