Ketchikan: Port & Harbors Advisory Board Nov 2026 Meeting

The Port Harbors Advisory Board meeting, regular meeting for November 10th, 2026. Mr. Coughlin. Mr. Rulsey. Here.

Mr. Bethel. Here. Mr. Larby. Here. Mr. Rhodes.

It's favor Mr. Farooq. Mr. Strasburg.

Here.

Of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We have a motion to approve minutes from the July meeting.

July. Second.

Approved. Communications. Do we want to go over that now?

Yeah, sure. Communications, there was a letter that came in, you guys all have in your packet, from Bering Sea crab fishermen for the Aleutian Ballot. They were concerned about the deepwater dolphin on Bird 3, and I kind of need to reiterate that that project has already kind of moved forward. The project design has already been done. It's gone out to bid.

Something to keep in mind is with that particular project, that is actually a safety improvement. That is something that with these larger cruise ships are coming in, this is one of those things where this probably needs to be done as far as lashing points for the, these larger cruise vessels. That's really what this is, this is for. We don't have any plans right away. It's not, it's not been awarded to anybody at the moment, or we're still looking forward to try to get this done to, to do that safety improvement.

This letter has gone to the city manager's so they're aware of it. But I just wanted to point out that, you know, that project's already been designed, it's already gone forward, we've already got approval from Council to do so. And, you know, something to keep in mind as well is, you know, Safe Float, that area, that's really a small boat harbor. It's, you know, and I understand that, you know, Lucia Ballad ties up there, but let's— I also want to remind everybody here that You know, nobody has— that's, that's open mortgage there. People can come in and out, and nobody has a firm fixed place there, as we all know.

We've discussed that many times. So, um, like I said, this has gone to the city manager's office. They're aware of it. They have the letter. Um, and really, there's not a whole lot more I can, I can really speak to on that other than to let you know that that's a safety improvement that we're working to, uh, to fulfill and get done for the these larger cruise ships that are coming in.

Um, actually, I have a couple questions. Sure, that's, that's right. So it's— I'm going to be honest, it's been quite a while since I saw those plans. It was somewhere around 2020, I think, and I, I didn't really have too much to do with this at the time. Um, even from looking at the plans, so, uh, it was really difficult to discern how much, just how much of an opening there would be, say, if we have a southbound trip on 4 and a northbound trip on 3, um, how, how big that gap's going to be.

What, what I can do for you, um, is I can, uh, reach out to P&D. I'll get you a good drawing and, and I'll send that to the board so everybody's aware of how much room is there. Sure, I know at one time the Aleutian Ballad captain, one of the owners, actually looked at it, and at that time he had no issue with it. So, um, I will, I'll reach out, I'll, I'll get you a good, uh, a good drawing so you get a good idea what that's really going to look like. Okay, okay.

Yeah, it was kind of the same issue for us, uh, for, for Alamarine, because at the time we had smaller boats, right? And now we're we have that one large boat that's, you know, 25 feet wide, 100-some feet long. Also, is this gonna restrict the overnight boats that have been coming in, or like American Cruise Lines, or—. That I don't know off the top of my head. That is a new kind of a thing that has happened since, you know, before this was done.

And if you're— are you talking about Newtown Wharf? Is that—. I was talking about the ones that are still going to Route 3. It shouldn't. It shouldn't.

I wouldn't think so. But once again, I'll get you some drawings. I'll make sure that everybody at the FAB, all the FAB board members get drawings and you get a good idea what that's going to look like. Okay, fair enough. Can I add some commentary?

Sure. Because I remember the discussions of So I had made similar objections at the time because, and it was pointed out to me because I can't remember what ships were in, but that year there were a couple larger ships that were, you know, like this that made the opening. And we'd been, the Malinda Lee had been there. Yeah. And and backing in.

So the, the distance was— of the New Dolphin was supposed to be greater than the distance of those two ships. But now if they moor the ships even further in that direction— and I did make some objections because I think for larger vessels it is going to be a more of a challenge getting in there, especially where you're operating. Now. The Ocean Belle, or the, um, Alan Marine? Uh, that one's roughly 105 foot by 25, and she has a fair bit of height.

Okay, so, so, and it might be, I don't know, just something to like make a note of to, um You know, when they're doing birth assignments and their models and everything like that, that, you know, wanna— if they can make it— I mean, I know doors line up where doors line up, but, you know, to keep in mind to keep that opening as wide as possible. I mean, I know we're a long ways from even having that dolphin.

Yeah, honestly, like I mean, if we have the room, we have the room. It's easy enough for us, and even if we can't get in there, it's not as inconvenient for us as it might be for other people. Just throwing that out there too, Chris. All right. Yeah, I will get with P&D, and we'll get this, and I'll also talk to them about, you know, the size vessel that you're operating as well, have a look.

And you're absolutely correct, you know, when Claw, who, who does the, uh, dispatching, you know, and sets up the schedule. It is certainly something that, you know, once that happens, we can talk to them about that to try to mitigate some of that.

Okay, and I will get you those drawings so you all know exactly what that looks like. Yes.

Like we have no persons to be heard. I can speak on the person to be heard. Oh. Great, yeah, I'm speaking for myself, not council. Um, so one of the things that I'd like to see you guys review as the rates continue to climb at 8% a year for those that are moored in the harbors is to go back to one of the advantages of having a slip in the harbor is able to use the long track.

And as a user, I usually pull my boat out, uh, at the end of the, the summer. It's out now, and I'll put it back, you know, in the spring. And I might pull it once if I have a washer to clean it, or if I have a mechanic. But I really think we're paying for the rates on our slips because we're full-time customers. I'm not there 6 months out of the year, I'm still paying my rate at Ketchikan.

That I think that as an added advantage and to let the harbor users know that there's some advantage to having that slip is to include the launch. And we're not using that launch near as much as commercial. And so I think that if you were to read put up per launch on those things that were reasonable for the amount of time that they use it. It'd be very expensive for some of those guys, but I think as a harbor user, uh, especially in just the speedboat class that I have, we're not hampering any type of operations by using that.

And just, uh, since I'm under person to be heard, a suggestion, and I've seen it at Southeast Dividore, and you guys could probably do the same thing They have these slips that show all the ships, tell you the number of passengers on them, and they're made to scale. So when they're working boats around, they can use them at their dock to see what the configuration looks like for the day that they're going to have. And we should have some of that in our port someplace. We should have a quarter to 1 foot or whatever the dimensions are for a map that you can lay down on a glass on a table. Then you should have all the ships that we're having at port have their— and I think they're all to scale so that you can work with them manually to see exactly what's happening.

It gives you an idea of spacing and room and whether they're bow in or bow out, and it's going to be really important when we start looking at the configuration of electrification of our docks. We want to know where those, those tie-ups and those connections are going to be. Because they're not going to be the same on every ship.

It's just, if we had a mockup model, it would be kind of nice.

Thank you.

This is to Director Shreveport. Oh, been a little while since we've met, so I'll go down the— you guys will have the direction report, but I'll hit the highlights here. Ketchikan boat launch, as you know, reached out to DNR and the state of Alaska for an update. I actually did get an update just the other day. Basically what they told me is we're about 6 months out, we're in the queue.

They're going to look at that parking lot. What we've asked basically is, hey, can we— will you give us the parking lot? We'll take care of it. We'll continue to do what we're doing. And they're supposed to get back to me probably around May is what they're telling me.

So they said they have a whole lot of requests right now, but we are in the queue. We've been in the queue for a while. So 6 months from now, hopefully we'll get a little movement and I'll be able to report back on what the status is and what's going on, but really the only status I can give you on that at the moment is we're in the queue and they know about it.

So harbormasters, you know, really good season. We had a safe season. The harbormasters did a good job. The temp harbormasters did a good job. They continue to make rounds of all the harbors, assisting harbor users, monitoring the safety of equipment and vessels.

Winter hours are now in effect, and public restrooms are open from 8:00 to 4:30 Monday through Sunday, so 7 days a week.

Floating breakwater, Bark River North, as you all know, Army Corps of Engineers, they finished their project. They came back, they had to reset some blocks, they've done so, and if you've not seen it, it's a pretty spookum breakwater, and, you know, hopefully we're We'll be able to use that for many, many years to come. Raw Fish Tax Grant, the borough agreed to give us $60,000 for harbor safety. The grant's been provided and executed. Safety equipment has come in.

You know, Mr. Walston has been putting in life rings and fire extinguishers and along with some maintenance folks, and we're slowly getting those things changed out and You guys should be seeing more and more of that over the next couple months. We'll get those put in. We've got some funding left over. We've got a little, some replacement safety ladders we're also going to buy, but you know, we'll get you some pictures the next report and you know, you'll be able to see what's going on and how that raw fish tax has actually helped us out quite a bit. So Kudos to the borough for that.

Port security work, the final cruise ship arrived on the 6th of October, and the final World Cove cruise ship was on the 9th of October. Very busy and safe season. And, you know, just a very good job by all the security folks down there keeping everybody safe, and appreciate that. Bird 1 and 2 security and storage building, that was a CIP project, and that's being installed right now on the port. And the building should be ready to go for the 2027 cruise ship season.

There's some pictures at the back of your report there. As we speak, it's getting roughed up for electrical, and they'll start putting drywall up and heater in there. And hopefully sooner rather than later, that thing will be all, all done and ready to go. For Ketchikan Protection and Maintenance, we have a capital improvement project that actually just went out on the streets. We had a pre-bid meeting today, and there looks like there might be some interest.

That's that whole cathodic protection down on the port that we've been wanting to get taken care of. It'll be coatings, pile wraps, things of that nature. And I think the bid opening, if I remember right, is on December 2nd. And we're hoping that we get a good bid and we can get that awarded and get that, get that project moving. That's been long overdue.

Um, we had a weather event on 10/15, uh, causing a failure of the storm drain that runs through the Bar Harbor parking lot. As you know, if you've been down there, you've seen the excavator and, uh, a trench kind of dug out. And, uh, the failure caused significant flooding on Tongass Highway. Uh, there was a pipe failure that ran directly underneath the maintenance building, and, uh, that building actually had to be evacuated and demolished. And, uh, we kind of did that in record time.

And the good part of all of this, if there is a silver lining in it, is we had a project already out to bid for the replacement of that building. And we just opened up that bid opening, and it looks like we've got a good bid, and we should be able to get moving on that building, get it awarded early you know, late this year, early next year, and hopefully by the spring and early summer we'll have a new maintenance building. So, so that's good news. Let's see here. Admin staff continues to provide customer service, billing statements, payroll, and overall administrative functions for the department.

We appreciate them. And good news also, Port Harbors received some grant funding and we've been given permission to address harbor infrastructure. So The items that we're going to address are refurbishment of the Mountain Point boat launch, and currently those plans, specs, and estimates are being revised, and that will include replacement of all the piles, the whole dock, and the concrete panel ramps that go down. And we're also looking into replacing Bar Harbor South Floats 7 and 8. So we should actually see some movement on some new harbor infrastructure replacements, and I'm kind of excited about that.

And, uh, other than that, that's pretty much the director's report. So anybody have any questions?

I have one. Yes, sir. Through the chair, um, being that we declared a disaster for that drainage system down in Port Harbors and we had to demolish the building in order to repair that, is there any potential for reimbursement on that building? Yes, sir, there is actually, uh, there is potential for reimbursement for that going down, as well as the storm drain. Um, and that's something that Public Works, uh, has already— and the city manager's office has put in for.

So, so that's, uh, that, that should be something that's reimbursable.

Yes, sir.

We have, uh, Conex boxes that we got down and we loaded— there's like 3 Conex boxes full of the stuff in the maintenance, uh, maintenance items. We have a small, uh, Conex box that's— that will act like an office. It's like a little, little mini, mini office that they can use that as a workshop. So, uh, in the meantime until that new, uh, building gets built. So it'll be, it'll be a little, uh, little tight, but they'll, they'll work around it, and, uh, I think they'll, they'll get through it.

So the, the upside is they know the building's coming, and it will be a big upgrade from, uh, what they had.

Yeah, do we have any future agenda?

Yeah, to potentially add them back into Yeah,. If you— I, Mr. Mayor, please correct me if I'm wrong, but what I heard was if you're a full-time, year-round person out in the harbor, then you would get. Rent. Privileges and not have to pay extra for them. But that's— and we're talking just full-time, is that correct?

Correct. Wanted to make sure that was clear. Yep, previously it just— if you had a permanent mortgage slip, it came. With incentive for somebody to stay year-round.

Thank you for all your stuff.

Thank you. Thanks everyone for coming. Thanks for joining us. I was just going to say, hey, thanks for the opportunity to get up to speed here and see where I can help out.

Thank you, Mayor. So, welcome. Thank you.

Motion to adjourn. Could I make some comments to the mayor or the governing body? What we're looking for from our advisory board is to help. And speaking specifically to the ports and harbors, there's some things that are going to be coming at as we move forward that I think this group can help prepare the city for. And some of that, so like in the commercial fishing fleet, we need to recognize, do we have enough moorage available to them?

Now, there are trends where the size of those vessels are changing and the harbors aren't the right fit, I guess.

And what, and what are we doing to address some seasonal congestion that we get? And so what that takes is more harbor infrastructure sometimes, or, or some reconfiguration or something like that. And that's where this board can help us, is if you can get that type of information. And I know Wayne and you guys have been working on the, the budget for the city of Ketchikan, but a long-term plan strategy of how we're going to manage our harbors for short-term, mid-term, and long-term. Because we don't want to get to that midterm or that long-term and not have planned for it or put money aside or figure out how we're going to manage that.

And that, that's something that you can get from the community or other things, you know, you can put out surveys and stuff. But that would help the city when we go into this planning stage, we don't get any surprises. Down the line. And some of that could be in regards to changes in material design of floats, something that's more serviceable or more durable and those kind of things. So you can justify when Wayne has come to us and says, well, we need this type of a float in City Float because of X, right?

And we found that the concrete floats, the surface on them are failing and they're more maintenance as they go longer. They're good short term, but long-term they're not working out as well as we hope they would. And it might be composite decking, it might be back to wood decking, or the design of them might be changed so that interchangeable and replaceable parts are readily available, I guess what I'd say. And those would help us a lot. User fee structures, you know, that's always an ongoing thing and how we justify that and what we're needing.

We're a utility. We're providing services and running spaces, and you got to cover your costs, you know, in regards to that. Get as many grants, use as much of other people's money as you can, but at some point the buck's going to stop here where we're going to have to fund our harbors. And the only way we do that is through revenues. We don't have— as an enterprise fund, we don't have other places to take that money from.

And if we do that, incrementally over a long term rather than get behind the 8-ball and all of a sudden I got to make a 10% increase. That's hard for the public to swallow. But if you were making a half a percent or 1% increase over time, that's easier to adjust to.

Um, cost recovery. It's weird if there's some things that we can do to recover our costs on those things. Uh, for instance, the shipyard is expanding like crazy. They're looking at putting in a third berth That'll take that berth away where they had one ship tied up. We now have that at berth 3, right?

But if we do port electrification for cost recovery, can we lease that for shoreside maintenance? You don't have to be on the dry dock to do it. They've already done all the bottom work, but they can replace engines, they can work on, you know, generation. They can do all kinds of stuff if we do shoreside and have the right type of power infrastructure. So when we talk about this plugging in the ships, We got to look at long term.

Is it going to be advantageous in the offseason, not just during, um, you know, I'd rather use our electricity to create jobs than put it in a data center, you know. Um, we, we should look at our enterprise fund and see how it's performing. You know, we should make sure that what we're doing is the right structure. And if we have investments, we should invest and have that money making us money if we can. To go take long-term and what our reserve policy really should be for the harbor, because things are getting more and more expensive.

We don't keep up with the true cost of stuff. Our reserves are going to be not going to be there to do the work that we have to do in case we have something going on. Um, and then, you know, I know you guys are working on ports and harbors, but you should really be thinking about, um, waterfront land use. Because at some point, where's the next harbor going to go? If we get an icebreaker here, that's 200 Coast Guardsmen and family, right?

They're all going to want to have a boat. They're going to want to put in a slip. They're going to want services. Where is that next increment to happen? We don't know.

We haven't made that plan. We haven't looked at it. And it means that we try to tie up a piece of property early on so we have it available. We should think about that. Because we have the tideland lease problem, you know.

And then, you know, charter tourism, industrial users, that— all that stuff. Then you got to talk about your safety and harbor security, you know, camera systems, fire safety, derelict vessels, fuel spills, and, you know, emergency preparedness, tsunamis and storms, that kind of stuff. And search and rescue. Those are all issues that the ports and harbors are going to face as we're going forward. And again, if we have a long-term strategy plan where we can plan for those things, it makes it a lot easier on the council because we know what's coming to us.

So what do we got to do if we know that we got to purchase X 5 years out? What do we got to do here to make that happen? We start looking at grants, we start looking at federal money, state monies, Everything that we can gather from that. We look at user fees and we look at the actual users, because you shouldn't be putting a, a big burden on the guy that owns a skiff because we have to build something to take 80-foot vessels, right? That should fall on the 80-foot vessel guy, that type of stuff.

Um, and then future vessel trends, you know, you're looking right now at what's happening with technology. Are we going to have electric or hybrid boats at some point in the harbor, and our power needs are going to go through the roof if you do something like that. And we got a plan for that. We go— and even your liver boards, if we got liver boards scattered all over harbors, is there a way that you put them into a, a single area that has the sewer and the water stuck to it, and you can charge a higher rate for those because you're providing a service right at the dock? Does that make some sense?

I don't know. And then, you know, keep an eye on the harbors, State Harbor Program, because we should be able to advocate for our needs and get more money in that if we possibly can, because it's an important asset to the communities. Every community that's on the waterfront is needing that infrastructure to stay alive. So That's just something that we're looking at. And then the use of new technology— there's got to be better programs, better interaction with the public in regards to billing cycles and information, all that kind of stuff.

That's just some stuff I want to bring up from the council or mayor standpoint. Anything that you guys can do to help us in that long-term— help Wayne in that long-term plan, because we, we should be looking 10 years out, 15 years out.

We appreciate everything you do. You guys are the users of the harbor. You guys that should know, right? You're the guy that'll bring— you're the expert. You know what's working in the harbor and you know what isn't.

Thank you.

What's that? I'm sorry, I was just looking up. I think next slide was a German, if we're all done. Yeah, yeah, we have a motion to adjourn. Do again.