Notes from 3/5/23 Ferry Proposal Community Meeting @ Comm. Hall @2pm

Call for comments to the Ferry Proposal Process by March 10th (comment period was just extended this morning to March 31st)

Still target sending comments by March 10th so Public Works & Commissioners have it in advance of the newly announced “Working Session” on March 14th 

Email: ferrycomments@co.skagit.wa.us 

cc: commissioner@co.skagit.wa.us

 guemesferry@gmail.com 

Upcoming meetings: (https://www.skagitcounty.net/Departments/PublicWorksFerry/2023ratestudy.htm )

Work Session: Tuesday, March 14th, 2023 at 2:30 p.m. | Commissioners’ Hearing Room, 1800 Continental Pl, Mount Vernon, WA

Attend in-person or via Zoom using the following link: https://bit.ly/SkagitBoCCMtg

NOTE: Public comments regarding the proposal will be accepted until close of business on March 31, 2023.

Please submit all comments to: ferrycomments@co.skagit.wa.us.

Notes on comments/questions raised at the meeting:

Tanya Sell – Cypress way, husband & two kids moved here in 2020

Shared her letter to the commission & public works as inspiration & focus

• Impact of costs

• Very short comment period

• Service impacts due to cost

• Financial impact of ferry fares ~$1200 to $2600 cost for 2024

• 50% rise in tax costs w/in Skagit County

Gabe

Suggestions to calculate financial impact to families use real #s

How behavior may be adjusted in response to the fare increase 

Steve Orsini

Article on LineTime about how we got to the revenue increase

• 71% average increase, based on?

• Moved away from methodology that was used for previous 10 yrs. – sites the current Resolution (w/o rescinding current resolution)

• Credit should be give to the Road Fund contribution from Guemes Residents

o ASK 

• delay process by 40 days to evaluate

• $780K contribution from Guemes – not currently applied directly to the ferry

• No Tollbooth

• Look at surcharge to put towards haul out ($250K/year from the surcharge)

• Look at Crowley or private company to operate current ferry

Jonathan Hewitt

Industry Marine background

Staffing: 

• Questions why there is an asst. for ferry manager in MV

• Efficiencies to be found – Still legal to operate the vessel w/3 members

o Issues with Electric Ferry – 

Name not given

o BMPs for how to fund a ferry system?

o Does the UTC have any sway over this.  Annually, WA state needs to reimburse Counties for reimbursement for annual operations

Name not given

o Ask for a show of hands (1/4 room) who has submitted their comments

Andy Leech 

o Asked County if there was a location to view comments submitted – They will not be publicly available.

o Included desire for that to the Commissioners

Karen Hancock

o BCC: Ferry committee on comments to the County

Michael Recycle (Fernell)

o Advocating for in person 

*Ferry Committee will look into what the “work session” with the county

Phil Burton

o Commutes 5-6 days/week, bought their property in 1990, full time in 2009

o Encourage to run the #s

o Agree that a 70% increase is crazy

o Short & sweet is best

o Talking points

• 10-15% increase is reasonable, 20% at the top end

• Lower fares % contribution to 45% (missing target) then Road fund needs to make up the rest

• 2004 ferry fare & schedule committee – met for 9 months, met with consultants

• Road fund should pay for the ferry = public safety & infrastructure delivery on Guemes

Tax $ should fund the infrastructure

• Keep fares reasonable to preserve financial equitability

• Punch cards will got peak/nonpeak – commuter cards should be same all year & no-bike charge

• Q: What is the total farebox revenue recovery, road fund contribution, 

Eugene Gwost

o Notes that the pressure is on & the county gets = keep it up! E.g. extended comment period

o Requests County comes to Guemes

*Gabe did invite Rachel & Grace Kane to this meeting = they declined

Dick Brigham – Sally Stapph’s husband

o Bicycles – often rides into town & bike trailers 

• Has not thought out the fare structures too well.

Robert Anderson – 

• “North Anacortes” – work together, tell people that we don’t want to make this an enclave for the wealthy

Glen Veal

• Public works threw the current resolution out the window. 

• In 2020, wrote a letter to public works & commissioners citing: 

o County spent $250,000 in consultant fees

o Then said the ferry budget was short $120,000 to justify the cost increase

o When there was no effort to reduce Operating costs 

• Ask for cost reduction- Stop expanding the cost of the ferry operations

• This is a monopoly – look to the UTC for some oversight of the ferry operations

Sandy McKean

• Suggest change in how the diff. fares are developed (22′ car & 14′ car length)

o Need to consider # of cars that would fit into that classification (increase 14’ to 15’ plus)

• Keep things as specific as possible to your situation

• KPFF consults for WA State Ferries and are using a similar fare structure, that’s where the huge impacts to diff. length levels are coming from. They are not reasonable fit for Guemes

o think of impacts to commercial vehicles which will be huge

Deb Finch

• Q: How do we see all of the comments that others submit?

*Ferry Committee will email out a link to a place where all emailed comments will be collected and available to view by the community.  To get on that list, put your email on the sign in sheet.

**Request that the County post our emails and comments

• Lack of transparency = they should post our comments and letters

*Gabe requested info & they could not produce any background information requested

Karen Shill

o CC’ Commissioners

o Other options – Write letters to the editors

o Concerns that with other requests that would require funding that the County would use those requests to justify fare increase:

• Improvements for Parking – more space, actual security 

• Ferry Crew request for adequate pay (considering they got a smaller increase than every other department in the county)

o But… Will the increases actually go to the things we are requesting?

*Gabe’s response/follow up- Skagit County has not provided any info about how they will address wage increases.  County is trying to create friction between staff & residents.  

– Ticket booth isn’t a viable option – that will require them to take tickets sequentially (creates a

bottleneck, as stated by ferry workers) 

Janet & Jim Casey

o Avg. last 5 years, includes time when fare collection was suspended during COVID and not taken into account

• Since they received COVID relief $, why were they not considered in the calculation

o Samish island  singular access road, does Public Works put the same constraints on maintenance for that road. Suggest “reframe”  as “Skagit county Marine highway system” – similar to Alaskan Marine highway system, which is a combination of ferries and roads

o Concerns about the new ferry – concerns about electrical battery fire on the ferry causing issues with dealing with a fire of that magnitude

Gail LeBoutillier

o Need for a floatation life saving device

Tom Fouts

o Problems with the Commissioner process, creates a structural problem – increase to 5 members

• Complaints about the ferry committee, wants to see this move forward to solutions

Dave Shill

o Impact to fixed and low income folks as a harsh impacts

Jacki Mayo 

– reported comment made at State of the County “how long are we going to keep supporting 600 residents”

Peter Castle

• Concerns about families being impacted by increased cost

• E.g. support assessment to support schools because he believes in supporting 

Jim Casey

• Built his house here because he wanted to live here. 

• Concerns about parking issues and how the lack of security and rise of damage and theft leads to unexpected costs on top of proposed fare increase.

e.g $2,000 repair to one of his workers due to damage to their truck when it was parked in the ferry parking lot.

Lisa Charnok

• Needs-based fare – need to come up with one 

• County budget didn’t show an increase in the rates when calculating the fare increase = suggests that there is time to look at a phased approach to fare increase

o Look at the commercial fares, so it’s not an additional “tax” on businesses 

• Go slower, do it right

Dan Burnett

• Getting hard to make a go of things as it is

• Title 3 ADA, equal access to all people – biggest hits are for the elderly and disabled. This would impact these folks who cannot walk on the ferry and need to drive on

o Rise in taxes = people are increasingly shifting to rent their homes as AirBnB to make their taxes

• Impacts to package delivery to the island – financial disadvantage to USPS v. private delivery organizations (e.g. Fed Ex won’t deliver during the haulout because it’s too much hassle/expensive, Amazon won’t delivery to Guemes because it’s too expensive so USPS ends up doing those deliveries

Rory Denovan

• There is no cost accounting for the need for the rate increase

• Road Fund cap is not needed – no justification for the amount ($750K) and or why?

• Toll booth will create a cost increase. In order to pay for that = increase

• County is pitting residents (Guemes and other Skagitonians) & Guemes residents and ferry  workers against each other

Freya Gladish

• Is there a way to understand how to move things forward?

Allan Bush 

– Current resolution = policy in place that is not being used that was created based on public input & contribution

• There has been NO public input up to this point 

• The production of background documents deadlines have been postponed for the past several years. 

Milestones outlined in the resolution that have not been met:

– Jan 1 – Workplan for the ferry (hasn’t been done in years)

– Providing report to the UTC that is necessary for Deficit reimbursement report to receive a portion of the $1.8mil.

– State motor vehicle Fuel Tax

• Bottom line: Commissioners & Public Works are not providing info or following policy 

Name not given:

• Do we have any legal recourse for Public Works not following the current resolution for developing fare increases?

Action items:

Ferry Committee will email all who signed up and find a way to share: guemesferry@gmail.com