Item pulled to study conflicts

June Casagrande

How do you find seven people willing to serve on a Harbor Commission

who are knowledgeable of and dedicated to the harbor but who have no

conflicts of interest? You don’t.

When they created the Harbor Commission in April 2002, council

members knew that some of the applicants best suited for the job had

vested interests in the harbor. Now that reality is coming home to

roost.

The city attorney has yanked from the commission’s agenda, to

review potential conflicts of interest, an item about how to deal

with widespread violations of fire codes in the harbor.

A survey by the fire marshal has shown that more than half of the

businesses that hold permits to operate in the harbor are berthing

boats in a way that poses a fire hazard. Of the seven Harbor

Commission members, four hold such permits: Ralph Rodheim, Marshall

Duffield, Seymour Beek and Paulette Pappas.

“It’s kind of a Catch-22,” Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

“We kind of are in a Catch-22 because we want people who have

extensive knowledge of the harbor, but we’re also finding they have

all sorts of potential conflicts involved.”

Harbor Resources Director Tom Rossmiller said that the item was

pulled from the agenda of the March 12 commission meeting after City

Atty. Bob Burnham said his office must first review whether

commissioners who hold harbor permits have a conflict that should

preclude them from voting on the fire hazard issue.

Possible remedies for the widespread fire hazards could hit some

commissioners right in the wallet.

“If you’re a permit holder who’s found to be out of compliance,

you might just be able to redock your boats,” Kiff said. “But if you

don’t have room to do that, then it could start costing money. You

might have to pay to have your dock rebuilt in a way that’s in

compliance with the fire codes or you might have to sell some of your

boats crowding around the dock.”

City fire codes are designed to ensure that, if a boat at a

commercial dock catches fire, it can be pulled away from the dock

without being blocked by or attached to any other boat. More than

half of the commercial docks in the harbor are not up to this

standard.

City officials want to make it easy on permit holders to comply.

They may begin by notifying permit holders that they’re breaking the

rules and then asking the business owners to explain how and when

they will make the necessary changes.

But none of that can happen until the commission makes the call.

Expert counsel Dana Reed, who consulted for the city on campaign

reform, will examine how such conflicts apply to the commission and

present his opinions at the April 12 commission meeting.