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Previously:

• Developer Proposes 'Transition Plan' For Residents at Bayside, Redwood Harbor Village RV Parks

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Rick Shepherd’s promise that he and other Crescent City Harbor Commissioners wouldn’t move forward with a redevelopment project until residents at Bayside and Redwood Harbor Village RV parks were “taken care of properly” fell flat.

Despite his assertion that the Harbor District was acting in residents’ best interest, one tenant, Eva Campbell, pointed out that the proposal to develop transition plans for her and her neighbors didn’t include obtaining an independent advocate for the residents.

“There’s no oversight or coordinator or anybody representing the tenants to make sure that transparency has been given to us,” she said Tuesday. “What legal documentation and resources will be made available to residents to assure us that we are within our rights? We don’t read long-term lease agreements on an every day basis.”

Campbell and other RV park residents have been concerned about their future at both harbor-owned parks since last summer when Alex Lemus, CEO of Florida-based Renewable Energy Capital, announced his plan to attract more visitors to the port.

Some have accused the Harbor District of planning to evict them despite Harbormaster Tim Petrick’s assertion to the contrary and promises that the district would work with Lemus on relocation plans if residents do have to be moved out of the parks.

On Tuesday, Lemus proposed creating a written transition plan for both Redwood Harbor Village and Bayside in addition to the individual plans for each of the 86 current residents. The two plans would be integrated into one RV park development masterplan.

According to Lemus’s proposal, REC wouldn’t take possession of Bayside or Redwood Harbor Village or break ground on construction until the transition plan is completed and the Crescent City Harbor District has signed off on it.

Shepherd said he and Lemus worked hard to get the proposal to create a proposed transition plan out to the public before Friday. He noted there were 44 long-term residents at Bayside RV Park and 42 at Redwood Harbor Village.

“I wanted this to get on the agenda,” Shepherd said, adding that he and his colleagues should have discussed a transition plan for RV park residents two months ago. “There was a lot of rhetoric out there that people were going to be on the street and all that and I just wanted to get this out in the open so people understand what we’re doing.”

Lemus, who has worked with the Harbor District since 2017 to get its carport and rooftop photovoltaic solar system running, said in his career as a developer, he’s never been in a situation where a project would impact 86 residents.

In response to Campbell, Lemus said he would be fine with working with an arbitrator acting on behalf of the RV park’s current tenants.

“What I propose is we sit down with every single person and every person has a plan and there’s an agreed-upon plan for the transition plan,” he said. “And my thinking is the long-term residents, REC and Crescent City (Harbor District) will sign off on it. Everything is going to be done in writing, it’s going to be transparent and everybody’s going to see it.”

When he answered the Crescent City Harbor District’s request for proposals to come up with a development project that would draw visitors, Lemus said he wasn’t aware that there were long-term residents at the RV parks.

He said he wanted to move forward with the project in a way that could be fair and reasonable to everybody, which is why he agreed to have REC representatives meet with each of the 86 residents.

Campbell pointed out again that the proposal to create a transition plan didn’t include having someone with information on a tenant’s rights and responsibilities be involved in the process.

“We’ve never had a chance to be a part of this other than this public comment,” Campbell said.

Another resident of Bayside RV Park pointed out that the Crescent City Harbor District has to comply with the State of California’s Relocation Act. He said he thought the proposal to meet with residents individually was great, but he wanted to make sure the Harbor was following state guidelines.

Commissioner Brian Stone addressed residents’ concerns about transparency, stating that he and his colleagues couldn’t conduct lease negotiations in open session. The Harbor District also hired a consultant to ensure that it follows state relocation guidelines properly, Stone said, but he didn’t say who that consultant was.

“Alex has stepped forward and put forward a plan here,” Stone said. “Now this is just a draft, we need to start coalescing ideas on how to put it together and fall within the regulations of the State of California. We’ve known this stuff all along, but there’s always been this argument and everybody blowing stuff out of the nature of what’s going on because of the lack of information and that’s why we’re standing here, giving you information.”

In August 2021, Lemus proposed a plan to increase tourism at the harbor by beautifying Bayside RV Park, including upgrading its landscaping and infrastructure, and purchasing Airstream trailers as well as park cabins for overnight short-term stays.

Lemus’s plan also included marketing Crescent City’s local seafood and fishing opportunities both on the ocean and on the Smith River. He said REC is budgeting “somewhere between $2 million and $2.5 million when everything’s said and done for Bayside.”

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