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A request from the Crescent City Harbormaster to hire a landscaping company turned into a discussion over whether the district could afford it.

Instead of choosing one of three options Tim Petrick presented to them on Tuesday, the Board of Commissioners created an ad-hoc committee to look at what’s needed and where the CCHD can cut costs.

Commissioner Brian Stone, who argued for the second meeting in a row that the Harbor District was running out of money, pushed for tabling the matter until after he and his colleagues receive more information about the 2024-25 budget.

“To put out a contract for $70,000 and trying to make sure we can make it when we got a $557,000 [payment] in the judgment for Fashion Blacksmith and we got a $262,000 payment on the USDA loan — those are debts and we have to pay them,” he said. “I don’t see money coming in and it’s very scary to me as a commissioner to see. We’re standing down the barrel of a 12-gauge and we want to go spending more money. I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Petrick received proposals from Cutting Edge Lawn Care and R.A. Kirkland Inc., both based in Del Norte County. Cutting Edge offered grass-cutting service in the main harbor for $69,000 and landscaping at Bayside RV Park for an additional $9,500. Kirkland offered landscaping at the main harbor for $70,000 and offered to include Bayside RV Park for an additional $9,600.

The third option was to use Crescent City Harbor District staff to do landscaping and maintenance. Employing two people at $20 per hour to do that work would cost roughly $105,000, Petrick said, adding that includes benefits, workers compensation insurance and other costs. Hiring a third person for landscaping and maintenance would cost about $158,000, Petrick said.

“And that doesn’t include equipment costs, fuel costs, maintenance, and other costs like that,” Petrick said. “It’s cheaper for us to outsource is what it comes down to.”

The harbor district currently has four people on its maintenance staff, Petrick told the Wild Rivers Outpost. They do a small amount of landscaping, knocking down the weeds in the dredge ponds and around the U.S. Coast Guard building. They are also maintaining the landscaping at Redwood Harbor Village RV park, he said.
For its other landscaping needs, the Harbor District has contracted with Kirkland Landscaping for about two years, Petrick said.

On Tuesday, commissioners discussed options for cutting costs. Rick Shepherd suggested putting gravel around Bayside instead of landscaping — it’s mostly weeds anyway, he said.

Shepherd also suggested cutting back on the mowing in the fall when the grass dies back.

Another idea, according to Petrick, was adding landscaping costs to the leases the Crescent City Harbor District has with its tenants or requiring the tenant to be responsible for their own landscaping.

Stone, again, brought up the harbor’s $1.4 million settlement that ended its seven-year lawsuit against the Dutra Group over the construction of the inner boat basin. At the district’s May 7 meeting, Stone argued that the settlement between the harbor and Wayne Maples Plumbing and Stover Engineering was the “only thing keeping us open.”

On Tuesday, Stone said it’s inappropriate to be spending money the Harbor District doesn’t have. He also asked if mowing the grass out front was really necessary.

“That’s a coastal trail right along there, can’t we let it go [au] naturel?” Stone asked.

The Crescent City Harbor District is operating at a deficit, Petrick told the Outpost on Thursday. It currently has “an 18-month runway of cash” if it doesn’t attract additional revenue. He said the goal is to have $500,000 in new revenue committed in each of the next two fiscal years.

The harbor’s settlement payments to Fashion Blacksmith are spread out over the next 10 years, Petrick said. The arbitration board ruled that the Harbor District must pay Fashion Blacksmith $1.3 million. Each payment-plus interest is due in January and is about $150,000 per year, according to Petrick.

“The settlement agreement was for $2.6 million paid over 10 years at 5 percent interest,” Petrick said. “This payment will be due April 1st of each year and the next payment will be $375,000.”

Meanwhile the Harbor District’s $262,000 payment to the USDA for the loan that paid for the reconstruction of the inner boat basin is due in September and is then reimbursed through transient occupancy tax dollars from Measure C in October, Petrick said.

When asked if there are other tasks the harbor district could outsource for, Petrick said some could be, but those projects likely wouldn’t be cheaper than its in-house crew.

“The cleaning of the public restrooms is the only function we’ve discussed and tried outsourcing [for],” he said. “Unfortunately, we’ve never been able to find an operator who could maintain the cleanliness at the same cost as staff. Much of what our maintenance staff does is in some way specialized, so outsourcing becomes difficult.”

At the Harbor District’s meeting, Commissioner Gerhard Weber said he shared Stone’s concerns, but the port has to look acceptable to draw potential investors. Weber also asked if there were things the Harbor District could do differently — maybe contract for landscaping during the growing season and the negotiate something else during the off season.

“Nobody wants to invest in the wilderness,” Weber said.

Petrick pointed out that much of the landscaping work isn’t the actual mowing but the little stuff. He brought up a statement Cindy Vosburg, Crescent City-Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce executive director, made at the district’s May 7 meeting.

“She said she gets a lot of compliments about how good the harbor looks, and it’s not because of the front lawn. It’s because of all the details,” Petrick said, adding that it’s pulling weeds in sidewalk cracks and making sure the grass isn’t growing out over the roads. “Like Gerhard said, people are not going to want to invest in the harbor, not necessarily because it looks like wilderness, but because it looks like we don’t care.”

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