WAILUKU >> The state land board postponed making a decision on boating fees yesterday and cut short what seemed likely to be a tongue-lashing from vessel owners. State delays
boating-fee decision
By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.comBoard Chairman Gilbert Coloma-Agaran said he was continuing the talks about boating fees until a meeting on Dec. 13 on Oahu because he was losing a quorum and several people still wanted to testify.
The land board also faced losing support for its mooring fee increases, as a major boating group was ready to scuttle the proposal.
Greg Howeth, president of the Ocean Tourism Coalition, said his group could not accept the proposal before the board because it did not include key sections, including a shift in the burden of proof when the state declines to renew a mooring permit.
Howeth said his group had met with state officials to work out an acceptable proposal. One of the terms included placing the burden upon the state to prove a vessel owner should not receive a mooring permit.
Howeth said state boating officials also agreed not to raise the mooring fees for recreational boat owners 65 years and older who reside on their vessels.
State boating officials said the sections were deleted for technical reasons and would be submitted for passage in December.
Coalition board member James Coon called the state presentation "unconscious incompetence."
Coon said he could not support the boating fee proposal in its partial form and asked the board to put off making a decision until the entire proposal could be presented to them.
He also criticized state boating officials for decreasing recreational mooring fees for the Ala Wai Boat Harbor while retaining increases for Lahaina Harbor.
Many commercial boat operators opposed an initial state proposal, made about two years ago, to increase the state commercial mooring fees to 4.5 percent of gross revenues from 2 percent.
Coon, whose family owns Trilogy Excursions, said that under the proposal that is to come before the board, commercial mooring fees would be increased to 2.5 percent, effective 10 days after the governor's signature. He said the fee would be raised to 3 percent after 12 months.
Coon said that on average, commercial boat operators' profits are slim and based on 2.7 percent of their gross receipts.
"We will expect a fee increase, but we got to have an expectation we will survive," Coon said.
Nancy Young, a recreational sailboat owner, said she was against the state's initial proposal to raise mooring fees at the Ala Wai by 300 percent.
She said she pays $141 a month for her slip at the Ala Wai and was willing to pay a reasonable fee increase.
Young said she could support a 50 percent increase in mooring fees for the next year and a gradual increase of 100 percent.
Young said that while she may be able to pay the fee increase, she expects a lot of boaters will not pay the new fee schedule and will look elsewhere to moor their vessels.
State of Hawaii
