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Only money can
save our marinas

While making a recent comparison between trying to ride a dead horse and the state's past efforts to operate and maintain its small boat harbors, I noted that while our marinas may not be totally lifeless, they might soon require some heroic measures to save them.

In emergency medical jargon, initial heroic measures usually mean establishing a patient's airway and starting cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

This is done to maintain a flow of oxygenated blood to the brain to sustain life.

For our state's recreational marinas, it is a sufficient flow of revenue, rather than oxygenated blood, that sustains them, and without it their existence cannot be properly maintained.

Historically, the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation has had to rely primarily on revenue accumulated in the Boating Special Fund and occasional bond issues for maintaining and upgrading its facilities.

But with DBOR's apparent inability to increase mooring fees (the primary income to the Boating Special Fund) to a level that's commensurate with maintenance costs and debt service, it has been forced to watch its marinas' vital signs ebb.

Even in the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor -- the state's most-lucrative and popular marina -- row after row of slips have been condemned and demolished, without replacement.

There are, however, a couple of heroic measures, in the form of legislative bills in the state house and senate (HB 419 and SB 1265) that appear to have the ability to resuscitate our critically ailing marinas.

These bills, if passed into law, will require that beginning July 1, 10 percent of all general-excise-tax revenues paid in the past fiscal year by businesses considered to be in the ocean recreation industry will be deposited into the Boating Special Fund.

The following business categories are named in both bills: tour boats and cruise ships; surf shops and surfboard manufacturers; personal boat sales; competitive ocean recreation-related events such as yacht races, billfish tournaments, ocean swims/triathlons, surfing contests and canoe races; and operators of tour boats and cruise ships, recreational and charter fishing tours, dive shop tours, charter boat tours, jet ski tours, parasailing tours, kayak tours and windsurfing tours.

The logic supporting the bills seems to be that without the state's recreational boating facilities, this industry would be hard-pressed to exist and therefore some small part of their GET should help provide for marina maintenance.

And, it should be emphasized, the bills do not raise these businesses' taxes, but merely siphon off 10 percent of what usually goes into the General Fund.

Given the long list of ocean recreation industry business categories named in these bills, it would be hard not to believe that if passed, these could be just the resuscitation measures our ailing marinas have needed for years.

If you agree, you might want to give your legislators a call in support of their passage.