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Depoe Bay delays crab-pot storage fee after heated public comments from charter operators
Summary
Councilors remanded a proposed crab-pot storage fee to the Harbor Commission after charter-boat operators and harbor stakeholders testified that a $1,000-per-month fee would harm small businesses; council kept the remainder of the amended harbor fee schedule in effect and set a March 22 start date for any retroactive charging pending commission
Depoe Bay councilors on March 18 paused final adoption of a proposed crab-pot storage fee and sent the item back to the Harbor Commission for further review after extended public comment from harbor users and charter-boat operators.
Council discussion centered on an $85,000 operating deficit the city said the harbor ran last year and one councilor’s calculation that a $1,000-per-month per-class-C-vessel crab-pot storage fee for seven months could generate roughly $91,000 annually if applied to 13 vessels. Harbor operators and charter captains told the council the proposed fee is unaffordable for small operators and mischaracterizes their margins.
Chris Shatner, owner and captain of the Outer Limits, said he provided a 2023 profit-and-loss summary to the council and said vessel owners’ expenses (boat payments, labor, insurance, license/permit fees and maintenance) leave narrow margins. “We make enough to survive,” Shatner said, “but we are not rich by any stretch of the imagination…charging us a thousand dollars a month…is just gonna kill us.”
Other operators gave similar testimony that crab trips produce modest take-home pay after booking fees and overhead and that the 25% commission the booking agents retain reduces what skippers receive from per-pot fees.
Councilors and harbor staff said alternatives remain on the table: a harbor user fee structured differently from the crab-pot fee, modest increases to some existing harbor charges, or improved fuel and maintenance practices that could reduce city costs. Councilor comments referenced prior presentations from the Harbor Commission and asked for direct input from harbor vessel owners in a subcommittee or at the commission’s next meeting.
Action taken: the council directed that the harbor fee schedule be remanded to the Harbor Commission for further discussion and recommended the commission meet with harbor vessel owners; the council left the existing fee schedule (Resolution 5-43-23) in effect except for the crab-pot provision and set March 22 as an operational start date if the commission and council later adopt a storage fee (the council indicated any charging would be retroactive to the start of the season). The Harbor Commission was asked to return recommendations to the council at its April 1 meeting.
The council’s decision followed roughly an hour of public comment and multiple harbor operators’ requests that the city work with the harbor community to craft a workable approach rather than imposing a fixed, high monthly storage charge.
The council also noted that harbor-generated revenue is an important local economic driver and expressed willingness to explore a harbor-user fee as an alternative to the crab-pot storage charge.
