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Marina plan sent back for tweaking
By LESTER R. DAILEY
| Article published on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007 |
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CLEARWATER – A vote on a new business plan designed to put the city’s money-losing marina on Clearwater Beach in the black, scheduled for Nov. 1, has been postponed so that changes suggested by the City Council at its Oct. 29 work session can be incorporated into it.
Staffers will bring the revised plan back to the council at its Nov. 13 work session and, if it is satisfactory, the council will vote on it at its Nov. 15 meeting.
The plan has five goals. It will eliminate the non-residential commercial rate and standardize all commercial boat slip rentals at the lower commercial residential rate. It will raise commercial slip rents 10 percent a year in the next two fiscal years and 25 percent a year in the subsequent two years. It will raise fuel prices to the average market rate. It will eliminate some fuel discounts, although the council has not decided which ones. And, it will bring slip rentals up to market rates by the time the new downtown marina opens in 2010, or within a year or two thereafter.
“The taxpayers of Clearwater have been subsidizing the city marina out of their property taxes for years,” Councilman Paul Gibson said.
“Paying (slip rents that are) below market is a good thing if you’re the one paying below market, but you have all the other taxpayers subsidizing it.”
Clearwater’s slip rent of $5.28 per foot per month is near the bottom of Pinellas County rates, which range from $5 to $13 or more at private marinas. To catch up, city staffers had proposed three consecutive annual increases of 44 percent each, but Councilman George Cretekos favored smaller increases over a longer period. Margie Simmons, the city’s finance director, replied that she might be amenable to four consecutive increases of 33 percent each.
“My preference is going to the max (price increase) on the fuel,” Vice Mayor John Doran said. He explained that boaters who object to higher fuel prices have the options of staying in port or buying their fuel elsewhere, but boaters who object to higher slip rents have no option but to leave the marina.
Mayor Frank Hibbard, however, favored the idea of keeping fuel discounts for large commercial boats.
“The commercial operators have benefits to the tourist industry that recreational boaters do not necessarily have,” Hibbard said.
Simmons cautioned against being too generous with fuel price discounts.
“It was obvious in the business plan that we were far below (the average fuel price) market,” she said. “We were actually losing money on commercial diesel (fuel) bought with a credit card.”
Simmons promised to take the council members’ suggestions and concerns into account and produce a revised business plan that is more to their liking.
“Once we get a new direction from you, we will come up with a new 5-year business plan that we can use,” she told the council members.
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Article published on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007
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