CFSB Board Meeting Minutes - February 28, 2022

Attendees:

Chris Voss, Bernard Friedman, Harry Liquornik, Gary Burke, Michael Harrington, John Colgate, Kim Selkoe, Mike Nelson, Manny Gorjita, Charlie Graham, Paul Teall, Zack Robinson, Jeff Maassen, Merit McCrea, Dominic Mercaldo, Andy Rasmussen, Mary Nishimito, Bob Kryckzo, Victoria Voss, Dave Colker, Ben Hyman

Notes: Ava Schulenberg

Agenda:

1. 2021 close out

2. Insurance Update

3. Ava's surveys of fishermen about infrastructure needs

4. Recent meetings regarding the Wright property and Maritime Collective

   1. Zoning is not going to change on the 2 lower parcels, Tony wants to engage with us when he is ready to focus on those

   2. Hotel project across the street needs closure first for him to work with us on long term plans

   3. 14,000 sq ft warehouse space coming available

   4. Council members Jordan and Friedman on notice about the need for other property options

   5. Working with Carbajal and Hartmann to organize a ‘workshopping’ meeting on how to use Federal Infrastructure Bill dollars on our infrastructure needs

   6. Megan Harmon is very supportive. Now a liaison to the Coastal Commission

   7. Will be presenting an update on the project to the Harbor Commission mid March.

5. USDA accounting (getting match from the City)

6. Waterfront dept's plan for Ice House repairs and upgrades

7. Ocean Rainforest next steps and strategy

   1. History: email chain on board vote for Army Corp

   2. Lessons to be learned on roles/responsibilities and board and membership input

   3. Staff guidance moving forward

8. Meeting with NOAA about the Aquaculture Opportunity Areas and discuss strategy of engagement

9. Offshore Wind update – East coast announcement

10. Meeting with Channel Islands Sanctuary staff about fisheries relations and their management plan update

11. Fish and Game Commission meeting last week on Fishing Communities policy language

Chris Voss opened the meeting on February 28, 2022 at 3:30pm. Meeting was held in person in the harbor classroom and via Zoom.

Agenda:

• Insurance Update

  • Harry got a quote for $400 from Kelly Totten, CIC, PLIC (her email is [email protected]) and he suggests that other vendors reach out to her and get a quote

• Ava's surveys of fishermen about infrastructure needs

  • As part of the USDA project, we designed a survey to use in in-person interviews to gather input from fishermen about the top shoreside needs for our port. We did a preliminary analysis of 35 fishermen responses so far, and found these stats:

· Average age: 49. Guys between ages 30 and 50 had the most interest in these facilities/programs generally

· Work status:  28 full, 3 retired full, 3 part time

· Average year of entry into commercial fishing: 1991

· Gear types represented by the 35 respondents:

• buoy gear: 1

• dive: 17

• drift gillnets: 1

• hook and line: 18

• longline: 6

• set gillnets: 3

• traps: 23

• trawl: 1

• troll: 6

· How many of the 35 are currently renting space somewhere? 25 yes, 9 no

· Where?  Locations named: CFSB storage yard, Alamar, Goleta, Buellton, Carp, El Cap.

· Annual cost of storage averaged $4600/yr

 Rate your interest in these possible facilities of the Maritime Collective (1-10 scale)?

Average score

• Workshop/Welding Space: 8

• Shared Processing Kitchen: 8

• Walk in Freezer: 8

• Walk in Fridge: 7

• Ice Machine: 7

• Gear Storage: 7

• Shipping Fee for Service: 7

• Holding Tanks: 7

• Financial Advising: 6

• Cold Transportation: 6

• Smoking Service: 6

• Filleting Service: 6

• Training on Farmer's Markets and other direct marketing: 6

• Trap Storage: 6

• Trailer Storage: 5

• Training program on cold storage & marketing frozen product: 5

• Shellfish Depuration System: 5

• Baiting Service: 4

• Co-working Space: 4

• Boat Storage: 4

• The top interest is in a workshop/welding shop including a fabricator. 26 guys rated it an 8, 9 or 10 in interest. 

  • Kim thinks we should follow up by speaking with some of the old welders - Gary says Manny’s dad

  • Some in the room are surprised by the need for a welding shop, and disagree

  • Ava stresses that having access to the tools and space to do your own welding/fabrication is what is of highest interest

• Harry wants to take a step back on working to create new facilities - He wants to see a survey of the businesses that support fisheries in the OM1 zone to see what is needed and what the city will allow. His brother’s welding business had to move to Carpinteria after 20 years because he couldn’t be in that area anymore. Harry thinks we should see how much things are going for and how much it’ll potentially cost.

  • Kim responds that that is all in line with our plans and that we’ve started with the survey of the fleet and we will also be surveying existing facilities to understand where they are and how they are used. 

  • Kim says gear and trap storage is also a big interest. Asks if we should explore having CFSB possibly facilitate keeping gear storage available in Carpinteria and Goleta into the long term, 

  • Harry says his brother works in an OM1 zone in Carpinteria but it’s not getting all OM1 use, Eric’s got his shop there, there’s an open field, not sure what’s being used there. And then there’s the parcel of land in Goleta the city said was an option for us at one time. 

  • If we could get land with power and water, sewage would be nice but not as important as power and water, that would be huge

• Recent meetings regarding the Wright property and Maritime Collective

  • Fisheries focused zoning is strongest on the 2 lower parcels. Tony confirmed he wants to engage with us on uses for those, but only when he is ready to focus on that.

  • Hotel project across the street needs closure first for him to work with us on long term plans

  • 14,000 sq ft warehouse space is coming available. Has access to one loading dock, but not good outside access and space. 

    • Chris thinks this is too big to be of interest

  • Going to speak with Council members Jordan and Friedman about the need for other property options

  • Working with Carbajal and Hartmann to organize a ‘workshopping’ meeting on how to use Federal Infrastructure Bill dollars on our infrastructure needs

  • City Council member Megan Harmon is very supportive. She now sits on the Coastal Commission

  • We will be presenting an update on the project to the Harbor Commission mid March

  • We also have a meeting this Friday on the Maritime Collective Executive Planning committee 3/4

• USDA accounting (getting match from the City)

  • Kim says USDA requires that we start getting reimbursements from the City for the expenses we’ve incurred on the USDA project. The city contributed $25K. She asks for approval to do this from the room to invoice the city and the board members present give approval.

• Waterfront Dept's plan for Ice House repairs and upgrades

  • Mike, Kim and Chris got a tour of the ice house from Brian Adair, the engineer tasked with assessing the status and creating a plan to improve it. 

  • Brain explained that the ice house computer was a main reason it was unreliable. They’ve fixed it and now there is a lot less down time. He gave a long list of repairs and upgrades of the components that they will be making. They do not feel it makes sense to replace the actual ice machine until federal guidelines on refrigerants are solid. He says there is no set budget number associated with the project, which is different from our past understanding.

  • Kim planning to meet with Wiltshire to get a better understanding of the budget and whether the investments are  a maintenance budget or a capital improvement budget 

  • They need to make this a priority and we need to continue to make noise to keep it on a timeline that makes sense

• Ocean Rainforest next steps and strategy

  • There is a general sentiment of how CFSB and Ocean Rainforest could have done a better job of reaching out and that there are ways we should improve.

  • History: email chain on board vote for Army Corp

    • Kim says the first time Eliza of Ocean Rainforest came to speak at a CFSB meeting was August 2020. They asked for a letter of ‘no opposition’ in fall of 2020 for their application to the Army Corp of Engineers. The board voted by email to submit a letter that Kim drafted according to board guidance on content. The final letter was shared with the board before the vote. There was a quorum of positive votes by email for submitting the letter. This is the only letter CFSB has submitted on this topic. Kim stressed that she would never send a letter that could be contentious without a record of board approval to do so.

    • Eliza spoke again at a general meeting in September of 2021 - In both meetings there was not much voiced opposition to the 2 year installation besides Paul raising concerns about the transit line to the islands. We were told by OR they wanted a new letter directed to the Coastal Commission at this time.  Kim says Gary asked her to speak to the gillnetters which she did, and she met with no issues, until one fisherman came back and reversed his position. We declined to submit a letter because of this fisherman. However, Ocean Rainforest included our Army Corps letter in their docket when they applied to the Coastal Commission in 2021. 

    • CFSB staff didn’t do extensive outreach because the board did not indicate to make this issue a priority, we hadn’t heard strong opposition from the fleet, we thought that the maps that were circulated indicated the installation was not in a problematic spot for most people, and we had sent minutes out on the topic in the past. We assumed it was Ocean Rainforest’s job to lead the outreach.

    • Charlie thinks membership should have voted not just the board, this would allow the larger group to have a say

    • Gary emphasizes that its everyone’s job to keep themselves informed and attending meetings. There are so many issues coming at us, everyone has to pay attention. This is already done and that we need to pay attention to the buoys and reflectors and make sure they’ve got all that in order to make sure it’s at least safe enough. anywhere you put it, it will have opposition, but that the most important thing is that they clean it up 

    • Chris says if you hit it, you’re off course, but Charlie says it will be in the way en route to the west end

      • Harry responds saying when it’s bad weather, you hook on your way in, but Chris says it’s not in the main track - Harry maintains that this is a safety concern when weather is unpredictable

  • Kim says the real threat is not this small project it’s what comes next and any potential interest in a larger space. Staff needs fisherman and board guidance on how to handle engagement on siting commercial aquaculture that is coming toward us. 

  • Charlie says why not Santa Monica bay? Right now they are only targeting federal waters.

  • Harry comments that if the state never approves of aquaculture, its all going to be put in federal waters and that’s not necessarily better for us.

  • Harry says we should send a follow up letter to the coastal commission, etc. 

  • John says we should give them (NOAA and Ocean Rainforest) a invoice and let them know what all this has cost us 

• Meeting with NOAA about the Aquaculture Opportunity Areas and discuss strategy of engagement 

  • Dominic asks if environmentalists are speaking up about these types of things - He says it might be wishful thinking but maybe there are some groups that categorically oppose this stuff that’s urbanizing the ocean like Surfrider, etc. Kim says the Environmental Defense Center would probably be a big one but they don’t really agree with us

  • Harry says the aquaculture installations might have an impact on  attenuating waves/surfing as well

• Meeting with Channel Islands Sanctuary staff about fisheries relations and their management plan update

  • CFSB had a meeting with CINMS staff about the poor relations with the fishing community and a desire to keep communication lines open in the future. The Chumash Sanctuary was discussed, which is heavily supported by Salud Carbajal. We sent in a letter of opposition. With a new Sanctuary being created and lobbied for, we stressed to them that this is the time to revise and improve their standing with fisheries. To us, this means demonstrating that they always support and do not interfere with fisheries management. We talked to them about specific examples. They are open to continuing the dialogue on how to take actions to respond to this request.

  • The sanctuary goes all the way to the creeks and rivers up the beach, which has implications for farmers too, so fishermen and farmers are both threatened

  • Chris says an added complication is that the Chumash have written a letter to NOAA stating that they want to co-manage the resources and the space so another nation within a nation is trying to exert influence over the management of the marine resources, which complicates things even more.

• Other

  • Dominic asks if we’ve sent anything about the 30x30 initiative - Kim confirms that PCFFA submitted a long letter for the Governor’s office push for 30x30 that we signed off on. San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group led the comment effort on the ‘America the Beautiful’ federal 30x30 initiative. 

    • Merit says the state’s definition if 30x30 is more harmful to fishing than the federal one.

Chris Voss ended the meeting on February 28, 2022 at 5:38pm.