The Harbor and Non-resident Boaters
Jim Starkey
Gentlemen and Ladies:
From the time of the ancient Greeks it has been a well-established principle that the sea bottom was owned by in common by the population rather than the sovereign or private entities. This principle carried through the Roman Empire to the European monarchs to English Common Law to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and is now enshrined in the Massachusetts General Laws. So, while the Great and General Court has ceded administration of harbors to respective cities and towns, MGL recognizes that all sea bottom in Commonwealth is held in common by its citizens, and mandates certain policies regarding the administration of mooring permits. One of these dictates the process by which mooring permits are accorded and another requiries towns not discriminate by applicant’s residence in the awarding of mooring permits. Since the mid-1980s (with some unfortunate lapses), Manchester has to its credit scrupulously honored these policies.
In recognition that harbor sea bottom was owned in common by all Massachusetts citizens, the Commonwealth funded first 90% then 75% of harbor maintenance dredging expenses. A decade ago, following a decade of perennial under-funding, the Commonwealth ceased regular funding of harbor maintenance dredging in favor of last minute pittances to provide photo-ops for elected officials.
As all of you understand, this leaves Manchester in a very difficult position. We have a harbor that is in dire condition after 30 years of postponed dredging projects with a dredging fund adequate for the old rules but hopelessly short for the new, and no choices other than to either let the harbor revert to a mud flat or ask Town Meeting to help fund dredging, which would mean that non-boat owning Manchester citizens will be asked to pay for major portion of dredging expenses for which non-resident mooring permit holders are exempt.
So while discriminatory by residence mooring fees are clearly illegal (though more honored in the breach than observance in other towns), there are other opportunities for increasing harbor revenue that should be explored.
Traditionally, dinghy storage on town floats was restricted to town residents. This changed when Bion received an informal opinion from somebody at the DEP that dinghy permits for municipal owned floats must also be non-discriminatory by residence. This makes no sense to me as private floats have no such restrictions and other municipally owned facilities, Singing Beach for example, are rife with residency discriminatory policies.
In light of the shortfall in dredging
funding, I think it is
incumbent on us to review town policies with regard to use of
Manchester owned
facilities by non-resident boaters. The
first step would be to get an opinion from Town Counsel on
whether, in fact, we
are required to provide non-discriminatory by residence access
to town owned
facilities in the harbor. If,
indeed, we
are allowed to discriminate by resident we should consider
reserving dinghy
space for Manchester residents (and tax-payers!), significantly
increase the
fees for non-residents, or leave the policy as-is [Note: dinghy
space is
available at either of the two boat yards and from the Harbor
Boat Club so
nobody will be denied access.) We should also consider raising
the rate for non-resident boater parking permit to prevailing
commercial rates for off-street parking.
It will be a year or two before a dredging appropriation comes before Town Meeting, but I strongly suggest we take this issue on now so any resulting rule changes could be in place before next season.
Thank you.
-- Jim Starkey