A Christmas compromise

By Craig Westcott
December 8, 2023 Edition

Bay Roberts has finally settled a lingering issue with the Port de Grave Harbour Authority over the collection of fire protection fees for boats that use the harbour in the unincorporated Local Service District.

Bay Roberts provides fire protection to boats in Port de Grave but for the past several years there has been a wrangle over whether all the boat owners were paying up. The Town had no way of checking because it couldn’t lay hands on a complete, up-to-date list of the harbour users.

Mayor Walter Yetman asked the Town’s chief administrative officer Nigel Black to explain the deal at the start of Tuesday’s regular council meeting. Councillor Silas Badcock declared a conflict of interest as he is a member of the Harbour Authority and left the chamber before Black provided the details. Councillor Ross Petten, who also has a connection to the Authority, was absent from Tuesday’s meeting.

“This is something we have been working on for a while,” said Mayor Yetman. “So, I’ll hand it over to the CAO.”

Black explained that a recent exchange of e-mails between himself and the Harbour Manager led to a face-to-face meeting where both sides agreed on a way forward. One of the e-mails outlined a proposed fee the Town wanted the Authority to consider for 2024. The goal was to conclude the matter ahead of adopting the Town’s budget for next year.

“We went through our account of the bills that we had been sending out for 2023 and we basically just did a bit of a reconciliation of that amount to discover we were essentially billing an incorrect amount,” Black said. “We were certainly billing for all of the boats that were there, but we were also billing for some that were no longer there, or maybe had transferred to a different owner and we were billing maybe both parties. Basically we were overbilling at the start of 2023, which gave an impression at the end of each year that we were not collecting a good portion of our revenues.”

Black said there are still some boatowners who have not paid their fees, but that list is very small.

“It’s been a problem of us knowing who to bill and billing the incorrect people,” Black explained. “So in this meeting we went through it and came up with what the base amount should be. We then added a 10 per cent increase because I think there was some appetite on council to have at least some amount of increase in the fee structure.”

The Harbour Authority was concerned by a $3,000 increase in the fees which Bay Roberts had proposed, Black noted.

“When we revised the base number down to $7,250 and we included the Harbour Authority base rate, which was $1,000 that we were charging for their facility itself, and when we added the 10 per cent, we came to about $9,000,” Black said. “To me it seems like a reasonable compromise.

Black noted the Harbour Manager has since informed him that after a meeting of his board, the Authority has agreed to accept the amount.

The Authority also agreed to take on the billing of the boat owners on Bay Roberts’ behalf.

“My recommendation is that council issue an approval in principal letter to the Harbour Authority of Port de Grave for fire protection services to be provided by the Town of Bay Roberts for the fee of $9,000 per annum with conditions to be agreed to by both parties in a formal legal agreement,” Black advised.  

Councillor Dean Franey made the motion to do just that, which was seconded by councillor Frank Deering.

“I just want to say, since I’m the one who brought this forward at the beginning, good work by the CAO, the director, and thanks to the Harbour Authority down in Port de Grave for your cooperation in it,” said Franey. “For me this was never about the boats or the boat owners, this was about finding a streamlined (billing) service so that we didn’t have the problem that we ran into with the incorrect billings and it just makes life on the staff here in Bay Roberts that much easier to focus on the issues we have here in the town so that we’re not spending a lot of time chasing down ghost ships. I think this is a great agreement for both parties. It saves us a lot of trouble, just one bill. They already have the contacts, the names, the numbers, the billings, so they can collect on our behalf. I’m happy it’s come to an end.”

Mayor Yetman agreed.

“There’s better clarity here,” said Yetman. “The organization of it, and the mutual respect between both parties.”

Deputy Geoff Seymour said he too is happy to see it concluded, but he wondered if the Harbour Authority will provide a list of all its berth users so that the Town can check in three years time, when this agreement expires, that it is receiving the right amount for providing fire coverage based on the number of vessels using the harbour.

“The issue always was the fact that we had no way of knowing the boats that were there,” said Seymour. “The Harbour Authority does and as a result they should have been doing the billing on our behalf, which is what we’ve managed to achieve here.”

Black expressed confidence that identifying the number of boats is something that can be worked into the agreement.

“I don’t think it will be a problem because when we were having this meeting we talked about the transient boats and the fact that he (the Harbour Manager) was going to do a detailed accounting of that and at the end of the year remit any (extra) prorated fees based on that,” Black added. “I think the flow of information, at least as much as necessary, should be no problem.”

Deering also thanked everyone who had a hand in bringing the deal to fruition. “It was an excellent job,” he said.

With that, Mayor Yetman called the vote and Franey’s motion to endorse Black’s deal with the Harbour Authority passed unanimously.