SOUTHWEST HARBOR, June 7, 2021 - Someone made Jesse Gilley an offer he couldn’t refuse, he said today.
That would be the John W. Goodwin Jr. construction company, which along with the Gott’s family, dominate the heavy equipment business on MDI. Goodwin’s footprint extends to the islands off MDI where it needs to ferry equipment on a barge to service those building projects.
That requires someone with a 100-ton pilot license and local knowledge of the waters in these parts. And that would be Jesse Gilley.
“I really enjoyed this job, but someone made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he said in his trailer on Manset Dock which is the harbor master’s office. Gilley’s resignation is effective Friday.
That will leave SWH without a harbor master and deputy harbor master at the beginning of a busy season. The town also does not have a permanent town manager and police chief.
Gilley’s resignation comes at a time when there is tension between the commercial fishing industry and recreational boating. The harbor committee is dominated by commercial interests. QSJ has a boat docked in SWH and pays excise taxes but has no representation.
It also highlights the enormous challenge of the shortage of workers on MDI. A crew from Hinckley Yachts on the dock at Dysart’s Marina today was completing the prep of a $3.5 million jet cruiser headed for Rhode Island when one of them said that Hinkley has openings for 40 workers.
The idea of captaining his own barge on the water - Jesse Gilley’s first love - versus sitting in a trailer listening to complaints and dealing with a small bureaucracy all day at a big personal financial loss against what he can make as a fisherman was stark.
Before taking the job in Southwest Harbor, Gilley was working on a scallop fishing boat out of New Bedford, Mass., going out on the water for up to two weeks at a time which took away from time with his family.
“That’s pretty much what I’ve done my whole life,” he said about commercial fishing. “I got to run the boat, a 120-foot vessel,” he told the Islander.
He said he told the acting town manager he would be willing to help out on weekends “with the paperwork.”
Looks like town employees are wising up. They know they could all go the way of the former town manager (who was clearly trying his best to run things responsibly) at the whim of a few men who want to keep control.