Can MDI absorb a tsunami of 700 more foreign seasonal workers? Where would we put them?

OTHER NEWS: SWH chief wants statewide arrest power, which Bar Harbor/Mount Desert chief says is unnecessary; BH survey unveils residents' hope for less lodging in downtown

BAR HARBOR, Nov. 18, 2023 - There were 675 visas granted on MDI in 2023 for the H-2B program for foreign workers which could double in 2024 under rules announced by the federal government on Nov. 3.

In 2023, 66,000 H-2B visas were issued in the US.

Almost 30 percent of all such visas in Maine were held by Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor. Bar Harbor led all the towns in the state with the highest number of such visas.

The news was greeted heartily by the tourism industry, a major consideration by Maine’s business friendly US senators, Susan Collins and Angus King, as they lobbied hard for the program’s expansion.

Bo Jennings, president of the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce and manager of the Side Street Cafe, stated in an email he was “very grateful for our Maine delegation fighting for businesses, helping to bridge the gap between the need for employees and a workforce shortage.”

But where will all these new workers live on an island already facing an acute shortage of housing if employers take full advantage of the opportunity.

Of the 64,716 additional visas to be issued, 20,000 are reserved for nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica to ease the immigration crisis at the southern border of the US.

Those workers will be primary dependants of employer-provided housing because they are unlikely to drive and may have other challenges which would curtail their mobility.

A town survey a year ago seemed to confirm this as the overwhelming number of foreign workers are housed by local employers.

Like many hotels, the Claremont in Southwest Harbor and its sister property, Salt Cottages in Hull’s Cove, provided housing for its seasonal H-2B workers, in part by buying up other lodging businesses and nearby houses

According to federal records, the Claremont Hospitality group had 47 H-2B visas in 2023. The Witham Family Hotels was listed as having the most visas in the state, 172.

You may view the entire list of MDI businesses and their estimated wages paid to H-2B workers here. It might require a little nerdiness to extract the local and regional data and some sleuthing to unpack the various LLCs used by some companies.

For instance, Ocean Properties owns West Street Hotel, the Golden Anchor and the the Regency under the name Camdel Corp. The Breakwater Properties are owned by Diwas Thapa, who has quietly emerged as a power player in Bar Harbor from his launching pad, Royal India on Rodick Street (one of my favorites). Salinity owns Testa’s.

The top 9 holders of H-2B visas on Mount Desert Island

Asked about housing, Jennings stated, “We are fortunate to have a few housing options available around town for our Visa workers (and a few non-visa workers).  I know that not all employers are as fortunate. 

“We are looking at ways to increase employee housing, not just for H-2B workers, but also for those in the immediate region, and across the state.

“I applaud the efforts of Witham Hotels and OPAL (Ocean Properties) to increase employee housing, while not detracting from the year-round housing inventory for the residents of Bar Harbor. They have both had a huge impact in that area, and have set the tone for other employers in Bar Harbor to further invest into new/repurposed property for employee housing usage.”

Jennings overstated the efforts of the two largest hoteliers to protect the town’s housing inventory. Both have had a long history of displacing year-round residential residents.

Witham, however, is the only business to have taken advantage of the town’s new ordinances to encourage accessory employee housing on existing properties and to build a new dormitory style housing for seasonal workers.

Owner David Witham added 16 units of new staff housing on property at his Atlantic Oceanside Hotel, as allowed by the town’s new ordinance. It is the only business which has done so.

He is building 84 units of new dormitory style housing on Kebo Street and has pledged to return some of the displaced dwellings to the year-round housing stock. He is the only business of scale to have taken up the town’s new “shared accommodation” ordinance to allow for such dormitory use in either new construction or in existing dwellings.

For the most part the tourism businesses have simply gobbled up existing houses for their staffing needs. One restaurateur is said to own 17 houses. Another recently purchased a building with four apartments. The displacement of year-round tenants has now become commonplace.

Employer-provided staff housing is the soft underbelly of the crisis on MDI, and the pressure to house 700 potential new workers will not help.

No one has any idea of how many dwelling units on the island are being used for seasonal staff housing. Certainly not the town agencies.

Bar Harbor registers short-term rentals, so it knows exactly how many legal STRs exist. And the data is ugly - 645 registered STRs, or 20 percent of the housing stock. The town also recently contracted a monitoring service to catch cheaters.

No such effort was made to collect data on staff housing or to monitor their compliance, such as the limit of five non-related workers per dwelling unit.

In August 2021, I happened upon an insurance adjuster after a fire in one of David Witham’s staff houses who told me there were 15 occupants. How many more such violations exist?

(As part of the federal government’s expansion of the H2-B program, it also announced stepped-up enforcement to protect foreign workers who are less likely to blow the whistle on an employer.)

Apart from H-2B, which is for three years, another visa program, J-1, is actually bigger. It has twice the number of workers in Maine, close to 5,000. The J-1 visa is good for one year for hospitality workers.

Together, they make up more than 1,500 workers on the island, or equal to 15 percent of its year-round population.

In 2011, hundreds of foreign workers with J-1 visas went on strike at the Hershey Company in Palmyra, Pa., to protest abusive working conditions, improper wage deductions and other violations of labor and employment law.

It was an extraordinary display of worker disaffection given that these were largely young foreigners with no institutional protections. The abuse had to be pretty bad.

“The J visa Exchange Visitor Program gives U.S. employers significant financial incentives to hire foreign workers over U.S. workers, while providing them no labor protections,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.

“Furthermore, the State Department, which oversees the J visa program, collects very little data on the visa holders and relies on employers and organizations sponsoring J visa holders to regulate themselves. This outsourcing of the agency’s oversight responsibility contributes to the severe exploitation of J visa holders, the largest group of guestworkers admitted annually in the United States.”

On many levels, it would be very bad news for the island’s housing crisis if businesses felt compelled to gobble up more year-round homes and stuff them with foreign seasonal workforce.

Like in the Hershey case, local officials are not eager to collect the data which would inform them of how deep of a challenge employer staff housing is.

From previous surveys and housing analyses, Town Planner Michele Gagnon said, “We know that between short term rental, seasonal second homes and employee housing, they are taking a large percentage of our housing stock.

“So what does it really matter if we know, at this point anyways? It'd be interesting to gather that data. I'm not saying that we're not going to gather that data, but at this point we don't have it, and I don't think that changes the focus on our work.”

In 2021, the town amended its land use ordinance to carve out short-term vacation rentals as a new class of dwelling units so it may begin the process of bringing their numbers down.

The process also allowed the town to inspect each unit for safety considerations. No such inspections exist for employee housing - for either safety considerations or violation of the five-person limit.

So the town’s strategy to battle the housing crisis consists of a cap to bring down STRs to 9 percent of the housing stock which Gagnon admits is a long wait (maybe several generations?), no visibility into employer staff housing and violations which may be taking a bigger toll than STRs (we just don’t know), only one permit issued for an allowed bonus accessory to an existing dwelling, only one permit for an accessory housing on an existing business and only one permit for a substantial use of the new “shared accommodations” ordinance.

Taking on the shank of Bar Harbor’s tourism businesses - its hotels and restaurants - is a much bigger bite of the apple than challenging the diffuse ownership of Airbnb owners.

Gagnon has referred repeatedly over the last three months of the “political reality” of change.

She has slow walked virtually every initiative to attack the housing crisis, reminding her audience that it will take time.

To some citizens who have questioned her strategy, she has engaged in strident polemics. Her encounter with former Planning Board member Stewart Brecher on Oct. 19 took almost 45 minutes at a public “listening session.”

Meanwhile, she and Planning Board chair Millard Dority have given the demand side the red carpet treatment, even asking developer Stephen Coston repeatedly for his opinion on the board’s actions.

This is Bar Harbor’s response to the housing crisis?

A somnolent Town Council faces a list of challenges from trying to keep a FY25 budget to under a double-digit tax increase, to the coming decision by the federal judge on the cruise ship lawsuit against the town by the very same people gobbling up the housing stock, to more prosaic problems like the Atlantic Avenue disaster of water turning streets into an ice skating rink, to the Higgins Pond solar array project in limbo.

In the face of the town’s enormous challenges, what did the council do?

It took a five-week vacation. It will meet next Tuesday for the first time since early October, except for an executive session. But it’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. How much work will be done for the rest of the calendar year?

Oh, and there is a new town manager who will be drinking from a fire hose while commuting from his home in Brewer.

I asked council chair Val peacock by email what her thinking was for this long hiatus by the council.

She did not reply.

The agenda for Tuesday night includes no fewer than three public hearings and a long list of transactional items, leaving no time for the council’s most important conversation - that of a tourism management plan for the town.

FOOTNOTE: Read this Wall Street Journal article on how Vail and Nantucket are battling their housing crises. Hint: They both have housing directors who are advocates for affordable housing, instead of relying on retro planning departments that are more like business development offices.

Chief wants statewide arrest power for SWH officers, told to seek common practice in region

SOUTHWEST HARBOR - If you’re asking for a major change in policy in the police department, wouldn’t you want to know what the prevailing practice is in the region, especially on the island?

Select board member Luke Damon certainly thought so Tuesday night after Police Chief John Hall asked for statewide arrest power for his officers. Hall had denied a request by one of his officers to assist in the manhunt for the mass shooter in Lewiston, because the town would not have liability protection for that officer.

“I understand what people are saying this would be our town's buy-in. But what I would like to know is what the other agencies in Hancock County are doing,” Damon said.

“It'd be an easier decision for me if everybody does this. And it would be a little more difficult that no one does but us.”

Hall responded that he anticipated this question but that he had decided against contacting nearby towns. “I just played it back and forth. But it this is an action that affects us.” Hear the recording of the exchange starting at Minute 14:15.

Had he bothered, Hall would have found out that David Kerns, chief for both Bar Harbor and Mount Desert, confronted the same question when three of his officers wanted to respond to Lewiston’s call for assistance.

And like Hall, Kerns said no.

“We made a decision years ago not to seek out approval from the towns' elected officials to have statewide arrest powers for our officers,” Kerns stated in an email, 

“All of our officers are deputized through Hancock County Sheriff's Office, which gives them authority in Hancock County when working for Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Police Department. 

“We also have several MOUs with other surrounding agencies to assist if they request our help. The few times where we would need authority outside our immediate area didn't seem worth the process.  If we have a search warrant or arrest warrant, we would be serving outside the county, we would always loop in the agency where this would be occurring and have them present as well.

“Incidents like what happened in Lewiston is an exception …  However, the towns are responsible for our officers.”

The towns of Bar Harbor and Mount Desert assume all cost and liability for officers ranging into other county towns.

In the Lewiston case, Kerns would have had to allow three officers to join the manhunt for an undetermined time away, leaving his towns without their services.

As it turned out, the request was withdrawn shortly after the call went out, Kerns said, when they found the body of the shooter.

Kerns oversees a department of about 20 officers, four times the size of Southwest Harbor.

Southwest Harbor has a history of guarding the independence of its small police force and not cooperating with other towns.

One of the reasons which led to the firing of former SWH Town Manager Justin VanDongen was that he had begun discussions with Mount Desert and Southwest Harbor for more cooperation.

All John Hall had to do was pick up the phone and call David Kerns which was what I did. No one said he had to abide by the advice.

Or did Hall already make up his mind and did not want more information to interfere with his decision? Isn’t the fundamental expectation of a law enforcement officer is that he makes decisions based on all the facts?

Maybe Hall is still trying to recover from his hiring in July of Richard Strout, who was terminated from the Machias Police Department in 2011 after being accused of assaulting and inappropriately touching women while placing them under arrest.

Did Hall have the same mindset when he hired Strout? Was he so convinced of his hire that he did not do proper due diligence?

A curious select board would have sought a full investigation on how Richard Strout became a police officer in town.

A police chief is the guardian of safety for a community which trusts that he will consider all factors in an important decision.

Now comes the chief asking for approval of an important request without even picking up the phone to call a neighboring police chief.

Council finally moving to update cruise ship ordinance to comply with citizens vote

BAR HARBOR - More than a year after 58 percent of the voters (1,780 vs. 1,273) adopted a citizens petition that limits cruise ship visitors to just 1,000 a day, the Town Council is finally ready to codify it.

The town released drafts of the amended ordinance and operating procedures Friday in time for a public hearing Tuesday. You may read them here starting at Page 43.

The proposal does not include crew members. On some ships they can make up 25 to 50 percent of total occupants.

Former Town Manager Kevin Sutherland said the ordinance was complicated and he needed time to roll out its enactment. Instead he implemented the council plan which voters rejected, to limit passengers to 4,000 a day. That had the support of individual cruise lines which signed memoranda of agreement.

Sutherland was let go by the Town Council in January after complaints about his Teutonic management style.

A small committee was named to work on the policy which was finally released Friday.

So the denouement for this saga is set, awaiting federal judge Lance Walker’s decision on whether the town has a Constitutional right to “home rule.”

If Walker sides with the plaintiffs, then the citizens ordinance is thrown out. The MOAs in place with the cruise lines were one-year deals. The town will need to negotiate a new deal with an industry more emboldened after by a court victory.

If the town wins, then the plaintiff businesses are likely to appeal, but the town will begin to implement its operating code as announced this week.

Survey: Bar Harbor residents say no to more lodging in downtown, favor tightening of ‘B&Bs’

BAR HARBOR - Nineteen respondents to a town survey released Friday opposed any new lodging in downtown, compared with 10 who favored it. Five said there should be limitations on the kind of lodging and where they might be located.

The survey also unearthed resentment against the hotel being built on Cottage Street by former Planning Board chair Tom St. Germain and former Town Councilor Stephen Coston.

To the question, “Can you describe what image comes to your mind when you hear the term Bed and Breakfast?" virtually every one of 35 respondents used words like “small,” “owner occupied” and “existing house” in their responses.

St. Germain and Coston used a loophole in the ordinance to build hotels technically permitted as B&Bs. They are partners behind a 44-room hotel being built at 77 Cottage Street.

The survey also heard from 25 respondents who said all new lodging construction should be approved by the Planning Board. The Cottage Street hotel needed approval only from the code enforcement officer and the design review board because it was permitted as a B&B.

In a separate survey filled out by 13 employers in the rural part of town, the majority said they wanted to be allowed to add housing for 1 to 8 workers.

They identified themselves as Baryonyx Knife Company LLC, Eden Village Motel & Cottages, Terramor Outdoor Resort, FishMaine Restaurant Group, Bar Harbor Farm, Bar Harbor Oyster Company, Acadia Building Company, Triple Chick Farm, Mothers kitchen, Peace Farm and Lulu lobster tours and Peggy Rockefeller Farm.