Councilor Friedmann opposes 3,200 daily cruise ship passenger proposal

He confirms 3,200 number came from cruise ship industry

Sound of 3-part series

BAR HARBOR, Aug. 26, 2024 - Long-time town councilor Gary Friedmann will not support the proposed 3,200 daily passenger being presented to a public hearing Tuesday night.

He said in an interview, “I think the 3,200 which was negotiated with the cruise lines, is just more than what I believe our residents want.

He said he would have supported 2,500, the number he said the town offered.

“I believe that CLIA did not respect the needs of the town and the voters when they came back with that 3,200.”

He said the council, town attorney and town manager negotiated in good faith with with CLIA (Cruise Lines International Association).

“So the question is, should the council put the 3,200 before the voters in November? It's like your choice, or should the council have just walked away from negotiations?

“I think that we've gone so far that the town didn't want to just walk away from this thing. There's still some issues, obviously, that need to be addressed. You know, we haven't gotten the signed contracts from all the cruise lines and Ocean Properties. They're holding out too, so we'll know by tomorrow whether we're going to put this in front of the voters or not.”

Friedmann, who just returned from an extended vacation, wasn’t aware town attorney Stephen Wagner publicly said the hard stop for an agreement with cruise lines and Ocean Properties, which operates the passenger disembarkation dock, is Sept. 3.

“I obviously haven't been to any meetings while I've had discussions with people up to now.

Friedmann was the principal agitator for a town-wide survey in 2021 in which a large majority of residents voiced displeasure with the number of cruise ship visitors in town.

That triggered a citizens petition in 2022 which resulted in a 1,000 daily cap on passengers adopted overwhelmingly on Nov. 8, 2022.

The council ran a competing parallel discussion with CLIA which produced agreements with cruise lines that would have allowed 65,000 passengers a month.

Friedmann and Joe Minutolo were the only two councilors who voted against those agreements in August 2022. After the citizens ordinance was approved that November, the agreements became moot. Minutolo made a passionate speech then that the town’s capacity was 2,000 daily passengers over which its infrastructure, staff and residents are stressed beyond acceptable conditions.

This time, Minutolo, council chair Val Peacocks and Wagner were the town’s principal negotiator with CLIA.

“Joe was our toughest negotiator and we thought that he got them to come down to closer to 2,500.” But CLIA came back, after talking to member cruise lines and put the 3,200 number on the table, Friedmann said.

“That was a huge disappointment to Joe and to me.

“It's not just the legal fees that are at stake here. It's the huge amount of time that it's sucking from the town manager and staff and from council.

“What if we had time to really address what's really important to the town? In the last six months, we haven't made progress on our our goals that we set last year. We've got all kinds of issues about managing tourism that have just been neglected.

“I'm really frustrated with not just the costs, which are substantial, but the distractions from the business of the town and trying to really get our arms around some of the biggest issues facing Bar Harbor.”

In previous council meetings, member Maya Caines said she was not comfortable with the 3,200 cap, which excludes ships under 200 passengers and crew members. The actual total could easily approach or exceed 4,000 a day.

Friedmann is the first council member to oppose the central point of the proposed new code, Chapter 50, which would replace the current 1,000-passenger cap imbedded in the land-use ordinance.

On Wednesday, three ships will anchor in the harbor, Norwegian Breakaway with 3,969 passengers, American Constitution with 170 and American Independence with 100.