How Bar Harbor protected cruise ship visits despite overwhelming citizens opposition
OTHER NEWS: Donor emerges to help food delivery program; preservationist seeks to save historic barn in SWH; Belfast activists win another round against salmon farm
BAR HARBOR - Former Town Manager Kevin Sutherland authorized 36 cruise ships to be added to the 2024 season one day before voters overwhelmingly approved a 1,000-a-day visitor cap last November, according to documents obtained by the QSJ under the Freedom of Access Act and interviews with authorities.
The citizens ordinance adopted on Nov. 8 forbade the booking of any ship not in the town reservation queue as of March 17, 2022. Voters strongly rejected the town council’s weaker plan for 4,000 daily limits in a 58- to 42-percent vote (1,780-1,273) and adopted the stricter limits to replace the prevailing practice of 5,500-a-day passengers unloading in town.
But the Town Council and Sutherland ignored the citizens’ wishes.
The decision to bulk release ships on the wait list one day before citizens voted seemed to be a calculated move on Sutherland’s part to book as many ships as he could before the hammer came down. Police Captain David Kerns, to whom the harbormaster reports, confirmed the approval of those ships Nov. 8.
Sutherland was unavailable for comment for this article since he was pressured to resign by the Town Council in late January and agreed to a six-month severance after working for only 13 months.
Sutherland’s aggressive moves to add cruise ship bookings had the support of most Town Council members who voted 5-2 last August for its much weaker ship reduction plan, which was the law for just under three months until the citizens ordinance superseded it.
In March 2022, citizens petitioner Charles Sidman produced enough signatures - 300 - to file for a place on the November ballot which was legally validated by the town clerk.
Instead of embracing the effort, council member Jill Goldthwait, chair Val Peacock and Sutherland began negotiating with the cruise industry for a much weaker plan which would allow as many as 4,000 visitors a day.
Peacock also rebuffed overtures from Sidman to work together on a solution.
The troika kept other members of the council and the public in the dark until Sutherland presented in early August their reduction plan which read like it was drawn up by lawyers for the industry. Peacock rammed it through the council, drawing criticism from member Joe Minutolo who said it was not being fully vetted.
“It was not done in the spirit of the citizens survey,” Minutolo said this week referring to the town wide survey in 2021 in which 55 percent of the respondents stated that cruise ships were giving the town a bad reputation.
Minutolo insisted on a public hearing before voting on the council plan. That was rejected and the plan approved.
Sutherland wasted no time. He hustled his memorandum of agreement with as many cruise lines as he could to sign up for the new limit of 4,000 passengers a day.
“I’ve received signed MOA’s from all of the cruise lines except Ponant (an infrequent visitor to Bar Harbor with a ship that has fewer than 300 passengers) and MSC (which, as I understand it, is not looking to come back to Bar Harbor anytime soon),” Sutherland wrote in his Nov. 7, 2022 email to Harbormaster Chris Wharff.
Sutherland moved one cruise line, Royal Caribbean, to the head of the line, even though, as Sutherland wrote in his email, “I know these will put us further over the agreed-to limit for September and October next year, but I believe it is important to honor these requests.” Sutherland cited a clerical error by a new employee had resulted in Royal Caribbean, the third largest cruise line in the world, being put “back at the end of the queue.”
The effect of Sutherland and the council’s actions was to give the tourism businesses suing the town to reverse the citizens ordinance an important cushion.
Even if a federal judge sides with the citizens after the trial this summer, the industry will have plenty of time for an appeal without suffering significant economic loss. Sutherland made sure of that.
Take 2024 for example. Under the bookings approved by Sutherland, the town will allow 200,000 passengers to disembark next year. Half of that will be in September and October. Nine ships in those months have lower berth capacity exceeding 4,000 - which was disallowed in the plan approved by council - and yet still booked by Sutherland, who had promised to enforce his own plan in 2024.
This season is even worse, with 225,223 passengers on the books, and 12 ships visiting in the fall exceeding that 4,000 limit.
You may see the bookings for yourself on Portcall, an online platform which aggregates cruise ship schedules. (Disregard the scheduling of American Constitution and Eagle, small luxury ships. That cruise line is taking reservations for visits without disclosing that it does not have approved dates in Bar Harbor in 2024. Cancellation of a port of call is not reason enough to issue a refund, a sales agent said. )
Bar Harbor can expect 2023 to be a robust season with 136 ships calling. Norwegian Pearl starts the season on May 4. Another 15 are on the wait list for 2023. That compared with 156 ships in 2022.
More than half of the ships in 2023 - 75 - are slated for September and October.
Council chair Val Peacock gave Sutherland extraordinary wide berth to make unilateral cruise ship decisions. She did not return emails seeking comment. I wanted to ask if she knew of Sutherland’s bulk approval of those ships for 2024.
Minutolo said this week he was not aware Sutherland authorized the release of those 36 ships on the wait list for 2024 the day before the citizens ordinance was adopted,
The council and Sutherland’s refusal to enact the citizens ordinance after it was adopted Nov. 8 now makes sense, since they would have had to unwind all those bookings into 2024.
But if another judge sides with the citizens, as Superior Court Judge Robert Murray did this week in upholding the 2021 referendum to cap vacation rentals, then the council would truly have a monumental task to unwind those cruise ship bookings.
But then, there will be a new council and a new town manager to clean up the mess.
Sidman, who is running for the two-year seat on the Town Council vacated by Jeff Dobbs, said Sutherland’s behavior during his short tenure was “totally out of control” when shown the documents I obtained through FOAA.
In a letter in the Islander this week Sidman stated that he and former police chief Nate Young have proven records of independence and would not succumb to such influence by the cruise ship industry.
Young got on the wrong side of the Walsh family a decade ago when he sought federal grants to upgrade the town piers so that the town could get revenues from disembarking passengers. That ran afoul of Ocean Properties, the town’s biggest hotelier owned by the Walsh family which had ambitions to privatize the tendering of passengers from cruise ships.
The council under chair Paul Paradis made sure the town pier would not be used for such a purpose.
The council as a vanguard of the cruise ship industry has been a staple in Bar Harbor for two decades.
Peacock, who is seeking re-election, is largely defined by her inability to moderate Bar Harbor’s cankered alchemy. Her two years will be remembered as one of the lowest periods in town history, when insiders ran amok, lack of affordable housing became an epic crisis and taxes spiraled out of control for many.
Those problems were not of her making. But the town is worse off now than when she started as chair - in almost every measurable dimension.
The other council member running for re-election, Erin Cough, also did not return my request for comment.
Cough is director of the Bar Harbor Historical Society, whose museum on West Street is an 8-minute walk for the thousands of cruise ship visitors unloading at the dock owned by the Walsh family.
Cough did not reply to a question seeking how much revenue the society generates from cruise ship visitors.
One incumbent not running for re-election, Goldthwait, is nonetheless working behind the scenes to disadvantage Sidman and Young.
She is helping to organize the candidates forums May 8 and 9 for the League of Women Voters, which has selected Chris Crockett, publisher of the Islander, to be the moderator, according to the League’s board member Ann Luther of Trenton.
Crockett is a business man, not a journalist. He owned a computer repair store in Ellsworth before becoming publisher of the Islander and Ellsworth American five years ago.
The Islander accepts advertising from virtually every business in Bar Harbor, in its Help Wanted section and for general advertising. In the current issue, for example, it has an ad from the Swan Agency, whose associate broker Eric Brooks just lost a lawsuit against the town trying to overturn the vacation rental ordinance overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2021.
The QSJ asked Ann Luther why the League picked a conflicted businessman as moderator instead of an impartial journalist like Bill Trotter of the Bangor Daily News.
Luther said she was confident Crockett would be fair. Crockett did not return an email for comment.
Goldthwait joined Val Peacock Oct. 18, 2022 to overturn the recommendation by the council’s nominations committee to name Nate Young to the appeals board, and instead voted for a friend of Peacock’s.
Goldthwait also writes a political column in the Islander, such as this syrupy ode to hotelier Stephen Coston when he ran for state rep last year. Goldthwait did not mention that Coston was a huge cruise ship supporter. He was the only member of the council to vote against a cruise ship moratorium at the beginning of the pandemic. He also is a principal behind the 44-room hotel classified as a bed and breakfast on Cottage Street and another on Mount Desert Street also classified as such.
Last November, Coston was clobbered by State Rep. Lynne Williams 3,576 to 1,811.
Luther said Goldthwait did not have a major role in organizing the forums.
One candidate for council is the former editor of the Islander who voted against Sidman’s petition as a member of the current Planning Board.
The town once had two newspapers. The Bar Harbor Times was founded in 1924 but shuttered in 2012.
The Islander was the friendlier of the two, to business interests.
Its porous coverage of the town has given bloggers like me and others an opportunity to fill the gap by asking impolite questions, raking the muck and stirring the citizenry, without regard to how it would affect our advertising revenue since we have none.
FOOTNOTE: I have no quarrel with Charlie Sidman’s endorsement of Nate Young and Maya Caines as fellow council members.
No one knows the town better than Nate Young, who in 22 years as police chief, has walked and driven over every road at all times in a day. Also, as police chief who oversaw patrol cars and other equipment, Young was well schooled in the arcane finances of the town’s budget and Capital Improvement Plan, where taxpayers’ money can be “parked” without proper oversight.
For instance, there is $660,819 sitting in two accounts for the downtown “Streetscape” program. What is the status of that? Could that money be better used for a more urgent need?
He and Sidman will eliminate the self-serving cruise ship committee. That alone is worth the price of admission.
The town badly needs representation by members of the aggrieved cohort of renters, service workers and youth. Maya Caines fills that gap. Her six months as the town’s communications director will serve her well, as she is already familiar with every department in the town office building. Look for her for passionate leadership to address the housing crisis.
I do not share Sidman’s full-throated endorsement of Kyle Shank, even though the chairman of the Comprehensive Plan Task Force certainly looks strong on paper.
On his Facebook page and in an interview with the QSJ, he said,
“Through my work as the chair of the Comprehensive Planning Committee, I believe that the issues facing our community can only be addressed through better communication, stronger coordination, and a greater willingness to compromise with one another.
“Our community is at an inflection point and the outpouring of passion and engagement on a variety of topics is something to be commended. But passion without patience too easily turns to anger and engagement without empathy too easily curdles into mistrust.”
Wait. Wasn’t that what Val Peacock promised in the spring of 2020? She was another bright light who mouthed the same promises only to be buried under the weight of the influence of the tourism industry to becoming just another bureaucratic factotum.
On Shank’s Facebook page, Karen James wrote,
“Looking forward to hearing more about your positions … There are certain issues where willingness to compromise is not a good thing.”
The biggest red flag was the endorsements Shank received from Matt Hochman, the council member with the most consistent record of supporting the cruise ship industry, and from Jennifer Dubois Cough, who proudly identified herself as one of the businesses suing the town over the cruise ship ordinance.
I asked Shank about those endorsements, and he wrote:
“As I have not had a full conversation with Mrs. Cough about her views on the town lawsuit, I can't speak to what views we may share versus those we don't. I imagine there's a bit of both! I do, however, fully support her right to share those views with people who seek to represent them, regardless of whether or not they may agree, both because it is the civic duty of folks seeking office to listen and also because it's just the neighborly thing to do.”
Shank also disclosed he did not vote in favor of the citizens ordinance.
“I believed that the reduction would be too large in magnitude and implemented more quickly than what I believed to be prudent for the town. I do agree with the petitioners that the ultimate question facing our town right now is how to better regulate the impact of the tourism industry on residents and I also agree with them that one way to do so is limiting the number of people disembarking from cruise ships on a daily basis. Where I have disagreed is simply on the details. With that said, I believe personal disagreement should be of no consequence to the role of a Town Councilor after an ordinance has been voted upon by town residents. At this stage, I believe the duty of a Councilor is to defend the ordinance as passed and as such the only preference I have is for our town be in full compliance with local, state, and federal law, regardless of outcome.”
That sure sounded like someone covering all the bases. Does it pass the Karen James smell test?
Besides Maya Caines, another candidate representing the working service industry is Brooke “Zana” Bromquist, who says she’s a sailor, chef and bartender. Here is her FB page.
They would pair with Sidman and Young in an intriguing way. This is an election of a generation. Is Bar Harbor ready for true change?
Higgins Antiques relocate to allow for substation; SWH preservationist hopes to save historic barn
SOUTHWEST HARBOR - A building preservationist and long-time summer resident is hoping Versant Power will not demolish a pre-Civil War building on Main Street, former site of the Higgins Antiques shop.
“It would be a great shame to see that building just destroyed,” said Nevan Carling of the small barn at the center of 270 Main Street which he said was built during the boom period from 1830 to 1850.
Linda Higgins moved her antique store seven-tenth of a mile north toward the Food Mart over the winter after she was told that Versant planned to build a substation on her previous location where she ran her business for 12 years.
“I think it would ruin a lot of the historic character of Downtown Southwest Harbor, which obviously isn't a historic district, but it’s part of the environment that makes Southwest Harbor so appealing as a town,” Carling said.
If there is enough interest, the building could be moved, Carling said. “It wouldn't be a difficult thing moving a timber frame,” he said. “The way that timber frames are constructed, they can be disassembled like Ikea furniture and rebuilt.”
Short of that, he said the town should reject any request for a demolition permit from Verizon, which already has a building next door.
Carling said his family has been summering in town for three generations. An article in “Handwoven” magazine described him as a carpenter and timber framer dedicated to the traditional craft of building with hand tools.
Another island (not MDI) to vote on banning vacation rentals
NANTUCKET - This is not the Quietside of MDI, but an important vote next week here will provide an interesting reference point on how some New England towns are attacking the short-term vacation rental problem.
Boston.com, which I ran for five years, published this article that on May 6, Warrant Article 60, which would restrict short-term rentals in residential zones of Nantucket, will go to vote at the island’s annual town meeting.
Like MDI, reasonably priced housing on Nantucket, whether for sale or rent, has been difficult to find for years and became even more difficult during the pandemic, according to The Boston Globe.
“We’re in the most extreme situation, I would think, in the Commonwealth,” said Tucker Holland, Nantucket’s municipal housing director. “You have to be earning $591,000 a year to afford the median home on Nantucket. I mean that is just an untenable situation.”
Short-term rentals on Nantucket provide approximately 80 to 85 percent of the lodging nights on the island, Holland said.
“There’s no question that if your objective is financial return, that you can generate more short-term renting a property here than what you could generate renting it on a year-round basis,” he said.
A short-term rental workgroup has been formed to study the situation and make a recommendation during a special town meeting in the fall, Holland said.
Town leaders have recommended that voters take no action on Article 60 in May and wait for the results of the workgroup, he said.
Article 60, sponsored by Emmy Kilvert, a lifelong Nantucket resident, would amend the zoning bylaw to prohibit short-term rentals in residential zones of Nantucket, except in the following two instances:
“In residential districts, Short-Term Rentals are permitted on Owner Occupied properties. For purposes of this section 139 only, the duration of Owner Occupied shall be at least six months in each calendar year.
For non-Owner Occupied properties in residential districts, a Short-Term Rental shall be considered a permitted accessory use provided (1) the primary dwelling and secondary dwelling, if applicable, are each used for long-term residential use more than short-term rental use; and (2) the Short-Term Rental is registered with the Town in accordance with General Bylaw § 123.”
The article would prohibit strictly commercial short-term rental businesses in the island’s residential districts, according to Kilvert. Homeowners would still be able to rent their year-round and seasonal properties, Kilvert noted in the Nantucket Current, as long as they use them as a residence more often than as a short-term rental.
Latest chapter in the spectacular fall of largest permitted salmon farm in Maine history
BELFAST - Another nail in the coffin was struck this week in the collapse of Maine’s most heralded aquaculture initiative - the $500 million land-based salmon farm known as Nordic Aquafarms.
Its lawyers announced Friday it agreed to drop all damage claims against landowners Jeffrey Mabee and Judith Grace and the Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area (HLH) at a scheduling conference called by Superior Court Justice Robert Murray.
There should be a Harvard Business School case study of how activists used the courts to reverse the status quo and not accept circumstances just because the salmon farm had attained all the state and local permits.
Other coastal towns have plenty to learn from this group and its brilliant lawyer, Kim Tucker.
The charges were made in a legal battle launched in July 2019 by Mabee and Grace to defend their ownership in and conservation of certain intertidal land. Nordic and the Eckrotes alleged that the lawsuit Mabee and Grace filed jeopardized an agreement they had that allowed Nordic to lay three pipelines across the Eckrote’s property and through the intertidal mudflats below it.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court decided on Feb. 16, 2023 that Mabee-Grace were the owners of the disputed intertidal land and that they had created a valid and enforceable conservation on it, held by Friends. Since the Eckrotes never owned the mudflats, neither they nor Nordic were “damaged” by Mabee-Grace’s ownership claims or their conservation easement on the intertidal area.
Donor raises hope for food bank to restore delivery program
BAR HARBOR - Open Table MDI said an anonymous donor emerged this week with a challenge grant of $10,000 to rescue its Food Access Program which it was forced to put on pause because of lack of funding.
“The day following our announcement, an anonymous donor stepped forward with a $10,000 matching donation – in the hopes that the community can work together to raise at least $20,000 by May 13, 2023 to support the eventual return of the FAP.”
It has set up a special page on its website to accept matching donations.
“Every $10,000 we raise can support the project for a 1-month period and help get food back into the homes of island families. We hope you’ll join us in support. Right now there is an urgent need at MDI Open Table for its Food Access Program, which is being suspended until the fall because of the lack of funding.”
It is one of its three signature programs for feeding food-insecure residents of MDI, Trenton, and surrounding islands.
A reader-submitted link:
This came in from a Belfast reader to shine a light on The Guardian’s expose of how investigators overlooked Brett Kavanaugh’s actions during his confirmation hearings. See the strong connections to Northeast Harbor’s own Leonard Leo.
Thanks for the information, you may be the only journalist actually investigating this town.
Thank you Lincoln for reporting the important news and insight on what is going on.
The Islander does not perform this function as they are beholden to the industries taking advantage of MDI.