How the Walsh family helped overturn Key West cruise ship referendum in favor of industry
MDI real estate boom unbound; Long Pond accident spurs vigilance
Bar Harbor councilman proposes to limit cruise ship passengers to 100,000 annually
BAR HARBOR - The most influential town council member on cruise ship issues is proposing that the town limit the number of ships to 100 a year and the size to under 2,500 passengers per ship.
Gary Friedmann is also proposing a limit of 100,000 passengers a year and no more than three ships per week, exempting ships of 250 passenger or fewer.
In 2019, the last year of a full schedule, 179 ships visited Bar Harbor, landing 270,000 passengers. In 2016, there were 106. In 1990, there were 22.
Friedmann’s proposal would eliminate 32 large ships with capacity exceeding 2,500 on the 2022 schedule. Here is his proposal:
Maximum Number of Ships/Year: 100
Maximum Number of Passengers/Year: 100,000
Maximum Size Ships: 2,500 passengers
Maximum Number of Days per Week: 3, with a maximum of 1 ship per day except when a ship with fewer than 250 passengers is in port there could be 2 ships per day and ships fewer than 250 passengers would not count toward the maximum days per week
The town council has scheduled a workshop Aug. 2 (Monday) at 5:30 to discuss proposals to limit cruise ships after a survey showed overwhelming percentage of residents viewed cruise ships negatively. The workshop will be streamed online.
Given its past history, the cruise ship industry isn’t likely to give up its hold on Bar Harbor without a fight.
In Florida, it managed to persuade a Republican-controlled state government to overturn Key West’s local referendum severely limiting cruise ships which was passed by 60 percent of the voters.
On July 1, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation which threw out three voter-approved referendums passed last November, banning ships with 1,300 or more passengers from docking in Key West and limiting visitors from ships to 1,500 passengers per day.
This was after entities owned by Mark Walsh, vice president of Ocean Properties, gave $995,000 to Friends of Ron DeSantis, the political committee operated by the governor, according to data collected by the Florida Division of Elections and analyzed by the Miami Herald. Founded by Thomas Walsh in Brewer in 1969, The Walsh family business is the biggest hotel operator in Bar Harbor and runs the pier and tenders which ferry passengers ashore.
The family runs a similar service at the state-owned terminal on Key West Harbor in front of the Opal Key Resort and Marina, which it owns along with dozens of other hotels. Walsh’s company helped finance the opposition to the three referendums in Key West. The Herald reported the effort involved a disinformation campaign, funded in party by a “dark money” scheme that included contributions from the cruise industry, which publicly stayed out of the campaign.
Walsh’s Pier B Development first filed a lawsuit last summer to remove the referendum from the ballot, but a judge rejected it. Walsh and other opponents of the initiative, which include the Florida Harbor Pilots Association, Disney Cruise lines and other cruise operators, and the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, got behind legislation that would essentially invalidate the referendum.
The Miami Herald reported that “Walsh has kept a low profile as the legislation has moved through the House and Senate, but his checkbook spoke loudly. Between Feb. 28 and March 3, Walsh’s companies made 11 donations to the governor’s political committee ranging from $75,000 to $95,000. Each of those sums exceeded what Walsh had given DeSantis in the past, a total of $45,000 in 2018 and 2019.
“Walsh responded, through his Key West-based attorney, Barton Smith, that he is “a strong supporter of the governor and his efforts to keep Florida open for business and those efforts have provided all Floridians especially those people employed in the tourism industry with the ability to work and care for their families.
“Our support of Gov. DeSantis is based upon his overall pro-business governance,’’ he continued. “To imply that our support is tied to any specific piece of legislation is absolutely incorrect.”
Arlo Haskell, who along with local fishermen helped organize the three referendums on the November ballot, said the size of the contribution surprised them.
“We always knew the special interests of a few wealthy people were leading our opposition, but a $1 million bid for the governor’s signature on legislation is beyond even our own imagination,’’ he told the Herald.
The Herald also reported that Walsh and Ocean Properties donate to city commission candidates. But all Bar Harbor council members said they have never taken outside funding.
The Aug. 2 workshop is an attempt by the Bar Harbor council to determine whether to place questions on the November ballot,
Council chair Jeff Dobbs said he does not support such a cruise ship question.
“I don’t want this to go on a ballot I want the council to send the results of our workshop to the Cruise Ship Committee and have them work out a temporary plan and re-address and it (sic) when the Park Master Plan is implemented and we have completed the Ferry Terminal,” Dobb stated in an email to QSJ.
Cruise ship friendly Dobbs and member Matt Hochman attempted at the council meeting July 20 to make the cruise ship committee the primary task force to develop future plans which was rebuffed by the anti-cruise ship bloc of Friedmann, Jill Goldthwait, Val Peacock and Joe Minutolo.
The cruise ship committee is chaired by Eben Salvatore, who operates the tender business for Ocean Properties among other assignments for the Walshes. Many of its members benefit directly from the industry.
Meanwhile the fight continues in Key West where city commissioners have directed their attorney to draft ordinances limiting local cruise ship operations, to protect area waters and coral reefs, according to the Florida Sun-Sentinel
“We’ve got 63 percent of our voting population that said enough is enough. We have to have their backs,” Commissioner Jimmy Weekley said. “We have to stand here and find a way in which we can defend that referendum question that was passed. And we’ve got to tell the state of Florida, you can preempt this all you want, we’re going to keep coming back with ordinances or resolutions in a way that we can get what our constituents want.”
Monstrous real estate market roils housing, building trades on MDI
TREMONT - The average price of 18 single family homes sold in the first seven months of 2021 in the quietest town on MDI here was $481,117, a 47 percent increase over the nine homes sold in 2020 which averaged $325,417.
The numbers were similar across the island where 108 homes were sold this year compared with 56 last year at a stunning average of $716,394, against $485,245 a year ago.
The town of Mount Desert’s average sales price was $928,427 for the 22 homes sold versus 15 last year at $520,570. Click here for the sales data compiled for QSJ by Joe Wright, owner of LS Robinson Real Estate in Southwest Harbor.
The eye-popping numbers show that the total dollar volume for houses sold this year compared to last year nearly tripled. In Bar Harbor, for instance, it went from $11.5 million to $33.9 million.
The home buyers are likely a combination of locals moving up market and those from away. Joe Wright said the Portland area remains the hottest market in Maine but MDI is not far behind.
When they weren’t buying houses, they were buying land where the number of lots sold on MDI increased by 251 percent, from 18 lots sold to 55.
The data has profound implications for the future of the island, especially if most of those sales were for seasonal occupancy. “My guess is that most of them are seasonal,” said Mount Desert assessor Kyle Avila.
Already the year-round community has been thinning out, affecting everything from school enrollment to affordable housing for teachers, health care workers, public safety workers, and those in food service.
Construction and the building trades also cannot keep up. The hottest asset on MDI is having an “in” with a plumber, an electrician or a carpenter to fix that nagging leak, or creaky garage door.
The essence of a local community - restaurants - is under severe strain. Their economics are upside down, with fewer days to open, increased cost of housing employees and supply chain issues wrought by an uneven recovery. How many of them will throw in the towel after this year?
Avila thinks the boom will last another year, maybe two, before plateauing.
The prices will affect revaluations. Bar Harbor just completed one and Mount Desert is in the midst of one. Bar Harbor assessor Steven Weed said most real estate assessments will increase about 35 percent for both homes and commercial properties and that the downtown area will probably see a higher assessment because of the demand and increased prices there. The mill rate will drop by an equal percentage.
Water-skiing Boston Whaler operator may face charges for striking kayaker
SOMESVILLE - The Maine Warden Service has identified the injured kayaker in the crash on Long Pond July 20 but not the operator of the Boston Whaler which struck the kayak, because “there is the possibility of charges regarding the crash.
“The name of the operator of the Boston Whaler is not being released, as this can be considered prejudicial under Maine law,” stated Mark Latti, communications director of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.
Injured and admitted to MDI Hospital was Mary D’Allesandro, 71, of Bass Harbor.
Latti confirmed there were three passengers on the 16’7-foot Whaler, and that the boat was towing a water skier when it struck the kayak, a 12-foot Perception.
Lt. Aaron Cross of the warden service said the department must cover a huge area in Maine and that it does its best to monitor all lakes.
QSJ reminded Cross that Long Pond is a relatively small lake - 900 acres - and is the only lake on MDI which allows water crafts with unlimited horse power. Moreover it has an extremely busy canoe and kayak rental business and many water crafts owned and operated by lake residents.
Cross suggested QSJ contact Lindsay Ware, Hancock County’s representative on the commission’s citizen advisory council.
Please replying to this email if you would like to join a continuing conversation with the warden service and Lindsay Ware to implement safer guardrails for boating on Long Pond.
Tremont petitioners miss deadline, seek campground moratorium
TREMONT - A citizens group opposed to the Acadia Wilderness Lodge campground missed the deadline this week in its bid to put a question on the November ballot.
The petitioners sought to be placed on the select board’s agenda for its Monday meeting but did not file by the deadline Wednesday, said Town Manager Jesse Dunbar. It’s now up to the board to decide if it will allow the petitioners to speak Monday.
If not, the next board meeting isn’t scheduled until Sept. 7, five days after the 60-day requirement to place a question on the Nov. 2 ballot.
Cindy Lawson, an abutting neighbor to the proposed campground, said the organizers have more than the required 84 signatures for a citizens petition. State law requires citizen petitions to have at least 10 percent of the total voters in the previous gubernatorial election. That was 839 in Tremont.
The group is petitioning for a moratorium on all new campground development for six months to a year to “allow the Town a reasonable period of time to consider, prepare and adopt amendments … that may be necessary to prevent serious public harm from excessive campground development and to address the reasonably foreseeable impact of proposed or anticipated campground development on public facilities.”
The petition seeks an ordinance which, if approved by voters, would place a moratorium on the “acceptance, processing or acting upon any application for a new campground development for a period of 180 days … temporarily repeals the provisions of the Town ordinances allowing a campground use in the Residential-Business Zone …”
The petition stated that substantial increases in the volume of tourists visiting Mount Desert Island “have the potential to generate pressure for the development of additional campgrounds within the Town.
Also, “excessive campground development could significantly increase the transient population within the Town during the spring, summer and autumn months which could in turn negatively impact current traffic conditions and overburden the Town's current waste disposal systems” and comprise drinking water.
The campground would also overburden public facilities “due to the Town's inability to meet public health and safety needs … because the town lacks full-time police protection, relies on a volunteer fire department … “
The petition stated that the 10-year-old town Comprehensive Plan is inadequate to deal with conflicting residential and commercial interests.
The Planning Board attempted twice to seek a similar moratorium this year. The select board rejected the first request and discouraged the second one. The citizen’s petition would include the current Acadia Wilderness Lodge application in the moratorium while the Planning Board’s would not have.
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