_{Thumbnail photo by Gavin Van Alstine}

Despite a request from Commissioner-elect Dan Schmidt to table most of their Tuesday agenda, current Crescent City Harbor commissioners, including the “lame duckers,” approved their revised bylaws and updated finance and administration policy.

Outgoing commissioner Brian Stone urged his colleagues to vote on the latter item, which was listed on the agenda for discussion only. He said the Del Norte County Civil Grand Jury had asked the Harbor District to approve a credit card policy by Sept. 30.

Stone said he and his colleagues Wes White and Gerhardt Weber had also been working on revising the bylaws since June and urged them to finish up that unfinished business. 

“For some reason, the previous harbormaster kept delaying and stalling,” Stone told the public. “I know the exact reasons why — because he didn’t want to see the light of day on some of the issues that we had — but I think we need, as a Board, to hand off to the new Board at least the bylaws, amending them to the point where we don’t have any misuse of public funds.”

Stone was referring to previous harbormaster Tim Petrick who resigned on Sept. 20 amid allegations of credit card misuse. His resignation came after the Del Norte County Grand Jury investigated those allegations and released a report in July. 

According to Stone, Petrick had told the Grand Jury that the Harbor District had a draft credit card policy from 2022 that the Board of Commissioners had never approved. The Board needs to adopt that policy so it can show it to the Grand Jury, he said.

Stone said he also wanted to give the new Board something to work with “to understand what we went through.”

Stone and his colleagues unanimously approved the new policy, which gives the harbormaster and the office manager each a $5,000 spending cap. They also unanimously adopted the revised bylaws.

Schmidt, however, argued for the tabling of all the new business and old business on Tuesday’s agenda, saying they require study, consideration and community input before they’re put to a vote.

“We shouldn’t be diving into these important things at this stage when in many cases, myself included — I just got the staff report a few minutes ago,”  said Schmidt, former editor of the Del Norte Triplicate and one of the top three vote-getters in the Crescent City Harbor District election. “I’m sure later on I’ll be able to be more diligent in seeking those out, but this is an important thing and I think we should wait for the new commissioners to step in.”

Schmidt was alone among his new colleagues in asking the current Board to table most of the agenda. John Evans, another commissioner-elect, said the existing Board should decide on the new policies and procedures as well as the bylaws, noting that it would give him and his colleagues something to work with.

Annie Nehmer, who was the top vote-getter in the Crescent City Harbor District election, urged the Board to proceed with the agenda.

“You were elected for a four year term, not three years and nine months,” she said. “We are in your term, please proceed with the agenda.”

The updated finance and administration policy comes after the Board of Commissioners rejected a previous credit card policy on Sept. 17 that gave the harbormaster a spending cap of $9,999. Coming on the heels of the Grand Jury’s report in July, commissioners said only the office manager should have a District credit card, though they differed as to what their spending limit should be.

As for the bylaws, according to Stone, previously the harbormaster was given “carte blanche” to spend up to $12,000. He said they removed that provision.

Under the new bylaws, the Board of Commissioners will approve travel expenses that are expected to exceed $1,500 and will approve non-recurring expenses that exceed $2,000 and recurring expenses over $10,000.

That approval would be made by roll call vote at regular meetings, according to the bylaws.

On Tuesday, White said he had requested the revised finance and administrative policy go before the Board of Commissioners.

“My viewpoint was this, it is better to have a document in place that the new Board can work with,” he said. “Certainly it’s an imperfect document — I am by no means of the belief that it is a perfect document — I would like to see it approved today. The new Board can revise, but at least they will have something in place.”

White said the new Board of Commissioners could also change the revised bylaws if they felt it necessary.

Frequent public commenters Sandy Moreno and Linda Sutter sided with Schmidt in saying that the Board should table approval of the bylaws and the finance and administration policy.

Moreno, a local bookkeeper, has argued several times for Harbor District staff to introduce action items at one meeting, hold a presentation, and then have the Board of Commissioners vote on it at a following meeting. This gives both commissioners and the public at least two weeks to research the issue, Moreno said.

“There’s no saving your reputation, guys,” she said. “You’re bringing forward some initiative when you haven’t had a chance to read it all…. You guys are not the guys to be [approving] the bylaws. In the last year I’ve been here, year and four months, you’ve made poor decisions and you want to lock in your next group with poor decisions.”

Sutter, who ran for Harbor District and lost in the Nov. 5 election and whose research into the former harbormaster’s spending habits prompted the Grand Jury to investigate, also urged the Board of Commissioners to table the finance and administration policy.

Interim Harbormaster Mike Rademaker said the updated credit card policy and procedures were initially presented to the Board on Sept. 19 and have been out in the public since then as well.

Apart from a few word changes, according to Finance Director David Negus, the policy hasn’t been altered.

Nehmer also added that the bylaws have been available to the public.

“We’ve been able to add our input,” she said.

Before Petrick’s resignation, the Harbor District disclosed statements and receipts from purchases he had made using the CCHD credit card from January through July 2024. Those purchases included six packages of TaylorMade customized golf balls and 24 poker chip ball Logo ball makers for a total of $362.85 from Golfballs.com.

Petrick had also spent $616.97 to register for a California Association of Harbormasters conference and golf tournament and spent $1,329.12 for a stay at the Asilomar Resort in Pacific Grove where the conference was being held.