Dan Schmidt approaches his candidacy for Crescent City Harbor Commissioner the same way he viewed his job as editor of the Del Norte Triplicate — he wants to help.

That philosophy was emblazoned on the absurdly large wrench he brought into the KFUG studio last week where he sat down with Community Service host Paul Critz and Redwood Voice Community News. The Crescent City Harbor District needs repairs, Schmidt says, but it has potential.

“There are a whole lot of things that were allowed to fall apart in previous years that need to be corrected,” he said. “The whole Fashion Blacksmith fiasco — where the Harbor ended up owing millions and millions of dollars because they neglected their job to maintain and repair the harbor facilities. That should never have happened, and worse, they allowed a very hard-to-get permit to do that work to expire. Somebody wasn’t paying attention, and they allowed that to happen, and then they got embroiled in the lawsuit.”

From a lack of dredging that led to a 40-year tenant shutting down his business to recent revelations that the harbormaster’s credit card spending wasn’t above board, the Harbor District has a history of rough sailing. It’s also the only governing body in Del Norte County facing a contested race this election season with six candidates vying for three open seats.

With Election Day approaching, voters will decide if Schmidt, Linda Sutter, John Evans, Annie Nehmer or Devon Morgante have what it takes to right the Harbor District’s ship. And, though he won’t be on the ballot, incumbent Harry Adams is an official write-in candidate to try to keep his seat on the Harbor District Board — a move Schmidt criticized on Monday.

“If he wanted to run again, he just had to file papers and be a candidate, right?” Schmidt said.

Schmidt also claimed that County Clerk Recorder Alissia Northrup “gave [Adams] an extra week to maybe change his mind.”

Northrup denied this, telling Redwood Voice on Tuesday that since none of the incumbents had submitted papers to seek reelection to the Harbor District Board by the Aug. 9 deadline, the filing period was extended for all other candidates until Aug. 12. 

Adams submitted everything he was required to submit as a qualified write-in candidate about three weeks ago, Northrup said, adding that write-in candidates had until Oct. 22 to file for the Nov. 5 election.

“[Schmidt] did call and ask me if it was legitimate and I said, ‘Yeah, [Adams] did file the paperwork to be a legitimate candidate,’” Northrup told Redwood Voice.

According to Schmidt, Del Norte County is lucky to be experiencing three vacancies on the Crescent City Harbor Board. The resignation of previous harbormaster, Tim Petrick, gives a whole new Board of Commissioners a clean slate to work with, Schmidt says.

He says he has faith in Interim Harbormaster Mike Rademaker and Comptroller David Negus. Schmidt also relishes the potential of working with the other candidates who are also seeking the three vacant seats, assuming he’s filling one of them.

This includes fellow candidate Linda Sutter, whose Public Records Act request brought some of Petrick’s suspect credit card spending to light. Schmidt said he wants to use his experience as a criminal defense attorney to help Sutter understand the California Public Records Act and how to respond to any “foot dragging” she may experience.

Schmidt said he’s also spoken with the other stakeholders who rely on the Harbor District for their livelihood. They feel the commissioners ignore them, Schmidt said. 

“People just get tired of speaking up,” he said. “They just say, you know, nobody cares. Nobody’s going to do anything about it, why should I stick my neck out? Well, I’m going to stick my neck out. I’ve done it my whole life.”

Though he was critical of some of the Harbor District’s past actions, Schmidt praised Petrick’s decision to hire Community System Solutions CEO Mike Bahr as a grant writer and the Board of Commissioners’ action to contract with Steve Opp, managing director for Commercial Real Estate Development Enterprises. 

For about two months, Bahr and his colleague Aislene Delane have been updating a 10-year strategic development plan that calls for making the port more attractive to visitors, preparing for possible offshore wind energy generation and preserving the local commercial fishing fleet.

Opp’s role is to create a master plan, assess market interest and analyze the financial performance for various development options at the harbor. 

A hotel is one potential development. In the updated strategic plan, Bahr mentions the Harbor District’s dredge ponds on its north end as a possible building site as well as building a boutique hotel near Anchor Way on its south end.

On Monday, Schmidt pointed out that “you can’t just wave the magic wand and there it is.” The community has to be behind it. And, he said, it’s got to make financial sense. 

Also included in Bahr’s strategic development plan is the Harbor District’s potential as an operations and maintenance port for the proposed wind energy project — something outgoing commissioners Wes White and Brian Stone have been researching for several years. 

Schmidt, whose brother works in the electrical utility industry, said turning the Crescent City Harbor into a hub for workers maintaining floating offshore wind turbines is an enormous endeavor. He sees proposed developments off California’s coast as a good way for Del Norte County to break its dependence on Pacific Power, which primarily serves Oregon and Washington. 

But Schmidt sees a downside — for Crescent City, at least.

“I spent a lot of time in the Channel Islands area in Ventura County and there’s a lot of offshore oil rigs there,” he said. “I had a buddy who worked on the platforms, and they would helicopter them out to the platforms and bring them back. They were very good paying jobs. I don’t want to see Crescent City become a Bethlehem Steel-type town or anything like that. I think our harbor, our community, our environment is too precious to allow it to slip into a maritime equivalent of an auto salvage yard.”

If he’s elected, Schmidt said he wants to start working with his colleagues before he takes the oath of office in December, thus avoiding the restrictions of the Ralph M. Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, which applies to elected officials only after they are sworn into office.

The Brown Act discourages elected officials from holding informal gatherings that involve discussing agency business in an area that’s not accessible to the public. 

Schmidt said there’s a window of opportunity after the election and before commissioners are sworn into office for the winning candidates to sit down and reach a consensus on important issues like amending the Harbor District’s bylaws. 

“There needs to be an opportunity for each candidate, individually and, perhaps, collectively to kind of understand where everybody’s coming from [and] reach some kind of an understanding of where they want to go,” he said. “Talk to the executive staff — Dave, Mike — and find out where they want to go with it, so you can kind of smooth out the bumps in the road before the journey actually begins. So on day one, you can have new bylaws already drafted.”

At the very least, new commissioners need to meet with the executive staff and legal counsel to go over their duties and obligations and learn what they can’t do, Schmidt said. 

As he and his fellow candidates head toward Nov. 5, Schmidt is passing around flyers at the bottom of which, in his own handwriting, is his phone number.

“I look forward to hearing from [anybody] who has ideas on how we can make the harbor better,” he said.