Petersburg’s borough assembly Monday passed an increase in fees for transient and short term moorage in the borough’s three harbors.
The harbor master and harbor board recommended the increase, which is meant to offset increasing costs of maintaining Petersburg’s docks and floats.
The ordinance creates a new fee for boats tied up between three and six months. That’s five dollars a foot per month. The cost for long term moorage doesn’t change. It’s less than five dollars a foot depending on the length of a vessel. However the cost for transient moorage, or under three months, will increase. That’s now $6.50 a foot per month.
The ordinance passed by the assembly includes new permits for the drive down dock in South Harbor, which opened just last week. Mayor Mark Jensen noted that dock is already getting use. “I was permit number 15,” Jensen said. ‘When we came back from herring pounding for three days in a row there was five or six boats around it and it is a wonderful facility and I think it’s gonna be well used. I don’t think anybody’s gonna complain about paying the 2.50 a foot per year.”
That’s the price for an annual permit to use the new drive down dock. A permit for one-time use costs a dollar a foot for the boat tied up to the dock.
In other news, Petersburg’s pool and gym will be closing two hours in the afternoon starting next month. Borough manager Steve Giesbrecht announced the schedule change during Monday’s assembly meeting. He said the facility will be closed from 1-3 in the afternoon Monday through Friday starting on May 1st.
“Basically that’ll give the staff time to do the program planning during those two hours,” Giesbrecht said. “So that we can handle the programs we currently have and continue to keep them useful for folks.”
Parks and Recreation eliminated the job of program coordinator this year because of budget cuts. Giesbrecht said staff is evaluating all parks and rec programs to see if some have to be discontinued due to the staffing decrease.
The assembly Monday also authorized the purchase of three parcels of land at Papke’s Landing 10 miles south of downtown Petersburg. The Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Office put the property up for sale this winter and the borough was the sole bidder on the lots for a total of 109-thousand 600 dollars.
Another vote on spending will pave the way for construction of four columbaria at the Petersburg cemetery. Those are granite structures that will hold cremated remains and extend the capacity at the cemetery. The assembly approved a purchase totaling 80-thousand dollars using an 85-thousand dollar state grant.
“This 80,000 just purchases the four columbarium,” Parks and Recreation director Donnie Hayes explained. “From there public works will be helping with the rock to actually make the foundation. Then we have quite a few community grants that are coming in where folks are donating the cost of the cement, rebar, the slab, those type of things. And so the total cost to the borough will be the 80,000 dollars through the grant.”
The four granite structures will have 80 niches apiece and space for two funeral urns in each. The spaces will be available for purchase, just like a cemetery plot. The borough plans to have those installed this fall.
