The Gary Paxton Industrial Park board met on April 22 and agreed that the $1 per head tariff charged last year for use of the GPIP floating dock was too low, and out of line with fees at Sitka’s other public facilities. Executive director Garry White said the city was examining rates charged in other Southeast cities, with the goal of establishing a consistent rate in Sitka.
“There’s a City & Borough’s in a study right now to do basically benchmarking,” he said, “looking at all of the different ports around Southeast to come up with some rates. And the goal is to get the harbor system and GPIP on the same field where we’re not competing against one another, where it’s a standard rate across.”
The board had previously considered bumping the per-passenger fee to $5 for use of the dock. Adventure Sitka, a local excursion company, is a major customer at the dock. Co-owner Chris McGraw said that his company had already cut deals with the cruise lines, and a fivefold increase in the tariff was not factored into their rate structure.
McGraw urged the board to hold the increase to $2 for this year, while the city resolved the broader tariff question.
“Ultimately, I feel if we could get to some standard tariff rate that is community-wide,” he said, “whether you come here to Crescent, or you go out there, it’s the same for our type of shore excursion service versus actual ship that’s coming in letting off passengers.”
Sitka opened the 250-foot deepwater dock at the industrial park in 2018. It’s seen growing use by the fishing fleet, and increasing demand from small cruise lines for moorage. Adventure Sitka uses a finger float connected to the dock to board roughly 10,000 passengers per summer for its excursion in Silver Bay. Jeremy Serka works in the marine trades at the park. He suggested that Adventure Sitka was not only getting a good deal, it was also limiting the ability of industrial users to access the dock.
“Not only are you getting that (moorage), you’re getting access with your buses all day long coming through there, too, which prohibits anybody from getting down to the dock,” Serka said. “So next year at this time hopefully that haulout is complete, and we’re going to have to look at what are we going to do if there’s a ship in town, or if somebody wants to lay up for a little bit to look at their engine.”
Board member Casey Campell agreed, but didn’t want to start that conversation on the eve of the summer tour and fishing seasons. He proposed taking up the user issue again in the fall.
“I think there’s a lot of long term concerns which are valid and that we’re going to need to address here sooner than later,” said Campbell, “with what GPIP looks like, you know, down the road with industrial activity, the haulout and, you know, tourism activity that is continuing to maybe grow out there.”
The Gary Paxton Industrial Park board voted unanimously to recommend raising the tariff for use of the deepwater dock to $2 for the 2024 season, and to $5 for 2025.
