Full Steam Ahead for ACL Disembarking at Bar Harbor Pier and Potential Plan for Abandoned Moorings
Parking Citation Money Coming In at Higher-Than-Estimated Rates, Budget Proposes Increase in Cruise Ship Fees
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Andy’s Home Improvement Inc.
BAR HARBOR—Though still embroiled in lawsuits and while another coastal town is contemplating banning cruise ships all together, the Bar Harbor Town Council unanimously approved staff continuing with a plan that would allow American Cruise Lines to disembark passengers at the town’s pier.
The town is also proposing in its FY 2026 budget to increase passenger fees from $2.84 to $9.45 per passenger, and increasing the port development fee from $2.53 to $4.55. That is a total passenger fee of $14.
According to the budget packet the adjustment of those fees are “critical to maintaining the town’s ability to provide high-quality services while meeting financial obligations.”
At the same time, the town expects to have decreased direct expenses on operational demands. The proposed draft budget decreases those expenses from $349,863 to $250,109.
“These reductions include cuts to contingency funding, Island Explorer support, and operational costs such as administrative services, port security, comfort stations and public works,” Smith wrote. “Additionally, capital allocations have been reduced by $110,000. Even with these measures, fee adjustments are necessary to ensure fiscal sustainability.”
In the budget memo, Smith also writes of the town’s “strategic considerations.”
“As Bar Harbor adapts to the disembarkation limit, it must balance the need to honor pre-existing agreements with a forward-looking strategy. Ships that confirmed visitation before the March 2022 petition remain authorized, reflecting the town’s commitment to honoring prior arrangements,” Smith wrote. “However, this adjustment period also offers an opportunity to refine Bar Harbor’s approach to cruise tourism and position the community for long-term sustainability.”
In the budget, as proposed, the cruise ship fund revenues estimate $321,296 in passenger fees for this year and the if the changes go through, $614,063 for next year.
Port development fees have dwindled from $620,632 in 2023 to an estimated $295,660 in the next fiscal year.
Total direct expenses are expected to increase to $250,109. That’s up from $205,777 in FY2023. Allocated expenses toward associated operations (such as administrative services, port security services, harbor management services, comfort station services, and public work services) have a proposed increase to $304,196. That’s an increase from 2023’s $238,656.
“Recalibrating the town’s approach to cruise tourism from large vessel visitations to small vessel visitation is critical. Smaller boutique cruise lines will align with the town’s capacity limits and offer high-value tourism opportunities. Attracting these smaller vessels will help ensure sustainable economic benefits under the new regulatory limits,” Smith writes.
AMERICAN CRUISE LINES AT ELLS PIER
Details for the disembarkations at the town’s Ells Pier are still to be finalized before any potential pier upgrades. Council Chair Val Peacock has once again asked for feedback from the fishing community as well as costs for those upgrades to the town property.
On January 21, Peacock was worried about the order of the steps in the original order before the town council and reordered them. She also wanted to have costs and expenses as well as a tentative agreement with the cruise line before fully committing.
“For me, it’s just making sure that it’s not costing the town money to do this,” she said.
The total to replace the gangway, outgoing Councilor Kyle Shank clarified, would be $200,000. If the town receives a grant that it expects to receive, it would pay for approximately half of that cost.
Charles Sidman, a lead petitioner in a citizen’s initiative to decrease cruise disembarkations to 1,000 a day without fines, said he was very much in favor of tendering ships to town-owned properties. He said that there was an open legal question about whether tendering has ever been an appropriate legal use in the district where the town pier sits. He said the town may want to resolve that question, potentially via a land use ordinance amendment.
“I'm very much in favor of tendering small ships, big ships, or even spaceships to town-owned properties,” Sidman said during public comment on the item.
He was worried about the phrasing of “balanced solution,” in the original order. Fisherman and residents should be included in the language of the order, he said, but not the cruise ship industry. That had already been changed, but was not in the public packet.
The council approved Peacock’s replacement language and then the order unanimously.
On January 13, the town’s harbor committee had recommended that it be passed.
The small cruise ships are American-flagged and would not require security updates for the site. There is an older security plan that would have to be redone in order to allow foreign-flagged ships to tender to the pier. That would cause a larger amount of work for town officials and a larger footprint of use on the pier, Harbormaster Chris Wharff told harbor committee members at the meeting, but it could be done.
“My plan would be to tender to the most inboard float to where the boat ramp is,” he said of the current potential plan. He’d like to see a new gangway that would be long enough and wide enough for ADA compliance and cameras to count people to make sure that the town doesn’t disembark more than 1,000 passengers, which is against the ordinance.
The company’s tenders typically to carry 30 passengers at a time.
“The pier would look the same as it is,” Wharff said of the use. He added that he doesn’t think it would change the face of how the pier functions and looks.
Currently, Golden Anchor LC is appealing, in court, the town’s notice of violation.
That notice of violation (NOV) concerns the pier’s lack of a daily town permit to disembark cruise ship passengers at 55 West Street, which is where it has been historically accepting cruise ship passengers prior to the town’s rule changes limiting those passengers according to daily caps and requiring a permit rather than a license to do so. The rules also do not allow more than 1,000 to disembark without fees.
Eben Salvatore, of Ocean Properties, the umbrella company for the Golden Anchor, said Wednesday afternoon that he wondered about whether this use was an intended or unintended consequence of the new ordinance change.
Under the new disembarkation rules voted in by citizens in 2022 and upheld by a narrow margin this November, inspiring a recount that upheld the vote November 23, the town says that the business is required to apply for a permit to allow disembarkation of cruise ship passengers. The rules state that 1,000 cruise ship passengers can disembark each day before fees occur. The business has argued that it had a pre-existing use.
In Belfast, the city council has reportedly “taken an initial step toward banning cruise ships and other large passenger vessels from docking at the city landing, after local officials and a business group raised concern about congestion and other headaches they have brought in the past,” the Bangor Daily News’ Sasha Ray reported earlier this week. Eastport and Rockland have both increased cruise ship visitation since Bar Harbor’s restrictions.
According to the Bangor Daily News, “of particular concern to Belfast officials has been the American Eagle.” The Eagle is an American Cruise Lines vessel. Those concerns revolved around charter busses and visiting boaters being unable to use the launch ramp, pedestrian, and traffic safety.
UNUSED MOORINGS
The councilors also scheduled a public hearing on changes to how the town’s harbormaster and staff deal with “abandoned” moorings in the inner harbor.
There is currently a long wait list for both commercial fishermen and recreational boaters for the limited amount of moorings. Multiple moorings that are assigned and paid for go unused throughout the season.
The rationale of the harbormaster and harbor committee (which recommends this to pass) is that those moorings can be reassigned to people on that waitlist and used.
The public hearing is scheduled for February 18, 2025 at 6:30 p.m.
FINANCIAL REPORTS
Finance Director Sarah Gilbert gave the town’s six-month financial report.
“This is now that time of the year where we’ll start to see if there are any trends,” Gilbert said.
The general fund revenues other than property tax is at the 57% bench mark, partly because of code and building permits. June and May are historically the months with the highest revenues, she said.
The finance department is receiving money from parking citations, which is budgeted at $125,000 for FY2025. The town has already collected $163,000.
“That’s well over budget,” she said.
Expenditures are trending a little bit lower than previous years because of open positions. Tax collection is trending downward over the past four years, she said.
The percentage of tax revenue collected each year, at the six month mark, in a year-to-date performance status that Gilbert has shared is steadily falling from 62.4% collected in tax year 2021-2022 to 59.8% in tax year 2024-2025.
At the same time, the amount of projected revenue from those property taxes has increased from $18,817,622 in 2021-2022 to $25,971,530 in 2024-2025. The amount of uncollected revenue in that year-to-date performance status has increased by more than $7 million.
QUITCLAIM DEED FOR 319 KNOX ROAD
The council signed a quitclaim deed for 319 Knox Road. All past charges have been paid.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
To read the budget section about cruise ships
To both watch the Council meeting from Tuesday and today’s joint budget presentation, you can do so here.
Disclosure: Shaun Farrar of the Bar Harbor Story is on the town’s warrant committee.
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Just wondering what the town is able to do about the $7 million dollars of uncollected revenue from taxes? Just curious...Kathy Woodside (woodsidekat@gmail.com)