A proposal earlier this year to severely tighten the live-aboard policy at Fishermen's Terminal was dropped at an early-October meeting of the Fishermen's Terminal Advisory Committee. "It went from a pretty extreme proposition to something that's more reasonable," said FTAC chair David Harsila.
To be sure, the proposed policy would have restricted crewmembers, captains and owners to living on their boats 14 to 30 days prior to departure and to 10 to 20 days following their return to port, depending on the size of the vessel. Furthermore, crewmem-bers, captains and owners could live on their boats no more than 45 days while repairs were made to the ships.
"We all got the feeling they were really trying to kick the live-aboards out of here," Harsila said of Port of Seattle officials. "We resisted that and said it was no good to kick people out of their homes." He conceded that FTAC members had asked the Port to reexamine the policies following several drownings at the marina. "We had a few people who shouldn't have been there at all."
But port officials overreacted, according to Harsila, who said the main concern for FTAC was unsafe conditions on the docks of the terminal. However, Port officials seemed to shift the blame for the deaths to the victims and framed the argument for more stringent policies as a way to deal with people of poor character who were using boats at Fishermen's Terminal as cheap places to live.
Mark Knudsen, then-Deputy Managing Director for the seaport, also seemed to focus on class distinctions as the Port of Seattle opened Fishermen's Terminal to pleasure craft. "It's hard to convince someone with a million-and-a-half-dollar boat to tie up next to a vessel with a couple scraggly guys living on it," he told the News last year, when the new live-aboard policy was first introduced.
Kenneth Lyles, general manager at Fishermen's Terminal, brought the policy proposal back to FTAC last spring, and it was not warmly greeted. "Several [FTAC members] thought it was a different policy than we had talked about," Harsila said last spring.
"Even fishermen who cut the Port a lot of slack were flabbergasted," said fisherman activist Pete Knutson. "When fishermen raised the safety issue, Knudsen blew a gasket," added Knutson, who also said he thought the stringent new live-aboard policy was in retaliation for complaining about safety.
Harsila attributes the Port's change in attitude about live-aboards to Knudsen's leaving the Port of Seattle. Darlene Robertson, Director of Harbor Services for the Port, insisted that wasn't so. The Port had been talking to members of an FTAC subcommittee for more than a year about the live-aboard policy, she said.
"We had some people living on boats who weren't crew or owners," Robertson said. "That's what started the conversation." Besides, she added, the proposed changes weren't unilateral on the Port's part - or even final, for that matter. "When that procedure came out, it was a draft."
Although that was so, Port Commissioner Alex Fisken described the proposal as exceedingly harsh. "But I had no clue whether that came from Mark [Knudsen] or [former Port CEO] Mic Dinsmore," he said, noting that Knudsen is his brother-in-law.
Fisken allowed that a Port backlash against safety concerns may have been responsible for the draft policies. "Or maybe they were upset about BJ Bullert's movie," he said of a documentary that was critical, among things, of the Port's approach to safety at the marina.
One thing was clear, though, according to Fisken. "In the last year or so, commissioners were increasingly supportive of the fishermen," he said. "We ought to be more receptive to their concerns."
In any event, the current policy has changed substantially from what the draft called for earlier this year. There will be no time limit for living on fishing boats for captains, owners or crewmembers, according to the policy, and as before, no one is allowed to live aboard pleasure craft.
The policy also notes that crewmembers of active fishing vessels who are selling fish off boats in the fish-sales area along the West Wall are exempt from limitations on living onboard the ships, and crewmembers can live on boats indefinitely as long as they are registered with the Port.
Live-aboard privileges will be revoked for violating terminal and dock rules, including public intoxication and/or use of illegal narcotics. "That was just put in there as a clarification for people," Robertson said.
In addition, temporary authorization may be granted for live-aboards on commercial vessels, and retired fishermen can live on their boats as long as their boat has been home ported at Fishermen's Terminal for more than a year, according to the policy, which goes into effect Nov. 1. "I can't imagine we'll get any negative feedback," Robertson said. "It was a great collaboration with this [FTAC] committee."
Knutson, the fishermen activist, was on the FTAC subcommittee, and he can't imagine any negative feedback about the latest live-aboard policy, either. There's a reason for that, he said. "It's where it's always been, essentially."
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