The Wrangell Port Commission continued its discussion of increasing the fees they gather from visiting cruise ships last week, March 5. This has been an ongoing topic of discussion for the commission for several months now. Harbor Master Greg Meissner has iterated in several meetings that the city needed more money for a variety of reasons. As things stood now, he said, the port is barely profitable. During their previous discussion back in February, he said they only bring in about $8,000 to $10,000 of profit. They needed to increase that profit margin if they wanted to consider renovations or expansion, he said.
"These big items take money, so we need to start putting some money in the bank and adding some cash to these projects," Meissner said.
Wrangell currently collects money from visiting cruise ships through a number of different fees, such as a dockage fee, port development fee, a lightering fee, and a $25 an hour charge for security. According to Meissner, Wrangell brings in roughly $113,000 in fees from cruise ships each season. Dividing that up amongst all the tourists on those ships, he said it comes out to about $5 or $6 a person. What he was proposing was adding a $3 head tax, and increasing existing rates by 50 percent. That would bring up the total amount of money the port brings in to $230 to $240,000, approximately.
Cruise ship fees were not the only topic of discussion. The port commission is also considering new fees for the local jet boat operators, the people taking out tourists on small boating excursions. The commission has tried to hold meetings with jet boat operators to discuss this in the past, Meissner said, but they have had low turnout. What the commission considered in their meeting was a monthly fee of $5 per seat on a jet boat.
"So we need to raise rates, and that means everybody, not just ships," Meissner said. "Ships are obviously the bigger payer and probably going to pay 90 percent of the bill when you look at what that place generates, but there's no reason why jet boaters shouldn't pay something."
As this was only a work session, no action was taken on any of the proposals.
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