MEETING NOTES: FERRY COMMITTEE MEETING

June 14, 2009

The Guemes Island Ferry Committee met June 14 at 7:30 PM at the Guemes Community Church.   Carl Cady, Dyvon Havens, Steve Orsini, Glen Veal and Terry Ebersole were in attendance.

Agenda: Dyvon had previously emailed a proposed agenda which we added to and prioritized as follows: 1) Mary Brennen gift for pro-bono support of election issues; 2) New email address; 3) 170 walk on ferry riders on June 13^th. 4) 2^nd Quarter public meeting follow-up; 5) Proposed meeting with Dave Sheridan and/or Commissioners; 6) Follow-up on meeting with Joseph Miller and Tim Rosenhan; 7) Manifesto and Ferry Committee By-laws revisions; 8) process for handling input from ridership to FC

 Mary Brennen Gift—an appropriate gift was identified and Glen will obtain the gift and write a note for the Ferry Committee to sign.

New Email Address: Since several of us have received unwanted SPAM associated with the old Linetime address Joseph miller has designated a new email address for us – (ferrycommittee@linetime.org).  We will also remove our individual emails from the octopia.com (linetime) website so that all ferry committee members will receive public comments at the same time.

Saturday June 13th -170 walk on passengers: the FC will ask Ron Panzero to notify the FC of situations of planned high usage so that we can notify the ridership prior to the event. We will discuss with the County how the priority for ferry usage will be established between walk-ons and vehicles.

2^nd Quarter meeting follow-up

1. The current balance in the FC account is $542.99. Most of this was recently received from riders as donations toward our elections.
2. Haul-out in April-May issues: a) ADA accommodations for the next haul-out need to be specified and supplied to the county for future planning. Comments from the ridership are welcome.  The next haul-out in September 2010 will be difficult as the docks may be out of service for 6 weeks for replacement of the transfer spans.
3. Status of installation of parking lot surveillance cameras is unknown.
4. FC is still concerned with the amount of money to be spent on a new terminal facility with little benefit to the riders. Some discussion about writing a formal letter of concern to the Commissioners. 
5. Summer/Winter schedule – we continue to receive complaints from riders about the loss of Friday & Saturday midnight run as will as the 9 & 10 PM runs on Sunday. Annually each additional weekly hour of ferry service cost $5,000. The Commissioner made their decision based on averaging ridership for May through September vs. the higher peak usage of June-through August period. The ferry committee supports a return to the previous weekend schedule with a midnight ferry on Friday and Saturday nights and a 9 & 10 PM ferry on Sunday evenings to accommodate weekenders and summer visitors to the island.

1. Ridership feedback – we reviewed the individual comments and agreed that we should establish a FC suggestion box at the Anderson Store (Glen to contact Win A.).  We will also develop a method for ridership to express views on our web site at Linetime.org (Dyvon Havens). Re: a comment on the use of biodiesel, we will ask Ron Panzero what his latest plans are on the use of biodiesel.
2. Quarterly meeting note taker – We will investigate the use of a digital recorder that can be directly transcribed to a computer (Carl to contact Win A. and Nanette Cardon). We are also interested in a non-committee member taking on the role of note taker. Note: Nanette Cardon said that the technology did not permit direct transcription of the recording but was helpful in slowing down the speaking voice to typing speed.
3. Glen recently contacted the Commissioners and they still intend to come to the Community Center in July for a community meeting to receive ridership feedback.

Meeting with Dave Sheridan and/or Commissioners

1. Based on Ron Panzer’s proposal to replace the 2004 Roundtable Commissioners Resolution - that recognizes the working relationship with Public Works and the County, the FC wants assurance that the Roundtable will continue in a form similar to the present. Much discussion as to how to make sure Dave Sheridan is not bypassed.
2. We plan to meet again first with Dave Sheridan
3. We have learned that Ron Panzero has been recently directed to reduce ferry crew staffing to a three person crew plus an additional “mid-watch” for Friday Saturday and Sunday for July and August. The June schedule provided for the 10 hour mid-watch shift on all 7 days of the week.

Remaining agenda items were postponed until the next meeting.

The meeting was adjourned 9:40 PM

Note Taker: Carl Cady