Following a fourth public hearing on increasing rates for using Lutak Dock, the Haines Borough Assembly on Tuesday adopted the ordinance without discussing member Scott Rossman’s proposal to freeze rates at 2011 levels.

“I could maybe choke down this 2011 increase, but why do we have to do this immediate ramp-up for the next five years?” Rossman asked. “I would submit that I would like to see this just be frozen at 2011, if it passes.”

He asked for comments from the other assembly members, but after a brief silence, member Greg Goodman called for a vote. The motion to adopt the ordinance passed 4-2, with Rossman and Jerry Lapp opposed.

Under the ordinance, rates from 2011 through 2015 would increase from $3.50 to $5.15 per ton for general cargo; $8 to $11.70 per ton for “explosives/hazardous waste;” and 20 cents to 40 cents per ton for gravel, effective Jan. 1 of each year.

Explosives and hazardous waste would not see an immediate rate hike, but general cargo would jump from the current rate of $2 per ton.

“This will increase the cost of almost everything being sold in Haines,” resident Dave Parks said during Tuesday’s meeting at the Sheldon Museum.

Residents Paul Nelson and Ned Rozbicki, president of the Haines Chamber of Commerce, also testified at the public hearing.

“My comments have been misconstrued in the past as being contradictory somehow in suggesting that on the one hand I’m concerned about infrastructure, but on the other hand I’m not supportive of increases in dock tariffs,” Rozbicki said. “I guess, really, my charge to you guys, if I could be so bold, is to do your best to do more with less.”

The ordinance also sets dockage rates starting with a flat fee of $2.50 per foot per 24-hour period, increasing to $3.65 by 2015, a change from the previous sliding scale of 80 cents per foot for vessels 149 feet or fewer to $2.40 per foot for those 700 feet and above.

Rossman spoke for about two minutes before Goodman’s request for a vote. Rossman recently asked for raw logs to be listed as a separate item in the ordinance and said logs compare to a bulk material like gravel. “The more I thought about it, there’s lots of bulk commodities out there.”

He suggested rates for materials such as logs, garbage and ore should be addressed with future amendments. The adopted ordinance keeps logs as general cargo.

The ordinance also includes a new provision allowing the borough to make “preferential use agreements,” such as the one recently negotiated with the Haines-Skagway Fast Ferry.

The assembly on Tuesday approved a resolution for a special docking and moorage services agreement with the private ferry company.  The ferry will be charged the standard Small Boat Harbor transient moorage rates for its use of the Port Chilkoot lightering float.

The agreement renews a 2010 contract with the Haines-Skagway ferry with rates of $273 per month for overnight moorage at the lightering float, $10 per night for unmetered electrical power and $20 per landing.

The borough has a flat lightering rate of $250 per day for vessels mooring at the facility more than an hour per docking, with no additional charge for landings. The higher fee is waived due to emergencies or a lack of moorage space in the harbor, at a limit of no more than 72 consecutive hours per vessel.

The Haines-Skagway ferry has paid the Small Boat Harbor rate at the lightering float for a few years, and borough manager Mark Earnest said the ordinance change establishes “a specific provision to allow for these types of arrangements to be made.”

Harbormaster Ed Barrett said placing the Haines-Skagway ferry at the lightering float is more efficient for the borough.

“We could squeeze them in somewhere (at the Small Boat Harbor), but it is a great convenience to us to not have them there,” Barrett said. “It seems entirely fair to me to have them pay under the schedule of fees and charges for the harbor at that other location, if that’s agreeable to the assembly.”

Goodman voted against the resolution and said he thought the issue could better be addressed through revising code for the tariff. “It’s just that I think we’re going about it the wrong way,” he said.