Haines Borough harbormaster Phil Benner has submitted his resignation to manager David Sosa, citing personal reasons and a need to be closer to medical resources.
Benner will work until the end of February.
“The reason that I’m resigning is because I have to resign. I was told by the doctors I must resign. I have to move south to be closer to medical (resources),” Benner told the Port and Harbor Advisory Committee Monday.
“It’s not what I want to do, but it’s what I have to do,” he said.
With the borough headed into its fiscal year 2016 budget cycle, Benner said he wanted to give the committee some things to think about before he left, including how the Port Chilkoot Dock is paid for.
Unlike the other two enterprise funds Benner manages as harbormaster, the Port Chilkoot Dock hasn’t seen significant rate increases for the cruise ship companies that use the facility, he said.
“Since 2007 when I arrived, there’s been general increases, incremental increases at the harbor for moorage and other things. Same at Lutak Dock. Due to things beyond my control, that has not happened at the PC Dock,” Benner said.
Though Benner and the Port and Harbor Advisory Committee can recommend rate increases – and they have – the assembly is ultimately responsible for passing the changes.
“There’s quite a lobby – however you want to say it – a group that has some influence over the assembly. It seems like that (group) is against that,” Benner said.
The assembly passed an ordinance in 2013 increasing dockage rates for large cruise ships by 25 cents annually for five years. Moorage rates at the Small Boat Harbor increase $1 per year.
“It’s not fair that the boat harbor had increases for the last eight years, and Lutak Dock has had increases over the last eight years, and the cruise ship dock has not had increases over the last eight years. It’s another enterprise fund that we are in charge of,” Benner said.
In an enterprise fund, revenues are meant to cover expenses, instead of costs being subsidized by other revenue sources.
Port and Harbor Advisory Committee member Don Turner chimed in to agree with Benner, stating that whenever he made motions to increase fees at the cruise ship dock, “it went over like a lead balloon.”
Turner also referenced the assembly’s recent decision to completely waive dockage fees for Celebrity Cruises and Princess Cruises in the 2015 season.
“I don’t see them doing that for the commercial guys,” Turner said of the waiver. “I think they should start paying their own way more.”
Benner also added he thought the committee should focus on maintaining the harbor’s crane and fuel dock, as they are the facility’s most valuable and utilized assets.
Benner worked as harbormaster from 2007 until 2009. He left Haines to work as Juneau’s harbormaster and briefly moved to Florida to care for an ailing family member before returning to the Haines position in 2012.
Benner also serves as president of the Alaska Association of Harbormasters and Port Administrators.