After nine years as harbormaster, Shawn Bell is stepping down on Oct. 31. 

He’ll still be a borough employee as he took a job as a heavy equipment operator I, said interim borough manager Elke Doom. 

It’s not clear what drove Bell to move on; he did not return a phone call or message seeking more information. 

Doom said assistant harbormaster Jeremiah Kinison will step in while the borough hires for the position. 

With benefits, Bell was projected to make $144,600 in this year’s budget, just over $93,000 in gross earnings. The harbormaster’s position also has hundreds of hours of overtime budgeted into the role in most years. 

The borough’s most recent job posting for an equipment operator listed a starting wage of between $103,572-$111,825 a year with benefits. 

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...