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City losing pier rivalry
By TIMOTHY O'HARA
KEY WEST -- When the
Key West City Commission passed a resolution in 1993 to limit the number
of cruise ships coming into Pier B to only seven vessels a week, it
aimed to make the city more competitive in attracting cruise ships to
city piers and help regulate the number of ships coming to town.
According to the
schedule, that resolution will be broken next week, and at least twice
more before the end of the calendar year.
Nine cruise ships are
slated to dock at Pier B and three are scheduled to anchor offshore
during the week of Nov. 9-15, and nine are to dock there and one to
anchor offshore during Christmas week. Seven are slated to dock at Pier
B next week and one to anchor offshore.
Pier B is owned by a
private company and actively competes with the city for cruise ship
business.
Since the 2000-01
fiscal year, more cruise ships have docked at Pier B than at city-owned
piers. In the 1999-2000 fiscal year, more vessels docked at
city-operated piers than Pier B, records show.
This fiscal year 301
cruise ships will pull into port behind the Hilton resort at Pier B,
almost three times more than at Mallory Square and almost double the
number at the Outer Mole Pier, records show.
City port officials,
who handle the scheduling for the Pier B marina, are in violation of the
resolution by allowing more than seven cruise ships a week to use the
pier for docking cruise ships and allowing cruise ships to anchor
offshore and bring passengers through Pier B.
Port Director Raymond
Archer held a port staff meeting Thursday to look for a remedy.
"We don't want to be
in conflict with the resolution," he said Thursday. "The ones for next
month would have slid by had it not been brought to our attention."
Archer plans to change
the schedules to comply with the resolution, he said.
The cruise ship
industry has grown in Key West in the past several years, with 9 percent
of the city's $33 million general fund revenue this fiscal year coming
from cruise ship fees, city records show.
Pier B is expected to
bring in 586,844 passengers and generate $5.5 million in gross earnings,
compared to 58,624 passengers at Mallory Square and $561,711 in gross
earnings and 365,255 passengers at the Outer Mole and $3.6 million in
gross earnings, city records state.
The city receives 25
percent of the gross revenue from Pier B, while it receives the full
amount of fees collected from cruise ships that dock at Mallory Square
and the Outer Mole.
City officials are not
the only ones worried about the number of ships at Pier B.
One local
environmental group is calling for tighter restrictions.
Key West-based Last
Stand, which has acted as watchdog over cruise ships and their impact on
the city character and environment, plans to discuss the recent flap
over the seven-ship limit at its Monday meeting.
"The city's policy, if
any, is to encourage as many cruise ships as possible, even if it
violates its own resolutions," said Nancy Klingener, Last Stand vice
president and Florida Keys program manager for the Ocean Conservancy.
"There has been a meteoric rise in both cruise ships and passengers.
This is an excellent example of the city maximizing the number of cruise
ships, despite its own policies."
Last Stand filed a
lawsuit against the city in 2000, and the city agreed in settlement
talks to do a quality of life study on the cruise ships. The commission
approved requirements for the study last week and is seeking bids for
the work.
Klingener went before
the commission last week to demand that the year 2000 be used as a
baseline for the number of ships, not 2003. The number of cruise ships
coming to Key West has increased by 147 calls since 2000.
tohara@keysnews.com
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