By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — A plan to increase mooring registration fees to about four times the current amount could put town officials in hot water with shorefront property-owners.

There are more than 800 moorings registered in the Town of Naples. Raising the cost of mooring registrations by an amount as small as $10 could equal almost $8,000 worth of new revenue. On the flip side of the coin, increasing mooring registration fees would put the burden on the waterfront property-owners who already pay a considerable tax bill.

On Monday, the Naples Board of Selectmen had a lively discussion about different ways to bring in revenue to offset the recent cost of beefing up marine safety in Naples.

The subject of mooring registration fees was on Monday night’s agenda after it was brought up on Jan. 13 during the town manager’s report.

Naples Harbormaster Shawn Hebert spoke to the board saying, “I tried to approach this in two ways 1.) A creative way to come up with a fee schedule to offset the annual budget; and 2.) An attempt to keep the tax base low for citizens. One of the ideas I had is: Obviously, we haven’t had any fee increase on mooring registrations. That is the biggest user on the lakes” other than boat rentals.

“The residential mooring fee was one way to increase revenue without increasing the mil rate,” he said.

He proposed that the increase happen over a two-year period. This summer — if the fee schedule is approved, registering first-time moorings would go up to $50 from the current $20, and re-registration of mooring would go up to $40 from the current $10 fee. During the 2021-22 season, new mooring registration would go up to $100 and re-registrations would go up to $65.

“I think that would be a fair cap for several years. I didn’t want to hit everyone at one time. I wanted to raise it incrementally, just a little bit at a time,” Hebert said.

Chairman Jim Grattelo spoke.

“Just a little bit! You are raising it 2-1/2 times the first year and five times in the second year. The Town of Windham doesn’t charge anything. The town of Raymond doesn’t charge anything,” Grattelo said.

It is important to note that a fee increase does not have to go to town meeting.

Adjusting fee schedules is the responsibility of the selectmen, and is often introduced by staff, as is the case with the mooring fees.

Later, in the conversation, the harbormaster addressed the fact it was a proposal not something set in concrete.

“These fees — obviously people aren’t going to be happy with it. But at the same time, this is just a recommendation,” Hebert said. “If you guys agree with it, I’ll move forward. I am open to suggestions.”

A few of the selectmen, Grattelo and Kevin Rogers, had expressed opposition to the residential waterfront property-owner being the only ones to pay.

However, Selectman Jim Turpin thought it was appropriate, and he cited the philosophy of brining in revenue stated in the town’s Comprehensive Plan. 

“I think your approach is reasonable: Pull the revenue from people who use the resource. People want more marine safety. The people” who use it most, pay for it, he said. 

“Clearly, increasing the mooring ball fee is not going to be popular. Taxes never are,” Turpin said.“The other thing that begs exploration and won’t be popular, a lot of places charge dock fees. This conversation should include that.”

Grattelo jumped on that idea. 

“I agree, increase mooring fees, increase all things associated with the lake,” he said.

In the end, the following ideas were suggested:

• Increasing the mooring fee schedule over a five-year period,

• Changing the language of mooring definition to classify swim platforms as not being moorings so town can collect fee rather than removing swim platforms

• Working with water-based businesses that rent personal water craft to establish a fee on rentals

Early in the discussion, Selectman Kevin Rogers was one of the first board members to speak up and go to bat for the private property owner on the lakes.

“Why do we think that people with moorings who are already paying taxes on lakes, should help to subsidize marine safety, when

they are not necessarily the problem. These people are already paying exponentially [more in taxes] than everyone else. Why should they have to pay more to keep their boats on a mooring? Maybe we should be targeting someone else like the boat ramps,” Rogers said.

Hebert answered that he was reviewing “other impact fees” but first wanted to “get buy-in from the local businesses.”

Grattelo said it wasn’t the private property owner that raised ruckus on the lake but the tourists. Impact fees should be aimed at tourists, he said.

“You have the tourists who come to town for the weekend and they don’t pay anything. You have a guy who pay $10,000 in taxes on the lakes and he has mooring fees that two years from now are going to go from $10 to $100,” Grattelo said.

Turpin asked, “If he is paying $10,000 in taxes is he really going to complain about a $100 mooring fee.”

Grattelo countered, “Oh yeah, because he feels he has already pay for that.”

That is when Turpin brought up user fees and Grattelo responded.

“Users fees. I am all in favor of those,” Grattelo said, adding that it was unfair to to increase mooring fees as much as was being proposed, especially when other communities aren’t charging as much.”