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Greetings!
Happy Saturday to ALL!
We, your DPBA Board of Directors and Advisors have been very busy lately working on several very important Dana Point Boater issues. We wanted to update you but before we do, we thought we should start by clearing up a bit of confusion.
You may have heard or even have received an email saying that the Dana Point Local Coastal Program (LCP), Implementation Plan component (IP), will be heard in two weeks at the upcoming California Coast Commission Hearings in Santa Monica on November 17th - 19th. If so, you've been misinformed! The IP will not be heard in November. The next local possible scheduling is not until January in Huntington Beach or in February in Oceanside, at the earliest. As of now however, there is no scheduled hearing date. Why? The IP document is still in the process of being re-written by OC DPH and Coastal Commission staff.
This work follows approval of the LCP Land Use Plan component (LUP) last month in Oceanside and is necessary to incorporate the many major LCP revisions since the preliminary document was originally released as part of the Harbor Revitalization Plan several years ago. As you no doubt already know from our many prior Boater Blasts and eNews articles, there is a long and extensive list of LCP changes to be addressed within the IP and so, until the actual draft IP document itself is available, there is really nothing useful to be done. To be frank here, we certainly don't think it would serve boaters well to be working on a document that is so outdated.
By the way, at this time there is no scheduled release date for the IP document, but rest assured, we will share it with our members as soon as it becomes available.
For the Board of Directors, the Dana Point Boaters Association,
Rodger Beard
President
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County Harbor Patrol Performance Audit
Friday morning we met for about two hours with Mr. Steve Danley, Performance Audit Director for the County of Orange. The productive discussion focused on his department's Final Performance Audit Report, "Review of Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Department Harbor Patrol" that our County Board of Supervisors (BOS) requested in January of this year. This report became available earlier this week and is scheduled to be heard at the upcoming Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting next Tuesday, November 9th.
The 107 page document provides a thorough and complete historical and political context to a detailed operational efficiency / effectiveness assessment, plus it also provides a financial analysis of the complexities of the County's Harbor Patrol Department sources and uses of funds. The report scope includes Dana Point, Newport and Sunset/Huntington Harbor Patrol operations.
We, your DPBA directors and advisors, will attend the BOS meeting to comment concerning report findings and recommendations. One particular pressure point, starting this past year, funds from our Dana Point Tidelands Trust pay 100% for Dana Point's Harbor Patrol costs for services both inside AND outside our harbor. The "outside the harbor" services include first-responder responsibility for immigration and drug law enforcement, Homeland Security, public safety and general law enforcement for more than 144 square miles of ocean waters between Oceanside and Newport Beach. This while our neighbors to the North, Newport and Sunset/Huntington Harbors only pay for a (small) portion of the services provided by their Harbor Patrol stations.
To learn more about this report and review it for yourself you can go to our website and click on the document links on our Home Page, http://danapointboaters.org.
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California State Lands Commission
Another important item, we have been working closely with Grace Kato, of the California State Lands Commission (SLC) for most of the past year. The issue being addressed here is what we strongly believe to be a significant misuse of the Dana Point Tidelands Trust funds. That is, improper allocation for costs for Harbor Patrol operations discussed above, in total representing well over 20% of our slip and dry storage fees.
We are pleased to report that we are starting to get results. Yes, Dana Point Boaters do need to pay our fair share for the wonderful Harbor Patrol services we receive. The services we are referring to here are those services provided within our harbor. However we are NOT referring to the cost of patrolling half way to Oceanside and the halfway to Newport Beach, from the beach to three (3) miles, and often further out from shore. Those costs should be recovered from another source other than the Tidelands Trust.
To bring you up to date, the State Lands Commission recently wrote a second letter to OC Dana Point Harbor and the County of Orange, also copying the Dana Point Boaters Association. In this letter the Lands Commission requests: "Specifically, Commission staff requests additional information on how the Sheriff's service is provided to the Dana Point Harbor, Newport Harbor, and Sunset Harbor and whether or not there are areas outside of these three areas that are monitored by the Sheriff's department including"... To read the requests please follow the link to our Home Page, just below the Performance Audit Review.
We are advised that this matter is now receiving full legal and Board of Supervisors attention. We also understand that the message is beginning to resonant. We will keep you informed as events further unfold.
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Just Released
Dana Point Harbor Marina Customer Survey
OC Dana Point Harbor (OC DPH) is requesting our help in completing a short Marina Customer Survey. This survey will take 4-5 minutes unless you start to really thing about your answers like we did! The purpose is to help gauge the quality and importance of the various services provided in our marinas.
There are three reasons why taking this survey is VERY important to every Dana Point boater with a slip in either the East or West Basin:
1. The survey is going to be used to help establish a baseline for the Harbor Department's official "Balanced Score Card" (BSC). This new County-wide annual performance monitoring program is being based upon tangible / quantifiable and meaningful measurements of customer service levels. The plan is that the BSC is to be published annually and made widely available to the general public. We should add that DPBA participated in OC DPH's planning and training session last spring and we see this program as potentially very beneficial to boaters.
2. We understand that boater feedback received via the survey will be a key input to construction of the RFP for the new West Basin marina operator contract. During the DPBA General Membership meeting held on October 19th, this RFP was identified as a major source of member concern.
3. DPBA also anticipates that this feedback can be a significant tool in attaining a goal identified by the boaters attending the DPBA General Membership Meeting. Briefly stated the goal is: to establish fair, boater endorsed, fully documented and harbor-wide marina tenant policies and procedures.
For your opinion to be counted you must respond to this survey request by November 22, 2010.
Click HERE to take the survey NOW!
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Coastal Commission Boater Panel Postponed
DPBA was contacted last month by Jack Ainsworth, California Coastal Commission Deputy Director and invited to participate with the Coastal Commissioners in a panel to discuss Southern California boating issues and concerns. We of course accepted and tentatively planned for a meeting during the full Commission hearings in Los Angeles mid-November. Due to scheduling conflicts the panel has since been postponed until sometime after the first of the year.
If there are questions and concerns that members want to make sure we bring up then please call us or email us by clicking HERE.
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Mission Statement:
The Dana Point Boaters Association advocates the preservation, enhancement, and expansion of affordable recreational boating. We work to improve the family friendly atmosphere and breadth of water-oriented actives we all enjoy in the harbor. We serve as the watchdog by ethically protecting the rights of all boaters and representing them when collective action is most effective. We actively gather information and communicate our views to educate boaters, external interests, and public officials. We build and maintain constructive, working relationships to achieve common goals with other harbor stakeholders. We will pass on our harbor to the next generation of recreational boaters in better condition than it is today.
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