Hello Guemes Island Ferry Community,
The public comment period is upon us, and we have until Friday, Sept. 20th @ 4:30pm to submit our comments to ferrycomments@co.skagit.us.wa & commissioners@co.skagit.us.wa to let them know what we think about the 2025 ferry fare proposal.
When sending comments, please send to both Skagit County email addresses and include guemesferry@gmail.com if you would like us to catalog your comment as well.
With the short timeframe, we’ve put together some talking points as a starting point for your public comment, if you find them helpful. They’re quick, to the point, and by no means a full list. Please take what speaks to you and go from there.
It will take all of us continuing to let the County know that we need transparency, accountability, and sustainability when it comes to ferry management and operations. Our livelihoods depend on it! Hopefully we can all agree that continuing to raise ferry rates and increasing costs are not sustainable. It threatens the diversity of the people, families, businesses, and visitors that make Guemes the amazing place that it is, by pricing them out.
Thank you for taking the time to write up and submit your comments. We know you’re tired and worn out by this constant process, but if we don’t speak up then we silently agree to whatever the County decides for us.
In Community,
The Guemes Island Ferry Committee
The underlying issues
- There is a need for more transparency on operations, how and why budget and operational decisions are made. It’s not clear why costs continue to go up.
- There needs to be a hard look at how to reduce costs. There is no single cost increase, it’s the many small increases that continue to be made that are driving up the revenue targets and increasing operational costs.
- Examples include: hiring an assistant manager, implementing a new electronic ticketing system that requires additional staffing, disproportionately allocating county insurance costs to ferry O&M, deferring maintenance of an old vessel, outsourcing vessel mechanical maintenance to a third party contractor, and relying on paid consultants for suggestions on how to operate the ferry system.
- We’d like the Commissioners, Public Works, and the Ferry Division to communicate and partner with the Guemes Island Ferry community to find solutions to problems and concerns. This could be done through more public meetings, increased written communications, a collaborative community input process, and/or working with the Guemes Island Ferry Committee. One public hearing a year is not enough to gather feedback from the community.
Feedback on topics raised by Public Works at the 9/17 public comment meeting:
- Proposed 2025 ferry fare schedule
- Raising fares in 2025 by 30% on top of the 2024 fare increase is a huge financial impact and burden on ferry users. Families, people on fixed incomes, and businesses will be disproportionately impacted by the increased rates.
- Expiration dates for single-ride tickets
- Currently tickets are sold at the time of sailing and are good for that day. It’s not clear why this is an issue to be deliberated on.
- Standardizing the 15% discount on multi-ride passes year-round
- Keep the current discounted rates for multi-ride passes.
- Eliminating multi-ride passes (thereby eliminating the expiration dates)
- The multi-ride passes allow those who ride the ferry frequently to save some money on fares while commuting to work, transporting children, conducting business on the island, or going to medical appointments.
- It is also more efficient for the pursers when they are collecting fares.
- Changing the expiration dates on multi-ride passes from 90 days to 45 days
- There is no benefit to changing the expiration date from 90 days to 45 days.
- Proposed charter rate for requested private trips
- The proposed increased rate of $750/hr. with a 3 hr. Minimum will drive up the cost of fuel and propane on the island. The costs for propane and fuel companies to service Guemes island will be passed on to island customers, further increasing the amount that the Guemes island community (residents, visitors, and businesses) will have to pay.
- Please continue to charge the propane and fuel run the cost for bringing their vehicles across according to the fare schedule.
- This may seem like another revenue stream, however, it may result in those vehicles shifting to private charter instead.
- Charging for parking in Anacortes
- Paid parking in Anacortes, rates are proposed at $3 or $5/day in the 2023 fare target report
- This puts an extra cost burden on riders, on top of the 2024 fare increase and the proposed 2025 fare increase. The projected revenue is not clearly defined in the proposal, and with the services outlined by Rachel Rowe in the presentation on 9/17, this will incur more costs – parking enforcement, security, and groundskeeping – while impacting any anticipated revenue.
- Projected revenue from paid parking is elastic, just like ferry rates. E.g… rates go up, people use less service. Was elasticity taken into account here?
- Proposed rate for emergency response – During regular ferry hours of operation & Outside regular ferry hours of operation
- Increased rate for after hours ferry runs $500/hr, minimum of 3 hrs. = $1500 this will be an increased charge to the Emergency Medical Services fund. While this will bring in more revenue to the ferry, it is an unnecessary cost for this service.
- Recently, the Skagit County Sheriff declined to respond to a call on Guemes because they did not want to pay the fee at the current rate. If the rate triples, how is that going to affect the decision making of emergency service personnel? Do we want emergency services making decisions about our safety and wellbeing?
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Guemes Island Ferry Committee