2026-10-15 - Fish Pier Authority Board

Okay, Rob, you're good to go. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us for today's Fish Pier Authority meeting, October 15th. Looks like we got a pretty light agenda, although the executive

session I'm not sure about yet. So, start off by everybody have a chance to review last meetings, minutes, looking to prove those. So, looking for a motion to approve last meetings, minutes. I move

that we approve last meetings, minutes. I'll second. Thanks for that. John, Meredith, any discussion on last meetings, minutes, hearing none. Go to agenda item or the next agenda item. Oh, I'm sorry,

Rob. We need to take a vote. Oh, yeah, sorry. Yep. All in favor of accepting the minutes motion. I'm sorry, I guess we got to go through. Matt. Yes. John. Yes. Meredith. Yes. Chris. Yes. Brendan. Yes.

Wes. Yes. Tracy. Yes. Yes. Motion carries. Now we're ready for agenda item two. Not sure what that is yet. I got too many emails in front of me to find the financial update. So, I will give you a few

more seconds to find your agenda and go ahead with that. If that's okay with you, Rob? Yeah. Yeah, no, please. Okay. So, things have not changed too much since last month. For total revenue year to

date, we're about 25%. Just under 200,000 for expenditures. Again, not much has changed in that avenue as well. Year to date, we're just about 250,000 expended with our budgeted 470,000. And that's

about 52% of our expected expenditures. And then part of the second part, the financial update was at the last meeting. I was asked about the difference or the budgeted amount of birthing versus what

we've received. And that is basically, we've essentially had a couple good years. Just need to switch my screen for a second. We had a couple years in 2021 where the revenue was around 4,000 or 1,000.

And that has been increasing over the last couple fiscal years. And it looks like last year, we were around $80,000. So, it varies. And we've just been on a good run. And happy to answer any questions

if you have any. Thanks, Kayla. Any questions from the board or comments? Any questions or comments from the public? Hearing none, we'll move to the next agenda item. I guess that would be me, Rob.

Excellent. Thanks, Phil. Sure. We can give you the facilities update. Just to give you an update on the shore power project, that's now 100% complete. All the final contract documents have been

submitted and a closed project out. Although at the last meeting, we had a little bit of a discussion on somebody tampering with one of the shore power units. And the last time I checked, the breakers

still hadn't been changed back to the original ones. And in the meantime, since that occurrence, we've had another occurrence with shore power station number seven. So, I was notified that that one

wasn't working. I called the electricians to go and look at it. And they opened it up and discovered that I think it was a neutral that had been disconnected. So, somebody else had been inside that

unit too. But they were able to reconnect everything the way it was supposed to be connected. And it was back up and running. So, so far, that one's fine. Moving on to the fiber optics line for the

security system that's already been installed. That's now, you know, the duct fiber is all in place for the cameras. So, the cameras need to be installed next. We had my staff, the city electricians

completes minor electrical work so that they can connect the cameras when they're installed. That's all been done. And the only thing left to do is to actually install the camera. So, I just got some

an updated quote from Minuteman who's going to be doing the installation. And we just have to put in a requisition which I did and wait for the purchase order to come through in order to move forward

with that project. Moving on to the fender system. So, I've been concentrating my efforts on fender system maintenance to sorting piers one and two. I hired waypoint construction to replace nine

broken or missing piles. So, that's been completed. We've got some new piles in various locations along the fender of sorting piers one and two. I've got some some other work that needs to be done

there. I'm going to try to get the sorting piers maintained or fixed before I move on to anything else or on the rest of the either the bulkhead wall or a service pier too. So, the next thing I want

to do is start working on just pulling and re-bolting some of the existing piles. That's what we've done in the past for maintenance work in order to... A lot of times what happens is the tops of the

piles will rot away and they'll pull away from the pier and all we have to do is just pull them up a couple feet, cut the tops off, and re-bolt them. So, there's quite a few of those that need that

type of work to be done. So, that's the next thing and we'll also see if we can't get some of the rotted chalks and wales that are in pretty rough shape. See if we can't get those fixed at the same

time. I've been using waypoint construction so we'll probably continue to use them although I have been getting various quotes on any of the work. So, waypoint usually comes in pretty good. They've

been doing pretty good work too. They do nice quality work. Moving along the water resources project, the storm water project, sewer separation project down in the west parking lot. I think that

they're kind of wrapped up for the season as far as the in-ground work but they still... My understanding was that they were going to at least put the base coat in the parking lot. So, I'll have to

follow up on that with engineering to see whether or not that's going to happen before all the plants close. Regardless, the project's expected to be completed by, I think we've said in the past,

Memorial Day of next year. So, hopefully everything will be wrapped up by then. And if we need, we can always have water resources, join one of the meetings for an update if anybody's interested.

Other than that, it's just general site maintenance throughout the facility. We're getting into the winter season so next month we'll probably start gearing up for winter operations and getting ready

for that. So, that's all I have at this time. If anybody's got any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Yeah, thanks Phil. Chris? Yeah, Phil, thanks for your report as always. My question is on the

shore power situation with the tampering of the terminals. Are those like home port birthing spots that you're being messed with or are they short-term transient birthing? It's in the net, Chris. We

have two shore power units in the net yard. Robert could probably better answer that question than me. I think it's transient or it's from what my understanding is that it's first come first serve.

Whoever shows up at that birth can use the shore power. Yeah, that's where our fleet ties up, Chris. So, it's a regular group of boats that tie up there and they generally try to tie up in the same

spots. As far as the GFI breakers, I identified who did that and that's working to be corrected. The other one, Phil, I was not aware of. You said number seven. Is that in the net yard or is that on

the pier? No, that's in the net yard. So, it was the other shore power unit. Six was the one that was tamped with first and then the following month it was number seven. So, that was the one that we

got complaints. I think you had called me and said it wasn't working. Yeah, it wasn't working. So, something had been disconnected. Okay, I'll talk to you more about that and I will investigate that

one as well. But it's generally just one person that I'm aware of and that has been addressed at this point. Okay. So, I was thinking, I guess I have a question and a statement. My question is, in the

birthing contracts or any contracts for birthing and vessels, is there a clause where if you were found to have tampered with property, your termination of birthing rights or a penalization of up to

five times the cost of the repair of the damage, whatever, is there something like that in our birthing contracts? There is nothing at this time but that's a great idea, Chris. What we can do is we

can reformat the birthing contracts, pass them out to the fleet and add that in. I think that's a great idea. I think it's good because a couple things, I've run into, as Harvard Master, I ran into

some of this stuff and without a clause like that, a person can argue that your repair, regardless of whether you have receipts or not, surpass the market value of that repair and they can refuse to

pay it, even if you try to bill them and they can take you to court for it and it's small claims, whatever, but it's total pain in the ass. So, unless you have something in writing that they have

signed that is legally binding for X amount and consequence of termination or restriction of birthing privileges, that's a really important thing to have in a birthing contract. Okay, so we would just

have to determine what the punishment would be. Would I say that consequences will, I mean, would I allude to something or would I specifically say, if you are caught doing this, this is what will

happen. So, the board needs to give me direction on that. Yeah, I mean, I can make a recommendation, right? I mean, first of all, this will have to be bounced off as somebody with legal jurisdiction

and legal responsibility with the city would be my guess, but the way I worded damage in dock applications and birthing permits before was, you know, upon review of damages by, you know, X board, you

know, up to and including termination of all future birthing privileges may be revoked. And then for the damage clause, it's, I think I used two X, the type of, if it's malicious intent damage, like

they pricked with it, they didn't just bump into it with their boat and break something, that's accidental, but malicious damage was two times the price of repair plus lost revenue for, you know, the

fact that it couldn't be used in the time that it was down, something along those lines. Again, it was quite some years ago, but. Don't want to be right there. Okay. Avery, I can see you on that.

Okay. I was going to say, Chris, is there a way that you can get a copy of that, of the language of the agreement that you had from wherever you are, Harbor master and send it to us so we can look at

it? Yeah, I probably can. Yeah. Yeah. That would make it easier on our end, I guess, if it's already laid out. Yeah, no problem. And it's also, you know, it's, it's, it's something that I bet it's

pretty reasonable stuff too. So I think anybody anybody with a lawyer present can come up with something to make sense. It's kind of hard to get into trouble when they're signing it. Right. I mean,

Robert and I did talk about one other option, too. The disconnects, we could always lock those out. And if they want to gain access to power, they've got to go into the exchange and make arrangements

with staff there. So anyway, Tracy, I guess, in the time that our, my husband's business has tied at the exchange, I don't think there has been a birthing contract. So I just wanted to bring that up.

This is the transient birthing. So I believe if I'm not mistaken, so maybe it's time there is a contract. If there's not, Robert, do you, do you know if other vessels have other vessels had a birthing

contract? Because in the time that we've been at the PFE, I'm not familiar with a birthing contract. Yeah, everyone that ties up there, when they first come on board, they identify the size of their

boat. And we do a birthing contract with them. And then they just update their insurance annually. So it's a one time thing is what we do with boats. Is that just in the net yard, Robert? Or is that

everywhere at the exchange? That's everywhere at the exchange. So I'm not familiar with the old boats that were there when I came on board with any new boat that comes on board. We presented with a

birthing contract, we get the size of the boat, we give them the rates, we get their proof of insurance on the vessel. And then and then we go from there. All right, thanks, Phil. Thanks, Robert.

Thanks, Chris. Anybody have any more comments for Phil on his facilities report? I did have a couple of questions. Can we lock the pedestals with some mechanism so people can't get in there to taper

with them, tamper with them? Yeah, I mean, like I was saying before, that is an option that we can lock the disconnects disconnects right next to the power pedestals. Oh, I mean, the the part of the

pedestal that is being tampered with, it seems like they just open it up and have at it. Is there any way to lock that with that? That can be locked. That can be locked to it's a, it's a plastic

cover, I suppose, if somebody it would be easy for somebody to break the cover off and get into it. But if you lock the disconnect that just shuts the power off to the pedestal. Okay, yeah, this is

terrible, because, you know, we worked really hard. And I fought really hard for our fleet to have good power. And this is, you know, this is unfortunate. Hopefully, it's just a one off. But you did

mention that number six was down. And now number seven was down. Are they on the same pedestal? Or are they two different pedestals? I know, because there's two, two hookups per right? Yes. And

there's two different those are two separate pedestals is shore power unit six shore power unit seven. That they're both operating right now, although shore power six does not have the GFI breakers

installed, at least it didn't last week, the last time I looked at it. And so there seems to be a problem with them for whatever reason, or I'm guessing somebody's having a problem. If we find out

that they're problematic on, you know, the install, do we have any kind of warranty from the company then that built them that put them out? Yes, it's a one year warranty through the contract of it

installed them and they have all been tested. And they appear to be working properly. My, my sense is that it's something with a boat. Yep. Okay, so moving on to the next agenda item review and vote

on vessel services request. Is this going to be Heather? Yes, I can bring us through this. So you all I believe it was in the attachment, we received a letter from vessel services, requesting some

support in consideration of the service peer one closure that had to happen earlier this year, earlier this summer. And so I has everybody had a chance to review the letter and the request. What page

is it on, Heather? This is page 11 of the 22 page attachment. So I can summarize it quickly, but there's the letter says there have been several discussions concerning a plan to ease the financial

loss and daily burden of the service peer one closure. These discussions have not led to an obvious survival solution to date. I hope these discussions will continue, but with no current resolution

and an unknown timeline for completion vessel services would like to propose and formally ask for the following vessel services is requesting that the current monthly lease rent payment be waived and

forgiven from service peer one's closure until completion of the service peer project. When vessel services can resume its use of its space of its faces, vessel services is also requesting an

extension to its current lease term for a period of 10 years. This request will cover the period of service peer closures as well as extending our current agreement into the future. And finally,

vessel services is requesting a consideration for a budget of funds not to exceed 50,000 to help cover expenses directly resulting from the modification addition or temporary infrastructure needed to

be put into place during the service peer closures. He goes on to say temporary improvements would include items such as extended fuel hoses, additional fuel reels and filtering, ice pipe delivery

modifications and other service and security equipment needs. So this is the request from vessel services. And I know this is the first time that you're all seeing it. So I wanted to bring it up for

discussion. We may not necessarily get to a vote today, but we want to want to bring it into the conversation and happy to answer questions as we move through this. Okay, thank you, Heather. Anybody

from the board have a comment or question for Heather on this vessel services, Meredith. Sorry, I was wondering, and I'm not sure if this is something you do into executive session on, but I'd love to

talk a little bit about their rent payment schedule. And then I'd love to hear a little more, I don't know if Mike is on, but it'd be great to hear a little bit more detail about the 50k request and

what, you know, what is kind of driving that. So yeah, I just have a bunch of questions. I'm not quite sure where they fit in the executive session conversation. Maybe we should start with Mike and

then we can move into executive session once we feel like we've gotten the question, the clarity around his request. Mike, are you on? Looks like Mike's on. Can you guys hear me? Yep, we got you,

Mike. Okay, fantastic. Thank you. And thank you guys for adding this to the agenda and taking time, say, to address this. So I'm happy to discuss whatever again. I don't want to go into any details

financially or numbers-wise specifics that should be done in executive session. So if I speak out of turn, please somebody either mute me or stop interrupt me so I don't say anything out loud that

shouldn't be here on the public side of the forum. So I appreciate the consideration here. As far as the rent and the lease, we do pay monthly rent or according to our lease agreement. And that's,

there's a schedule for that. And again, it accounts for increases or the years and whatnot, but it is a monthly rent that we pay. And again, happy to discuss that either publicly or privately, how

much that is and what that amounts to. As far as the second item, the lease agreement extension, you know, as opposed to trying to nail down a time to try to anticipate the time of completion of the

project and just hold the lease extension to that time where it's unknown, I felt like it was just a great time to extend the relationship that we have where I feel like we're both investing in each

other. The city's investing in the peers, which is absolutely fantastic. We're investing in continuing to operate and supply the Portland commercial fishing fleet and beyond. And any extension of that

agreement, I think solidifies our presence here in the future and our commitment to each other, which I think is great. It's been great. And I hope to continue that. And then the third, again, I'm

happy to elaborate at this point. I don't have the specifics because I can only give you some rough estimates that I've been given as far as expenses, hoses, reels, filtration, changing ice pipes and

whatnot. I didn't want to go too far and get specific requests if the criteria for those requests and the appetite for the budget would be different than our, my initial approach as far as what the

city is concerned. So I'm happy to elaborate on some of those numbers that I have preliminarily and I don't know them all now. I just wanted to know if there was an appetite for the budget for help

covering our expenses. It's, you know, as, as you know, it's, we're heading into a leaner time here this time of year. This may go on long-term and I just want to have solution. Obviously we've

discussed plenty of, you know, several solutions up to this point and they've all been financially significantly more than the request for the budget number I'm asking for. And I do think that that's

a fair and an open discussion to talk about some potential compensation for allowing us to continue business and continue servicing the industry during these shutdowns. Again, we're currently talking

about Pier 1, but as we know, this is going to go to shift to Pier 3 at some point as well. And we're already, if my math is correct, six months or so into, you know, Pier 1 being shut down. And, you

know, again, I don't know the timelines. I'm not privy to the timelines as far as what the future looks like for the completion of the project. So again, I'm happy to elaborate on those. I'm happy to

have further discussions. I'll leave it at that and then wait for questions either for me or for Heather or for anybody else. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. I have a question. Are you

looking for full rent forgiveness on the monthly or partial? Because, you know, you're still operational to a point, but I understand you've lost your Pier 1, but you still have your two other, yeah,

your two other service peers. So are you interested in a fractional rent forgiveness or you want full rent forgiveness? At this point, I was asking for full rent forgiveness because, again, there'll

be times where one pier will be down. There's times during construction we may have two piers down. There may be more drastic and impactful shutdowns during the course of this construction period. And

it was, you know, my hope that this would be a, you know, a mutually agreeable, you know, compensation. Again, not to have to go back and forth. We could kind of set this and move on from it was kind

of my hope. So we didn't have to revisit it and continue talking about it as the project progressed. But the short answer is, yes, it's a complete forgiveness of the entire rent payment monthly due to

the city of Portland. And that would be from the from the time that Pier 1 was shut down to the time of the completion of the project. And again, too, as far as revenue, I do understand and I am

completely in agreement that we are not shut down completely. However, it's intangible at this point to determine how much business we have lost or the inconveniences we've caused the customers in

turn, you know, we've lost some business in that sense and good faith. So it's a kind of a intangible amount to put a number two fractional wise as far as if we were to try to determine how much of

that rent is would be, you know, viable for forgiveness. One out of three service peers, however, higher, much higher volumes through the pier currently is being shut down. And there's a lot of

variables that go into that. And I just thought this would be a more straightforward and, and clean approach. Okay. Anyone else want to comment on this or questions or comments from Mike or Heather?

Mike, I appreciate you coming and talking to us. And I fully feel vessel services is a vital cog in the, you know, working waterfront of Portland and Maine, for that matter, really without a place to

get fuel and ice, you don't have a fishing fleet. So we need you guys to succeed. And everybody knows that the P the Fish Pier Authority has forgiven the PFE's rent for many, many years, you know, not

quite the same situation, obviously, your private company and PFE's, you know, semi quasi public, and kind of falls under the jurisdiction of the authority and the city council. So I think we're gonna

have to discuss this right as a board. It's a little unorthodox, I think to talk, you know, on this public setting. I think is that the intent of our executive session today? Yes, it was designed for

this conversation. Okay. All right. Chris, you have a question? And then I think there's one other hand up. Maybe not just Chris. Yeah, I mean, all I wanted to say, which is more, you know, to assuage

some of Michael's fears, is that lots and lots of infrastructure projects, including peers, and other, you know, major construction happens while businesses are still operational. So knowing that

there's two peers to be rebuilt, and pretty good space for access, my guess is that as we as the city works through, you know, request for proposals in the bidding process, you know, a phased approach

that prioritizes the accessibility of the of the business and the ability for vessel services to remain open is absolutely something that should be discussed as those bid documents are getting put

together. It may or may not be possible, depending on the logistics, but I would probably I would hazard to guess that your ability to remain open at a similar level as you are right now will be will

be maintained. So without knowing that, I'd have a hard time, you know, just kind of blanket statement that you're going to be closed down during construction. And that's really kind of hopefully more

encouraging than anything to you. But I just wanted to kind of jump in and offer that up. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it. Anyone else have a comment or question for Mike or Heather on this on this

agenda item? When were we talking about jumping on the executive session sooner than later? I want to get through the rest of the agenda. Don't think there's much more. Yeah, I think while we're on

the topic, we can head over there, then we'll come back for the Fish Exchange subcommittee update. And I don't think I really have any updates. So that's the final item. So go ahead, Meredith. Well, I

just in terms of like timing and organization, I'm wondering, I guess it's a little hard to say, but given this is the first time we're seeing this, and I know Mike would probably like an answer

today, but I wonder if maybe we aren't that close to making a motion. And if that's the case, we could probably end the meeting in executive session and just say we're not coming back because we would

need to come back to make a motion, but we don't need to come back if there's no motion. So I don't know. It's a little tricky. Yeah, that's a good point. If we think it's going to be a discussion,

then we can end on that. Yeah, I'm with you guys. What's finish up the remaining agenda items for this meeting and then go into executive session to discuss vessel services, and then we'll be done.

That seems to be less clunky and less likely for people to have to bounce back and forth. Is that okay with you guys? So we're going to table the executive session discussion on vessel services for

now. Number six is only six. Oh, sorry. No, we're looking at number five. Looks like Matt Moretti, PFE subcommittee. Yep. Thanks, Rob. So yeah, we had a subcommittee meeting on October 8th and

discussed some things at the Fish Exchange. I'll go through them briefly. We had a presentation by the company called Seabid on a new auction software platform that's web-based. It sounded pretty

impressive to me. And also the same company has been successfully importing the salmon that the exchange is now selling, which has scaled from one to four pallets a week. So it's a bit of an aside,

but that is going well as well. I thought it was interesting to note that the cost for the Seabid platform, they proposed taking a percentage of the Fish Exchange's fees instead of a flat rate, which

I believe the, well, I don't know the complete details about the current system we're using, but I do believe that would be a change. And the committee members asked the staff to perform a cost

benefit analysis comparing the Seabid platform to the current platform that we're using, including replacement costs of the server that's coming up. So more to come from that after we get the cost

benefit analysis and continued discussion about Seabid platform. Robert Van Meter gave his manager's report and some notable items. Again, the salmon auctions are continuing and they're actually quite

successful. They're planning on increasing to six pallets in the near future. Actually, that probably already happened. That was right after our meeting. Net income for September was a negative 77,000

in change, primarily impacted by low fish landings and a $30,000 compressor payment. On a positive note, outreach efforts led to a feature article in the Portland Press Herald and also on social media

platforms about the Fish Exchange, which was very well received and was pretty cool. I saw it. And we have an item to discuss North Coast Seafood coming on as a buyer after I finished the update. And

other items, we noted that the LNRJ, which is the top tier fishing vessel that lands at the Fish Exchange is departing. It was sold and would be going down to Gloucester. But there was also discussion

that there are several other local fishermen purchasing boats or expanding boats. And the thought and hope is that these new vessels will compensate for the losses of the LNRJ. So the general

consensus was we're probably going to be staying around where we are, if not maybe expanding a little bit more. And that is it for the update. So agenda item B, we discussed North Coast Seafood as a

new buyer at the subcommittee meeting. They would like to come onto the auction. And we unanimously agreed that that would be a great idea. If anyone would like to add any information about North

Coast, me personally, I've seen them in the marketplace for quite a long time and have heard no bad things. We had discussion about their credibility. I believe, actually, it was discussed that

they've already paid their or put money into escrow, substantial money into escrow as part of the requirements to be a buyer in the exchange. It was all positive talk. And subcommittee would all

recommend that we accept North Coast Seafood in as a new buyer on the exchange. And as far as I understand, the full board will need to now vote on that recommendation. I'll make a motion to advance

the subcommittees, if that's okay, Mr. Chair, sorry. Yeah, no problem. I was just going to say Matt's correct in that we have to vote as a board to approve any buyer for the PFE. So yes, Meredith,

I'll take that as a motion. I'll second it. John, thank you for a second discussion on North Coast as our new buyer. All right. I think more buyers the better, just like more boats the better, more

landings, more volume. So I chalk this in as a positive. So I'm going to go for the role. Yes, Matt. Yes. John. Yes. Meredith. Yes. Brendan. Yes. Chris. Yes. Wes. Yes. Tracy. Yes. That's everyone

correct. Motion carries. Going back to your report, Matt, and thank you, the loss revenue or potential loss revenue of LNRJ. Well, first, Robert, have they left or are they still selling? They have

not landed recently, no. Okay. Is the boat at the pier? Have you noticed? It is not, no. Okay. So I believe they're headed to Gloucester. Substantial loss, we roughly estimated a 10% loss in revenue.

And the comment I made at the subcommittee meeting was that it was a larger vessel, which is what kept revenue through the harder to find fish months. The winter months are always tough at the PFE.

The winter months are always tough on the Portland fleet, because the Portland fleet's relatively small when it comes to the wintertime fishing. It's the 45 to 55 foot class vessels. They were the

largest boat we had. So their loss will be felt, and we're already down on landings. So I think those are two things that should be acknowledged, that revenue is tight. And we may need to look at all

tools in the toolbox to adjust things at the PFE, in my opinion. Any other questions for Matt on this agenda item? Oh, wait, are we still on this motion? No, we voted it to pass. Okay. Yes, we're good

now for agenda item six. Heather, verbal update, are you good? Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Before we move on, a hand just went up. Tracy? Hi. Yes, thanks. Yeah, great update. And I am on the subcommittee

meeting, but was unable to attend last week. One question about, and this is better put to another subcommittee meeting, feel free to let me know, but the escrow amount that we request, how is that

determined? And I'd be curious to learn because right now the fish prices are really high. And if it's to cover unpaid bills, not saying that this spire or nothing to do with the spire, but is 15,000

enough at this point? And has that ever been determined to change or whatnot? I'm just curious. Does anyone? So you're referring to the line of credit. Credit, correct. The escrow, yeah, I think is

what it was referred to. You want to comment here? The minimum requirement is 15,000. North coast put down 30. Our customers are between 15 and $100,000 on their letters of credit or cash deposits. We

have never had any issue to date. I've never had to use anyone's letter of credit or cash deposit for delinquent payments. So no, I've never had a problem. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Good. Looks

like we can move on to agenda six, agenda item six, Heather. Yeah, I've just got one quick update for everybody. Our facilitated retreat is coming together. As I mentioned last time, we've selected a

facilitator. We're working on planning out the agenda. And so I just, we need you guys to respond so we can set the date. So Kayla mentioned the November pretty much, I'm sorry, October pretty much

didn't work through early November because of elections that are going on at city hall. So we're looking like end of November, possibly into early December. But when we get off of this, let this be a

reminder to go fill out, answer the poll so we can get it scheduled. Thank you. Thanks Heather. Any questions for Heather on that? Comments from the board or the public? Looking forward to seeing

everyone in person, actually. It's going to be good. Hopefully very productive strategic planning. And so now we're at number seven on the agenda. Other items not listed on the agenda. Robert? Yes, I

had a company reach out to me wanting to put oysters on the auction. When I looked into the c-track system, oysters were already line items, three different sizes. And I told him I would talk to the

board about it. It looks like something we did before I had the shellfish folks come through. So I know what we would have to do to report it. We have a HACCP plan for it. And we are, like I said, set

up in c-track to sell them. So it would only be, I mean, he said they're going to be harvesting through the end of November. But it's an interesting idea. None of the other oyster companies that drop

product at our place or leave space at our place have ever suggested it. So if we get it going with one guy, it's possible we could get other folks on board as well. We reached out to a few of our

buyers that would be interested in buying oysters on our auction. Excellent. I think it's a good improvement as long as we are, you know, completely thorough about the HACCP plan. There are some

unique conditions that oysters have to be handled with and to avoid cross contamination. Yeah, we would just we would log them in when they came in. We would write down the time they came in, the

temperature they were at when they came in, and then the standard temperature I maintain the cooler at would take care of them. They would be stored away from other product. So yeah, we have that all

lined up. Sounds good. Matt? I think that's awesome. Obviously more revenue for the exchange, the better and for the fish pier. Curious, what is the company? You would ask that. I think it's Great

Salt Bay. I could be incorrect on that and I can look it up and find out. I think that'd be interesting to know. But really, I mean, Rob brought up some good points about following the HACCP plan. But

it sounds like you had a great answer for that, Robert, already. I mean, this is more business. I don't see any reason to say no to this. So yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, just so everybody's really

understanding, there are not going to try to pick on oyster farming at all. But I did attend a workshop through the state of Maine about aquaculture. And, you know, there's there's paralytic shellfish

poisoning, there's vibrio virus, there are some things that aren't what you want in the seafood business around. So I know we already have them in the facility. And I think if it's a line item on the

auction on on the sea track, it's great. I'm not not, I'm certainly not trying to push this idea down. I just want everybody to be super conscious of safety when it comes to oysters and the handling.

So yeah, give us an update, Robert, when you get the name of the company, and we'll hopefully be able to talk about it some more and vote on it. But unless somebody wants to make a motion now. It is

Salt Bay Oysters. Salt Bay Oysters. Okay. Yeah. I see it. There's a handout I don't recognize, but it's William. Hey, yeah, William, right here. Robert, I mean, with the fees with oysters, how would

that work? Because 20 cents on an oyster is not going to really, I feel like the fees on that would have to come down. Yeah, I mean, we would have to look at that. Basically, I was looking at the

board's approval to move forward. And then I'm going to look at how we would be able to do that. Because right now, the fee structure setup is 20 cents, 20 cents and 12, just like the others. So we

would have to figure out whether we're going to do it by the bag or by the pound. So I'm actually working on that. So now that the board's approved it, I will put more time into figuring out the best

way to auction the product. Sounds good. Thank you. We haven't approved it fully. Somebody would need to make a motion to approve this action. So I moved that we approve a Great Salt Bay to sell

oysters. Yeah. All right, Meredith. Well, I guess, just a question about like process here, does the board, like, I don't think we would typically at the authority board level be approving a seller.

So are we approving the selling of oysters? It sounds like that may have already been done at some point in the history of the exchange. So I don't know that there's like something the board really

needs to do here. And if there was, I guess I would suggest maybe to come through the subcommittee after some of these questions have been resolved. Just a thought. Yeah, I'm kind of thinking it's

almost like when we unload kelp in bulk, we don't charge them the same money that we charge fish that has to be sorted and weighed and iced. So minimal handling on our part. And yeah, I think, I don't

know how many oysters to a pound, but I know they sell them by the piece. Matt, you might know more about this. Yeah, happy to be a resource for Robert on this whenever whenever needed. And also, I

agree with Meredith that this is probably a great informal discussion for the subcommittee to tackle and probably really only if there's a deviation from the standard operating procedure of selling

any product through the from the exchange. So I imagine something like a price adjustment Robert would bring to us and then we can discuss it in some committee and then if we need to bring it back to

the board at large. Yep, all good points. Robert, were they looking to move quickly to start selling option? Well, yes, the sooner the better. I mean, like I said, he's only going to be harvesting

till probably December. So I told him I would talk to the board. I mean, basically, the only thing I need to do is come to the board and say, hey, I'm introducing a new item. It's not really a new

item, but you guys say, okay, you're good to move forward with it. And then I would work to him to see if it makes sense in the time that we have before he shuts down to do it now, or to lay the

groundwork for us to start doing it when they open back up in the spring. Yeah, that makes sense. Heather? Yeah, just clarifying. Per Meredith's comment, it's there's no real vote needed, you know, to

approve a seller and Avery can correct me if I'm wrong. But you know, that's essentially up to Robert. And then I think it would it would definitely make sense, Robert for you to work with Matt or the

Fish Exchange Subcommittee on on the pricing structure since it is so different. Sounds good. Thank you, Heather. All right. I don't have anything else. Does anybody have any more comments on this

topic or anything else? They'd like to discuss this on on the agenda. Anybody from the board, anybody from the public going once our next meeting is November 19. It would be great to have the the

strategic planning facilitated meeting before that. So we could discuss some things about it on the November 19 meeting. I think just sorry, excuse me. Um, I think john needs to withdraw his motion.

So it's not out there. Oh, no, I withdraw my motion. Thanks, john. Yeah, I mean, executive session. Yep, I was gonna just suggest Robert come up with a number and run up bias as soon as you can for

how much per pound or per piece to talk to charge a fee for those oysters. So I got to get a motion to go into executive session. Second, I moved to go into executive session. And Kayla helped me with

the wording. Absolutely. So we would be going in pursuant to one MRSA 405 6 F and five MRSA a 13 119 a to discuss proprietary confidential confidential information associated with this lease. Thanks,

Kayla for that john. That was your motion. And I think Tracy seconded it just to correct do a little housekeeping there. Robert, do I need to attend the executive session? Or is that going to be board

members only generally think it is board members only? Yeah, okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. All right. So we have a link another link, right? Yes, but I do need you to do your

roll call first, please. Okay, so motion to adjourn this meeting? No. So we are going to finish our roll call to go into executive session. Because we had a we had a motion in a second. And then once

that happens, we will leave this meeting and we've already noticed the public that we will not be returning to public session. Okay, I'm a yes, Matt. Yes, john. Yes. Chris. Yes. Wes. Yes. Tracy. Yes.

I'm not sure who William is. Is he a board member? Yes, William is a board member. Oh, okay. Yes. Fishfire. Right? Yes. Excellent. Nice to meet you. Meredith. Yes. Was that everyone? It is because it

looks like Brendan probably already skipped over to the executive session. Okay, so this meeting this standard fear authority meeting is ending. We're going to go continue on an executive session. See

everybody there. Thank you.