Minutes

Guemes Island Ferry Committee

With Public Works 7 March 2003

 

 

Meeting Commenced:  1:30 PM

Those Present:

1.       GIFC--- Carl Cady, Glenn Veal, Marilee Fosbre, Dixon Elder, Steve Orsini

2.       Public Works--- Steve Flude, Steve Cox

3.       Berk & Assoc.--- Bonnie Berk, Mike Hodgins

Agenda Items:

1.       Meeting Purpose an Overview –Bonnie Berk

2.       Ferry Operational Issues—haul out schedule, Frequent user Ticket Process to involve the GIFC in issues,  4th crew member, Process to involve ferry committee

3.       Schedule and Fare Task Force update---Flude

4.       Berk & Associates review GIFC “Management Analysis Report” Comments

5.       Review of Draft list of Key Ferry Implementation Plan Issues—Mike Hodgins

6.       Brainstorming and Discussion

7.       Next Steps

Agenda Discussions:

1.       Bonnie Berk reviewed the agenda. The GIFC suggested moving the frequent ferry user ticket in the item 2.   Done

2.       Steve Cox reviewed the process to set 6/2-13/03 for the ferry maintenance schedule. 1) Twelve days in the yard are needed for ferry painting. 2) The last haul out impacted the July 4th holiday with many complaints 3) He contacted school system and they had no concern for kids using the passenger ferry since the school bus on Guemes could hold enough fuel for that period. 4) Scheduling later in the summer was not considered as an option due to summer ridership.  A lengthy discussion followed which included criticism that Public Works had not consulted the GIFC when changing a practice of not scheduling the maintenance on school days, other time periods that might be possible, and the ferry maintenance contracting schedule. Steve Cox indicated that Public Works proposed to move the outage to June 9-20th to provide a buffer period around July4th but the GIFC said this did not resolve the issue. The matter was temporarily dropped

3.       4th Crew Member. The GIFC expressed continued concern that the 4th crew member was a waste of the ridership money and that no change in procedures have occurred. The Committee has sent a letter to PW with their recommendations which included writing a job description and the collection of ridership data. Both Cox and Flude said that their contract with the union would not permit a separate job description for the forth crew member. The GIFC was nonplussed. Steve Flude said that he was working under the directive to solve the state auditor cash handling requirements. The County legal staff had agreed that this interim process that included a 4th crew member as the purser was the only short term solution available. That the task force was expected to develop a long term solution. The GIFC said that this was an ideal situation for Public Works to use a structured problem solving process.

4.       Problem Solving---PW was asked if they or the County had a standard process that they were comfortable in using to solve problems, like the Haul out schedule or the cash handling problem. They said that they did not have such a process. Berk and Assoc. were asked if they had a problem solving process. Bonnie said that they did and that it was common for those businesses what were concerned with “Total Quality” to use that sort of problem solving process. The GIFC suggested that if problem solving process were used instead of “Jumping to Solution” in a crisis management mode that much of the flack that Public Works and the Commissioner get would “go away”.

5.       Frequent user Ticket—the GIFC reviewed a proposal to enforce the “non-transferability of the frequent user ferry ticket. PW was asked to review it with the ferry pursers for any issues. The GIFC would like to have the process in place by May 1st and be able to announce the general content at the March 30 Public Meeting

 

6.       Ferry Haul out Schedule---Steve Flude as the GIFC to select a haul out date. There was more general discussion but no consensus. The group was forced to jump to a conclusion and selected July 8th. Thinking that it was better to not impact the school kid’s safety than the July ferry users.

7.       Task Force Update Commissioner Resolutions update—1) Steve Flude briefly reviewed the resolutions to create the task force. He said that the members would receive a formal invitation to be on the task force once the resolutions were approved. 2) Bonnie Berk opened the subject about task force voting rights. The principal issue was the weight given to two ferry operators on the Task Force. Most were in favor of ½ vote for each ferry operator but in the end Public Works did not want to inform them of this situation. Votes were left at one per member at this time. 3) Meeting schedule and location—Berk said two and one half hours were normal except at crunch time. Having some of the meeting on Guemes was an agreeable idea. Start time was moved for 1:30 to 3:00PM to accommodate GIFC members with jobs. 4) PW will provide secretarial help. 5) Some discussion about the process to get the agenda and materials and previous meeting minutes out to the members prior to the meetings.  Materials will be generated by Berk and Associates and given to the PW Department prior to each meeting.  PW will review the materials and discuss them with Berk and Associates and Glen Veal who will chair the Task Force.  The final documents will be emailed to all Task Force members prior to each meeting. The March 21st meeting will be at the Guemes Community Center and the April 18th meeting at the Anacortes Library (Dixon to conform with the Library).

8.       The group reviewed the Committees responses to the original Draft Analysis prepared by Berk and Associates and the changes made to the document as a result of our feedback.

9.       Steve Flude requested that Steve Cox be invited to attend the GIFC working meetings as a regular member, to facilitate communications between Public Works and the Ferry Committee. The Ferry Committee said that they would consider the request and respond.

10.   The next meeting with PW is scheduled for 2/28 at 2:00-5:00 PM to 1)review the interim ticketing process 2) debrief the Task force meeting and discuss the next meeting 3) continue discussion on how to improve PW and the GIFC working relationship.

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Meeting Adjourned:  5:20 PM