Thumbnail photo: A voter-approved transiency occupancy tax measure back in 2018 allows the Crescent City Harbor District to continue to pay off the USDA loan that funded the inner boat basin rebuild following tsunamis in 2006 and 2011. | Photo by Gavin Van Alstine After learning that Del Norte County could see more than $1 million in revenue from transient occupancy taxes, District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard brought the Crescent City Harbor District into the discussion. Does the county have to give 2% of its overall 10% TOT to the harbor even though voters in 2018 stated that it should, Howard asked county Treasurer/Tax Collector Barbara Lopez on Monday. “Is it to the point where we couldn’t take back that allocation?” Howard asked. “It’s a question that was brought up to me recently given all the stuff going on down there.” Howard’s query came during the first of two public workshops focusing on Del Norte County’s 2025-26 budget. During her portion of the workshop, Lopez said that Del Norte County has received $757,000 in TOT revenue to-date for 2024-25. She said she expects the auditor-controller to report a total of about $1.1 million in TOT revenue in about two weeks, which is close to her assumption for 2025-26 of $1 million. “We haven’t seen a huge influx of new accounts, but we’re just a tourist destination,” Lopez told supervisors. “I think we’re popular.” Del Norte County’s transiency occupancy tax rate for hotels and vacation rentals outside Crescent City limits is 10%. Of that 10%, 2% has been allocated to the Crescent City Harbor District since a citizens initiative — Measure C — eked out a narrow victory in November 2018. The Board’s discussion on Monday came nearly a week after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula sent tsunami surges into the Crescent City Harbor that damaged H Dock, the “sacrificial dock” that makes up the port’s tsunami-resistant marina. The discussion also comes amid internal turmoil within the agency itself over its finances, whether or not the Harbor District Board of Commissioners is complying with the state’s open meeting law and controversy over the hiring of Harbormaster Mike Rademaker. Howard asked county counsel Jacqueline Roberts to determine whether the county could take back that allocation. “It’s just that I'm getting approached by a lot of folks that are very upset with the direction of the harbor and how money is being spent and allocated,” Howard said. “I just want to be prepared in the future in case something does go crazy — how that money could flow back in the general fund of Del Norte County versus the harbor.” Seven years ago, 54.69% of Del Norte voters approved Measure C, which increased the local hotel tax from 8% to 10% to allow the Harbor District to pay off loans with the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued to repair the marina following tsunamis in 2006 and 2011. Measure C also established a 2% TOT rate for recreational vehicles staying at parks within the unincorporated areas of Del Norte County. According to Lopez, that 2% tax on RV spaces goes directly to the Harbor District. The vote precipitated several lawsuits concerning whether a simple majority vote of 25% was enough for citizens' initiatives to pass. After the 2018 election, then-county counsel Joel Campbell-Blair rounded the vote up to 55% and declared that the measure had passed, BallotPedia reported. Campbell-Blair based his position on a 2017 California Supreme Court ruling in California Cannabis Coalition v. The City of Upland. “… it is the county counsel’s position that, because Measure C was submitted to the electorate by voter initiative, rather than by a local government, a simple majority is sufficient for approval, even though it is a special tax. Measure C has therefore passed,” Campbell-Blair wrote in his statement. On Monday, Auditor-Controller Clinton Schaad told Howard that revenue from Measure C is housed in the county treasury and the Crescent City Harbor District has a system to draw down funds to make its loan payments. “Every year they’re required to show me the payment they made to the [USDA],” Schaad said, mistakenly saying that the loan came to CCHD from the state. “They show me the [payment] and then I reimburse them up to that amount.” However, there was some confusion over whether Measure C was approved through a simple majority. Howard said “a little birdie” told him that the tax measure was approved through a simple majority and “there’s nothing to say that [the revenue] has to go to the harbor.” Former harbor commissioner Brian Stone, who spearheaded the effort to get Measure C approved along with Rick Shepherd, Don McArthur and John Roberts, doubted whether the county could take back the 2% TOT allocation earmarked for CCHD. “That has to be a vote of the people to take the money back,” Stone told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday. “In other words, if I’m not wrong, if the city or the county said, ‘We’re going to take it back’ and they reached the threshold of 66 and 2/3rds or if it was a citizens initiative — if Linda Sutter, say, were to start one and puts it on the ballot and if enough people vote to take that money back, yeah they could do that.” Norma Williams, chapter president of the Del Norte County Employees Association Local SEIU 1021, said the Board of Supervisors should consider increasing the TOT rates, pointing out that rates in Humboldt and Siskiyou County were 12 percent. Williams said she was also surprised to hear that 2% of that TOT goes to the Harbor District. “If you do consider increasing it, I think we should get the whole pie,” she said. In an updated press release on Tuesday, Rademaker said the tsunamis that struck early the morning of Wednesday and lasted into Thursday wrought nearly $1 million in estimated damages. Those damages were mostly to docks’ potable water and fire suppression lines as well as its electrical systems. The tsunami may also have left a significant sediment deposit behind, requiring extensive dredging to “restore operational capacity of the harbor navigation channels,” Rademaker stated. No vessels were damaged and there were no injuries as a result of last week’s tsunami. Rademaker attributed this to the tsunami-resistant inner boat basin.