Old Harbor is next for destruction
Featured letter


Harbormaster Chris Willi and the Block Island Harbors Department's
proposal to eliminate anchoring in Old Harbor's "Outer Basin" and
fill it with docks is wrong for so many reasons it makes my stomach
sick. Anyone taking the time to read this letter realizes that Block
Island's Old Harbor is completely unique. It's an anomaly in
boating, with nothing else like it in the entire Northeast, and
probably the entire East Coast.

Nowhere else can boaters anchor at will in a perfectly protected
harbor, with such convenient access to shoreline and a picturesque New
England town. Old Harbor, like the rest of Block Island, is a
one-of-a-kind place that truly needs to be preserved.

While everyone is focused on the proposed "land grab"/marina
expansion in New Harbor, the Harbors Department has decided to join the
fray, as one of the greedy developers, permanently taking open space
away from free public access. Why would the Harbors Department want to
become Block Island's latest big marina developer? Is Chris Willi
really the "Burger Meister Meister Burger"?

By severely limiting the boats in Old Harbor, and gobbling up the
ever-decreasing boater dollars for themselves in the form of expensive
slip fees, the Harbors Department will be removing hundreds of tourists
from patronizing New Shoreham's shops and restaurants. And they will
deprive local businesses of thousands of dollars each weekend that will
no longer be spent buying hats, dinners and ice cream. Does the Harbors
Department have a beef with the local shop owners too?

The Harbors Department needs $3.3 million to fund all its development
projects. It is counting on 50-percent occupancy during the entire
90-day boating season. But here's a little refresher from Tourism
101: boaters come to Block Island on Saturday and Sunday.

So while your marina may be full part of the weekend, Sunday night
through Thursday will be nearly empty. This means the expected revenue
from these projects will be a fraction of what the public is being
told. And after the "true" cost for these projects turns out to be
significantly higher than the initial estimates (see Reality 101 for
this fact), it's easy to figure out what residents will ultimately
end up paying, in some form or another.

Add to this the prohibitively high gas prices at the fuel dock and you
may not even fill the slips Friday or Saturday. Anyone in Old Harbor
last Labor Day knows how the $3.50/gallon gas prices already freed up a
lot of room to anchor. And did I mention the proposed $4/foot slip
fees? Councilor Ned Connelly is somehow convinced revenue will
"skyrocket" with these changes. Someone give Ned a pinch, he's
fallen asleep and is late for his shock therapy.

My family owns one of the boats that Chris Willi publicly complains
"anchors haphazardly... in the outer basin." We are the
"riff-raff" that Councilor Ned Connelly wishes would
"disappear," and that Second Warden Sisto wants to "better
control." Hmmm, I didn't realize the Nazis had taken over Old
Harbor.

Yes, we are the evil, loathsome tourists that the Town Council, the
warden and the Harbors Department despise. We are people that raft
together with our friends. During the day we swim in the harbor, dinghy
around and play on the beach. The kids on our raft spend hours catching
crabs using hot dogs as bait. They have a yellow bucket that they hold
the crabs in and when that bucket gets full, they use a red bucket and
sort the crabs by type and size, until I dump them back into the harbor
so the whole process can start all over again.

These are the things my kids talk about even now in the dead of winter.
They are the memories that will be forever lost with Willi's plan for
complete development of Old Harbor.

In public meetings this group of unchecked elites tries to cloak its
desire for control. They play the "safety card," knowing full well
that boaters are willing to accept the additional risk associated with
spending time aboard their boat. They promise huge revenue streams by
exploiting the Northeast's most unique boating destination, with
numbers that clearly don't add up. In the secrecy of the dead of
winter when they think no one is watching, they are trying to sanitize
the very character that makes Block Island so special.

Yes, Old Harbor on the 4th of July is no "Kingdom of Du Lac." There
are lots of boats. There is music, and yes, even people drinking beer.
The whole harbor rafts together in one of the only places this can
still be done. Everyone gets along, and people work out their own
problems without the need for Chris Willi's hired gun. But covering
the surface of Old Harbor with more dock space will eliminate free
access to this resource forever. The Harbors Department's vision is
one of greed and control, and not one that preserves the unique nature
of Old Harbor.

My hope is that everyone reading this understands what's happening
- people with dollar bills in their eyes are transforming Block
Island from "one of the last best places" into one big profit
center. Allowed to continue, Block Island will still be there, but
"Block" will cease to exist.

Dan Farnsworth

North Kingstown, R.I.