Posted on December 11, 2017
By Will Houston, Eureka Times-Standard
Former longtime Arcata Community Development Director and Eureka-based consultant Larry Oetker has been named the new executive director of the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District.
“I’m just really excited about the projects the harbor district has been working on,” Oetker said Friday. “In my opinion, they have been the leader in the region on bay economic development kinds of projects and I’m just really excited to help them.”
Oetker, 53, said he plans to continue the projects of his predecessor Jack Crider, who retired in October after five years with the district. Oetker said he is also going to hold planning sessions with the board of commissioners and public in the near future to establish priorities for the district and hear the public’s input. Oetker said he also wants to improve public transparency of harbor district business.
“That means putting documents up on the website, just making sure the public is aware of what’s going on out there,” he said.
The harbor district’s five-member board of commissioners voted 4-1 on Thursday evening — with 1st Division Commissioner Larry Doss dissenting — to appoint Oetker. Oetker is set to start in his new position on Dec. 20 and will receive an annual salary of $110,000, according to 4th Division Commissioner Richard Marks.
Marks said he voted to appoint Oetker out of the more than 20 applicants because of his previous experience working with the harbor district with the economic development committee and the Humboldt Bay Development Association, the nonprofit created by the harbor district to purchase the former Freshwater Tissue pulp mill in Samoa in 2013. Marks said they received applications from individuals from across the country as well as from England and Australia.
“I’m just excited because we have a team leader and we’re going to be able to move forward,” Marks said.
Marks said he is hoping to advance dredging projects in Humboldt Bay, specifically at the King Salmon fishermen’s channel and at Woodley Island marina.
Doss said he voted against Oetker’s appointment “due to the lack of experience Mr. Oetker currently has with port management and dredging.”
“Mr. Oetker has many other talents that he brings to the district for positive benefits to the county,” Doss wrote in an email to the Times-Standard on Friday morning. “This is a good time to remind us all of the importance of a working harbor and the ongoing responsibility of sound maintenance to the harbor for boating safety and jobs. Jobs solve most all of the problems in Humboldt County.
“A working harbor shipping goods in and out of the bay is the future for Humboldt that nets the most jobs with the least environmental impact,” he continued.
Like Marks, Doss said that there is an “immediate almost emergency need” for the district to dredge the marinas and channels in the bay that have been clogged by sediment. These projects have been held up in part because of the need to find appropriate places to put the dredge spoils.
“We’re going to be working on a multi-faceted approach for that to try to come up with some innovative solutions, which may involve using the fill for sea level rise adaptive measures and some restoration projects around the bay,” Oetker said.
Oetker said his other priorities are to continue finding tenants for the district’s pulp mill property and warehouses, known as Redwood Marine Terminal II; continue efforts to pre-permit shellfish cultivation areas in the bay; construct a restaurant and fish market to Woodley Island at the location where fishing gear is currently stored; and continue the “good working relationship” with other agencies such as the California Coastal Commission and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that regulate the bay’s activities.
Source: Times-Standard
