No details yet on referendum proposal, but Park Board reinstates boating committee to see if marina can succeed

QUINCY — About 35 people from Quincy’s boating community attended the Quincy Park Board meeting Wednesday night to learn more about a possible advisory referendum that could help determine the future of Art Keller Marina.

No plans for the referendum were determined, but boaters learned from Park Board President Mark Phllpot that a boating committee, suspended in June 2023, would be reinstated immediately.

“I recognize that committee at one point was suspended. I wasn’t privy to all that,” Philpot said. “That’s kind of water under the bridge at this point. I’m very much in favor of reaching out and connecting with the boating community. It’s an important dialogue to be had, and I think the boating committee has a vested interest in making sure that the marina succeeds. 

“As a result of that, the way we’ve been doing things may need to change. We may need to change the template. It’s important for us to get together and collaborate, to figure out how we’re going to make the marina successful … to see it not survive but thrive.”

When discussions of closing the marina started in 2022, Commissioners John Frankenhoff and Jeff VanCamp attended an August 2022 meeting with Park District officials and 10 local boaters to discuss long-term and short-term goals for keeping the marina open. 

Another fruitful meeting eventually led to Frankenhoff and VanCamp pledging at the September 2022 Park Board meeting that they would vote for keeping the marina open for two more years. The Park Board voted unanimously at its October 2022 meeting to keep the marina open through 2025.

Jarid Jones and Philpot were named to the Park Board in May 2023, and Jones was elected president during his first meeting on May 10, 2023. Jones soon met with Chris Griggs, a member of the boating committee, and in a May 23, 2023 email to Frankenhoff and VanCamp, he wrote, “After discussing the matter (with Griggs), we have decided to temporarily suspend our involvement with the committee meetings until further notice.”

Philpot said Wednesday he hopes the renewed committee will connect with the boating community to create a “groundswell of support” to improve the marina and make it more marketable.

“I wholeheartedly agree, and I’ll just repeat — that’s what we were doing a year and a half ago,” Frankenhoff said. “Progress was under way. There was a fundraising effort. I think the rug was pulled out from underneath the people who were trying to raise the funds and meet their obligations. We had, I call it, a handshake agreement with that committee. I am glad that (Philpot is) supporting starting that up again.”

Griggs said there was confusion about fundraising timelines. Boaters were trying to raise money to pay for Wifi at the marina to help with security for their vessels.

“There was a bit of a worry about when the funds would be received by the Park District from us,” he said. “We were planning on using our whole boating summer to get that done. It really doesn’t matter at this point, but we kind of went back on what we were going to do. We did present them some money, and we did some sign sales, but we didn’t meet our total goal. When everyone kind of got input on it, it was paused.

“We can continue to work on this and go from there. I know we’ve got a committee that’s willing to get together. We definitely have people who are willing to step up.”

Philpot apologized to the boaters for the stoppage of the committee meetings.

“Your group became disenfranchised. I mean, let’s just call it what it is,” he said. “We want to make sure that we re-establish that connection so we can work together to make this a profitable venture. When I ran to be on this board, I was a major proponent for the marina, and I’ll say it out loud, I want that to continue. But we have to work together.

“We give you our word that we will open that door of dialogue and have those conversations. We are neighbors. Our symbiotic connection is evident. We depend on each other. We need to be there for one another. We need to make this venture strong so we can have a better community so we will continue to have other partnerships like this and make our city a better place to live.”

Figures provided by Brian Earnest, director of business services, for the Park Board’s Aug. 9 retreat showed the marina lost $105,601 last year and has lost at least $30,000 every year for the past 10 years. A capital needs assessment to keep the marina operational, provided by the Park District, suggests $26,000 is needed for water lines and spud poles in the next two years, $50,000 is needed for fuel pumps in the next five years and $330,000 is needed for fuel lines, an ADA-complaint ramp, a refloat dock and a restroom/shower house in the next 10 years.

Commissioners learned at their July meeting that the marina has 111 rented slips this summer, including 11 new renters. The number of slips rented in 2011 was 194. Those figures led the Park Board to consider the non-binding referendum.

They also led to a crowd that filled the conference room in the Park District’s administrative offices and spilled into the hallway.

“Quincy is a river town, and what would a river town be without a marina?” Griggs said. “The local boating community and marina renters have had a difficult stretch over the last 10 years since the Corps of Engineers stopped dredging onto Hogback Island. Floods have caused silt issues both in the bay and the marina. Yet, as a group, we’ve endured. I feel if our Park Board gives up on the Art Keller Marina now, it may be a bit of a premature decision.”

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee gave tentative approval in August 2021 to allocate $33 million to fully fund projects in the Upper Mississippi River Restoration program, including the restoration of Quincy Bay.

The proposal to restore the bay calls for dredging the bay to 10-foot depths. Boaters complained Wednesday night that the current water depth in the bay is a foot and a half. Some reported several large boats recently had passed through Quincy but couldn’t refuel at the marina because of the low water depth.

Frankenhoff asked the boaters at the meeting, with a show of hands, how many of them have had significant problems at the marina due to the shallow water. Nearly everyone raised their hand. 

“How many people feel if there was increased water depth to five feet that not only would your problems be alleviated but other people who are no longer renting will come back?” Frankenhoff asked.

Nearly everyone raised their hand again.

The project area, as proposed by the Quincy Bay Area Restoration and Enhancement Association (QBAREA), starts at the bridge to Quinsippi Island and goes north to Triangle Lake. Rome Frericks, executive director of the Park District, said at the time the project would save the bay, calling it a “game-changer.”

“We’re a couple short years away from seeing a lot of hard work pay off for boating and fishing in our area,” Griggs said. “To give up on that before it gets here would certainly be a sad day for the history of Quincy.”

Dave Grimm, a renter in the marina since 1988, said if the marina were to be shut down, it would be difficult and costly to create a new one.

“We’re looking at developing the rest of this riverfront, and we’re looking at redoing our bay,” he said. “To take that property out of commission, what will it then be turned into? A swamp or a mosquito pit?”

Philpot told the crowd that an advisory referendum is not an opportunity for the Park Board to get rid of the marina.

“In fact, it’s exactly the opposite,” he said. “The goal is to adequately assess what we would call an opportunity to gauge how the community feels … and how they want to proceed In the funding of what moves going forward. It’s a chance for us to take a look at how the taxpayers for the rest of the city want to fund this beautiful resource that we have. It’s not an opportunity to free ourselves from the marina. That’s not the thought at all.”