Summer 2021 Update
Dear Marina Patrons:
I write to offer some updates on the Marina relative to the 2021 season.
Despite repeated attempts by our attorneys to reach common ground with the BHVA Board of Directors (BOD), we continue to be unsuccessful. In the spirit of compromise, we have initiated several settlement attempts spanning the past seven months. Though we have been promised responses to our proposals on several occasions, we’ve heard nothing back thus far.
We want to be clear: we are seeking to protect our property rights so we can properly maintain Marina operations as the business owners before us have done. We have roots in this community and intend to be your neighbor for a long time—we wish to reach common ground. The sparring between parties must end and now (more than ever) is the time to resolve this dispute. I call on the BHVA to join us and proceed in good faith to resolve this matter. The season is upon us and the BHVA BOD’s communications during monthly meetings and through other forums have been successful in damaging our business and reputation.
Our attorneys are working to summarize the current state of affairs for us and we will provide you a more complete update in the near future. In the interim, below are some updates on just a few of the key issues.
LITIGATION
The BOD continues to publish information about the litigation and its positions. We caution you about their statements. There are many inconsistencies that we expect will become more apparent at some future time.
The Marina owns substantial assets at the waterfront and a mutually beneficial partnership needs to be formed.
To be clear, there has not been, and will not be, some rapid growth plan for the Marina by which we add hundreds of new non-residents into the Marina mix.
As stated before, the purpose of the ligation is to protect the Marina’s real property rights and to allow us to operate our business as it has been historically operated. The Marina has always had a healthy mix of non-residents to stabilize the Marina’s costs and membership rates for our primary customers—residents of the BHVA. The litigation was commenced only because the BOD took affirmative efforts to lock us out. Costs are piling up and our legal expenses will have an adverse impact on slip rental rates for years to come if we don’t resolve these matters in the near future.
LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR ELEVATOR AND STAIR REPAIRS
The BHVA needs authorization from the Marina to cross our property for certain elevator and stair repair work.
At the request of a former BOD member, we prepared a draft license agreement over the 2020 Thanksgiving holiday weekend to facilitate that access. For months, the BHVA BOD sent communications to the community suggesting that the license agreement was unfair and inappropriate. On May 19, 2021, our attorney heard from BHVA’s new attorney, and he indicated that he would be providing comments for discussion on the draft early the following week. Weeks passed by without us receiving any comments. Then, on June 4, 2021, the Bristol Harbour community received an e-mail from its BOD indicating that the BOD had signed the document on May 27, 2021, and intimating that I was delayed in counter-signing. Please know I did not receive anything from the BOD with respect to this document until June 9, 2021. The BHVA did not provide comments for discussion. Instead, they modified many of the provisions in the document and tendered it to me for countersignature nearly two weeks after claiming I had delayed. Unfortunately, my desire to grant temporary access to facilitate repairs in a collaborative way has become more cumbersome than I hoped. My attorneys will be responding to the BHVA’s unilateral revisions.
TRAM APPLICATION
As many of you know, I made two submissions to the Bristol Harbour EC to install a tram to serve the Marina, so that the community would have access to the Marina. Despite repeated requests, I have not been provided a hearing as required by the EC’s governing documents. My attorneys and I are working together to determine the best path forward. I would like to restore safe and reliable access to the Marina as quickly as possible so we can all return to some sense of normalcy at the waterfront. While we proposed that BHVA work with us to establish a temporary shuttle to the beach and Marina, we never got a response to that proposal.
We should all be good neighbors, and should not be fighting in court with BHVA over trivial issues. The only people who benefit from that are the lawyers. It is in everyone’s interest to get the Marina open. I stand ready to enter into good faith negotiations with the BHVA to resolve these matters. We ask that you please urge your BOD members to come to the negotiating table with a similar mindset.
In the spirit of compromise,
Jeremy Fields and the Bristol Harbour Marina Team
