Removal of derelict boats continues despite protests
Despite calls from activists to stop seizing boats, the Richardson Bay Regional Agency is continuing its transition plan to clear the water of derelict vessels.
Harbormaster Curtis Havel said four vessels were seized last week. He said all the boats were considered unseaworthy, unoccupied and marine debris.
However, Haley Allen said one of the seized boats was her a possession-filled home when it was towed to the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers yard to be crushed on Thursday in Sausalito.
Allen, a 26-year- old living on
the anchorage, said the boat was filled with irreplaceable items that were given to her by her brother who died unexpectedly in February. She was able to recover some of the items from Xtra Virgin, the 28-foot sailboat, on Monday. Some of Allen’s possessionswere ruined by bilgewater that poured into the boat’s cabin after it was placed on its side in the yard.
“All the nastiness dumped all over the inside of boat and all over my stuff,” she said.
Havel denies Allen occupied the boat or that it was an unlawful seizure. He said it was not seaworthy, it was being used for storage and was registered to another person. The registration
was also out of date. Havel said he left information attached to Xtra Virgin twice over many months before the boat was removed. Havel believes she was living in another boat anchored on Richardson Bay.
“I posted it as ‘marine debris’ and did not touch it for a couple weeks,” Havel said.
Allen said the boat is a gift from her uncle. She said she was living on the boat, but was frequently on land in recent weeks to tend to her elderly mother, a Sonoma resident now living in a hotel amid threats from wildfires in the North Bay.
While on her boyfriend’s boat, which is about 100 feet away, she
said she was putting on her boots to clean the outside of her boat when she saw Havel, deputies from the Marin County Sheriff Office and Coast Guard officials towing it away.
Allen said she and her boyfriend hopped in a skiff and followed them to the yard.
Havel confirmed the vessel was seized, adding Sausalito police officers also assisted with the tow while Allen was in pursuit.
“She was screaming at me,” he said. “She said there are some belongings on the vessel she wants to retrieve, so I talked to the guy who runs the shop and he was willing to let her enter the yard.”
Though glad to get some of her possessions back,
Allen said she had to hire a taxi to get her possessions from the Army Corps of Engineers yard to the public dock at Turney Street, where she could load up and take her things to her boyfriend's boat.
“Almost everything I had was on that boat,” she said. “All I had was $25 for a cab. … It was really degrading.”
She said she was hardpressed to find a marina with an open slip or one she would be able to afford. In themeantime, she is with her mother in the hotel.
She said that seizing boats during the pandemic shows that neither the RBRA, nor the harbormaster care about the safety of people anchored on the water.
Havel and the RBRA disagree. Agency officials state they are clearing the waters for safety and environmental reasons while also trying to get people who qualify into Section 8 housing. Havel is also trying to sign them up for the Safe and Seaworthy program, which provides temporary legacy status to people who were counted in the August 2019 census of the anchorage.
San Rafael Director of Homeless Planning and Outreach Andrew Henning was hired by the agency to conducted a “by name” outreach program. He said about 100 people are living in county waters, and about three people are on track to getting a Section 8 housing voucher.
Henning said about 12 people are considered in the high- priority group for aid.
“They have the most acute health needs,” he said. “We are really trying to work with local service provides like the Downtown Street Team, St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Ritter Center and the Marin Housing Authority. We plan to get folks into permanent housing, but it's slow going a lot outside of our control.”
He said each county is assigned a certain amount of housing vouchers from the federal level. Marin has about 1,200 vouchers, and he estimates that the waiting list is easily over 10,000.
“The demand is huge,” he said. “The countywide homeless population in 2019 was about 1,000.”
There is still no finalized date to clear the bay of vessels. RBRA chairman Jim Wickham said inspections of vessels who qualify for the seaworthy program begin Oct. 15.
Despite the allegations of cruelty, Havel said he is concerned about the safety of people living on inoperable boats who could not navigate to safety in a storm.
“Winter is coming,” Havel said. “We are trying to get the unoccupied boats that are inoperable vessels out of the water so we don't have an incident like last year when we had boats going adrift during a storm.”
He said six vessels arrived in Richardson Bay over the last 10 days, adding that most are inoperable marine debris. He's put a 72- hour notice on each one.
Havel said there are about 133 vessels anchored out on RBRA waters. He said about 100 are occupied, 20 of those are operable and the rest are unseaworthy.
As part of a social justice movement to stop seizing boats frompeople who live on Richardson Bay, a small group of activists and people anchored out on the bay organized a march to Havel's home in Novato on Friday.
“We're standing up against the normalization of police violence and evictions of extremely poor people living on Richardson Bay and across Marin during the pandemic,” Tam Equity Campaign founder Robbie Powelson said. “Haley is one of the people being terrorized by the RBRA.”
During the protest, he said Novato police officers arrived and then left after it was deemed peaceful.
Havel watched the protest through security cameras from inside his home. He said he was aware of the plan sinceWednesday, adding that his family was in a safe location.
“It's super frustrating,” he said. “I wish Robbie would take all that energy and angst and ask ‘ what can I do for these people', instead of standing out in front of my house. That doesn't do anything. … I encourage to reach out to me. My phone open.”
The group left signs with the names of people who have had their vessels seized, about eight signs were left on his front yard.
Enforcement of the anchorage is not just limited to the RBRA.
Sausalito police Chief John Rohrbacher said the city pulled out of the agency in 2017, but it still provides assistance when requested by Havel or during severe weather events to prevent vessels from breaking loose, running aground and threatening private property.
Seventy-four boats were anchored out in waters governed by the city in 2017. Now, only nine remain, Rohrbacher said. Of those, seven are occupied and two are unoccupied. He said one of the occupied vessels is considered unseaworthy, adding “any new vessels that appear in our waters are immediately warned to leave within 72 hours.”
Unlike the RBRA, Rohrbacher said the city has not seized any vessel for destruction since September 2019.