Attorney Negotiating With Boat Lines, Meeting Set for February 17

The three Mackinac Island ferry companies are meeting with the City of Mackinac Island to iron out a one-year franchise and set in motion tighter city regulation over the way ferry service to the Island is operated. An open meeting set by the city for Wednesday, February 10, on the matter has been rescheduled to Wednesday, February 17. In the meantime, the discussions will move out of public view while the city’s attorney negotiates with the boat lines. The current franchise expires March 31.

Meeting Wednesday, January 27, the city council resolved to ask the three boat lines to operate from March 15 through January 15, weather permitting. If the three boat lines reach an agreement among themselves that at least one will provide service for the extended spring and winter seasons, then the city will work out individual franchises with each company. That authorization would spell out the time ferry service would be covered by the individual boat companies.

The city is concerned that the three ferry companies that serve it may be running inefficiently, and is debating whether just one or two lines could better serve its needs. A city committee is also mulling whether it should form a Transportation Authority to bring the boat lines under tighter governmental control.

Even before the meeting with the city council, the boat lines will be asked to meet with its attorney. Since the council meeting Wednesday, a last minute Transportation Committee meeting was called Friday morning, January 29. Mike Cavanaugh, an attorney representing the city in the matter, participated by phone and agreed to schedule a joint meeting between himself and boat line representatives, at which time he hoped to get boat company reaction to the one-year franchise and reach a tentative agreement with the three companies based on the city's extended service requirement.

Bob Brown, general manager of Arnold Transit, told The St. Ignace News Monday, February 1, he has no problem with the one-year franchise agreement the city is proposing, since the company has been providing early and late season service for years. He does, however, think the city should work out a subsidy agreement with the other two boat lines and the city then should subsidize Arnold.

"As I've said for the last two or three years, and I've looked to the city, we certainly would like some subsidy when we run this time of year," he said. "Years like this, we definitely lose money. There's no freight, there's no work going on, and there's not many people, but we've done it in the past and we'll always do it. We'll always serve the people of Mackinac Island. Like I've told [Mayor] Margaret [Doud] and everybody else, I'm not going to bust up my equipment. When we start breaking rudders, tearing up gears, or smashing our boat into the ice, that's when we're going to lay up. Other than that, if the ice all goes out tomorrow, I'll start tomorrow."

Chris Shepler of Shepler's Mackinac Island Ferry said he understands the city's concerns and its need for an assurance for early and late season boat service.

"I can see where they're coming from," he said. "There's all these rumors going around that some ferry boats are selling and some aren't, and some are merging and some aren't, and who knows what's really going to happen. I don't think anyone knows. The Island wants to assure its residents that, 'Hey look, don't worry, we will have transportation to and from the Island.'"

Mr. Shepler has legal concerns with negotiating a service agreement with the other boat lines and wants assurances that doing so would not create any legal problems for the company. The company's attorney is looking into the issue, he said.

"I don't think its collusion, because we're not talking about rates, we're talking about working together, and survival, perhaps," he said.

Messrs. Brown and Shepler agree there are inefficiencies in the boat lines, however Mr. Shepler said the city's idea of requiring all lines to run earlier and longer into the season with so few travelers is inefficient.

For the upcoming season, he said, the company has to eliminate its 7:30 a.m. departure out of St. Ignace each morning. The elimination means a total of five boats from the three companies combined would be arriving on the Island before 8 a.m. daily, rather than the six boats that arrived in past years. Each company services Mackinac Island from docks in St. Ignace and Mackinaw City.

"We trying it out," he said. "We're giving it a shot because it has been requested by the city to become more efficient. So we're trying it... I'll drive someone to Mackinac Island in five-foot visibility with fog or 20-foot seas or whatever the case might be, and that doesn't make me nervous. Eliminating a sign on I-75 or eliminating a piece of marketing that we've never eliminated before or eliminating a departure we've never eliminated before, those things scare me more than anything else because you don't know how the traveling public is going to react with those changes."

Representing the third company, Tom Pfeiffelmann of Star Line, was not available to comment for this story.

During Friday's Transportation Committee meeting, Mr. Cavanaugh recommended the city consider contracting with a college management or economics professor, who would conduct a detailed study on the Island's boat service and the franchise system.

"Sometime during this year and probably toward the end of it, some serious changes may be made in the way that the ferry boat franchise system works now," said Mr. Cavanaugh. "There are a number of possibilities that we talked about before, including perhaps having less than three franchises, also including possibly a recommendation that the city consider starting a Transportation Authority."