City Council Meeting~

Last Night: Shirley Jones once again gave a moving speech to City Council in favor of rebuilding the Deep Creek pier. Though the meeting ran long, she patiently waited until her name was called. The applause for her effort was great. Her speech follows.
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Good evening, Mayor Frank and Council Members. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you.

My name is Shirley Jones and I have lived in our present Woodmere neighborhood since 1957. My husband and I have raised three children who have become good members of society, and I would like to leave my 3 children and 16 grandchildren a legacy of integrity.

I feel that the elected members of the City council from the central district and the City of Newport News have failed to live up to their words and deeds in the matter of Warwick County to honor all agreements, and there was an agreement with the Melzer family to keep the pier in good condition for all citizens and the watermen, just as there was with the Federal Core of Engineers and the state. I understand that the City of Newport News has accepted money from the state to keep the pier in good repair. Instead you have torn it down. You have failed to honor your agreements with The County of Warwick, with the State of Virginia, with the United States Federal Government and last but not least, the people who elected you, the citizens of Newport News.

I am deeply disturbed by our total lack of consideration for the watermen of this Hampton Roads Area. I consider myself at fault for not studying the history sooner and standing in defense of the watermen and citizens affected by the actions of Council. We have taken away their promised free protected area to dock their boats and given it to businessmen and what i call “fat cats.” The watermen are not fairly represented here because they go to work between 2 and 3 am. They are sleeping now so they can get up to go to work tomorrow!

I was at the City Council meeting when six of you voted to rebuild the Deep Creek Pier, only Mayor Frank dissented. He is the only one with a distant relative who would be affected by rebuilding the pier and rebuilding the boat ramp and returning the rightful parking property to the citizens of Newport News.

I suggest you fund the rebuilding of the pier with the two hundred thousand plus designated for performing arts, the Ferguson Center and the Yoder Barn.

I urge you to consider the future of your own children and grandchildren and the legacy you are leaving – will it be one of supporting integrity?

Too many crabs, not enough workers

Source: dailypress.com
By Scott Harper/ Virginia-Pilot
July 25, 2008

Lacking foreign help, processing plants have to limit intake, hurting the rest of the industry.

HAMPTON – John Graham has been buying crabs and selling their sweet white meat from a plant on the Hampton waterfront for decades. He officially is retired but on Monday was working and steaming crabs — for free — worried that the family business might not survive.

“I keep running the numbers, and I just don’t see how they can keep it going,” Graham said during a break, his T-shirt soaked with sweat.

He described a three-headed threat to his company, Graham & Rollins Seafood Inc., and to the Virginia crab industry as a whole. The threats, like a perfect storm, struck at the same time this summer:

• A shortage of foreign workers, brought on by national concerns about illegal immigration

• Market pressures from cheap and imported crabs, which increasingly are replacing locally caught crabs at restaurants, grocery stores and packing houses

• Strict new rules designed to protect dwindling crab populations in the Chesapeake Bay.

For the first time in years, the company has declared a “No Market” status. “I honestly can’t remember the last we did this,” Graham said.

The declaration, announced to a stable of local watermen who catch crabs for Graham & Rollins, “basically means we can’t buy any more crabs, so the guys might as well stay home,” said his son, Johnny Graham, a company vice president.

At this time last year, more than 100 laborers, mostly from Mexico on temporary work visas called H2-Bs, picked through piles of crabs at the Hampton plant. This summer, without the visas, the company has mustered just 18 workers.

“We’ve got plenty of crabs — I’m getting calls all day asking if we want to buy more,” the senior Graham said. “We just don’t have anyone to pick them.”

The same labor shortage is hampering operations at the few remaining crab-processing plants in the state, according to Graham and other merchants. There used to be dozens of plants around the Chesapeake Bay, but today only a handful remain.

The labor shortage has become so acute that Graham is weighing an option of shipping Virginia crabs to Mexico for picking, then flying them back to Hampton for sale.

Without enough products to sell, the crab industry is being undercut by cheap imports, mostly from Indonesia, China, Malaysia and Mexico.

Crab meat produced in these countries is comparable in quality to bay crabs, is more abundant and sells far below domestic prices, according to merchants.

David Bell buys Chesapeake Bay crabs directly from watermen, mostly on the Eastern Shore, and sells them to seafood markets and processing plants throughout the state.

Bell said fewer and fewer watermen are catching crabs these days, given the high costs of fuel and increasing frustration with state regulations. The result, he said, has been a “huge run of crabs the last few weeks, more than we can even sell.”

“The funny thing is — if any of this can be considered funny — is that the governor keeps saying the bay’s empty of crabs,” Bell said. “Well, I got news: It’s not.”

Greg Finney, an Eastern Shore waterman, said there are so many crabs to be had in the lower bay, and so few packing houses ready to accept them, that he has been working under “basket limits” for more than a month now.

In short, he explained, merchants are imposing daily quotas on watermen because of a glutted marketplace.

Back in Hampton, Graham hopes Congress again will allow seafood processors to hire foreign workers in picking houses. They had been coming to Hampton for 11 years, staying May to December — until last year.

An exemption granted to local processors did not survive in Washington, where lawmakers wanted to tackle immigration reform as a whole. But no reform package emerged, and Graham was left to hire local workers.

“Before, our pickers would bring their kids in, and they would learn how to crack claws, how to pick crabs,” Graham said. “Now, they’re learning how to do computers. They’re just not interested in this job anymore.”

He then chuckled wryly to himself.

“And that’s why I’m in here today, working for free,” Graham said.

Putting Watermen Out Of Business

Source: dailypress.com

August 1, 2008

I’m captain of the fishing vessel Sea Rambler, treasurer of the Coastal Virginia Watermen’s Association and a Merchant Marine officer. Currently I am flat broke! This year alone I have seen the end of the Chesapeake Bay watermen.

There are no jobs to be found other than part-time or minimum-wage. To keep fishing, I have to pay $4.50 to $5 a gallon for fuel. That adds up to $700 a week in the boat, $150 in my truck and $30 for oil. I cannot afford to leave the dock!

Year after year, month after month, I and others like me come to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to defend our livelihoods, only to be pushed around and slowly by law put out of business.

With no outside help, we’ve endured. Now I just don’t see that happening anymore. It used to be one or two watermen here and there, but now there are 10- to 20-some watermen leaving the bay.

Loss of the crab-dredge fishery was a hard blow, with five months of no work; also with rumors of the VMRC taking away my crab pot and peeler licenses, and now restricting charter boat licenses, this is adding more insult to injury. Our careers are facing annihilation.

So I beg the VMRC to stop this madness. The condition of the bay is not our fault. Start looking elsewhere before pointing the finger at us.

Lee R. Smith
Hampton