Members of the committee, who have spent several nights coming up with fee schedules, were told by First Selectman Bob Blagden their job isn't to raise all the money needed to support the waterfront.

Referring to the last town meeting when residents voted not to appropriate $8,000 for the waterfront (and voted to raise mooring fees to make the waterfront more user supported) Blagden said, ``I don't think it was ever the intent of the townspeople not to support this facility.''

Blagden pointed out that many different groups of people -- not just boaters -- use the waterfront.

``The entire town voted to build this pedestrian pier. The town still needs to have responsibility for what is there. Asking one small segment of the population (boaters) to pay for the whole thing isn't fair,'' Blagden said.

While waterfront committee members had recommended the selectmen charge fees for launching boats (separate rates for commercial haulers, residents, and non-residents) vendor space, storage of worm cars, and per-foot dockage use, Blagden said all these fees could generate as much as $30,000.

Blagden said it was never his understanding that the committee should try to generate a profit. With the carry over funds and projected mooring fee revenues, Blagden said the committee only needs to raise about $3,000.

Waterfront committee member Don Jones said, ``This clarifies it a lot. If we had known we only had to raise $3,000 I think we would have come up with a different set of fees.''

``I guess there was a little bit of miscommunication here,'' Blagden said.

In the area of charging different rates for vendors, Blagden said he thinks $800 for the Maine Coast Railroad is too high.

``It's unfortunate that the railroad has become part of the waterfront'' in terms of fee proposals, Blagden said. While he understood the committee's recommendation to charge more for the ticket booth space than for open spaces, Blagden said ``it's important that we not drive them away...''

The group discussed the difficulty in collecting fees, speculating on how well an honor system might work.

A public hearing on all the fees will be held on waterfront fees on Tuesday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the municipal building.