CFSB Board Meeting Minutes - August 24th, 2026 4PM

Attendees: Harry Liquornik, Chris Voss, Jonathan Woodcock, Ed Anderson, Gary Burke, Kim Selkoe, Trent Pettersen, Michael Harrington, Jeff Maassen, Tony Luna, Ben Hyman, Mike Nelson, Dan O’Shea, Jason Woods, Madison Sears, Adriane Michaelis, Jeff Hepp

Notes: Ava Schulenberg

Agenda:

*Housekeeping, time limits, 3 minute maximum policy on individual comments

Erika Tebbens from Local Difference - 15 min
Madison Sears from VIMS - 30 min
Ocean Rainforest follow up
Financials
FCC Update
1. Mike Illenberg
MPAs
Purple urchin removal/kelp restoration project update
1. New site at Carp?
Ocean Collective Update
1. SBCC funding contributions
2. Tribal engagement
3. Apprenticeship program
Steve Owen SBA meeting recap
Lobster tailing FGC recap
Other

Recording: Link

Chris calls the meeting to order at 4:03PM upstairs in the harbor classroom.

Agenda:

Erika Tebbens from Local Difference.org, a marketing firm - 15 min
1. Erika introduces herself as the director of impact and gives some high level info (see slides here); their goal is to improve food access
2. They primarily work with food and beverage businesses across the value chain
  1. 44% of clients expect a $3-10K increase, 30% of clients expect a $10-25K increase, 100% of partners say they’d recommend the Local Difference services to another local food business
3. They support hundreds of businesses with their marketing needs through hands on customized services, strategy, and training
  1. They do a lot of websites (building, refreshing, etc.)
  2. Ecommerce assistance (they have assistance with several platforms)
  3. Branding assistance
  4. Training and education
  5. Subsidized services
4. Examples of their work include stipend distribution to small farms across the country; they have a lot of free marketing materials and have worked with the Local Catch Network a lot
5. [email protected] is her email if you want to reach out to her with any follow up questions/comments please do!
Madison Sears from VIMS - 30 min
1. Kim introduces Madison from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science who has recently completed a port of Santa Barbara economic impact assessment and interviews with some of our local fishermen to gather trends and economic impact info
2. Chris asks if she used CDFW data and she said yes mostly CDFW and Sea Grant data
3. Her goals were to understand the economic impact, threats and opportunities, and local perspectives to better understand community perspectives
  1. Data compilation and analysis, interviews, and economic impact report
  2. Fall 2025 is when this project began, she started interviewing people in the spring of this year
4. Top 5 species identified include lobster (top species in terms of value), urchin, red rock crab, yellow rock crab, sablefish, shortspine thornyhead
5. Rising operational cost and stagnate purchase price attributes to a lot of the primary struggles mentioned by fishermen
6. Individual fishery participants has been on a steady decline (shown in the chart with CDFW permit data)
7. See slides here
8. The average economic multiplier on previously mentioned SB species is ~1.6x; Another way to show post-harvest impact, other than just volume and value. It represents how much more money is spent in the local economy due to the catch, in addition to the dockside value ( e.g., expenditures on fuel, repairs, crew, food, living expenses).
9. In 2024 there were 159 fishermen using the port of SB. Down from ~200 in 2014.
10. Commercial landings dropped by 20% in 2020, and landings revenue of high-value species dropped anywhere between 20-65%
11. Retail sales increased
12. Foodservice seafood sales fell 40% and seafood exports declined by 23%
13. Consensus on impacts from COVID was split, some interviewees had positive experiences with stimulus checks, increased seafood spending, and less competition on the water, some had challenges with marketing etc.
14. Community resilience supported by a wide variety of initiatives in SB
15. Most interviewees mentioned their career path stemming from a love for the ocean and a desire to be environmental stewards
16. “I think our generation is going to change it, hopefully, but it’s been something I’ve been advocating for and something I continue to talk about with people, just bridging that gap between fishermen and scientists.”
17. This project can hopefully be used as a model for additional community-centered advocacy materials
18. Kim says that it’s sad to see the data about declining fishermen and landings and we have to figure out a way to turn it around soon or things will be going down the drain
Ocean Rainforest follow up
1. Chris has been talking to the Coastal Commission about the debris left in the water that has impacted fishermen like Manny
2. Jason also speaks about his conversation with the Coastal Commission staff about the presentation they’re going to make to the full Commission at their September 9th meeting about their request for a permit for the 2000 acres; Today is the deadline for Ocean Rainforest to put their proposal together
  1. Him and Dave Colker met with Kaira and Doug this morning
  2. They wanna pay $16K in mitigation funds (not sure if per year or total) but Jason said he communicated that that is woefully inefficient. They’ve apparently done an economic impact report but they just sent it today so we haven’t seen it yet (apparently rincon consulting did the report). Jason says they want VCCFA to be the holder of any mitigation funds of course since the proposed site is on the Ventura flats
    1. Kim says figuring out the terms of the payments and who qualifies to get them is key
    2. Chris says there needs to be a working economic model for their business; no strong economic model that justifies trading our fishing grounds for a project that may or may not support itself financially
  3. Apparently they’ve given PCFFA $10K for the block debacle to finish up their demo site as a goodwill sort of payment towards general funds that goes towards cleaning up gear
  4. Jason says we oppose but also says maybe they’re the lesser of two evils compared to what other entities could come in and use that space (e.g. Hubbs Sea world finfish)
  5. Chris says according to Coastal Commission staff, if they’re not going to make any money why are they taking our grounds away?
  6. Jason says no chance of a sublease and no chance of a finfish operation in that zone; their permit is very specific to algae growing
3. Kim says Channelkeeper is also against them
4. Mike Nelson says they blew it on their small demo site, badly enough that the Coastal Commission had to do a consistency determination again
5. Kim says they’re already producing kelp in Baja where its cheaper so it doesn’t make sense why they’re still trying so hard to be farming here where its way more expensive
6. Chris says it’s a Farro islands company but they’ve “Registered” as a US business as well but that just seems like a formality on paper to be able to say it’s an american company when it’s really still not

Financials
1. Kim displays the Q2 financials and YTD numbers
2. Column B is where we’re at and column C is the annual budget (see spreadsheet here)
3. Harry makes a motion to approve the CFSB financial statements 6.30.26 Chris seconds, 6-0-0 unanimous approval
FCC Update
1. Mike Illenberg
2. We met with the new Director of the U.S. Office of Seafood recently on an FCC zoom and were able to introduce ourselves and give a high level overview of our biggest issues, etc.
  1. He mentioned that the spiny lobster market crisis has been circulated through his office and the Dept of Commerce and though no action has yet been taken, they are aware of the situation
3. They’re paying Ava to go to Pacific Marine Expo and the young fishermen’s conference adjacent to it in November and continue advocacy work
4. It’s an interesting forum to be a part of on a federal level
5. Chris says the Gulf shrimpers are trying to ban imports of all Chinese seafood, and that will lead to retaliation against lobster. Tony says that’s really interesting to Chris about lobster. Is there a better way to change policy to help us export at a good price but also support a domestic market.
MPAs
1. Recent FGC meeting recap
2. OPC supports Mishopshno
3. Mike talks about the work he’s been doing with PFMC and PCFFA to strategize as we move these things towards a decision in October
4. Kim says we should be working on a letter to the FGC about all of these implications before the October 18th meeting
5. Chris emphasizes that we support the tribes getting access to the existing MPAs
Purple urchin removal/kelp restoration project update
1. Kim says they’ve been working on revising the data sheets and finding another site and training the divers to do monitoring
2. Jonny and Trent are going to Carp Reef tomorrow to dive and assess the spot
3. Kim submitted a $200K grant application for funding to do more at another site
  1. If the Carp reef site doesn’t work out we’ll do a site at the islands because there’s still $100k left
Ocean Collective Update
1. Devin Spencer and Kim created a 90 page report on their status, used some AI to help
2. Tribal engagement
  1. Working with Strategic Earth, first meeting with tribal reps will be in Sept.
3. Apprenticeship program
  1. Ricky wants to retire and the kelp cutter is a good gig potentially to find a successor for through apprenticeships. He wants to train 2 together, and this is a good way to pilot an apprenticeship program. We will try to also find other fishing boats who want to commit to an additional apprentice or two. CFSB will cover some costs.
Steve Owen SBA meeting recap
1. Harry, Ava, and Jeff went on a boat ride with Steve Owen from the Office of Advocacy, Harry learned we’re the only state that pays an export tax on urchins
Lobster tailing FGC recap
1. Ava went to San Diego last month to the MRC and they punted it to March 2027 due to a lack of bandwidth on CDFW’s part
Other

Chris ends the meeting at 5:51 PM upstairs in the harbor classroom.

Commercial Fisherman of Santa Barbara