CFSB Board Meeting Minutes - May 20th, 2025 4PM

 

Attendees: Kim Selkoe, Chris Voss, Blake Hermann, Carew Rice, Bernard Friedman, Sergey Nuzhdin, Jason Woods, Mike Kenny, Gary Burke, Edward Anderson, Ray Kennedy, Kevin Gaines, Hayden Schneider, Jeff Maassen, Harry Liquornik, Mary Nishimoto, Harry Liquornik

Notes: Ava Schulenberg, Carew Rice
 

Agenda:

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

  1. Interns

    1. Carew Rice - Intro

    2. Elliott Murray (starting this summer)

  2. Sunflower Star Lab

  3. Kelp Restoration - Guest Speaker Sergey Nuzhdin

  4. MPA Petition Update - Blake Hermann

  5. Leasing land in Goleta

    1. County’s Energy Minerals & Compliance Director, Errin Briggs, in the SB County Planning and Development Department. Katie Nall is another point of contact in that office. Interested in funding repacking costs

    2. Local Fisheries Contingency Funds 

      1. fishing infrastructure eligibility if we go to the County Board of Supervisors to get support for repurposing it from the gear loss mitigation fund that has not been used.  $360K

    3. Email to members resulted in 3 fishermen that are interested

  6. GoBiz Blue Economy Project Cluster proposals

  7. Status of Ocean Collective project

  8. Status of Kelp restoration project

  9. Ocean Science Trust Fisheries Insurance Workshop Recap

    1. CFSB Minutes

    2. OST Minutes (by request only)

  10. Other -

    1. 2025 Cable Grant CFSB Application (general) Outcomes

      1. CFSB Sat Market Application

      2. CFSB Awarded $20,000

      3. Sat Market awarded $10,500

    2. SB Harbor Vessel Insurance Policy

      1. Hayden Insurance - Recommended by Natasha/Matt Liso

      2. Charlie Bailey with Novamar Insurance - Recommended by Nathan Alldredge of the Waterfront Dept. 

Chris calls the meeting to order at 4:01PM upstairs in the harbor classroom. 

Agenda:

  1. Interns

    1. Carew Rice - Intro

      1. Laguna Blanca senior who will be interning for us over the next couple weeks

        1. He will primarily be helping with admin tasks, cleanups, and some marketing for the Saturday Market

    2. Elliott Murray (starting this summer)

      1. Elliott has been working with CFSB/CLTFA on cleanups over the past year and has been crewing for a variety of fishermen; He will be assisting with social media and cleanups over the summer

      2. If anyone has any questions or ideas of projects for him to work on, please reach out

  2. Sunflower Star Lab

    1. Chris gives a recap about our recent meetings with the Sunflower Star Lab - We’ve met twice with Reuven Bank, who’s their Chairman of their board and is based in SB

      1. Chris gave Reuven an overview of our current kelp restoration project and we discussed the potential for collaboration between their lab and any future projects that we might be working on after this pilot project in years to come; any collaborative efforts between our organizations would likely not take place for a while given the regulatory requirements

    2. Kim said she told Reuven the new Director of the UCSB Marine Science Institute wants to do more around workforce dev in the blue economy and they discussed sunflower star outplanting so she connected them but it will take grant funding to make that happen

      1. Reuven said the Moss Landing location works fine (at least for now)

  3. Kelp Restoration - Guest Speaker Sergey Nuzhdin

    1. Intros: Hayden and Kevin work for Kelp Ark

      1. Kevin is their Director of Operations and primarily works on replanting kelp

      2. Hayden is their outreach and partnership associate

    2. Bernard mentions that they are trying to figure out where to put a kelp farm off coast of Montecito

    3. Kelp farm would be for kelp replanting and also for food

    4. Kelp can be near the sewer outfalls

    5. Sergey was wondering about potential support letters

    6. Jason says we need to see if there are any reasonably arguments for opposition before we vote

      1. Kim and others agree

      2. Chris emphasizes our gratitude for Kevin, Sergey, and Hayden coming and speaking to our members and communicates that we will follow back up when we have more of a definite decision

    7. Gary asks what the next steps are right now

      1. Bernard says he’s hoping to go to Korea soon to scope out their designs and figure out what we can do here

        1. Sergey says they’ve been working with Korea for a few years and they mostly do seasonal approaches 

        2. Bernard says it will be similar to Alaska; he was in Kodiak last year and there’s a company called Greenwave that has a lot of expertise that we can lean on to help with design

    8. Kim asks Sergey about the kelp reproduction cycle and once it starts to reproduce, how long does that last?

      1. Sergey says macrocystis is perennial and you can find it all year long, but most intense in January; this time of year is not super reproductive, you might see an experience of baby blades but those come from spores produced in December or January because the stages move slowly and then explode

      2. Kim asks what the best time would be to clear kelp 

      3. Ray says kelp does well during colder months; for seeding kelp you would want to have it ready right before then

      4. Sergey says kelp needs photosynthesis on top of water and nutrients at bottom so January or early February is ideal for planting


  1. MPA Petition Update - Blake Hermann

    1. Blake gives a general update of things and then dives a little deeper into his personal petition

    2. Slides

      1. Blake gives a high level overview of the petition process (which most of us know by now)

      

  1. Leasing land in Goleta

    1. County CREF office interested in funding fishing infrastructure

    2. Email to members resulted in 3 fishermen that are interested

  1. Mike says he might be interested in about 2 containers worth of space

  2. Ava will send out another email/discuss with fishermen at the Saturday Market this weekend to garner more interest and will report back 

  1. GoBiz Blue Economy Project Cluster proposals

    1. Kim explains that the Central Coast Community Practice for Food Systems (Melanie Wong) submitted the grant application for the 6 Blue Economy projects and then whichever projects are taken to the next round will have to expand upon the preliminary high-level info; this would be funded by the State of CA (the money has already been allocated)

      1. One of the proposals is an internship program for Blue economy businesses (e.g. fishing/processors, etc.) fir ~$800k in collaboration with SBCC

      2. Another proposal involves more kelp restoration projects

      3. The Waterfront Dept. submitted a proposal regarding the ice house

Status of Ocean Collective project

  1. Kim shows the area that could potentially be leased for storage by CFSB (space for about 7 boats and containers)

  2. Idea is raised for potential raft repacking station on the property because there are not many raft packing stations in the state and it could be beneficial to have one here (people would get certified and fisherman could drop their rafts off to get repacked according to Coast Guard specifications)

  1. Status of Kelp restoration project

    1. Kim says UCSB has finished baseline surveys at San Miguel island and the project team has landed on a location at Tyler Bight on the backside

    2. Harry, JJ, and Jeff Maassen and then Jonathan and Trent are the 2 commercial dive boats working on this project and they are paid  $1,500 a day each with a 4 hr minimum of bottom time per trip

  2. Ocean Science Trust Fisheries Insurance Workshop Recap

  1. Heidi from the Ocean Sciences Trust Fisheries Insurance Workshop told Ava that anyone with questions should reach out to her; they are very eager to work together and encourage fishermen to give their input as much as possible as we all navigate through new territory

  1. CFSB Minutes

  2. OST Minutes (by request only)

  1. Other -

    1. 2025 Cable Grant CFSB Application (general) Outcomes

      1. CFSB Sat Market Application

      2. CFSB Awarded $20,000

      3. Sat Market awarded $10,500

    2. SB Harbor Vessel Insurance Policy

      1. Hayden Insurance - Recommended by Natasha/Matt Liso

      2. Charlie Bailey with Novamar Insurance - Recommended by Nathan Alldredge of the Waterfront Dept.

    3. BBC Movie - Ray Kennedy

      1. Ray says he hasn’t seen the full film yet, but he was featured in their recent production “Oceans” that highlights the lobster fishery apparently but bashes bottom trawlers

        1. Gary asks if he talked to any bottom trawlers? Ray says no but we won’t be sharing the film out publicly if it bashes trawlers too harshly; have to see it first before we make any decisions 

 

Kim ends the meeting at 6:00PM upstairs in the harbor classroom.