BHI Property Owners' Letter to NC Utility Commission

July 24, 2022 Charlotte Mitchell Chair, North Carolina Utility Commission 4325 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-4300 Dear Chairwoman Mitchell: We are writing as Bald Head Island property owners concerned about the cost, reliability, and safety of ferry transportation services to and from the island. We support the petition that the Village of Bald Head Island recently filed with the Commission asking that the parking and barge operations located at the Deep Point ferry terminal in Southport NC be regulated along with the BHI passenger ferry.

The Deep Point parking facility, barge and passenger ferry are essential components of a single transportation system that serves only one market: BHI. Few would bother to park at Deep Point if the passenger ferry did not run, just as few would bother to park and get on the passenger ferry if the barge did not transport goods needed to sustain the BHI community. The system also is a commercially-owned monopoly which BHI property owners, visitors, workers and service providers have no choice but to use; it should be regulated as such.

Recently, the transportation system’s current owner, Bald Head Island Limited, announced that it intends to sell the system to SharpVue Capital, a small private equity investor. We urge the Commission to act on the Village’s petition before any sale of Limited’s transportation assets are finalized. A change in ownership will not diminish the need to regulate the system as a whole. Failing that, we are concerned that the current system will be broken up with the less profitable regulated passenger ferry and the exceedingly profitable unregulated parking and barge components sold off to different owners.

We do not believe that breaking up BHI’s transportation system is in the Island’s best interest, particularly if the regulated passenger ferry were left to operate on its own, and different owners of the currently unregulated parking and barge monopolies were free to set rates at whatever level they believe the market will bear. A far better, and more efficient outcome would be for the Commission to regulate the entire system and allow a single commercial operator to earn a fair rate-of-return on its investment; no more, no less.

Respectfully yours, // Signatories// cc: Mr. Chris Ayers, NC Utility Commission Public Staff Mr. Krishna Rajeev, Director Transportation Rates Division, Public Staff