Gloucester's Fish to Plate program gets $500,000 more to buy local fish for food banks, the Fisheries Commission hears

A state program that buys Gloucester fish for food banks has been renewed for $500,000, the Fisheries Commission heard on Thursday, Oct. 29. The first round spent $300,000 and ended in June.

Chair Angela Sanfilippo was absent, and the commission had no minutes to approve because it had not had a quorum at its last two or three meetings, a member said. It had one on Thursday. The meeting at the harbormaster's office on Harbor Loop ran 52 minutes, and the only vote was to adjourn.

What happened

• Fish to Plate, a UMass program paid for with state emergency food money, bought $300,000 of fish in its first round and has been approved for another $500,000. The first delivery has already gone out.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture told a state fisheries meeting it plans to buy more locally caught seafood than the pollock, redfish and haddock it buys now. There are no details yet.
• Councilor at large Patti-Ann Page, the council's liaison to the commission, briefed members on the $132,000 HarborWalk sign grant she voted against on Oct. 27 and on the $3.4 million St. Peter's Marina rebuild, which does not include the hoist lobstermen asked for.
• A federal $8 billion fuel assistance program for farmers and fishermen is taking information online. Members called the form burdensome and urged fishermen to fill it out anyway.

Fish to Plate

The program works like this, as the commission described it. A buyer at Fisherman's Wharf Gloucester watches the auction for good, low priced species such as gray sole, hake and monk tails, pays the boats the auction price plus 50 cents a pound, processes and freezes the fish in one and two pound packages, and sells it to the Boston area food bank at $7 to $9 a pound for distribution to pantries. The packages carry the vessel's name and the landing date. A Boston processor is helping at a margin of a couple of cents a pound.

A member asked whether the program and the new federal purchases would compete and drive up prices. The answer was no: Fish to Plate takes the best low priced fish available that day, whatever the species, while the federal program buys set species. "They are not competing," a member said.

The HarborWalk grant and St. Peter's Marina

Page said she was the lone no vote, 8 to 1, when the City Council accepted the $132,000 Massachusetts Downtown Initiative grant on Oct. 27. The grant pays for more wayfinding signs, sidewalk markers, small directional signs and 10 art installations along the HarborWalk. She told the commission the first phase bought five signs for about $170,000, or $33,800 a sign by her count, using $65,000 in federal pandemic recovery money, a $40,000 federal grant, $30,000 in Community Development Block Grant money, a $17,000 installation grant, $12,000 from the tourism budget and $5,200 in city funds. Block grant money is meant to benefit low and moderate income residents, she said, and the new grant application says the community development department will set aside part of its annual block grant for upkeep of the signs.

She said she filed a public records request for the application and got it the morning of the council committee meeting. Nothing has been bought or contracted yet, and the city has promised public meetings on the art. The economic development coordinator told the council on Oct. 27 that most of the new signs are away from the waterfront and that the sidewalk markers would be designed with waterfront businesses.

On St. Peter's Marina and the town landing, Page said the city has $2.7 million plus $700,000 in matching funds to rebuild everything, but the plan does not replace the hoist that used to lift traps and bait. She and several lobstermen have asked for one, she said, and she called a landing without a hoist "a generic gentrified project" that could be turned over to recreational boats. About 12 or 13 lobster boats use the landing. Members asked whether the lobstermen could speak with one voice when the design is reviewed.

About three weeks ago, she said, the harbormaster put notices on boats at the landing about traps stored there before Nov. 15, the date the city allows trap storage to begin. She said she has heard talk that the new decking will be too sensitive for traps at all.

Page also said an Army Corps of Engineers plan to lift the federal channel designation in Harbor Cove, which would let commercial boat owners extend their floats, needs $120,000 for a survey and is on hold for lack of money.

Fuel help and other business

The commission heard that the federal government is floating an $8 billion fuel assistance program for farmers and fishermen. The online form is not an application yet; it asks how much fuel a boat burns, catch per gallon and engine hours. Members said the form looks designed to discourage people and that $8 billion spread across the country would not go far, but agreed fishermen should fill it out and use the comment box to say the questions are unnecessary.

A member who fishes inshore said midwater trawlers took mackerel on Stellwagen Bank this fall under a 200,000 pound daily limit, which alarmed people because it was so close to shore. The boats were legal, dockside monitors found a clean fishery with almost no herring, and the fish moved off after a storm, he said.

The next meeting date was not set.

Where to find the records

• Agenda for the Oct. 29 meeting.
• October 2026 Past Meetings, where the city posts the Zoom recording.
• Fisheries Commission members.

Earlier coverage: Gloucester keeps the same tax split for homes and businesses, 8 to 1 (Oct. 28), the council vote on the HarborWalk grant; and Gloucester lobstermen can't stack traps on St. Peter's Landing before Nov. 15 (Oct. 17), the Waterways Board on the landing.

How we did this: Cape Ann Current watched the meeting online on the city's recording. No votes were taken other than to adjourn. These are our meeting notes, not the commission's minutes.