Mt. Auburn Associates, a consulting firm working off a $150,000 state seaport advisory grant to advise the city on economic development opportunities in Gloucester Harbor, has obviously been listening to those who work there.
That is good, in a way. But so far, virtually all of what it is telling city officials, they could have heard for free from those same people who have attended hearings and spoken out about harbor and waterfront issues in the past.
The fishing industry, for example, is obviously a shadow of what it once was, largely due to federal regulation. As Gloucester’s own Vito Calomo of the Massachusetts Fisheries Recovery Commission puts it, "They won’t let us fish."