Sausalito and Marin County leaders have been dealing with the issue of less-than-seaworthy — and potentially polluting — boats, some with otherwise unhoused people living on them, for a number of years. But things really came to a head in the pandemic, and one confrontation ended with the harbormaster getting bear-sprayed.

The incident happened in July 2020, and as the Marin Independent Journal reported, Harbormaster Curtis Havel approached the boat of then 30-year-old Kimberly Susan Slater, who was living on the anchor-out in Richardson Bay. Around 11 am on a Tuesday morning, Havel went to deliver a package of information to Slater, as he was to other boats in the anchorage, and after he apparently bumped her boat, Slater bear-sprayed him in the face, apparently emptying an entire can to do so.

Last month, a jury acquitted Slater of felony assault, finding her guilty instead of misdemeanor assault and delaying a public officer.

Slater's defense attorney argued that Havel had not followed proper procedure to alert Slater of his presence outside the boat, while the prosecutors argued that Slater knew exactly who Havel was, and acted out of anger over the ongoing situation with anchor-outs in the Bay. Havel was, in fact, delivering a packet of information about the county's intention to evict the boat-dwellers and remove derelict vessels.

Slater, now 34, was sentenced Wednesday to probation and to 100 hours of community service. As Bay Area News Group reports, Marin County Judge Kevin Murphy also ordered Slater to take an anger-management course.

During her sentencing, prosecutors noted that Slater had not shown any remorse, and that she continued to use social media to encourage other anchor-outs to "resist" the Richardson Bay Regional Agency and other law enforcement authorities trying to evict them.

Havel testified at the trial, and told the jury that Slater remained illegally anchored in the Bay, five years after this incident.

"I feel angry, I feel hurt, I feel abandoned by a system I spent my career believing in," Havel testified, per Bay Area News Group.

Havel, who became harbormaster in 2019, resigned from the job in 2021 not long after one of these anchor-out boats exploded in Richardson Bay, injuring its sole occupant. That boat, which was not seaworthy, had likely exploded due to propane leaking into its bilge, which got ignited by a spark, Havel said at the time.

Photo via Richardson Bay Marina