Notes from 1/27/24 Excessive Wake Workshop

The bullet point list below represents my notes as scribe from the 1/27/24 Excessive Wake Workshop. It was not my intent to be a stenographer, thus not everything said is listed below. Additionally, many comments were duplicative.  In such situations, I was not trying to count the number of times a comment or comment theme was made as I was not trying to count votes for particular opinions.  The workshop was not intended, nor announced as an opportunity to vote.

If you believe that I missed an important point, please email me at my board email address so that I may include such an omission. My intent as the scribe was to be objective when I wrote my notes.  Hopefully my notes are interpreted in that fashion.

For sake of organization and utility, I separated the comments into three categories…1) comments that spoke directly to excessive wake that could be considered without the need ( in my opinion ) for a by-law or rules and regulation change…..2) comments made that would require a by-law or rules and regulation change….and 3) comments worth capturing even though they did not have a direct link to excessive wake.

Most all comments below are listed in the order in which they were brought to the floor.

1) Comments captured that directly spoke to our desire to implement the recently balloted upon excessive wake rule and regulation:

* Photos won’t work to define or appropriately capture an excessive wake occurrence (the captured graphic of the wake is not measurable).

* Rule as written is sufficient.

* Much of the issue can be solved with education and smart boating. * Seawalls are issue relative to creating harm from excessive wake.

* We need to control / educate boaters on our lake speed limits and their actual rate of speed to ease excessive wake damage.  In many cases, this is a younger person issue (/as opposed to adults).

* The balloted rule was not vetted properly.

* Revisit “No wake before 10:00 am” rule change proposal (perhaps we need to revisit all of our lake time slots for improved utilization). * Seems like the rule is impossible to enforce.

* The rules committee should define excessive wake. It is their job to do so.

* What is excessive wake?

* Educate, educate, educate.

* The rule is enforceable.  Other lakes are enforcing excessive wake rules.

* There is not much time to settle this issue because the boating season is quickly approaching.

* Rule implementation should focus on the first two words…” Negligent operations.”

* Need buoys for guidance.

* Negligent operations means “without due caution.”

* If one is operating his watercraft according to state and lake rules and doing so in a safe manner, one should not be in violation of creating an excessive wake.

2) Comments made that would require a by-law change or rule and regulation change:

* If receive 1st boating citation, need to attend a safety class.

* Maybe 100 feet from shore is too close.

* Balloting should include / be weighted according to knowledge of the topic and ILPOA seniority.

* We need a certification class that is ILPOA specific.

* Do we know when a boat is on plane or ploughing?  We should not allow ploughing.

* CARE Committee should be elected positions, not appointed positions.

3) Comments made not directly related to excessive wake rule, but (in my opinion), worth capturing for further contemplation:

* The rules committee should look for volunteers and only consider legally enforceable changes.

* We need more stump time for proposed by-law and rules and regulation changes to better understand the issues and different points of view.

* We need a small boating seminar (different than the Hi-Way Patrol seminar).

* This meeting and meeting like this are just making noise.

*We need more meeting like this so we can learn from each other and have a chance to voice our thoughts.

* How do we all enjoy the lake?

* The most important issue is what kind of boat we can’t buy (to use on the lake)?

* Perhaps after a by-law or rules and regulation change becomes effective, a community wide comment period could be offered. 

* We need a cross sectional meeting to deal with all related boating issues.

* How can CARE better communicate meeting agendas and minutes and then allow for the community to ask questions.

* Our lake is not deep enough or wide enough for some water sports.

* Excessive wake and specifically the boats designed to create larger wakes are causing shoreline erosion.