Lake docks, roads draw angry crowd
Staff writer
Monday’s county commission meeting brought 36 observers and people to speak at the meeting.
Most were there to discuss issues with streets and docks at the county lake.
“I was asked to come in to discuss the vandalism of the docks that has gone on the last two or three years,” lake superintendent Isaac Hett told commissioners.
Residents who own private docks told commissioners they have had problems with vandalism, littering, and unwelcome people using their docks.
One dock owner owns a dock on the far side of the lake. He put up a camera, and on Saturday alone, it showed 18 people using his dock.
He wants to be able to put a gate on his dock.
“We have spent a lot of money on that dock, and it’s time to do something about it,” he said.
A woman said she’d seen kids build bonfires on wooden docks.
A large rock under her dock could spell danger for anyone who dives off the dock, she said. They could be seriously hurt, and she’s not sure whether she or the county would be liable.
Hett said docks used to sell for $4,000 to $5,000. Now they sell for $20,000 to $30,000.
“Out of 84 docks that are out there, 40 or 50 have some kind of sign,” Hett said.
County counsel Brad Jantz said that whether a “no trespassing” sign was on a dock could be a factor in a lawsuit.
He also said installing a gate was a bad idea because water underneath the dock is public.
County administrator Tina Spencer said she wondered whether the county could come up with some kind of sign for dock owners to use.
Commission chairman David Mueller moved to have Hett and Spencer work together to develop a proposal for resolving the issues with docks.
The motion passed on a split 4-1 vote with commissioner Jonah Gehring opposed.
A years-old debate over whether the county should take care of residential roads at the lake one again made its way into the meeting.
Greg Wyatt, who has come a number of times to speak about roads at the lake, once again took up the subject.
He sent a letter to commissioners in May stating his reasons for believing it was the county’s responsibility to take care of roadways in the lake’s residential area outside Lakeshore Dr.
At that time, commissioners referred the matter to Jantz.
Jantz sent Wyatt a letter July 1, but Wyatt thought he was being stonewalled.
He returned to commissioners Aug. 12 to say he had sent a letter to the attorney general’s office.
Wyatt gave it another try Monday. He quoted research he had done about a county’s responsibilities for taking care of roads.
Commissioners have long held that since the roadways in the neighborhood are narrow and were built by people who built houses in the area, the county is not responsible.
He and Jantz pushed the subject back and forth, neither of them prepared to budge.
Jantz said one option would be for the county to declare all roadways in the residential area to be “no maintenance roads.”
Wyatt said the attorney general’s office had told him it would send an opinion to him by the first part of September.
“They wouldn’t do that for me,” Jantz said.
Wyatt said if the attorney general’s opinion was in favor of the county taking over road care, he would take the county to court if he needed to.
“We’ll see you in September,” Mueller said.