SURPRISING STUFF
The Town of Linn is considering an ordinance to have police search boats and trailers for ‘foreign’ plant substances.
The police have a problem when it comes to enforcement. None of the officers in the department have any botany credentials one might expect them to have, in order to evaluate good plant life from invasive. It would be hell to pay if a Town of Linn officer wrote a violation for illegal plant life and the plant turned out to be a geranium. That can otherwise be described as a civil lawsuit if the person stopped and cited feels abused. Are the police officers in Town of Linn to be educated and trained in botany? Is invasive plant and animal infestation to become a police matter and not that of the nearly invisible Green Peace officers of the Department of Natural Resources?
The GLEA (Geneva Lake Environmental Agency) is pushing this new ordinance that Town of Linn is resisting. Fontana wrote such an ordinance primarily because the head of that town is also president of the GLEA. The leader of Town of Linn is pushing this same ordinance for Town of Linn while he’s vice president of that same organization. What’s the deal? The GLEA totally opted out of saving the lake from the coming onslaught of Starry Stone Wart, choosing to hide its head in the sand while that threat continues to grow beneath Lake Geneva’s waters. The GLEA had no real skin in the game at that time, but it does now.
The state is ready to write the GLEA a check for $50,000 if the ordinance passes. That check goes to the GLEA to spend on whatever it sees fit, not the Town of Linn that much endure increased expense and workload to enforce the unenforceable. The other half-baked idea that came out of the GLEA was the boat cleaning machines that nobody in their right mind uses or used. How is an aging gal or guy supposed to get under a trailered boat to vacuum the hull or how is anybody likely able to check the bilge water left inside these boats? The expensive machines are laying around at different entry points to the lake, ignored by almost everyone. The GLEA doesn’t work, didn’t work and isn’t likely to work in the future until enlightened leadership can be found to run it.
That simply hasn’t been the case for quite some time. The strange nature of the actual ownership and stewardship of Lake Geneva also prevents the communities surrounding the lake from acting together to help the situation. Everyone and every community agree that something has to be done but nobody can agree on what it is in specific that can be done and paid for by the public. The GLEA is increasing its fee to each lake locality by $10,000 a year, for whatever it does or does not do (to $45,000).
Person of the Week
Caitlin Kelby at Bay Cooks is a fantastic server with a personality to match.
