Who is the national organization that fights anti-wake regulations?

[IDBoating]

The second half of my writeup is shown in green and is listed as "Unapproved", no idea why. I'll wait a bit and repost if necessary.

[D&P Powell]

The second half of my writeup is shown in green and is listed as "Unapproved", no idea why. I'll wait a bit and repost if necessary.

Talk about a teaser! - Can't wait to read the rest.

[Booms]

Great write up. Looking forward to the second half.

[IDBoating]

It shows up when *I* look at the page, but in green. It's still doing it, and it won't let me edit it nor delete it. I don't want to repost it and clutter up the thread.

EDIT: There is a checkbox next to "Unapproved". I clicked that and now it appears in blue instead of green, but still says unapproved. Please post if you find you are able to see the second half of the writeup.

[D&P Powell]

It's showing up now. Thank you (and EWOK) for sharing your experiences! I am looking forward to how this all turns out.

[IDBoating]

We should know more tomorrow. If it were up to me, I'd address the problem on the River - where virtually all of the complaints are coming from - and let that sit for a few years to see how it works out, rather than affecting every body of water (last night they said 54 lakes!) in the entire County due to a small group of people in one geographic area.

[IDBoating]

Here:

https://cdapress.com/news/2020/may/2...t-this-week-5/

...is the article that showed up in the local paper today. There's some pretty glaring differences in what was said at the meeting and what is being reported here.

Perhaps the most egregious example is the following: "Commissioners received - and read - almost 400 emails from people who didn’t show up to comment Tuesday evening, but wanted to have a say. Many of them were what Commissioner Bill Brooks called “cookie cutter” emails that used the same letter and that, he said, were supplied by the boating industry. But the majority, he said, asked to limit wake boats on county waterways, especially on the Spokane River."

That is exactly opposite of what the Board said last night! The chairman specifically and explicitly stated it was a balanced response between for and against, as I wrote above. Now we read this. The conspiracy theorist in me says that the newspaper's quote from the Board is part of setting us up for severe restrictions. They played it safe in front of the crowd last night, but set the stage for trouble in the media quotes.

I give kudos to the newspaper for what feels like a balanced article. I also doubt they fabricated the Board's "majority" comment. But I will say that the newspaper article seems to almost ignore the impact on the County's lakes... they write as if it's only the Spokane River that is in question. Now if THAT's true, and the Board is essentially running that outcome up the flagpole, then I agree.

Draw your own conclusions.

[jslayde1]

Very interested to hear how this turns out. Our HOA here at our lake is full of grumpy old 'people' - and have touched on this subject a time or two...

[SONIC]

I'm eager to hear the outcome as well.

Obviously I love throwing a huge wake to surf, but I also see the other side because so many people can't seem to do it responsibly.
Throwing a 3' wake into someone's dock is not cool.
Surfing right by a boat at anchor is way not cool, no fun taking a rolling 3' wave while at anchor with people in the water.

"Don't be an *******" should be the law lol

[IDBoating]

For those who are interested, this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkZwl2O-hL0

...will take you to the recorded proceedings from the meeting. Specific timestamps of interest:

3:53... The chairman says "The comments pretty much fall on either side."

36:55... Yours truly gets my three minutes.

49:39... Brian (Ewok here on TO) gets his window.

1:00:22... Tyler from a major, multi-brand local boat dealer takes the stand.

[BrentP]

ID,

Said they would make a decision today at 11. Did that happen?

How many of those county commissioners are good old boys with houses on the river driving around in a Bass boat?

I can only imagine a dude in a tracker ripping through there at 60mph with 200 foot setbacks from shore. Lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edit: for the record not dogging in fishing boats. Just painting a picture of the idiocracy of this situation. It’s probably not 20 minutes to the lake at no wake speeds.

[BrentP]

So I have become oddly interested in this thing and started watching the live stream. Pretty sure they just voted this into law man. I'm sorry.....

I love the Sherrif "We have been battling this for years". Oh by the way, we've never had a fatality and cant list the number of accidents related to "Excessive wake".

Wow.

Edit: Pending IDs expert analysis..... Still wow

[IDBoating]

Meeting is over. They adopted the resolution as written for the larger lakes. The existing 200 foot no-wake zone stands, and they just added an additional 100 feet (for a total of 300 feet from each shore) on the larger lakes. Granted, we have some very large lakes in this county.

For the Spokane River and our lake Lower Twin (and one other small lake), they reduced the "no excessive wake zone" from the proposed additional 100 feet beyond the existing 100 foot no-wake zone to 50 feet beyond that zone. You cannot create what they define as an "excessive wake" within 150 feet of shore.

They utterly failed to address my concern about distance from "people in the water" associated with the boat in question, which strictly speaking means as of right now ALL WAKESPORTS are illegal in Kootenai County, Idaho. You can enjoy wakesports here solely at the whim of the Sheriff's department choosing to selectively enforce this resolution. (If I had infinite money, It would be interesting to sue the County to demand enforcement of the letter of this law... the public outcry would be deafening.)

Someone - I think it was the attorney - also opened admitted this is the most restrictive language in the nation on this topic. I'm sure she's patting herself on the back right now.

My analysis...

The chairman started the meeting by recognizing that the River is really the underlying question here. The Sheriff and his deputies also strongly focused on the River. To me, that very clearly indicates that the proper course of action here was to "do something" on the River, where the problem lies, and then observe for a year or two before doing anything on the lakes where we have heard almost no complaints from anyone. However, the political reality was that something was going to be done today. You could hear it in the chairman's comments. That die was cast. So really the most we could hope for here was mitigating the damage.

And in that respect, I think WE (on Lower Twin) did OK. We restored another 100 feet of navigable width to the lake, which on our relatively quiet local's lake is probably sufficient. I am not a partisan hardliner here, I have enough experience in politics to realize that finding a balance between opposing interests is difficult and generally leaves you unpopular with everyone on both sides. But speaking objectively from the perspective of Lower Twin, I think the Board found a reasonable compromise.

However, I think they fell short on the River. That probably comes from the mindset, which they didn't seem to be able to shake off, that the River and the smaller lakes had to be lumped together and legislated as one. Lower Twin is narrower than Lake CdA, sure, but the River is really narrow - less than 500 feet in some places. Just as there isn't a "one size fits all" between the larger lakes and Lower Twin/Fernan, there isn't a "one size fits all" shared by the smaller lakes and the River.

The River is the narrowest of all. The River is where the complaints are coming from. The River is unique, and needs a unique solution.

Please don't throw rocks at me, but as a practical matter: Were I a Board member, I would probably have suggested making that portion of the River a no-wake zone. It connects directly to the enormous Lake CdA, and it's just not that far to motor up to the lake. You can be filling/draining ballast during that few minutes. And then the Board could have left all of the other waterways unaffected, period.

Listening to the other Board members, I suspect they would have (perhaps grudgingly) agreed to this. Brooks (the guy to the left) seemed laser focused on the River and its 200 foot number, so he would be placated. Duncan (the gal to the right) was the most balanced in her comments of lakes vs. River, and this might have given her something to vote FOR instead of going on record voting no. I'm confident the chairman would have agreed.

The only entity that might have argued was the Sheriff's department. They seemed dead-set on getting some new rules to enforce. But if you caught them in an honest moment I bet even THEY would admit that the big problem is the River. At the end of the day they probably just want fewer complaints to process, and this would have accomplished that. But I'm not on the Board, and that's not what they did.

So in balance, I think the Board found a reasonable compromise. They showed movement to both sides in those areas most affected by the proposed resolution, on a topic that is obviously contentious to everyone.

The Sword of Damocles that bothers me here is that the issue isn't over. They all but openly invited the Sheriff's office to come back in a few weeks and complain enough to impose further restrictions. You can pretty much guarantee that will happen, and it may occur with no public comment opportunity. I plan to contact the Board members and emphasize to them that the River should be addressed separately should that occur.

Keep an eye open, folks. Our County just enacted some of the most restrictive anti-wake language in the nation. The precedent has been set, and your local anti-wake folks may use this precedent to impose their opinions on YOU someday.

[sandm]

followed this closely and thank those involved for speaking up.
i feel fortunate to boat on mead that wont, in my lifetime, impose these no wake rules but never know where one will be living down the road.
fighting now helps protect for the long haul...

hope with different laws in place for the weekend cops choose education over enforcement for a period.

[Lamest]

Oh I've got to ramble a bit here...

I have secondary property on this river, my sister has a dock on the river. I keep my boat on her dock on the river. We're a family of skiers, wakeboarders, wakesurfers, and pretty much any other tow sport we can get going on the water. We're usually done by 10 am in the morning, and just people watch for the rest of the day. We're a growing area, and I don't expect our population to decrease.

The presentation of this matter during Covid is frustrating, and it reminded me of when I worked for one of the local cities, and it was well known this is the best way to pass or sneak by an unpopular motion. The employees of the city were able to pass a vote to recognize an employee association by putting the vote out on off days.

Of note to me, the sheriff mentioned a few times that the complaints come in starting at 8 pm through later in the evening. This should have been an easy enough problem to correct with patrolling. They also kept pushing the aspect of perceived damage to property and threat of personal injury. There are very few residences on this river that aren't blocked by sea walls, or some type of wave break. It's a river, erosion is part of the process that's been naturally occurring here for much longer than any of the home owners have been here.

The most frustrating part of the meeting was that the commissioner has his head so far up his own ***, he refused to consider any of the form letters that were submitted. These are letters sent in by people that live, work, recreate, pay taxes, and vote in this county. He willfully chose to ignore one side of the input. The ignored users were just begging to simply enforce the already in place laws, and prevent over reaching that would shut down recreation on the river.

I'm so very frustrated by this. I have close to 7 miles and 20 some odd minutes to boat out to the main body of the lake. It's easily a quarter tank of gas, out and back. The irony of having lakefront on a body of water you can't use as you have in the past.

As for ID Boating's lake being out of the cross hairs, don't count on evading this.... I have a few friends on the boat access only side of lower Twin, and they're always complaining about a Tige that's always out "shore crushing". I plan on fighting this every way I can.