By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
Village of East Troy Trustee Dusty Stanford addressed the Village Board as a resident at Monday night’s meeting to express his dislike of the increased fees and possible new boat slip lottery the Booth Lake Memorial Park Board is considering.
Stanford said the desire to increase revenue with these new fees was hurting the residents who use the park, which is funded by the Tri-Troy municipalities, the Village and Town of East Troy and the Town of Troy.
“The goal is to keep Booth Lake affordable to the community,” Stanford said.
Stanford said the fees for the boat slips will be doubling to $200 for a single slip and was concerned about the lack of notice given to the residents of the change.
“To me, it’s insulting this is being done,” Stanford said. “It’s sad people weren’t given proper notice.”
The boat slip lottery is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16, at the East Troy Village Hall, 2015 Energy Drive.
Town of Troy Chairman John Kendall serves on the park board as the township’s representative. He said Tuesday morning the boat slip lottery is “not set in stone yet.”
Kendall said the park board will discuss the possibility of delaying the lottery for a year at the March 16 meeting, before the lottery is set to take place.
“It all depends on what the board decides to do,” he said.
Kendall said there were capital improvements that needed to be done at the lake and park and that was what prompted the proposed changes.
“We looked at our fee schedule and the board felt that needed to be increased,” Kendall said. “Then on the slips, to make it fair to all residents in all three municipalities, we decided we would open that up to the lottery like we do with the pavilion.”
Kendall said many of the park fees were slated for increases, but as the board hasn’t officially approved the new schedule, all of the increases were unavailable as of press time.
Kendall said the fee for a single boat slip would be increasing from $95 per season to $200 and pontoon boat slips would be increasing from $400 per season to $500.
“The whole point of this is to make it fair to everybody,” Kendall said. “There’s always two sides to every story. The people who have had a slip for 20 years are mad. Then there are people who have been waiting for 20 years to get a boat slip and they’re happy about this.”
Adding music to Cycling Classic
The Village Board approved extending the hours of the East Troy Cycling Classic on June 17 to 11 p.m. so the East Troy Area Chamber of Commerce can look into the possibility of having live music on the square after the bike race ends at 8 p.m.
The road closures around the village square that go with the bike race will not be extended, Police Chief Alan Boyes said Monday night. When the race ends at 8 p.m. the Police Department starts taking down the road blocks from the “outside in.” He cautioned the board that while the roads begin to open up at 8 p.m., it does take a while for all the barricades to come down to allow full access to the square.
There was a short discussion by the board members about how to keep the alcohol contained to a single area of the square, which Boyes said was his only concern with extending the event hours.
“I have no problem with this as long as there is an area for alcohol,” Boyes said.
Trustee Linda Kaplan, who is also a member of the chamber, said this was a way to take the event to the “next level” and continue to attract people to the square.
Stanford said he was not in favor of the event unless this happened, as he believed attendance was down the last couple of years.
Painting the water tower
The board also approved painting the phrase “Village of East Troy” on the water tower when it is repainted this year.
There were two options for the board to consider, the words “The Village of East Troy” and the newly adopted village logo of the village square pavilion with the words “The Village of” on the pavilion and “East Troy” under it.
Department of Public Works Director Mike Miller suggested taking out “The” from the first option so the letters could be made larger for readability, which the board agreed with.
