Stop diverting safety resources
Last year a 10-year old boy tubing on the Chain of Lakes was tragically killed by another boater, one who according to police was drunk and impaired with cocaine in his system.
Not only is the boater being sued, but the Waterway Agency is now added to the suit, alleged to be not adequately controlling the waterway and not making it safe for tubing.
All responsible people want laws enforced on the water. But we also know funding and tax payers resources are limited, so the police have an enormous task on the Chain with limited resources. What absolutely baffles me is how some of these critical, limited tax payer resources of ours are being squandered elsewhere, on political agendas.
On Saturday, July 6, the weekend of the 4th of July — one of the busiest boating days of the season — not one but two watercraft of the Lake County Sheriff’s Department Marine Unit were again deployed to little Wooster Lake, a lake with absolutely no public launch and so little boat traffic.
Why? Because someone called the Sheriff’s Marine Unit to report a jet skier was pulling a tube around this lake. Just another of the many people around this lake who refuse to understand the legal boating laws pertaining to Wooster and rather want it enforced as no-wake, without jet skiing and tubing.
Some subdivisions’ associations’ bylaws call for no tubing on Wooster, but Illinois law says the opposite. If some near Wooster Lake are bent on wasting tax payer resources, they need to be sent a big bill for the resources they waste, ones that should be better utilized on the Chain to enforce real laws.
How about it, State’s Attorney Nerheim? Can you please send the massive overdue bill to all those on Wooster who continue to advertise this no-wake charade?
Thomas Holmes
Indian Creek