ROGERS LAKE AUTHORITY
~MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF JANUARY 9, 2013
A meeting of the Rogers Lake Authority (RLA) was convened at the Rogers Lake Clubhouse at 7:30 pm on January 9, 2013.~ The following members were present: Robert Recor, Richard Smith, Tom Mondelci, Tom Baehr, Mike Secord and Dennis Overfield. Liz Sunshine, Secretary, three attendees and guest speaker Michael Payton were also present.
The meeting was called to order at approx 7:31 pm. Minutes of October meeting were read and a motion to approve was made by Tom and 2nd by Dennis. The motion passed by unanimous vote.
Guest Speaker:
The meeting was called to order by the Chairman, Dick Smith at 7:31. The first order of business was for Mike Sicord to introduce guest speaker Michael Payton who is the Supervisor for the Navigation Safety/Boating Access Unit of the Boating Division of the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP). Mr. Payton has been working with the DEEP for more than twenty years and has been involved with all aspects of public safety on public waterways.
Mr. Payton began his presentation with the reasons for the removal of the new signage placed at the boat launch last year. He stated that any signs or personnel placed or stationed at any state landing needed to have approval from the DEEP prior to posting it on state property. In addition the verbiage, although it came directly from the regulations book, was no longer accurate and needed to be changed. Mr. Payton has been working with Mike Sicord regarding a corrected version to post that would assist boaters in the appropriate use of Rogers Lake.
Mr. Payton discussed the need to simplify our regulations, eliminate those lines which no longer cause an issue, and eliminate those which are a duplication of state regulations as all boaters must have a boaters license and therefore will have taken the classes educating them on the laws of the state waterways. We currently have 15 lines of regulations posted for Rogers Lake and some of them are confusing to a newcomer to the lake. He stated "simpler is better" "Boil it down" to what is important to us and not duplicative of state law. For example Boater traffic is to travel in a counter clockwise direction around the lake. This would eliminate all the references to north, south, west, east directions around named Islands which guests may not know. The rest of the information
boaters need can be obtained by markers on the water. These markers would need to be permitted by the DEEP (his office) after becoming a town ordinance.
Mr. Payton said there are four main types of marking devices to offer direction to boaters on the lake:
Navigational markers (Channel Buoys)
Speed Zones (Slow No Wake Buoys)
Exclusionary (Designated Swim Zones)
Informational Buoys (Danger, rocks, shallow, approaching traffic)
Mr. Payton said through the use of these marking devices, mainly the last three, boaters should be able to obtain all information necessary to safely navigate Rogers lake.
In order to get these marking devices, we must have the town where the device is to be located approve a town ordinance stating the desired behavior. (e.g. Slow no wake between Picnic Island and West Shores.) Then get a permit from DEEP to place "Slow No Wake" buoys at the start and end of the area we wish to control the boat traffic speed. Again this is in contrast to writing that there is a 6mph speed limit between Picnic Island and West Shores when traveling in a southerly direction in the regulations booklet. When the boaters see the navigational device they slow down instead of having to reference a regulation book, have the knowledge of the island names, where they are on the lake and which direction they are traveling. It is much less confusing to see a buoy and slow
down.
The question was raised "How do we enforce the rules?"
Mr. Payton spoke of a "Report Violators" program that works well when many people participate. He has a 'Report It' form that you fill out to report violators with the date, time, hull #, a statement of the violation and picture if possible. If you send it in they will investigate and possibly ticket violator after the fact. For example. If you send them a picture of someone waterskiing through a DEEP approved "No Wake" zone with date, time, hull # they will ticket the registered owner of the boat. Once people realize that they can be fined after the fact they will be less likely to do it again. He did stress that this is for state regulations only, not town ordinances. In addition he said that the program worked well when it was a collaborative effort, a sort of community watch
program.
For enforcement of town ordinances he recommended sending the same information to the local authorities but was unsure of how they would handle the complaints.
Mr. Payton concluded by saying that from his experience the best way to let boaters know information is to be clear, concise and simple. Do not be redundant to state regulations, only have what you need and use appropriate DEEP approved signage and navigational buoys.
Mike Sicord will be getting together with Mr. Payton in mid April to travel the lake and work out what navigational buoys are necessary and where they should be placed.
Mike Sicord will also be working with Mr. Payton to get approved verbiage on the signs for the boat launch in order to get them reposted as soon as possible.
Tom Mondelci mentioned that from the patterns of weed infestation surrounding the boat launch that the launch was the source of the new incoming infestations and perhaps we should consider closing the launch.
Old Business:
Dennis Overfield has been working with the towns of Lyme and Old Lyme to update the Rogers Lake area of the towns websites. He went through all the proposed changes to be made with the board. Following the minutes please find an attachment of the proposed changes. The board agreed all proposed changes would update and correct any outdated information.
New Business:
None
A motion to adjourn was made by Mike Sicord and Seconded by Robert Recor. The vote to adjourn passed by unanimous decision.
Meeting adjourned at 9:05 pm.
Respectfully submitted
 ~Elizabeth Sunshine
Secretary for RLA
The next meeting of the Rogers Lake Association will be on February 13, 2013 at 7:30pm at the Rogers Lake West Shores Clubhouse:
Agenda for 2/13/13 Meeting:
Police Patrol
Weeds
Benthic Mats
Boat Launch
Website
New Business
Old Business
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