Reply With QuoteJackson defends mooring proposal
By Brian DiTullio
Thursday, January 5, 2006 7:55 PM MST
Mayor Harvey Jackson said his proposal to eliminate most of the mooring in the Bridgewater Channel is an attempt to reclaim the area for locals and attract more family-type tourists to the area.
I'm very pro-tourism, said Jackson in response to claims he was trying to run tourism out of Lake Havasu City. My vision of tourism is to attract the family-oriented tourist, the kind of tourism that was primarily here in the 1970s.
Jackson's contention is that bigger boats and rowdier crowds have ruined the area for the locals and that by removing the moorings, the rowdy, drunken crowds would move on.
The idea first was proposed at the Jan. 3 work session after the Lake Havasu City Police Department gave a presentation about the challenges they face enforcing the law during the height of the summer boating season and holiday weekends in particular.
Assistant Chief Randy McCaleb wanted to stress that the police department never requested that City Council shut down the Channel; they simply were looking to eliminate alcohol consumption in the manmade waterway.
McCaleb said their arrest statistics show that most of the problems they face stem from the over-consumption of alcohol, and that by removing that factor from the equation, the rowdy behavior should be reduced significantly.
Capt. Rich Sloma said most of the arrests in that area over the last few years were for disorderly conduct, OUI or underage drinking.
Once young people who don't handle their alcohol all that well are drinking under the sun for a few hours, common sense tends to go out the window, said Sloma.
Sloma added that the police did offer some alternative to City Council in April 2004 that included limiting mooring in the south end of the Channel, but they never recommended closing all of it.
Sloma also said that it wasn't until 1998 when the seawall was added and the beaches created that so many boats could be moored in the Channel. Prior to that, the natural landscape limited areas where boats could be beached.
You would have two or three here and two or three there, and then 50 feet of rock, said Sloma.
Business owners in the Channel area expressed anger and frustration upon hearing about the possibility of moorings being eliminated and vowed to fight it.
Jackson said there still is plenty of public debate to be had on the subject, but that he felt there already was a consensus by a majority of City Council on the issue, based on what he heard at the Jan. 3 work session.
The question is, said Jackson. Should that area be for us and our community, or should we turn it over to the out-of-towners. I can't use the lake anymore and I sold my boat last fall because of the congestion.
Jackson boiled the issue down to his campaign platforms of the Channel, the English Village, quality of life and his desire to protect all three.
The people that oppose my views have been in charge for 15 years, said Jackson on the opposition, and called their actions a failure, while stating his policies would bring tourism dollars back up.
Jackson has directed City Attorney Matt Podracky to draw up several ordinances on the issue for presentation at a future meeting.
You may contact the reporter at ditullio@havasunews.com.
If I remember right, Jackson is legal counsel for the Marina....it's all beginning to make more sense!
See that line up there....the Mayor said "I SOLD MY BOAT?"
That stinks right there. Why did he go to the crowded channel in the first place??? To patronize the businesses???? You can have fun on the lake with out going to the channel if you hate it that much. So just because he sold his boat no one else should have fum in the channel?
I don't know about this guy. :yuk:
