Following the Annual General Meeting on July 28, 2007, a letter was sent to the Blind River Town Council regarding the dock.
18 August 2007
Mayor and Town Council
11 Hudson Street
Blind River, Ontario P0R 1B0
Dear Mayor and Town Council,
Our Annual General Meeting was 28 July 2007. We invite any and all of you again to our next AGM, especially those who have property on the lake or an interest in the issues which may arise from our meetings. This letter is a result of Board action to address issues which have arisen from our 2007 AGM meeting. Please note that our executive has changed a bit as a result of our 16 August 2007 Board meeting. Ed Pilon from Elliot Lake is now the president. Jerry Behnke from Blind River is the treasurer. Ron Servatius from Michigan is the secretary. Beetli Kiernicki from Niagara Falls, Canada and Dick Brennan from Michigan are special projects directors. At our 2007 AGM, we received a letter from a property owner and local business man who described his worries about safety and impediments around the sea wall and launch area to the membership . During discussion of his concerns, another resident told of her husband’s near drowning at the docks. Request for specific action for the docks and the landing/launch area by or through you are included below.
- We respectfully request a meeting with the appropriate member of town council and one or more of our Board representatives, as listed above, to discuss design, space available, cottager safety, and contractor complaints which now exist at the only public landing and launch area, which has a deteriorating sea wall. We would like to discuss options, ideas and grants or other funding sources as our part to expedite action for change at your earliest possible convenience.
- We wish to inform you of an incident earlier this summer, where an adult lake resident and non swimmer entered his boat from the dock, which flipped. He fell into the water which is deep and almost drowned. Notwithstanding the fact that non-swimmers should have life jackets on when around the water, there was concern at the AGM that no throwing rings with line are located at any of the dock fingers. We are asking Matinenda Marina improvements include throw rings with rope and grab lines around the bottom of the docks, along with signage that reminds boaters to have required boat equipment and wear life jackets around water, emphasizing NO swimming – which ladders on dock fingers would encourage.
- We respectfully request service on the toilet at the landing, asking that it be removed from its sometimes very smelly and certainly not private location between the “Welcome House” and dock attendant’s shelter, and be placed at the top of the hill in the parking lot with a second toilet marked “WOMEN,” which does not have a side urinal at nose level.
- We are asking that Dock Attendants for next year be trained and placed sooner and available until the end of the summer season because of all the senior residents who are still around after this year’s mid-August service stoppage. The Board would like you to know Jesse Gibson was exemplary in his performance this year. He has been a model for the expectations of the lake residents. We would like to see all male applicants interviewed and considered for positions, because after an apparent shortage of applicants, a young male working in town told a lake resident that he wanted to apply for a dock position, but was rejected.
Your immediate attention and support on these issues would be appreciated.
Respectfully,
Ron Servatius, Secretary/Director
Cc: LMCA Board of Directors