Below is my email to the new 1st Selectman for the Town of Morris which I sent this morning. I also mailed out the documentation package this past Wednesday. This is so simple. If I were the Town of Morris 1st Selectman I would fix this in ten minutes at an Executive Session of the Selectmen's office simply stating that the Town is not going to take on anyone on this issue and by complying we won't have to and this solution has no impact on us and may give us a tiny windfall of a few hundred bucks. End of discussion, meeting adjourned. We will see if common sense prevails over arrogance. I will keep the site updated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Barbara, you should be receiving my package which I mailed on Wednesday. I had to reconstruct it from my hard copy files because I also had a major computer failure back in December and lost all of my email history. In any case, it is a package of about five pages and covers all of the most important correspondence. In it are: --The states Attorney General's letter of August 11, 2009 to the Honorable Karen D. Paradis, signed Richard Blumenthal. --A package of emails including; ----my original to Karen Paradis dated July 19, 2009 ----my email to the AG dated July 27, 2009 ----email to me from AG's office, from Assistant AG Kimberly Massicotte ----my email to AAG Massicotte
This is a simple problem to overcome. Simply amend the Ordinance: --Provide for a Non-Resident offering for the summer months for a fee of $25 (or in this range such that it is not an economic barrier). --Have two periods of operation. ----from Memorial Day to Labor Day (the summer months) a pass is required for both residents and non-residents ----from Labor Day to Memorial Day (the off-season period) no pass is required
I would call an executive session of the Selectmen's Office as soon as possible to discuss this change and get it implemented.
It is not that simple to just say non-residents have Beverly's, now a state property, to launch their boats. So far, observations of the Beverly's boat launch indicate that far more local residents from the local towns, are using the launch than are non-residents, which is good news and a point that I argued last fall at the public hearing on the Beverly's purchase, suggesting that the state purchase of Beverly's was good for everyone. Maybe you were at that meeting. But having non-resident access to the Town of Morris boat launch is a part of this over-all lake access issue because Beverly's could get crowded and some non-residents may prefer to buy the season pass to the town ramp. My guess is maybe a dozen or so non-residents would ever buy your town launch pass. This would not cause any kind of over-crowding at the town launch and bring in maybe $500 bucks or so. I am a municipal official for the Town of New Fairfield (Ball Pond Advisory Committee and work closely with our Park & Rec and the Candlewoood Lake Authority and, in the past, was a DEEP volunteer with Inland Fisheries) and we sell very few New Fairfield boat launch passes of any kind since right down the road at the Squantz Pond State Park we have a state boat launch ramp for anyone to use and most of our residents just go there. So there is just no way your town benefits in any manner by ignoring the AG by writing a "residents only" Ordinance.
The fact is, this issue is not about access to Beverly's or whether or not a lake has a state boat launch. The issue is the U.S. Constitution and the 1st Amendment's Right to Assemble clause, the entire issue of which was litigated in Leydon v. Greenwich and addressed in the AG's letter to your town which I have enclosed.
As I said above, this is so simple to fix and allows you to avoid a major issue. The thousands of sportsmen and women who were involved in this issue back in 2009 would much rather work with you in implementing this very reasonable solution and spend this summer enjoying our state's largest natural lake.
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