Newbold town board reviews enhanced wake ordinance

The Newbold town board at its Dec. 11 meeting reviewed an enhanced wake ordinance it enacted two years ago, which at the time, received overwhelming support from the public.

A sunset clause was discussed when the draft of the ordinance was being developed in order for the board to only temporarily enact the regulations that essentially ban the sport of wake surfing on lakes wholly within the town. However, the board ultimately decided to leave the sunset clause out and simply review the ordinance after two summers of it being in place. 

Town chairman Dan Hess said it wasn’t a long discussion among board members at the meeting. He said there was only one complaint with regard to wake boat operation on town lakes. 

“People have been following the rules and it’s working out really good,” Hess said. “We didn’t have to take action because we didn’t have a sunset in there. … We started with a sunset clause that (the ordinance) would expire in two years and we changed it to we will review it in two years based on the data and make any changes as we see fit and there were no changes.”

Lake Tom Snow Fleas land use agreement

The board at its Dec. 11 meeting also approved a land use agreement with the Lake Tom Sno Fleas. 

Hess said the Lake Tom Sno Fleas have been using part of Newbold property for its trail system already near Newbold Memorial Park on River Road. 

“So they’ve been using it for years and they were going through their land use agreements, and they didn’t have one from the town of Newbold,” he said. “This is just into Newbold and they’ve been using it for years. … They run through the parking lot there as part of their snowmobile trail and they noticed they didn’t have a land use agreement so they sent one and we approved it.”

Trevor Greene may be reached via email at [email protected].