The Oakland County Sheriff announced that, due to budget cuts, it must reduce or eliminate Marine Patrols on Oakland County inland lakes this year. The Sheriff's Marine Division has indicated that it will continue to provide a deputy to patrol any lake at a cost of $32 per hour.
Many lake residents expressed concern about this decision, and its impact on White Lake. The WLCL and the White Lake Improvement Board (WLIB) explored the possibility that WLIB funds could be used to pay for marine patrols on White Lake this summer. It must first be determined if this expense would be a legally acceptable Lake Board expenditure, and if it is determined to be so, the WLIB would be required to conduct a public hearing to amend the Special Assessment District budget adopted last fall.
In the meantime, we collected public opinion and comments about some possible options in an online poll conducted from 4/09/10 - 5/08/10. While this poll was non-scientific and completely non-binding, it may be helpful as the WLIB and the WLCL examine possible funding.
At it's May 26, 2010 meeting, the WLCL Board voted 12 - 0 to ask the White Lake Improvement Board (WLIB) to proceed with a public hearing to investigate using WLIB funds to provide weekend and holiday Marine Patrols this summer.
On July 14, 2010 the White Lake Improvement Board held a Public Hearing to discuss the proposal from the WLCL to reallocate funds from the current Special Assessment District to pay for Oakland County Sheriff Marine Patrols on White Lake this summer. The Improvement Board voted in favor of the proposal.
On August 25, 2010 the following attended the regular WLCL meeting to discuss the Oakland County budget issues and to participate in further discussions about the Marine Patrols on White Lake: