You can pay $10 for sticker or the $1,000 fine
What could be the first in a long line of quagga mussel sticker violators appeared in a Lake County Superior Court on Monday. Three people were slated to appear but only one actually made it and his case was continued for three weeks so he could confer with a court-appointed public defender.
The other two defendants failed to appear and warrants were issued for their arrest. Seven other people cited are awaiting their day in court. What this says is that Lake County is taking a tough stand on those who fail to comply with the county”s ordinance, which requires that all boats being launched into any water body in the county have a current quagga mussel sticker. If not and you”re caught, you”ll pay a fine of at least $1,000 as well as court costs, which will shoot the fine up to $2,700. In addition, a misdemeanor charge will be added. That”s a lot of money to pay for not getting a $10 sticker. For those who fail to appear in court, the fines and penalties are much greater.
Several boaters have told me they didn”t know a quagga sticker was required. If that”s true, they must be living in a cave because all of the boat ramps have huge signs posted instructing boaters to make sure their boats are either screened or inspected. They also make it clear that you must have a sticker. There are volunteers working the public ramps on weekends and holidays. They hand out booklets and advise boaters about the need to have a proper sticker. The Lake County sticker requirement has been all over the internet and on the fishing blogs. The bass tournament organizations have the requirement on their websites and the tournament directors have been stressing to their contestants that they must have the sticker before going to Clear Lake.
A good example was on Sunday at the Fifth Street ramp in Lakeport. A bass club tournament was going out of the parking area and I made a walkthrough of the parking lot and observed five boat trailers that didn”t have a sticker (which is required). That tells me their boats probably don”t have a sticker either. In fact, two of the trailers didn”t even have license plates. One was parked within a few feet of a large sign that said stickers were required.
A few critics of the program are saying it”s only a way for the county to get money. Actually, the county is losing money on the stickers. It costs a lot more to administer the program than is ever taken in from boats.
With the long holiday weekend approaching and boaters arriving by the hundreds, there are bound to be a lot of boats out on the lake that don”t have stickers. These boaters can expect to be cited by either Lake County Sheriff”s boat patrol or the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) wardens. Both organizations have a no-tolerance policy in regards to boats not having a current sticker.
The other problem involves those people who have summer residences in Lake County but live out of the county. They can”t understand why they are required to get a monthly sticker. All they have to do is to change the address on their boat registration to Lake County, which will allow them to obtain a resident annual sticker. This can be done at the Department of Motor Vehicle office and only takes a few minutes. It would save them more than $100 in yearly sticker fees.
Clear Lake is one of the few areas in the state where boat launching at a public ramp is free. Most lakes charge from $10-$30 or even more. At Clear Lake there are eight excellent ramps that are completely free, so a $10 monthly sticker fee ?is a very cheap price to pay to launch and fish in one of the best bass lakes in the West. Is the sticker program perfect? Of course not, but it is being constantly reviewed and updated and if it means a slight inconvenience to boaters to keep the quagga mussel out of Clear Lake, then so be it.
