LAKEPORT >> As part of a County-wide fee update, stickers issued to boaters indicating a Quagga-free vessel have doubled from $10 to $20.
The Lake County Board of Supervisors passed the new fee increase on Tuesday, and new stickers will enter circulation of local tackle shops as early as Feb. 13. These new stickers will allow local boaters one year of lake access, but will only cover a month’s time for visitors. Boaters must display an up-to-date sticker to enter Clear Lake.
Mark Hale, an employee of Clearlake Bait & Tackle, said he’d heard murmuring of a fee increase, but had no idea they had passed and would take effect within the week. While the increase will in no way change tackle shops’ role in selling the stickers, he said he has some concerns about how customers will take the news.
“Everybody wants to kill the messenger,” he said. “We will take on the complaints.”
As tackle shop employees will be inspecting vessels and selling the stickers, he said customers won’t be happy about the increase, and he said the abruptness might take them by surprise.
The funds gathered from these stickers go toward the prevention of invasive species such as the Quagga mussel in Clear Lake, which currently remains free under one of California’s most effective programs. The county recently renewed a grant from the state for $318,000, which employs 13 ramp monitors and two supervisors.
Such grants have kept the program going since 2014, but the Lake County Water Resources Department hopes the fee increase will help make the program independent of state funding, freeing up money for other water quality issues like the blue-green algae.
“The program has been running in the red since 2008,” said LCWR Director Phil Moy. He said the prevention program has created an estimated $80,000 deficit within his department. The sticker price increase will help relieve this deficit.
Moy said the prevention program has worked well; local boaters have by and large appreciated the department’s effort to keep the lake free of invasive species. Regardless, customers might be reluctant to shell out more money for the same service.
“No one is ever happy about a fee increase, ever,” Moy said.
The fee marks only one section of a 34-page list of other fee increases that will take effect in Lake County in the near future, but the sticker increase takes effect sooner than the many others. This might surprise boaters most, especially those visiting from outside the county.
“My personal sense is that this is probably the first fee that’s going into action,” Moy said, figuring the tackle shops will take the brunt of criticism for this new wave of fee increases. “We’re just at the forefront.”
Moy also said the county implements the broad span of increases to keep up with inflation, and the extra $10 expense won’t separate boaters from their favorite fishing spots. As a fisherman himself, he anticipates spending some money to get on the water.
“Ten dollars isn’t going to keep me off the lake,” he said.
But Melissa Fulton, CEO of the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, said the increase came as a shock to her, as she only found out about it on Wednesday. She said this didn’t give the “front line” of retail an opportunity to prepare for perhaps disgruntled customers.
Fulton helped create the Quagga prevention program and considers herself part of the retail frontline. She said she agrees with the increase and it’s goal of creating independence from state funding, but organizations like the LCCC and local retail shops should’ve been warned that the increase took effect so much sooner than other proposed increases.
“We’re going to be the ones standing at the counters explaining all this,” she said. “I just think a little pre-dialogue would’ve been more user-friendly.”
Moy said the increase had been on the agenda since December, but it could easily have been overlooked in the massive “master fee increase” document.
Hale said he would agree with Fulton, as the increase directly affects shops like Clearlake Bait & Tackle. He said he wouldn’t have known about the increase until the stickers showed up at the shop.
“Any time you’re going to do something that affects places that are on the front line, it’s better to create good will,” he said. “(Officials should) put it out in a fashion that people can prepare.”
Hale understands the Quagga program and how the stickers help employ those involved in the screening of watercraft, and he often explains this to visiting boaters who pick up stickers. Most customers prove completely respectful of the program and its goals for a well-kept lake.
“People come to the this lake because of the reputation it has,” he said, mentioning that unlike so many nearby lakes, Clear Lake is entirely free to launch into. Only “one percent of one percent” of customers refuse to launch on the lake solely because of the Quagga sticker price — the increase likely won’t defer the die-hard fishing community. “People will ease their mind into it.”
