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Lake Denton To Reopen, As Critics Blast Plan

KATHY WATERS/ HIGHLANDS TODAY

Ken Melvin, left, whispers to Philip Elders during the Lake Denton boat ramp discussion on Wednesday at the Highlands County Commission meeting. Elders currently opens up Lake Denton Camp for divers for a small fee.

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: January 3, 2008

SEBRING — Ken Melvin and Ray Napper, two of the seven members of the Lake Denton Citizens Advisory Committee, were not happy with the committee's recommendations to re-open this closed public lake with severe restrictions.

Melvin, though, reluctantly endorsed the Highlands County commissioners' decision Tuesday to reopen the popular lake –– closed since early September –– despite the number of controversial restrictions on public access.

He described the lake reopening plan as too little, too late and nowhere near a good solution to a big problem. Unlike the other speakers who harshly criticized the plan, though, Melvin didn't oppose the commissioners adopting the committee's unpopular and controversial plan.

"I did endorse their passing it as is, only because I thought that at least this will 'keep the ball rolling' and keep the discussions going," Melvin said after the commissioners discussed the controversial lake-use restrictions for nearly three hours.

Restrictions

The restrictions on Lake Denton's use include the following:

• Charging weekend user's fees of $25 per day for scuba divers only, with no fee for all of the other lake users, including boaters, fishermen, swimmers, sunbathers and other groups that enjoy the lake;

• Restricting the hours that anyone can use the lake to 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.;

• Enforcing those restricted hours with a locked gate;

• Using the $25-per-scuba-diver weekend fees to build the gate and pay a low-wage, part-time parking attendant to enforce parking rules, on weekends only, and only for an 18-week trial period; and

• Limiting the number of people who can use Lake Denton at any one time to no more than can fit into eight vehicles, by allowing just eight parking spaces.
  

Melvin was just one of the last in a long line of outdoor recreation advocates who criticized the Lake Denton reopening plan, which the commissioners approved unanimously.

Brenda Giese is one of the local scuba divers who couldn't comment directly to the commissioners because she couldn't sit in at the commissioners meeting for three hours.

"The county government is money hungry," said Giese, who said she is outraged by the $25 weekend user's fee for scuba divers.

"But my main issue is that this (county) boat ramp, (the only public access to the lake) is on donated land, given to the county," Giese said. She said the donors of this land, John and Allie Cain, the original developers of the lakefront homes on Lake Denton Drive, signed a contract with the county.

In that contract, known as a recorded Highlands County Plat Map, the county legally promised that if any portion of that road or the boat ramp was ever closed to "the perpetual use of the public," the county must give Lake Denton Road and the boat ramp back to the Cains or, if they have died, to their heirs.

"How can they get away with that?" Giese said in the parking lot of the Highlands County Government Center.

"I took the day off from work just to be at this meeting to talk about this issue," she said. But, she said, she couldn't stay at the commissioners meeting for the entire morning.

In the county government center parking lot, Giese asked a group of scuba divers:

"If the legal contract says the road (Lake Denton Drive) goes back to the people who donated it to the county if any part of it is ever closed to public use, then why are those people who donated it not getting their land back?"

She wanted to have the commissioners answer that question, but didn't get the chance to ask it on the record at the meeting.

Melvin told commissioners it's time that they treated the taxpayers of Highlands County with respect, by spending a few tax dollars to help them in two ways:

• By providing the first truly decent public park for public outdoor recreation in Highlands County, so that the taxpayers and their children can enjoy it; and

• To ease the escalating tax burden on county taxpayers by drawing the huge amounts of dollars – in taxes, business profits and jobs – that flow from any first-class tourist attraction, which Lake Denton could and should be.
  

County Commissioner Guy Maxcy said the temporary reopening, with the severe restrictions, is simply the only thing the county can do at this time.

"If anything should be kept to a 'keep-it-simple-stupid' plan, this should," Maxcy said.

Preston Colby, a longtime Sebring scuba diving instructor and the owner-operator of a private investigations company, told commissioners Lake Denton is absolutely the last issue that should be dealt with in a "keep-it-simple-stupid" plan.

Using a low-cost, short-range, poorly thought out plan to fix a major problem with statewide implications will give the county legal liabilities, and probably lead to at least a few lawsuits against the Highlands County Board of Commissioners, Colby said.

"A quick fix," Colby added, "seldom works."

Ray Napper and Capt. Paul Blackman of the Highlands County Sheriff's Office disagreed sharply about whether the sheriff's office could and should enforce both felony laws and illegal parking violations at Lake Denton.

While Napper and Blackman made their points respectfully, it was clear that the sheriff's enforcement, or lack of enforcement at Lake Denton, remains a major bone of contention.

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