KENT, Conn.—Kent voters joined those in Washington and Warren Thursday, July 31, to decisively pass an ordinance banning the use of wave-enhancing devices on Lake Waramaug.
Kent’s town clerk reported the cumulative vote for the three towns as 1,452 voting for the ban, and 421 voting no. In Kent, the vote was 468-96; Warren, the town with the largest amount of shoreline, 335 yes, 139 no, and Washington, 649 yes, 186 no.
The issue—hotly contested in all three towns—pitted advocates for the sport, who argue it is a wholesome family activity and see the ordinance as an infringement on personal liberties, against others who fear environmental damage to the lake from the boats and see safety concerns for other, more passive, lake users.
Kent’s five-to-one vote in favor of the ban might seem surprising as only four Kent residents are among the 284 property owners surrounding the lake. Kent has only 15 percent of the lake’s shoreline within its borders and the majority of that is taken up by Lake Waramaug State Park. No wake boats are allowed in the vicinity of the Kent shoreline because of the topography of the long, narrow lake.
Some people speculated that lobbying efforts on both sides of the issue had focused on the Kent townspeople because of their relative lack of awareness about the lake. Only one of the three towns had to reject the ordinance for it to fail.
But it may have been that very lack of exposure that led to the lopsided vote. Jehv Gold, a member of the group Protect Lake Waramaug: Coalition to Ban Wake Surfing, braved the rain outside Kent Town Hall with fellow members Ken Cooper, Paul Herzan, and Alice Hicks to urge on supporters of the ban. They enthusiastically pounded a stick on an empty paint can every time a person anticipated to vote “yes” passed their pop-up canopy.
Gold said that because Kent voters were not invested in owning property on the lake, they looked at the issue from an environmental, rather than a recreational, point of view. Cooper added that property owners around the lake reportedly own more than 40 of the wave-enhancing boats and that some are rumored to have leased space on their docks for the watercraft.
While passions ran high in the three towns and some “ugly” encounters were rumored to have happened, polling officials in all three communities reported a civil and orderly voting process.
The pressure to vote was evident in early numbers, with 167 persons voting in Kent in the first two hours and 474 having passed through the Washington Town Hall’s doors by 4 p.m.
“The response has been huge,” said Washington Registrar of Voters Denise Arturi. It only got larger in the remaining four hours as another thousand people cast ballots.
In Warren, after three-and-a-half hours of voting, with more than four more hours to go, 311 votes had been cast by roughly a quarter of the town’s electorate.
“We’ve never had a vote like this before, on an environmental issue,” said former Warren Registar James Garvey when asked if the turnout was larger than normal for a referendum. But he compared it to this year’s referendum on the regional school budget, when only 287 voters approved a $42.7 million budget.
When all the votes had been counted, Kelly Williams, co-chairman of Protect Lake Waramaug, said, “We’re so happy. It was an overwhelming decision.”
That group had mounted a sophisticated campaign to get its message out. “We understood the importance of community cohesiveness,” she said, lauding the “incredible group of people” who came together to work for the future health of the lake.
“We had a really good, clear message that people could understand,” she said. “The beauty of the lake is a shared resource, and we are really excited for what this means to the community and the health of lake, preserving its for generations to come.”
Asked about a possible legal challenge to the ordinance, Williams, an attorney, said, “We have looked at that really carefully and we have not heard a plausible claim to overturn it.” She said opponents of the ban would have the burden of proof that ordinance was not legally devised and passed.
“They have no legal basis,” she said. “No ban on wake boats has been overturned in the U.S.—and we have been looking.”
