1.   Address of property within the Town of Lake Lure (if applying for a resident permit)

2.   Name, address and contact information of boat owner (the name must match the property tax records for resident permits)

3.   Boat information: make, model, year, length, color, mooring location.

If motorized: motor make, year, horsepower.

4.   Proof of state registration (if motorized).

5.   Proof of liability insurance (if motorized - marine policy or homeowner’s policy or a certificate of insurance)

6.   Check or cash to pay for permit fees.

COMMERCIAL BOATS

      Commercial Use: Commercial use is any use of the lake in a manner that will generate direct or indirect revenue, including: 

                              Rental livery

            Resorts or rental property

            Camps

            Ski schools

            Tour boats

            Fishing guides

            Service boats

            Realtors

      Commercial Licenses: Prior to purchasing boat permits for commercial use, a lake commercial license must be applied for and approved by the marine commission.  Applications are available at town hall. All applications for the 2005 season must be received by February 15, 2005. The application requires information on the company, lodging facilities (for resorts, inns, camps and house rentals), insurance, and all boat operators. It also requires information on each boat and its intended usage. Applications for the 2006 season are due on November 31, 2005.

      Commercial Operations Limits: In order to control overcrowding and maintain safe boating conditions on the lake, the marine commission will limit the number of commercial operations permitted each year and balance commercial boating activities with non-commercial boating on the lake. All applications will be closely reviewed and a calculation will be made that estimates the impact of each of the company’s boats on the lake (by season and time of day). In granting licenses, priority will be given based on a number of factors including lake impact, age and location of business.

      Insurance: The town requires that all commercial boating operations must obtain and maintain commercial liability insurance with at least $1,000,000 in coverage for each boat permitted (motorized and non-motorized). Note: Service boats and Realtors must obtain $300,000 in coverage. In addition, the Town of Lake Lure must be listed as a co-insured on the policy. Proof of insurance (an current agency letter) must accompany the commercial license application.

      Operator Training. The town requires that all operators of commercial boats be registered with the town (via the commercial license application) and annually show proof of successful completion of a NCWRC approved boating safety course. A training course may be found at: http://www.boatus.org/online course/

Operator information required (each year): Name

            Date of Birth

            Address

            Course Certificate 

COMMUNITY POLICING NEWS

by Chief Mike Bustle

       Seasons Greetings from all your community police officers!  We hope each of you have a wonderful holiday season, but please remember to do what you can to ensure the happiness of the season.  This is also one of the most active seasons for “Scrooge” criminal activities in our neighborhoods.  Even the bad guys need money and additional resources during this season of giving.  The trouble is, they make this a “season of taking!”

      Please be alert for and report unusual activities and circumstances in your community.  Your police officers are eager to investigate these activities and perform proactive crime prevention activities in your area.  But, to be the most effective, we must have everyone’s participation in “keeping watch over our flocks and abodes, by day and night!”  Utilize the police department house check program when you are away for extended periods.

     Motor vehicle thefts and larcenies from vehicles are increasing in our areas.  Please make sure that when you depart your vehicle, you remove your keys and lock all doors.  Statistics indicate that 95% of all stolen vehicles have the key in the ignition!  Make sure that valuables are removed or stored completely out of sight, preferably in the trunk.  A little extra effort may save a smashed vehicle window and prevent you from becoming an unhappy victim of recent “smash and grabs!”

     It has also been reported in some places across the United States that thieves obtain a potential victims’ Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) from the windshield area of their vehicle, visit a local auto dealership and purchase a key for the vehicle.  You would think that dealerships would have more protections in place, but thieves can be quite convincing.  An opaque covering over your VIN and securing your registration papers should prevent this crime from occurring.  

     Recently, the North Carolina Senior Consumer Fraud Task Force issued the following “Fraud Alert.”  Law enforcement agencies in Canada have shut down a call center whose employees masqueraded as Social Security Administration officials and told older adults in the United States that they needed to recite their bank account numbers and bank routing information in order to re-establish their agency accounts and avoid a cutoff of their Social Security benefits.  Agencies reported that consumers who complied had their bank accounts electronically debited with a notation that the charges were for prescription drug discount services, and that no such services were delivered.

     Another “Fraud Alert” was recently issued entailing that local police in the Triad area are currently working a case involving a very elderly home owner who wired over $10,000 to out-of-state con artists who threatened  to foreclose on his home.  The con artists reportedly contacted the man and claimed that they had located other property belonging to him.  Instead of the usual asset recovery scam wherein the victim is encouraged to pay taxes or a recovery fee on some non-existent “recovered property” in order to receive it, these con artists warned the gentleman that taxes and penalties were past due on the supposedly recovered property and that he had to pay them the taxes and penalties immediately.  They reportedly told him that his failure to do so would cause them to foreclose on his home.  The elderly home owner repeatedly sent the scammers payments over a one month period.  He feared he would lose his home if he ignored their demands.   

 É

     A hearty “welcome aboard” goes out to two new community police officers, Joseph Montgomery and Tommy Lytle, who replaced Bill Short and Rick McWhorter who recently resigned.  We look forward to having these most professional and well trained officers in our ranks!

GOLF COURSE NEWS

by Sheila Spicer, Pro Shop Clerk

             I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season. Now that all of the hustle and bustle is over I would like to invite everyone to come out and take a look at the renovations we made to the club house. First we would like to extend a huge Thank You to Freeman Gas. They donated a beautiful set of vent free gas logs for the fireplace complete with installation. They add a homey feel to the pro shop and do a wonderful job of heating the whole building. We also removed a couple of walls to open the place up. We are very excited with the way it turned out and hope you will like it to, so stop by and tell us what you think.

      Since we have made all of these new improvements on the inside, even on rainy days or days when it is to cold to golf, you can come in and play cards or just sit around the fire and socialize.

      Also we have a huge selection of new golf merchandise. They range from new golf bags, umbrellas, balls, shirts, gloves, hand warmers and just about any thing you may need for a golf outing.

      Hope to see you soon on the course!

UPPER BROAD RIVER WATERSHED

PROTECTION PROGRAM

by , Erosion Control Specialist

      I guess by now our readers have learned that I have a propensity towards long-winded-ness.  My last article was, shall we say, a little long.  I don’t have any plans for any more long articles like that one for the near future and we are almost through with our series on aquatic dwellers.  This month I want to talk about amphibians.  More specifically, I want to talk about salamanders.

      Amphibians are a class of vertebrates who spend at least part of their lives both in water and on land.  The name amphibian comes from the Greek words amphi, meaning “both,” and bios, meaning “life.”  In essence amphibians live a “double life” as they progress through their life cycle.  For example:  a frog lays its eggs in a pool of water, which is the only place the eggs can remain viable.  Outside of water they would dry up.  As an egg develops and hatches it becomes a tadpole which spends all of its time in water.  The tadpole begins to change.  Its gills become lungs, it grows legs, and loses its tail.  It then emerges from the water and can carry on for the rest of its life on land.  This does not mean that an amphibian is totally independent of water.  An amphibian’s skin requires moisture and is one of the ways through which it breathes, therefore a certain degree of dampness is required for an amphibian to survive on land.  Amphibians are totally dependent on water as part of their life cycle and water quality is an important issue to them.

      We all are familiar with frogs and toads, as these are probably the most talked about amphibians.  Most people are somewhat familiar with salamanders too (they’re the ones that look kind of like lizards), but most do not understand the importance of salamanders.  Salamanders typically breathe in three ways: gills, lungs, or through their skin (with possible combinations).  Probably the most unique are the lungless salamanders who are either totally skin breathers or have gills.  These animals require high quality environmental conditions (clean air and clean water) to survive.  Without it, these animals would surely die.  There are 360 salamander species in the world, 90% of which are lungless.  The southeastern U.S. has more of these salamanders than anywhere else in the world.  While most of these are terrestrial through most of their adult life, many of them spend a great majority or all of their time in the water.  

      A great example of a salamander requiring high quality streams is the Hellbender.  Hellbenders are large salamanders that breathe totally through their skin.  They can grow up to 29 inches long.  They are only found in high quality rivers and streams of the mountains.  They are highly sensitive to all forms of pollution.  Hellbenders probably occurred in our watershed at one time, but decades of sedimentation have probably wiped them out.  None have been reported from this watershed in recent times.  Other species that we often see in our streams are dusky salamanders and blackbelly salamanders, both of which are lungless and require highly oxygenated water.

      Salamanders are important indicators of our environment.  In an area with poor air and water quality, you won’t find many salamanders.  Much research has been done to link salamander decline to air and water pollution, and the evidence is astounding.  Even in streams where water quality is good, but there is a high rate of sedimentation, salamander numbers are in decline.  Once again we can see a piece of the ecological puzzle being taken away because of our failure to reduce off-site sedimentation.  While we don’t think about the impacts in terms of how salamanders affect humans directly, we should look at the bigger picture and what the affects may be on down the line.

      If you would like to know more about salamanders, visit the Salamanders of North Carolina website at:

www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/salamanders/salamanders.html.

       Next month we’ll wrap up our series with fish and how they are indicators of water quality.  If you have an erosion problem or if you know somebody else that does, please call me anytime at (828)625-9983 Ext. 123 or e-mail me at clintcalhoun@blueridge.net for details.

Lake Lure Tree Management Committee

       Tree Protection Ordinance Update - In October, a public workshop finalized a set of ten community goals for a new tree protection ordinance. Our next step is to draft the regulatory language that will meet these goals. WE WELCOME YOUR INPUT. If you have access to the internet, we invite you to take a brief online survey and tell us how you feel about which tree cutting and land clearing activities should be regulated and in what manner. The survey should take about 20 minutes of your time. If you don’t have access to the internet, you can either go to the Mountains Branch Library on Bills Creek Road for assistance with completing the survey on the computers there, or you can obtain a paper copy of the survey at the Town Hall.

      To take the survey, enter this URL in the address box of your browser. Read the ordinance goals and then click on the survey icon at the bottom of the page.

http://www.ci.lake-lure.nc.us/tree_committee.h t m

      We will stop collecting responses on January 30^th, so please go online and complete before then. All views are welcome...including more than one response per household.

      If you have questions or need technical support with the survey, simply send an email to

chris@lacertallc.com.

      Thank you for all responses.   

LAKE LURE YOUTH CENTER’S  

HAPPENINGS

by Papa Sid and Mama Dot

       Well we have come to the end of the year, with a great bunch of children. Our highest attendance day was 44. Maybe the new year will bring more.

      We would like more indoor games for the cold winter days ahead. So if you know any indoor games or you have some puzzles you would like to share please bring them by. We would also like fruit for January and February to help keep the germs away.

    We will reopen at the beginning of the school year in January. Hope we have lots of new kids and all the old ones. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you again for sharing your kids with us.