We should be ashamed..........

The following letter is being Posted to this Blog with the full permission of it's author, emphasis added. While I did not see the boat fire, I did see far too much 'horsing around' and disregard for rules and lack of common sense. Personally I stayed off the Lake and welcomed Tuesday, July 5th with a great big – Thank G_d its Tuesday and most of the crazies have gone home.

July 5, 2011



Mayor Miscoe,


My wife and I are somewhat new comers to the Indian Lake Borough having only owned a lake front home since 2008 and have loved every minute we have been able to spend updating the house and spending time when we can at the lake. We live in Maryland on a farm with a variety of animals therefore we are able to only get away for two or three days at a time. When we do come up we try to make it during the week when there is less activity on the lake. When you issued your last Email newsletter it was interesting to see the reminders you passed along to borough owners about boating safely and lake restrictions on boat travel.

We are not generally complainers, but during this past weekend I have to say that I doubt anyone read your newsletter, they just plain ignored it, or did not pass along lake boating policy to their visiting guests. I lost count of the boats and jet ski's that came as close as 30 feet to the dock in front of our house at fairly high speeds, a number of jet ski's traveling the wrong direction on the lake and at least four jet ski's traveling on the lake well after dark without navigation lights which makes it extremely difficult to navigate on a pontoon boat when they travel at such high speed.

But what really concerned us and prompted me to write you is what appears to be total disrespect of some boaters when on Sunday July 3 a boat caught fire in front of our property in the middle of the lake, and when we (my wife and two friends) went out to help, boaters on the lake just seemed to ignore what was going on. There were three pontoon boats that did respond, one gentleman from across the lake and my neighbor Jeff Jones. We pulled two very young children with life jackets on that were too large for them and their mother and uncle who had no life jackets on at all out of the lake. Jeff Jones towed the boat to the Wenatchee dock area, and we took the children and two adults along and dropped them off at shore at Wenatchee where the the balance of their family was waiting. I had a hard time accepting that so many boaters passed them in the water and did not stop to offer assistance. Even when we were pulling the victims out of the water boats continue to race by.

I do know that the borough has limited source of funding for the police to patrol the lake on such busy holiday weekends but I am afraid that if people do not start adhering to stated safety rules and regulation like on the highway there’s going to be a serious event take place on the lake that should not happen. Based on my limited observation I would bet that at least 20 to 30 percent of those operating jet ski's either don’t have a valid permit or are just not concerned with other peoples safety. As a lake front property owner I would be more than happy to contribute funds to the borough to possibly hire additional help (boat too) to patrol the lake on heavy activity weekend events ( Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day) to help avoid a serious event on the lake. If other property owners agree, I believe we could raise enough to fund at least those three major holidays.

Please feel free to contact me about my observation if you like:


Lloyd (Pete) and Mary (Sandy) Shank
1289 Peninsula Drive

8440 Palmer Road
Middletown, Maryland 21769
(301) 371-4588

If we don't start doing better someone is going to get hurt or die. Please be safe and considerate out there.