Hello Shady Beach Members!
I love seeing boats going into the water this time of year! The days are getting longer and the water is getting warmer. Woot, woot!
During the April 10th General Membership meeting we covered a lot of topics that you should be aware of which I’ve summed up below. If you’d like to chat about any of it, feel free to give me a call.
- We had two boat slips that came available and were assigned out to Iara Brophy – dock #30 and Kevin Long dock #26. Your patiences has finally paid off! New members are always asking: How long is the wait to get a boat dock? I noticed Iara waited 5 years and Kevin 4 years for these assignments. Congratulations to both of you!
- We now have 28 members on the Boat Dock Wait List which validates the high value and desire to boat on Upper Straits Lake. It also emphasizes the importance of having Boat Dock Rules that work for all our boating members including current dock renters, sublet renters, boat dock wait list members, day docker members, the Board, and the Boat Dock Chairman.
In order to maximize these highly desirable boating privileges and to address some problematic issues, the Board reviewed the Boat Dock Rules and has developed some new and modified rules. The specific problems we are looking to address are:
- Current boat dock renters who are late in paying their annual dues. This simply can’t be tolerated in the future as it’s not fair to those that have been waiting years for a dock.
- For subletting dock renters we needed more defined rules for the current boat dock renter, the subletter and for the Boat Dock Chairman.
With these main points in mind, please feel free to read & review the proposed Boat Dock Rules here. In our next General Membership Meeting on May 8th, we will be taking input from the general membership and then the Board will vote on the new rules.
- In our March General Membership meeting we formed a Master Plan Committee to identify all the desired projects the membership would like to complete. You’ll note some of these projects, like permanent bathrooms at the beach pavilion, have been a topic for years, but nothing gets done because we don’t have a plan, the funds or full support to take action.
The reality is we spend $1,000 a year to rent the port-a-potty and we’ve now spent ~$15,000 on renting versus having something nicer. To accomplish any of these projects will take planning, long term funding and support from the general membership. Below is a list of the projects that have been identified thus far in no particular order.
| Project | Description |
| Permanent Bathroom(s) at the beach pavillion | Build 2 separate bathrooms, connect to city water and sewer |
| Beach landscape improvement | Expand the built up land on the back of the pavilion for easier transitioning area for the kayakers |
| Beach landscape improvement | Landscape the northside of the beach where the old tree was and add trees to fill in that property line. |
| Beach landscape improvement | Add low voltage permanent accent lighting |
| Transform the garage into an open cabana | The idea is to remove all the walls but keep the roof and floor to create a cabana that can be used by the boaters and fisher people, as well as continued use for storage of kayaks. The space could be used for day dockers/boaters as a staging area, to pick up waiting passengers, etc. |
| Resurface marina grounds, landscape, low voltage lighting | Our beach and marina should be the show pieces of our neighborhood. As cars have beat up the grass leaving weeds, muddy pot holes and dirt, the marina grounds leave a lot to be desired. The idea is to rip up all the grass and lay down grass paver mesh that will enable the grounds to be re-leveled and sodded so that cars can drive and park on the grass without the grass being torn up. We could also install borders for the gravel drive for definitive cleaner lines. With great grass, we would also install a lake source sprinkler system to the marina to keep it nice and low voltage access up lighting. There’s also been expressed desire to plant trees or to use some type of fence where the current rocks are that separate the marina trailer parking from the street. |
| Dock maintenance & painting | The top of our docks are plastic, but the side boards are pressure treated and the paint is off or going bad on a lot of docks. They need to be repainted so they will last longer. |
| Seawall maintenance & repair | We could use some outside expertise to help us assess our current conditions and determine if any maintenance is needed to prevent any future big problems. |
| Dredge Fund | We’ve been saving money into our “dredge fund” for things like dock maintenance/replacement, seawall maintenance/replacement and dredging the canal. However we do not have any current quotes to understand how much we should be saving. Our Boat Dock Chairman has reported that our bio-pod system is working great and the microorganisms have been eating the muck such that a ~ 1 foot of muck is gone. Thus we may not need to dredge at all, but we will surely need to set aside significant funds for the seawall and docks. |
| Electronic Marina Lock & FOB Keys | We’d like to move away from an old school key for marina access to a member using a small FOB that would provide better control and use options. |
| Resurfacing the basketball court | The current court has various cracks and it could use repairing |
| Removing cottonwood tree at the beach and replacing it with an evergreen | This tree is the bane of every boater’s existence every spring when it drops its cotton for weeks on all the boats and surrounding area. Whoever planted this one years ago, wasn’t a boater! |
The Master Plan Committee consists of the following individuals: Rick Cumbo, Peggy Donovan, Jill Segal, Tobie Scheibel and myself. If you have new projects or ideas about any of these projects – please DO reach out to one of us. At this point we are in the collecting information and gathering quotes phase. Once we know more, we would then present our findings in future general membership meetings to get input on project interest, project priorities, funding and timing. Also to manage your expectations, I don’t realistically see us doing any of these projects this year, as it will take some time to gather the needed information and then allow us all to hear and digest our thoughts on future planning.
- We’ve received a few calls that the beach key card entry system has been acting up. Specifically, when the member swipes their card the gate locks instead of opens. For example, if you are inside the beach and trying to leave and hit the button, the gate locks instead of opens. This is caused by some strange reverse polarity. If this happens to you, here’s what you can do(so you don’t hurt yourself trying to jump the fence).
- Let it time out by waiting at least 10 seconds before you try to swipe your card or hit the button again.
- Please call one of us board members to let us know as we are trying to gauge the frequency of this condition.
- SBIA has switched banks and are in the process of moving all our balances to Lake Michigan Credit Union and we are glad to be earning 4.6% now on the dredge fund.
- On Saturday April 29th beginning at 9am we’ll have our annual Spring Clean Up detail. We need YOU to volunteer to help us move, drop, place mulch and dirt and do some other small tasks to get our grounds looking better for the Summer. These will yard type tasks so come dressed to work and bring a shovel or rake if you have one.