AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage has signed a bill that prohibits Maine towns from collecting fees for ice fishing shacks.
The bill was introduced after Randolph selectmen last year voted to charge $15 fees on each smelting shack along the town’s Kennebec River frontage. Smelt shack owners objected.
LePage signed the bill outlawing the fees Friday.
State law already prohibits municipalities from charging fees on lakes and ponds that are not public water supplies. The bill would extend the protection to coastal and tidal waters, and water bodies that serve as public water supplies.
YAY a small victory but it has to start somewhere. Now if we could get the fees for all other outdoor things like hunting licenses cut way back. Go LePage!!! Cut cut cut and then cut some more!!!
So Paul Lepage will be picking up the trash, booze bottles and human waste that some ice fishermen leave behind?
Or will that be the towns property tax payers covering the costs of this unfunded mandate from the state.
“smelting shack along the town’s Kennebec River frontage.”
Whose land, exactly, are the socialist right wingers and anti-conservation “Sports”
claiming is theirs to use as they like , now, with no controls or limits
on their acts of trespass ?
Building “shacks” without permits or specific permission on both public
and other people’s private land … why aren’t they they are every bit as bad
as those OWS people ?
Private ownership of the river? Can I get some?
I think you are confused but explain it to me if you aren’t. This bears no relationship to ows.
What part of the question : ”
Whose land, exactly … ”
along the town’s Kennebec River frontage …”, are you not able to understand, can’t answer, or must avoid for political reasons, perhaps ?
And then “why aren’t they they are every bit as bad as those OWS people ?” , too,
as it is interesting question, too, isn’t it ?
I believe the law refers to the water , not shore frontage. The towns do not own the river.Poor reporting it seems.
Ever catch a smelt in dirt?
Tell it to the reporter.
I suggest you pick up a copy of ice fishing rules and regulations, they’re free and you may actually learn something before you bad mouth someone. These unfunded mandates as you call them have been in effect for years. Oh yeah, when you’re through reading the rule book, kindly dispose of properly, thank you.
That makes no sense.
Commercial smelt shanty operations own or lease their frontage, and most individual fishermen get their shacks on the river via a PUBLIC boat launch. As for litter, there are laws already on the books to cover that. These fees were dreamed up by selectmen trying to pick the pockets of smelt fishermen to add some coin to their coffers. Glad they got squashed.
What the heck is the state doing telling the towns what to do? These towns ought to tell him to kiss their butts.