CHAUTAUQUA–The second event of the Turner Winter Series was held on Tuesday evening at the Turner Community Center to discuss the ongoing progress in potentially forming a Chautauqua Lake district.

Host Greg Peterson moderated the session with speakers Don McCord, county director of planning and community development, and Chautauqua County Legislature Chairman Pierre Chagnon, who is also the Chautauqua Lake Protection And Rehabilitation Agency chairman.

McCord and Chagnon opened the discussion by answering questions on their own personal histories working on projects in Chautauqua County, before briefing those in attendance about the lake district concept.

One step in moving towards the creation of a lake district is for the county legislature to first form an agency to determine if there is a need. If there is a need, it has to be determined what a lake district would do and where exactly it would be located.

It was in 2018 that then County Executive Vince Horrigan put forward a resolution that resulted in the creation of the CLPRA, which is made up of nine board members.

Since its creation, the agency has worked with a number of different parties and organizations in order to assess and improve the health and recreational usability of the lake. This has included analysis of funding for a number of different lake maintenance programs.

As of Jan. 1, the process is in the phase of gathering information through stakeholder interviews, which have been undertaken by Highland Planning of Rochester.

“The stakeholder interview results will be available for the Feb. 5 agency meeting which is next week,” McCord said. “Then, after we know what those results are and discuss those, we will work with Highland to design a (public) survey document which should be considered and hopefully approved at the March meeting of the agency. Once we have that, that will go out in the middle of March to everyone we project will be within the district, that will be out for 30 days, so until the middle of April. In the second half of April and in the month of May we will work on those results because I imagine they will be extensive. There are probably 9,000 properties within the potential district.”

One goal in this initial round of stakeholder interviews is to gather information from the public, and hold a forum in June so that summer lake residents can be in attendance.

“We felt it was time to really go to the public and explain what we are working on,” Chagnon said. “What we are trying to accomplish for the legislature and get the public input.”

The panel discussed the benefits of a district in procuring funds for the improvement of the lake, including a variety of possible fee structures.

In outlining an explanation of the agency, Peterson said, “Part of the challenge of this agency is to perhaps look at alternatives as to how monies might be raised in the form of fees to supplement that which is coming from foundations and the county through it’s occupancy tax.”

A main purpose of Tuesday’s meeting was to outline the legal processes that the agency and the legislature have gone through, and explain to residents how things are proceeding. Chagnon and agency board members met with those involved in the creation of New York’s only other lake district, in order to get a better understanding of how districts are developed.

Chagnon emphasized that any parcels of land paying a district fee would have to be shown to receive a benefit from the application of those funds.

“That’s the big speed bump is, who should pay for the benefit of having a protected and maintained and beneficial Chautauqua Lake?” Chagnon asked.