The new canoe and kayak policy begs a couple of questions.
1. Parks and Rec has a list of all the previous users of the lottery. Did it invite these users to comment at one of its meetings? Was there any attempt to reach out to the vested parties? I think that it would have been very simple for Parks and Rec to make its intentions much better understood before making its decision.
2. Was any thought given to folks who have trouble hauling their kayaks on and off a trailer or car rack (i.e., handicapped or elderly)? I know people who literally can’t lift a kayak on and off their car, so shutting them out of the lottery not only excludes them from a rack, it excludes them from kayaking altogether. The old lottery didn’t provide specific provisions for this either, but if you are going to “improve” fairness, maybe this should have figured into the policy.
The two-tier system isn’t as fair as a single lottery as long as the process for choosing “winners” in a single lottery is truly unbiased. If people were “cheating” on the process (e.g., multiple family members registering), then I don’t see how a two-tier system avoids the cheating. Are the newer participants somehow more trustworthy than the previous participants? Cheating should be handled independent of the lottery.
I hope this will be a one-year aberration and that these “quick-fix” policies that aren’t terribly well thought out are reviewed thoughtfully and revised next year.
Michael Kilian
Candleberry Lane
