Wednesday December 1, 2010
Honorable Mayor of Gary Indiana Rudolph Clay
401 Broadway
Gary, Indiana 46402
Dear Mayor Clay,

Good morning, I represent the fisherman of Gary and surrounding communities regarding the Marquette Park Lakefront Plan. We fisherman are being disrespected once again by this community. The funding for this project is derived from taxes on fishing licenses and tax on fishing equipment. Under the Barnes administration I procured $3,000,000.00 from the department of natural resources for a public access fishing spot as a private citizen for the city of Gary. Plans were made to remodel Buffington Harbor for public access fishing while secretly the real plan was to bring the river boats here and let them dock there.

The city of Gary had to repay the 3 million dollars and the fishermen of the community were again disrespected. Not even after giving the city its seed money to bring forth billions of dollars in revenues where we ever considered in any spending projects.

I respectfully request $3,000,000 or more of this funding for the Marquette Park Lakefront be set aside for a fishing pier or a public access road to the break wall pier on the east end of United States Steel that was donated to the city of Gary that may need some railing installed and a dirt road built to access it.

The plan is not etched in stone and we do not want to go to the state of Indiana to stop the plan but we think if anybody has a say in this it should be the fisherman.

I think plans were drawn up under the King administration about the land that was donated and the issues was an access road. If not possible we want a fishing pier built without a Marina in at least 20 feet deep water. We do not want anybody heading up and plans who knows nothing about the sport of fishing like so many others in the past who have built piers on dry land with in the city of Gary or in spots where no one fishes.

In closing I must mention the two citizens of Gary who recently lost their lives fishing in a Clay pit off Clark road need not have happened if there was public access to fish lake Michigan year round as in other communities and as a fisherman I must point out we are not children and regulating the hours of fishing is unconstitutional.

I can be reached at 312-912-9917

Sincerely,
Silas G Sconiers
1336 Washington St. Apt 102
Gary, Indiana 46407


The above document was emailed to amflyfishing - to inform fellow anglers and request their support.