(September 26) At the behest of the Arrowhead Lake Association, the county board of supervisors this week took a first step toward altering  the county code to allow sail craft smaller than a dozen feet in length to navigate  Lake Arrowhead.
Section 52.0204 of the San Bernardino County Code prohibits the use of boats that are less than twelve feet in length on any county waterway except for the Colorado River, its tributaries and Lake Havasu.
At the suggestion of sheriff’s captain Shannon Dicus, the board of supervisors took a first vote to  amend Section 52.0203 to allow sailboats between seven and twelve feet in length on Lake Arrowhead. The board is now scheduled to give a  required “second reading” of the ordinance at its October 7 meeting. If approved then, it will go into effect 30 days later.
According to Dicus, “The Lake Arrowhead Yacht Club has utilized a twelve-foot sailboat on the lake for many years to train the next generation of sailing enthusiasts. A seven-foot boat, the Optimist, has emerged as the leading sailboat trainer for youth. The Optimist is a small single-handed sailing dinghy intended for use by children and is one of the most popular sailing dinghies in the world. Approval of this ordinance will allow this smaller class of sailboats to be used on Lake Arrowhead.”
Rights to the navigation of and access to Lake Arrowhead have been in dispute for some time.  The Arrowhead Lake Association, consisting of homeowners in the area, claims the shoreline around Lake Arrowhead is privately owned by the Arrowhead Lake Association and is exclusively reserved for the benefit of the residential property owners of Arrowhead Woods.
Public rights activists, however, maintain that the lake itself is owned by the state of California and the efforts to restrict public access to the lake are illegal.
The county of San Bernardino has, for the most part, sided with the affluent landowners living around the lake.