A THURSDAY IRELA CLE Webinar

 You can’t paddle your kayak
down the Mazon River anymore:
The fate of boating on nonnavigable waters after Holm v. Kodat

Dick Bales
Proper Title

MCLE approved for up to 1.25 general credit hours
Registration is Free for IRELA Members
Non-Members* ~ $50

A few months ago the Illinois Supreme Court issued its decision, Holm v. Kodat, wherein the court said that recreational boaters could not go down the Mazon River, as it was a  nonnavigable river.  The court stated that “the legislature is the best venue to consider plaintiff’s request for the creation of a new public policy on riparian rights for nonnavigable rivers and streams in Illinois.”

This presentation will discuss this case and the various ways that the legislature might define this new public policy.

IRELA Update: On November 16, 2022, State Representative Janet Yang Rohr introduced House Bill 5844. This bill amends the Rivers, Lakes, and Streams Act and is the first legislative attempt to define this “new public policy on riparian rights.” Dick will discuss this bill in his presentation.

Richard F. Bales

Dick Bales has worked in the title insurance industry since 1977. He took an early retirement in April of 2020 when he lost his job because of corporate pandemic downsizing. After several weeks of inactivity, however, he decided that he was not ready to retire, and when Proper Title offered him a job, he accepted it. He currently works as a “Senior Underwriting Consultant and Counsel” in the Naperville office of Proper Title.

Bales used title company records to research and write his book, The Great Chicago Fire and the Myth of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow, which was published by McFarland in 2002. His latest book, The Short Writings of Nelson Algren: A Study of the Stories, Essays, Articles, Reviews, Poems, and other Literature, has just been published, also by McFarland. He is the co-author (with Mike Filipski) of Residential and Commercial Surveys in Illinois, published by the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education in 2004. He is also the author of the 2022 Illinois Professional Land Surveyors Association 500+ page compilation, Land Boundaries and Easements in Illinois.

*Join IRELA now! 

MCLE PCAM Course ID: 526514