By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — If all goes according to plan, a group called Friends of the Red Cedar Basin will soon begin gathering signatures by petition to form the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District.
Tom Bilse and Pete Heimdahl, representing the Friends of the Red Cedar Basin, appeared before the Dunn County Planning, Resources and Development Committee at the March 8 meeting to talk about the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District.
The Friends of the Red Cedar Basin was established 10 years ago as a non-profit lake organization, Bilse said.
Since then, Friends of the Red Cedar Basin have come to believe that a lake district is needed, he said.
A lake district is a unit of government that is elected and guided by property owners in the lake district, Bilse said.
The lake district would cover the area from the dam at Cedar Falls to the Russian Slough on the Red Cedar River to the Hay River near Peninsula Park. The Friends of the Red Cedar Basin have worked for months on establishing the boundaries of the district, he said.
Chapter 33
Chapter 33 of Wisconsin state statutes has specific requirements for forming a lake district. The Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District must be formed through a petition process of the landowners in the proposed district, Heimdahl said.
Heimdahl serves as president of the Friends of the Red Cedar Basin.
Tainter Lake experiences algae blooms in the summer and is being filled in with sedimentation from the Red Cedar River and the Hay River, and the lake district’s mission would be to work on water quality and the sedimentation, he said.
In the petition process, there will be a signature page for each landowner, although no matter how many parcels or properties someone owns in the district, the landowner gets one vote, he said.
There are more than 700 properties around Tainter Lake that are divided into 29 neighborhoods. The Town of Menomonie has one neighborhood in the southwest corner, the Town of Tainter has 25 neighborhoods, the Town of Sherman has two neighborhoods, and the Town of Red Cedar has one neighborhood, Heimdahl said.
The signature pages will be divided into 29 neighborhoods, and there are 932 property owners, he said.
51 percent
In order for the formation of the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District to move forward, 51 percent of the property owners must sign the petition, Heimdahl said, adding that the goal of the Friends of the Red Cedar Basin is to get signatures from 65 percent of the landowners.
There will be five petition-signing events at three locations, and every landowner will receive a packet of information, he said.
On or about March 21, brochures will be hung on the mailboxes of all the properties in the proposed lake district, Heimdahl said.
Two posters will be hung up at Jakes Supper Club, The Pioneer and Elk Point Resort — one poster will be a map of the lake district, and the other poster will include information about the petition-signing events, he said.
One petition event will be at the Tainter Town Hall on county Highway D on March 26 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Information will be available for landowners, petition pages will be available for signatures, and there will be question-and-answer and discussion sessions, Heimdahl said.
The two other petition signing events will be from noon to 6 p.m. at Jake’s Supper Club on April 2 and April 3 and at Elk Point Resort April 9 and April 10, he said.
Friends of the Red Cedar Basin are hoping to obtain all of the signatures needed at the events, but if not, there are 29 volunteers lined up to visit landowners in the 29 neighborhoods, Heimdahl said.
By the end of April or by the middle of May, Friends of the Red Cedar Basin hope to be able to present the signed petitions to the county clerk, he said.
Farmland
Gary Bjork, county board supervisor from Colfax and a member of the PR&D committee, noted that if only people who own land on Tainter Lake would be included in the lake district, what about the farmland that is on the map?
Farmland would be included in the lake district only if it touches the lake, Heimdahl said.
There are large parcels in the proposed district that are owned by the state, the county and by the townships, but those also would be included in the district if the parcel touches the lake, he said.
The properties that border the lake are the properties that would benefit from a lake district, Heimdahl said.
Friends of the Red Cedar Basin chose to include only riparian properties, that is, properties that border the lake, because they will benefit the most from a lake district, he said.
County role
Mike Kneer, county board supervisor from Menomonie and a member of the PR&D committee, asked about the county’s role in the formation of a lake district.
The signed petitions will be presented to the county clerk, and the county will go through a verification process for the landowners and the signatures, Heimdahl said.
Within 30 days of receiving the petitions, the county must hold a public hearing on the proposed lake district. Within six months, the Dunn County Board must approve or disapprove the lake district, he said.
A guide has been produced by UW-Stevens Point and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on forming and operating a lake district, and the guide includes information about the responsibilities of the county, Heimdahl said.
Governmental body
Diane Morehouse, county board supervisor from Menomonie and a member of the PR&D committee, asked how a lake district operates.
The lake district will have a five-member commission made up of one person appointed by the Dunn County Board, one person appointed by the majority township, which in this case would be the Town of Tainter, and three commissioners elected by the landowners of the lake district at an annual meeting, Heimdahl said.
The lake district would have an annual meeting in the summer or early fall to approve projects for the following year, a budget for the following year and to set a tax levy, he said.
Heimdahl noted that Friends of the Red Cedar Basin would suggest a seven-member commission operate the lake district made up of one representative appointed by the county board, one from the Town of Tainter and five elected by the landowners.
The hope would be that all five commissioners, or all seven, would be landowners in the lake district, he said.
Is it the intent that the lake district will be staffed? Morehouse asked.
“No,” Heimdahl said.
The job of the Friends of the Red Cedar Basin is to get the lake district established, and then once the lake district is established, Friends of the Red Cedar Basin will probably disband, although some of those members may serve as board members for the lake district, he said.
Whatever happens after the lake district is formed will be determined by the members of the commission and the landowners, Heimdahl said.
Taxes
Since there is county-owned land in the proposed district, and land owned by the townships and the DNR, and those properties are open to the public, such as Champney Park, Northwest Landing and Peninsula Park, will those governmental bodies pay into the lake district? Bjork asked.
“Yes and no,” Heimdahl said.
All of the land that touches the lake, whether it is public or private land, is included in the district, but the government properties do not pay taxes now and would not pay taxes levied by the lake district, he said.
Heather Wood, Dunn County Land and Water Conservation, has had some experience with lake districts, said Chase Cummings, county conservationist.
State statute does not contain much about counties paying the mill rate tax established by a lake district, but state statute has explicit wording about special assessments, and the county could be part of special assessments, Wood said.
The special assessments could also apply to properties owned by townships, she said.
Friends of the Red Cedar Basin have had “terrific cooperation” from the county offices, Heimdahl said.
Chase Cummings and the people in his office “have been awesome” and have answered every question, he said.
Steve Kochaver, Dunn County land information officer/GIS specialist, produced the map for the lake district, and the Register of Deeds spent a significant amount of time going over trusts and proper names, Heimdahl said.
“We really appreciate what the county has done,” he said.
The next step will be to wait for the signed petitions to be presented to Dunn County, said Tom Quinn, county board supervisor from Downing and chair of the PR&D committee.
