DC Board approves lake district report, sends back to PR&D committee for proposed resolution
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Board has approved the Planning, Resources and Development Committee’s report on the proposed lake district public hearing and has sent the issue back to the PR&D committee to draft a proposed resolution.
The report summarizes the information about the proposed Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District and the public hearing on the proposed district held by the PR&D committee in August, said Tom Quinn, county board supervisor from Downing and chair of the PR&D committee.
State statute sets a timeline for forming lake districts. The county clerk received a petition in July, and then the public hearing was held in August, he said.
The Dunn County Board, according to state statute, has 90 days after receiving the report on the public hearing, to make a decision on whether to form a lake district, Quinn said, noting that 90 days would mean the county board would consider the formation of a lake district at the January meeting.
In addition to the report, the PR&D committee will be requesting that the Dunn County Board send the issue of the proposed lake district back to the PR&D committee to develop a formal order for the formation of a lake district, he said.
The PR&D committee also will recommend nominations for the initial lake district board of directors, the lake district boundaries and additional requests by the applicants, Quinn said.
Andrew Mercil, Dunn County clerk, read a comment submitted by Doris Meyer, clerk-treasurer for the Town of Tainter, earlier during the public comments portion of meeting, stating that the Tainter Town Board had met on October 13 and approved requesting that property owned by the Town of Tainter be excluded from the proposed lake district.
Criteria
Quinn pointed out that state statute lists four criteria for the county board to consider when deciding whether to approve a lake district.
The criteria includes whether the requisite number of signatures of property owners had been received, whether the proposed lake district is necessary, whether the lake district will improve public health, safety and welfare and whether property in the lake district will benefit.
Tainter Lake has significant problems with blue-green algae, so it would benefit public health to address the blue-green algae problem, Quinn said.
The organizers formed the proposal for a lake district around a narrow set of practices, but the practices that a lake district would adopt, and the funds to pay for those practices, will be decided by the residents of the lake district, he said.
One requirement for lake districts is an annual meeting of the property owners in the lake district.
The property in the lake district would benefit from being in a lake district by improving the value of the property and improving the property owner’s ability to use the property, Quinn said.
Revoking signatures
Andrew Hagen, county board supervisor from Menomonie, said he had questions about the process for submitting signatures for the proposed lake district.
Some of the public comments received about the proposed lake district have asked for a “re-do.” Is there a way to revoke signatures? Hagen asked.
Chase Cummings, county conservationist, has been working with the PR&D committee on the lake district and the report from the public hearing.
Once the petition is signed and submitted, and once the petition is turned in to the county clerk, the petition is on the record and the signatures are part of the record, Cummings said.
Notification
Other public comments have noted that the county was required to send out notification of the public hearing to individuals in the proposed lake district but that a certain number of people did not receive notification of the public hearing in the mail, Hagen said.
After the signatures were verified, the county clerk was required to mail out notifications to all property owners, Mercil said.
The public hearing was scheduled on August 9, and the hearing notice was posted and it was mailed out to all residents in the proposed district, he said.
After the notification of the public hearing was dropped into the mail, “I do not know what happened,” Mercil said.
There are reports that some did not receive the notification and reports that some did receive the notification, he said, noting that the post office has been experiencing some issues with delivery of mail.
In addition to posting the notification of the public hearing and mailing out notifications, the public hearing notice was published in the newspaper, it was posted on Dunn County’s website and it was posted on social media sites frequented by people living in Menomonie and people living on Tainter Lake, Mercil said.
Hagen said he had also heard that some sources of funding were only available to lake districts and wondered if special grant funding was available.
Information about the funding available for a lake district is outside the scope of whether the Dunn County Board is going to approve the report on the public hearing, said Kelly McCullough, county board supervisor from Menomonie and chair of the Dunn County Board.
McCullough suggested that Hagen bring the question about funding to the next PR&D committee meeting.
Ordinances
The county owns property in the proposed lake district. Do lake districts have the authority to establish ordinances? Hagen asked.
The issue of ordinances is addressed in the report, Cummings said.
There are already county ordinances that manage shoreland. Ordinances concerning what happens out on the water can be developed in conjunction with the lake district, the local township and the state Department of Natural Resources, he said.
The lake district would have some latitude for ordinances, Cummings said.
The Dunn County Board unanimously approved the report on the proposed lake district public hearing.
The Dunn County Board also unanimously approved referring the lake district back to the Planning, Resources and Development Committee for a formal order addressing the criteria in state statute so the Dunn County Board can consider whether to approve the lake district.
The PR&D committee also will include nominations for the initial board of directors for the lake district to serve for the first three months until the first annual meeting of the lake district and recommendations for the lake district boundaries.
