Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District Board of Commissioners holds first meeting
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by LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — And so it begins.
The Board of Commissioners for the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District held the first official meeting March 2 after the Dunn County Board approved forming the lake district in January.
About 60 people attended the meeting held at the Dunn County Government Center.
The initial Board of Commissioners includes Al Brown, Tom Bilse, Jerry Porter, Zach Raff and Jim Zons.
Zons, county board supervisor from Colfax and chair of the Dunn County Resources and Tourism Committee, is representing the Dunn County Board.
Bilse has been appointed by the Tainter Town Board as the Town of Tainter’s representative.
Brown, Raff and Porter were appointed by the county board based on a recommendation from the Dunn County Planning, Resources and Development Committee.
Zons said he has lived on Tainter Lake for 30 years.
Bilse said he has been resident of Tainter Lake since 1967.
Porter said he has been a resident of Tainter Lake for 25 years and noted he serves in other capacities, including being a member of the Dunn County Zoning Board of Adjustment.
Raff said he is the “newcomer” and has lived on Tainter Lake for seven years. He is a natural resources economist at UW-Stout and works with the benefits and the costs of conservation policy.
Brown, a retired public school superintendent, said he was born in Menomonie and that his family has lived on the lake since the 1940s and that three generations of his family live on Tainter Lake now.
As a school superintendent, Brown noted he has experience with public meetings and the state’s Open Meetings law.
The meeting was videotaped, but as it was pointed out, the lake district does not currently have a website or a YouTube channel, so for right now, there is nowhere to post the video.
The intent is to eventually be able to post videos of the meetings as one way to remain transparent and to communicate with the public, Brown said.
Officers
The Board of Commissioners nominated and elected Brown as chair of the board.
Bilse was nominated and elected as the secretary to take minutes of the meetings.
Raff was nominated and elected as treasurer for the Board of Commissioners.
Brown noted that he, Porter and Raff are temporary members of the board until the lake district’s first annual meeting.
At the first annual meeting, residents of the lake district will nominate and elect three permanent board members.
Because Bilse was appointed by the Tainter Town Board, he is a permanent board member for whatever term was determined by the Tainter Town Board.
Because Zons was appointed by the county board, he is a permanent board member until his term expires on the county board.
The PR&D committee decided that two-year terms for the county board representative made sense since county board members are up for election every two years.
The Lake District Board of Commissioners can either be a five-member board or a seven-member board, and Brown said he recommended the possibility of a seven-member Board of Commissioners should be presented at the first annual meeting.
Public comment
Some members of the audience took advantage of the public comments portion of the meeting.
Speakers were allowed two minutes to make their points.
One gentleman wanted to know if people in the lake district were going to see an increase in their property taxes.
The man also noted that boats speed in the channel on Tainter Lake and kick up waves that result in shore erosion.
When he has gone to the Tainter Town Board about the boats speeding through the channel, the town board says it is an issue for the state Department of Natural Resources, but when he goes to the DNR, the DNR personnel say it is a town board issue.
The man said he has lost two or three feet of shoreline in the last 10 years because of waves kicked up in the “no wake” zone, that he has lost trees from the bank and that he has had personal property destroyed when it has been smashed against his dock.
The channel is 400 feet wide and is a no-wake zone, and jet skis, water skiers and boats are supposed to stay 200 feet away from the shoreline, he said
In response to the man’s concern about an increase in the property taxes, Brown sad the Board of Commissioners would not be making decisions about property tax levies.
Whether property taxes would increase for lake district residents would depend upon the residents because the residents will vote on tax levies at the annual meetings of the district, he explained.
Brown also pointed out that if lake district residents bring up a topic during public comments that is not in the board’s agenda, legally, according to the state’s Open Meetings law, the board cannot address that topic at the meeting and will have to wait until the topic is officially part of the agenda at another meeting.
The no-wake zone could be a topic added to the board’s agenda, Zons said.
Water testing
Neil Koch, a retired hydro-geologist who is a Town of Menomonie resident, said everyone most likely received a postcard from the county about having their wells tested.
Dunn County Land and Water Conservation is working on testing wells in the county this year to get a baseline for water quality.
The quality of the ground water in Dunn County is important because it flows into the rivers and the lakes, Koch said.
Voting members
One gentleman who lives on 770th Avenue asked how it was determined that someone would be a voting member of the lake district.
He also asked how to get items on the agenda for the Board of Commissioners.
Since the lake district does not yet have by-laws and has not yet established any policies, no information was available about who is considered a voting member of the lake district or what procedure the board would use to place topics on the agenda.
State Statute 33.30, which deals with the annual meetings for a lake district, refers to electors and property owners voting at an annual meeting.
Under the definitions for Chapter 33, “elector” is not defined.
State law requires the lake district annual meeting to be held between May 22 and September 8, unless a date scheduled outside of that time period has been approved at an annual meeting.
Procedural issues
Bob Batchelor said he is the person who maintains the “slow” and “no wake” buoys on the lake.
A town ordinance establishes the location of the buoys and includes citations for people who are violating the town ordinance in the “slow” and “no wake” areas, he said.
The Board of Commissioners may want to check into moving the ordinance from the Town of Tainter’s jurisdiction to the Lake District, Batchelor said.
The Town of Tainter also has a memorandum of understanding with the DNR and the sheriff’s department for patrolling the lake, and the Board of Commissioners may want to renegotiate the MOUs, he said.
Donation
Pete Heimdahl, a resident of 520th Street and a member of the Friends of the Red Cedar Basin, said he was happy to see an audience for the meeting.
A Lake District is a tremendous opportunity to see important improvements made to the lake, he said, noting that he was one of the people who worked on the petition drive to form the Lake District.
The Board of Commissioners will have expenses, such as postage for mailings and advertising meetings, but the board will not have a mechanism to obtain money for operational expenses until the first annual meeting, Heimdahl said.
Heimdahl pledged to donate $1,000 to the Board of Commissioners to help them with initial start-up costs and said he hoped others would be willing to donate some money as well.
Heimdahl’s comments were met by applause from the audience.
Absentee voting
One woman said people she had talked to were concerned about not being able to submit absentee ballots for the annual meetings.
Eligible voters might be serving in the military, or be “snow birds” who have gone down south or people on vacation or people who are disabled and unable to leave their homes, she said.
State law prohibits absentee voting at the Lake District annual meetings.
Zons reported that absentee voting at lake district annual meetings was a topic the Dunn County Board had brought up to state Legislators who had attended the county board meeting with area state Legislators to talk about the county board’s legislative concerns.
If people would like to see state law changed to allow absentee voting at lake district annual meetings, they should contact Representative Clint Moses or Senator Jesse James, Zons said.
Sub-committees
One gentleman who resides on County Highway D asked if the Board of Commissioners would be using sub-committees to help do research or complete other tasks.
The man said he is a plumber and has done work with water quality and would be willing to serve on a sub-committee.
Sub-committees would be subject to the state’s Open Meetings law and would be required to have agendas and to take minutes, Brown said.
Sub-committees should be on the agenda for the next meeting, he said.
Legal status
The order to form the Lake District has been filed with the Dunn County Register of Deeds, the DNR and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, Bilse said.
The county prepared the document for the order to form the Lake District, which included a property description that was several pages long, he said.
Bilse said it was his understanding the Lake District also has to file articles of incorporation, file for an Employee Identification Number (EIN) and file a 1023 for tax exempt status.
He also wondered if it would be beneficial to have an attorney assist with the additional filings.
An EIN is needed in order to open a bank account, Bilse said.
Bilse said he was willing to research whether the Lake District needed articles of incorporation and whether an attorney would be necessary to file the EIN and for tax exempt status.
Other members of the board said applying for an EIN and for tax exempt status would not require an attorney.
The Board of Commissioners approved a motion to proceed with filing for an EIN and tax exempt status and for Bilse to research articles of incorporation and to report at the next meeting.
Insurance
Workers compensation insurance would be required because the Lake District is classified as an employer, Brown said.
“Errors and omissions” insurance also would be good to protect the Board of Commissioners from lawsuits, he said.
Brown said he was going to a conference and would ask about the experiences of other lake districts.
The Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District will be “messy” in the beginning, and the Board of Commissioners must consider what is required, what is recommended, and what is good to have, he said.
The Board of Commissioners approved a motion authorizing Bilse to obtain quotes from insurance agents for liability insurance, errors and omissions insurance and workers compensation insurance.
Annual meeting
At the annual meeting, the initial Board of Commissioners will have to list issues for the permanent board that is elected to consider, a budget for the residents to vote on and by-laws for lake district residents to discuss and to approve, Brown said.
Brown volunteered to research by-laws for the Lake District.
Communications
Communicating the meeting times and agendas to the public is not only required by law but communication with the public also will be necessary for the lake district’s success, Brown said.
He reported that he had published the meeting notice with the Colfax Messenger and the Dunn County News.
Posting agendas and minutes, having a website, maintaining a social media presence and issuing press releases will all be part of communicating with the public, Brown said.
Brown offered to write a news release to submit to the area newspapers about the initial meeting of the Board of Commissioners since he was not aware of newspaper coverage at the meeting.
The Colfax Messenger spoke up to say the Lake District Board of Commissioners had newspaper coverage.
Online
A website will be essential for the Lake District to post agendas and minutes from meetings, Zons said, noting that websites are part of what he does for a living.
Zons is the owner of EZ New Media.
Initially, the Lake District will need to register a domain name for the website, which will cost $15 per year, and the commissioners should all have e-mail addresses through the domain name, which will keep e-mail messages together and make it easier to respond to Open Records requests, he said.
The Lake District should have a Facebook group, too, and a Zoom account, Zons said.
With a Zoom account, people would have the ability to watch the meeting live, and then later on, the recording of the meeting could be uploaded to YouTube so that people could access the meetings at a time of their choosing, he said.
A Google account would be needed for the YouTube channel, Zons said.
The Board of Commissioners approved a motion authorizing Zons to register a domain name for the Lake District and to set up e-mail addresses for the Board of Commissioners and to also establish a Google account and to investigate the cost of Zoom for the meetings.
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District. Board of Commissioners is scheduled for April 13 at 5 p.m. at the Dunn County Government Center (the former Dunn County Health Care Center building).
The goals for the next meeting include discussing organizational by-laws, preparations for the annual meeting and to plan a work outline, Brown said.
