Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District sets first annual meeting for August
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The initial Board of Commissioners for the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District has scheduled the first annual meeting of the district for August 5.
The initial Board of Commissioners held their second meeting April 13 at the Dunn County Government Center on Highway 12 East in Menomonie.
Although the commissioners scheduled the first annual meeting for Saturday, August 5, at 1 p.m., the location of the annual meeting has yet to be determined.
The initial Board of Commissioners includes Zach Raff, Jerry Porter, Al Brown (chair of the initial board), Jim Zons, representative for the Dunn County Board, and Tom Bilse, representative for the Tainter Town Board.
Raff was absent from the April 13 meeting.
Electors in the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District will elect three commissioners during the annual meeting.
Zons and Bilse, since they are appointed by the county board and the Tainter Town Board, will serve until their terms are up as determined by their respective boards, at which time the county board and town board will appoint representatives for another term.
The commissioners indicated that the location for the annual meeting must be a space large enough to accommodate 500 or 600 people.
Approximately 60 people attended the first meeting of the initial Board of commissioners.
About a dozen people attended the April 13 meeting.
The Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District now has a Facebook page.
To find the page, do a search on Facebook for “Tainter Lake District.”
Agendas for meetings will be posted on the Facebook page as well as other information pertaining to the lake district.
Insurance
Bilse reported that he had contacted three insurance companies or agencies and had gotten a good response from one.
The lake district will need an employer identification number (EIN) in order to get a quote on insurance, he said.
The district does not need insurance yet because no projects have been started, but a quote will be needed for the budget, Bilse said, noting that he applied for an EIN and is expecting the EIN to be assigned soon.
Brown asked about workers’ compensation insurance.
Board members are considered as employees of the district, so the district is required to have workers’ compensation insurance, Bilse said.
Website
Zons reported that he has set up a website and e-mail for the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District but that the website has not yet “gone live.”
Zons, who operates a business called EZ New Media, said he had looked at a variety of lake district websites and that “they were all over the map.”
The website is expandable as needed and can include information about lake projects, the annual meeting, suggestions for the district, the Dunn County Board resolution approving the lake district, and frequently asked questions (FAQs), he said.
The Board of Commissioners unanimously approved moving forward with the website and making it live.
Zons said he was donating the development of the website and setting up the e-mail addresses for the initial Board of Commissioners.
Legal representation
If an issue comes up and the district needs legal representation, “the wrong time to look is if you need one,” Brown said.
Zons said he has heard of an attorney “subscription” service called LegalShield that has a network of lawyers people can be put in touch with if they need an attorney.
The commissioners agreed that Zons should find out if LegalShield was available to organizations.
If the service is available to organizations, Zons said he could ask someone to make a presentation at the next board meeting.
Bilse said he would ask an attorney he knew about representation for the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District as well.
Budget
The district’s budget will be a big part of the annual meeting because the electors must approve the budget, Brown said.
Building a budget is difficult when there is no money and no expenses yet, Zons said.
The district could start out with a list of items that would be needed, such as an administrative assistant and a laptop for the administrative assistant, Bilse said.
Lake District projects will be approved by the membership, so the district has no projects yet, Porter said.
At the annual meeting, the budget will have to be approved along with taxation to support the budget, Brown said.
Many grants require cost sharing, so even though the district has no projects yet, there should be money in the bank so “we’re ready to go,” Bilse said.
The Board of Commissioners will need a plan and a budget process, Brown said.
Revenue
Grants would be one source of revenue, and private donations, such as the $1,000 from Pete Heimdahl as well as a donation from another individual who has said he or she would donate money, Brown said.
In-kind donations, such as Zons’ donation of building a website, also would be helpful, he said.
Bilse suggested setting up a Go-Fund-Me account for crowd-sourcing of revenue, since the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District is a good environmental issue.
A link to a Go-Fund-Me account could be added to the website, Zons said.
A Dunn Energy Grant might be a possible source of funding to pay for the initial annual meeting, Porter said.
A real estate agent in the audience said she would be willing to donate a percentage of sales of real estate on Tainter Lake to the lake district.
Prior to the meeting’s conclusion, Porter announced that he had just submitted an application for the Dunn Energy Grant.
Community education
One thing people want to know is how much the district will cost landowners, Brown said.
Bilse said he was in the process of finding out the valuation of property in the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District so the Board of Commissioners would have a baseline value to work with.
The district will need three years of budgets approved at annual meetings to begin to establish trend data, Brown said.
The property tax impact should be the first part of the FAQ page on the district’s website, he said.
Annual meeting
According to state law, a lake district is required to hold an annual meeting sometime between May 22 and September 8 unless a date outside of that timeframe has been approved at an annual meeting.
The annual meeting will require a space large enough to accommodate hundreds of people, Zons said.
The Grand Ballroom at UW-Stout would be large enough, he said.
Bilse wondered if there were any school gymnasiums or auditoriums that might be large enough.
The commissioners agreed the annual meeting should be held on a Saturday so that people who work during the week would be able to attend and ultimately approved the date of Saturday, August 5, at 1 p.m., with the location to be determined.
State law
According to Chapter 33.30 of the Wisconsin Statues, the annual meeting for a lake district shall be preceded by written notice mailed at least 14 days in advance of the meeting to all electors within the district whose address is known or can be ascertained with reasonable diligence, to all owners of property within the district at the owner’s address as listed in the tax roll, and to the department. The district board of commissioners may substitute a class 2 notice, under ch. 985, in lieu of sending written notice to electors residing within the district. [A class 2 notice means the notice is published two times in a newspaper.]
State law goes on to say:
• No absentee ballots or proxies are permitted at the annual meeting.
• The notice of the annual meeting under sub. (2) shall include all of the following: the proposed annual budget required under s. 33.29(1)(g); a list of each item proposed for consideration at the annual meeting in addition to the proposed annual budget; a list of any items proposed for consideration at the annual meeting by persons eligible to vote at the annual meeting if all of the following conditions are met: The item relates to an issue that is within the district’s authority; each item is submitted by a petition to the board at least 30 days before the annual meeting. The petition is signed by persons who are eligible to vote at the annual meeting. The number of persons signing the petition equals or exceeds 20 percent of the number of parcels located in the district that are subject to the property tax.
• At the annual meeting, electors and property owners who attend the meeting shall do all of the following: elect by secret ballot one or more commissioners to fill vacancies occurring in the elected membership of the district board; approve a budget for the coming year. The electors and property owners may consider and vote on amendments to the budget before approving that budget. The budget shall separately identify the capital costs and the costs of operation of the district, shall conform with the applicable requirements and shall specify any item that has a cost to the district in excess of $10,000.
At the annual meeting, electors and property owners may do any of the following:
• Vote by majority a tax upon all taxable property within the district. That portion of the tax that is for the costs of operation for the coming year may not exceed a rate of 2.5 mills of equalized valuation as determined by the department of revenue and reported to the district board. The tax shall be apportioned among the municipalities having property within the district on the basis of equalized full value, and a report shall be delivered by the treasurer, by November 1, by certified statement to the clerk of each municipality having property within the district for collection.
• Take up and consider such other business as comes before it.
• Establish compensation to be paid the district board commissioners.
• Create a nonlapsible fund to finance specifically identified capital costs and for maintenance of capital equipment.
Next meeting
The next meeting of the initial Board of Commissioners for the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District is scheduled for Thursday, May 11, at 5 p.m. at the Dunn County Government Center.
Agenda items will include by-laws, legal representation, the budget process and whether the Board of Commissioners should have five members or seven members.
