Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District annual meeting will be at Menomonie High School August 5
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The annual meeting for the Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District will be held at Menomonie High School August 5.
The cost of the Great Hall at UW-Stout to accommodate 500 people is $565, said Al Brown, chair of the initial Board of Commissioners for the lake district, at the May 11 meeting.
The Menomonie High School auditorium is $30 per hour on a weekday and $65 per hour on a weekend and seats 750, he said.
The “atmosphere” at UW-Stout would be good for the annual meeting, but the parking at Stout would be a problem and would require people to walk longer distances to reach the venue, Brown said.
At the Menomonie High School auditorium, parking is right outside the door, he said, noting that he had recently attended a middle school play at the high school auditorium.
The cost for the Stout Ale House is $600 for the room, and the Lucette Brewing Company in Menomonie only has a seating capacity of 350, said Tom Bilse, a commissioner on the initial lake district board.
Jim Zons, Dunn County Board representative for the lake district board, asked if the high school would have enough microphones for the annual meeting.
The high school had enough microphones for all the kids in the play, Brown said.
The lake district board unanimously approved holding the first annual meeting at the Menomonie High School auditorium on Saturday, August 5, at 1 p.m.
Meeting materials
All of the materials for the annual meeting must be at the printers by July 5, Brown said.
The material must be mailed out to electors in the lake district 14 days before the annual meeting, he said.
Printing and mailing will cost $450, Porter said.
The lake district board will have to figure out where to get a list of renters, Zons said.
State law requires in-person voting at the annual meeting, Brown noted.
Agenda items also must be submitted to the Board of Commissioners in time to be on the agenda for the annual meeting, he said.
State law also requires that the annual meeting be held between May 22 and September 8, unless the electors, at an annual meeting, approve having the annual meeting at another time of the year.
Property owners
During the public comments portion of the meeting, Barb Kleist, a resident of 750th Avenue, asked about all of the property owners receiving notices for the annual meeting.
State law requires that the lake district mail out notices of the annual meeting to all people eligible to vote at the annual meeting.
Kleist said her family owns multiple properties with multiple property owners for each property and that she had been told by the Register of Deeds office that every property owner would be a voting member.
For the annual meeting, property owners in the lake district can vote, and residents in the lake district can vote, Brown said.
Kleist said mail for the properties her family owns comes to her house but all five owners are listed on the tax deed.
If people are listed on a deed, legally they can vote at the annual meeting, Brown said, adding that the Board of Commissioners will have to find out the best way to make sure all property owners are included.
One gentleman told the Board of Commissioners that he had not known anything about the lake district until his neighbor told him recently.
A total of 51 percent of the land owners was required to sign the petitions for the process of forming a lake district, and if some of the landowners were missed, then how could there be assurance that the number of signatures made up 51 percent of the land owners? he asked.
The list of land owners came from Dunn County, Bilse said.
The man said he should have known about the lake district forming prior to forming the district, because the district will mean he pays higher property taxes, and why should he pay for a problem that is created upstream?
Jerry Porter, Board of Commissioners member, noted that the Colfax Messenger has been covering the formation of the lake district since the first meeting before the Dunn County Planning, Resources and Development Committee in 2022.
When the man said he did not know what the Colfax Messenger is, and Porter replied that it was a newspaper, the man objected to having to pay for something to inform him about the lake district.
Another gentleman in the audience who made a public comment suggested reading the state statute on lake districts to learn more about how they are formed.
The people who worked on gathering land owner signatures had used door hangers, had held three public meetings for gathering signatures, had canvassed neighborhoods and had knocked on doors, he said.
State statutes are available online and can be accessed from any library without having to pay for Internet access or to pay for access using a smart-phone.
Resignation
Zach Raff, who had been appointed to serve on the initial Board of Commissioners, has resigned from the board because he took a federal job, Brown said.
State statute is silent about how to go about filling a vacancy on the initial Board of Commissioners, he said.
There are several options: operate with four members instead of five until the annual meeting, when a Board of Commissioners will be elected; the chair of the board brings forward a candidate for approval by the initial board; go back to the PR&D committee, Brown said.
Budget
The initial Board of Commissioners will have to develop a budget for 2024 to present at the annual meeting, Brown said.
A tax levy cannot be implemented until there is a budget, he said.
The budget summary will be published in the Colfax Messenger, the Dunn County News, and will be sent out to all residents by mail before the annual meeting, Brown said.
Part of the annual meeting process is for the land owners and lake district residents to approve a budget for the following year.
State law also requires the budget summary be sent out to land owners and residents and to be published in the newspaper.
The average tax levy for lake districts in Wisconsin is $49,000, and that amounts to 30 cents per $1,000 of property value, Brown said, adding that the total valuation of the property in the lake district is $162 million.
The average property value in the lake district is $250,000, so on a tax levy of $49,000, that would amount to $75.33 on a $250,000 property, or $60 on a $200,000 property, he said.
A budget is needed to figure out the true impact on the property taxes, and at the annual meeting, electors can add or subtract items from the budget, Brown said.
Bylaws
Since the initial Board of Commissioners is short one person, does the board want to tackle the bylaws now? Brown asked.
The board approved appointing Jerry Porter work on a potential set of bylaws that would be reviewed by the initial Board of Commissioners and could then submitted at the annual meeting.
The other board members can also research bylaws for other lake districts and send that information for Porter to review, Bilse noted.
EIN
Bilse reported that he had received the federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) and had sent it to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
The EIN is necessary for insurance agencies to submit bids, he said.
With an EIN, the lake district board can name a banking institution so the lake district can deposit money, Bilse said, recommending that the lake district use WESTconsin Credit Union.
The lake district Board of Commissioners unanimously approved using WESTconsin Credit Union for banking and to open a checking account.
Crowd sourcing
Zons said he had done some research about crowd source funding, such as Go Fund Me, and that municipalities are using it.
Now that the board has decided on a financial institution and would have a bank account, Zons said he could research more of the particulars and bring information to the board to vote on at the next meeting.
Next meetings
The Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District Board of Commissioners will meet next at the Dunn County Government Center on June 1 at 5 p.m. to consider selecting a replacement for Zach Raff and to work on a budget framework.
The board’s next regular meeting will be held June 15 at 5 p.m. at the Dunn County Government Center when the board will consider, among other items, bylaws for the lake district and logistics for the annual meeting, such as check-in procedures to verify land owners and lake district residents.