Residents express opposition to proposed Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District
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Lake Tainter
By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — Would the proposed Tainter Lake Rehabilitation District be able to improve water quality in Tainter Lake when the Red Cedar Watershed covers 1,900 square miles north of Tainter Lake?
This was one of the concerns expressed by residents of the proposed lake district at the Dunn County Planning and Resources Committee meeting January 10 during the public comments portion of the meeting.
Residents also expressed concern about paying additional property taxes associated with the proposed lake district and the procedure by which signatures had been gathered for the petitions to form the lake district.
The Dunn County Board agenda for the January 18 meeting included consideration of whether to form the proposed lake district.
Kelley Krause, a resident on Tainter Lake and a supervisor on the Sherman Town Board, noted that the proposal to form a lake district was a long initiative that took time and effort by the Friends of the Red Cedar Basin
Krause also noted that people who live on Tainter Lake worked hard to be able to live on the lake.
By state statute, under Chapter 33, a lake district has a broad range of powers including the ability to levy property taxes and special assessments, to borrow money, to make contracts and to buy, sell and hold property, and to file lawsuits and be named as a defendant in a lawsuit, she said.
Did people know the powers granted to a lake district under Chapter 33 or the withdrawal procedure? she asked.
Annual meetings
According to state law, a lake district has a board of commissioners, but approval for levying property taxes, setting budgets, entering into contracts for projects in the lake district, along with other lake district business, must be approved by residents and landowners of the lake district at an annual meeting or at a special meeting of the lake district.
Chapter 33.27(3) states, “At any time following the making of the order establishing a district, but no later than 60 days following the expiration of time for appeal to the circuit court, or, if appealed, no later than 60 days following the final judgment in any appeal, the district board shall hold an organizational meeting, shall select officers to serve until the first annual meeting, and may commence conducting the affairs of the district.”
Chapter 33.29 (2) also states, “The board shall have control over the fiscal matters of the district, subject to the powers and directives of the annual or a special meeting. The board shall annually at the close of the fiscal year cause an audit to be made of the financial transactions of the district, which shall be submitted to the annual meeting.”
According to Chapter 33.30(1), “Every district shall have an annual meeting. Each annual meeting shall be scheduled during the time period between May 22 and September 8 unless scheduled outside those dates by majority vote of the previous annual meeting.”
Petitions to form a lake district, by state law, must be signed by 51 percent of the landowners in the proposed district or by landowners representing 51 percent of the land in the proposed district.
Withdrawal
Under Chapter 33.25 of state statutes, those who signed the petition to form a lake district may withdraw their petition if objections are filed with the county clerk within 10 days of the public hearing, Krause said.
Many people who signed the petitions were not aware of their rights to withdraw from the petition, she said.
The petitions to form a lake district were submitted to the Dunn County Clerk on July 13, 2022. According to state law, the Dunn County Board then had 30 days to schedule a public hearing or to assign the public hearing and a report on the hearing to a committee so that the public hearing could be held within 30 days.
The Dunn County Board’s July meeting is typically held later in the month than the regular meeting date of the third Wednesday of the month and was held on July 27, 2022.
The Dunn County Board does not meet in August.
During the July 27 meeting, the Dunn County Board assigned the public hearing and preparation of a report to the Planning, Resources and Development Committee.
The PR&D committee established at a meeting prior to the Dunn County Board meeting that if the county board assigned the proposed lake district public hearing and subsequent report to the PR&D committee, that to meet the 30 day requirement by state law and the PR&D committee’s meeting schedule, the public hearing would have to be held on August 9.
According to the timetable established by state statue, those who signed petitions for forming the proposed lake district could have notified the county clerk of their withdrawal during a timeframe from July 13 until July 31.
Avoidance
During her public comments, Krause alleged that the volunteer collecting signatures for the petition to form the proposed lake district gave vague answers, no answers or avoided answering questions.
The volunteer who asked her to sign the petition talked about a grant that a lake district would be able to receive, but when asked specifics about the grant opportunities, gave vague answers, she said, adding that she got a “rushed feeling” from the person who had asked her to sign the petition.
The Friends of the Red Cedar Basin “knew” but were vague and did not answer questions, Krause said.
Residents were not made aware that Chapter 33 was being pursued, and residents did not know about the powers granted under Chapter 33, she said.
No absentee voting is allowed for the annual meeting, Krause noted.
At an annual meeting for a township, for example, any resident can introduce any motion on any topic that can then be voted on by residents attending the annual meeting, and the motion would go onto effect following the next annual meeting.
If the residents approved a motion at an annual meeting of a township to double the salary of the town clerk, for instance, the town clerk’s salary would be doubled after the next annual meeting, unless town residents introduced a motion at the following annual meeting to rescind the motion from the previous annual meeting.
Under the rules for annual meetings, it would be impossible to know what motions might come from the residents to allow absentee voting by residents not attending the annual meeting.
Property taxes
Under state law, the lake district can levy up to 2.5 mils per $1,000 of property value, which would amount to $750 per year on a $300,000 property, or $1,000 more in property taxes on a $400,000 property, Krause said.
The volunteers were unable to tell people how much the lake district would cost them, she said.
Readers should note that until projects are approved by residents and landowners at an annual meeting, there is no way of knowing how much in property taxes would have to be levied to cover the costs of those projects.
Deliberately deceiving neighbors “is not who we are,” Krause said.
There was not enough discussion among residents about forming a lake district, she said.
The Friends of the Red Cedar Basin should work with the state legislature and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to find solutions for Tainter Lake’s water quality, Krause said.
Blue-green algae
Dick Lamers of Colfax, who was at one time president of the Tainter Menomin Lake Improvement Association, said the proposed lake improvement district would not help to address the problem of blue-green algae in the watershed.
The Red Cedar Watershed covers eight or nine counties and has a population of 85,000 people, he said.
The lake district would not address getting the 85,000 people involved in solving the overall water quality problem and the problem of the nutrients that wash downstream and collect in Tainter Lake to fuel the blue-green algae blooms, Lamers said.
Chase Cummings, Dunn County conservationist, is working on Dunn County collaborating with other counties and with the agricultural community to address water quality and is doing “fantastic work,” he said.
Lamers said he attended a meeting in Colfax a few weeks ago about water quality initiatives that was attended by about 70 people, the majority of whom were farmers.
The lake district will not make water quality better in the watershed, he said.
When Dunn County’s shoreland ordinance was proposed some years ago, there was good discussion among about 40 people over several meetings, resulting in some amendments to the ordinance, and it was a democratic process, Lamers said.
The Dunn County Board has said the board will not take any more public comments before making a decision about the proposed lake district, he said.
Lamers asked for an explanation of the decision on public comments.
Testimony
The Dunn County Board has a rule that the board will not take additional comments or testimony about a subject that has already received testimony during a public hearing, said Tom Quinn, county board supervisor from Downing and chair of the PR&D committee.
Everyone has a chance to speak at a public hearing, and when the hearing is closed, additional public comment is not allowed, he said.
The Dunn County Board approved an ordinance pertaining to additional public comments outside of a public hearing at a meeting in October of 2019.
During the public comments portion of the county board meetings, people will sometimes invite county board members to an event going on in the county or will encourage the county board to support an agenda item, such as the resolution for Indigenous Peoples Day or bringing the Alice in Dairyland finals to Dunn County, or will use the time to make county board members aware of a problem, such as farm field irrigators spraying out over a county road.
But sometimes people have used the public comments portion of the meeting to speak “for” or “against” an agenda item for which a public hearing has already been held and the public hearing has been closed — and for which the county board now has a recommendation in front of them for consideration — such as a request for a zoning change.
During public hearings, which are subject to public notice requirements, people are sworn in before they give their testimony.
The public hearing participants are under oath when they testify and when they submit exhibits.
The committee holding the public hearing is acting in a quasi-judicial capacity.
When the committee closes the public hearing, no more comments can be made about the topic at hand.
If people speak during the public comments portion of the Dunn County Board meeting, or at a committee meeting, about something that was already the topic of a public hearing, they are presenting additional testimony outside of the public hearing, said Nick Lange, Dunn County Corporation Counsel, at the October of 2019 Dunn County Board meeting.
The public hearings are like a “mini trial.” Town boards have an interest. Neighbors have an interest. The committee that held the public hearing decides on a recommendation for the Dunn County Board that is at least partially based on the testimony, Lange said.
The ordinance about the public comments is not addressed to the speaker but to the public hearing, he said.
After Quinn’s explanation, Lamers said he was not aware of the county’s ordinance pertaining to public testimony during a public comments portion of a meeting.
Lamers urged the PR&D committee and the county board to find a way to ask for more public comments on the proposed lake district.
Volunteers
Tom Bilse, a member of the Friends of the Red Cedar Basin, said volunteers were used to help gather signatures for the petitions to form a lake district.
The volunteers were trained and were given a list of “frequently asked questions” and appropriate responses to those questions, he said.
Bilse said he did not know how a volunteer could not know that the initiative for a proposed lake district was operating under state statue Chapter 33.
The initial lake district board of commissioners is appointed by the county board, and then the subsequent board of commissioners is elected by the residents and landowners at the first annual meeting, Bilse said.
People elect supervisors to the Dunn County Board to represent their interests and to vote accordingly, he said.
In a lake district, rather than the board of commissioners making decisions, the residents and landowners each have a vote on every matter, Bilse said.
The board of commissioners has three responsibilities: to run meetings, to develop budgets and to plan projects, he said.
The business of a lake district is based on the input and approval of the lake district membership. Everyone gets a vote, and it is a true democracy, Bilse said.
The proposed lake district meets all four requirements set out in state law (percentage of landowners signing petitions; is the lake district necessary; is it in the best interests of public health, safety and welfare; will the properties in the proposed district benefit from being in a lake district), he said.
Since the proposed district meets all four requirements, the Dunn County Board should move forward with forming the lake district, Bilse said.
Layers
A lake district would form another layer of government, and another layer of government is not needed, said Ed LaVenture of Menomonie.
Taking care of the lake is hard when there are so many problems in the watershed, he said.
LaVenture said he was opposed to the lake district and said the DNR, federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers should be working on the problem.
The county board should look at the whole picture. A lake district is not the answer. The DNR should do its job, and the state should take care of the watershed, LaVenture said.
Good intent
Eric Gates of Menomonie said he was asked whether he would like to see Tainter Lake cleaned up and was told the lake district was necessary to get grants and it would cost $30 to $40 per year.
The long-term for the lake district was not addressed, and lakeshore residents will not be able to improve water quality, he said.
Lakefront owners want to clean up the lake, but they are being strapped with the cost, Gates said.
Landowners will be paying extra taxes for what? he asked.
People did not get the information they should have gotten and were not told that if they changed their mind about signing the petition, here is what you do, Gates said.
If he could remove his signature from the petition, he would, “but now it’s too late and we were not told,” he said.
The idea to form a lake district had “good intent,” but it is “barking up the wrong tree,” Gates said.
The water should be cleaned up, but the process should be sustainable, and it should be a county and state issue, he said.
Fixed income
Wayne Smith of Menomonie said he was new to Tainter Lake, had purchased his property in 2016 and had moved in 2019.
Property owners already pay high taxes but have no idea of the cost of a lake district, he said.
Being able to use the water “is nice,” but the problem is coming from the watershed, and a lake district will not be able to address the problems in the watershed, Smith said.
People are property owners on the lake by choice, but the state and DNR are responsible for fixing the water quality problems, he said.
Smith said he signed the petition to make the lake cleaner, but the person who brought the petition did not talk about the cost.
A number of people who live on the lake are on fixed incomes and cannot afford another $1,000 in taxes per year, he said, adding that he was not in favor of forming a lake district.
