Following publication, the Lake Beulah Management District held a special meeting at the East Troy Town Hall on, Tuesday, January 25, 2011, for the purpose of holding a closed session to discuss litigation issues.

Commissioners Present: President David Bitter, Commissioners: David Skotarzak, Stan Alger, Doug Dorn, Val Johnson and Rick Stacey. Commissioner Dick Dow was excused.

Also Present: Bob Nauta, Kurt (Patrick Engineering), Lisa Sweet (Administrative Services)

Riparian Owners as noted in the Sign in Log.

President Bitter called the meeting to order at 6:30 pm.

Item #1 Roll Call: As noted above.

Item #2 Approve Meeting Minutes of November 30, 2010.

There was a brief discussion regarding the minutes from both meetings- November 30, 2010 and December 9, 2010.

Commissioner Stacey made the motion to approve the November 30, 2010 meeting minutes as presented.  Commissioner Dorn seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.

Special Meeting Minutes, Thursday, December 9, 2010

Commissioner Alger made the motion to approve the December 9, 2010 Special Meeting Minutes as presented.  Commissioner Skotarzak seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.

Item #3 Reports:

a)      Treasurer’s Report, Commissioner Dow

Commissioner Dow was not present at this meeting.  Commissioner Skotarzak presented the group with the Profit & Loss Budget vs. Actual January 2010- December 2010.  Commissioner Skotarzak asked the group to hold all questions regarding these documents until the next scheduled meeting.

Commissioner Doug Dorn made the motion to approve the Profit & Loss Budget vs. Actual January 2010- December 2010.  Commissioner Alger seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.

Commissioner Skotarzak stated he received a thank you card from the Divine Word Seminary for the monies donated.

Bob Nauta made a comment regarding the DNR grant money.  Mr. Nauta and Commissoner Dow are working through the numbers and will report on this issue at the next regular meeting.

There was a brief discussion regarding the email that was sent from Commissioner Dick Dow regarding the two Grants: SPL-195-09 Trophic State Assessment and Grant LPL- 1255-09 Lake Management Plan.  President Dave Bitter asked that these discussion items be tabled and added to the next agenda for discussion with Commissioner Dick Dow.

b.) Weed Harvesting, Commissioner Alger

Commissioner Alger stated the weed harvester grant money has not been received at this time.

c.) Town of East Troy, Commissioner Dorn

Commissioner Dorn stated he attended the last Town of East Troy meeting.  Commissioner Dorn requested confirmation of the group’s recommendation to the Town of East Troy regarding the no wake policy.  LBMD will recommend extending the hours to 8:00 am on week days.  This change will be consistent with other lakes in the area.

d.) Walworth County, Commissioner Stacey

Commissioner Stacey stated there was nothing to report.

e) Well #7, Attorney Laing, Bob Nauta

Attorney Laing was not present at the meeting.

Mr. Nauta reported the data from December 2010 has been downloaded and he will be plotting all of the information.  Mr. Nauta will report his findings at the next regularly scheduled meeting.  Mr. Nauta has not received pumping rates from the Village of East Troy, but should be able to report these numbers as the next meeting as well.

4. Communications:

There were no communications to discuss.

5. Old Business:

a). Well #7 Discussion and possible action required as recommended by our legal counsel or other consultants.

Mr. Nauta reported the DNR has approved the Lake Management Plan.  Mr. Nauta provided a copy of the approved plan to LBMD.

President Bitter referred to the email from Commissioner Dick Dow dated January 6, 2011.  The following email was read to the group:

Grant SPL-195-09 -Trophic State Assessment

This grant of $3,000 was to be paid to WI State Lab and LBMD for water quality data to be included in the Lake Management Plan. We requested RSV Engineering to provide the water sampling but the employee assigned to the job was fired. Volunteers took the water samples and USGS developed the required data under our existing contract. Since we could not furnish invoices to the DNR to prove that the work was done, we asked to withdraw from the grant and were required to repay the DNR advance payment of $233.56.

Grant LPL-1255-09-Lake Management Plan

This grant of $8,910 was to be paid to LBMD for work and development of the Lake Management Plan from 10/1/2008 thru 06/30/2009. We contracted with RSV Engineering for this work and then with RJN Environmental Services after Bob Nauta left RSV. The DNR continued to request more information after the ending date and granted a time extension to finish the report by December 31, 2009. Additional DNR requests for more information still continued in 2010. However, the DNR failed to accept a time extension for the final filing of our Grant Payment Request and rejected submitted invoices from RJN Environmental Services for work done in 2010.

We argued that this was not fair and DNR officials finally accepted volunteer hours that Bob provided while at RSV Engineering. After Bob left RSV, RSV rejected those hours and re-billed LBMD for them. We negotiated a settlement in 2010 with RSV paying for half of the volunteered hours and Bob          volunteered additional hours to finish the grant.

LBMD's total cost of the Plan was $14,734. Value of donated time was $4,988. The DNR accepted $13,009 of Total Project Cost (including volunteer time) and is awarding LBMD a $3,074 settlement  of the grant. I have argued that the settlement should be $3,993 and the DNR is considering this amount.

A big thanks to Bob Nauta for his patience and willingness to provide volunteer effort to finish the Plan.

b.) District Boundaries.  Changes to properties included and possible final action to present issue to the Walworth County Board.

President Bitter reported he had the attorneys (Van Hinkleman) review the Beulah Park properties in question based on riparian owner concerns from the last regular meeting.  The attorney confirmed that Beulah Park properties included in the plan do have access to Lake Beulah and no adjustments need to be made to the map.  This item is to be added to the next meeting agenda.

7. Commissioner/Public Comments:

Commissioner Skotarzak asked Kurt from Patrick Engineering to discuss the plans for the Highway J Dam project.  Kurt stated Walworth County has put a plan together however approval from the DNR is required before further action can take place.

Patrick Engineering, Walworth County and the DNR plan to meet on January 26, 2011 to discuss this plan in futher detail. There was a group discussion of the plan.  It was confirmed that President Bitter and Commissioner Skotarzak will attend this meeting located at the DNR office in Waukesha on January 26, 2011 at 10:00 am.

Commissioner Skotarzak received a letter from the county.  The purpose of letter was unclear and Commissioner Skotarzak asked Commissioner Stacey to review the letter.  Commissioner Stacey reviewed the letter and determined it was sent to LBMD in error.  Commissioner Stacey gave the letter to Commissioner Val Johnson for filing.

Commissioner Skotarzak stated that Jerry from the Kettle Moraine Land Trust sent a letter to LBMD with thanks for the donation of $2500.  Jerry requested a meeting with LBMD to discuss promotion of the KMLT.  It was decided by the group that no further monies will be sent to KMLT unless approved by riparian owners.

Item #8: Determine Next Regular Meeting

The next regular meeting will be on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 6:30 pm.  There was also a tentative meeting scheduled for April 12, 2011 at 6:30 pm.

Open Session ended at 7:30 pm.

Item #9: Closed Session

Entertain a motion to go into closed session pursuant to Wis. Stat. Section 19.85(1)(g) for the purposed of conferring with legal counsel for the governmental body who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved regarding the high capacity well litigation.  Possible action may be taken as a result of such conferring.

Legal council was absent since there was nothing to discuss and therefore did not go into Closed Session.

Item #10:  Adjourn

With no further business, Commissioner Alger made the motion to adjourn the meeting, Commissioner Dorn seconded and the meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm.