April 2018 Meeting Minutes

Yahara Lakes Association, Ltd.

Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

Thursday, April 12, 2018 11:30 a.m. - 1:15 p.m.

The Yahara Lakes Association Board of Directors held its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, April 12, 2018, in the Associated Bank (3002 Fish Hatchery Road) Conference room.

The following members and advisors were present: Dick Adler, Stuart Allbaugh, Roy Carter, Bill Fitzpatrick, Mike Gerner, Carol Gillen, Annette Hellmer, Allan Levin, Dick Pearson, Nancy Peckham, Jerry Rekowski, Dan Schultz, Joe Tisserand, Sal Troia, Parker Waller and Rhonda Arries

Members and advisors not present: Doug Bach, Caroline Fribance and James Tye

11:35 a.m. Call to Order: President Dan Schultz called the meeting to order at 11:35 a.m. 11:36 a.m. Minutes: Dick Pearson made a motion to accept the March 15, 2018 meeting minutes. Dick Adler seconded the motion. Motion passed.

11:37 a.m. Dan Schultz noted there is one board position that needs to be filled. Jerry Rekowski and Joe Tisserand brought forward a candidate from Lake Kegonsa, Eric Olson. Dan spoke with Eric who’s been involved in FOLKS (Friends of Lake Kegonsa) and noted Eric is eager to join the YLA board. Sal Troia made a motion to nominate Eric Olson to the open board member position. Annette Hellmer seconded the motion. Motion passed. Dan Schultz will follow up with Eric and forward his contact information to Rhonda Arries.

11:40 a.m. Dan Schultz and others have noted the tight space in the current conference room at Associated Bank. Joe Tisserand and Dick Adler explored the option of holding meeting at the Elks Club. Dick stated the Elks is closed on Thursdays, parking could be a problem and lunch would need to be purchased on site. It was agreed that the Elks club isn’t a good solution at this time. Another alternative was the new American Family building opening on East Washington Ave. Parking could be an issue so this option was tabled for now. Nancy Peckham suggested the Breakwater Restaurant in Monona which has a large open room for meetings. The downside is the room may not be “private” if patrons come in so this option was also tabled. Rhonda Arries noted that James Tye offered a conference room for meetings in the Clean Lakes building (i.e. Foley & Lardner law office building). Parking could be an issue. Dan Schultz asked Rhonda to follow up to explore this option as it’s centrally located, free and we could bring our own food and beverages.

11:50 a.m. Sal Troia provided the Treasurer’s report:

  • Year-to-date membership dues income of $12,060 is roughly 2/3 of the annual budget (and we are 1/3 of the way through the year). There are currently no concerns but it was noted we need to work to ensure the core membership is maintained plus grow with new members.

  • Sal noted that expenses are tracking vs budget with nothing unusual to report.

  • Donations to-date are $5,835 and have exceeded the annual budget of $5,000. This continues to buoy the financial strengh of the organization.

  • Joe Tisserand made a motion to accept the Treasurer’s report. Dick Adler seconded the motion. Motion passed.

12:00 p.m. Dan Schultz discussed the 2018 membership goals. Rhonda Arries reported the 2018 membership totals to-date are: 28 corporate members and 213 individual members. Dan asked that each board member work on their “circle of influence” (i.e. friends and neighbors who either aren’t YLA members or haven’t renewed). Rhonda has created an interactive map which includes 2018 members as of 4/10/18, along with 2017 total members and 2016 total members. Please contact Dan or Rhonda if you have questions on how to use this tool. This tool can be used to work on renewals and new members. Also, Dan asked all board members to participate in the CLA Joint letter signing – drop in at the CLA offices during business hours on April 23 - 26. The response rate to the mailing increases dramatically if there’s a personal note added.

12:15 p.m. Special Events Committee – Co-Chairs: Dick Adler & Joe Tisserand The 2018 Annual Dinner will be held on Tuesday, June 19, 2018 at Blackhawk Country Club.

  • Last year the meal was $50. Joe Tisserand reported the “all-in” costs of this year’s meal is $49/person (includes taxes and tip). Sal Troia made a motion to set the price at $50/person again this year. Dan Schultz seconded the motion. Motion passed.

  • Dan Schultz asked for suggestions regarding a speaker and award nominations. The final decision is to ask Laurie Hickland (Director of Land and Water Resources who replaced Kevin Connors after he retired last year). Allan Levin volunteered to contact her and ask her for a 10 minute presentation on topics related to riparians and the Yahara Lakes. After much discussion and no really good candidates, Dan Schultz stated this may be a year that we don’t hand out awards. However, Carol Gillen suggested if someone thinks of an especially good candidate for Citizen of the Year, please email Rhonda and we’ll discuss at the May board meeting. It was also noted that Joe Parisi and Sharon Corrigan should be invited to attend the Annual Dinnert (Joe Parisi usually likes to give a brief 5 minute lake update).

  • Dick Adler and Joe Tisserand noted that giving away great door prizes at the dinner is a hallmark of the event’s success. They asked that each board member solicit local area businesses to donate a gift or two. When you secure a door prize, please email Rhonda with the contact info and gift item description so she can send a Thank You note. A list of historical door prizes is posted on the Board Member Only webpage for reference.

    The Spring Seminar will be Tuesday, May 15, 2018 from 5 -7 p.m. at American Family Headquarters.

  • John Reimer will be a guest speaker discussing lake levels and weed harvesting. Sergeant Thomas Sankey will also be a speaker who will discuss slow/no wake and enforcement of it.

  • Registration and check-in will be 4:30 – 5:00 p.m. Dan Schultz will forward parking info to Rhonda to include in communications. Dan will order beverages and light snacks for attendees. This event is open to all YLA members, friends and neighbors.

  • All board members are encouraged to help market this event to their “circle of influence”. Rhonda will send out event details and a sign up via email blast, website and an article in the May newsletter. Rhonda will post a flyer .pdf on the Board Member Only webpage so board members can print copies to hand out as needed. Dan would also like to schedule a Summer Social - likely in August on Lake Kegonsa. The last Summer Social was held at Christys. Dan noted the event should be held at a business that is a corporate sponsor to “reward” them for their YLA membership. Jerry Rekowski noted Springer’s is for sale so cautioned on planning an event there. The Green Lantern is a YLA member and could be a potential site. Dan noted this will strictly be a social event without a speaker (as the last event with a speaker was a little difficult to manage in a restaurant / social situation).

    Dan will continue to work on the details of this event. Dan also discussed the Lake Clean Up project idea which has $1,000 of funding in the 2018 budget. Currently, lake debris is picked up from piers in June on all lakes. Dan’s original idea was for YLA to pay for a second pick up later in the summer on all lakes (John Reimer estimated the cost to be ~ $2,000). However, the City of Madison pays Dane County to do a pick up every other week on lakes Mendota and Monona. The difficulty with YLA getting involved in this program is that the barge also picks up debris “outside of Madison” (i.e. the Town of Westport, Maple Bluff, Middleton, etc.) but Madison is footing the bill. If YLA draws attention to the program, there may be an unintended consequence of these townships not being included in regular pickups that they are currently benefiting from. Therefore, Dan decided to no longer pursue this program and will move on to other projects that would be beneficial to riparians. Mike Gerner stated that this is the type of program that could really be value-added to YLA members and distinguishes YLA from CLA. All agreed that YLA should sponsor some type of riparian-specific program like this in the future. Dan will continue to look into other ideas.

  • Dan Schultz and Carol Gillen went through newsletter archives and identified articles that are relevant, good resources for riparians. This has the potential to be a large project. Rhonda Arries asked Dan for assistance on his vision for a website redesign given these new additions. At this time, Dan asked Rhonda to post 4 or 5 resource articles to start with. The rest of the redesign and web resources will continue to be a work in progress. Note: Clean Lakes is also updating their website and will include cross links to riparian news articles to YLA and suggested YLA crosslink back to Clean Lakes for water quality issues.

12:55 p.m. Newsletter: Publishing schedule is February, May, August and November May Newsletter – Carol Gillen has all but 2 articles ready for the May newsletter which will be published early so it can include a reminder about the May 15 Spring Seminar event. She is waiting for an article from Don Sanford and will add Eric Olson’s bio information to the New Board Member article which introduces Nancy Peckham. Allan Levin will get the June lake debris schedule from Susan Sanford (she replaced Susan Jones who retired).

1:05 p.m. Riparian Committee – Chair: Sal Troia Carol Gillen, Roy Carter and Dan Schultz will be committee members. Environmental Tracking – Chair: Allan Levin  Clean Lakes Alliance (CLA) – Mike Gerner is a CLA Board of Director member. The Clean Lakes Save Our Lakes breakfast is May 2 and will be attended by ~ 500-700 people. YLA is a corporate sponsor and has a table of 10 – the YLA attendees who signed up to sit at the YLA table is posted on the Board Member Only webpage. The CLA - YLA Joint mailing letter signing dates are Apr 23 – Apr 26 at the Clean Lakes office during regular business hours. All board members are asked to stop by and sign letters – response rates go up dramatically when a personal note is included.

  • Lakes & Watershed (L&W) – Allan Levin is the YLA appointee. Allan is serving on a subcommittee looking into invasive species in our area lakes and stated zebra mussels appear to be a low priority as they are in our lakes now with no known way to control them. The DNR website has a lot of information if you’re interested in the latest updates.

  • Watershed Network Group – Roy Carter and Allan Levin

  • Healthy Farms/Healthy Lakes – Allan Levin serves on this committee for Dane County. The biggest issue now that the guidelines are in place is that there’s no monitoring or “policing” of the farmers and their practices. At this point, it’s voluntary participation on the farmers part so the “policing” of whether the guidelines are being followed is lax (the county doesn’t have the extra staffing or man hours to oversee this type of thing). Sal Troia noted that Yahara WINS has a similar issue in that the rules are in place for municipalities to follow but the program lacks funding for oversight and staffing.

1:12 p.m. New / Old Business

  • Carol Gillen and Nancy Peckham noted that Rhonda Arries has spent a lot of additional time and effort in maintaining the website (each month from November through April, Rhonda has had to address issues such as malware attacks, platform changes, migrations, moving the host sight from Hostway to GoDaddy, etc.) Dan Schultz asked Rhonda what amount of compensation she should receive. Rhonda asked for $500 for website maintenance (noting she would donate the majority of her labor hours in getting this work done). Sal Troia made a motion to pay Rhonda Arries $500 for web maintenance work. Dan Schultz seconded the motion. Motion passed.

1:15 p.m. Joe Tisserand made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Mike Gerner seconded the motion. Motion passed.

Next meeting date is May 10, 2018 2018 Schedule