Board of Directors Meeting Minutes October 23, 2017

Minutes 1.0

6:00 Call to Order: Jeff Malison, President

Board Members Present: Jeff Malison, Randy Schubert, Tom Mowbray, Bill Stewart, Jim Moore, Jim Kohl, Jean Burns, Ed Hryciuk

Board members Absent: Diane O’Krongly

Members Present: Terry Daulton, Beth Myers, Mike Myers

Minutes of the April 17 Regular meeting: Bill Stewart presented the minutes. They were unanimously approved as presented. (On file)

Treasurers Report: Tom Mowbray handed out the Treasurer’s report. Hand out is filed with these minutes. Our fund balanced total is $14,130.25. The short fall between income and expenses is the result of purchasing the membership signs. Most of that expense has been covered by members donating $15.00 when they receive their sign. Treasurer’s report was approved as presented.

Committee Reports

Water Level: Jim Moore handed out graphs of water level and flows. These are on file with the minutes. Three goals for the committee were handed out and discussed. (Handout on file with minutes) This past summer water levels were maintained within the ranges specified in the MOU and never fell below the goal of 1569.25. We have reason to praise EXCEL Management this year. Currently the water from the Manitowish Chain has refilled the Flowage to close to full pool and the outflow has been reduced. Winter draw down will commence shortly. Preparation is being made for a stakeholders meeting with Xcel to provide more communication and better understandings amongst the groups impacted by the quantity and quality of water in the Turtle Flambeau Flowage. Jeff Malison will be sending an e-mail to encourage the meeting and suggest participants.
Fish Management Committee: Jeff Malison handed out four goals of this committee. They were discussed. (See handout on file) The report emphasizes that the committee’s number one concern is the health and size of the walleye population and that their recommendations are driven by this particular issue. High on the list of recommendation is a periodic extreme winter draw down for water level in the Flowage. The impact of this drawdown would be to reduce aquatic vegetation which would provide more rocky areas for walleye spawn and fewer places for fish likely to prey on walleye fry to hide after the walleye hatch. The committee is also aware that Xcel has money each year for grants that are intended for sturgeon population development; a carefully written grant request might be able to divert some of this money to support the lab and mailing costs of water quality testing since sturgeon populations are impacted by water quality. Randy Schubert offered to write a letter to Xcel exploring this. Randy will hold this letter until after the stakeholders meeting where it could be brought up in conversation. The DNR has expressed that getting special walleye regulation for one body of water is unlikely.
Invasive Species Committee: Diane O’Krongly was absent. Handout with goal was presented. (On file with minutes) Diane has asked to step down as head of this committee. Randy Payne has offered to take over. The board voted to install Randy Payne as Chairman of the Invasive Species Committee.
Water quality Committee: Beth and Mike Myers presented their annual report and summary. (Handout on file with minutes). The news regarding water quality is good in terms of the criteria for which our samples are measured and tested. The Flowage showed better results in some categories than in past years. Regarding the number of test sites, DNR funding for testing was cut for 2017. Our Association picked up the costs for testing 5 of the 7 sites. The expense is in two categories: 1: Mailing. The DNR gets a reduced rate for shipping the boxes to the lab. The Association must pay a higher rate. 2: Lab fees. We will continue to look for a way to fund this through the DNR. However the DNR typically funds only 2 sites per lake and we have 7 sites because of the size of the Flowage. Zac Wilson will seek funding from the Natural Resources Foundation. Randy Schubert will talk to his contacts at the Isaac Walton League. We believe it is important to monitor and test all 7 sites on the Flowage.
Communications and Education Committee. This committee needs a Chairperson and a statement of goals. Terry Dalton spoke about the upcoming issue of the newsletter and shared the topics for some of the articles. This issue will focus on volunteers. Mike Hittle is resuming his interest as his responsibilities for finishing his book are diminishing. Funny stories are being sought for the newsletter. The road signs have been well received and distributed. They have brought us a few new members. The idea of having a Facebook Page is on hold until we find someone who wants to run it. We are not ready to try an “e-blast” message yet. We need a good topic and hope to drive traffic to the website. Randy Schubert is gathering links to put on our webpage so that visitors to our page can readily navigate to related sites and stories. Regarding storage of records and documents a Google Drive Account has been set up. Anything posted there should be in PDF format. This will require lots of scanning when storing older documents in paper form. Categories for storage might include: Minutes, member surveys, scientific reports and data, newsletters. We may see if a local school would be willing to assist in scanning materials. We need access to a scanner that can do a multiple page document. Website: We should check our counter to see how many hits we are getting.
Membership: we need a chairperson and members for this committee, Discussion focused on expanding our membership. Randy Schubert moved that we give up to 15 complimentary one year memberships a year to interest people in joining our organization. After further discussion the motion was passed. A membership drive could involve consulting county records to find new property owners in our membership area. The board also decided to begin work on a tri-fold brochure with information about our organization that could be placed in local chamber of commerce offices, realtor’s offices and various businesses that have places for distribution of local information. Most of the content can come from the web page.
Other Business: Items listed in the agenda for this category had been pretty well covered in other parts of the meeting. Randy Schubert mentioned that there is discussion of replacing the dedication sign on our dam with a new and perhaps smaller sign. We discussed what part we may want to play in this endeavor.

The meeting scheduled December 11 may be not needed. We are current with our agenda. Jeff Malison will determine whether or not to hold the December meeting and notify the board. It was noted that with board members traveling during the winter in may be difficult to hold a meeting until spring.

Adjourned 8:02 PM

Respectfully,
Bill Stewart, Secretary