Board of Directors Meeting Minutes January 19, 2026

TURTLE FLAMBEAU FLOWAGE – TRUDE LAKE
PROPERTY OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION
January 19, 2026 – 6:00 pm via MEET HOUR Courtesy of Roger Nelson

6:04 PM- Meeting Called to Order: Randy Schubert, President

Present: Randy Schubert, President; Randy Payne, Vice President; Roger Nelson, Treasurer Todd Jirous, Secretary. Directors: Tony Utrie, Karl Gustavson. Jeff Wilson & Terry Daulton joined at 6:13.

Secretary’s Report– The meeting minutes for December 15^th were submitted to the group via email. A motion was made by Karl and seconded by Roger to approve the meeting minutes, the motion carried unanimously.

Treasurer’s Report– Roger provided the financials via email on 01/16. We currently have 208 members, which is an all time high for the Association. We had budgeted $2,500 for AIS removal, and did not use any of those monies. Todd J. made a motion to accept the financials as presented, Randy P. seconded and carried unanimously.

Water Level Committee- No update

Water Quality- No update

Invasive Species- Randy talked to Heather P., and she appears to be neutral on the topic of placing nets in the Turtle River for catching the CLP Turions. Todd shared that this is similar to what Bob K. experienced on Rice Lake when he inquired…he wasn’t told that he could, but he also wasn’t told that he couldn’t; so he leaned in and put nets out, and always kept the river so that you could navigate around the nets.

Randy S. inquired about the Burke survey, and do we have any feedback/survey results. Jeff Wilson has a contact and will reach out to that person for an update.

Membership Committee– Roger sent an email noting our membership at 208 now! We had 25 new members in 2025, and have one new member this month. Roger would like to do another Post Card, similar to what we did last year, that helped to boost membership. All were supportive of the Post Card. There are about 550 families that could be voting members (on or within one mile of the Flowage/Trude Lake), and we have 208 members, about 10 of them are “Friends of the Flowage”, or non voting members. That leaves about 300+ families that could be members yet.

Communications Committee- Troy wasn’t available tonight, but emailed the enclosed notes ahead of time:

Driftwood:

I missed the printing deadline and was unable to increase print quantity. I have (9) extra copies on hand.
Each color copy of a Driftwood costs us ~$3
Team is aware of the request to build out some history elements into the newsletter and will do something for the spring/summer edition

The next Newsletter will be starting in about a month.

Old Business:

Wake Surfing-

Todd and Becky attended the Town of Mercer meeting on 1/08/2026. Fritz did a fair amount of work looking at the Ordinances in the Towns of Scott, Presque Isle and Manitowish Waters. Fritz provided a written document on what he wants to change, and why.
That document along with the background was forwarded to Terry, Jeff and Mary (from LWA). Mary did a wonderful job pulling the document apart and writing a rebuttal of our thoughts and why it was originally written and proposed in the manner that it was
Mary, Terry, Jeff, Millard, Becky and Todd met via zoom on Saturday, 1/10/26 to review the document to make sure we’re all in alignment.
Terry sent the document to the Chairman and Town Clerk.
We’re currently waiting on a reply from the Town Clerk on what exactly was submitted to the DNR for a condition report and Ordinance.
Switching Towns to the Town of Sherman
Randy S., Todd and Becky attended the Town of Sherman meeting on 1/13/26. Also in attendance and engaged in the Wake Boating conversation were Kurt Wolff, Susan Gantner and Amanda Griggs.
The Chairman expressed that he has gotten a number of calls and emails from constituents and all have been in favor of the ordinance. He would, however, like to hear from more of his constituents on the subject. (Whatever we can do to get folks to the next meeting, or just as good, to have folks contact Mr. Smiley, would be great)
Most of the dialog on the Wake Enhancement topic revolved around the Enforcement of the ordinance.
As Mr. Wolff so elegantly stated….I think we can all agree that there are many ordinances on the books that are “unenforceable”. This is really about creating an ordinance that is a deterrent for the 95 plus percent of folks that are compliant.
Todd stated that this Ordinance has been in place since 2009 in some Townships, and is currently active in over 70 Townships, and there has yet to be one citation issued.
The Town Clerk is really struggling with the enforcement, and a bit vocal about it. As the Town Treasurer mentioned…its going to take doing some education.
Todd reviewed the number of Ordinances in other Townships…and maybe its about not knowing how to do enforcement? The enclosed numbers were shared with the group:

The Town, of Presque Isle has more ordinances than I care to count, the Town of Mercer has about 60 ordinances, the Town of Scott has 7 ordinances, the Town of Manitowish Waters has 5 ordinances (two of which are for Wake Enhancement), and the Town of Sherman has 2 Ordinances.

Insurance for D&O- Randy is still looking into do we need this…more to come.

Friends of the Flowage, and TL– Randy reached out to Casey to start a conversation…he is very excited. Randy will reach back and possibly setup a separate meeting, or invite him to a Board meeting to get a better understanding of how we might be able to get something to work.

Boat Houses- We did receive a request from Heather P and Erika R. asking for us to weigh in on the proposed ordinance change to allow flat roofs on boat house.
Todd read the email response from 12/30 to Heather and Erika into the record, declaring that we are NOT in support of a change to the current ordinance.

2026 Budget- Roger presented the 2026 budget that was sent out ahead of the meeting via email.

There was some question on the budgeted amount for LWA, and we had donated $500 in 2025, and do we intend to do that again? The initial thought is yes, for the work that they have done.

There discussion about sending someone to this year’s Lakes and Rivers Convention in Stevens Point in April. $350 was added to the budget to cover the conference registration.

A motion was made to accept the 2026 budget, to include the two items mentioned above…the motion was seconded, and carried unanimously.

The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for the third Monday in February (February 16^th.)

Meeting adjourned at 7:16 pm

Respectfully submitted,
Todd Jirous
Secretary