DLPOA Board Meeting November 10, 2011

Treasurer: $3400 checking, 49k cds. 375 paid members.

Newsletter: want to send it out so people get it by end of month.

The dock for the public access area is not yet in the water. We cannot get an insurance quote till we get some other silly kind of information.

21 companies are advertizing in our 2012 calendar.

We have a bout 70 questionnaires back on the Aquatic Weed thing.

We sold lots of shirts, and lots of advertizing for the calendar. Bill Bajadali and Rick Jarvis did the selling.

Cold water rescue – 4 rescue tools and suits being ordered. Loon Lake will donate $2500. (We are donating a bunch too.) This gear will be stored at Deer, Loon, Clayton fire stations, and someplace on Long Lake. Originally they were going to buy a sled. But that is difficult to get down to the water’s edge if there is no launch. Now they carry a little box. A big tube inflates to let you get to people on thin ice. You wear a funny suit to protect you from the cold water. They are supposed to be able to get the tube back in the box......

Skip Wells – High water mark determination – We will recommend that nobody builds a house lower than three feet above full pool mark. We now have a geologist on the team to help us with these studies. This is in preparation for generating a no wake ordinance when we have high water, but somehow you have to define exactly what high water is.

Membership – Google Docs will be used from now on to hold the membership list, and dues and donation information. A Public Disclosure Request might get us a peek at the PUD list, since they are a public organization.

Ace Diving did the fall weed survey. We had seen some interest from some divers in volunteering some time for extra surveys, but we got nobody. However, the Boy Scouts did find some. A color map was handed out showing where all the Milfoil was found. Biggest bunch was at Deer Lake Resort. We are discussing with the Crumps (who own the resort) how to deal with the Milfoil and not mess up their resort activities.

Deer Lake Sign – we got permission from Stevens County to light up our sign. Avista will charge us $20/month if we ask them to put up a light. We are going to petition the county commissioners for a street light that just happens to light up our sign as well as the intersection there (so that the county would pay for it). Solar was considered, but it does not seem to be viable.

Mike Phillips asked for us to once again sponsor the Regional Lakes Conference again this year. $150 request was Passed.

WALPA is a state wide group that lobbies for lake protection. They are asking for donations also. Mike asked for $50 for them. Passed.

Donations are being accepted for the new Fireworks Dock. If the donation is made through DLPOA you might get a tax writeoff. (Or maybe not – see your tax advisor.) The Fireworks Dock agreement is in process. This is a written agreement with West Bay (who will own the docks) that says we get to use their swim platforms two days a year, on the 3^rd and 4^th of July.

Surplus property – we will have a notice in the next two newsletters, and do the auction in the summer at the annual meeting. The method of this auction will be decided in March.

Dock demo burnables – Diversified in Deer Park will grind it up for $500. We can’t burn the stuff in the boonies any more, which of course never happened.

New Business

Deer Lake Signs – A suggestion was made to put our reader board signs next to the Deer Lake signs. The North one is currently at the road to the dump. The East one is at the Haney’s turnoff and is very difficult to see. Also, we need new reader boards, since the ones we have are falling apart. (This should be an easy project for somebody with a chunk of plywood and a few 1X2's).

There will be another New Year’s Party at Deer Lake Resort. See Cheryl Ring.

There was an off topic discussion on deer hunting because Stevens County now requires four points or better and people are grumpy about that.

Aquatic Plan, 1^st public meeting

In the middle of the board meeting, we adjourned for an hour and fifteen minutes for Dave Lamb to present his Integrated Aquatic Plant Management Plan. There were about 15 people attending over and above the people who were already at the Board meeting. Most of them did not stay for cookies.

This is part of the LMD stuff. This plan is required by the state if you are going to use herbicides in the lake to control Milfoil. This Plan is being paid for by a grant from the state, because we have no way to charge people who use the lake but do not live on the lake. We need this for an MPDES permit, a new federal permit thing that will take over from the state permit system, cost twice as much and give us twice the aggravation..

The plan requires an overview of the lake, and its aquatic plant populations. Fortunately, we already have this information available. A questionnaire was sent out to all homeowners and about 70 were filled out by the time of this meeting. The water quality of our lake is quite good. Quality is somewhat measured by Secci disks, and has gone from 18 ft to 27 ft over a 20 year period. Nutrients can be analyzed for, specifically phosphorus. We did an official water quality test in 2005. We need another data point one of these days. This data will be part of the report, even though it is not officially needed. He will also report on the milfoil eradication done up to the current time. We did surveying for five years before we found milfoil, and got a three year grant for eradication when we did find it, and now have the LMD to fund future eradication.

The Plan will follow the federal guidelines, so it should be easily approved. It contains:

•          Problem statement – milfoil is it at the moment.

•          Management goals – what do we want to see happen to the lake, regarding milfoil.

•          Control alternatives – herbicides, divers, lake level drawdown, etc.

•          Action plan.

The Plan (all 200 pages of it) will be put on our web site in PDF format when it is done. A 2^nd meeting on the Plan may or may not happen. Maybe at our annual meeting.

Doug Freeland, Ace Diving, gave a report. His company did the surveying and pulling of Milfoil over the last few years. Most problems in other lakes deal with nutrient loads. Milfoil survives our lake temperatures even in the winter. Most other invasive plant live will not survive our winter waters, and so are not as big of a problem. We started looking for this stuff at least 9 years ago, and DOE looked before that. They used to do rake tossing, which is sort of a Needle in Haystack method. Ace pulls a diver behind a boat. Milfoil usually takes 3-4 years to be seen, because it is hidden by indigenous plants. Then it explodes once it grows above the shadow of the local plants. Ace did find fragments early on, but they did not find the actual plants for a long time. DOE actually found the first plant. Recently some Boy Scouts found four plants in the narrows. This stuff can grow five inches a day in great conditions. So if you looked a month ago and did not find it, you might find it now. Because of our lake clarity, we can see the stuff better than in a lot of lakes.

You will never get it eradicated. You have to stay on top of it, survey it, and get rid of what you find. Our narrows have very heavy indigenous plants – mostly coon tail. In the early part of the season, the bad stuff is hard to tell from good stuff. The narrows is a feeder for the lake, and so we chemically treat the narrows, but not the rest of the lake.

Deer Lake Resort – not many indigenous plants. We may have to use chemicals there. We have tried bottom barriers, and hand removal Deer Lake Resort is not real keen on chemicals, because it shuts down their swim area for a few days..

The earlier we find this stuff, the better. Other eyeballs looking for this stuff really helps.

At Julius Terrace, ACE initially did not look into swim areas, because they somehow thought the homeowners there would do the survey themselves. A year ago Ace did find milfoil, and then started looking harder around docks and swim areas. This year they pulled out 50 plants.

It is very tough to deal with the narrows, because of the dense tooly weeds, and shallow water, and the fact that the swampland goes back half a mile from the shore.

Algae grows because of excess phosphorus. Fish eat the invertebrates which eat the algae, so fish actually make the algae problem worse. One would think fish eat the algae, but not so.

DLPOA Board Meeting October 13,2011

We barely had a quorum. El Presidente was missing.

Treasurer: $3108 in checking, 49K cd, 365 members, 30 more from this summer.

Got $750 from Stevens County for fireworks from the hotel tax.

We made a donation of $500 to Stevens Fire for cold water rescue gear. It cost us $625 for firehouse repairs in order to have our pancake feed.

Apparel sales were $3400 gross, net $550.

Sue Winteroud and Dave Lamb made a presentation on the Integrated Aquatic Vegetation Management Plan, hereafter just called the Plan. Dave is a lake ecologist. Started out as a fish guy, morphed into a plant guy. The Plan is sort of like an environmental impact statement. Dave is writing it, and has written several others for other lakes. A question was asked, why bother? Answer: State requires it if you want to use any herbicides. They tell you what to put in the plan, and how to do it. We have a grant to help pay for this plan. No water quality studies are part of the writing of this Plan because all that stuff has been studied before and we can use that data.

The first such Plan in Stevens County was for ponderey (I know, incorrect spelling) and cost $40K because they had to collect a lot of data. We have the benefit of a lot of existing data being available, so we don’t have to do all that. Our total grant was initially $22.5k, but it did not become active till July 1, and $10K of the grant was for our LMD setup expenses, but we did all that before July 1 so the grant can’t pay for the LMD creation costs. So now we only get $12k, of which $9K goes to Dave to write the Plan, and $3k to Sue to Administer the Plan. It is a 75% match grant (we have to come up with the other 25%). Our part can be in-kind work (like attending meetings). This should all be finished by the start of next summer.

Milfoil distributes by fragments – boat props, wind and weather. Grows through the winter so is ready to go in the spring and gets ahead of the other plants. Federal EPA now requires permits for herbicide treatments. MPDES (?) – still a work in progress. We currently have a State permit for herbicides. Permit price will double to about a grand a year when the Feds get into it.

.

There will be a couple of mailings: a questionnaire and an announcement for a public meeting. There will probably be two such meetings, the first for public input which will be at our next Board meeting, and (maybe) the second to present the Plan once it is written. DLPOA will deal with the mailings, using the LMD mailing list. We will request an Rsvp for the meeting. The questionnaire can be sent back by snail or e mail.

This agreement was signed by Sue, Dave and Mike Phillips Oct 5. A Motion to approve this plan using state funding was made and Passed. We do not have to go out for bid for professional service contracts under $25k.

A lot of Milfoil was found at Deer Lake Resort. It took 2 days for the divers to pull it out. Boy Scouts found three plants near the narrows. The divers put in five days surveying and pulling, and owe us one more day.

Ken Allen Stevens County Sheriff, made a pitch for a 0.3% sales tax for law enforcement and criminal justice, which is on the Stevens County ballot this November. Federal grants will end next year which these support five people. A sharing option from the richer counties will be down $200k. All taxes are drastically down. There are only 27 officers in the county Sheriff’s department, including the boss. A total of 7 could be chopped. The tax has a Sunset clause after 5 years. Should generate about $1000k. County gets 60%, city and towns get the rest.

Skip Wells – no wake ordinance – targeted the highest lake levels. Years 96/97 were two feet higher than this year. (3 ft above full pool, as opposed to 1 ft this year). They will do laser measurements on the lake to see what areas are affected by high water. This information will be incorporated into when, and under what conditions, the no wake ordinance should go into effect.

Wood cutting – Good news is, we got in.

Bad news is, there was very little wood available.

Insurance on public boat launch – our insurance agent for D&O wants to see a contract on this dock thing. Knights Docks donates it to Fish&Wildlife but we manage it. Dock will be put in by the end of the month.

Roadside sign and Avista – Avista could put an intersection light in, but county and Avista are worried of reflection off of windshields and who is liable for any accidents. Avista will not put a light in without being held harmless for any wrecks. Dlpoa could pay Avista for a light at $18 month. Or put in a solar light and tell Avista to take a hike.

Dock clean up disposal cost – our logs have disappeared this year. Next year we can get a grinder for $500. But maybe some fine home owners who need firewood might want to do a little dock woodchopping

Fireworks dock – West Bay has completed two swim platforms (aka Fireworks docks), with two more scheduled to be built. 6 floats were stolen from the site, which is about one dock’s worth. but Marion can get some extra floats from derelict docks. Jarvis will work out an agreement with West Bay using his lawyer relative to make sure that we always have access to these docks, since we are kicking in time and money in their creation. We will have 800 square feet when we are done, but the fireworks guys might still need a bit more..

Orphan property – We will put in a notice in newsletter about declaring it surplus and having some sort of auction or sale. Sell it for what we have into it. Motion to declare surplus parcel number 523900 was made and passed.

Pancake feed will be on the 1^st next year, the Sunday before the 4^th.

The web site and the next newsletter and the calender will all have the next year’s schedule.

Done at 830 PM.

DLPOA Board Meeting September 8, 2011

Treasurer reports $2950 in checking, $49K in CDs. We have 326 paid members.

Since we agreed that we would cover the milfoil removal for 2011, those bills are starting to roll in. Ace diving $ 5200 survey and removal, $1150 to Procare for2,4D on noxious weeds. Another $5200 bill from Ace is expected. We will have to cash in at least one CD to pay for this.

Pancake net was $2750. Last year we gave $1000 out of this to cold water rescue. This year we agreed to pay $600 to fix electrical issues in the firehouse for the pancake feed, mostly more wall plugs.

Motion to give $600 to fire department for electrical work. Passed.

Motion to give $500 for cold water gear. (Plus another $500 in donations). Passed.

Road safety. Roads are safe. Signs are up. Checking into lighting them up. Electrical work will be free. Lights are free. The electricity is not. That is being worked on. Could use solar, but there is an Avista pole right behind our sign. But we have to slap a meter on it, for $15/month minimum.

Newsletter. This last newsletter had a full color page (both sides). Members voted to have one such color page a year, at end of summer. Mr Ring asked for more B&W pictures to be also put into the newsletter, since they come for essentially free.

Membership. We talked about the membership database, which will be living in the cloud in the near future, giving other officers access to this data. It is secure, passworded, because this information is not for the general public. We had a suggestion to bring in a list of who we send newsletters to that are NOT members, so that some arm twisting can go on.

Woodcutting. Asking for info from CFP, applying for permits. We would Go in as a group. This is not here but somewhere near Reardon, because that is where they are currently chopping.

Roadside cleanup – Sept 17. 8am. Donuts at the firehouse afterwards. No chilli.

Fish – sometime in October. Nobody knows what or how many.

Fish Fry – small turnout, but good stuff. Maybe do same day as fall roadside cleanup next year. John Gregerson has tons of smallmouth bass around his place, and they go crazy at end of September. The idea of a contest was canceled because those people who really like to catch bass also like to throw them back, rather than send them to fish heaven. The idea for this was to try to get rid of these pests so that nice shiny Rainbows and Silvers can grow fat and happy, and not get gulped up.

Emergency Services – There is a fire ban in the woods, and Stevens County has a phase 2 ban. NO fires on the lake, NO charcoal BBQ, although propane BBQ allowed (for now). NO tiki torches. This means NOTHING, ZIP, NADA. No exceptions.

Stevens County EMS levy, up for renewal next year. Rate will stay the same at $0.27/K.

Sheriff wants 0.3% added to sales tax for law enforcement purposes.

Stevens fire is studying 2 new fire stations, one at Loon one at Suncrest.

No wake ordinance – doing GPS studies on the lake to determine high points. We will use Spokane County ordinances as a resource. The County is responsible for enforcement of the ordinance, and maybe repairs to property if there is damage.

Public Boat Launch Dock – bureaucrats have not yet said yes, but are close. Fish and Game needs to bless it. Knight Docks will donate it. DLPOA will manage the dock.

Question – do we want to help the non resident boaters that use our lake to use it even more? Question – will it be handicap accessible?

Question – who will be liable for people getting hurt on the dock? Some think F&G, some think us. Mr Egan will check into liability issues.

Fireworks – This year the barge was in the wrong position by about 800 feet due to the wind and this disappointed several people, especially in the narrows. West Bay is building new swim platforms, which we will be able to use for fireworks in the July 3/4 timeframe in the future. We need five docks (at 200 sq ft each, 10 X 20) to meet the requirements of the fireworks guys (900 sq ft). Two are now built, with three more scheduled. However, somebody stole several floats (at $200/each). There are six floats per dock. DLPOA committed to contribute $1k to this project, along with some sweat equity

Comment: Some sort of written agreement should be made between West Bay and us, in case West Bay gets sold or gets new management or changes their mind.

National Lakes Management meeting will be held here in Spokane, first time on the west coast. We had approved registration fees for Mr Phillips to go to some of it, but now that we see the actual content (which is rather academic) he will not be going.

Milfoil – DOE Grant we think is approved. This is for the expanded plan, useful for future 2,4D applications. The LMD committee has not yet been selected, but probably somebody from DLPOA will be on it.

Water Levels – The lake level was about a foot above full pool for several months till June. Now 1.5 feet below below. Much higher than the last few years.

Dock Demo Burn Pile – can’t do it any more. (Not that we ever did, of course.) Somebody is getting real serious about fires on or near the lake, to the tune of five figure fines. We are exploring the idea of trucking a grinder up here and making very little ones out of big ones. It will cost something, but not as much as dumping fees. We will probably have to raise the rates next year, especially if we start getting more non wood docks, like we did this year. That stuff has to go to the dump, and we lost our shirts on it this year.

24^th September – Ace Diving will demo to boy scouts how they pull millfoil. Others are welcome to watch. Bring a boat.

This last weekend somebody with a straight pipe boat blew noise all over the lake. It was very very disturbing, especially to us old farts. However, there do not seem to be any laws against it. There is no noise ordinance in Stevens County, and the boat did not seem to exceed speed limits. The sheriff was called and told us to suck an egg.

DLPOA North Side Property – somebody is interested in buying it. We could declare it surplus and then auction it off. It is landlocked land, boarded by only four owners. There is no road or lake access, so unless you have a balloon or a helicopter, there is no way to get to it.

Thurs Sept 22 – vets fishing tour, pontoon boats are wanted to help out.

The Calendar project – Mr Bajadali and Mr Jarvis getting adds. Mr Ring and the newsletter guy need to meet with Walts to discuss format options.

Fish fry next year – Sept 22 at the firehouse.

Pig Out next year – August 14.

Done about 8:45.

DLPOA Board Meeting June 9 2011

Treasurer Mike Egan: we have 290 paid members.

Dock Demo took $308 in, but the dump fees were $560, so we were in the hole. Took care of 14 docks. The dump fees were mostly due to fiberglass docks which we can’t burn. Terry the backhoe operator was a lot of help.

Question – can we get a special rate at the dump? Ring will look into it.

Brian Humphrey N. Deer Lake Rd sign – will spray the weeds around the sign. Getting gravel for the immediate area. We had a discussion on what color rock, what size rock, what to do with the rock, will kids throw the rocks at cars or not ... Still need solar lights to light up the sign.

Commissioner Gunther – LMD Ballots will go out next week. They need to be mailed back within three weeks. We should know the results just after July 4^th.

Newsletter – need articles by Aug 6th, mail it by 16^th, so we can announce the fish fry on 28th.

You cannot tie up your boats to buoys at public launch points. It is a ticketable offence.

Discussion on if we should have dock demo in spring or fall. The advantage for fall is, people put in new docks during the summer and have to get rid of their old docks. But, you can’t burn them that soon after taking them out. A vote was taken, results were to keep it in the spring. El Presidente was kind of put out since the fall thing was his idea.

Skip Wells – no wake ordinance. He thought that the sheriff could request the commissioners to declare a no wake period of time. We found out, that is not the case. There have been two such ordinances in the past – 1997 and 1999. This year we were a foot above full pool. Back then it was 3 feet above full pool. 2481 elevation is the official high water mark. What we need to do is to go to the commissioners this fall to set up a framework for such an ordinance. Emergency ordinances require public hearings, two weeks notice, etc. If DLPOA puts together a plan, then the commissioners have something to work with in a short time frame. Different levels of lake height would set into process different things that can happen. There has to be a notice at all 15 or however many launch areas, including private ones.

Question came up about a noise ordinance for boats. There might be one, have to check. There is some open exhaust boat that shows up every year and annoys some people.

Jarvis talked to Knights Dock company who is willing to donate and install a dock for the public boat launch. We have got a permit from the county, but Fish&Wildlife has to approve things because it is their land. So far they have not approved, probably because of liability issues. But a lot of F&W launches on other lakes in the areas have donated docks, including Loon Lake. We are thinking about an 8X30 dock because it has to be handicap accessible. It would be a plastic dock so it does not have to be taken out for the winter.

Wood cutting – progress is being made with Capital Forest to do wood cutting on slash piles. They seem to like talking to Mike Phillips a lot more than talking to Jerry Rasley.

Fish – still can’t get eastern brooks. The record Mack caught in our lake was 39 lbs in the 50's.

Discussed agenda for annual meeting. Milfoil. Boat launches.

Dennis will look into putting our mailing list on the cloud, so that the membership guy and the treasurer guy can all get at the same data.

West Bay will be building a swim dock for their swim area. It would be 10 X 40. We need 800 sq ft for our fireworks dock. If we would donate the material for a 2^nd 10 X 40 swim dock, he would let us use the two docks for the fireworks dock We need to see if the fireworks guys could live with 800 sq ft, or need 1000 sq ft which is about what we have now.

At any rate, we need to refurbish the existing dock for this year because there is no way we will have this done in the next three weeks. The existing fireworks dock took it pretty hard this winter, and is now in 7 separate pieces. Saturday June 18 10am we will have a dock renovation party. We need to buy about 20 sheets of plywood to hold everything together The plywood we use for refurbishing should be useful on the West Bay dock next year for flame protection.

John Gregorson, Fish Fry on August 28, 1-4pm, at Deer Lake Resort – bring whatever we catch this summer and have frozen. This will help to get rid of macks and bass predators. This is expected to be the First Annual such event. DLResort rfequests only that we buy our beer and soda from their store.

May roadside cleanup – picked up 740 lbs, which was low. But we think that individuals are picking up stuff as they take walks around the lake area. We know that Pam Cambell cleans up the North Deer Lake Road on a regular basis. Thanx.

National Lake Management National Meeting will be in Spokane (first time anywhere in the western US) 26-28 October. Mike will go under dlpoa’s nickel.

County has aerial photos available for $10.

Charm Nokes will run the 4^th of July parade. Skip will contact the sheriff. It will continue on to West Bay, different from what was discussed last month. Back to hot dogs and just like previous years.

Annual Meeting – Lee Bayle needs volunteers to set up. There will be a Pot luck afterwards.

Ratification of officers needs to be done at the annual meeting. This is the responsibility of the VP.

Doyle Knight thought that the dock demo people left his beach in very nice condition.

Doyle let us use his beach with three days notice, after Sunrise Point said that they did not have a beach due to the high water.

Pancake Feed – will have cold water rescue display, membership table, banners to events.

(July 30, 4pm skip wells party at cedar bay).

DLPOA Board Meeting May 12 2011

The Secretary did not bring last meeting’s notes.

Treasurer – 251 members, 30 from last newsletter.

$3K donations for fireworks.

SkipWells, emergency services – Sgt Jim Caruso is the new Sheriff boating officer. Questions, how do we establish a no wake limit, if needed. A: Let Sgt Carouso know, and he will deal with it. He goes to county commissioners, and they have to pass an emergency ordinance. The lake has not gone down much yet, and there is still a lot of snow in them thar hills that could make the lake go up again. The culvert is running about a foot high now.

Fireworks dock – we will buy 3 anchors, chain and rope, since the thing drifted a lot last year.

Apparel – bought $400 of shirts and a couple of manikins. Pancake feed volunteers will get a special shirt. Approved $250 for those shirts.

Mr Razley and Mr Phillips had a Road Cleanup discussion on pre bagging procedures – where to leave off the bags, who gets to tote the filled bags to the dump. Some lady cleans up N Deer Lake Road almost every day. We would like to donate some bags for her use. We need chilli making volunteers.

Boat parade – counter clockwise this year. We think. Whatever the newsletter said, if indeed it said anything at all.

Fishing contest – instead of a contest, we now propose to have a mack and bass fish fry with all the fish caught during the year. People would Catch, filet and freeze. On Aug 28, we have arranged with Deer Lake resort to have this fish fry at their picnic slab. We can drink beer, but please buy it in their store. Because this is coming up too late for the newsletter, we need to make some banners, maybe do a postcard mailing, use the reader board, and get the word out at the Pancake Feed and Annual Meeting for publicity.

There are some cougars hanging around the lake. Also wolves near Clayton.

4^th July parade – do cookies instead of bbq this year, since it ends around 10:30 and nobody really wants a big BBQ at that time of day. We will supply Donuts and firecracker ice cream, and Juices. It is proposed to stop at Pinelow rather than further along at West Bay, because most of the kids are pooped out by that point.

Mike and Mike found cheaper D&O and liability insurance - about half the previous cost. Motion and passed.

70 people so far signed up for the dance.

Dock cleanup is June 4.

Next board meeting is June 9, mostly to get our act together for the Annual Meeting that Saturday, June 11. Need people to set up, pot luck, buy buns and stuff. We will try to get Sgt Carouso as a speaker.

County Commissioner LMD meeting May 12 2011

This meeting was held to consider whether the county moves ahead with the proposal from DLPOA to form an LMD district. (These notes are being done by the DLPOA secretary, and are in no way an exact transcript.)

Mike Phillips (MP) started off witha history of how we got to this point, and then described what this meeting is about. Almost immediately there were shouts from the audience that he was a liar, which Commissioner Guenther gaveled down.

Commissioner Guenther (CG) – This hearing is to speak to the commissioners, not to the crowd. 5 minutes each. All three commissioners are in attendance, and the hearing is being recorded.

CG was the only county commissioner who attended the February meeting. The process could be done by petition, or by feedback from that meeting. This is the Official Hearing to move ahead with the process. Speakers are testifying for the record.

At end of this hearing, the commissioners will decide to either have another hearing, or to move ahead (have a vote of the property owners). If the vote passes, you will have one more opportunity where you can appeal the status of your lot.

Comment from the Audience (A) – Loon Lake believes that their LMD is not progressing fast enough. MP: loon lake has a much larger problem than we do. So we think we have things under control at the rate we are going. A: Will it be finished in 5 years? MP: it won’t happen. Milfoil is like dandelions. We expect to be in the pulling business forever, and chemicals in the narrows in the short term.

A: What about natural pests? Can we do a combination of pulling, chemicals, and weevils? MP: The weevil thing is still being worked on, and is expensive for large areas. So far no lake has totally eliminated milfoil, even with weevils.

A: Multiple lots? MP: You are assessed only for the top three lots that you might have. Both Salvation Army and the Nazareen camp do not HAVE to pay, but voluntarily will. Resorts do have to pay.

Skip Wells – been here 7 years, full time on the lake. Can the resolution be changed at this meeting? He would like everybody to pay the same, frontage and secondary. Secondary owners tend to move their boats in and out of the lake more often than frontage owners, who would normally leave their boats in the lake all summer.

Speaker(S): – did not agree that everybody should pay the same, and would like secondary lots to pay less.

Ron Watson – was on the LMD committee. In favor of the split fees because frontage home values are more than secondary values.

Marian Ballard – manager of West Bay Resort, and owns a secondary lot. Agrees with Skip that all lots should pay the same. Owner of West Bay also agrees.

Bob Jorgenson. -- Opposes the whole concept of an LMD because it is another fee, and will never go away, and will probably go up over time.

Mike Tiner (the shouter from the Audience, both this time and in February) – Wishes that this meeting was at a better time so more people could be here. Wishes that there was an exit poll at the February meeting. It is a disgrace that the community was not able to be part of the process. He Is also against the LMD. He wants to be removed from the LMD because his property is not part of the county maps, and Mike Phillips decided that he should be included and it aint fair that somebody that does not work for the county decides who should be taxed. The figures say that they want to bump the fees from the current $17k/year to $30K/year, when we know where all the Milfoil exists and don’t have to look for it. Why do we have to spend more money in the future. This is purely defensive. There is nothing planned to make this stuff go away. There are no preventive measures, only defensive measures, and that means it will go on forever. DLPOA is not a representative organization, they are a service organization, membership less than half of the owners on the lake. They should do this themselves, and not require everybody else pay for this service project. They are not concerned about the pollution getting dumped into the lake. They contribute to the pollution by having a fireworks barge blow thousands of pounds of material into the lake every July 4th. He would like to see the roads improved instead. A small group of people will have to take care of a public lake that the entire public can use. It should not be our responsibility, but the public that uses it.

Greg Lauer – Is this part of dlpoa? CG: No, there will be an elected board. S: Was the milfoil brought in by boats? CG: Yes, mostly. S: So can the boats that bring it in be charged or fined? CG: No that is fish and game. S:Will there be a charge for people who actually use the lake? CG: No, just property owners. How would you do that. Greg: don’t know. Is the LMD board in control of the money? CG: Yes. S: What happens to left over money? CG: Has to be used for the purposes of the LMD. S: Can we bring F&W into the process? CG: No, they don’t have any money. S: We need to have some method to manage the lake and the people who use it. Could somebody monitor the registration numbers of the boats on the lake and charge them? CG: Who is gonna pay somebody to do that monitoring. S: Does F&W collect money from licenses and stuff? CG: Yes, but none of it gets to us. S: Should somehow assess the boats on the lake, not the property owners. Is not in agreement with the current plan.

Mr Tiner again – still ticked that DLPOA added him to the list of secondary property owners. Threatened to sue DLPOA, Mike Phillips, and the county over this.

Rick ??? – Asked Mike Phillips for his CV, specifically if he does or ever did work for the county. MP: no. S: Will the board be paid? CG: No, volunteer. An appointed position. S: Can you spray something on your boat to kill the milfoil on the lake? MP: Don’t know. S: So it is mostly a boat problem. So there could be a spray station or some other preventative operation. The assessment will never go away. Started arguing the numbers – why $50K a year when we only are spending $17 now. MP: county takes a cut, weed board takes a cut, inflation. S: Grumping about the frontage people taking a bigger hit. MP: described other options other lakes did. S: Argues that his property value will not go down even with milfoil in the lake. The fee will go up over time. Job security for the county. People who have boat launches should be more active in preventing this stuff from coming into the lake in the first place. Are there any grants? MP: maybe.

Don Newhall – in favor of what dlpoa is doing. We need to do something about the problem.

Charleen Jorgenson – would like to change this so that it is a volunteer assessment and not mandatory. More people use the lake than live here. Many property owners only show up a few weeks a year. Would like to see a senior discount, or a poverty discount. This is the fault of people who come from other lakes.

Marie Tiner – Agrees that it should be a volunteer payment, not a mandatory assessment. If you don’t pay the tax, your house will be taken away. Even twenty bucks could be too much for some people. It is a tax even if you call it an assessment.

Kevin Schroder – grew up on the lake, lived here for six years. Thanks DLPOA for managing the milfoil on the lake. We need an avenue to fix the problem, like the LMD. Mr Tiner shouted from the audience: you need the income, since you apply the 24d. Schroder – I volunteered my time to do that. (Editor’s note – as a board member of DLPOA, I know that to be true. Mr Schroder does have a license to apply 24D, did do that for part of the mitigation last year and will do it again this year, but at his cost of materials only. DLPOA and the lake owes him a big debt of gratitude for doing this.)

Doug E???? – been here 4 years. Appreciates the time people have spent on this, totally in favor of going forward with this. If you do not deal with this, property values will go down. It is an assessment, not a tax since it is not a percentage of the property value. Spent more money in gas to get to this meeting than the assessment will cost.

Audience: what about other things besides milfoil? MP: the resolution covers all invasive species.

Audience: where does the money go? MP: money goes to county to pay the bills. DLPOA has nothing to do with this in the future. CG: The LMD Board tells the county what to pay for. The county is the vehicle to collect and disburse the money. A: Does the extra money get invested? CG: yes, but the county keeps the interest.

MP: this year the whole cost of fighting milfoil is fronted by DLPOA alone. We will get back 20% of that per year over the five years. Mr Tiner: so DLPOA will get money from the taxpayers? Now they are expecting the citizens to pay for DLPOA activities.

CG: The process going forward is a vote on the resolution as proposed by DLPOA, which is a two tier fee system. There must be a vote of the property owners to allow any of this to happen. There will be a hearing AFTER the vote where you can quibble over your particular property status.

Q: did DLPOA ever consider making this voluntary? MP: NO because you need a guaranteed amount of money to fight this.

Q: What about sending a form out with the tax bill for people to volunteer payments to the LMD? Commissioner 2: Why can’t speed limits for truckers be voluntary? Likes the idea of the local people determining their own destiny. Exemptions: maybe there could be an avenue provided for this.

CG: Does not think that there is a perfect plan. He is in favor of moving ahead with the process. Pondorey is doing it, Loon Lake is doing it. Public access is probably a big part of the problem, but it is not realistic to provide controls over every access point to clean up boats.

C3 moved to move the process ahead. C2 seconds. All commissioners voted aye.

Next step is a vote of the property owners.

DLPOA Board Meeting 4/19/11

We have 225 paid members. Fireworks donations total $2300. There will be new Dues envelopes thanks to Mrs Jarvis.

We checked out what would be required to hold a fishing tournament. You need a fish and game permit for $24. John Gregorson is heading this up. He is looking for sponsors.

Fish – Santora will dump his rainbows this month. The state put in 250 big breeder rainbows last month, will dump 3000 lbs of triploids this month. There will be another breeder bunch too.

Wood chopping – still no joy. Nobody returns our calls.

Dock Demo – June 4^th – Appears to be a lot of docks floating around this year, more than usual.

Looking for equipment, and boats.

Lake Water level – the drainage culverts are running. The Top of the lake has gone down about an inch. We got to a foot over full pool at the max. There got to be 8 inches of water in the culvert. There were a bunch of rocks and junk there that got cleared out. This year we are two feet above the last couple of years. The floods in 97 were three feet above what we have now.

Fire and safety – JC Chambers is the 2^nd member of the safety committee. He works for the fire department. We expect to buy the cold water safety equipment in May, train in June and November. They are looking for equipment that you fill with air, because due to the terrain of the lake shore, you probably have to carry all this stuff some distance to get to the lake itself where the victim is gurguling away.

Membership thank you letters will be done next week.

The LMD Hearing will be just before our meeting next month (5pm). This will be an official commissioners hearing. Skip said that the meeting should be later, so that working people can get there. Mike will check with the commissioners about that. This is the avenue for people to state their comments about the LMD. People can also send letters, or send emails.

D&O insurance – $3067 last year. We can get just the D&O for $1500. This will be decided at the next meeting. The question is, if something happens on our property, who is liable? Directors? Membership? Nobody?

We got kicked out of our previous beach area where we load up the Fireworks dock. West Bay Resort has kindly allowed us to use their area for this task.

There will be a Dance at Deer Lake Resort on May 14. 90 people came last New year’s. $5 cover charge, and BYOB, pot luck food. We are still looking for a sound system.

Worked on verifying committee members for the various committees.

Bill Bajadali and Mrs Ring will run the kiddie parade, west bay end.

Skip now has lake safety along with emergency services.

Reader board – Mike Egan

Banners – Jerry Rassley and Ken ring

Calendars – Ken Ring and Jarvis

Fishing contest – John G.

Annual meeting – Lee Bayley and Bill Meulnick

bylaws – ???

Cheryl Ring – social stuff

Newsletter mailing targeted for April 29

Apr 19 – drop dead date for articles.

Milfoil – if we are going to pay for this year’s eradication, we need the annual meeting to vote on it. Keith Furguson will head up the diver team looking for milfoil.

Public access area – can we put some sort of dock there? Need to be cedar logs, not foam. Have to deal with the state, of course. Can we get garbage cans near the boat dock? One member gathered 9 garbage sacks of junk there just last week. If the state allows it, DLPOA could maybe coordinate the dock and garbage cans.

DLPOA Board Meeting March 10 2011

204 paid members to date. Last year at this time about 131. About 300 for the whole year. Millfoil donations are $700. Coldwater rescue donations are $911. We donated $1550 to the fire district. (They need $6100). Apparel sales $1684, net $507.

The fire guys are looking at a different cold weather device that would be cheaper. And, Loon Lake might join us to help finance this thing. So our total commitment might be somewhat less than we had thought.

Our fireworks dock has been booted out of its loading area because of insurance concerns. (Who would think that 500 lbs of dynamite would be an insurance problem?) We need to find a new loading area. Possible Gardner Acres launch, or maybe West Bay, or where it is now. The Fireworks dock is well frozen into the lake at this time.

Doyle Knight gave a presentation on a proposal on a group of people who want to buy Pinelow Camp (the Nazarine Camp). He is currently doing the maintenance on the camp, was a camper from 1948 on. The owners want $3.2M, these guys think that they might settle at $2.5M. They have got a bank to sell you CDs for 3% interest to you, and then the bank promises to loan this money to the partners at 4.5%. They would rent things out to all kinds of organizations, not just Nazarine organizations any more. It will still be a church run camp. Nazerine church will not be a party to this partnership. There will be two meetings to inform the lake population of the plans.

Joline Jarvis has put together a new dues envelope package which will be included with the next newsletter.

North Deer Lake sign will be finished when the weather gets better. Big rocks will surround the sign. We can get the sign lit up for about $10/month. Or maybe have a solar light.

Lakes conference – Mike Phillips and D2 went to the meeting in February.

Wood chopping – we still cannot get our calls returned from the Capital ??? people who bought the Boise Cascade property. We are searching for other options.

Santora fish: 15012 fish released in April because of lack of fish food. They are Six inches long.

Ken Ring’s fish will be released June 5 (silvers).

We had a discussion on the recent public LMD meeting. We learned a few things from the populace. There were a lot of people who would rather go to a flat fee rather than 40/20. The people at the LMD meeting thought this was a feedback meeting, but it was not. It was strictly for the county commissioner’s ears. We think these issues can be dealt with at the commissioners hearing. Some divers volunteered to look for Milfoil. A vote was taken at our meeting on whether to keep the existing plan, and the majority seemed to say keep it for now and think about changing it in the next 5 year period.

Keith Ferguson is a scuba diver, was on the sheriff water rescue team. They would be willing to make a lake survey as volunteers. If they find any, they will GPS the location. They can connect with Ace Divers for some training. Ace would continue to be the only people pulling the weeds.

Membership – we want to keep up the communication. We will be sending a letter to people who have paid their dues thanking for joining, a letter to people who have joined but are not now members, and then a letter to people who have not recently joined. We will skip Walts and do the stuffing ourselves.

Calendar – will do it again, but maybe in a different format.

New business, John Gregorson – suggested a Bass tournament. Some weekend. But we may need a permit from fish & game. Will it generate more millfoil? Not if only advertized to Deer Lake people. Maybe 40% of the fish in the shallow areas are small mouth bass, and this would be a way to get these predators out of the lake.

86 people showed up to the new year’s party. They would like to have a western theme dance on May 14.

LMD Formation meeting, Sat feb 26

At least 120 people showed up. Which was about 110 more than we expected.

Ken Ring introduced the members of he LMD committee.

County Commissioner Larry Gunther gave a short intro as to what he is here for.

D2 gave a summary of how and why we got to this point.

From that point on, it was pretty much questions from the audience. The following is not exactly a transscript, since your humble scribe can’t type that fast or accurately. But I think I have the general sense of the questions and answers.

Q: How often will we be assessed, and is it part of the tax bill. A:Twice a year, and Yes

Q: Are we at a fixed price for all 5 years? A: Yes

Q: What is the definition of a secondary lot?

A: Mike said that we took what the county rolls said. There will be a time for the home owners to appeal this.

A: a discussion ensued of who is exempt. A: Government only. Camps will pay voluntarily, resorts will pay up to four parcels.

Q: Does the state pay anything. A: Only as grants.

Q: What about the public ramp? You got people who don’t own property using that ramp and the lakes. A: Boat fees provide the money for the grants we have got and may yet get.

Q: How can you clean milfoil from your boat? A: Some lakes do have cleaning stations. We don’t.

Q: Why was the 5 year grant blown in 3 years? A: We now at least have a track record of how much it we actually do spend. We did not then.

Q: Who do we use? A: Ace diving. (Some comments were made that maybe DLPOA could buy our own boat and use volunteer divers to pull the weeds. The county weed lady about had a heart attack at this.)

Q: Loon lake is on its 3^rd lmd, $50k a year. How do they get their money. A: They do it by evaluation of the property, frontage, very complex. Stevens County does not want to deal with this. We choose an assessment to make it simple.

Q: inflation? A: We think we factored that in to our calculations.

Q: Should we the home owners pull any weeds that we find? A: you will probably end up spreading it. The Eurasian bad stuff is very difficult to tell from the native good stuff.

Native milfoil looks a lot like Eurasian milfoil.

Take a sample, put it in a bag with some water, give it to Mike Phillips, since he is about the only person on the lake that can tell the difference.

Q: are we locked into 5 years. A. Once the LMD passes, we are locked.

Q: What happens to the extra money? A we will spend it. The county does not want to give it back in small chunks to all the home owners. We cannot roll it over, but we can buy things in advance. It will not be wasted, assuming that there in fact is some extra dough left over at the end.

 Q: are we asking for enough money? A: we have a three year track record of expenses, so we are reasonably confident of our numbers.

Q: do you want donations? A: Always acceptable.

Q: what kind of auditing process do we do, and what educational process?

A: we have signs at the boat launches. The state does do its own surveying to double check us. No official money auditing. We will have surveys every year.

Q should we charge the same flat rate for all properties for fairness?

A we feel that frontage properties have more to lose in values, so they should pay more. Of the four committee members, three have frontage cabins.

Q what about secondaries that have easements for a dock? A: we have no way to know about this. Over time this sort of information can be obtained now, we are using the county tax rolls and their definitions.

Q: Dept of interior are they helpful or hurtful? A: they don’t have any money either.

Q: Deer lake is a public lake. Why should a small group of people pay the bill? Why should resorts get preferential treatment? The big issues are at the resort boat launches.

A we don’t think we can legally charge them more than anybody else.

Q: does the LMD prevent us from getting any more grants?

Sue: Having an LMD does not prevent you from asking for more grants for control.

We did get a grant for future planning starting July 1, but it could go away with the stroke of a pen.

Audience: we really need to do this.

Not asking for a lot. (That is Today, said somebody).

One guy got really grumpy and pointed out that we will ask for more and more and more. Got really loud, said this was a democracy and he wanted to say his piece. His issue is that the people who live on the lake are paying for it, and other people use the lake and aint paying. We are paying too much in taxes already. The state ought to do this.

About this time there was Lots of shouting, so I missed a lot of it.

Sue: Loon and Ponderay both have milfoil problems. Spent 200k on Ponderay, hundreds of dollars per parcel, but they voted an LMD in. Yes, the state should play a part, but they are not doing it, so we are the ones left holding the bag.

Lee: we dlpoa can try to pressure the legislatures for the bux, and DLPOA might have more influence than an individual.

Q: Spokane just put in 10 bux for potholes on car tabs, why cannot we? A: it is outside our capacity to do that. Larry: there is not the legislative rules to allow that. The legislature specifically allowed Spokane to do the car tab thing.

Q: Could we form our own volunteer team to do that? Save some money. A: Come to a DLPOA annual meeting and see how many people volunteer for stuff.

Q: Is 24d the best thing to use, is it safe? A: 24d is now known to be safe. Kevin Shroder’s company is applying the stuff for free for us. Half acre cost about a grand in materials. You need a special license, which Kevin has, and a permit, which DLPOA has.

Q: is the assessment tax deductible? A: The fee can be written off on your taxes.

Skip: The LMD is an instrument that allows us to do a lot of things. DLPOA cannot do it alone. We need the instrument to allow us to take care of our own problems. (Not directly said – nobody else is gonna do it for us.)

Q: Who gets to vote? A: Every property owner gets a vote, regardless of where you live. You will be told at vote time what your assessment will be. You will get as many votes as your assessment is.

Member of the audience: In Wisconsin, all the money issues etc was public. So when a vote occurs, you can go back and look at what got promised and what is being asked for. There is a sounding board where questions can be directed. The county is accountable for the expenditures.

Property values there where nothing was done went from 7k/ft to 1.5k ft. if milfoil hit.

Sue: If the County allows it to go to ballot, there will be hearings before the vote goes out. Then Hearings will occur after that to contest stuff. A steering committee will be formed to advise the commissioners on this issue. Commissioner will appoint this panel. The steering committee goes out to get the work done, selects the contractors, approves the bills. County then pays the bills. County contracts with the vendors.

Larry – he thinks county only has to send noticed via newspaper. Dlpoa should send a mailing for these hearings.

Member of audience – this DLPOA committee made the rules, and then they expect us to vote on it. He thought this meeting was to give input to make the rules, not just vote up or down on somebody else’s ideas. He is not comfortable with that. He wants us to take comments in this meeting and rework the proposal.

Sue – the ballot will have the amount of the assessment will be.

The meeting ended about an hour and a half after it started. The next step is for the County Commissioners to decide if they want to move forward, hold hearings, and send out a ballot.