DLPOA Board Meeting 11/12/09

Larry is improving. Can walk with a walker. Getting some speech back, slowly. Will be in nursing home for some more time for therapy. Lost weight. Laughs. Shaved the beard. Some neighbors are helping to put a ramp into his house, so he can get into the downstairs area in a wheelchair.

Treasurer – no checks written in October. Got our county check for the fireworks.

Bill Baker – Fish & Wildlife made a presentation on fish stocking and fish pens. We have two members of the board that volunteer to raise fish in pens during the winter. A bunch of Kokenee that we were supposed to get went to Loon Lake instead. Turns out that Loon’s Kokenee population crashed, and they really needed the bump. Loon has not had any Kokenee in the last five years, whereas we have got about half a million a year in that time. So we got rainbow trout instead. Deer has a serious predation problem that chomps up all the Kokanee fry as soon as they get dumped in there. When they release Kokanee, it becomes a feeding frenzy for the Macks.

Question – does Loon have better spawning? Answer – don’t think that is the issue. Loon also has Mack predators, and they are large, whereas Deer’s Macks are stunted. No small mouth Bass in Loon, but there is in Deer. Deer should be able to spawn Kokanee, and somehow it does not happen. Modifying fishing limits probably will not help, since the limits are already quite liberal. (5 fish limit for trout (including Macks), with only two over 30 inches, per day. 10 a day for Bass.) KEEP THE MACKS THAT YOU CATCH! Ponderay does a reward program to get rid of predators. Also lets commercial fishermen get them out.

The problem is, Macks are more of a sport fish that people like to catch, but not so much eat. (They do make good garden fertilizer).

The scribe got beat up for the comment last month about tossing macks on the bank. By state regs, Macks are a sport fish, so F&W cannot recommend doing that. Discussion on how best to bbq a Mack. Pink meat is better than white meat. Some like it, some don’t.

Question – can Dlpoa put a bounty on Macks? Answer – will have to research it.

Question – how many predators are in the lake? Last count was five years ago, and another count should be done. Of course, there is no money for any of this. Can’t get grants without the studies, don’t have money for the studies.

Question – do NE Fish&Game Club, and Granite Point resort, have influence over F&W? Answer – Baker does not know anybody there.

Question – if a rainbow is 7 inches long when released, is there a better survival rate? Answer – Yes, although they still become Mack food. Out of half a million fry released each year, how many ever get caught? Nobody at the meeting sees these things. This year, several thousand 2 year old Kokanee (maybe 10 inches) were released, and they still all got gobbled up on release.

Question – can you let pen fish sit longer to get bigger? Answer – you get into a water temperature issue, and eventually a density problem.

Question – Can you start with larger fish in the pens? Answer – No, the hatcheries do not have the space to do this.

Next year we will get our share of Kokanee, since F&W will be prepared for it. But they will still get eaten.....

Question – why is Lake Roosevelt better fishing than our lake? Answer – stock 750k rainbows, not so many predators, more available food. 40 net pens on Lake Roosevelt.

He needs to know what do the stakeholders (us) want? A small mouth and mack fishery, or a rainbow and silver fishery? For the former, they can just do nothing. For the latter, about the only solution is to nuke what is there, and start over. That would be one humongeous political problem, though.

Brook trout – hard to get from the hatcheries. These are a good fit for our lake, but we will probably not get any for a couple of years, until they can ramp up hatchery space for them.

For our lake, rainbow trout seem to be the most durable, and maybe smarter than the average Mack. Brookies are good too. Catch size laws do not seem to help make a better fishery.

Predators like the fact that our lake is very clear, because they find their pray visually. In the past, before the sewer, maybe the “good” fish survived better because of all the (literally) crap in the lake at that time. Deer Lake is nutrient limited, compared to other lakes. Macks exist in Priest Lake, but there they eat some sort of shrimp, that we don’t have.

Changes to our board meetings –

Bonnie proposed that we bag the January meeting. Mr Santora proposed that we also bag the February meeting. Others proposed that we then have a pre-annual meeting board meeting in June. Motion, second, and passed. This will have to be incorporated into a revision of the bylaws to make it permanent.

Mr Humphries proposed that we move the board meetings back to the salvation army camp.

The idea being that more of the population can come to our meetings. Also passed.

Mr Egan will work on the contract for 4^th July. And the sheriff, and the hot dogs, etc.

Lake is down 2 more inches this last month. We are 35 inches from full pool.

Millfoil – Original grant was $50k for five years. We are over budget on our control stuff. We have only $15k left, which might last for only two more years. We will need to find other grants, but they will be harder to find. Need to think about an LMD, which will allow taxing the houses on the lake. The milfoil in the narrows is very difficult to get at and control. Right now, the Deer Lake Resort bottom barriers have been moved to the narrows last July, and so far, has not killed it off. The DLR milfoil seems to have been pretty much controlled.

Question – who decides if we eventually have to use 24d? Answer – Dlpoa, Ace diving, DOE all get together, then have to get permits, find appropriate licensed appliers, put out notices, etc.

DLPOA Sign relocation – Mr Humphries and a Dave Watkins have some logs to make a new sign with. Reuse the grouse creek sign itself. Instead of a sign notched in the logs, maybe hang a sign from chains from these logs.

Old business –

Fireworks dock move – We are hoping that Mr Riddler in Pine Bay will let us put the firework dock at his beach.

Shooting laws – there is an RCW on target shooting. D&R has no laws on shooting. RCW-s have to be adopted by the county, we think. Cannot shoot at ducks out of season. Can shoot at coyotes any time in the year, as long as you have any kind of hunting license. A motion was made to keep DLPOA out of the issue brought up by the county commissioner two months ago, but no vote was taken

We have a new board member -- Rick Jarvis.

Done at 830

DLPOA Board Meeting October 8, 2009

The meeting was run by Mike Phillips in absence of a president.

Skip Wells, Fire Commissioner – The recent vote was 56% approval for fire levy. Deer Lake was 69%. Will hire a full time mechanic. Will replace a full time firefighter position. Will replace 2 trucks. A grant may help pay for some of that. Will buy more breathing apparatus.

Treasurer – $7480 treasury, $48k in CDs. Wrote 5 checks for $700. Still asking for the $500 from the county. Donations for fireworks was $5060, cost was $5700, the rest made up by dues. The CD money is being held in reserve for Millfoil fighting, after our $50K grant from DOE runs out.

No new news on developers.

Many people helped the Larry Nokes family winterize their cabin. He is out of the hospital and is in a nursing home. He is improving, can stand with a walker, but cannot talk. The stroke affected his right side. He can eat. He can listen to music, he recognizes people he knew. There is the hope that he will be able to go home in a few months.

DLPOA will put a note in the newsletter for donations, to be sent to Charmain, Larry’s wife. We will also publish a letter from his step daughter regarding this. D**2 will write this.

4^th of July – Larry handled all those details. Somebody has to coordinate with the bang bang guys, the kiddy parade, the boat parade, the sheriff department, the picnic at the end of the kiddy parade, etc. Somebody here has to pick up that job. Mrs Nokes helped Larry a lot getting this together and she knows where a lot of the bodies are buried. Mike Egan will do some of that. Ken Ring will write an article asking for volunteer help for all our projects.

Fish – Jim Santora – new fish on 10/15. Rainbow.

Ken Ring installed two fish pens at his dock. 25k rainbow. We tried to get some silvers, but got turned down because Deer Lake has too many predators that eat all the silvers. There is something like 2% survival rate of the silvers. Fishermen catch the small mouth bass and do not keep them. We need for our fisherpersiblings to keep the macks, and the bass that they catch. Toss them on the shore for the eagles to eat if you don’t want them, just get them out of the lake.

Fall Cleanup – 600 pounds, not very good turnout. Lots of left over donuts. The litter has turned from beer cans to vodka bottles, posing questions about the level of the economy in our area. Some question about using community service people.

Membership – 310 paid members. We do not have a membership guy. The treasurer and the newsletter guys are sort of doing that job, but neither of us is good at marketing and sales.

Emergency Services – Mr Wells agreed to provide us information on a timely manner. However, he does not want to be on the board, and really does not want to be president.

Road Safety – fewer speeders than in the past.

Water Quality – Mike Phillips went to a WALPA meeting. There are new weeds besides milfoil that are coming our way, and now fresh water muscles (from back east). There are chemicals that you can put on lawns that will keep the gooses off.

The milfoil guys are coming next Monday to do another survey and pull & suck. The DOE also did a survey earlier this fall.

Dock Demo – Our Fireworks dock needs a new home. You can have it 364 days a year. It was suggested that we spend a few bucks to make this thing look nicer so that somebody would actually want to have it near their property. Paint and plywood. It might make a nice addition to a lot with no beach.

Old Business – shirts & hats – We are still pursuing the idea of having DLPOA logoed items for sale. Hats, coats, shirts, maybe even underwear. Your notes taker was chastised for referring to this stuff as schlock in the last set of notes. Nominations for a more appropriate noun will be accepted.

Sign Move at North Deer Lake road. We were going to use Larry’s landscaping company to move it, but that is now defunct. So we need to find some company or a set of individuals that can do this for us. Need to dig a couple of holes, set up some poles. There is an artist guy near the Salvation Army camp that can redo and repaint the sign. The existing poles are beyond saving. Mr Humphries will birddog this event.

No Shooting area – Mr Bayley did not come to this meeting. A member of the audience suggested that there is already a no shooting law in Washington within 1000 ft of any house.

Mr Wells said that the DNR has generated some wacs along this issue. D**2 will write an article for the newsletter.

Questions about where our board meetings should be held, in Deer Park or on Deer Lake. D**2 will write a newsletter article. Mr Humphries believes that if you are on the board you should be ready to serve the lake, that we should make the meetings available to the people on the lake. A suggestion was made to bag the January meeting, thereby cutting down the bad weather driving.

Discussions of board members came up. Bylaws said that missing three meetings in a row tosses you off the board.

Lake Levels – We now know where the Lake Full Pool is. Mike Phillips and Jim Santora have been taking monthly lake measurements for the last two years. Last year the lake dropped 25.5 inches from full pool. This year the lake only got to 12.5 inches below at the highest, and went to 33 inches below full, meaning a drop of 20.5 inches this summer, even though the lake ended up lower than last year. Historical data shows about 2.5 ft drop over a year average, although there are some years that are much larger than that.

845 done

DLPOA meeting September 10 2009

We started at 615 due to traffic problems on 395. Mike Phillips ran the meeting.

Larry Nokes suffered a stroke a week ago, and is still in the hospital, and will probably be in a nursing home for some time to come. Mr Ring suggested that DLPOA send a gift card to Mrs Nokes. She also needs help with winterizing their boat, closing up their beach, etc. Mr Egan is helping take care of their horses while Mrs Nokes is caring for Larry. Motion for a gift card made and passed.

The fire levy passed with 56% of the vote. So the local fire station will be preserved.

Treasurer – 309 paid members. Checking $7900, $48K CDs.

Pancake breakfast net $2500.

Walts cost $553, fireworks $5700, $200 for sheriff for kid parade.

Commissioner Larry Gunther – Discussed a proposal from Garry Booth to establish a no shooting area around the lake, down to the water’s edge, not to include shooting from docks and boats. Larry asked DLPOA to host a meeting on this subject. We are talking gunpowder and bullets, not pellet and BB guns. Shotguns for bird hunting might also be an exception. How do you enforce this with the limited sheriff department that we have? There is an instance in Pebble Beach of a guy blasting one of his cars with a 45, and the bullets ricochet all over the place, but there is no current way to stop this, short of somebody getting hurt. Possibly make an ordinance about shooting within X hundred feet of a residence. The sheriff at the moment is passing the buck, as long as there is not some sort of ordinance. Passing an ordinance means several hearings, public meetings, some sort of vote.

Mental Health sales tax add on did not pass among the commissioners.

Budget – a bunch of money from the state went to poor rural counties, which is us. $300,000 will come into the county eventually. This money will go to buying 10 new sheriff cars. We got them cheap because State Patrol ordered a bunch and then did not have the money to pay for them, leaving some dealers stuck with the inventory. Not a lot of people are interested in driving a car with funny lights on the top and front.

Committee reports –

Fireworks – $2K from Pinelow, $3K from donations, 500 from county. That paid the bill for almost all the fireworks.

Pancake Feed – 25 volunteers, served 600 meals. Raffle netted $600. We think that we had a good crowd because the 4^th was on Saturday. Next year the 4^th is on Sunday and we expect a good turnout then too.

Fish – no brook trout this year. Maybe next year. NE Washington Wildlife has offered to help with fish pens. Dale Maggert, 276-5586. They need somebody’s dock to hang the pens off of. Mr Ring volunteered his dock for one year. This group had a lot of cheerleaders among the board at our meeting. Mr Santora will be raising 15K rainbows this year.

Newsletter – Need articles by 20^th of October. Will be sent out before Thanksgiving.

Fall Road Cleanup, Sept 19. Need a cake or something for the volunteers. Bags are at either the firestation door or the Nazarine Church door. A lot of people who exercise in the area pick stuff up, so there is generally not much to do except for Agar Road.

Lee Bayley and Brian Humphrys are considering being on the board. Mr Humphry actually pulled the trigger and agreed to give it a try. We are still working on Mr Bayley. He was DLPOA president for several years in the 90's before your humble scrivner’s time here.

Road Safety – still have speeders on North Deer Lake Road.

Water Quality. Milfoil Weed control. Doug and his divers did another week long survey. Found two large (thousand square foot) patches in the narrows, east side. Moved the Deer Lake Resort bottom barriers over to that stuff. It is in very shallow water, like 3 feet. Will spend another part week digging more out in October. DOE also checked for milfoil, but did not find any other large patches. The divers actually travel around the whole lake with their barge, including underneath docks.

Water Levels – Last year found the old survey points from 50 years ago. 2.5 ft drop is the average from the data taken back then. Mr Santora is starting to take this data again, at his place, once a month. This year the lake did not get full to the point of overflowing, as it did last year for the first time in a while. It was a good 12 inches below full. This year was dead on normal for the drop at 2.5 feet. Mr Phillip’s Secci disk readings are currently 27 ft. 12 years ago this was was 18 ft.

Dock Demo got 24 docks this year. We are looking at wood grinders to take the material away in the future. This would cost us something.

Wood Cutting. (/span> Have got no response from the owners of the forest.

New business –

Library wants to change its name from Library of the Lakes, to Loon Lake Library. Need to call Keith Riley, board member of the library, if you want to keep the name. 233-8570.

Some outfit wants to sell hats and shirts and stuff with a DLPOA logo on it, and we would get a cut. We would maybe sell this schlock at our pancake gigs, and some other affairs. We will discuss this more after we find out about prices, quality, how many 3 year old children are involved in the hand sewing of the logos, is it fair trade cotton, what is the carbon footprint involved in shipping this stuff, and all the other new age questions that you gotta ask now a days.

Lee Bailey suggested that we put Boating Regulations into the newsletter (again). Mike Phillips said that the rules have got so complicated that it is almost impossible to find a consistent set of rules. Don’t forget that a Boat License required for drivers under 26 years old, this year, 28 years old next year. The test can be taken on line.

830 done.

DLPOA Board meeting May 14 2009

We had two guests.

Skip Wells, fire commissioner, gave a presentation on how the fire department that serves the Deer Lake area is going down the tubes financially. It has a $1.3 million annual budget for equipment, and projects a $90K deficit over 6 years. They have had two public meetings on what to do. A ballot measure would cost about $10K. There are three fire stations on the hit list. It will cost $3500 year to keep the Deer Lake fire station open, and about the same for Twin Mountain, and $6k for Ford just in heating expenses alone. There are no volunteers in the area during the day, because everybody works in town. The district is short two positions at the moment. A 28 cent levy being proposed, to give $30K (a year?). That would be $1.20/thousand fire district property taxes total. There are 683 homes around Loon Lake, 900 around Deer Lake. Suncrest area has 1892. Which is a lot less than one would think. Suncrest has 1 acre plus lots, and the lakes have lots down to 30 ft wide. Fire insurance will go up by maybe $500-$900 year if the Deer Lake fire station is closed, because our fire insurance rating will go much higher. There were 225 responses at Loon, and 56 at Deer last year. He thinks the difference is because Deer Lake people are generally not full timers. 58 cent levies have failed twice. Deer, Twin Mountain, and Ford would definitely be whacked with no levy. The levy rate has decreased over the years, from $1.50 to 93 cents, but the various costs have gone up over that time. 110 volunteers now down to 67. 6 full time people. Some equipment 40 years old. Fire insurance rating now a 7, will probably go to a 10. Some insurance companies will not write insurance at all if you are a 10. The ballot will be August 18.

Larry Gunther, county commissioner – trying to bridge the gap between North and South parts of the county. Suncrest vs Collville sort of thing. Study of taxes – Suncrest is only 14% of total tax bill. Colville is 20ish %, Chewela is 13%. Don’t know Deer Lake. He is trying to get some hearings out of Colville and into the South County so that we folk can have a chance to see our govmnt in action, and to get the said govmnt people to realize that there actually IS a South County.

We got a grant from some historical society for restoring old courthouses, so we are restoring the Colville courthouse. We have already power washed the outside bricks. Front door is being refurbished. Fountain is being refurbished.

Still don’t know state contribution to budget. Timber taxand interest income is now zip. Wall Mart provides most of the county sales tax. 17 employees gone from the county. Still need to whack more people.

He got $500 from the hotel tax for Deer Lake fireworks. This is a fund expressly for putting on public events, and we qualify.

$900K federal stimulus funding for county roads, must be done by non county employed crews (must be done by private contractors). 395 will be redone from county line north.

Regular business:

Fish – released last week, 4 to a pound. Larry asked about brook trout, Jim will look into it.

It was suggested that maybe we could buy the fish instead of just getting them free from the state, since fish allocations will be falling in future years.

June 2^nd – 475k silvers, and about 100k other fish will be released. They already released a bunch of fish even before the ice melted.

Cleanup – turns out to be memorial weekend. Needed an east side guy, Mr Meulink volunteered. Need a chili guy.

E Deer Lake Reader Board Sign needs to be raised so you can see it over the barrier. The new road work last year hid it.

Fireworks dock – might need some work.

Water level will not get up to the overflow this year.

Dock demo days – 2 docks promised so far, backhoe promised, volunteers promised.

Meeting ended more or less on time, sort of.

DLPOA Board Meeting April 9, 2009

Phil Rems attended about an issue on Cedar Bay. He has a lot there for 3 years. Last year their neighbor’s lot sold. The new owners have requested a variance for a 6X8 storage shed that is currently there now right on the beach, but which they want to expand to a 2 story, 18X12 structure. This brings up issues of view restrictions, eyesores, and the possibility of a future conversion to a weekend guest house. Setbacks now are generally 50 ft from high water. This thing would be right on the beach itself. The neighbor did get the planning commission to sign off on this structure. The rules allow you to expand a structure by 250 sq ft, even if non conforming, but you are not supposed to expand towards the waterline. Mr Rems wanted advice from the board about how to approach the county on getting this project reviewed.

An audience member said once you raise your hand as a neighbor, that generates a requirement for appeal. You send a letter to the planning people and that starts the review process.

Mr Nokes ththought that view obstruction would not help the case. The waterward expansion should count for something. Property line encroachment might help too.

DLPOA has agreed to write a letter in favor of Mr Rems’ appeal.

Treasurer: $12.9k checking, $48k in CDs.

4^th July – Commissioner Larry Gunther committed $500 for our fireworks from the hotel tax. Last year the Nazerine camp promised some bux, but we never got it. We will try again this year.

We have not yet got a county decision about blocking north deer lake road for the parade.

Fish – will be released in about a month from our pens. County or somebody dumped a bunch of fish into the public access area.

Fish&Game has a shed with four nets in the narrows area. We also have floats somewhere else. We can get fish in the fall.

Bylaws – discussed at length. The plan is to have the board members review them at home, come in next meeting with comments, package a consensus, and have it available for the annual meeting to vote on.

Dock demo days – We will try to generate interest by putting handbills around the area.

North Deer Lake Dlpoa sign – maybe some dock demo parts can be used to enhance our existing sign.

Because of the liability thing with our 20 acres of swampland, it was proposed that we put signs on our boarders essentially saying: – keep off – $150 fine. More floating signs off our 20 acres, also on the road leading to it.

It was suggested that we buy some Banners for our major activities (dock cleanup, annual meeting, road cleanups). About $800. Hang on the lake signs. Reusable.

Reader board signs need some help.

Road cleanup – maybe keep the bags on the road just as an advertisement that a cleanup was being done. Voted down. We do need chilli for the worker feed.

Started 6PM; Done 8:15

DLPOA Board Meeting March 12 2009

Pam Taylor, our local fish and game persibling, was an honored guest. She was invited to talk about the Deer and Turkey problem on the lake. Her answer was: DO NOT FEED. They are designed to live in our area, in our weather. Let them be wild animals.

 The animals tend to concentrate during the winter, because they have a hard time dealing with the snow. Cougars tend to follow the deer. Lots of bobcats around. But Pam thinks that there are very few actually in the area. We have a few mooses in the area too. And some bears.

To get rid of turkeys, wait till dusk when they go to roost, then “disturb” them. This apparently does not mean blasting then with shotguns. However, Archery hunting season is very long and may be a good solution for bothersome deer. The problem of using a bang bang is trespassing onto other people’s property, if not yourself, then maybe bullet fragments. In a dense area, rifles are not a good solution. However, the lake is Not a no shooting zone, and the county does Not prohibit shooting anywhere except for a few defined cities. But Hunting rules (read: seasons) still prevail. Our area will not qualify for depredation permits, because that is for farmland. Rocksalt in shotgun shells can be safe and persuasive, also low pressure pellet guns, or paintballs can be useful to make them go away.

Goose problem – get your docks higher off the water, put chairs and plants on the dock, tends to make them go somewhere else. A Grass slope will attract geese. Put some sort of barrier at the property edge, and they will stay away, because they are always looking for an escape route.

You can’t dump gravel or sand in the water in front of your yard. You need dock permits or a permit for anything happening below high water line. So you can’t just decide to put a dock in the water without one of these permits. Eventually the F&G people will start tagging docks that were put in without permits. There are rules on the size of a dock. Question was asked if there are regulations on floatation type. Yes, at least relative to styrofoam. Styrofoam must be encapsulated. Beavers and muskrats love this stuff, and make nests from it.

Not much success for the ice fishermen so far this year. Fish hatchery’s budget is getting whacked. Colville hatchery is closed. So expect to see fewer fish. No summer fish for net pens. Loon Lake kokaney has been a big success story. Deer Lake has been not so hot.

Larry Gunther, Stevens County Commissioner attended. County Budget – last fall 1.2M shortfall out of 13M. This year balanced by cutting people, and giving up colas, reorg 911, 100K shorfall, then the state took away 100k of 200k planned. Lots of lumber companies have closed or shut down, so that affects county revenue.

Burn Ban reversal failed at the state level, so there is no burning in urban growth areas, like Loon Lake. Deer lake is not included in that. Thinking of 0.1% sales tax increase for mental health services. This can be done without a vote. That makes it 7.7%. Larry will try to have hearings in our area on this.

Got stimulus money to pave 395 Deer Park to Loon Lake, and maybe all the way to Chewela. State agencies seem to control where the money goes, and they do not love the East side of the state.

Fish and wildlife commission – mostly talks about hunting. Only one rep from south county. 395 corridor hunt for deer has been approved. There will be an 1800 acre farmland around 395, permits available. The farmer owning the land controls when, who, how, so you have to approach him even if you have the permit. There are 700 deer hits a year in the county.

We were lucky to get the East Deer Lake road repaved last year. It is unlikely that we will see any new money in our area for roads for several years.

County snow plow guys are three guys down due to layoffs.

Sgt Jim Carouso, and Sgt Andy Harbolt also visited us to discuss sheriff involvement in our 4^th of July parade. Because of the success, and therefore the length of the parade, people were driving through the parade to get in and out of the Narrows. The Sheriff department cannot authorize a road closure. Only County Commissioners can do that, and by the time this discussion came up, Commissioner Gunther had left.. There will be No Sheriff participation in the parade this year or in the future, because there is a liability for the sheriff department if they are officially there and somebody gets hurt. However, DLPOA can hire off duty Sheriff deputies on an overtime basis to monitor the parade. They require two deputies minimum at $50/hr each. We can also use volunteer firemen, and DLPOA people. We must come up with an escape plan for emergencies. The County Commissioners need to give the parameters for all this. The Fire department has good radios that could be used by the monitors of the parade that we could probably get ahold of. We would need maybe 8 volunteers to cover the route. Salvation Army camp has radios, and the county has vests.

The marine department of the sheriff is being scaled way down. They can provide safety and assistance for our fireworks and boat parade, but that again is overtime, minimum of two officers, and property owners or the group needs to provide that overtime money. The question of permits was brought up. No permit is needed for fireworks, and there is no requirement for officers during the boat parade. However, we have found them to be very useful in the past.

The question came up if people can come to the pancake breakfast using 4 wheelers. The sheriffs stated that the Commissioners passed ordinances to allow 4 wheelers to ride on county roads (apparently over the Sheriff’s dead body). If people follow the rules, they can ride ATVs anywhere on the lake without any police involvement. If you wear helmets, and ride safely, you will have no problem from sheriff. The legal age is 16 for both motorcycles, and 4 wheelers. But younger people with adults are legal too. This does bring up the question of minors riding powered vehicles in the kiddy parade.

According to these Sheriffs, North Deer Lake Rd is the worst traffic road in south county, because it is narrow, crowded, and people speed. So the sheriff will continue to monitor and patrol that road.

We had a short regular board meeting after our guests left.

We are up to 215 paid members after the last newsletter. We will include envelopes in the next newsletter, but not the summer one.

Insurance renewal is $1300 D&O and $1500 liability. A discussion was had about the liability because we can now have the D&O without the property liability. We decided to post the property for no trespassing, or enter at own risk. We decided to keep the liability for a couple of years, and then decide about it then.

We will continue to use Walts for the newsletter.

Spent $4725 on fireworks last year. Our fireworks fund has generally covered the cost. Get about what we did last year for this year. May need new docks for the fireworks, since they did not have a happy winter.

No fish will be delivered to our pens this summer. Feb 25 a group clipped fins on 22500 silvers that will be getting dumped into Deer Lake this spring. Silvers hate the sunlight, so they spend the entire daytime at the bottom of the lake. Silver fishing is best done at night for this reason.

Milfoil – discussed.

Happy hour in the lake – boat lashup – discussed. 6pm Wednesday and Saturday nights during the summer. BYOB.

No news on developments. Westbay is for sale. 66 units, leased lots. $1.6million 8.5 acres. 810 ft frontage, 150 ft of which is wetlands. Deer Lake Resort is still for sale too.

615 start, 9pm finish.

DLPOA Board Meeting February 12, 2009

Meeting started at 6:15, a little late because we barely had a quorum and we kinda hoped that somebody else might show up. We met at the Deer Park City Hall for the first time. The location was deemed acceptable, even if they did not allow us to have our coffee and cookies in there.

Treasurer Eagan reports that we have 188 dues payers as of this week.. When we send out the next newsletter, we will attempt to send dues envelopes only to those people who have not paid. We are not yet sure if the logistics of this will be achievable.

We started setting dates for the summer's events as follows:

July: Pancake feed on 5^th. Fireworks on 3^rd. Parades on 4^th.

Annual meeting June 13 firehouse. Saturday

roadside cleanup May 23 saturday

Dock Demolition June 6 Saturday

We have had grumps about our 4^th of July kiddy parade. That it takes too long and blocks the traffic on North Deer Lake Road. We have a sheriff at the front and fire department at rear of the parade, but it takes up the whole road, and what with kids ages ranging from three to eighty five, the thing gets all spread out and can take about an hour to pass some areas. Since this is always on the 4^th of July itself, and since lots of people have friends and family coming to visit them, the whole North side of the lake is in gridlock during the parade. We will need some extra monitors in the middle to keep things moving along.

The grump also raised questions about permits, which nobody thinks even exist in Stevens county. We may have to propose some regulations for the kiddie parade. How much Manpower do we need? What do we do about Illegal motorized drivers (eg 6 year old kids in motorized four wheelers)? The parade itself starts at Deer lake resort and goes towards 395 to West Lake resort, which is that area just South of the public access area. At that point, DLPOA puts on a picnic, cookies, bevs, and patriotic stuff for kids. We will try to get a Map of the parade route in the next newsletter. In certain areas, mainly near the Nazarine camp, there are alternative streets that you can take to avoid the parade mess. Hemlock is one alternative exit. But you gotta get to that point first.

Dock Demo: we seem to be gaining on getting rid of the unprotected styrofoam floated docks. We did not see as many as in previous years. The crappy docks are gradually dying, and being replaced with floaters that little animals can't as easily destroy. We got 20 docks last year, and with the super icy lake this winter, expect about the same this year.

News of the area:</P>

Riddler Realty has closed down.

Holy Grounds Pizza has opened up in the Nazarine campgrounds. It is open to everybody and we are told is pretty good stuff.

Newsletters will go out in April, August and November, a change from March, May, November. This way we can report on the summer activities in a more timely manner. There was some feeling that people need to know in an earlier time when our activities will be. The Web guy said that all that stuff would be on the Web Home page.

Mr Nokes will check on a new newsletter printer guy this month!!!!!

Fish - new biologist Bill Baker needs volunteers to the Spokane hatchery to clip fins of slivers to be dumped into our lake, so that some research on the life cycle of these fish can be done. (The question was asked if silvers found in the bellies of Macks would count...) This would be in the last week of February. See Jim Santora for more information. We would like more fish pens. The State is willing to help. We have some net pens. Don't forget, fishing season opens March 1st.

We now have a Beach Association page on our Web site. It is for the use of the various Beach Associations. All they need to do is send the Web guy (by email) whatever they want on the page, and I, excuse me, he will put it there.

Firewood - Boise has sold their timber to Forest SomethingOrOther. They are interested in restoring the wood cutting stuff that we used to have. We will be talking with them to see if this can be arranged by the end of this summer.

Millfoil - We will renew the contract with Ace Diving for another year. They need to do another survey, and deal with the bottom barriers at Deer Lake Resort.

Mike Phillips went to the recent Regional Lakes Conference held at SCC every year. The main topic of interest was on algae. There are 30 different kinds of algae, some of which are toxic. We probably do not have that really bad stuff, but Loon Lake might, due to its higher temperatures. Some algae is on the surface, some is under. Sometimes the first way to know if you have the bad stuff is when your dog dies, because this stuff is very toxic to mutts. Moses lake is full of this stuff. They are dredging and that helps. Algae sucks the oxygen out of the lake, which affects the fish. There are free test kits (and microscopes) from DOE available to determine what you have. Mike will be sending our stuff to a lab for expert evaluation. Our algae situation is much better than say 20 years ago, because our sewer system got rid of a lot of the stuff that algae feeds on. Phosphorus is the big culprit, and if you have an algae problem, getting rid of the phosphorus is the only solution. Non P fertilizers, non P dishwashing. But P exists in the soils. WALPA (Washington Lake Protective Association?) meeting will be in Spokane this year - it moves to a different city every year. Regional conference is free, because it is sponsored. Mr Phillips wants us to be a sponsor of the regional lake conference, for $150. Proposed and agreed to.

Snow pack - not much water in there, which you would not think at first. Because it is so packed down, it should melt slowly. So we do not expect any flooding if and when things finally warm up.

DLPOA North Deer Lake Road entry sign - we proposed to redo it with nice rocks and flowers and waterfalls and etchings and landscaping and all that stuff. While we had been assured that PUD had no objections, it turns out it would be on county right of way, and they grumped about setting precedents, snow removal issues, permits, blah blah blah. So now Mr Nokes is suggesting that we move the existing Deer Lake sign, get it repainted, get new posts, and move it to the public access area. Because this is narrower than what we had previously envisioned, it should not encroach the county blah blah blah issues. Possibly use lathed logs with some frou frou on top as posts.

Mr Nokes reiterated that he will be gone as president in June, after doing this job for about seven years. We discussed how to get a new prez - like first, what do the bylaws say. Then who can be suck..., well, nominated to do the job. We went around the members of the board, and each of them indicated that their dog died or they would get divorced or they don't know how to spell Deer or some other lame excuse as to why if Larry is going to take this job and shove it, it aint going to be onto them. The lucky candidate should have been associated with the board for some time, and been on the lake for some time, but at the moment we will take about anybody who can fog a knife. The duties appear to be to use the gavel to open the meeting, go to sleep for two hours, wake up and bang the meeting closed. So we probably need somebody who can hit a plate with a fork, to quote "12 O'clock High".

We have tons of deer and turkeys in our area. The deer are starting to eat dubious stuff, and some of them are getting sick, not because they are starving, but because of what they are eating. Some of the permanent residents feed the deer during the winter, at the cost of a couple of hundred bucks a week. Their houses have become deer diners. The question was asked if DLPOA wants to help out. The official policy of the County is against feeding wildlife, and so they will be no help. But this is "Deer Lake" after all. DLPOA agreed to help out to the tune of a $200 grant for deer feed.. So after that sad tale was told and the tears dried up, somebody else proposed that we apply to the Fish & Game people for special hunting times and zones so that now that we have all these fat and happy Bambis happily prancing around, we can go and blast them all to kingdom come.

Meeting ended at 8:30

DLPOA Board Meeting -- January 8 2009

CANCELLED