Lake Protection & Rehabilitation District

Twin Lakes Protection & Rehabilitation District Steering Council Meeting Minutes Sunday, February 2, 2025 Twin Lakes Community Room, 105 E. Main Street, 1. Meeting called to order: 12;00 2. Roll Call: Bill P, Bryan, Jack, Richard, Tony, Bill Slominski (water safety) Guests: Ken Perl and Kevin Fitzgerald, advisors from Village Board. 3. Minutes: 8/31/2024, approved 4. Public Comment - none 5. Committee Report Note: This is the 1st meeting Bill P. is acting as Chairman of the Steering Committee, thanks Bill, and thanks Tony! Water plants – Tony, read report about plants in the Lakes, treating several places in Lake Elizabeth, Lake Mary needs no treatment. Have a proposal for future treatments. Questions on costs and chemicals. $9,000 for Elizabeth, plus $4,000 if deemed necessary. 5 people on this committee, Tony just started as chair. Fish & Water – Brian, Price of fish has gone up considerably, need to review size vs. cost of fish going forward, small are less costly, but more of them die. Committee meetings not frequent, not really needed. Restocking is straight forward. Walley fish are not available due to DNR programs. Discussion of algae blooms ensued, they are not prevalent in our Lakes, but Lake Geneva had serious issues. Storm Water Management & Non-Point Pollution Mitigation Committee - Jack and 3 other people making up this committee have meet a few times in 2024, have projects ongoing with T&C Engineering to address runoff from farms. In-town projects have also contributed to less runoff. Working to establish new objectives for coming years, as budgets allow. Shoreline Protection and Rehabilitation – Richard nothing new, awaiting McHenry county, have had no shoreline issues this past year, had one meeting. Water safety and User Conflict – Bill Slominski, have two new members, two virtual meetings, proposed water safety control budget, discussed slow no wake areas. Darin Coe from DNR attended a meeting and discussed wake boat issues across the state, he liked our brochure, (thank you Bille P.) Our approach circular boat flow and wake boats using mid-lake was found helpful. Rich pointed out some lakes have banned the use of wake enhancement during operation, There is a proposal from about 33 people to expand the hours of skiing, especially some slalom skiers. Need to do a broader survey before moving forward. A lot of discussion about this and wake board use. DNR had given an opinion that, if we have good usage now without a lot of complaining, then leave things as they are. Also, if there are potential damages to the Lakes, then do something different. Data about this does not exist. Data may surface soon from MN. Water quality is also something that multiple committees should get more involved in. Wake enhancement is what impacts the Lakes most. 6. Old Business A. Revisit 2025 Budget Discussion – found a ten year old boat fee fund $300,000+! DNR says money can be used for other than boat launch purposes as long as it is Lake related. Kevin added use for marina is pertinent use of funds. Marina funds may be the source to cover marina costs. Water safety patrol costs may be an appropriate use of these monies, as well. This is $50,000 and seems to be supported. Motion: Bryan moves the Village trustees assess and consider segregating boat launch revenues from marina revenue funds and delineate parameters of fund use. Seconded and passed. Motion: Bill S. moves we offset the additional costs over and above the contributions from the Boat Safety Committee’s budget for actual expenses of the water safety patrol and that money is to come from the launch fee fund. Seconded and passed. 7. New Business A. Fish Stocking: Increased volumes of stocking to be addressed in future. B. Spillway Issues – recent McHenry County Conservancy District meeting showed a lot of interest in spillway. Good meeting. May be able to use ‘weavles’, a bug, to reduce weeds. They said they can run a boat up and down the channel once a week to increase water flow,! This is huge!!! C. Aquanuts Proposal for Lance Park – substantial rework of Aquanut area, there is a grant and they want money from the Village. Village will use park funds for this. Noted that other parks in Village have gone neglected in their upkeep, so why do this over that? Bryan had opinions and questioned they were asking to use Lake district funds. Reason to do this renovation is to improve views of attendees. In the end, the money that is needed is to be gleamed from sources other than the Lake District funds, so its not really pertinent to us. D. SEWRPC Discussion – Large pamphlets were handed out during the meeting and are available for others. ‘The overall consensus is that the study was a long time in coming, not really worth waiting for and the perception is that we may need to get a presentation about it. E. Zoom Meetings: Using remote meeting capabilities is positive and supported by the Village. The Village will support Zoom licensing issues for use in meetings. 8. Adjourned 1:30 pm Next Meeting: Twin Lakes Village Hall, Bill is back in town on May 1st, so next meeting is scheduled for May 3, 2025, 10:00 am. Roll Call: Chairperson of Steering Council • Bill Poetker Committee Members • Bryan Neal • Jack Magnusen • Richard Wahler • Bill Slominski • Tony Migon