Park Commission - Regular Meeting

OK, the hour of 530. Having arrived, I'd like to call the Park Commission to order. Please call the roll.

Yeah, thanks excuse for our supervisor here. Go forth our court here.

Posler. Posler here. Thorson here. Well, thank you. Before we get into the consideration of minutes, I'd like to very much welcome Jennifer Marquardt to our commission. And the thing I'd like to do is have everybody kind of maybe I'll start with you, Don, and I'll go around and then we can all introduce ourselves, a little background, and then you can do the same. Perfect. Okay.

So I'm Don Posler, County Board Supervisor for District 29, which covers basically an L-shape from DeForest down to Verona. Not this part of Verona. This is Chad Kemp's. I have the northwestern corner of the town of Verona. But it goes town of Verona, town of Springfield, town of Middleton, town of Vienna, town of Dane, and then the little village of Dane as well are my district. And I've been on the Park Commission. This is my second term on it. So year three.

Yeah. Tom Thorson. I've been on the commission since 2004. Before that, I worked for DNR for, well, the state for 30 years. So I really enjoy it. When we have introductions with the public, when we have public members and whatnot, we usually just say citizen member. so they know. The commission for years, it's been a really good system of having county board members and citizens on the commission because it brings expertise, it helps with the county board, all those good things. Alex, go ahead, too. Yeah. Sorry. Alex D. Smith. I'm a park planning manager for Dane County Parks.

I've been with Dane County for since 2017. I'll say it that way. And prior to that, I was in South Dakota for like six years. And before that, I was with Dane County Parks as an LTE doing park planning. And so I've got a long history with Dane County and this property in particular, which I'll talk about a little later. So very nice to meet you.

And I'm Shereen Smith. I'm the real estate coordinator. I'm housed in Land and Water Resources, but I work a lot with parks and parkland acquisition and easements. So nice to meet you.

I'm Annalise. I'm District 3, which is the downtown eastern half of Sun Prairie. I've been on the board in this district since 2018, and I was appointed to the Parks Commission at that point. So I've been on Parks since 2018. And I love it. And I particularly love adventures in bodies of water. And I think it's very, please have this in the minutes, very upsetting that we are not meeting where there is a body of water.

Because she likes to wade in.

She also likes animals of all kinds. Correct. Creepy crawly things. Always.

Do you want me to go? Sure. Okay. All right. I'm Jennifer Marquardt. I've been on the commission for... I've lived in Dane County since 2001. I have my husband, two young children, live on the west side of Madison, and before that I lived in Jefferson County. Yay. Yay. Okay. Yay for Jefferson County. Yay.

I live in Cambridge. Oh, okay. That's nice.

I'm Stephanie Brower, and I live in the town of Berry, a citizen member. I've been on the commission now, I guess, eight years. And my background, I'm retired from DNR. And at DNR, I was a stewardship grant manager. So I have a long history with both Dane County and Jefferson County in terms of grants for outdoor recreation and land preservation. And I've also been involved for a long time with the Friendly Pheasant Ranch Conservancy in Dane County. Awesome.

Christy Goforth. I'm a citizen member out of Monona. I was appointed under Joe Friese to the commission, so I think I'm maybe five years?

Yeah, and you were reappointed by the interim commissioner last summer. Yeah, before, well, maybe it's two years, summers ago.

And then I'm the executive director of a non-profit called Bikes for Kids Wisconsin. My educational background is conservation biology and urban planning. In the past, I've worked as a naturalist at the Ridges in Door County, and I've also worked as an arborist. So that's kind of my background. I'm also a member of the Sioux Tribe of Chippewa. Yeah, lovely. I haven't been up there in like 15 years.

And I mentioned to Jennifer, we have, once the school year starts, we have a youth and government member. And that's always good to get some young perspectives. And it really helps the young people prepare to run the government in the future. So that's part of the goal.

Has ours transitioned out?

Pardon?

Has our previous student transitioned out?

Well, for this year. I mean, she's got one more year of high school. This is her second year. I told her that she's more than welcome to reapply. I don't know if she wants to get more experience in another part of the county. government. Whatever's going to be good for her. But she's a delight. Anyways. And then I met with Jennifer last week. We kind of went over how things go and anybody... Jennifer, if you have questions, please, myself. I did want to say that Jolene Stinson, our parks director, felt bad she couldn't be here for the first meeting. But I do know that she'll want to meet with me. Have you met yet in person? Not yet. One of the things that's kind of fun, and I'd be happy to do this too, do some orientation at some parks.

Give her the full money.

Bill Lunny. So the two parks commission persons ahead of us was Bill Lunny, who was on the commission for over 30 years. So that's the full Lunny. He would take people, you know.

It was a whole day. Darren did it for me, a full Darren.

Yeah, a full Darren.

No, I got half Darren, half Bill.

So to go back to our agenda, the next item for consideration is consideration of minutes. Is there a motion?

I'll move. I'll second.

Any corrections, additions? If not, all those in favor of approval signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. Referrals. The first one is Resolution 071, Authorizing Sale of Easements at Babcock County Park to the Town of Dunn Sanitary District No. 3. Is there a motion? I'll move. Okay. Second? I'll second. Okay.

All right. No, we're missing Jolene right now. Okay, so you all have heard me talk about the Highway 51 project over and over and over again. And I think we're finally getting to the last pieces that people need. So I don't know if you've been over by McFarland Dunn area recently, but they've... Toddlin, I tell you, they're like float. Like there was no way he could have done any business this summer. So he sold it a really good time. Um, but yeah, the next phase, um, is going to go further up, uh, 51 and the Dunn Sanitary District number three needs an easement. Um, we actually had sold, uh, land to DOT. PLE and TLE also, but it wasn't enough easement. So they need a little bit more. Same thing with the next resolution. So they need about 7,900 square feet of permanent limited easement and 562 square feet of temporary limited easement. And they're actually being quite generous. They're basing their numbers off of the DOT appraisal. So they're going to pay us...

$2,880 in compensation so great questions anyone okay not all those in favor of approval signify by saying aye aye anyone opposed okay next 2026 resolution 072 authorizing sale of easements at the Babcock County Park to the Kaganza sanitary district motion

Same thing here, just another sanitary district needing more easement than what DOT was able to get. So 0.32 acres of permanent limited easement and 0.05, a lot of temporary limited easement for staging. And they have offered $5,300 in compensation, again, based on the original DOT appraisal.

Okay, cool.

I'm just curious about the Kaganza sanitary district as opposed to... To the town of Dunn sanitary district? Yeah, what's the...

So, actually, I think they have three or four sanitary districts in that area. Oh, really? And each one has their own lines.

They all kind of come together there?

Uh, I don't know if they come, you might know more.

Yeah, different lift stations, different areas.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Depending on development.

Okay. Um, any other questions? If not, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. Um, item that's requiring committee action, none. Presentation, history of the Scheidegger Forest. Yay! And Alex and I, we're going to double team this, but I have to give a little background because I actually was here in 1988.

Oh, I was born that year.

Okay, well...

What were you doing?

So when I was the law enforcement supervisor, the lieutenant DNR for this area, we'd have to, this was a firing range. If you noticed when you came in, it said Range Road. This actually was one of the sheriff's range here that law enforcement, whether it be the local police departments, DNR, State Patrol, would use. It was before the Highway 19 one.

It must have been very isolated at that time.

Yeah, and it was isolated, and it was actually a good range. But what happened is, and I don't know the exact year. But there was an errant bullet that hit a house. And then they did an assessment and they said, well, to get this upgraded, it's going to be a lot of money to get it so that you wouldn't have it. So I don't know, somebody, I don't know, they must have raised up or something and shot rather than, but it went over the barrier. And so it was like they needed a much higher barrier. So that closed the range down. Oh, there you got a picture.

Is that?

Yeah. Okay. Okay. The other thing I was going to say is I was lucky enough to be on the commission when this actually came before us. Do you want me to read that? Sure. And then I'll turn it over to you.

He's just going to keep handing you paper.

Who the heck is Scheidegger, right? What does that mean? Well, the other thing that's really nice is that if you go to that kiosk right there, that has a lot of the information on the history of you know, particularly as to, you know, the donation of the money from Scheidegger, the fact that he kind of grew up in the area. But I should probably read this and then have it 100%. No, you can just read it verbatim.

That's straight out of the master plan. But, yeah, Tom, your name's on there. You adopted the master plan for this park as part of the park commission back in, I think it was 2008. Yeah.

Well, and there was public input before that, and, you know, we listened anyways. So Walter Scheidegger was born in Riley, which is over this way, just the other side of Verona a little bit. Have you ever go to Riley Tavern? No, sir. Okay, I'm just saying so you kind of know. Well, you can bike to it. Right. Either either on your bicycle or a lot of motorcycle people to do that He attended Verona high school and worked for the Madison tip corporation and University of Wisconsin physical plant. Mr. Scheidegger died in February 2001 his obituary said mr Scheidegger was a very proud of his Swiss heritage and enjoyed hunting friends of Walter said he enjoyed rides in the county and the beauty of Dane County, especially the Verona area and In Article 3 of Mr. Scheidegger's Last Will and Testament, it states, I give all the rest, residue, and remainder of my estate to Dane County Parks Commission of Dane County for the use. for its acquisition and maintenance of park lands in the area of the communities of Riley, Verona, and Mount Vernon where I was born and raised. I state my preference but do not require that the gift be used in the town of Verona. It is my hope that this bequest will be remembered as a gift from me to succeeding generations of Dane County residents who will be able to enjoy the natural beauty of my native land. it was really really kind of nice but it was a good one of the things that the commission at that time when we you know accepted the money and did everything um it was a i think a good template for us to think about for the future in that when somebody wants to make a donation because he also set aside funds for the maintenance and whatnot so that when you acquire properties in donations if there's a set aside and we did the same thing with um uh thank you she said it but i was thinking it well it was there yeah yeah anyways we did the same thing and again that's a real good precedent for us to keep you know thinking about and then i mentioned to shireen and i mentioned jolene too because there are occasionally we want to think in the future when people want to make a property but it might not be in the plan or whatnot how can we go through the foundation acquire that Funds so that we can get more properties to buy and whatnot. So There this is a really good model of land donations. I think the people make to the county and You know us baby boomers or at least I'm trying to think of I'm a baby boomer, which I am and You know, we're going to be able to give gifts in the future, and I think it's important to encourage that, especially when it's for the public good.

Yeah, we're counting on that.

Okay. I'm sorry. Do you think he lived here and this was his home, or he just had recreational land?

This was somebody else's property. Maybe you want to give the rest of the experience. Yeah, no, if I can have that back. Because wasn't it like...

He said, I want my funds to support something over here, but I don't have a specific thing, but here's some money. Here's my preference.

Yeah, exactly. He just kind of defined an area and had some kind of stipulations as part of that, but this property had no association with him whatsoever. it was kind of up to us to find it and so that was in 2001 when we got the donation and then in 2006 is when we actually bought the property from the Sheriff's Department. And that was a mix of some of the conservation funds and some of the donation dollars. So we have a conservation fund that we buy properties with, and that money is kind of in the capital budget. And so we used some of that money to acquire the property from the Sheriff's Office. I believe it was $150,000. that we used from the donation, and the property cost was like $300,000, I think, something like that.

How many acres?

76, right? 73.9, according to the Parks and Open Space plan.

The other thing, and I don't remember this, but one of the other issues was making sure the lead was good. Yeah.

Now there's photos on the thing.

Right. So, yeah, some really cool LTE put those kiosk panels together back in 2011. Oh, my God, dude. Do you know him or something? I do know him. That was me.

So they're still there, which is great.

i don't i didn't remember what was on there but i passed a couple photos around that are kind of neat so um i'll have to take a look at myself and see what's on there but yeah this is one of the first kind of projects when i came on as a lte that we worked on but um so in 2006 we bought the property in 2007 we had to do lead remediation we worked with dnr and a bunch of variables with that process. And a couple little tidbits that I looked up right before this was 53 barrels of bullets were recovered in 1992, so even before the lead remediation that we did, and those were shipped to Mississippi, Alabama for recycling. And then as part of our lead remediation and part of our park development, 22,000 cubic yards of fill were brought in to basically cap it so that that couldn't be exposed again.

So you don't just dig it all up.

Correct. Yeah, because, I mean, it could be anywhere. It was, like, in the trees. So, I mean, lead bullets in the trees and things like that. Those B&R guys, they just go wild. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah. So those are just a couple of little cool tidbits. Um, and then in 2010, we, from 2000, um, We did the master plan in 2008, got that adopted. There were a bunch of public information meetings with neighbors and stakeholders and things like that. And then kind of moved forward with some concept designs for how we're going to develop the park into what you see now. And then the development and the timber harvesting actually occurred in like 2010. And the county got the money back from the...

Correct.

Yep. And I kind of went back into the property here. So yeah, we've developed it into this kind of more rustic type park. There's a hiking trail through the woods. The map shows it. I should have brought a map printout, but I didn't. And then this little parking lot and this shelter and that stormwater basin down there are really, in the vault toilet, are really the only developed things in the park. The rest is kind of this wooded, natural kind of space, which is very kind of cool. Dane County only has two forests in our community. park system classification and a little quick snapshot for you since your brand-new first meeting I'll give you a copy of our parks and open space plan you can read that and brush up on do you awesome great so you're you're super up to speed and you've read that cover to cover We have over 19,000 acres that we manage across a variety of kind of park classification types. Mostly you're probably familiar with recreation parks which are heavily developed like the Mendota's, the Babcock's, the Goodland County Parks where boat launches and things like that. But then we have natural areas which are very much not developed at all and then we have properties like this that are somewhere in the middle where it's really a limited amount of development like these forests some of our wildlife areas where we have parking lots on the outskirts and then we also have wildlife areas that are open to public hunting that's kind of that classification and then we do forests are specifically kind of for to demonstrate kind of sustainable forest management and how we can utilize some of those products sustainably and this shelter right here is kind of a prime example of that so like the timber from this shelter was harvested here locally milled into kind of the specified specifications that the shelter design required. And same thing with the cedar shingles and built on site to kind of exemplify that sustainable harvest and that sustainable use of the forest management kind of plan. And the DNR helped us kind of establish a forest management plan. The forest here is a lot of oaks, a lot of hickory. I believe this is walnut, mostly walnut, and some kind of oak that the shelter was developed out of. But it's a kind of unique, the forest is a very limited property type in our classification. There's only two, we mentioned Morton Forest.

Yeah, Morton Forest is up in the northwest part of the county, and it's got a wonderful view shed when you walk up to the top. You can kind of look all to the southwest, and it's really, really nice. I mean, there's a number of parks. Feskey, which is right along Highway 14, has got a beautiful view shed. There's a lot of really nice Indian Lake, so many wonderful places to go to in Dane County.

yeah and initially the forests were set up to kind of have a forest management plan so that we could go through and manage the forest sustainably but we also have forested areas within our other park system classification so we do other sustainable timber harvests at like donald county park that's one that's going on this fall so it's kind of unique but we also do it across other properties but this is the main intent of the

And we have a forester, Adam Elves, who really does a lot of good management for the county. One of the things that we've dealt with in the last 15, 20 years as the ash borer. We've lost a lot of trees and we have to figure out replacement. But it's great to have a forester who knows about all the diseases and how things should be managed, especially after a storm. There's often a lot of damage.

Yeah, I think there was some out on the road too on sunset here. You could see some downed trees. Did you see a stack of wood? Yeah.

It was a $3 million purchase, did you say?

No, $300,000. Oh, $300,000. Okay.

72 acres, that would be $42,000.

Right. It's really valuable.

How big was the donation?

It was roughly over half a million. Wow. Pretty generous.

So it covered the whole...

Yes, it did. Um, it covered, you know, the development costs, um, it covered, and the development here, this is, um, aside from the paving and the shelter. Pre-epic.

Yeah.

Aside from the paving, um, the vault toilet and installation of the well and the shelter, this was all operations, Dane County parks operations, um, staff that built this. So, um, They excavated the stormwater basin, put in the gravel for the road, built this concrete slab, all that, and even the slab for the kiosk there as well. So did all the grading work. It's great.

It almost looks like there's a trail there.

But there are no trails here, are there? Oh yeah, there are 100% are trails. That trail starts to lead you up into the woods, and then there's about a mile loop into the woods. There may even be water in that stormwater pond. We'll have to take a look. I remember, I have not been here in years, but I remember a bridge, so we might be able to get you your feet in the water.

How far?

Not far.

And what's the terrain?

To the woods. And what's the mosquito economy?

I'm good on the mosquito. It's more of like, will my physical therapist get mad?

Within eyesight right now.

Be careful of ticks.

That's really all I have. No, I didn't have anything else. Again, I like... Morton Forest and here as Chattagore as models of when donations come that some of that money is set aside for maintenance because otherwise if we don't have that it puts more strain on resources staff I mean you know, when you accumulate property, you've got to take care of them. So it's good to have something set aside.

And then also just to help with the fund itself, looking at donations. Yeah, I think any of the remaining funds that we had left over after development, we kind of established a grant program, I believe, and that went to other projects in some of those areas and maybe even went to Falk Wells and that property as well. for some improvements.

In the last eight years or so, a lot of acquisitions along the Sugar River to this south end area.

Over 1,000 acres maybe, something like that.

And I was going to mention, I don't know if I mentioned this when we met last week, but Alex mentioned it just now, 19,000 acres now. We've become the biggest system in the state. We've passed Milwaukee County, and it's needed for a growing population, so... Any other questions on the forest and whatnot? Okay, if not, then let's go on to reports to committee. I don't think we have any. Future meeting dates, we're going to meet on July 22nd at the Springfield Hill Natural Resource Area, which is up...

It is in my district.

And close to home for me, too. I think it's in the town of Berry.

Oh, if it's in the town of Barry, then it's in Doolin's district.

It's a Dane address.

Oh, okay, then maybe it's not. We'll see.

The line is right around there. Somewhere. Okay. I'll have to check them back.

And then the next meeting we have is in August, the 26th, and that's at La Follette County Park Shelter, which is down by Stoughton. Are there any... Go ahead.

Just one thing. Back to the 22nd... I think there's supposed to be a field trip afterwards.

Okay.

Did you hear about that?

I did hear about that. Okay. Yeah.

Oh, with the county board.

Ice Age Trail, Groundswell, and Gathering Waters are putting on a field trip. That's right. For Ener folks and for you guys, I think. Oh, great. Didn't we hear about this, like, over the winter? It was a while ago they wanted to put it together. Yeah. In the spring. Yeah. I remember hearing about it. So details are still coming, but be prepared for hiking. And I think, I don't know how they're going to do it all, but I think they want to visit like two or three different properties. One of them being the Pine Quarry property along Black Earth Creek, which we're funding a grant on. Oh, yeah. Also the Swamp Lovers property. Yeah. They want to get you up on that hill.

West of Cross Plains, yeah.

Yeah. And then they were also talking about some kind of cookout, but I think that's a lot of stuff to cram in after our meeting. So I don't know if it's actually going to...

So I don't know if I mentioned this at the meeting, ENER is the standing committee of the county board. There's, I think, five people on that committee. And they look at a lot of the conservation stuff as well.

Environment, ag, and natural resources.

Yeah, it's the acronym for it. And Groundswell is one of our main partners, conservation partners. They help with a lot of things like the whole chunk property that we just had, the donation from the county. So we've got a lot of partners, and we want to continue that. But Groundswell is a good one. Okay, anything else on the 22nd?

No, I think more details will be coming. I'm sure Jolene will send you an email.

Okay, are there any comments on items not on the agenda? limited opportunities for water. Okay.

There's the ponds at Swamp Lovers.

Yeah. So then the next item, we have a closed session. Basically, the commission plans to meet in closed session for the purpose of deliberating, negotiating, or purchasing, acquiring property where open discussion of bargaining positions and strategies would discourage bargaining and harm the public's interest in obtaining properties. The authority for this possible closed session is Wisconsin Statute 19.85, Parent 1, Parent E. Is there a motion to go into closed session?

I'll second.

Call the roll, please.

Yeah, I'm going to make sure I get everybody. Banks is excused. Brower?

Yes, here.

Eicher?

Aye.

Goforth? Aye. Marquardt? Here. Postler? Aye. Thorson? Aye.

Yeah, she does. All right.

Jennifer, will you turn in?

The commission has come back into open session, and the next item of business would be the adjournment. Is there a motion?

So moved. Second.

Okay. All those in favor of adjourning, signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed?