Land Resources and Extension Committee - Regular Meeting

It must have been my...

I've been getting a lot of mileage out of that one.

Okay, we should be recording.

That was about 12. I got to see them in big trouble.

Yeah. I still think I should have. I don't know what they call it.

My cousin would have had to throw me out.

They had a big time. Good morning. It's 9 o'clock. We're calling to order for today's September 10th, the Land Resources and Extension Committee Are we in compliance with the Open Meeting Law?

Yes, we are.

Do you have before you an amended agenda?

Move to approve it.

Moved by Colton, seconded by a newcomer to approve the amended agenda. Any comments or discussion on the agenda? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the agenda, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Second. Second by Pelton to adopt the minutes. Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, the same sign. It's approved. Public comment. We have some public here. If any public wishes to speak under general comment, please fill out a form and get it up here. Otherwise, if you're speaking on one of the agenda items under the public hearing, you'll have a moment to speak then. Seeing none, closing public comment.

Thank You mr. Chair a couple items the first is attached a letter from the town of Excelsior related to the chapter 7 zoning ordinance that you'll be taking up in a little bit that comes from their town chairman and then the other item we just wanted to mention there's maps here at the far end of that we've displayed uh... the county administrator provided you all with the impact statement to the b e c i transmission line uh... and uh... information that we've gathered uh... related to land use impacts and and what not so we wanted to actually the the maps that got included with the email if you're like me, you have a little trouble seeing that on an 11 by 17 size document. So we printed the large maps for you if you wanna check them out after the meeting or wherever they'll be down in our department after the meeting, but it gives you a really great visual representation of all of the potential impacts that the proposed routes are gonna have through Sauk County. And we've been having contacts and emails from residents and property owners throughout the county, just expressing a lot of concerns, which we've relayed on to the county administrator. So I know that's an item that will be up for future much discussion, but we wanted to just share that. And I wanted to also just call out two of our staff, Brian Simard and Amber Ryan did a lot of work in gathering and coordinating that information. So It's just, I think, a testament for our department to be able to provide all of that and hopefully help you all with good decision-making in the future. So those are my two items. I guess I'd be happy to answer questions. Otherwise, that's all I've got.

I just have a question. Go ahead. Um, so on this comment from a town of Excelsior, I actually said in a meeting that there, I mean, it is a grave concern of theirs, um, having the conditional use permit expire. And so I am looking at the chapter seven, 7.157 talks about the review process and if there's a violation. And my question is, um, What can the township do to, you know, do they have to just bring it to your attention, the county has to investigate? Again, they're concerned if it happens on a weekend, you may not observe that. What exactly are their course of action?

And we've got our zoning staff here as well that can get into more detail. But typically, if there is an issue with a violation of one of the conditions that you all set, they bring that to our attention, we would assess that, and then if there is an issue with their permit, it would come back to this body. So the idea that there would never ever be a potential review of a conditional use permit once it's issued is not technically correct because if the property owner is violating a condition, that ultimately would come back to you for then, you know, public hearing a review and a decision at that time.

Okay, and then the other question I had was, what is like when it says reasonably, You know, they have a reasonable opportunity. Like, is there, like, defined somewhere? Is that just, like, you decide, like, okay, there's been six violations? You know, what is reasonable, I guess?

Yeah, that's a good question. I guess maybe I would defer to Brian Simmert if you want to just... talk a little bit about that. Because each case can be very unique. We try to use our best to balance that to be consistent. That's really what our goal is, is to be consistent.

So thanks, Tim. A number of years ago, this committee passed a violation process. So when we do get a violation of a conditional use or a general zoning violation, we have a process by which we try to gain compliance and correct the violation, um, just by reaching out to the landowner, making them aware of it. But we also put deadlines on correcting the violation. They basically get two chances, um, to correct the violation with one subsequent extension of the original deadline to correct the violation after which we would issue citations and then we would bring it into the courts. If it is a conditional use, it's a little bit different. If we have a violation of that, the same course would fall over. We would reach out by letter. We would give them two deadlines to bring it into compliance and correct the violation of the particular condition. And like Tim had stated, if they're not able to do that, instead of going to the court with a citation, we bring it back to this committee for review and share this committee or findings and what the issue is. And this committee at that point then has the authority to revoke that conditional use altogether. So they have to stop the use. So there is a process to correct any violation of a conditional use. And it has happened before where we have brought conditional uses back to this committee and they've been revoked. It's not often, but it does happen.

Thank you.

Any other questions? uh... uh...

yeah thank you mister chair this is our annual request for grant funds we have a partnership with the upper sugar river water shed association who actually administers the monies uh... attached in granite kiss is the resolution and then our agreement with them uh... in essence it works it's been working really well it it helps to find programs like the clean boats clean water and other citizen lead efforts to protect and improve the water quality of our lakes and rivers. So we would ask for your support of this resolution.

If I may.

Uh, good question. I'm sorry that I don't have a specific, I can give you kind of, I know it's been several years. I don't know the specific number. We can get that for you though.

I'm wondering if we shouldn't get some kind of report or something. We do this every year or two years or we do it and then we never hear anything.

Okay. We can do that.

What's happening or at least some of the programs.

You bet. We do get an annual report from them that we can share with you, and then you're going to hear a little bit later in the program, towards the end, the efforts on our efforts to combat invasive species and aquatic invasive species. But, yes, we will. I'll make a note, and we'll get that to you.

Could everyone use a microphone, please? It's difficult to hear you. Oh, sorry.

Yeah, yeah. I got a question. Go ahead. Do you have any idea what the dollar amount might be of the grant?

Yes, it's in the last page of the agreement. Sauk County, it's based on a population, and the county's allocation is $13,058.86. And we're in partnership with four other counties, Grant, Green, Iowa, and Lafayette. So the Upper Sugar River group provides that service to us as kind of a collective of five counties.

Thank you. You bet.

I'll make a motion to approve the resolution.

I second.

We have a motion by Alexander, second by Greenwood, to approve the resolution authorizing submission of the Lake Monitoring and Protection Network grant application. Any discussion or questions?

I do. Go ahead. So accepting this grant, do they put rules and regulations on how we monitor our lakes?

They basically are implementing the DNR and the state standards for those types of things. So it's really geared towards education. That's mostly their focus is they'll meet boaters. They'll try to work with citizens kind of where they're at to share with them good practices for not moving invasive species from water body to water body.

So what I'm trying to get at is if we accept the grant funding, do we do things that we normally wouldn't do if we didn't get the grant funding and we'd still monitor it? Is it cost effective?

Well, it is for us because the Upper Sugar River does the program. So the grant funds come from the DNR, our partnership with them. implements those best practices and we're not utilizing county staff to have to do that.

I just don't want you guys to have to do something and then do it again twice because you got to do it for us or a different department, then you got to do it for the DNR and it's doubling our workload.

No, this is the type of collaboration that we really encourage because it enables multi-counties to have a program and it's not utilizing county staff to do that.

removing species off the boat, things of that nature. So they oversee that and we don't have to fix it.

Very good. Thank you.

All right. We've had a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign.

Thank you.

9-12. Do we have time to... Discussion of possible action on a resolution to adopt amendments to the land resources and environment department fee schedule? No, you have to do the public hearing first. I've got to wait until 9.15.

Yeah, that resolution needs to follow the ordinance changes.

Do land records work? Sure. Land records department work? All right, can you guys hear me? No, your mic's not on probably. Is it on now? Okay.

All right, so just gonna start with a couple department highlights. We have finished up the chapter 26 compliance farm application for the conservation staff. And I kind of touched on this last month. Basically, this is a inspection app that they can take out to the facilities and start collecting data, all the data on their phone, where in the past they collected everything on paper and would have to come back to the office and kind of put that into reports. This app that we created for them will allow them to go out there has a map with their current location, follows them, they can put a point down, it auto-populates text parcel information and other data for that point, and then they get into the inspection part. So kind of the snapshots you see are just a couple snapshots of the app. So the app's really easy, there's pick lists that are there for them, there's text boxes where they can do voice to text, so they can really streamline the process of collecting this data. and then they can add pictures to this as well so they can kind of capture everything that they're seeing and kind of have that history of everything they captured right at that point in time. So they're currently in the testing phase, so we'll see what they have to say and kind of go from there, see if there's any tweaks we need to make to make the app better, more useful to them. The next thing I want to talk about was the Devils Lake State Park map updates that we have. So we have a really good relationship with the DNR with exchanging data between themselves and us. And they have new intersection markers and parking lot numbers for Devils Lake State Park. And those are utilized for location purposes and search and rescue. So I reached out to Mark Willer of the Baraboo Fire Department search and rescue just to see when he wanted us to incorporate those. And he's asking us to hold off on incorporating those until October, November. They currently have location markers already at the park. And he wants to finish off the year with the current mapping they have and then implement the new location markers next year. In talking to the DNR, they also requested all our campsite data for the four campsites that are up on the north side of Devil's Lake State Park. They want to incorporate that data into their state campsite data set. And then as we're also discussing with them that we've made a bunch of trail updates to the Updates to the trails at the park with our high def lidar and they were also interested in getting those updates from us So we sent those on Friday along with some snapshots to kind of show them how we're able to drape the trails over the 3d image of the park with the new high def lidar and They're really impressed with that and they're like, okay we can really see the accuracy improvements that you guys have so they're gonna take those and get back with maybe any questions they might have. So that's good news. It's a real good working relationship that we have with them. We also reached out to the Ice Age Trail Alliance and sent them the data as well, and they're taking a look at it now. And then the last thing I wanted to touch on is just, I kinda wanted to show you a geoprocessing model. is the last snapshot I have in there. And it's a nightly script model that we have, this runs every night. And basically what this model is doing is dissolving our tax parcels in our zoning districts. And the intent of that, actually you wanna scroll to the next page? Yeah, that's the model right there. And what it's doing is it's dissolving the tax parcels and zoning into one feature class just based on town zoning. And essentially what it's doing is it's taking a zoning district, putting it into a tax parcel, and if there's more than one zoning district per tax parcel, it's concatenate. Concatenating those values all into one field. And then this data is then used to push data into ALRS to help, to push the zoning class into ALRS to the two modules that they use for nutrient management and farmland preservation. Any questions?

Any questions?

Let's see.

Okay. Yep. So we have two items. We have our August surveyor hours for $4,008.33. And then we also have the surveyor cell phone bill for $34.34 for a grand total of $4,042.67. Motion to approve the vouchers. Second. We have a motion by Pepper. Second.

$4,042.67. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, 918, we will call the public hearing to order. As chair, I call the public portion of the Sauk County Land Resources and Extension Committee meeting to order. Are we in compliance with the open meeting?

Yes.

I will just now go through the procedures. We'll have the committee introduce themselves. I'm Peter Kinsman, chair of Land Resources and Extension.

Brian Pepper, vice chair. Scott Alexander, District 27.

Joe Sederstrom, District 19, Baraboo.

Bernadette Greenwood, District 21.

Brock Pelton, District 3.

Andy Putcomer, Citizen Committee Member for Conservation Purposes. And would the staff please introduce themselves?

Tim Cabot, Land Resources and Environment.

Cassandra Fowler, Land Resources and Environment.

Brian Simmer, Gallery. um now the staff will read the public notice lre staff will provide background and history of the request many members will have the opportunity to ask questions of staff based upon the information that is provided the applicant will then be allowed to give testimony the town will be allowed to give testimony then those wishing to speak in favor of the request those wishing to speak in opposition of the request and then those wishing to appear as interest may as interested party may appear When all have appeared, the chair will verify by asking three times if anyone else wishes to speak on the matter. Speaking from the audience is not allowed because we must identify those speaking on the recording equipment. There are registration slips on the side table, and those wishing to speak must sign a registration slip and present it to staff. Please limit your speaking time to three minutes. Once all of those wishing to speak have done so, the chair will close the public portion of the request and the committee will go into deliberation. Once the committee makes its decision, we will immediately go on to the next case. The ordinance amendment, could you please read the notice for ordinance, the ordinance amendment on the discussion of possible action on an ordinance to repeal and reenact a comprehensive request to the South County Chapter 7 voting ordinance and to amend Section 20.07, Paragraph 3, Chapter 20, Uniform Citation Ordinance.

Please take notice that the Land Resources and Extension Committee of the Sauk County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on September 10, 2026 at 9.15 a.m. or soon thereafter as the matter may be heard in the county boardroom at the Sauk County West Square building in the city of Baraboo to consider an ordinance amendment. a request to repeal and reenact saw county wisconsin code chapter seven zoning ordinance into a men's section twenty point zero seven per in three chapter twenty uniform citation ordinance

with edits that came about from changes to state and federal code, discussions with towns through their comprehensive planning process over three years, and then also just issues we've encountered in our own department with citizens and working with towns and changing land uses. We have brought this for public input both on social media, email, and in person with open house presentations to both towns and its citizens with additional edits from that feedback as well as from this committee. And then finally, we have also been working with the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, or DATCP. to get our ordinance certified as part of participating in farmland preservation and having the exclusive ag zoning district, which is our farmland preservation zoning district, DATCP does have to review and certify our ordinance. So what Brian just handed out, these are our last edits. The first three being from DATCP, which they require to meet their Chapter 91, so the first being requiring a CUP for places of worship and exclusive ag, and then also requiring a conditional use permit for public utilities located in exclusive ag. All of the zoning districts, those are just a permitted right. And then lastly, they have required that we add in the statement into the Development standards under Exclusive Ag Zoning District. Number four, agricultural use or any agricultural use as defined in definition 11 of this ordinance conducted as the primary use of the property shall be for the purpose of producing an income or livelihood. Or basically, in exclusive ag, the primary agricultural use has to be for the purpose of an income or livelihood. And then lastly, we just have one typo that we found at the last minute. where we noted wind energy system under solar energy systems, so just making that correction to the correct renewable energy reference of solar energy systems or SES. Any questions or clarifications on anything?

Questions from the committee?

And in regards to Town of Excelsior's letter, what we're removing in regards to time limits is we have automatic five-year renewals on non-metallic mines that have been removed. But it is something that Town of Excelsior could request if there is a specific concern with the specific property.

All right. I got a question for you concerning the concerns of I've had several discussions with somebody on the committee there.

Could you please just speak into the mic so people can hear you? What? Yeah, just make sure you speak into the mic.

All right, so I've had several discussions with some of the members of the Excelsior Town Board, and their concerns were when they have an unlimited amount of resources

Oh, what the heck is it called?

When there's no five-year review, people fall out of compliance on a regular basis if they're not held in check. They find out that people are more self-aware that they lose that right. So they stay in compliance better when there's a five-year limit on their zoning ordinance. My question is, can we make it optional for each township, whether they want the five-year or the unlimited conditional use permit?

We cannot write into the zoning ordinance that one town has different rights than the other. But if a town wants to request it for a specific property, they can.

They can request it?

It is a request they can.

And that would be your decision then?

We would have to amend it later on? No, when they are applying for the CUP, if the town is requesting a five-year renewal or a review, that is up to you as a part of that approval process if you want to issue that condition or not.

So when we have those use regulations as listed, those are the automatic conditions that we're putting with that land use? Yes. They just told me that More than once and it's a lot of the same actors over and over and over if there's no renewal of the conditional use permit on a five-year

They fall out of compliance rather quickly. And then they said our hands are tied to get them back into compliance and then it becomes more of a challenge and more staff is involved and it takes more time to get them back into compliance and keeping them in compliance. I hope I'm representing what they're saying properly. Is there any way we can amend this so that it is a five year? renewal process?

I think from the staff's perspective, the better course would be for those towns that are interested in having a five-year renewal to request that of those individual applications. And then again, it's up to you as the issuer of those permits, whether you would want to do that or not.

So if, and when we adopt this, will you guys forward that to every township? Yeah.

Every, every township. Yeah. Every township has had and will have these, um, you know, this ordinance and then when they adopt it and as a part of their, um, you know, process of reviewing and commenting on applications, again, if they would want a five-year renewal, that's something that they can ask of you.

Just so that it's explained to them that this is the process, you can do this, and I don't think that that was known to them before.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Any other questions? Do we have any talents? Do we have any town reps wishing to speak? All right. Both wishing to speak. I don't have any on this issue. Is there any more public comment? All these are for the day.

Did anyone else register for the zoning ordinance for Chapter 7 for public comment?

Yeah, these are data centers. Okay. Seeing anyone, once again, anyone wishing to speak in regards to Chapter 7? Anyone wishing to speak in regards to Chapter 7? Anyone wishing to speak in regards to our Chapter 7 zoning? Seeing none, moving on.

What's that, Al?

Oh, all right.

I will go ahead and make a motion to approve Chapter 7 ordinance with the conditions set forth by the staff based on the findings and the fact and conclusion of law subject to the staff analysis and recommend conditions as noted within the staff report within the Chapter 7 ordinance.

And can we just clarify that that includes those amendments that you have before you this morning?

And it includes the ordinance amendments that we have before us.

Thank you.

Second?

I'll second that.

We have a motion and a motion by Greenwood and a second by Setterstrom to repeal and reenact comprehensive rewrite of Sauk County Chapter 7 zoning ordinance and to amend Section 20.07 Subparian 3 Chapter 20 Uniform Citation Ordinance.

I would like the edits explained to us.

Sure. Do you have questions on a particular one?

I don't know what CUP stands for.

Oh, Conditional Use Permit.

Oh, all right. Easy enough, now that you told me. EA? Exclusive Ag. All right, see we're getting better all the time. Yes So Conditional use required for exclusive egg for public utilities. How would how would how would that be? even possible there'd be public utilities on agriculture land or proposed agriculture land I

Sure, so one example I can give is there's a substation in Troy that was in Exclusive Ag and still is. That was an example where Conditional Use Permit originally placed that substation. In the ordinance, when we define public utilities We do give the caveat that when they meet the federal standards for public service commission, where it's out of our hands, that we don't have a right to basically state where those go or require a permit. But in order to adhere to DAC caps chapter 91, they do require that any placement of public utilities that would come under our authority would be placed with a conditional use permit.

And just to emphasize, this is a change that is coming from DATCP in order for us to certify our ordinance, so they have told us that this needs to be done.

All right, that answered my questions.

Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. a possible action on an ordinance to amend the Sauk County zoning code to enact an 18-month moratorium on receipt of applicants and the granting of all zoning permits or approvals for the siting or placement of data centers. Please read the notice.

Please take notice that the Land Resources and Extension Committee of the Sauk County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on September 10, 2026 at 9.15 a.m. or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard in the County Boardroom at the Sauk County West Square Building in the City of Baraboo. to consider an ordinance amendment, a request to amend the Sauk County Zoning Code to enact an 18-month moratorium on receipt of applications and the granting of all zoning permits or approvals for the siting or placement of data centers.

Yeah?

So this was at the request of a county board member and a citizen group. We have decided to place an 18-month data center moratorium to allow us time to research how best to fit in data centers if applied for in our county and what sort of land use protections and regulations we should place upon those. And because it is a newer land use, there's not as much research out about it. So staff would like the 18 months in order to familiarize ourselves with data centers in other states, regulations that they've put in place for public health welfare and safety, and for us to look at where, if applied for, would they be best used in the county.

Any questions from the committee? I do. So we make an ordinance for this. And somebody with a higher pay grade than me or us decides we need it anyhow. Can they come in and force it upon us by eminent domain and say, it's happening. It's for the better good of everybody, similar to the 765 towers.

Are you talking about the state of Wisconsin and Potentially about us that could happen So if they don't care about our so on for example the Board of Trustees Rendered a decision the the collective County Board of Trustees rendered a decision that I wanted to kind of overcome the moratorium within post Yeah, so I think they would have to take a vote to overcome what was done here today but in theory this is essentially acting as for lack of a better phrase ordinance that would prohibit it in this particular instance and

Because if we can stop a data center from going in by having an ordinance, shouldn't we include 765 towers and lines also?

So good question. And I think a big part of why the moratorium is done the way that it is and why most counties that are imposing them do it in a similar manner, so maybe a 12-month or 18-month kind of restriction, if you will, is because the legality of taking this kind of action becomes more and more questionable over time. So if, for example, we imposed a two or three year moratorium, we would run the much higher legal risk of a lawsuit that could be taken and would have a higher likelihood of success against the county that the moratorium kind of imposes the legal restrictions on somebody that wishes to place that data center in our community.

Instead of a temporary moratorium, can we make it permanent?

we would not be able to without a very significant risk of legal challenge that would have a high likelihood of success against us. So there are kind of two legal schools of thought just to be totally transparent for the purposes of this particular hearing. You know, one of those is if a county doesn't have a moratorium or restrictions in place, it's it conversely doesn't have allowances for that. So there would be no permit that would allow them to kind of be zoned in this manner and put a data center here because we don't have anything that not only restricts it but we don't have anything that allows it either. So one would argue and some do argue that there already is a moratorium in place if we don't have something specifically written into ordinance. But a lot of folks are just being proactive and I think the reason that the LRE group has done it the way that they did is they recognize that at some point there might be a valid use for this or there might be somebody petitioning to put a data center here and under the right circumstances the body might be so inclined to do so. But we want to take the time to assess what that looks like, what the restrictions might be to get that into ordinance. And so this is essentially kind of splitting the baby, if you will, just to allow the opportunity to do it the right way while not imposing restrictions that could be deemed too restrictive.

Got a question. Can we combine the 765 issue with this?

I don't think that we would. I think that's kind of a unique circumstance as well. Those are usually done through right-of-way and easements, and I really think the most effective manner to oppose that would be I think what the county is already kind of working towards, which would be to become an intervener before the Public Service Commission that really renders those types of decisions. And so I think that and legislative efforts would probably be the best avenue and maybe the only legal avenue to kind of pursue a block to that, if you will. And I don't want to get too far afield of what we're noticed for today, but for the sake of kind of easing people's minds, that will be on an immediate board agenda coming up very soon, and these are discussions we can definitely have.

There are no case law on this issue? Try to stop an AI?

On the data center or on the high lines? Both. Both. So there is mixed success. Some opposition to either of those types of things has been successful in a lot of instances, particularly with highline and utility type efforts. It can be a uphill battle to overcome.

I understand that. I was just wondering if anybody's been successful in any case law.

Yeah, we know of at least one instance here in Wisconsin where Atolis had, oh, I think I lost my mic for a second there. Atolis had successfully defended against, was it Waupaca County? Thomas, I don't know if you have that background.

um i know that we we have um appealed various psc decisions uh in the past uh there is there is a mechanism for doing that uh in terms of and i think attorney wateka is is um you know really hitting the nail on the head um you know 765 wires those high high voltage wires um it's a it's a psc process more than it is a local zoning process so a local zoning moratorium isn't going to have sort of the same impact because going through the PSC process largely sidesteps local zoning for things of that nature in terms of the where the data centers are different is that that is a local zoning matter. So, unless and until the state comes in and says, we are gonna preempt localities on data centers, the argument would be, we have a valid moratorium on those and that's a local matter.

Go ahead.

So, yeah, so that was going to be my question is, like, so data centers, it's not MNO domain for data centers. That's a private entity coming in and trying to put in an infrastructure like a commercial facility versus the power line is an infrastructure, a utility, and that's where MNO domain comes into role. So I think they're two different things, correct? Yeah.

They are. And in theory, I think any data center is likely to come into play through the normal kind of zoning practices and permitting processes as opposed to eminent domain. I mean, the circumstances where that might become necessary, I think it would be a hard sell to prove that there is some kind of needed public purpose for a data center. that would cause the county to step in and take property through eminent domain for the purposes of a data center. So I think, yeah, I think collectively we're kind of talking about three processes maybe. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Any other questions or discussion from the committee?

And currently there are no applications for anybody in Sauk County wanting to put a data center in. No. Because like five weeks ago we had our local town meeting, and I was asked to be there. And I represented us as best as I could with saying as little as I could. But in the 45 minutes I was there, it started out, these are transmission lines. Some are gonna help us, some aren't, too. We're not getting any energy out of this. It's all going to Illinois, to their data centers, and then 15 minutes later, there's gonna be a data center in Sauk County, and five minutes after that, it was up to three data centers are gonna be in Sauk County, and I could not put that wildfire out.

And I think that raises a good point, though, because the reality is we're not being kind of abusive of our authority here in any respect, because we don't have any indication that anyone is genuinely looking right now. And I think that process is obviously going to have to go through various approvals, considerations, And they'll have a lot of work on their end to implement a massive project of that structure. So I think the reality is we're probably looking at being through this moratorium and having ordinances being brought before committee and eventually the county board in the time we have this moratorium. So we would be working towards the proper structure and almost certainly the person on the other side of that coin would be needing quite a bit of time to arrange for a project to that size and scope.

And there are beta centers under construction right now in the state of Wisconsin, correct? Yep. All right. Thank you.

Moving on.

Who's our guy on the screen?

Thomas, would you like to introduce yourself?

Absolutely. Uh, Thomas Cameron, a totalist law. Um, I was, was part of the team that helped the, uh, LRE work through the chapter seven zoning review. and have helped the team with the data center moratorium. So I was asked to attend in case there were any questions. Thanks for your help. Absolutely.

OK, moving on. We don't have an applicant. Anyone from the townships that wish to speak? Done? Those that wish to speak in favor, I have any wishing to register in favor of the moratorium. Does anyone wish to speak? Seeing none. Yes, ma'am. All right. Do you have a slip?

I put in a slip saying no. Okay.

Well, if you could come up, if you wish to speak, if you can come up to the lectern. What was your name?

address yes i'm martha barrett i live on s 59 20 layman road and i just want to say that um judging from the information from the land resources and conservation department it seems like to me anyway almost a no-brainer to say put a temporary moratorium on before somebody decides to build a data center because once they've decided and started the process, it's going to be an awful lot harder to stop them. That's all. Thank you.

Do we have anyone else wishing to speak?

Tom Kregel, letter E13409, County Highway W, Bearville, Wisconsin. Yes, I'm speaking in favor of the moratorium on data centers, and I'm pleased to see that members of the committee are recognizing that there's probably a strong connection between that and the high-power transmission line. We do know that data centers are very energy hungry especially for electricity and either the high power transmission line or the construction of a data center in Sauk County would be very disruptive to lots of things in the county and lots of what we value about the county so pleased to see that The committee is acting proactively. And of course, I'm speaking in favor of the moratorium on the data centers. And hopefully that helps us with the high power transmission line issue as well. Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak in favor? Anyone wishing to speak in opposition of the request? Any interested parties wishing to speak? And then I have here, I'll read them into the record, people wishing to register in favor of the moratorium. Jean Funke of Baraboo. Ed Taylor, he doesn't say where he's from. Joan Wheeler of Baraboo. Carla Carpenter of Reeseburg. John Neiman III of Loganville. Rachel Neiman of Loganville. Randy Leaser of Baraboo. Patricia Taylor of Baraboo. Chris, I think it's Chris Brewer of Baraboo. And Alana Phillips of I see no one registering in opposition to this request. Is there anyone else wishing to speak on behalf of the data center moratorium? Anyone else wishing to speak? Anyone else wishing to speak? Seeing none, I'm closing the public portion of it. Go ahead.

potentially if we pass this ordinance for moratorium. Does that handcuff us or tie our hands behind our back in any way on anything other than just stopping a data center from being going in in that 18 months?

No, it would not. So just the specific parameters that are outlined there would be the only kind of blocks, if you will, for that 18 months. And then again, if the committee needed to reconsider that moratorium at any point, they could always revisit it.

If somebody wanted to, let's just say six months from now, yep, they got the funding, they got this, they want to start buying land, can they apply for it in six months and then not enact it until after the 18th? Or nothing can... Happen even paperwork can't even happen for at least 18 months.

No, the moratorium is We will not accept any applications And I think the difficulty would be we wouldn't have the parameters in ordinance that would describe what they were applying for and so I think that kind of creates the it's not to say we couldn't have conversations or Kind of status updates for that individual, but there would be no formal action that could be taken exactly

I just don't want on 18 months and one day, bam, they're building a data center because it just met the requirements of 18 months.

No, and you'll see this ordinance come back to you when that moratorium is up with those regulations that we've decided on.

Yeah, if we're still here. Yeah.

I'm going to wish to make a motion.

You're going to close the public hearing?

He did. I did. Okay.

I move to approve it. I'll second it.

A motion by Senator Strum and a second by Alexander to approve the ordinance to amend the club county zoning code to enact an 18-month moratorium on receipt of applications and the granting of all zoning permits or approval for the signing or placement of data centers. Any questions or discussion on the motion? Go ahead, Randy.

I'd just like to say it's already been stated here this morning, but I think this is real important that we move forward as promptly as possible so that the need for the transmission line isn't put in place because, as been stated, if... a data center comes in, that's gonna be the need and their expectation of the extra energy required. So I think it's too bad we can't put both together, but we can, just like we can't make it an 18-year moratorium. Oh, darn that decimal point.

At the end of the 18 years. A month. See, this is how the wildfire starts. Do we re-up it in another 18 months or we pull out again?

The staff is, the whole idea is the staff is, you know, we're going a reasonable ordinance together of what we would accept. And that will then come before us to discuss and go over. It's not an absolute no, it's just that we're willing to accept it under these parameters.

And I believe we discussed earlier that the size can be in our ordinance also. So we can protect ourself from the large data center.

Other discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes. Thank you. That does it for the public portion. Moving on to item eight, land resources and environment discussion and possible action on a resolution to adopt amendments to the land resources and environment department fee schedule.

So amendments to the fee schedule are to account for the new ordinance that you made a motion to pass through. With this ordinance being a comprehensive rewrite, we will have both the current ordinance and this new ordinance in effect while towns readopt it or adopt the new ordinance.

I have a question. Light truck tires, $7. Is that at a landfill? Or there's a $7 tax on every tire put on my trucks?

No, no, no. That is for the Clean Sweep event, what they charge for that recycling.

I move to approve the updated fee schedule.

I second.

We have a motion by second. A motion by Pelton, second by Greenwood to approve the resolution to adopt amendments to the Land, Energy, and Environment Department fee schedule. Any questions or discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes. Item 8C, discussion of possible action to approve 16th addendum to Lakeview Estates condominium.

Thanks, Peter. So to explain to the committee what this is, because this does happen from time to time, this Lakeview Estates is a condominium plat. And unlike a traditional subdivision where you can think of lots in a subdivision like lots 56, 57, 58, which are owned individually by a property owner to construct a home. The condo flat is a little bit different such that the condo flat doesn't have lots, but they have what are called limited common elements. So it basically is a conveyance of the right to build your home on a specified limited common element, which is still owned jointly by all of the owners of the limited common element in the condominium plant. So it's similar to a subdivision plot, but it's different because the ownership pattern is different. So what you have before you is a 16th addendum to Lakeview Estates condominiums in the town of Merrimack. And on the addendum, you can see a reference to limited common elements specified by the LCE. You'll see seven and you'll see eight. So in this instance, what is needed is a combination of limited common element seven with limited common element eight. which currently has the house on it, uh, because the owner wants to put an addition onto the house that would otherwise go over that prescribed limited common element line. So the addition will essentially be to the west under the town of Miramax zoning ordinance because the county does not have county zoning here. Uh, the town does require setbacks for structures from limited common element lines. Very similar to how, If a property were under our jurisdiction, we would require a setback from a property line. So what the addendum essentially is doing is combining the limited common element seven with eight, which has a current home, to create a new limited common element eight. It's essentially eliminating that middle boundary line that you see just west of the rock walls. So again, this needs to happen so that they can do an addition and be issued a zoning permit under the town of Merrimack's general zoning ordinance. But that's basically what you have before you today, and that is the request. Any questions?

How many lots does this pertain to?

Well, they aren't lots. There's a limit of common elements. So they're like lots, but they're not. But it's just combining essentially two lots into one.

All right. So approximately how many units are they going to build?

They're just doing an addition onto their existing home.

All right.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

I move to approve this.

Yeah registered deeds is not here he did have his monthly report uploaded in granite kiss and then we do have a

his vouchers for $7,713.

I move to approve the Register of Deeds vouchers for $7,713. I second.

A motion by Pelzer and a second by Cramer to approve the vouchers for Register of Deeds. Any discussion or questions on the vouchers? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed,

Good morning. Attached in Granicus you will see our highlights report for the month of September. We have the four areas that each have a couple of highlights. If you could take a look and I'll pass out paper copies if you so desire. And then for what we're gonna highlight this month is Stacey Parsons, our 4-H Youth and Development Educator. So that will be the next agenda item.

Are you ready for me? Yes, fantastic. Well, hello. I am, as Judy said, I'm Stacey Parsons. I'm the 4-H Youth Development Educator here in Sauk County. And I always enjoy the couple times a year I get to come and talk with you. But because I haven't met with the new committee, I just kind of wanted to give a little overview of what our 4-H program looks like in Sauk County and maybe a quick overview of what 4-H is. So 4-H is the largest youth development organization in the country. There are about 6 million members nationwide, and Wisconsin has a thriving 4-H population as well. Last year at this time when I sat with the committee, I shared that I was a little nervous of our own growth. So over the past five years, so coming out of COVID, we've seen 53% growth in our 4-H membership numbers. And so I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to have another year of growth, but I'm excited to say that we did. We ended our enrollment year, we kind of start over at the end of August for our new 4-H year in the September, October time frame at 499 youth members. I was so wanting to be able to say that we reached 500, but next year, hopefully when I'm sitting here, and numbers are just one indicator of our growth. And that 499 is just youth members. We also have 105 adult volunteers who are, have gone through the background check and training process to be club and activity leaders in our county. So 4-H kind of operates kind of under like three branches for our members. So when a member signs up, they pick a club. We have 14 community clubs in Sauk County, and that's kind of like their homeroom or their classroom. Ideally, they go there once a month. They get to practice their civic leadership and potentially take an officer role and participate and just like community building activities, a lot of community service, and those types of like development activities. Every member also has the opportunity to sign up for different 4-H projects. So that's kind of like the second part of 4-H is that we have club leaders, but then all the members get to choose what projects they participate in. And there are over 100 projects listed in 4-H. And so part of my job is to try to find adult leaders to lead activities here at our county for some of those areas. We do not offer all 100. Every year, we're trying to add two or three. So last year, we were able to find leaders to lead garden foods in a sewing project. And this year, we are trying to add two or three, and we've got four that have stepped forward for ATV safety, fishing, biking, and an air rifle program. So and then our standing programs, there are over 17 standing programs that happen year to year led by volunteers and supported by our office that include almost all the animal projects, rabbit, horse, goat, beef, our domestic exotic animals, poultry, dog, dairy, a lot of our animal projects, which is pretty stereotypical to the 4-H egg connection. But we also offer a lot of projects like Lego engineering, archery. I've already mentioned the food sewing. And we also have a pretty well-established art project as well. The third part of 4-H is outreach. And so there are, to be accessible to youth, not every youth has a family member who can take them to a 4-H club. And so we find ways to bring 4-H to the youth, whether that's at after-school programs, in classroom clubs, or through outreach that we do. This past summer, I was thankful enough to receive two AmeriCorps members that served in Sauk County 4-H, and they provided 900 hours of outreach to youth in our county this year, so 450 hours apiece. And they did everything to assisting with our joint county 4-H camp, We had sparks camps for our 4-H members. We did summer robotics. We did summer foods, summer cardboard engineering, and an arts camp. They supported our youngest and newest 4-H members through three half-day clover bud camps. That's for our kindergarten through second graders, along with a partnership with some school-aged athletes. Kid Stop or Kid Stop-esque after school or summer school type programs and a partnership with the Sauk County Ag Society because we have a very strong presence and partnership with our fair. And then that's kind of a 4-H in a nutshell. And we are rolling into our new membership year. Enrollment is open right now. And we were very thankful to last week be able to have a kickoff meeting with all of our leaders. And we ended up with 60 volunteers downstairs in the basement, just really excited about the things that they're going to plan. And we had youth who sat with them at the tables because youth voice is a very important part about 4-H. We want it to be youth-led, adult-supported, and so we were lucky enough to be able to have some of our youth leaders come in, agree to sit with the club leaders and project leaders and kind of give their ideas on how they want those projects to look for the next year. So we're very excited about what our upcoming year is going to be, and we've got some good synergy happening. Are there any questions about how Sauk County operates our 4-H program?

Any questions or comments?

Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Okay, any budget report vouchers? So our list is six invoices in the amount of $1,265.37. None of those are out of the ordinary and we're pretty much on budget for the year, maybe a little bit under. So we're happy about that. So that's what we've got.

Motion to pay the invoices, $1,265.37. Second.

Motion by Pepper, second by Pelton to pay the invoices. Any questions or discussion on the invoices? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, our service areas are presented there on Granite Kiss with a nice bullet list and some highlights of work for the month. I will call out on the land conservation side, we did have the lead paint remediated at the historic firehouse at the Sauk County Farm. So that is all now prepped and ready to go for the Reedsburg High School students who are gonna be doing the fixes and repairs to the inside of the firehouse. So that's very exciting. You'll see the intergovernmental agreement between the county and the school district coming to you next month. So that's our last step when it comes to the approvals and that process. But then after October, the students will get to work on the firehouse restoration, which is exciting. And then also just at the very bottom, a highlight of our drinking water testing program. Again, we're happy to collaborate with the folks at UW Extension and Public Health as well as UW-Stevens Point. And that highlights every year we pick three or four different townships, work with the towns, work with the residents to collect water samples and then analyze those samples and then the folks come to a meeting and hear the results and learn more about what they can do to protect their drinking water. This year we had 74 people come to the Laval Town Hall. On the planning and zoning side, again, a list of various highlights.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Hi, Melissa. All right. On the planning and zoning side, again, a number of highlights. One of them that we wanted to call out is that you just approved the Chapter 7 uh... or recommended approval of the chapter seven zoning ordinance which is a multi-year effort which now goes to the county board and we're you know so appreciative of that the fourth bullet there highlights the work on our county comprehensive plan which is really links to the zoning ordinance those those two documents have to work together that's also a multi-year process that we're working through and we had a chance to hold a bunch of meetings with our towns here in the last month in august so that engagement continues And that is moving along in that process for hopefully adoption sometime in early 2027. And then we did want to highlight in the middle of the page there just what we do for zoning violations when it comes to residences that are not legal or have not been permitted, just so that you can, again, get an idea. I think earlier in the meeting we talked a little bit about what happens with CUPs, and Brian did a nice job of summarizing that. This also is intended to just summarize the fact that our staff really does try to work with those landowners when we are made aware of a situation where there's a house that's not been permitted or doesn't have the proper sanitary and just what those options are for correcting that. So that's a highlight there. And then finally, in our Parks and Recreation service area, we had folks meet with a contractor to talk about the Summer Oaks boat landing. If you remember, earlier in the year, work through the bid process and unfortunately have not received any bids for a couple of those cycles but we've been reaching out to contractors and we actually met with someone on site uh... to look at a a more permanent fix rather than uh... something that's a bit more temporary so hopefully they'll be more to come on that soon you'll learn about that at a future meeting and then we work with staff uh... and DNR and Army Corps to get permits for Hemlock County for the wetland area. And then after that, Our park staff went and blazed a bunch of trails. So over a mile of trails, which is exciting. We're getting Hemlock County Park moving forward. The fishing pier is in process for bidding on that. So you'll see some improvements happening yet this year at Hemlock County Park, which we're very excited about. So I'll stop there and just see if you've got any questions on the monthly report. Otherwise, I'll jump into the Great Sox State Trail report if that's cool.

So has the DNR or somebody else stock fish at the hemlock? Say that again, I'm sorry. DNR or somebody else stock fish at hemlock? I don't believe there's been any fish stocking that I'm aware of. Is there going to be? Because if there's not going to be fish, why do we have to have a fishing pier?

Well, there are fish because that fishing pier was very popular. Right. Yeah, but I don't know if we've done any efforts to stock.

We have to coordinate with DNR for that, but it is in the master plan to coordinate fish stocking with them.

I know at one time, and I might even have been the president of the bass fishing club out of LaBelle, They offered to pay for stocking bass, and the club did at no expense to the county. I don't know. I haven't been active with them for two years now, so I don't know if that offer would still hold, but I could reach out to them.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All right, on to the Great Sauk State Trail update. Again, the Sauk County portion of the new bridge is pretty well complete. We talked last month about our award for the WSDOT funding through the Transportation Alternative Program, which is awarded Sauk County $320,000 for the north. freedom segment of the trail, which is very exciting. And then Gateway Park, which is the landing zone from the new bridge down in Sauk City, that is under construction. ZTI, which is the contractor working on the bridge, is pouring concrete right now. The picture you see is for their earthwork that they did a little while ago, and so that's moving forward with a soft opening planned in November for both the bridge and the park. I'd be happy to answer questions. Yes, we have vouchers this month in the amount of $392,500, I'm sorry, $385.72. A big chunk of that is the continuing work out at White Mound for the maintenance building, which again is, they've got that pretty well buttoned up. They'll be starting to work on the inside and the office area and whatnot. I'd be happy to answer questions if you've got any specifics on the vouchers.

So did they get the concrete situation figured out? Yes.

They came and replaced those. I can't remember if it was two or three different stones, but they got those replaced.

All right. Thank you.

Any other questions or discussion on vouchers?

Motion to pay their bills to the tune of $192,385.72. Second. We have a motion by Pepper, second from Setterstrom to pay the vouchers

Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes. I have a possible action to approve a conditional use permit for a planned rural development PRD lot for James Redfeet located in section 29, town 9 north, range 4 east. town of Spring Green, pursuant to Chapter 7, Subchapter 9 of the Sauk County Code of Ordinances.

Michaela Walters, LRE staff. James Radke is requesting approval of an approximately five acre lot to split off the existing house. If approved, the PRD lot will coincide with the placement of a preservation area easement on approximately 30 acres of forest land. The easement area is located in the north half of the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter and the south half of the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 29, township 9. north range for east and spring green you can see the general location in appendix a um The PRD's program's primary purpose is to protect agricultural land and especially prime farmland and other environmentally sensitive areas, which staff believes this does. Just to let you know, this is in resource conservancy, so the exclusive value portion does not apply to this application. The Town of Spring Green Town Board did recommend approval of the conditional use permit for the planned rural development on September 3rd. Staff does recommend approval for the conditional use for the PRD as it meets ordinance standards. We do have standard conditions listed in the staff report, and I can answer any questions if there are any.

I just have one.

I'm confused about splitting off. It looks like there's a house on this parcel, so I'm confused about splitting off. Yes. Are they tearing this house down and rebuilding, or what are they doing?

No, the owner, he would like to sell off the existing house and then keep the remainder as, like, hunting land, recreational land.

Okay, so when you say splitting off, so this five-acre parcel, okay, I think I understand now. Thank you.

I make a motion we approve the conditional use permit for the Radke's.

Second.

Second.

Motion by Alexander, second by Senator Stroud to approve the conditional use permit for a planned rural development PRD lot for James Radke.

to ask what it's going to be used for? I know. I always like to know what it's going to be used for.

Well, I mentioned it's going to be just used for recreational land and hunting land.

Oh, he's not putting a building on it? No.

There's already a building.

Yeah, there's already an existing house. He's just splitting off the existing house.

Reading in here something about the setback on the septic and stuff like that. So I thought a new septic was going in or something. No. All right, thank you.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Thank you. 12G, presentation and discussion on invasive species support

No, I'm not an invasive species. It just seems that way. That's right.

Good to clarify. People don't count.

Oh, yep.

That should be the top one.

Anyway, we can get it on that screen too.

Let's see. On the top. Right above this. There you go. It's easier if I just use a jump drive that has nothing else on it.

Perfect.

Okay. So hello, my name is Jasmine. I work with the upper sugar river watershed association. Um, and so essentially this is very short, um, picture heavy idea for you of what we do when we do the LMPN, um, lake monitoring and protection grant work with Sauk County. Um, so my role is the executive director and invasive species program coordinator for the upper sugar river watershed association. And so we essentially contract with you all at the County to do the education and outreach work specific to invasive species here.

Go ahead.

Um, so this grant is through the DNR. It is a surface water grant and it focuses on, like I said, education and outreach primarily, um, but also monitoring for aquatic invasive species. That includes wetland species as well, just not in the name. But essentially, the funding from this grant, we use and we pool with other counties in our region in order to do this outreach and education work throughout the year and have a consistent paid person to do this outreach and education. It's not a huge amount of funding per each county, and so pooling those resources helps us to provide this work throughout the year. You can go ahead. So I wanted to just briefly give you an idea of what that work looks like. So a couple of the first actions that we take is that we reach out with boat bait shop owners and we educate them on the Wisconsin's laws when it comes to live bait specifically. These laws are actually pretty complex, especially once you get into things like minnows, and water getting into your bait bucket, things like that. And so we definitely try to make sure that the bait shop owners themselves are educated on those laws because they're essentially the main contact for out of state and recreational anglers that are probably not as familiar with Wisconsin specific regulations. And so forming that relationship with the bait shop owners helps them be the point person with accurate information. We also then do monitor at the boat landings themselves to make sure that the aquatic invasive species signage is up to date and accurate. These signs are standard through the Wisconsin DNR and so Language is the same throughout the state, so hopefully if folks see it at one place, they recognize and understand it wherever they go near the water.

Go ahead.

So this relates then to our actual active outreach and education for recreational and angling boaters. So we conduct outreach education directly to those boaters. So we have interns that go to the landing and start conversations with the people that are entering the water and leaving the water at Lake Wisconsin and essentially make sure that they're aware of the regulations when it comes to removing invasive species and using bait appropriately so that they're not spreading these things from water body to water body. We were able to do 100 hours of this outreach so far in 2026. Just decided it's done. You wiggled it. Usually works. You can move on to the next one, thanks. Oh, there we go. So we also do, like I mentioned, some monitoring throughout the county to help keep the county aware of what's going on in the areas that we're working in. So this can include monitoring for new invasive species. I'll talk about that a little bit more in the next slide as well. But we report these locations when we are told either by our partners here at the county or from folks in the public that might see something. We can then go and we are a verifier with the DNR so we can essentially be like, yes, this is for sure a species of concern and then we report that straight to the DNR's database so that this whole state knows about it and we also have that in one place where the data can then be used to make management decisions. Um, and then this is also something where the, the right picture here is of the invasive plant species. Um, phragmites are super tall, grassy species that can kind of take over in wetlands. This is a new population that was found in the county that we helped report and verify for folks. But the bottom left picture is actually a beautiful invasive species I'll mention more in a minute called purple loosestrife in someone's front yard. So it's planted there and it's something where we can help do some outreach and education with those landowners saying, yes, I understand that's beautiful, but would you consider replacing it with something else? So that's a part of what we can help with as well. You can go ahead. So speaking of that purple loosestrife, another program that we have installed in Stock County starting in this year, 26, we have a beetle rearing program. So this is a version of what's called biocontrol, which means instead of using an herbicide or physically going out and ripping it out or digging out an invasive species, we have some biological friends that help us. In this instance, this is two species of what are called celeb beetles. They're these tiny little guys, as you can see on the right side. That plant is purple loosestrife and that little beetle there that's tan and black is the cello beetle. These beetles eat only the leaves and the flower buds of this species. They don't eat any other species. The left picture there shows how we have some fun little kiddie pools full of water because these are wetland plants, so they need their feet wet. But we net them to keep predators like spiders out and we actually collect these beetles, put them in the nets so that they can reproduce, munch on some plants for a month or two, and then their population is much increased and we can release them into large populations of purple loosestrife to reintroduce the checks and balances on this species in the environment so that this aggressive, fast-growing plant is maybe a little bit less aggressive and less able to be the only thing in that wetland. It gives the native species a chance to continue to at least persist as part of the system. It also reduces the need for use of herbicide in these wetland systems most often. It doesn't often eradicate the invasive species, but in these large populations, that's not really a super feasible goal anyway. So what the goal is here is to, again, reduce its capacity to be the only thing in that area. So we were able to do that in Sauk County and release these beetles at Hemlock Park, which is super exciting. Thank you. And so then this relates to the monitoring and finding these new species. What we did for the second year now is we conducted what's called a project red training, which stands for riverine early detectors. It's essentially a community science and training program. We get folks from the community. We had just some community members, but also folks from the Friends of the Baraboo River at this training, and we teach them how to identify a handful of common or likely aquatic invasive species that are either in the area already or in the periphery so they might come across them near Sauk County and we train them to identify those species so that throughout the rest of the summer if they go kayaking or fishing or just they walk along the river they can then let us know if they see one of these invasive species and hopefully this will make it so that we have more eyes on the ground we're more likely to see these early when they're small populations and be more effective at management we do plan to do this project again it was really nice we got this kind of first part was the training on identification you can go to the next picture and then we actually went in and practiced the monitoring protocols in the baraboo river it was a little low as you can see but it made it pretty good access to the water and go one more picture And then the really fun part is that if possible with these trainings, we go kayaking afterwards and we monitor from inside the kayaks for these species, which is not only a super fun time for most of the folks, but it also is like you are in the river on the water. It's actually a great perspective to see these invasive species that can pop up on the shore that just washed down the stream. So it was really fun to practice here as well. It was a beautiful day. Would recommend. All right, you can go ahead. And then one that I really enjoy, this is the exotic pet surrender event. You may not think about pets when you think about invasive species per se, but actually pet releases are a large vector for new invasive species populations because folks have these pets, snakes, exotic things, you know, not your normal cat or dog. and goldfish especially, and if they're no longer okay or able to take care of it, a lot of times folks are like, well, I'll just put them in the pond in my town. I'll just dump them in the stream. It'll be fine, right? It's nice. It's a nice thought, but unfortunately, most likely the species either can't survive Wisconsin winters, so it's a temporary fix, or if they can survive, there's the potential that they could become problematic and become an invasive species in the area. This event is where we partner with an exotic pet rescue out of Neenah, and they come down and they are a judgment-free option for people to come from all over and drop off a pet that they can no longer take care of for whatever reason. And the rescue will then take that animal, quarantine them, make sure they're healthy and get checked out by a vet, and then readopt those as a free opportunity to do something other than release them into their backyard or the back pond. It's very fun. We got a chinchilla up in the woods in August. We got a couple of bald pythons, which is great. We got a bearded dragon. Yeah, I couldn't fit all the pictures. But it's always a fun time to see what you get. We've gotten oxalotls before, turtles, giant tortoises. It's kind of wild. You never know what's going to show up. But I'm always glad that these folks are choosing something where the animal might not die, and it's going to protect our environment. So it's a fun time. And then lastly here, one of the big things that we do as our partnership is help assist with the youth education days. In 2026, we have three events that we are planning to assist with. We often get the kids in these waders and get them in the water, which is super fun. because usually the majority of them have never been in waiters and they realize that even though they don't look as cool as they would like to they're a lot of fun and so by the end of the activity they're usually way into it no matter what they look like which is really fun for you know seventh and eighth graders awesome so that was kind of quick kind of high level happy to answer any questions about any specific program if you have any

Your enthusiasm might bug some people.

I can see it, I get that a lot. You are invasive.

Thank you very much. Okay, great, thank you.

What was that last critter, the one that looked like a giant rat?

That was the chinchilla.

A chinchilla? Mm-hmm.

It was kind of an odd color. It had white and black coloring instead. Usually, they're all gray.

They don't even taste that good, do they? No.

Usually, if people are more worried about the pelts, they were raised for their fur at one point, which is kind of interesting to me.

No, that one was a pet. All right. Thank you. Make a summer hat. Oh, you're on economic development?

Yeah. All right.

Nothing to report. There's a meeting this Saturday, though.

Okay. Lake Redstone, I was not able to go to the last meeting, but they're planning on their partners' meetings.

So I just want to say I was able to attend the Southern Area Association tour on August 12th. It was mentioned in the other report as well. It's really cool. We got to tour Nevin Fish Hatchery. It's been around since 1867, which just blew my mind. It's been around that long that we cared about our fish back then. We went to Four Winds Farm where we learned about hops and growing perennial deep-rooted grain crop, which was Kernza. In agritourism, we went to the Dane County Demo Farm edge field monitoring equipment and got to view that and saw the rainfall simulator. So if you've never seen that, that was fun. And then we went to the discovery farms in Taito Solar Project where we got to see sheep grazing under solar panels. So that was neat. We learned that the cost, it's not cheaper to have them grazing, but it's more environmentally friendly. We're not burning diesel fuel, which, you know, it costs a lot of money right now, too. So that was pretty cool to see that. And the sheep seemed very happy.

They don't do goats because goats would be up on the solar panel eating corn.

But sheep are more chill. And then we went back to Dane County Natural Resources Office where they had a really cool project where they did store monitor management in their parking lot. Yeah. So that was fun. I didn't go, there was a pasture walk. This isn't necessarily Southern Area Association, but they do have it on their schedule on the pasture walks, which there is another one coming. I didn't go to the one at the Beulah Farm on Scenic Grove yesterday, but I went like a year ago, I think. It's amazing. They do rotational grazing. They've got, a wonderful chicken coop that just travels along their pastures. So that was really fun. If you ever get a chance to go visit the Beulah Farm, I highly recommend it. There's another pasture walk. It's going to be in LaValle. on the Hutter Farm on October 7th in the evening. So just so you know, they're going to talk about custom grazing even if you don't own cattle. So it's kind of an interesting concept. And then I also am going to be throwing my hat into the, to be considered for the Wisconsin Land and Water Board. And so today they're doing a in a little election, so I think there's at least one other board member, or yeah, county board member that's in the running, so they're gonna vote today to see who's gonna represent the Southern Area Association, so I may or may not get chosen, and then from there, the elections are gonna be in November 27th, so there may be, I think a couple years ago, there were only five area associations that had them, people that were candidates, there's three total, that will be selected for the board. So that's kind of what I've been doing. And then again, I can't stress enough to go to their website, Land and Water, to see all the amazing things. I mean, anybody can sign up for so many different events, virtual events and such. It's a great organization, so that's it.

Questions for Brenda? All right, next meeting dates. Land Conservation Tour, Wednesday, September 16th. Who can all attend? Supervisor Alexander, are you able to attend? I think so. Okay. Pepper? No. Pepper and Booker, so we'll have... Meet in the parking lot downstairs at 9 o'clock.

We'll leave from there. We've got the county. That's 16th, right?

We'll get you back. Okay. We happen to have a rain date.

The rain date is the next day on the 17th.

Yep. And Wednesday, September 23rd, which is also up here, right?

Yes.

Is that Wednesday?

Yes. Yeah, we had to move it from our regular Tuesday because of the Wisconsin County.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay. And then Thursday, October 8th.

I'd like to make a comment. I'd like to really thank the department and the staff because if you think back we really dumped them with a load with AI data centers and then all of a sudden a week or so later the transmission lines came in and I think they I want to say firsthand at our town meeting and They came through in flying colors representing the people in this county because people do really appreciate when people step up to represent them and support them and protect them. And again, I want to say thank you. Thank you, Rick.

So moved.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say aye. Thank you everyone. Thank you.