Council - Regular Meeting

I don't got the minutes. Oh, that's me. Okay. Yeah. She said she'll be a few minutes late.

Oh, I got all kinds of stuff. I won't say much about a tree or two. I feel like an adult table. You know what? I forgot. I forgot to get roll call sheet. What's the Wi-Fi password here?

Don't you feel like there's no heat on in here? No, there isn't. I don't think so. This is all I need. Doesn't it have everybody on it? Carly, right? Six, right? Yeah. Get the team thing. Did you get copied on that? Hey Josh, I don't know what our if we can have, you know, someone zooms in. If we could change the bylaws to allow the Zoom board member to vote. Yeah, it's right there. Nowadays, you know, there's so many more options than there were running the meeting last kick in. Yeah, you did great. I didn't watch it because I forgot about that. session. I zoomed off when you went dark. It went dark.

Can't get into email though. Can't get out. Look. No, this is just a lap. You can do it laptop separately or would be on my laptop. You wouldn't be able to hear him. We're doing great. Busy busy. People think busy call. Yeah. Otherwise, I can see if there's an option to uh add somebody.

Yes. Someone picked a spot by texting his outlook here, but I doubt it's like a dial. You just put it. You just heard it. I'm on my phone. That's right. That's what I got. with a needle. Yep. It's got a needle and you can hear the furnace kick in. I could do it on my phone, but it's probably not going to be able to hear anybody else. They're they're actually uh

really reality. I think it just needs to be a Zoom link on the website. Yeah. Oh, you can right there. You can answer my phone, but he's not going to be able to staff. There we go. I got it. Sorry. The 101. Yeah, for the thermostat. Oh, I'm over there. I guess I'm going to go over there.

Okay, you already gave you all the paperwork. They already got you over there. You got your Can I have everybody?

How you doing? Good. How are you? Not as late as I thought it was going to be. got my kids around, you know, right there that I couldn't get done. I'm like, "Okay, I got to quit taking showers." Yes. Got to pause. Rick, can you hear me? So, they don't have Outlook available through. So, there's no way for us to do team, but I can do it on my phone. I don't know if you're going to be able to hear everybody though. this live I mean is it a live stream where he can I don't know I can hear you yes

I can probably uh speakerphone got him on speak is he on speaker maybe mic near the phone maybe Speaker,

is there a recorded ones on our Yeah, we can hear you. We're just trying to turn the volume up. Second person. Oh. Oh, yeah. I I qualify for that. Thank you. I have to go to a show tonight. So, yeah. It's cool like this.

Not necessarily, but usually what happens is water mane brakes will end up either in somebody's yard. We're live right now or road ends up in the say you're on there. So you could do it laptop, but I don't know. So yeah, it doesn't department, but I don't know if you saw it still wouldn't be able to connect. Yeah, I did see that. What a free immediately. Oh yeah. It just so I mean we don't have that necessarily but we do have it in the drains say it might be louder as long as it's all right give us another minute then we'll get started but the minute it gets in the open

we're still clean you me and him my contractors have been working Rick hey Rick I don't know if you heard that can you just call my cell phone we can probably hear you better. There's leaves everywhere. We'll do. Thanks. Like they fell late. Winner came early.

Michigan's really freezing over. Water is going to come up a little. Oh, it Yeah, probably a lot of people want to come up a little bit. Not too much, but a little bit. No, it's going to be good. You'll see Spring Lake come up. You'll see waves will come up again. Like I'm going to be concerned about at least we had a couple snow melts already. All right, Paul, you got them yet? Yes. Oh, hey. We'll be um we can we can hear a little bit, too. So, all right. All right. Well, hey, we'll uh call this um January 28th Spring Lake Board meeting to order. Uh Michelle, if you would do the honors of calling ro. Okay.

Oh, wow. I have a computer screen with the agenda on too. We are really moving up. Uh Josh Ber here. Joe Bush here. Rick Soldo. Michelle Hayescamp here. Jim Walters here. Harley Schultz here. John Nash. Dave Billingerst here. Roger Vanderelt here. and Stephanie Barrett. All right, looks like we have a quorum. Thank you. Um, any additions to the agenda anybody's aware of? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Motion push

motion and support. Carly and Joe. Uh, all in favor say I. I. I. I. Those opposed. Motion carries. Let me check these off as we go. Item number three. Wow, the mic is really working today, too. It's a little awkward. All right. Um, let's take a moment to review the, uh, meeting minutes if you haven't already. And, uh, if anyone would care to make a motion to approve those, I'd be grateful. So, moved. Got a motion by Jim. Support it. Second by Roger. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I.

I. Those opposed? Motion carries. All right. On to number five, financial report. um from Rick and Joe. Uh Rick is for those of you listening at home, Rick is calling in remotely. Um and I'm not sure if Rick or Joe is going to give the update, but one of you guys can take it away. I can give it I certainly I've got most of the information. So, and I'll pass over to Joe if he's got anything to add. Rick, we can hear you loud and clear. This is perfect.

Excellent. Glad to hear it. Okay. So, um, la late late last year, we had a proposal from Ottawa County to begin charging a fee to the Spring Lake Board for accounting services. I felt given the uh amount of work that's asked of them and some of the changes that we required that it was a very reasonable proposal. However, we need to work through the details and also make sure that we're getting best value for money. So, we uh put together a request for proposal, an RFP that was sent out uh to uh three CPA firms. In addition, we placed an ad in the Grand Haven Tribune uh identifying that we were u seeking uh um responses to this RFP. From that, we had two CPA firms respond. Um one uh uh B Devau Bowman and Company uh pro provided us with a complete proposal. The other uh one second HNS companies um spoke with me uh on three occasions but in the end decided not to to bid. This was actually even just yesterday that I got the final uh feedback that they were they just didn't feel that they could be competitive. um the uh you know the the numbers associated to those bids. Devauer came back with a firstear price of $17,080. Uh and and uh and even that I thought was at least reasonable. They they would have had to set up a QuickBook um in order to track the financials. They would have a variety of staff and manager level activities etc. But this did not include any audit services. And through the discussions I had both with them and the other CPA firm, I was led to believe that the the separate cost associated with audit would probably be in the 5 to12,000

range depending on uh certain certain factors. So in total for the proposal that we've gotten from uh Dau it would have been 17,000 say with another 5,000 minimum would be $22,000 compared to the proposal by Ottawa County which was for 10,000 I believe $700. Uh just double checking that. Um so in my opinion that suggested that we're far better off uh staying with Ottawa County for these accounting services. they're less than half of the price and it does include all audit uh activities as well as part of their normal accounting uh um reviews. So, taking that next step then we worked with um the legal entity or the legal folks at Ottawa County who drafted a contract. Um I hope Joe has copies of that with him. Uh that contract is uh um uh basically for all of the services that they are currently conducting uh reporting uh audit activities, accounts payable, check payments and management reporting. Uh so I think that it's a very fair offer and I would uh like to move that we um accept that contract and uh and use them as our accounting services moving forward. Any questions on how I approached the the RFP, the the bids or or any of the results that we got from that?

Rick, I'm getting no questions by the look of it. And everybody got a copy? Yep. Got a copy in front of me. That's great. Um, oh, thank you, Rick. Excellent job. I know it took a little while to get some of those uh publish, excuse me, getting people to show interest. Uh, and you took the extra step with the Tribune. I think that was great. Um I because Rick is remote right now um my understanding at least what we've discovered at the Ottawa County Board is that he can't actually make a motion or vote. Um he's can participate just as he is. Everything's good. So would anyone up here care to make that motion? Maybe Joe because that's you're the other side of the finance guy. I don't know. You do the honors if you want. I can make that motion.

I I do have one quick question. Do we get any legal review on the uh board side? Um, that's a fair question and uh and we may feel that it's appropriate to do that. But you can reviewed it though. Well, Stacy's firm Kyle did Kyle who the count the county did it on their behalf, not on Spring Lake behalf. Correct. So Kyle is

With that said, I've reviewed I've reviewed many contracts over the years. I've reviewed this one. Um, you know, the terms are relatively straightforward. We have a 90-day out clause if on either side if uh if we feel that uh we want to move on to different uh uh solutions. Uh it's a renewable once per year. Um uh it's you know governed by state of Michigan law etc. Uh so I overall I think it's relatively simple if you flip through the you know the roughly three or four pages. Um I would say it's reasonably boilerplate kind of contract language. Yeah, Rick, I'm seeing the same thing. Jim, you

Yeah, I mean, I haven't had a chance to read through it line by line, but I certainly trust Rick's impression of that, having uh dealt with many of these before much more than I have. So, and I think from a historical perspective as well, uh the county had been providing the very same services for us at no cost for a number of years. And so now this just firms that up a little bit. Yeah, I'm Yeah. firms it up and, you know, gives them some compensation for the real work that they're doing on our behalf. Yeah. Let's not tell them about the other quotes, shall we? Joe, you didn't hear anything.

Good point. I'm hearing various things on what needs to be posted to our website and uh and I'm happy to provide whatever it is that is required. As I said, I have the proposals, I have the the numbers, etc. So, I can provide anything that's needed. Got it. Oh, that's great. We can look into that. Yeah. So, just for clarification, Kyle, uh, who is our attorney for the lake board, actually drafted the language. Oh, so he does it all over the state. So it wasn't corporate counsel at the county, but it's the county. It's the attorney that we use through fee Schultz Kyle of interest. We're good. Okay. So he does it all over. But they're they're not the county per se as a whole. They're not their attorney.

No. No. We didn't use corporate council Doug Vaness or anybody. We used a lake board attorney to draft the lake board agreement for the services. If that makes sense. Makes sense. Kyle makes sense. Mhm. So, we've got a motion by Joe and a second by Jim, I think. Sure. Yeah. I don't want to force you into it. Oh, that's fine. Yes. Second. All right. Because there is a dollar amount on this one. Uh, if you'd do a roll call, Michelle, that would be great. Okay. Josh Brooker, yes. Joe Bush, yes.

Rick Soldo. Oh, he can't vote. He's remote. Uh, Michelle, Michelle Hayescamp, yes. Jim Walters, yes. Harley Schultz, yes. Ashnut here. Dave Billingerst, yes. Roger Vanderelt, yes. All right, motion carries. Carries. All right, unanimous approval. Rick, thank you so much for all your work on that. Sure.

Question. We can now transfer over to review of the year and financial results. Um I believe you both you have the uh budget versus actual as well as the transaction report, the treasures reports in front of you. I'll just uh point out a couple of items. Uh obviously we're now fully complete with all expenses that have flowed through. Um so you can see our actual year-to-ate spending you for the various expense items is just over $13,000. but it did not have to include any payment for the uh bond itself that will begin starting next year. Um so we're well under there. Um good news is uh we have a a very healthy cash balance 673,000 that's the number at the bottom. A very important item to understand is the bond proceeds. Previously in the last budget versus actual that I presented I think the number was more in the one two.37 million range. um it was adjusted after uh we found that there was actually a premium paid for on the auction and so the amount of proceeds that we got for the bond was about 130,000 more than we had originally expected. These things are sometimes variable or they're auctioned and and uh we ended up in a very good position. So we ended up with about $130,000 more. So um really good news there. Um all the other items I think have been reconciled. The reports should tie out precisely to what you have. I have not done anything with 2026 right now. I believe you have a page that shows four transactions in 2026, but I haven't yet set up uh the the 20 26 budget versus actual. Um but you can see the items on there are, you know, fairly straightforward and I'll certainly can respond to it after we get through the quarter.

Rick, questions on the financials. So Rick, I did hand out the budget versus actual and then they have a 25 to present 2025 to present and then I did have the sheet that Megan put together of a breakdown of every single transaction on a separate sheet. So it's all spelled out individually for everybody. Were those numbers who got paid? So just so you know, I know you can't well you can probably see us but you're on the phone. But yeah, anyway, we did I think you saw what Megan put together. So, right. Exactly. So, that should cover all of the, you know, actual results for 25. Yes.

And, uh, and I don't see anything here that gives me any concern. I think we're doing a good job with taxpayer money. And, uh, um, now with that said, in our last meeting, I said that I would start to look at 2026 and forward budgets. Um but uh due to the holidays and the various other actions that I've been working on uh that didn't get done. I will try to have it in place uh for discussion in March. We got time. We just started 26. So it's good timing. Yep. All right. Excellent. Thank you, Rick. Roger, you had a a question I think somewhere along I guess my question is the contract that we just voted on. When will that start or or has it already started? It hasn't started. I don't do anything without approval.

Yeah. So, hold on a minute. Let me Oh, there we go. So, there you go. Just started. Okay. So, you're not doing anything different, but you're just charging now, right? Yeah. Here. Hold on. Hold on. Joe, you can. Exactly. Right. Make it official now, too. I think we need Rick's signature on there by the look of it as well. Oh, we do. Yeah. We won't be able to start. Yeah. Rick, can you uh can you sign this? I I will. Whenever you get back, Rick. So, I'm I'm assuming we're going to start getting a lot of money in from the winter taxes, right? Pretty soon here. I I see some from Fairies, some from Fairiesburg and maybe some the township digitally.

Yeah, they usually come in around March is when they start coming in. Some of them are a little sooner. They all vary, right? Nobody comes in the same month, so they all come across whenever whenever they just mail them in because they all collect. We don't collect. We just collect from the from the local units. the local units collect and their taxes on once a month they do it or something. Well, they'll just reconcile with their own when they get them all in. Some of them have rolled in, but usually it's the bigger townships, the more people they have. Uh takes a little longer. So, it could be April. Okay.

I will say that this is an area that I would have almost no ability to actually audit. Um we've provided the information to the municipalities. They provide us with the revenues they collect on our behalf. I've seen nothing that leads me to be concerned that we may have inaccuracies here, but because it's not identified down to an address and a dollar value, etc. that's been, you know, paid and submitted, you know, that's not the kind of detail that we receive, um, we are counting on those municipalities to do it do the accounting properly. And uh so I certainly will keep my eye on that uh from from location to location and and uh make do a reasonableness test, but uh I don't have an ability to drive it all the way down to, you know, individuals.

Yeah. If we don't see them by May, then we start usually calling because sometimes they forget. And Rick, I know each of those municipalities has a annual audit or two, so they'll have their books looked at on the other end. Yep. Yep. Fair. They know who doesn't pay taxes. Maybe maybe a different purpose. Yeah. And that's why we do continue to see some revenue coming in even second third quarter because of late payments. Uh so they collect that and then they forward that to us when it's received. Correct.

So is it with the $130,000 that you mentioned um I'm not going to call it extra but surplus. I guess it's extra. At some point, do we as a board need to decide what to do with that or to lower the rate or what's I guess I can't plead new guy anymore. I've been here for a year, but

is is we know that, you know, the budget that we established three or four years ago um remains in effect. We've we've done a good job to get the you know the alum treatment completed, the bonds issued, the and the revenues from that. I think we are in as good or better a position than what we thought we would be at that time. Um, in fact, I think we probably have more cash on hand than what was anticipated. And so, yes, we have some choices to make about what we do. You know, uh, do we use it for certain, you know, watershed management activities or do we, you know, simply return it or cut short future uh, taxation? We have a range of choices but I think it begins with me providing you know a financial overview of what our oncoming uh ongoing expenses will be and then we can decide you know do we have excess or you know do we want to take action spend action or uh or or reduce a cost.

Yeah to your point Rick actually we're early on in and I don't want to we shouldn't be counting our chickens before they hatch. So we don't know what kind of year we're going to have with um harvest again. All it takes is one more, you know, one extra harvest and there it goes. So, okay. Yeah, that's fair. All right. Um, could I get a motion to accept the uh treasurer's report or financial report? A motion. All right. Motion by Carly, second by anyone. Second. Second by Michelle. Uh, all in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed. All right. Motion to accept the financial report carries. All right. Thank you again, Rick. Thanks everybody. Yeah,

I'll stay on the line, but uh I'll mute. All right, sounds good. Uh consultant report item six. Take it away. All right, so yes, the um plan for this year as far as the water quality obviously with the I don't know if you can hear me. Can you hear me better now?

There you go. So the um water quality sampling is tied to the ice off. So all bets are off at this point given the weather we've had, but typically it's late March, early April where we do our spring sampling. So that'll be kind of telling to see because that's typically when you have complete mixing of the bottom water and the surface water. So it'll be kind of telling to see what the reduction in phosphorus is. initial obviously report that we um issued last fall was that there was about a 95 to 97% reduction in the in the 2D basins which is really really good. So um we're hoping that we see similar results for the spring. Um as far as the initial plant survey that's typically done in May. As I mentioned last meeting, Jared is going to be taking over as the field crew chief. Um, he's very familiar with not only Spring Lake, but the area. Used to live here. You grew up here, too, right? Yep. So, very familiar. Um, so should be a smooth transition there. Um, we we obviously bid out that harvesting work and that was awarded to um company out of Illinois. So, we're going to be kind of monitoring the conditions whether it's necessary or not. Again, it's not a guaranteed contract. So, there's no like minimum cost or anything like that. So, so that's kind of what the plan is for this year. Do you have anything to add, Jared?

Um, we're just working with the uh United States Army Corps of Engineers on permitting for the harvesting and how that how that's working out. Um, just waiting for a response from them. But the idea is basically that the if a permit is required for being that Spring Lake is section 10 waters, um that permit would be under the lake improvement board's name because previous experience with these permits is they're open-ended. They don't have an expiration date. So that way if you want to change vendors uh for harvesting down the road or um you know stop harvesting for a little bit and then start back up in the future, the permit will just be valid for essentially eternity.

There's no cost. and there is no cost to the permit, but I'm still waiting back to hear from them whether or not we actually do need that permit. Um, based on information I've been able to gather, there's a slight chance we might not need it, but we're still working out those details. Thank you, Paul. So just a little for people out there listening. Um the ice forming will probably not lose as much water for evaporation, right? Is one thing, but what does that think you'll do? What is that going to do for the algae blooms or potential because

the chemistry in this ice which is getting pretty thick I'm sure that's going to get colder yet this weekend. And typically there's overwintering structures for algae in particular that usually is in the benthos which is the bottom sediments. Um they can be affected by the duration of ice cover and and lack of sunlight. Sometimes that will will delay the the um onset of algae and hope obviously with the alum treatment hopefully the source or the nutrient sources will be low enough that we don't expect to see as much LG this year. So I didn't think so but I just wanted to hear from you. Yep. Yep. Okay. No problem.

Yep. Good question from scientific perspective. Thank you. Uh anything else under item six there with that? No. All right. Paul and Jared, thank you. Uh technical committee update. Uh Rick, are you still on the line or Jim can too? So, we really have But I was muted. Okay. Yeah, we really have. That's right. We didn't want to hear from you anyway. Jim Jim Jim's going to talk

since the last time. I think uh basically what we're doing at this point is waiting on uh seeing what we get for grant funding to be able to move forward with with a watershed management plan. So, I will leave that to Sarah to update you on that. But, uh, maybe something we could engage on as summer comes near is looking at potential areas for harvesting and maybe run that through that committee to bring some recommendations to the board since obviously we're not going to harvest the whole lake. We'd want to uh find out from residents what would be most impactful and and who has an interest in doing that. So that's something we could engage in as the as the summer sets in, but otherwise it's up to grant funding to move forward with the rest of it. So perfect. That's what we have.

All right. Anybody anything else on that, Rick? Yeah. Okay. Nothing else for me. All right. It's a little I'm staring at the phone as if I'm staring at your fa I can't. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Rick. Uh thank you, Jim. Uh item number eight, update from WMP, uh watershed council grant proposal. Who's doing that one? Is that you, Sarah? All right. Yeah. So, you have to push the button and Oh, okay. There we are.

Um, last time I was here, um, I think it was November, I gave you guys kind of a a basic budget of what we kind of may need to start doing some of the work. um this year on the WMP um what I provided more recently is a little bit more specific with some more specific numbers. It's still around 11,000. I think our our final budget that we came up with for this starting to work on the WMP prior to a grant start potentially would it was around 11,500 and that's mostly all just towards time and wages for me and Ben to basically start the process on this WMP work. Um, as you guys know, we're already doing a lot of the field source monitoring um, type of work. We did a lot of that last year. And so, there's just a couple of items that goes above and beyond um, what we originally included in our water quality monitoring initiative that is listed in here. And then some of the other items for this year is basically just kind of getting things started um getting started on the you know preparing a Sigma community survey um starting to draft some of the more wershed characteristic chapters and things like that. Um and then hopefully um this spring we did well we did uh submit the wershed council grant um I think it was December 10th that was submitted and that budget is also included in here. So you can kind of see um we requested a little over $39,000 um through that to cover most of Ben and Nai's time on finishing that and um we should hear sometime this spring on whether we're being awarded or not. So basically for now I think we're just looking at getting approved for I think it was around 11,550 for um this year prior to the end of September 2026 in hopes that uh to start working on WMP work um more specifically in hopes that we are also going to get that grant to help fill out the rest of the budget and um finish that up next year. So yeah I wanted

Do you want some money Sarah? Is that what you're telling us? Yeah, give us some money. Um our final budget did um adjust slightly. I think our some of our um initial um estimates for like the Sigma community survey which we typically utilize GBSU's social science lab to help us with the development and um physical creation and we we mail out like surveys to folks and they help with the um dispersal of that and the analysis of the data. So um they're really great with helping with that community survey aspect of it. So that was a little bit more expensive than we originally sort of um estimated, but it's not too big of a difference, maybe a thousand and a half. So, but yeah, any questions?

Anyone? Any questions? Paul, one small question. So, does any of this go towards the co-op development or um Yeah. So, for our um we already have the So, the quap development, we already have um all of our co-ops made for the monitoring work that we're already doing. Um so but we basically we may do need to make an ARQAP for some of these other uh field inventory things like the septic survey or tile outlet survey. Um and then as well for the uh Sigma survey um that does require just updating it, not

Yeah, we're basically kind of it's like a basically the same document but just adding in maybe some of the other things we're doing and then the QAP one usually or the Sigma survey for the community survey has its own quap usually too. So or quality assurance project plan for those who don't know what quap I was just going to ask is that QAP is yes quality assurance plan. Quality assurance project plan I believe it stands for. You got that. Michelle, you're taking notes. I don't know if you could get quap. I don't know if you're WAP is just so fun to say. It's just fun. I wanted to say it again. Does everybody want a chance to say that? QAP. Okay. All right. Roger says no. He's good. Oh. All right.

But yeah, we've got the majority of the we've got quite a lot of um monitoring data already completed um in this last year. We just have a a little bit more that we need to do as part of the monitoring initiative this year. I think it's focusing more on finishing up some culvert surveys and then um some a second round of agricultural tillage surveys and then obviously the additional inventories that we have listed here that wasn't a part of our a bigger um monitoring initiative plan. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Um did I hear in there somewhere that we need a motion to allocate a certain amount of money to this? I think it was uh I think in your agenda it says 11,000. Our like final official number was 11,550,550. I don't know if that 550

when when are we going to start seeing some like results? Um we do have some very um initial results as far as some of our data. Um we're still waiting on some of the MST, the microbial source tracking data to come back or the analysis from the lab that tells us in particular for E.coli. um you know where uh the DNA of where that ecoli is coming from whether it's like livestock or human um and so we're the GBSU is still finalizing that analysis otherwise we do have a lot of the um concentration data and we do have some initial maps made and we can um share those with you uh ASAP but there's some just it's we have just some initial um number uh

so are you getting a good feeling of where this where the issues could be we're already starting to get a a feel you know we've got um a number of different ecoli and phosphorus definitely an issue in a number of places um and chlorides we're also seeing some high spikes in a number of places as well and I think my initial thoughts is that I mean while agriculture probably has a little bit of um in like the headarters some of that but there I think there we're going to find that there's going to be a lot of human ecoli issues as well and I think we'll we'll see that when we get the MST data I'm assuming because in the areas where we're finding high ecoli we also know there's not as much uh agriculture in that area already. So,

uh we're assuming we're going to see that, but we'll see when the data comes in. But we're definitely seeing where there's some hot spots of issues already. Is that from septic systems? Um most likely septic systems. Yeah, that's typically where you see the humidi come from. What about birds? The all the geese. There's definitely a problem with

they can be. Yep. Um you can do MST testing for that as well. Um, the problem with MST is that it gets really then doing the analysis for that does get very expensive. So, we kind of have to be a little bit more picky on what we test for. So, we typically only test for the human genome to figure that out. Um, and then we assume the rest of it is animals of some sort. Um, but as far as I'm aware, you know, geese and birds might be a significant part of it or it might be very small. I guess I don't have a exact answer there because for years they were looking at ways to not attract geese and ducks you know on along the beach fronts and then um so yeah I know John Nash has been always preaching about the septic systems around the lake.

Yep. Yeah. And we did testing obviously in a number of the tributaries and we did do some testing. I think we had two testing sites um in Spring Lake itself as well. So, we're looking at a lot of the um surrounding area um as well as what's coming into the lake. Now, could any of that be coming from the Grand River, too, or from upstream or not necessarily? Well, it wouldn't be coming from the Grand River because it goes um the Spring Lake goes into the Grand River. But so, yeah, Norris, we do we have testing in the Norris Creek, which is like that main headwater, okay, in there. The only time it would come from the Grand is if it's like a flood condition. Yeah. It's coming. I just didn't know if past flooding and waves it'll push the water back. I just didn't know if that would get a sage or something. Yeah. Mhm.

Okay. Just curious. No. Any other questions? So, the preliminary numbers will come out soon. Just wondering when we should invite you back to put you on the agenda for an actual presentation and we may publicize it a little bit. Maybe once we give you maybe once we get the information back on the MST analysis, we'd be able to give you a more fuller picture as like what things are looking like so far. Um I think maybe maybe I can let you know once we receive that back from GBSU and they complete that analysis and once we get that then we'll probably be able to give you a better picture of what we've um collected so far. Oh, it be great to have that and have a map of some sort up there so we can

we do have at least one map made already. It is on our website right now. You can take a look at it now. It was that same map we shared at um the finance committee meeting at the county um on Spring Lake just highlighting the E.coli uh concentrations. So there's some stuff originally out already, but we should have some more available soon. Thank you, sir. Anybody else have any questions? All right, nice job. And I guess um as far as utilizing funds, we can do things like reimbursement or upfront. I guess I don't know how you guys want to set that up as far as um doing the work and um reimbursements throughout the year, but yeah, I guess we can send a nugget MOA or something or contract next week or

have you invoiced us for the $11,550 yet or No, but I can if if you want to do we can talk about it maybe as if you want to do a lump sum or reimbursement based or whichever. Okay. So, we got to make a motion yet. Yeah, we need to make a motion. Make a motion to approve it. But um so that's just we can have that conversation afterwards once you approve doing that. Sounds good. Cool. So would anyone care to make a at this point let's call it a motion to authorize up to $11,550 to be paid to Ottawa Conservation District for preliminary WM work. So moved. All right.

Moved by Jim, second by Joe. Any other discussion? All right. This is a dollar amount. So Michelle, if you call the role when you're ready. Okay. And this was for preliminary MP work. WMP. Preliminary WMP work. Motion to authorize 11,000 up to $11,550 to be paid to the Ottawa Conservation District for preliminary WMP work. Is this the total bill or is this just part of the bill? just to get it started.

I grant for an additional we had discussions with the technical committee about, you know, is there something we could do to get ahead of it rather than just sitting and waiting for the grant funding and doing nothing and then trying to catch up later on. And that was her proposal that those were the pieces that she could start on right away so that when the grant funding comes in, we're already a step ahead. Since we know we need a watershed management plan regardless, we thought best to get working on it.

Sounds good. Then your odds of getting the grant with this 11,000 pretty much up front was like a match. Well, yeah. So those, you know, we submitted already, correct? Correct. score card. The scorec card will be pretty well. So, it is. All right. Anybody else? All right. Go for it. Hey, Josh Buger. Yes. Joe Bush,

yes. Rick, oh, okay. Michelle Hayescamp, yes. Jim Walters, yes. Harley Schultz, yes. Billingerst, yes. Roger Vanderelt, yes. Hey, and all yes. Motion carries.

Motion carries. Thank you, everyone. And thank you again, Sarah. By the way, um when I said hey Sarah a minute ago, my phone turned on thinking I was saying hey Siri and it started to pull up um septic system evaluations. So all right, item number nine, communication committee establishment vote. Um I guess you guys will have to help me out on that one. Who's in charge with this? Carly is Carly's in charge. One thing is there's

what was brought up was whether the board wanted to because right now there is not a formal communications committee whether the board wanted to have to make a motion to form that committee. That's one of the items on the list. I don't know if you want to do that first or might make sense to do that. But I do we do have other things related to communication as well.

That sounds good. Um in in such a motion um do we have any idea on how many members we want? I I guess what I'm saying is if we're going to make a motion, I'd like it to be motion to establish a communications committee comprised of one member of the board and our consultant and two members at large or something like that. That would be appropriate, I think.

Oh, maybe I just made the motion there. Well, anyway, I guess I get somebody else. I think the chair should make the motion. So, the the suggested motion would be to um approve the creation of a Spring Lake Board communications committee. Um that includes one member of the board, our consultant, and two members at large. Would anyone care to make that motion? That motion motion by Joe. Anyone care to second it? I'll second it. And seconded by Roger.

All right. Any other discussion on that? Included one member of the board and our consult the board's consultant which at the moment is Paul. Yes. The we'll just leave it open for we'll leave the name open. The consultant. Yeah. Okay. and two members at large. Two community members at large. Can I can we suggest a friendly amendment on that? Two Spring Lake residents. The residents who live on, you know, something to that effect. Uh to residents that live on the lake. Yeah. Spring Lake residents. Spring Lake residents.

Spring Lake residents at large. There we go. Nothing like drafting motions on the fly. What could go wrong? I'm happy to amend that motion. Okay. So, I guess we'd amend by Joe and Roger. Are you good with the amendment or specified that they live on Spring Lake? Yeah, I was going to specify just what you said. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Michelle, are you feeling good with that one? Okay. So, it was two at first it was two community members, two Spring Lake residents or residents who live the first motion lakefront residents. Yeah, we just did a friendly amendment. You don't even need to do the amendment.

Are these likely to be people who are currently paying the tax? Yes. Do they have to be I think that's paying lakefront residents, right? I think that's that should be clear. Yep. Okay. Like we have two in the maybe volunteering already. Yeah. Right now might have step up. We'll see. All right. You feel good with that? Yeah. I close enough. Okay. Do you want the amendment? Because Oh, I it was a friendly amendment on the fly. I think you're okay. Okay. All right. As long as the motioner and the seconder are good with it. Absolutely. And they both are.

Repeat what you what you got there though. Okay. Move to create and establish a communications committee that includes one member of the board, the board consultant, and two community lakefront residents at large. Spring Lakefront make sure we get the right. We don't need Lloyds by you. People going to village is Spring Lake too. So could be a little confusing. Yeah. Lake Lakefront property owners if we want to have someone who's tax be represented. Okay. And two communities. Spring Lake Lakefront members front or property owners property owners. There we go.

Property owners at large. Okay. So, we've got a motion in a second. I guess before we vote on it, I'll ask a question about the motion we just created. We've got front lots and we've got back lots. Uh it would seem that the way that we just drafted that it this would only allow for people who are actually on the lake rather than on the back lots. And don't the back lots have frontage though? They have still they're paying 300 tax. They don't have frontage per se, but yeah have access to the lake. Yes.

And we want to make sure that they're able to participate if they want to. But you could just say that the at or the community members have to be in the special assessment district. That's the best way to put it right there. The owners within the special assessment district. Thank you, Paul.

For the record, I'm fine with that. Okay. And then um one other question I suppose is do we want to make this a an ad hoc committee so it's a trial run for a year or do we want to make it just go with it? I'm asking a silly question. You let me know question. I think we can dissolve it whenever we feel like there. Just go with it. Just go with it. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Um, any other discussion? Now that I got my answer, my questions answered, I'm happy. All right. All in favor say I. I. I.

Those opposed. All right. Motion carries. All right. Next. Um, yeah. Paul, what's your next item?

Oh, let Jared take over here. So there was some discussion I think maybe two meetings ago about um a proposal to update the Ring Lake website. We have since I'm speaking of Progressive has since done a couple of these refreshes or at least one. We're working on another one. So we basically determined we can probably do it for the that we're currently getting um because it wasn't as I mean it's still involved but it wasn't as bad as what we anticipated. So what Jared has up on the screen right now is an example. Um the the idea is to have everything navigability um at at the homepage. Um, you can basically get to any page from the homepage. Um, and then it kind of explains more in detail by clicking, but it it's more it's more user friendly. I would say is a big plus. Um, it maybe explains like the mission of the board a little better and what the different information sources are and that type of thing. Although the I don't know if you want you probably don't have the existing one up. Do you?

Yeah. How do you do that? Oh, yeah. It's it's a little bit I mean the one we have is fine, but it it is a little bit of scrolling required and so it's not as like fluent the other um website that we're propo or the formatting that we're proposing. It is a step forward, but the subjective, but it definitely looks the boxes help. Yeah, they do a little more by easier on the eyes. Yeah. Does it format for the phone? Yes. Yep.

That was one of our big questions. Yes, it does. Um I don't have to grab my phone. I can't use my phone because Rick's on there. But this one is just llleans.org. It's a big improvement board over in Ionia. Go way down the bottom. Jared, can you scroll there? Okay, keep going. Did work on the phone. At least their website worked on the phone, but there were some stuff that wasn't perfect, but

essentially you can also search. So if someone just wanted to search, you know, like the word LG, if they were curious about that, it brings up different stuff or if they want treatment. Well, they should search bar, but um so yeah, basically what this comes from is um some of these improvement boards have updated their websites uh and we've created a updated template. So that's what makes it a lot easier than we originally thought. So basically this information that's in here just gets transferred to

one thing I would say to the caveat I would say is this particular example has a lot less information than what Spring Lake has. So it would be little more involved but it's still the formatting is I just pulled it up on my phone and it does work quite well much better than our current one had been working. So Paul or Jared, um, quick question. Is there a map of the assessment district or what? A map of Spring Lake, the watershed map.

So we have a watershed map. Um, yes, there is. Um, it's probably on the watershed page. I don't remember seeing it on there, but maybe I Yeah, there you go. Yeah, we can make it a little easier. I was gonna say if we can make that one a little easier thing. No, it's big. I mean, it's like Yeah, I think the limitations with this current website that we found in the old style was it's a lot of you kind of have to read through the text and you see these little like click here.

You got to click there. But if someone just skips through this looking for an image to click on or a box like this has, you know, um something a little more friendly or or lakefax or the lace info we found this too. If you know they can just scroll and find find Yeah. I think li L li liberines liberines could use a map of their lake too. It is on the lake facts. I think there's

Oh, is it? Oh, there we go. Yeah, something like that. Oh, perfect. Like that for the spring light would be great. Oh, that would be nice.

Yeah. Yeah, that was that was added um to the website as of recently on the homepage. So, it's just at the bottom the assessment info basically breaks it down by uh you know what type of lot you are, marinas, your unit of benefit, the annual assessment, and the approximate parcel count for each of those.

That's great. Yeah, that was just added on there. Good. All these.

I I would agree. It's not got that many bolts. It's not proportional. My question too is how long has that been set and ever been modified for inflation or question ever re relooked at? It is. It was I think based on a a percentage. Yeah, it was modified during the hearing process but maybe not to the level that some people wanted to. I would agree. Certainly marinas are not proportional to individual land owners in terms of lake usage. Holiday weekend

already coming down almost anywhere. is you know one thing I know we ought to be able to update if a marina has added slips um we ought to be able to account for that and see if they bump up into one of these other categories it's not the number of slips it's the in and out okay probably an oversight in terms of how that assessment was made.

Look at that. I think we looked at it if I remember right.

There's something up with that because they don't really own waters and there was something about that assessment. You guys, you were around. I know it was Tony, but probably Tony that looked into that, but I think Yeah, I think you're right. It was looked into. Well, it was looked into uh because at the hearing there was people going, "Well, what if they add another hundred boats in and out, but they're still paying less than the average marina." There was something to do with the state law because the water rate, they don't own so much water, you know, like a marina. Okay. But we did look into it. But I we could always modify it maybe as what you're talking about.

I think the other thing that was brought up was if like a local zoning ordinance that would affect that as well that could kind of amount of boats or oh in-n-out traffic. What was the venue for setting those fees? What what body set those fees? The lake board. Yeah, it was it was it was agreed upon about two years two and a half years. The lake board has the ability to do that. Yes. the the lake improvement board set the assessment district and they accept the unit of benefit. That's really what you would be correct.

Yeah. You're not necessarily the annual assessment amount is just based on your unit of benefit. And so the discrepancy is that is a marina with over 200 slips only 10 units of benefit or should it be greater than that or if you get to a point where it gets to you know you need to be more specific like 200 anything over 250 is this and you know so I believe the marinas came to those hearings yes they did I remember them showing up and speaking to us about it and there's something you're right something about the law with inn-out is

I would say other lakes that we work with that have marinas on them. This formula is similar. But I think because of the proximity like Lake Michigan, amount of tourism that you have here likely is a bigger factor than it is on a normal inland lake. Well, I'm thinking maybe a further discussion item on another agenda. We've got the website that we're supposed to be looking at. I guess I got to bring us back to the focus. Although good conversation. Um, anything else on this or do you need us to say go for it or what? You're you're a

we're basically just asking permission if you want to go with that format versus what currently is. Um, yeah, I think it's more user friendly. So, I mean, I'd be happy to make a motion to switch over if it's a cost. Not there's no cost involved because we're already it's a line item. No. Excellent. Then please do it. Do you need us a motion to do that or you just Oh, just moved. I'll second it. We should probably have a motion. All right. Yep.

All right. Motion by uh Joe, second by Michelle to direct Progressive to update our website. How's that? So that it looks more like the liberines.org website. with that, Michelle. All right. All in favor say I. I. Those opposed? Motion carries. All right. Spring Lake Resident Communications. Yeah. Um I think I have to head out. I apologize. Yeah, we are getting close to 5 o'clock, aren't we? Yeah.

Sorry I didn't keep us moving fast enough. Paul, are you leaving? Yes. stopped by me on the way by. No problem. Oh, Rick had to go off, too. Yep. Are you gonna take Rick with you? Um, go for it.

We passed out this um Spring Lake board um new homeowner packet. Uh the beginning of the meeting. This was kind of generated from um the last meeting. Uh I think um the the Spring Lake Township had inquired about you know what if someone new to the lake moves on to the lake. Is there any sort of packet or information that we provide to them when they get there kind of as a welcome to the lake and just give some updates on you know you're part of the special assessment district. This is what the lake improvement board is. You know who it's composed of. um general information uh and some facts and as well as you know shoreland management uh Q&A or FAQ uh document as well. So um this is kind of what we generated as a draft um that can be utilized. You know feel free to read through it and provide comments. Um you know once we feel like we have a good finalized packet down we can then provide that to

um not only the board but also the township. So when they send out or the township so when they send out their um you know annual assessment information and stuff like that can be provided to any updates or if a new resident purchases a home this can be sent to them essentially. So um yeah first page is just the spring lake lake board the members and that that would be updated continually based on um you know who's who are the current lakeboard members. general information just describing how the lake board was established uh who it's comprised of and kind of all the properties as well as that special assessment info that we just looked at.

Um basically outlining all the different unit of benefits, you know, who's affected and everything that's on page one. So the the homework assignment is for us to review this and come back to the next meeting with any suggested changes essentially or email you with any suggestions or email then we can make those updates essentially or if there's you know something like we need to expand on it. There needs to be more information than just what is here that can be provided to um and the goal is yeah just to provide anformational document that can be distributed to new homeowners. um you know if this is something that we feel that wants to be distributed more than just new homeowners and that can be discussed too but um that's kind of the goal of this document. Okay,

I'll leave it at that. Thank you. We'll um send you feedback if we have any and then maybe at the next meeting we can what do we vote to authorize you to print them or something like that? Yeah, we can do it that way. Essentially, I the idea I think was just to give this document PDF to the townships to then as they get information of new residents, they just whether they email it to someone or they actually print it out themselves and send it in the mail. Um, by all means, if it's decided that this should be sent to all the residents currently, that can be discussed of creating a mailing, but you know, that would be at whoever the cost of mailings is for however many residents there are. But

kind of an expensive undertaking there, but we can decide that at a later date. All right. Uh item four, social media posts.

Yes, you have the Facebook uh page up and running and I made uh events for every single meeting that we have posted for the year and so I this week I joined a bunch of the local um informed groups and shared it with several of them just to kind of get it out there. So um and I guess I could do that, you know, for each, you know, just within a week of before the meeting or so. And um yeah, just another way to get the information out there. And if anybody has any other input they want me to add to the Facebook page, we can certainly um discuss that or send it to me or whatever. So yeah, thank you. I'm actually pulling it up right now just to take a peek.

Yeah, we I just had like an intro um at the very bottom of the page is how that works. Just you know, welcome to a page and then added the meeting so far. It's all that I've really done. So, all right. Online viewers on our live stream right now. Hey, here we go. It's working. Popularity is going to surge for our meetings at some point. We only have 11 followers. So, but you know, we're going to go viral. Feel free to share it and we can get some more followers. So, all right. Anybody have any comments or feedback for Carly? All right. Well, thank you. Great job. Really, really appreciate that. No problem. All right. New business. We've got some invoices apparently. Jared, is that you or is that

Oh, Carly's gonna sneak away. All right. Thank you, Carly. People, though, so yeah, we're good. We're good. Yeah. Uh didn't think we have any. I don't think we have any. Yeah. That I'm aware of. So, I don't have any. No, I think we just put it on there just in case there was any. Okay. And it's just a recurring reoccurring on the agenda. Yep. Got it. So, nothing new there. N see you, Carly. Thank you. Well, that brings us to public comment. Uh come on up. Yeah. And actually, you got to use the microphone because then you're, you know, then the folks online will I just want to find out how do we grab it and take it to your seat if you want. I don't Yeah. How are we at home get this? How do we view this? Oh, the the website. Oh, yeah. Like right now you said we're on

the live stream. Yeah. Is that I just put in Spring Lake board live stream and it pulled up. Oh, that's it. Oh, that's what you say. Um I'm there's probably another way to get it, but I just did a Google live stream, right? Yeah. You're you're actually on TV right now. Yeah. So I So Spring Lake. So it's Spring Lake Government live stream. Okay. Live stream. Yep. Okay. And then after I noticed that after the videos are stopped and recorded, I'm not sure who goes in and does it, but they have been labeling them Spring Lake Board. Okay.

I was able to find the November meeting on there. Um, I didn't find one prior to that. I'm not sure if we had been uploading them or saving them at that point, but now we're hopefully in the loop. Okay, good. One more question. Um, what is required for that communication committee? Like you said, you want two, you know, residents. Yeah. At the moment, it's two residents, but I I don't know. We didn't flesh that one out too much, did we? What are we required to do? Oh, whatever as a part of the committee. Yeah. Yep. Oh, probably yet to be determined. I would say the committee would So, who determines this? It's very convenient that Carly, our communications person, just left. She probably could have. So, we can ask her at the next meeting or something.

Sounds good. We'll let her. And then Okay. Oh, what did how much are we how much is the grant? How much are we applying for this grant that that Sarah, you know, 39,000? Okay. That's okay. 39,000. Okay. And once you if we get approved on this grant, That's right. We don't get reimbursed from that 11,000 that she's doing the supreme. No, no, no. Okay. That's our contribution. Okay. So, that's all we're going for is 39,000 came in. And that's for the watersheds, right?

Right. And the grant came in significantly less than we originally anticipated because of their involvement and being able to perform those tasks at a much reduced rate. Oh, I see. Okay. All right. Good. All right. in the future we'll be able to say look back at the XYZ meeting online because I know we did discuss that. So that'll be that'll be but not only are they doing it at a reduced rate they're also applying for the grant on our behalf. So it's just the best of both worlds really. And this this report is nice and everything and how are you we're deciding how to get this now out to everybody what they handed out earlier. Oh yes. Yeah. We

how can we get this? Our assignment as board members at the moment is to review it and send feedback in to Jared and then at our next meeting we'll decide what to do with it. Okay. Very good. All right. And I think this is for more new home it's public comment I guess. Yeah. It's it's common. I mean it it's tailored towards new homeowners information. Um and then most likely we would probably post it on the website too. Just we're we're going to need a lot of cooperation from the you know the Fairiesburg Spring. How do how are we going to know who's moving for September along the lake, right? Yeah. It just there's some coordination there. Um I think uh Mr. Gallagher from Spring Lake Township had some ideas and

Yeah, he seemed like he was definitely on board. Yeah, he is. Collaborate with him on how best to handle that. And I think if John were here, he would say and each of us should go back to our boards and present it once we have the final copy and so forth. Yeah. Well, another thing too, what about um handing them out to local realtor? Y just say, "Hey, if you happen to be selling a house on Spring Lake, we do have this guide that we would like new homeowners to have." Yeah, it's definitely an option, too. So, give them one, they can make more copies, right? Yeah. Might want to wait till after they sign the agreement or because Oh, I have to pay more taxes.

Yeah. The out assessment. Well, yeah. After it has been sold then, oh, by the way, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Oh, that's good. All right. Uh, any other public comment? We cover it. Okay. Thank you very much. Uh, our next meeting is set for March 25 at 6 PM. Hey, Josh. Yeah, I got one I got one other thing before Yeah, Roger, go ahead. Public uh comment from the board. How about that?

Yeah, comment from the board. Okay. Well, we had a little mishap in the village of Frort. Uh, and I don't have all the information right here, but okay. Uh, there was a barge uh tugboat sitting at 12 Circle Drive. All of a sudden, one day it decided to leak out diesel fuel all over the lake. Oh.

Okay. Fruitport uh immediately got there. They contained it. They brought hazmat in so on and so forth and everything. That's what I just spoke to Paul about on the way out. I can forward this email that I have right here that has the uh drone information, so on and so forth. I can and if anybody else would like this, I can forward that to them, too. Uh, but they do have it all cleaned up and everything was cleaned up. But now the aftermag trying to figure out who's going to pay for it and all that other new stuff. How long ago was that, Roger? I think it was in December. December. Okay. It just recently happened.

I had not heard about that. Joe, had you heard about that one or No. No. Then usually I get the phone call anytime something like that happens. So it must have been Keegan, I'm betting maybe got the say it was at 12 12 circle drive. Were they able to get booms in the water? Hear about it. Now, was the boat in the water or out of the water? It was in the water. It was in the water. Yeah. It's been been there for probably three, four months. A commercial tug. Correct. They have all the information. They have all the uh names, stuff like that off the boat itself. Presumably they have insurance for Yeah. Yeah. I'd say for forward that to the the rest of the board members would be great.

Sure. I can do that. Okay. I just I'll I'll send it to Paul. That's what I talked to. Paul can get Paul get it out to us. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but this was there's actually a report uh through the Fur Township uh public service, you know, the police report or alarm report or whatever it was. But so I I don't have that right now. Other was I I just thought of that just to make sure that I let the board know uh what was going on. Oh, okay. I'm glad they caught that. It sounds like fairly quickly.

Yeah, they they Yeah, I can't remember who they called in the Hasb people. Uh uh you would probably know one of the They suck it right off the top and they catch it with a containment. Yeah. Yeah. Um netting, not netting, but uh the booms boom. We had one by us a number of years back and the Coast Guard put booms in and then monitored the diesel fuel spill with a helicopter until they had it. Yeah, they did this one with a drone. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'll I'll forward this information to everyone. So, that's what I have. Thank you, Roger. Uh Dave, Joe, Michelle, Jim, anything?

Oh, good. Just wondering Jared if you might add if you could or maybe get this to Paul uh after public comment maybe have uh what are we commissioners? No. Or board member commissioners beard whatever we are comments. Board member comments. Board member comments. Yep. Yeah. Then I could that remind me to go around the horn. Yep. All right. So and then our next meeting date is March 25, 6 p.m. And we are ajourned. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, they are.