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HomeMy WebLinkAboutForestry & Parks Committee - Minutes - 8/9/2021 BAYFIELD COUNTY FORESTRY AND PARKS DEPARTMENT COMMITTEE MEETING August 9, 2021 County Board Room Members Present: Fred Strand, Chairperson; Jeffrey Silbert, Steve Sandstrom, David Zepczyk, Larry Fickbohm Staff in Attendance: Jason Bodine, Administrator; Lindley Mattson, Office Manager; Steve Probst, Assistant Administrator Others in Attendance: Kathleen Klow, DNR Liaison 1. Call to Order of Forestry and Parks Committee Meeting. This meeting was called to order at 6:00pm. 2. Public Comment: No one from the public to comment. 3. Approval of the June 14, 2021 Meeting Minutes. MOTION: (Silbert, Fickbohm) to approve the minutes with the addition of Fickbohm agreeing to the repatriation of land to Red Cliff. All: Yes. Carried. 4. Resolution. Sale of Land to the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Withdrawal of Land from County Forest Law. J. Bodine presented a resolution and three maps corresponding to this transaction. The resolution summarizes the terms of the sale and authorizes an application to the DNR to withdraw the property from County Forest Law. MOTION: (Silbert, Zepczyk) Approve the resolution and pass to the full county board. All: Yes. Carried. Some committee discussion on the land being sold entered into Trust with the tribe. 5 Monthly Reports. Discussion of general activities, events, issues and accomplishments. Possible action on report(s) only. a. Forestry (all updates): Town of Clover held a special meeting on August 3, wanting to designate Lenawee Rd as a Class B road, thus subjecting it to restrictive weight limits. Bodine sent an email to the various Town of Clover officials opposing such designation. The meeting was well attended by those who did not want the restrictions. The end result: the Town voted to not pursue a Class B designation on Lenawee Rd. We also received an anonymous letter of complaint in July expressing some anti-forest management sentiment in the region. The letter is referring to a private cutting on County C, just south of Cornucopia. These complaints come a few times a year and are dealt with as they come. Additional updates: staff did recently fly the Cable area checking for oak wilt. There are approximately 12 areas that will be field checked by staff. The DNR has grant funds for help with treatment. Certification audit happened last week. Polk, Burnett, Clark, Chippewa and Eau Claire were the counties audited this year. The report should be out next week. a) 2021 Budget. We are just over $2.7 million in timber sale revenues. Both yurt revenues and parks revenues will likely hit record highs. Expenses are on target. b) Carbon Project. Bodine will meet with Bluesource tomorrow for the regular monthly meeting. Bluesource is still analyzing our CFI data. Not much new to report at this time. c) Across the Pond CFL Withdrawal. The deed has been routed for signatures. d) Burns/Duquette Trespass CFL Withdrawal. In process, should be sent to Madison shortly. e) Mt. Ashwabay Rec Use Agreement. Bodine hopes to meet with Ashwabay next week and develop a land use agreement. If that meeting doesn’t happen, he will just draft a template and go from there. There are up to five rec use agreements we need to complete in the near future. f) Stewardship Project. TPL is still trying to find additional funds. After the sale to Red Cliff, we will have roughly $830k in the land acquisition account. The large Ceres Timber project is estimated at $2.5 million. We need to secure funding or hope Ceres Timber will agree to a smaller project. Bodine brought up a “trade” option with Heartwood (Forest Land Group) These trades would include county land that is more or less land locked for land that would improve our blocking and give us some opportunities for some neat properties. Committee would like Bodine to go ahead exploring this option of land trades. b. Campgrounds and Day Use Parks: Seasonal selection for 2022 seasonal sites will be sometime in October. There are some items in the 2022 budget regarding campgrounds. a.) Siskiwit Falls Celebration: The celebration is planned for Saturday from 4-6pm. expecting around 50 people in attendance. The main additional kiosk has been built, hoping to have the primary signs up by celebration time. c. Trails and Recreation: a) Motorized Trail Updates: Wolly Polk trail is officially closed as of August 1st. Bodine is working with the Forest Service on a reroute. b) Non-Motorized Trail Updates: RFP’s for the three privies is live, hoping to get some proposals on Friday. Privy locations will be at Siskiwit Falls, Lost Creek Falls and the Camba trailhead on Whiting Rd. Overflow parking was also completed at Lost Creek Falls this last month. This significantly improved the end of Trail Drive. The point of this is to get people parking further down the road instead of in front of private landowners. c) Yurt Updates: Bodine presented occupancy rates. Bayfield yurts are above average use. Cable is back to traditional use. d) Events. No new events were approved. d. Delta Landfill Update: Project has been approved at the requested amount. Highway has interest in completing the project in 2022. MOTION: (Sandstrom, Zepczyk) Receive and place on file. All: Yes. Carried. 5. Recreation Program Modifications. Bodine presented a summary of the proposed changes to the rec program. In order to do so, each facet of the rec program was broken down to hours needed to run to full potential. Bodine presented a spreadsheet that was developed to summarize the recreation program. Changes to the program include; updating the current Recreation Forester title to Recreation Specialist, adding an additional Rec Specialist and modifying the Office Manager PD to include Assistant Rec Specialist. Draft PD’s for the updated positions were presented to the committee. Some committee discussion on the capital equipment requests for the new position. MOTION: (Sandstrom, Silbert) recommendation of support to the executive committee, personal committee and then to the full county board for inclusion in the 2022 budget. All: Yes. Carried. 6. 2022 Budget Bodine attached a summary of the draft 2022 budget. This includes the new positons as described in item 6. In summary; revenues increase by roughly 5% or $176k, a slight increase in park and yurt revenues and an increase in timber stumpage. Expenses increase by roughly 6%, $125k mostly as a result of the new position. All things considered, net levy contribution would still increase by about $50k or 3%. Carbon revenue is not included in the 2022 budget since it is not a guarantee that we will see revenues in 2022. The goal is to develop a proposal for the distribution of MOTION: (Silbert, Fickbohm) approve and accept and recommend passage of the budget to 2022 All: Yes. Carried. 7. Committee Members Discussion Silbert touches on the letter of gratitude written on behalf of Brenda Jones, campground manager. Silbert filled in the Forestry and Parks committee on Tribal Relations committee happenings. Silbert would like to see the options for repatriation brought to the committee at the next committee meeting. 8. Kathleen Klow – No comments. The next Forestry and Parks Committee meeting has been scheduled for Monday, September 13, 2021 at 6:00 P.M. Meeting adjourned at 7:23 PM Submitted by, Lindley Mattson