New Content

Check out the Meeting Page, the Current Issues Page and the News Page - we have added a lot of new content.

Happy Labor Day weekend - be safe and enjoy.

CAUTION - Underwater OBSTRUCTION

At the mouth of the river, near Blackhawk Island - CENTER of channel.

Boaters are reporting prop damage.

Gates

3 of 6 slide gates remain CLOSED

BOTH wicket gates are CLOSED

Lake level is at DNR SUMMER TARGET as we approach Labor Day Weekend.

NOAA Website on Lake Koshkonong Water Levels

In Case Some have Forgotten where to find the official lake Level...

Email Question Regarding Absentee Ballots for the Annual Meeting

Brian,

I am not often able to make it to the district's annual meetings. I was going to write and ask if absentee ballots could be used. They could be sent out in the newsletter that precedes the meeting. But I saw your blog post with the Wisconsin statutes that say absentee ballots are not permitted. Do you know what the reasoning is for not allowing absentee ballots? I understand it would create more work for someone who would have to count all those votes, but I believe it would give the board a better idea of what the whole district is thinking about the issues rather than just the small segment that makes it to the meetings.

Sincerely,

John Sill

_______________________

John - 

Thanks for your note.  Every year I get the same question about absentee ballots.

I am not a lawyer, so I don't know the exact reason.

The answer to your question is probably the same reason why the annual town hall meetings do not accept absentee ballots.

Democracy requires you show-up to participate.

My take on it is, the annual meetings present 2+ hours of material with Q & A on why certain projects are conducted and why others are not.

We discuss the budget in greater detail than what any local newspaper could provide.

By taking questions and motions and amendments from the floor, we are able to discuss the facts, and add to our transparency.  

We can work together to answer doubts, objections, or refute any suggestions of hidden agendas.

Saturday was Democracy on display.

Those attending moved to amend our budget by removing a $40,000 audit that frankly, was only included in the budget as a response from a series of newspaper articles generated by demands from folks who do not attend either our monthly board meetings or the annual board meeting.  

Those folks should have attended to explain why they felt compelled to demand a 7 year financial audit to local reporters, but then did not believe it was equally important to attend the annual meeting where they could have voted on their own budget item.

Your comment below implies that if absentee ballots were allowed under state statutes, then our annual meetings would have different results.

I disagree.

I would suggest our Board would have that much more support for what we are doing for the property owners of the lake and river.

However, like Town Boards, we can only act on items that are approved by electors who attend the annual meeting.

Hope this clarifies.

Brian Christianson

608-884-9444

More Gate Closings - Lake Levels Stabilizing

Weather Chart June - August 2013

Enough with the Cool Weather

JANESVILLE--If you're wishing it didn't feel like fall, just wait a few more days.

The below-average temps hitting the area this week will move out so the upper 80s and even 90s can return next week.

This week's highs in the low 70s are in stark contrast to last summer's scorching heat, and Gazette weather data dating to 1948 show this summer has been cooler than average. Since June, Janesville's highs have been below average 67 percent of the days.

That's resulted in an attendance drop of about 25 percent at Janesville's three municipal pools through July, recreation director Shelley Slapak said.

The past week of cold swimming weather brought general public attendance down, to the point where the wading pools at Palmer and Riverside parks were closed early, she said. Palmer is supposed to be open until 7 p.m., but nobody has been there after 5 to 6 p.m., she said.

Pools won't close unless it's cold and no swimmers are present, she said. The wading pools remain open through Aug. 25, while Rockport Pool closes for the season Sunday.

An upper-level low pressure area situated over the Great Lakes region helped funnel the cold northwest air from Canada into the area, said Sarah Marquardt, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sullivan.

A change in the weather pattern will slowly bring the temps back up over the next few days, she said.

That's good news for crops, which are one to two weeks behind normal, UW Extension crops and soils agent Jim Stute estimated.

“That's the combination of later planting, plus the fact that it's been so cool,” he said.

Generally, the corn looks “really good,” he said.

“What everyone is worried about is that the plants won't make it to maturity before the first killing frost,” he said.

If that happens, plants don't reach their full yield potential and the drying process is slower, meaning higher drying costs.

Corn needs heat and sunshine to fill the kernels and fulfill their yield potential, he said. Same with soybeans—they need heat and sun to photosynthesize and fill the pods, he said.

This weather pattern is the same as 2004, when the weather shifted to higher, above-normal temps in September, pushing the frost to later than normal and allowing the corn to mature, he said.

“That's pretty much what we need right now,” he said.

The long-term climate outlook for fall in southern Wisconsin shows temperatures being normal to slightly above average, while late fall and winter have a slightly above average chance for above-average temps, Marquardt said.

Cooler weather means less electricity used by air conditioners, but energy sales for Alliant Energy were pretty normal last month compared to a 20-year average, spokesman Scott Reigstad said. Compared to last year, however, sales were down significantly, he said.

- See more at: http://gazettextra.com/article/20130815/ARTICLES/130819839/1059#sthash.60oB6HKS.dpuf

Your covert petitions - Mr. Venske - were both Cowardly and Deceitful

Not only should he resign from the CKSD, which he is doing, but his humility should inspire him to leave the chairmanship of Albion Township.

His credibility is gone.

Guess what? Venske and Stockwell did NOT show to defend or explain their demands on the Lake District

But we all can still hunt Near Linn Duesterbeck's - Thank You Supreme Court.

More Lakes Approved For Open-Water 

Duck Hunting

By CHUCK QUIRMBACH

The Department of Natural Resources Board has voted to let hunters
kill ducks on open water — instead of having to stay near shore — at
10 more lakes.

Don Kirby of the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association says the decision helps
hunters by reducing crowding on other lakes approved for open water
hunting, and by potentially reducing the number of non-open water hunters.

“Those users who do engage in this sport will enjoy a superior experience,” he says.

But duck hunter Linn Duesterbeck of the Lake Koshkonong Wetland Association 
says the change will hurt the image of hunters. “People are going to be
perceiving duck hunters as killers and slaughterers wanting everything out that 
there is to shoot.”

The DNR says the change has been through several years of review.

Found from the Janesville Gazette Comments that follow their stories

You gotta admire their convictions - the Lake District said all along that if the WI Supreme Court would take their case, it would be the proper venue to receive a fair hearing.
*
And for the constituents to stick with their Board as long as they have, that says a lot about their elections and what they expect from their reps.
*
Having lost their case at every level, from Circuit Court to the Appeals Court, I expected some of those ole stingy river rats to vote against more legal fees, but the Lake District's leadership must be really effective to get residents to be patient.
*
This is a very big precedent for the WDNR to have lost - not only are they wishing they would have found a way to preserve their Appeals Court victory, but they must be sweating the potential for a landslide of lawsuits that are now fair game by the many many other lake districts in WI.
*
The governor too must be asking if he has the right person running DNR to have let this get away from them - unless, of course, if they wanted this decision as well.

Annual Meeting Electors Reject Bob Venske, Hank Stockwell Covert Tactics

The move came after Lake District residents attending the meeting at Fort Atkinson High School decided to reject a $40,000 proposal for the lake district to conduct a forensic analysis of its last several budgets.

Voters approved the spending, but instead asked for it to be shifted to legal costs for a case over water levels on the lake which the state Supreme Court ruled on in July, but remanded back to Rock County Circuit Court for further review.

Lake Koshkonong residents approve continued court fight

By Neil Johnson | August 10, 2013

FORT ATKINSON–The next act of the decade-long legal drama over water levels at Lake Koshkonong is set to start playing out in circuit court later this month, a lake district attorney said Saturday at the lake district's annual meeting.

A majority of about 95 Rock Koshkonong Lake District residents voted Saturday to approve a $45 annual fee that will include up to $40,000 in the lake district's 2014 budget to continue a court fight against the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for the right to use the Indianford Dam to raise water levels of Lake Koshkonong 7.2 inches in the summer.

The move came after Lake District residents attending the meeting at Fort Atkinson High School decided to reject a $40,000 proposal for the lake district to conduct a forensic analysis of its last several budgets.

Voters approved the spending, but instead asked for it to be shifted to legal costs for a case over water levels on the lake which the state Supreme Court ruled on in July, but remanded back to Rock County Circuit Court for further review.

It's unclear how much the lake district could ultimately spend in legal costs for the ongoing court fight. It has already spent around $500,000 on court costs—a fee paid through annual lake district homeowner fees, Lake District Chairman Brian Christianson has said.

Madison lawyer Bill O'Connor said Rock County Circuit Court will get files in a few weeks from the case over whether the lake district can use the Indianford Dam to hold back 7.2 inches of water to improve boating conditions in summer low-water months.

The lake is a shallow impoundment of the Rock River, and has a history of flooding in the spring and getting extremely low in the summer and fall months.

The state Supreme Court sent the case back to circuit court for further legal proceedings after it ruled July 18 that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources overreached its authority in setting water level mandate on Lake Koshkonong. The ruling also indicated the DNR hadn't properly considered the effect of water levels on residential and business properties around the lake.

Lake District officials, who have for years been pushing for higher water levels on the lake, have called the ruling “epic” because it signals that the DNR can no longer unilaterally issue maximum and minimum water levels on state impounded lakes.

The Supreme Court ruling did not address whether the DNR should grant or deny the Lake District's 2002 request to use the Indianford dam to hold back water in summer months.

O'Connor said parties in the case still have about two weeks left to contest parts of the Supreme Court's ruling, but he's “doubtful” any party would contest it.

O'Connor said he has not been in touch with DNR lawyers over the case. He said he would not issue public comment on how he thought a lower court decision on the water level issue could play out in lower courts.

“I'm not going to answer,” O'Connor told The Gazette Saturday. “There has been no communication between the opposing parties.

O'Connor did say that he has had “congratulatory” comments from other impounded lake districts in the state over the ruling.

O'Connor and lake district officials suggest the ruling offers hope and legal leverage for lower courts to  question or even halt DNR rulings on impounded lake water level mandates that don't take into account impact or that “overreach” by setting water levels based on the impact on adjacent wetland properties, according to the Supreme Court ruling.

Yet it remains to be seen whether the DNR has any appetite, even after the Supreme Court ruling, to relax its mandate for maximum and minimum water levels on Lake Koshkonong.

Wetland groups and the DNR have argued for years that higher water along the lake would increase erosion of thin shoreline areas and threaten wildlife and ecosystems in adjacent wetlands owned by hunt clubs and private trusts.

The Supreme Court ruling stated that the DNR, in setting water levels mandates, relied improperly on the state's Public Trust Doctrine, which serves to protect navigable waterways in the state.

The ruling stated that the DNR was heavy handed in applying the Public Trust Doctrine to water levels.

Lake District Resident Carol Harrington, an Illinois resident who owns a property in Glen Oaks Beach along Lake Koshkonong told Lake District board officials at Saturday's meeting she respected the district for sticking to its guns in the legal fight.

She said that other lake districts in the state owe a debt of gratitude to Rock Koshkonong Lake District. She said those other districts ultimately could reap the benefit of the ruling in terms of local control over their own water levels.

“Every lake level property owner in the state should have kicked in (money)” for the legal fight, she said.

Other lake district residents, including Buck Sweeney, a lawyer who represented a wildlife group opposing higher water levels in the Supreme court, told The Gazette last month he believes that the Supreme Court's ruling did not go far enough legally to force the DNR to backpedal on its water level mandates for Lake Koshkonong.

GATE CLOSINGS AT INDIANDFORD

3 slide gates and both wicket gates are closed.

WISC TV-3 Coverage of RKLD Annual Meeting

Group debates Lake Koshkonong levels

Water levels at Lake Koshkonong may not change until next spring

Published On: Aug 10 2013 09:55:00 PM CDT   Updated On: Aug 11 2013 04:02:11 AM CDT

MADISON, Wis. -

Despite a State Supreme Court decision this summer, water levels at Lake Koshkonong may not change until next spring. 

The case has now been pushed back to the lower court. The Rock Koskonong Lake District had asked the DNR to raise water levels by 7.2 feet. Saturday, leaders met to discuss the lake's future.

District chairman Brian Christianson told WISC-TV the state's high court remanded the case back to Rock County circuit court. He said it means lawyers for the lake district and lawyers for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources have about three weeks to decide to either present the case in circuit court with new testimony or come up with another solution.

Members of the Rock Koshkonong Lake District spent Saturday morning reviewing their progress over the last year. The group's recent victory in court means the DNR will have to consider the economic impact of changing water levels at Koshkonong and other lakes throughout the state.

"That's critical for our constituents here today to keep the values in their homes, businesses, and restaurants that we have around the shoreline of Lake Koshkonong," said Christianson.

Bookkeeping and the district's budget were also discussed.

A hundred residents came to their annual meeting at Fort Atkinson High School.

They voted to keep the district's bookkeeping practices the same and continue to focus their efforts on resolving the water level issues.

"Our constituents gave us a vote of confidence that we've been completely transparent and we have abided by the state statutes and how we present our treasures report and our budget," said Christianson.

The district's lawyers are still working with lawyers from the DNR on the issue of water levels. That's good news to residents.

"We just need to keep going and hopefully when it's all said and done everyone will be able to sit back and say we did the right thing and everyone will benefit from it," said resident Frank Micale.

As far as the district's budgets and annual audit goes, the chairman told WISC-TV going forward that it is planning to create a citizen committee to do a review of the district's financial records.

• Copyright 2013 by Channel 3000. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Already, DNR Operating Orders across WI are being reviewed and challenged - Thank You Lake Koshkonong!!

Rest Lake dam operating order public hearings postponed

However, in light of the recent Supreme Court decision, a draft order will not be released until after the department can fully consider the court’s decision.

New dates for Rest Lake informational hearings have not been set at this time. 

“The department remains committed to share a draft of the Rest Lake Dam operating order with the public prior to finalizing a new order, but the court directed DNR to consider additional economic information on the Lake Koshkonong case. We are working with our attorneys and economist to review the court’s decision.”

The dates for a series of four public informational hearings on the Rest Lake Dam operating order had just been set and the first in a series of announcements was released to a DNR GovDelivery subscription service for Rest Lake Dam updates.

The Department of Natural Resources is charged with the duty to establish water levels and flows that protect public interests in waters of the state, promote safety, and protect life, health and property. 

“Water level issues, whether they result from drought conditions, dam operation or an unauthorized activity, are often controversial, because they almost always require some balancing of competing public and private interests.” Scott Watson, a DNR waterways supervisor working on the Rest Lake project, said. 

“It’s a great thing that people in Wisconsin are passionate about their public water rights. Public water rights are a tradition that date back to the state Constitution,” Watson said. 

DNR staff had already taken a significant amount of economic information into consideration in completing the draft order for the Rest Lake Dam, Watson said. 

After the department has the opportunity to evaluate how the Supreme Court decision will affect issuing dam safety operating orders, a new set of dates will be scheduled for the Rest Lake Dam pubic information hearings. 

Those with questions about the status of the Rest Lake operating order, may call John Spangberg at 715-685-0431 or email john.spangberg@wisconsin.gov. 

Updates on the project will be available by searching the DNR website for “Rest Lake Dam” and distributed by email. 

Reader Comments
Posted: Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Article comment by: John Sorenson
The Lake Koshkonong decision is a great event for
property owners. The DNR may have "considered"
the economic impact on property and business
owners, but only enough to give the impression
that their reasoning was balanced and their study
complete. If you take the time to actually read
the citizen comments and the DNR responses
you can't help but sense the one-sided direction
that their "New Order" was headed.
Thankfully, the supreme court has turned
the table on them. 

Rock-Koshkonong Business Association (RKBA)

Buckhorn Supper Club Among WI's Best

This photo from 'Wisconsin Supper Clubs: An Old-Fashioned Experience' features, from left, Dawn and Chico Pope, who own the Buckhorn Supper Club; Shelley Pope Huhnke, who oversees the bar and dining room operations; Kevin Pope, who manages kitchen operations; and Jane Bauer and Ron Bauer, both of Janesville. Jane Bauer is Chico's sister.