Lake Assn. Meeting regarding Big St. Germain Report

Here's what happened at the lakes committee meeting. First a little clarification. The lakes committee is an organization that includes the various associations of the lakes in the St. Germain area. This is NOT the committee that proposed the launch fee, but that group (The Big St. Germain Lake District) is part of this organization. So here's what went down. After a few preliminary pieces of business the subject of the Big St. launch fee came up. It was noted that a large amount of the people at the meeting were attending specifically to address this issue. The man who initially proposed the launch fee, Mark Rogacki (chairman of the Big St. Germain Lake District) made the initial statement telling why he pursued this course of action.

Mr Rogacki stated that the people in the lake district are concerned about aquatic invasive species (AIS) being introduced into the lake. As many of you know the lakes are often attended by folks who are either volunteers or paid some nominal fee to inspect boats and trailers as they enter and leave the lakes for weeds hanging on to trailers, and other issues that may contribute to movement of AIS. In the case of Big St. Germain they have paid to have inspectors at the boat launch with the cost of those people being approx $4,500.00 per year. Mr. Rogacki feels that not enough time is covered to adequately monitor the boats going in and out of Big St. and wants to hire help to cover more of those hours. He thinks the way to do that is to require people to pay a launch fee instead of requesting some kind of tax hike to pay for the additional time. There is also some confusing talk about the need to build an overflow parking lot to accommodate increased boat traffic on the lake during times like opening day and during tournaments or other heavy use weekends like holidays. My take is that he thinks the additional boats in use during those times will also require further monitoring but that issue was kind of glossed over. He went to Madison to discuss this with DNR officials there and see if there was a mechanism in place to allow the lake district to levy these launch fees. Turns out there is a way they can do it but it MUST be a "partnership" with the DNR and that as such it does not "privatize" the lake but allows the district to charge for public boat launches. A representative of the DNR was in attendance at the meeting who stated that as of now there are two lakes in the southern part of the state that have such an arrangement. Lake Geneva was one and I'm not sure if she said what the other lake was.

At this time the chairman of the meeting said he would allow about thirty minutes for questions, statements, discussion, etc. The first speaker was Mr. Ted DeRuiter who is president of the St. Germain Chamber of Commerce. He stated that the members of the chamber had taken a vote at the last Chamber after 5 meeting and the membership was overwhelmingly opposed to this proposal. He further stated concern for the future business climate in St. Germain if this plan was to take effect. Rob Manthei was the next speaker who spoke on behalf of the local fishing guides. He expressed concern for the businesses in the area and that if AIS is the real reason for wanting to do this there were other avenues that have not been discussed or explored as an alternative to charging boat launch fees. A couple of other local folks including myself further stated our concerns for what we think is a dangerous path that this proposal leads to. Another gentleman who I'm acquainted with spoke from the perspective of an area fisherman who was quite articulate. He stated that "they" were not giving credit to the vast majority of fishermen and other boaters who are very careful about inspecting boats themselves, educating their kids, and visitors who may not be aware of the dangers of transporting AIS. He also made the point that fishermen are probably their best friends in both fighting AIS and educating others.

The final speaker of this portion of the meeting was the lady from the DNR. She made a few points of clarification that was very welcome. Here are the basics. The DNR had not made any decision about this proposal. This is a long process if it were to come about at all and the DNR would consider input from the public, the business community, and the practical aspects of implementing this process before it would ever enter into such an agreement with a lake district. Also she clarified one misconception on my part. Since this type of system is a "partnership" rather than "privatization" the DNR would continue to service the lake with stocking, water surveys, etc. I had a chance to speak with her after the meeting and she was a very helpful person who seemed to have a good handle on the situation. Although she was just there as an informational representative and couldn't really express her personal views I think it was pretty clear that she thought the possibility of something like this happening was not very likely.

There was a fair amount of parking lot conversation after this portion of the meeting and there is no question in my mind that the vast majority of citizens and business people in St. Germain are strongly opposed to this proposal and will fight strongly to make sure it doesn't happen.

Finally I'd like to thank various people (you know who you are) who supported my efforts to squash this thing before it happens by forwarding letters to me. Those letters/emails were presented to the committee at the meeting and also forwarded to the Chamber of Commerce. I don't know that the issue is dead but I have a positive feeling that the fast and strong response to Mr. Rogacki's concept did a lot to diminish any forward movement. Thanks all for paying attention to this and rest assured I will keep on the watch for further developments.