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Cedar Lake Improvement District (CLID) Meeting Minutes held on January 13, 2020, 6:30-8:00 pm at the New Prague Public Library

Attendees: Dave Nielsen (dialed in due to illness, Joel Larsen, Tim Singleton, Tim Schroeder, Amy Rude, Paul Hoyt, Pam Caselius, Shelby Roberts – Scott County Education & Outreach Specialist and Troy Kuphal – Scott County Director Soil and Water

Agenda:
-Introduce Shelby and Troy to discuss education opportunities for potential improvement projects
-Treasurer’s report
-Update on Commercial Fisherman lis
-Update on Carp Kabob
-Update on Winter Lake Clean-up

Tim Schroeder called the meeting to order and introduced Shelby Roberts – Scott County Education & Outreach Specialist and Troy Kuphal – Scott County Director Soil and Water who were visiting as invited guests. The board had discussed options for a launch of an educational campaign for shoreline restoration, fertilizer usage for all properties in the watershed and options for farmland within the watershed and Shelby and Troy were invited to discuss these. Tim advised the board is looking for additional information for an educational campaign such as mailings, free seminars/workshops and yard signs for those working on projects to promote improvements. After discussion around campaign options Shelby suggested using the CLID’s website & annual meeting to educate homeowners on all of the opportunities they have to help further clean the lake up with. The list of items includes shoreline restoration and minimizing the use of fertilizers to name a few. She also suggested the board consider the use of a software program called Canva to assist with mailings as it was free to use and provided additional value when conducting mailings.

As discussion continued one of the areas of focus was farmers who own land in the CLID. Troy advised that generally speaking farmers do want to work to help to clean up the lake but many are disconnected as they do not live on the land they farm. Troy went on to say that is is his job to help find ways to partner with the CLID and landowners when opportunities are identified and that resources are available to assist when needed. He suggested the CLID consider an education plan that would be comprehensive and could address what our messaging is, what our timeframe is and what it is we want to accomplish. Some ideas that he thought could make sense were creating a Lake Friendly Farm Certification or Cedar Lake Friendly homeowner program with annual recognition. Troy went on to say we have to change behaviors by everyone to improve the lake not just the top offenders and we need a cohesive plan on what it is the CLID wants to accomplish. Discussion continued around next steps in putting a plan together and it was determined more time would be needed to put the specifics together and discussion would resume at our next meeting on this topic.

Tim Singleton presented the treasurer’s report for October, November and December.   No major expenses were incurred.

Tim Schroeder presented the new list we have for commercial carp fisherman. This is a more extensive list be obtained via the State of MN and is reviewing it for the possibility of seining carp on Cedar this year. After discussion it was decided that Tim would find out who fished Spring last year and reach out to them to see if they were interested since reports were good on the results there. Tim is going to check and follow-up at our next meeting.

Tim Singleton discussed targeting a Carp Kabob this spring of 2020 and is sending out a questionnaire survey to prior participants to check on interest, timing and format for the event. He will follow-up at our next meeting.

Joel advised that as of this moment based on the lack of fisherman a lake clean up this year does not look practical. More discussion on this topic at our next meeting.

Tim Schroeder reminded everyone our annual meeting this year will be 4-13-2020 at 7:00 pm at the New Prague Fire Station.

Pam motioned to adjourn seconded by Amy.

Next board meeting set for 6:30 pm at the New Prague Library on February 10, 2020.