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Lily Lake Summerhaven Association |
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Rev. 20-July-2010
Welcome Message from the President
Welcome to the Lily Lake Summerhaven web site. We hope you find the information you're looking for. Feel free to contact a Board member if you need assistance with anything.Mike Adam, Acting President, Lily Lake Summerhaven Association, a voluntary organization of Lilly Lake residents whose purposes include community building, Neighborhood Watch, and communication and presentation of issues affecting the community to the proper authorities.
Note: The Association is most grateful to NCast Corporation for the donation of server space and technical support for this Web site.
Special Announcements:
Acting
President
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Mike Adam 537-2413 balooadam@yahoo.com 7126 327th Ave |
First Vice
President
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Marilyn Magnuski 537-4750 mjmagnuski@netwurx.net 7723 334th Avenue |
| Second Vice
President
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Vacant |
Secretary
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Pat Scannell 537-4408 33260 80th St |
Treasurer
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Jillian Verstrate (unlisted) 7634 Lily Lake Rd Mailing address: P.O. Box 763 New Munster, WI 53152 |
| Area | Captain | Address
& Email |
Phone |
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Mike Adam |
7126 327th Ave balooadam@yahoo.com |
262-537-2413 |
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VACANT |
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Paul Lyons | 32911 77th St lejon@wi.rr.com |
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Kelly Wilson | 8003 328th Ave Kwilson23@wi.rr.com |
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Bill Scannell | 33260 80th St |
262-537-4408 |
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Marilyn Magnuski | 7723 334th Ave mjmagnuski@netwurx.net |
262-537-4750 |
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Nancy Snider |
8134 335th Avenue nn.snider@yahoo.com |
262-537-8043 |
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Aridith Monzel | 33508 80th St ardiescott@netwurx.net |
262-537-2319 |
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Kathleen Cashman | 7662 Lily Lake Rd. lilylakekathi@tds.net |
262-537-2561 |
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VACANT |
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Colleen Campbell | 33618 76th St. wilakelover@yahoo.com |
262-537-3396 |
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VACANT |
If you cannot reach your block captain and you want to discuss something urgent, please call one of the Board members.
The following highlights present the main topics and issues covered during the meeting. The highlights summarize the main ideas and are not meant to be a complete verbatim transcript of the whole meeting.
Thank You, Lily Lake Resort
The Association extends its deep thanks to the Lily Lake Resort for
allowing us to use their facility for our meeting free of charge. We
appreciate their gracious hospitality.
Web site domain name
We recently reserved our lilylake.org domain name for another 9 years.
Paying for that length of time cuts the price per year to roughly 1/2
of the usual rate.
Block Captain reports
July 3, 2010 Parade and Kids Games
The food banks hurt for donations in summer. So we'd like to set up
food barrels and take donations from July 2 to July 10. The donated
items must be non-perishables with expiration dates in the future.
If this event is to happen, we need volunteers. All the work of
Association events cannot fall onto just a handful of people.
What about adding to the parade, e.g., vintage cars, farm equipment,
water balloon fights?
We'd welcome additional vehicles. One problem is that everyone is
running a parade either Saturday or Sunday. So there's lots of
competition for parade attractions.
We used to have fireworks long ago. How about doing that again?
Fireworks are a problem. Per WI law, you can buy them, but you can't
set them off. Anything that shoots up into the air is illegal to fire
off. Some municipalities have fireworks displays, but they have the
financial resources and liability insurance to handle it. Even if we
raised the money to buy the fireworks, the liability insurance for such
an event would run us in the $8,000 to $10,000 range. Sadly, liability
issues control a lot of what we can and can't do nowadays.
WE NEED A VOLUNTEER PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THIS YEAR'S EVENT.
Other events
- August 14 is probably the best date for the lakewide garage sale.
Many schools start shortly after that and people are not around.
WE NEED A VOLUNTEER TO RUN THIS EVENT.
- We'd like to contribute to a blood drive, e.g., St. John or Messiah
Lutheran will probably have one this summer.
- Movie night: It would cost $900 to $1200 to run a movie night on the
beach. Financially, that's out of reach for us.
Jennifer moving to Tampa
Rich Reed has been unemployed since last August. The good news is that
he found a wonderful job. The bad news is that it's in Tampa. The good
news is that most members of Jen's family are in Tampa. So the area is
good for her and her family. Jen will be here until the end of July.
Her family has owned their Lilly Lake home for 67 years. It's
heartbreaking for her, her parents, and grandparents to have to part
with it.
Mike Adam has agreed to fill out the remainder of Jen's term. We'll
elect a new 2nd VP to take Mike's place at the fall meeting.
Property tax committee
The property tax committee (Jerry Dressler, Linda Gissell, Patty
Kaplan, Robert Kissner, and Gail Schoch reachable at citizens4fairtaxes@gmail.com)
distributed petitions. This year's open book session will be in late
June; the Board of Review is July 29. In general, property owners
gained very little from the open book sessions. The committee pushed
for a Saturday date so that non-resident owners could attend without
having to take a day off work. Committee members found the assessors to
be unaccommodating. When asked which property sales formed the basis
for the year's evaluations, the assessors said it was a secret. Also,
foreclosures and sales to relatives do not count towards the sales
database.
The current assessors have a contract that does not contain a
non-performance clause. In theory, Appraisal Associates could do
nothing and still get their $39,000/year. You can't fire them for
non-performance. Next year is the last year of their contract. The Town
is no longer issuing such loose contracts.
Note that even if your assessment goes down, your taxes may not
follow. The Town (which has a $1 million budget) has to pay for certain
things no matter what the value of the property in its borders is. So
they have to collect the money regardless of property value dips. Also,
school districts are the main contributors to the tax bills. All the
schools in this area have passed expensive referenda in recent years.
The only way to stop that trend is to pay attention to local elections
and vote.
Fall meeting is August 28, 2010.
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The following notes from the spring, 2007 meeting are left here because the goose situation is still a hot topic:DAN HIRCHERT (USDA WILDLIFE
SERVICES): GUIDELINES FOR CANADA GOOSE DAMAGE MANAGEMENT IN WISCONSIN
Dan Hirchert from USDA Wildlife Services presented a slide show about
management of goose problems. The USDA gets involved with geese because
they, like deer, can damage crops.
Two populations of geese: migrants
and residents (Giants)
Migrants pass through our area only for short time when they migrate
from Hudson Bay to southern Illinois and back again. They do not breed
here.
Residents (Giants) migrate very little (only when everything here
freezes). They are very productive, averaging 5 eggs per nest. They
live 20 years, are adaptable, don't have many native predators, and
weigh up to 15 lbs.
Damage: crops, airplanes, park areas,
landscapes, water bodies, attacks on people
Resident geese can produce major crop damage, and they threaten safety
near airports. E.g., in 1995, an AWACS plane flew into a flock of
geese; the resulting crash killed all 24 military personnel on board.
In urban areas, they can cause property damage, decimate vegetation,
contaminate water bodies, and increase erosion. They can make such a
mess that people stop using parks. They are also aggressive and will
charge children who are holding food or adults who surprise them while
they are nesting. During their molting period (late June) when they are
unable to fly, they can cause traffic accidents because they walk
everywhere, including in roadways. They may create predator-proof nests
in high places such as roofs. If they succeed in raising a brood
somewhere, they return to the same place, and their young learn to
return to the same place.
Abatement: scare away and reduce
populations, educate the public
You can manage goose concentrations with various techniques: propane
cannons, pyrotechnics, flagging, fencing, and increased hunting. Most
of these techniques are not usable in urban areas.
Hunting laws allow high bag limits (usually 5/day) before the migrants
arrive. Hunting has helped manage the exploding resident goose
population. Sixty to seventy years ago, it was thought that resident
geese were extinct. In 1970, the DNR estimated there were 1600 resident
geese in the state. Now there are probably 155,000. The breeding
population is increasing.
Education is important. People should not feed the geese. Local
ordinances can help enforce that idea. If you notice birds starting to
congregate, try to disperse them because they act as decoys and attract
more birds.
Non-lethal abatement methods include scare devices (like blow-up
figures that inflate on a timer), trained dogs, pyrotechnics,
repellents, and habitat alteration. If you discourage them in one
place, they will go to another nearby area.
They like a smooth transition from water to grass. So anything you can
do to break up that transition, like putting a band of rocks along the
shoreline, can help discourage them. Fences (plain and electric),
string grids, and big plants next to the shore are other methods. For
small ponds, stringing fishing line at 20-ft intervals interferes with
their ability to land in the water.
Because they are so adaptable, you may have to change your disruption
techniques from time to time.
Predators: skunks, raccoons, foxes,
coyotes
Skunks, raccoons, foxes, and coyotes normally don't take on an adult
goose, but they disrupt nests and will kill juvenile birds for food.
One area that had resident foxes stopped having any trouble with geese
because the foxes took out all the young birds.
Protected by treaty
Geese are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. You need a
federal permit to take eggs or birds.
Population management: reduce
breeding, increase mortality
It is our local decision what we'd like to do about the geese. Then we
apply for the permit.
Spraying 100% corn oil on the eggs suffocates the baby geese. However,
you need a permit to do this, and you need to check for new eggs that
the adults might produce. By adding dye to the spray and rechecking the
nest, you can see any new unsprayed eggs. If you break the eggs during
the adults' fertile period, they'll just produce replacement eggs. They
sit on the nests for 28 days. They're fertile for roughly 25 days of
that time.
Addling (shaking) the eggs is another option, but you have to shake for
a long time, and you need a permit.
Nests are hard to find. Geese love islands (for their protection) and
floating bogs. They can nest under bushes and trees. And you may be
attacked as you approach the nest.
2-year process to remove geese: test
for contaminants, then take birds away
Removing geese takes 2 years. The first year, the USDA collects 7 birds
and tests them for PCBs, mercury, lead, and pesticides. The 25
contaminant tests take a long time. The collection takes place near the
end of June when the geese are molting and can't fly.
If the birds test clean (so far, only one community has tested high for
PCBs), the following year the USDA harvests the agreed-upon number of
birds. It is wise to leave a few birds for goose lovers to enjoy so
that the community does not become divided between goose lovers and
goose haters.
The birds are handled, caged, and euthanized humanely. They are sent to
a licensed poultry processor, who turns the meat into gooseburger for
food pantries. Smaller birds are donated to animal sanctuaries for
food. So far, 1600 geese have been pantried or given to Native
Americans for food, and 1800 geese have been used for animal feed.
Effectiveness: manage the big adults
to allow other options to work
If you reduce the number of big adults, other less drastic options may
suffice to manage the geese in subsequent years. One community hasn't
contacted the USDA in 5 years after their first removal. When you have
a smaller population of geese, you attract fewer migrants because there
are fewer decoys.
Summary of actions
1. Reduce food and habitat.
2. Time your actions: act when the geese are nesting and flightless.
That's a roughly 3-week period in June.
3. Solicit neighborhood involvement.
4. Work with law enforcement.
5. Reduce geese to tolerable levels, but don't eliminate all geese.
6. Be proactive. Don't wait until the situation is out of control. If
you have a few geese now, you'll have more later.
Costs: $2000 and $2000
Dan has found a lower-cost lab. So tests for contaminants now run $2000
instead of $4000. Next year, it will cost roughly $2000 to remove some
birds. There is some grant money that may help defray the cost.
Disturb the nests right now
The geese are already nesting and probably sitting on eggs. This is the
time to disturb the nests.
Dan Hirchert can be reached at 1-800-433-0663. He will collect the 7
geese to test for contaminants and apply for a grant. He'll also let
Ron Vollmer know when he comes so that Ardie can take pictures for the
web site.
