August 2018 Minutes
Evergreen Township Minutes August 13th, 2018
The Evergreen Township Board met August 13th for their regular meeting at Todd & Rana Holmer’s home. Present were: Betty Janke, Rana & Todd Holmer, Scott Ulschmid and Steve Wilkowski Jr.
Steve called the meeting to order. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved as read.
Betty read her treasurer’s report of money paid out, money received, money on hand in savings and checking. Balance on hand is $86,587.99. Todd made a motion to approve the treasurer’s report. Second by Scott. All present in favor.
Steve made a motion to pay bills. Second by Todd. All present in favor. Bills presented for payment are as follows: Lake Region Electric $31.17 for electric at town hall, Dan Oelfke $3060.00 for 34 hours of road blading, Midwest Specialties $3,366 for 306 yds class 5 gravel, Grant Graham Excavating $704 to mark culvert on 450th and move Minimum Maintenance sign from 120th to 440th, Frazee Forum $189.00 for Candidate Filing Notices, Julie Slevin $175.00 for election judge training and Primary Election Judging, Todd Holmer $100 for machine hire to spray ditches, Rana Holmer $1237.50 for 450 gophers, total board wage of $350.81. Todd motion to transfer $9300.00 second by Scott. All present in favor.
Steve motion to certify Township Road Certification for the County. Todd second. All present in favor.
Scott talked to Keith Schwichtenburg who now owns property along Hwy 87 and the vacated 125th st. Keith was wondering if the road closed sign could be removed. Supervisors all agreed that the sign must stay up. Also received a call from Warren Bachmann regarding thistles on both of his neighbors properties and gophers on just one of them. Todd received the same call and went and checked the fields. Steve Schmitz to the north of Warren’s was sent a notice for the thistles. Beckner’s on the south was deemed ok due to forbes and pollinator plants are taking over the field. Todd did contact the County Ag inspector to verify and she agreed that it would do more damage to clip thistles. Todd didn’t see a big gopher problem at this time. It will need to be watched for next year.
Todd did send one weed notice to the County due to not being taken care of by property owner after Todd sent the initial notice. The County Ag inspector checks every site to make sure it is a significant issue before she sends a demand letter. Todd was able to talk to the residents on the west end of 110th and was able to confirm that someone will be there year round and the road is slippery when it rains. Scott confirmed with Roger Quittschreiber that his house on end of Fir will also be rented year round and the road could use gravel too.
Todd motion to gravel west end of 110th and Fir with 250 yds each and have Dan pull the shoulders in on 110th. Second by Steve. All present in favor. Todd will contact Dan and a map with new roads to gravel will be sent to Merle with his check.
Todd also contacted Kelly Schwarzrock regarding his noise complaint. Todd informed that due to no other complaints and the limited time that the noise is present that the board would not be passing any noise ordinance at this time. He told Kelly that that is a complicated and costly to pass an ordinance. Kelly was upset about nothing being done and wanted to know where all his tax money is spent. Todd informed that roads are the major expense, to which Kelly responded that we only have 4 miles. Todd told him it was more like 24. Kelly also questioned the mail in ballots and felt the township was being secretive since no meetings or elections are at the townhall. Todd told him the mail in ballots was decided by the voters of the township and the townhall was deemed unsafe at the Annual Meeting, by residents that were there, and the new location was approved by them. They all felt there would be a significant cost to the residents if we were to build a new townhall. Todd also said that we have a website with all of our minutes and etc posted, so that our residents have a way of getting the information if they need it. Kelly felt that other townships would have passed an ordinance, but couldn’t tell Todd which ones would do it.
Rana informed that the Road & Bridge levy that was tabled needs to be decided at the September meeting. District 9 has their meeting coming up next week by Alexandria. Scott might be interested in going. Rana also talked to Craig Bruns, who owns land by the former minimum maintenance portion of 120th, reagarding the possibility of putting some snow fence up on his field this fall to help with drifting on that road. He was fine with it as long as he was still able to get into the field for deer hunting. Rana was able to get his phone number so we can contact him before we do anything.
Steve thought that it would be better to put snow fence up on the north side of the road. Todd thought the drifting problem was due to the south side of the road being higher than the north. We will need to talk to the residents on the end of road and clarify where the problem was and where we may possibly put up snow fence. Supervisors than discussed the road and bridge levy regarding where they think the needs will be and the money needed. They are considering raising it just to keep us current with the increasing costs associated with road maintenance.
Having no further business, Steve made a motion to adjourn. All present in favor.
Respectfully submitted, Rana Holmer, Clerk