Call to Order: Chairman Jim Hutchison called the meeting to order of the Stephenson Soil and Water Conservation District Board at 8:02 am on July 21, 2021. The board met in the Blackhawk Room at the Stephenson County Farm Bureau.

Roll Call: Present at the time the meeting was called to order were board members Jim Hutchison, Seth Wenzel, Dan Diaz, and Matt Schlachter; District employees Lorna Chezem, Administrative Coordinator; and Aaron Dinderman, Resource Conservationist; NRCS employee Abby Mielke, Soil Conservationist.

Not in attendance – Barb Klinger, Josh Franks, Hannah McWhirter, and Luke Tweeten

 

Approval of Minutes: Seth Wenzel moved to approve minutes of the June SWCD board meeting, seconded by Matt Schlachter. Voting aye: all. Motion passed.

 

Bills to be Paid: Seth Wenzel moved to approve the bills as listed on the monthly budget sheet for July; along with additions of Heidelburg WQL $1735.00 (2020 sampling program) and another PF invoice. seconded by Dan Diaz. Voting aye: all. Motion passed.

 

Review and Approval of Employee Time Sheets: Employee time sheets were passed around. Jim Hutchison moved to accept the employee timesheets, seconded by Matt Schlachter. Voting aye: all. Motion passed.

 

Action Items:

Stephenson County Board Report:  Garrett Miller

• County Board will be voting on a proposal to partner with the city on running water and sewer out to the cannabis plant at Mill Race Crossing. The proposed route of the water and sewer lines would be Lamm Road and would also connect Albertus Airport.
• Nursing home sale is going forward; many employees are leaving; they lost the finance/billing director. The county will hire a third party to fill this vacancy. There is an offer of 2 million dollars from an investment firm located in Rockford. No other offer can be accepted until after 60 days.
• The funds from the sale of the nursing home would be used to pay off the Mill Race Crossing and Jail debts.
• County is consulting with a management company to take over the nursing home if the sale does not go through.
• Repairs of the Kent monument should be close to completion.
• 100 cats were surrendered to animal control.
• Road work – resurfacing of Walnut Road to the fairgrounds is complete; it needs to be sealed after curing. McConnell road is also complete with the exception of the bridge, it will not be done until next year. Baileyville road is slated to be resurfaced next.
• County board is currently in the budget process.
• Terry Groves is retiring; Beth Henning is taking over. Also discussed was the lack of building code in Stephenson County and the encouragement of small farming.

 

Freeport City Council Report:  Randy Bukas/No report

 

CRP/Conservation Plans & CPO’s:  Aaron/Abby

• CRP 2’s have started coming over from FSA to NRCS in the past week or so and site visits were started.
• Status Reviews and ones from last year that had problems were taking up a lot of time. Josh Franks now wants a follow up visit done where deficiencies were noted.
• Changes to CRP due to Carla’s retirement – Randi is open to all suggestions for changes/improvements.
• No CRP CPO’s this month but should be some next month.

 

 

 

Contribution Agreement:  Aaron/Lorna/Abby

• FY22 CRP Contribution plan of work was received. This was given to Aaron, Abby and Randi who are going to come up with numbers for the plan of work.

 

EQIP Update:  Abby

• Work has been slow for EQIP – 3 contracts were signed and obligated last month.

 

CSP Update:  Abby

• Ranking cutoff is now complete; 19 applications were submitted; only 3 were selected. Have to do widespread practices to get in the program so it has not been as popular.

 

Programs / SWCD Updates:  Lorna/Aaron

• Scholarship application was passed/reviewed. Seth made a motion to accept the application; seconded by Matt Schlachter. Voting aye: all. Motion passed.
• FY22 Budget was discussed. Dan made a motion to accept the budget; seconded by Matt Schlachter. Voting aye: all. Motion passed.
• County Board Request was discussed. It was decided that ideas needed to be discussed at a separate meeting. Dan Diaz has volunteered to take the lead on this and organize a zoom conference.
• Newsletter – looking for new lab for well water sampling program, will slow the distribution of newsletter and possibly impact fish sale. Should fish order form be sent to prior buyers from last 2 or 3 years? Would be separate mailing/expense. It was decided to only offer the 2 tests from the current lab and finish/distribute the newsletter. Lorna can then make phone calls to other possible labs for future programs.
• CPP Projects – final FY20 funds were paid out.
• Local Work Group/Climate Change Discussion -All
  • Jim Hutchison passed out the article that he submitted for the newsletter.

 

Approve Reports as E-Mailed: Seth Wenzel moved to approve the reports as e-mailed from: Lorna Chezem, Aaron Dinderman, Abby Mielke, and Luke Tweeten; seconded by Matt Schlachter. Voting aye: all. Motion carried.

 

Informational Items:

Correspondence: None this month

 

Other Business:

• A discussion was held about opening up the scholarship rules to include freshman and sophomores; hoping that more people would apply.

 

Adjournment:

Having no other business, Chairman Hutchison adjourned the meeting at 10:00 am.

Barb Klinger, Treasurer/Secretary                     Notes recorded by Lorna Chezem.