November 2012 News - Lake Desire Community

Lake Desire Community Meeting 11-13-12 7:00 PM Clubhouse

1. Call to Order at 7:04pm- President Heather Smith In Attendance: Susan Hill, Dewey Hill, Dave Strahan, Diane Nichols, Craig Wallace, Lynn Jameson, Heather Smith, Suzy Gillett, Heather Stafford.

2. Treasurer’s Report – Suzy Gillett – This year the LDCC will have income that exceeds the budget expectations. This is due to an increase in rental and fundraiser activity, in addition to memberships and private donations. Thanks to Heather Smith for coordinating rentals, Heather Stafford for coordinating fundraisers, and the entire membership for investing in your community. Some of the extra funds have been used to remodel the main bathroom at the clubhouse but otherwise spending was kept to a minimum. For a complete and detailed treasurer's report please attend the January annual meeting. • Water Restoration/Clean Up Research – Craig Wallace is still looking through all the records to see how much funds we have earmarked for Water Restoration/Clean Up from the Finkbeiner funds.

3. Rentals – Income so far this year is way up from last year - $2,270.00 by the end of November, which is expected to go up due to additional rentals in December. Last year’s rentals only totaled $1,035, so we have really seen an uptick, and we are thinking this might be from the Lakedesire.org website which has the rental calendar on it.

4. Website – Transferred from Go Daddy to Namecheap. Transferred over hosting from Skagen Technology to Weebly. Awaiting final bills.

5. Lake Update – Ben Peterson and Ann Stevens from King County came to give an update on weed abatement program. They brought along PowerPoint slides with pictures of the noxious weeds and their staff and contractors doing the weed abatement this summer. They felt the program has gone well, and that they treated twice for both purple loosestrife and non-native water lily, and once for Eurasian water milfoil. For the milfoil they used an herbicide that they don’t foresee needing to use again this year, since there was no rain to dilute the application for such a long time this summer it stuck around longer than they expected. It will take another year of treating the non-native water lily to eradicate. They wanted to send a big thank you to the volunteers who helped with sign posting this year. They believe we met our yearly commitment for volunteer hours and even went over, so thank you! There was an additional question about Bullrush – how to treat? Ben said that he could provide advice on treatment, and that if it is a small area on your own beach that you don’t need a permit to treat. Long term program plan – treat again next summer, and then 90-95% of the plants will be eradicated. These plants don’t grow all that quickly so it probably took decades to get to this level of weed proliferation. Then every few years after the program is complete they recommend having KC or us hiring a spraying contractor to keep it in check. Another suggestion was to have the Community Center buy a cutter to check out to neighbors who would like to cut weeds in the lake around their beaches. This would be done in early summer. Lake Steward committee should consider this and make a proposal. Yellow flag iris was mentioned, and it was requested that the County help us get a permit to treat for that next summer, and volunteers could be trained and used to treat it. It is not part of the grant. It was suggested maybe to get a community weed rake for any residents who wanted to use it. This would need to be proposed from a Lake Quality Committee depending on what the lake priorities are.

6. Clean- Ups – Heather Stafford • Outlet Cleanup – No one attended the last two outlet cleanups advertised. Nick is unavailable to coordinate any more of these events. With regards to the outlet, we will instead investigate Beaver resources that the county can provide links to.

7. Neighborhood Issues • Beaver Damage to Trees- David Strahan came and brought a bag of large wood chips to follow up the pictures of the trees that a beaver damaged. There is concern about flooding due to the beaver dam at the outlet. This issue is being referred to the Lake Clean Up/Restoration Committee for investigation. We asked Ben Peterson if he had any advice on managing the Beavers. See his email response below. • McGarvey Park Open Space Forest Stewardship Plan – Anyone interested in Tree Planting? There is a Cub Scout event on February 9, 2013 planned – Contact Heather Smith, Heather@smith.net if interested.

8. Neighborhood Watch/Emergency Preparedness – Phyllis Miller, postponed.

9. Fundraisers/Events – • Christmas Event – Dec 14th – 6pm – Need volunteers – Potluck of light appetizers and sweets. We are still looking for a volunteer/neighbor to play Santa. Vi Anderson will coordinate gifts for the children.

10. Maintenance: • Outdoor light on tree is not working, and there may be electrical issues. Suzy Gillett is meeting with PSE soon to discuss options for lighting the parking lot, maybe they could add a pole. • Still need Lake Desire sign put up – The original ideas was to put on culdesac corner when coming in from Woodside. It was confirmed County property. Need to make decision on whether to put up at next work party. • Ground Maintenance – Colton Snure will clean up leaves this month, and clean off roof next month after wind storm. - $400 per year. (10 mows per year @$40 each)

11. Capital Project Ideas: • Roof on shed • New flooring in clubhouse • Update other bathroom/kitchen

12. Slate of Officers so far for 2013 • President – Heather Stafford • Vice President – Suzy Gillett • Secretary – Tammie Cook • Treasurer – Heather Smith • Board of Directors – Craig Wallace

13. Fundraiser Ideas • Another wine tasting – Heather Stafford will check in about a possible February wine tasting to raise money for the center.

14. Meeting Adjourned at 8:34pm. Beaver Email Suggestions: • Ben Peterson - As for beaver resources, there seems to be a lot of information out there, by both King County and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. I think the best next contact would be someone from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (probably the North Puget sound office: http://wdfw.wa.gov/about/regions/region4/ ). Here are some web pages I found: King County beaver web page: http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/animalsAndPlants/beavers.aspx Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife beaver web page:, http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/beavers.html Also, I looked at the property ownership map via iMAP (http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/GIS/Maps/iMAP.aspx ). I have attached a map that I made. It looks like the actual outlet area is private ownership and the King County Parks ownership starts about 100' downstream of that. So, depending on where the beaver dam activity is, it may be on Parks property, private property, or both. There is a private property owner (both PIN# 4010800095 and 4010800090). As for a good contact person for King County Parks, I would contact Duane Evans, the KC Parks District Maintenance Coordinator: duane-jay.evans@kingcounty.gov 206-205-0601. • Lynn Jameson suggested a Beaver Deceiver: http://www.king5.com/news/local/County-hopes-beaver-deceiver-will-help-prevent-breach-near-Duvall-180447701.html. These are very pricey unfortunately.