
Property owners and residents of the Lilly Lake Protection and Rehabilitation District will get a chance to vote on whether to proceed with creating an outlet that could solve chronic high water conditions there.
Wheatland’s town engineer Len Roecker outlined three possibilities for an outlet recommended in a study of how to relieve the high water problem at a special meeting of the district Saturday at Wheatland Town Hall.
With no natural outlet, heavy rain two of the last three years has raised Lilly Lake to slow no wake level for much of 2017 and 2019. That means boating at a speed that causes a wake is prohibited. The lack of an outlet means the lake’s level mostly changes from evaporation.
Consensus at the meeting was to pursue a plan that would build a non adjustable concrete weir at a drainage easement on the southeast side of the lake that will feed into two 16-inch pipes that will carry water to 80th Street, where they will feed water into a culvert under 80th Street into a wetlands that will feed into Bassett Creek and ultimately into the Fox River. With a show of hands of the about 50 people present, only two opposed that option.
Roecker estimated the cost of that option at $125,000.
Lake levels will still increase with heavy rain, Roecker said, but with the outlet constructed water levels would return to a more normal level in about a week to 10 days.
Lake District commissioners, who are also the Town Board members, tentatively set a date of Feb. 22 or 29 for the vote. Property owners will be notified in advance of the place, date and time of the vote. Voters will have to attend that day. There will be no absentee voting, said town Clerk Sheila Siegler. The vote likely will not take place at Town Hall, but somewhere with more capacity.
Who exactly can vote will be reviewed by the town attorney, Siegler said. State statues seem to suggest property owners as well as permanent residents of the district are entitled to vote.
Much of the discussion at the meeting was about who would pay for the outlet project. Some audience members felt the town, not just the utility district residents, ought to foot the bill.
Siegler presented an estimate of how costs per property owner might look if only the about 300 properties in the lake district paid for the project through an assessment. For her example, Siegler used a loan amount of $150,000, and an interest rate of 5 percent. For a one-year loan the payment would be $226.51 per $100,000 of assessed property value. A five year payoff would be $49.93 per $100,000 of assessed property value for each of the five years.
While most of the audience members — virtually all who appeared to be owners of lakeshore property — favored the one year option, Siegler suggested it might be wise to include an multi-year option as part of the formal vote.
About 100 of the district’s approximately 300 properties are on the lake.