Lake Herman Sanitary District

The Lake Herman Sanitary District finds itself in an unusual situation. The sewage board lacks a quorum. Last month, long-time sanitary district board member Lawrence Dirks died. That leaves one vacancy on the board. A second seat on the board has sat vacant for the last three years. Cory Allen Heidelberger is the only current board member. A three-member board requires a quorum of two members to do business. Statute does not permit one board member to wield power unilaterally. Therefore, technically, the Lake Herman Sanitary District is unable to conduct any business.

The Lake Herman Sanitary District as two openings for residents who would like to serve on the board. Cory Heidelberger's three-year term ends this summer. A second seat on the board remains vacant, for a term that runs through July 2011.

The next Lake Herman Sanitary District meeting will be Wednesday, May 26, at 6:30 p.m., at the Madison Public Library meeting room. I'll post a formal agenda closer to the meeting; for now, the agenda looks pretty simple: we'll officially set our election date, then approve a couple of septic tank permits.

On the election, one seat comes open for a three-year term. Plus, we still have that vacancy. If you'd like to take a petition out for either seat, contact me, and I'll hook you up with the right paperwork.

Back at our September meeting, a resident asked how the Lake Herman Sanitary District's budget reserve compared to the reserve balancces carried by other governmental entities. I just noticed that the Madison City Commission agenda for November 30, 2009, includes on pages 13 and 14 a breakdown of city reserves as of October 2009. Last month, the city held $4.15 million in designated reserves and $1.37 million in restricted reserves.

The Lake Herman Sanitary District budget process for fiscal year 2010 is complete. At Wednesday's meeting, the board voted to maintain the $2000 tax assessment that it has levied for the past three years.

We head into our Wednesday budget meeting with a little better picture of the scope of sanitary district powers. Input from counsel and from the state Attorney General's office makes it pretty clear that sanitary district powers are limited to wastewater issues (see attachment below). We lack the authority to act on some of the qater quality issues and project ideas brought up at our last meeting.

Some say no news is good news. In this case, the news is that there is no news:

The big question at our meeting last night (8/19) was just what sort of projects the sanitary district can undertake. When I first joined the board in 2006, I had hoped we might be able to put district funds to use on water quality projects. However, state law (SDCL 34A-5-26) defines a pretty strict set of powers for sanitary districts.