The beaver dam causing the Cramer Road to flood has been blown up. The dam had been clogging up the culvert under the road on an ongoing basis. “I’m hoping that will discourage them,” Schroeder Supervisor Roger “Bill” McKeever said at the October 8, 2013 meeting of the Schroeder Township Board.
The culvert is very rusty, McKeever said, and has been compromised from the effect of removing beaver logs so many times. He guessed it would cost $4,000 to replace.
McKeever and Fire Chief Phil Bonin agreed that there seems to be some sort of “beaver highway” between the beaver dam at Cramer Road and the one at the gravel pit.
Township park improvements
Skip Lamb said the task force working on improvements to the Schroeder Township Park and Father Baraga’s Cross area was waiting for cost estimates on the work they anticipate doing. Plans include a picnic shelter and a pit toilet.
“There’s a lot of traffic down there and a lot of unhappy residents down there,” Rick Anderson said. He recommended that they hold a meeting in the summer when seasonal residents are here. He said the township had not been transparent about meetings that have been held to talk about the work being planned for the park. Lamb said several public meetings have already been held, but he would let Greg Miron, chair of the task force, know that some people would like more public meetings. Supervisor Tina McKeever said they have put notifications in the Cook County News-Herald, at the post office, on the board outside the town hall, and on WTIP Radio. “We try to get the word out to as many people as we possibly can in Schroeder,” she said.
Anderson said he thought liability issues and road maintenance costs would increase for the township if the park had greater usage. “If you double or triple the traffic on there, someday you will have to improve it,” he said. He added that if finding money for brushing roads is already an issue for the township, then they should think about the cost of extra traffic on Father Baraga Road. He said, “We need to be a little cautious,” but he also said he did not have a problem with enhancing the park.
Tina Mckeever said she would relay Anderson’s concerns to Greg Miron. All these concerns have answers, said Skip Lamb.
In other Schroeder news:
. The Schroeder Town Park now has a handicap-accessible picnic table donated by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
. The board will wait until the November meeting to open snowplowing bids that had been received as of the October 8 meeting because a request for bids was inadvertently not sent to one of the previous plowers. It will be sent out in time for the plow operator to return before the November 3 meeting.
. Linda Lamb reported a successful 10th anniversary party for the Cross River Heritage Center. She said the Schroeder Area Historical Society has realized that they have taken a lot of videos in the last 10 years but don’t have a lot of still photos.
. Carol Tveekrem will be working with Gale Ring to keep track of who is buried where in the township cemetery.
. A beautiful new faucet has been installed in the town hall ladies’ bathroom to replace the leaky one.
. At the request of the Birch Grove Foundation, the township is donating some blue parson’s chairs to the foundation for its library. Deputy Clerk Gale Ring said those chairs were a good choice “since they don’t go with our décor!”
. At the request of the Cook County Highway Department, the township will be confirming that its roads have the same number of miles as they had last year.
. Gale Ring said Todd Campbell of the Minnesota Department of Transportation sent a thank-you note to the township for the thank-you note the township sent to him after some work was done on Highway 61.
Leave a Reply