West End News: March 30

This past Monday the Birch Grove Task Force reached an agreement. This final consensus is the result of more than three months of fact-finding and negotiation by a committee representing all of the various interests connected to the Birch Grove Building in Tofte. The Consensus Agreement is a carefully balanced set of recommendations made for the decisions makers, including the Birch Grove Community School Board, W.E. Connect Board of Directors and the Township Boards of Tofte, Lutsen, and Schroeder.

The next step is for the agreed upon recommendations to be accepted or rejected by those decision making entities I just mentioned. These groups must accept or reject the consensus as a complete agreement. Any changes would require the Task Force Conciliation Committee to meet again and agree upon the alterations.

These types of community consensus agreements provide powerful and enduring solutions to complex community issues. There is no explicit term on the effect of the agreement, but typically this type of consensus endures until there are significant changes in circumstances. In which case, it would be a good idea to reconvene a community conciliation process to produce a new agreement.

This agreement is fully supported by every member of the Birch Grove Task force Conciliation Committee. Many thanks are due to the committee members for their patience, commitment and hard work in reaching community consensus. Thanks are also due to Bill Hansen, who graciously volunteered his time to facilitate the process.

As an outfitter, each spring we watch the waning ice thickness with a mixture of excitement and anticipation. A bit like the calm before the storm of visitors. Many inland lakes right now are currently covered in large puddles of standing water. Upon encountering this scene on our daily ski the other day we thought it prudent to measure the ice before venturing out too far.

Lest you worry about us, the ice on Sawbill is still 24 inches, solid. There’s about four inches of hard packed slush and snow on top of the ice, and an abundance of big sloppy puddles on top of that. Puddle skiing doesn’t get enough credit - if you don’t mind sloppy socks. On a still sunny day, the puddles reflect the blue sky and patches of snow become the fluffy clouds. Standing in the middle of this on a large lake with the blue expanse stretching out overhead and reflected below your feet, it feels for all the world like you are skiing on the ski.

For WTIP, I’m Clare Shirley with the West End News.