Rick Gundrum is the Best of the Best for Assembly

We have some good local candidates running in the upcoming Assembly election, but Rick Gundrum is the best of the best.  Rick is the only candidate that has served for 12 years in a legislative role, and in that role he has taken the tough votes and negotiated the tough compromises that comes with being a legislator.

In my time on the County Board, Rick Gundrum has been an outstanding Chairman.  The County has continued to reduce our debt to extremely low levels, reduce our tax rate to the lowest in 100 years, maintain a balanced budget, and maintain strong financial reserves.  Levy limits force us to make budget reductions each year, but with Rick as our leader we make them while maintaining a fiscally strong government.

Like Scott Walker, Rick Gundrum substantially reduced his own pay as County Board Chairman.  Rick was a leader in making our County Board smaller and more efficient, by reducing the number of County Board Supervisors.  Rick has worked to eliminate gratuitous per diem payments to County Board Supervisors.  Rick has eliminated unnecessary meetings, making our County Government more efficient.  Rick also continues to seek out opportunities to eliminate redundant services by combining services with surrounding communities and counties.  

Rick Gundrum has worked to prevent major retailers from shirking their property tax responsibilities to the City and County, by pushing their tax burdens on homeowners. Rick will take that fight to Madison, where he will join forces with Duey Stroebel in eliminating the dark-store loophole.

It has been a privilege to serve with him as the Chairman of our County Board, and to work with him on these efforts.  Rick will be an even greater benefit to our community in the Assembly, so I encourage everyone to vote for Rick Gundrum on December 19.

Christopher D. Bossert

County Board Supervisor

District 3

Night Meetings for County Board Start in May

In May, we will shift County Board meetings to the evenings, with a 6:00 start time.  This is something I led the fight for.  I want to give the public easy access to meetings. 

Some of the old guard on the board don't like this, and are recruiting past board members from the old guard to run again, hoping to move meetings back to 9:00 a.m.  They want to make it more difficult for the public to attend meetings.  Despite every other legislative body in Washington County meeting in the evenings (every city council, every town board, every school board), they want daytime meetings.

Daytime meetings raise suspicion about what we are doing.  I have received a lot of feedback from people who were angry that meetings on key issues were being held in the daytime.  They thought we were trying to do something sneaky, and that's why we wanted to make it hard for the public to attend.  I even talked to someone whose employer was a County Board Supervisor, who wouldn't let her off from work so that she could attend a meeting on an issue that was important to her.

I want to keep meetings in the evenings, so that anyone from the public can attend, without having to take off from work.

Should The County Purchase Wally & Bee's?

At Tuesday's County Board meeting, our main issue will involve whether or not to purchase Wally & Bee's, so that it can be added to Glacial Hills County Park.  Last fall, our Public Works Committee authorized the County Administrator and his staff to enter into discussions about this very question, and this Tuesday they will report back to the full board on the status of negotiations (in a closed session). 

Once we hear back from them, I will be deciding how I will vote on this (and 25 other Supervisors will be making that same decision for themselves).  We might vote to buy it, or if it does not look like a fair deal we might vote to continue negotiating or break off all negotiations.

Some key factors:

• The project would add a beach to the County Park, and would also convert a privately-owned boat launch to a County Boat launch.
• For larger boats, this boat launch is the only useable boat launch in that lake system.  The local community is very invested in maintaining access to this boat launch for that reason, and converting it into a county park is the most favored option for accomplishing that.
• The original asking price from the owners was around $1 million dollars, which I know is an expensive price tag.
• The Parks Department last fall had estimated a need for spending around $1 million to improve the land, remove the par, and covert it to park use.  This brings the total project cost to around $2 million.
• The County has had an interest in purchasing this land for several decades.
• We implemented the park sticker program with the goal of improving our priority parks, like Glacier Hills.
• The owners are looking to retire, and have the property actively listed for sale.
• The appraised value (which we will find out on Tuesday).
• After a year of negotiating, many of these numbers have probably changed.  We will get the update on Tuesday.

We are not alone in this endeavor.  There is significant financial assistance coming from the DNR, the Village of Richfield, and the local homeowners association.  Many homeowners are willing to put in some of their own money towards this project.  One homeowner who contacted me this week specifically pledged $5,000 of his own money towards this project. 

Last fall, this financial assistance was at a level where is would cover almost 2/3rds of the total cost ($1.25 million in outside assistance) leaving the county to fund only $750,000.  That's still a lot of money, but it is a lot better than having the County on the hook for the full $2 million.

Information Gathering

To research this issue, I went out to Wally & Bee's and took a look at what we would be buying.  After all, sometimes seeing things first-hand is best.  I also surveyed the other boat launch, and confirmed that it really is only useable for smaller boats.  You can see the narrow channel, and with the snow-cover it is difficult to gauge just how narrow that channel might be.

I also pulled up a few sometime pictures from their website and the internet:

I also took some pictures of the other boat launch.  You can see the channel the boats have to maneuver through to reach the lake.

After reviewing all of this, if you are from my district and have thoughts on this issue, please contact me.

Update, at the County Board the decision was made to explore converting the lakeshore to an easement, which would ensure public boating access to the lake without buying the rest of the bar, or the 4 acres behind it (Wally & Bee's owns a narrow 5 acre strip of land).

Support Our County Parks---Buy a Park Sticker

Our County Administrator sent this message out today:

• Washington County Parks Sticker – Please consider purchasing a Parks Sticker for yourself, friends or family this holiday season!  It is a great gift and a great way to support our Parks and our County, ensuring that we can have nice parks while continuing to have things like the 2% COLA in 2018!  Thank you for your consideration and support! https://www.washcoparks.com/parks/passes/

When I ran, I promised that i would work to keep valuable resources that have made our community strong, like the County Parks System.  Because of levy limits, the way to preserve our Parks System and grow it is to make is self-sustaining, and that meant implementing park stickers.  Waukesha County has done this for years, and it has been very successful.  Not implementing park stickers would leave the future of our park system in an uncertain status.

I plan to but my parks sticker in the next few weeks, and encourage everyone to consider doing the same.

Understanding Washington County's Budget Situation

The County has had to make a lot of adjustments to our budget over the last few years.  I am going to attempt to explain why.

First, let's look at the County's situation from a big-picture perspective:

What we have:

• Reasonably healthy financial reserves (savings account), which are at about $12-$15 million at last check.
• A lot of land and buildings.
• Very low debt.  In fact, of the 72 counties in Wisconsin, we have one of the lowest debt rates when compared to population.
• Low employee count.  At about 850 employees, we have one of the lowest employee to population ratios of any county in Wisconsin.

Where we fall short:

• Annual budget---each year, due to levy limits, we experience about a $2 million increase in our recurring annual expenses while our revenues only increase by about $300,000.  This gives us a renewing $1.7 million dollar structural budget deficit.  Each year, we have to start our budget for the upcoming year by looking at last year's budget and removing about $1.7 million in expenses.  These numbers vary a bit, year to year, but they give us a good approximation of what we are dealing with.

I had one former County Board Supervisor tell me that we should not make any adjustments, but instead just fund those programs we'd like to adjust out of our reserves.  That's what the State of Illinois decided to do about 10 years ago, and it's why they are in fiscal peril now.  Let's look at what would happen if the County took that approach, starting with 2019 (since 2018's budget is already set):

• 2019-If we assume the best case scenario, we have $15 million in reserves.  We fund $1.7 million dollars in programs out of our reserves, reducing our reserves to $13.3 million.
• 2020-Since we did not deal with 2019's budget deficit, we start 2020's budget with a $1.7 million dollar deficit from 2019 (these are recurring annual expenses, after all) and add in the new expense increase of another $1.7 million.  we now have a total of $3.4 million that we need to fund out of our reserves.  Our $13.3 million by the end of 2020 is down to $9.9 million.
• 2021-Since we did not deal with 2019's or 2020's budget deficits, we start 2021's budget with a $3.4 million dollar deficit and add in the expense increase of another $1.7 million.  We now have a total of $5.1 million that we need to fund out of our reserves.  Our $9.9 million by the end of 2021 is down to $4.8 million.
• 2022-Since we did not deal with 2019's, 2020's, or 2021's budget deficits, we start 2020's budget with a $5.1 million dollar deficit and add in the expense increase of another $1.7 million.  We now have a total of $6.8 million that we need to fund out of our reserves.  Our $4.8 million by the end of 2022 is down to a negative $2 million, meaning we now need to borrow $2 million dollars.
• 2023-Since we did not deal with 2019's, 2020's, 2021's, or 2022's budget deficits, we start 2023's budget with a $6.8 million dollar deficit and add in the expense increase of another $1.7 million.  We now have a total of $8.5 million that we need to fund out of our reserves.  Since we have no reserves left, we need to borrow all $8.5 million, in addition to the $2 million we borrowed in 2022.  We have now increased the County debt by $10.5 million.

So in 5 years, we have burned through $15 million in reserve funds and have now borrowed $10.5 million.  If we try to go a sixth year in this approach, our new borrowing increases by $10.2 million to a total of $20.7 million borrowed over 2022-2024.  The problem just keeps getting worse until we deal with it. 

I can easily see how unsustainable this is, and I am sure you can too.  At some point we have to make budget adjustments or our situation just keeps getting worse and worse year by year.  Delaying those adjustments only makes our situation more precarious. 

I ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility, and that means balancing our budget each year.  We balanced our budget in 2017 and 2018, and need to continue making the tough choices we have been making.

During the first few years of levy limits, finding adjustments to make was very easy.  Over the years, the budget adjustments have become less easy each year.  This year, we are now looking at agencies like the Economic Development of Washington County (EDWC), a gold-star partner that has brought nearly 1,500 jobs to Washington County over the last few years.  We don't want to be making adjustments to their budget, because they are such a great partner for us and they have accomplished so much.  Unfortunately, we are at the point where we have to start looking at agencies like the EDWC.  In their case, they are showcasing their professionalism by developing a solution that will ensure that they remain sustainable and viable while completely removing themselves from the County's tax levy.

We have other programs that we need to make similar transitions with.  4-H is one of them.  4-H is an organization that is very personal to me, as my kids have both been in 4H for quite a few years.  As important as 4-H is to me, I understand the need to make adjustments.  I was at our County Administrator's presentation to 4-H, and I know they saw the need to make adjustments.  Like EDWC, 4-H appears to be interested in developing a plan over the next few year to make themselves much more self-sustainable and to present that plan to the County Board in 2 or 3 years.

I know that many of the other programs we are looking at are just as important to others in the community as 4-H is to me.  You may have a particular program that is important to you, and wish that the county would continue to fund it at the current level.  I  don't want to cut any of these programs off cold-turkey, or set any of them up to fail.  I also believe that many, if not most, of the other County Board Supervisors feel the same way.  Hopefully each program will work to find ways in which they can become much more self-sustainable.

Renewing My United Way Committment

Last year (2017) I made a commitment to give 1 month of my County Board Supervisor salary to the United Way. Yesterday, I renewed that commitment for 2018. I stopped in at the County's Human Resources office and completed my pledge card, to have monthly deductions equal to 1 month of my salary, with donations to be split between the Heroine Task Force, Elevate, Family Promise, and NAMI-Washington County. I didn't get elected to hoard money for myself, but to serve the community, and returning a portion of my salary to the community furthers that service.

Important Quasi-Governmental Agency Committee Meeting (Postponed)

On Monday, we will be having an important meeting of the Quasi-Governmental Agency Committee.  This committee was formed by the Executive Committee with the goal of helping several agencies transition off of the County Tax Levy.  On Monday, the EDWC (Economic Development Corporation of Washington County) will be presenting a plan they created to remove themselves from the tax levy.

I have always had a tremendous respect for the EDWC and Christian Tscheschlok.  They have brought 2,222 and more than $146 million in wages jobs to Washington County.  They have always been a consummate partner with the County, and I look forward to seeing the solution they have come up with.  The fact that they arrived at their own solution to this issue, and are presenting it to us, is a sign of their professionalism and commitment to the best interests of our County.

The EDWC receives about $97,000 in support from the County's tax levy.


Update: This afternoon's meeting has been postponed, as a couple of Supervisors have schedule conflicts.

Say NO to Janesville Politicians Representing West Bend

The race to replace Bob Ganon for the 58th Assembly District is heating up.  Local Candidates Tiffany Koehler, Steve Stanek, and Rick Gundrum, all of whom are very good, have already declared.  I have worked with Rick a lot over the last year, and also have come to know Tiffany over the last year.  I met Steve last week and was impressed.  Any of the 3 of them would represent our district well.

The Republican Party will also have a 4th candidate, a parachute candidate (see below if you are not sure what a parachute candidate is)  from Janesville whose name I won't even mention but who bears the initials SZ. 

I don't support parachute candidates, and I won't support this individual at all. 

I encourage everyone to look at the good local candidates, Stanek, Gundrum, and Koehler, before voting for an out-of-towner. I have not yet decided which of them I will vote for, but I will support all of them.


Parachute Candidate---https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_candidate "also known as a “carpetbagger” in the United States, is a pejorative term[1] for an election candidate who does not live in and has little connection to the area he or she is running to represent. The allegation is thus that the candidate is being “parachuted in” for the job..."

Heroin Lawsuit

Last week Tuesday, at our annual budget meeting, we also passed a resolution authorizing the County to sue several pharmaceutical companies for improper marketing.  In deciding to support this, there were some key factors I considered:

• 5 out of 6 heroin addicts started with prescription opioid pain killers.
• More then 98% of all prescribed opioids are not prescribed by pain specialists, but instead by general care doctors (the lawsuit contends that the pharmaceutical companies, through a shadow marketing campaign, convinced general practitioners that opioid were not addictive and were good long-term pain relief solutions).
• Many pharmaceutical companies have paid fines to the government for improper marketing, as well as failures to report cases where opioids were over-prescribed.  The pharmaceutical companies did not in any way protest or challenge the fines, in essence admitting guilt.

I introduced 2 amendments, one which sought to make sure our lawsuit pursued practice reform (make pharmaceutical companies stop mis-marketing opioid drugs) and one that stated our intent to use some of the proceeds towards heroin prevention and treatment efforts.

I know Supervisor Kelling had some concerns about this lawsuit, and I share some of those concerns.  I know he is an avid supporter of efforts to stop the heroin epidemic, and supports the great work that Elevate and the Washington County Heroin Task Force have done.

Anytime there is any type of class action lawsuit, and this lawsuit in my mind would be in the realm of class action law suits, I always have a concern that there might be lawyers who are drumming up work for themselves where there may not be a legitimate claim.  In this case, I feel reasonably secure in believing that the pharmaceutical companies have mis-marketed opioids, and that mis-marketing may be a significant contributor to the current opioid crisis.

I was asked if this lawsuit was like suing the gun manufacturer for make guns.  In my mind, it would be more like suing the gun manufacturer for dishonestly telling gun retailers that someone could get shot in the face with a .22 and be fine (I know that's not a perfect analogy, but you get what I mean).  It's not about making Opioids, it's about deliberately misinforming doctors.

County Property Tax Rate Goes Down Again

Last week Tuesday, the County Board voted unanimously on a budget that reduces the County's portion of the 2018 property tax rates.  The actual rate decrease is about $.08 ($.0875 to be precise) per thousand dollars of home value.  This represents a 3.4% reduction in the tax rate.

This means that a home worth $200,000 will see a tax decrease of about $17.50 from the county for 2018.  That's pretty good considering that the county property tax is only 15% of your property tax bill.  It the West Bend School Board and the City of West Bend follow suit, your property taxes will see a nice decrease.

Let's Talk Sales Tax

The City of West Bend has some financial issues.  I don't fault the current Mayor, or the current Common Council.  They inherited a financial mess, and the darkstore lawsuits filed by retailers like Walgreens, Shop-ko, Menards, and Meijer haven't helped them at all.  They want a new revenue stream to fix their budget, and they are eying the County Sales Tax.



I would love to get rid of the sales tax completely.  I wasn't on the board back in the 90s, when it was put in place, but instead inherited it.  I ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility, and removing a revenue source that composes 17% of our revenue is not fiscally responsible.  The County has worked hard to remain in great financial shape.  Sharing our sales tax would mean that we would have to cut important services that the County currently provides to residents throughout the County, including West Bend.  Losing this essential revenue source would penalize us for our hard work in maintaining a fiscally sustainable budget.



The City of West Bend created their situation, they are going to have to look internally for solutions, it's that simple.

To Mayor Barrett: "No, We Won't Fund Your Boondoggle Trolleys"

At this week's (September 2017's) County Board Meeting, the resolution on the table was to endorse Vision 2050, a regional transportation plan that included $360 million in annual transportation funding, all of it to fund rail projects in Milwaukee including a massive expansion of the boondoggle trolley system and several light rail projects.  Vision 2050 proposed paying for this with a new tax structure, including 6 regional tax increases and a new regional tax based on vehicle miles traveled.

From the floor, I made a motion to amend our resolution.  I proposed 1) withholding our endorsement of rail projects, including commuter lines, trolleys, street cars, subways, elevated rail, light rail, rapid transit rail lines, or rail projects by any other name, 2) withholding out approval of Milwaukee public transportation projects unless they were funded by Milwaukee, and 3) withholding our approval of any regional tax.  This motion passed unanimously, sending a clear message to Mayor Barrett: "No, we won't fund your boondoggle trolley."

The plan itself was massive, with rail lines, trolleys, anti-vehicle transportation engineering, and loads of other nonsense.  The funding part of it was not placed within the plan itself.  I had to look for the funding piece, and I am glad I did.

I explain the tax structure Milwaukee proposed in this article:  http://district3bossert.blogspot.com/2018/01/understanding-milwaukees-regional-tax.html.

Below is an image from the plan, showing the 7 proposed taxes:

More Shared Services

When you read today's Washington County Daily News, you'll see that the County is looking to do more partnerships with neighboring Counties.  This could be similar to the partnership we formed with Ozaukee County where we merged our Public Health Departments.  It could also be more extreme, to the level of merging county government with another county (Ozaukee makes a lot of sense here).  The goal is to maintain a fiscally sustainable financial model for County government.

For me, the only thing that is off the table is partnering with Milwaukee County.  That is a non-starter for me, and I suspect that many other Supervisors share this sentiment.  Milwaukee only looks to form partnerships for the purpose of dumping their out-of-control costs on other communities.

Our County Administrator is inviting several other Counties to open a dialogue with him on potential shared services arrangements.  The Counties he sent this invitation to include Ozaukee, Waukesha, Fond Du Lac, and Dodge. 
Since this is all in the very preliminary stages, the timetable for any changes in fluid, and it would probably be at least a few years before any changes would be implemented.

Why is our fiscal situation unsustainable?
The simple answer is tax levy limits. 

A normal organization, any organization, experiences an increase in costs of about 2% each year.  For our County, this cost takes the form of increased costs for purchasing sheriff's patrol vehicles, pay raises for employees, increases to costs in service agreements, etc..  Since our County's budget is $125 million dollar, this equated to about $2.5 million in new expenses each year.

On the revenue side, levy limits only allow us to raise the tax levy based on the net new construction in the community (excluding TIF districts).  This typically works out to about $350,000 per year.  Any other increases in tax evaluations go back to county property owners, people like you and me.

The difference between our increase in revenue (about $350,000) and our increase in expenses (about $2,500,000) is a gap of about $2 million in unfunded new expenses each year.  So far, we have utilized various cost-cutting processes to make up that gap, and we know we can keep doing that for a few years.  I was just assigned to a committee that is geared entirely towards moving organizations like the History Center, EDWC, AIS, and the visitor's bureau off of the tax levy.  In a few years, we will reach the point where there is nothing we can cut without severely impacting the core services we provide. 

What's the alternative? 
The alternative is, in my view, a bad one.

We could follow Illinois' example, fund the excess out of our reserves, and then when our reserve funds are exhausted we could borrow lots of money.  Ultimately, we would end up in the same situation Illinois is in now, broke and with bills we can't pay.  I believe in fiscal responsibility, so I could not support recklessness of this sort.

New Committee Assignment

While I was disappointed with the outcome of yesterday's meeting in relation to ordinance 13, I am excited to report that I have been assigned to a new ad-hoc committee.  The committee is the Quasi-Governmental Review Advisory Committee.  The purpose of the committee, as determined by the Executive Board, is:

The purpose of this advisory committee is to review the level of county funding for quasi-governmental entities such as: A.I.S., E.D.W.C., History Center, and Washington County Convention & Visitors Bureau. The committee’s objective is to work together with members from each entity and develop an effective financial sustainability plan that will help them become independent of property tax levy. A recommendation will be forwarded to the Executive Committee for review before sending to the full county board.

Supervisor Pay & Per Diem

You may have read in Saturday's newspaper that we are looking to trim down our pay a bit.  I had noticed that eliminating Per Diem was on the agenda for last Thursday's Executive Committee meeting.  Supervisor McCune also threw in an amendment to reduce supervisor pay by $600 per year (currently we are paid $6,600 per year).  I support both of these and commend Supervisor McCune for addressing Supervisor pay.


Per Diem pay, for our County government, is extra pay Supervisors receive if they attend more than 30 meetings in a calendar year.  In my view, if you are serving as a County Board Supervisor, and you are engaged with trying to serve the community, you shouldn't be concerned with receiving extra pay for attending a lot of meetings. 


It is conceivable that I might be eligible for per diem pay for 2017, due to my appointment to the Meeting Times Advisory Committee, along with a potential upcoming appointment to another committee.  I would turn down per diem pay if I became eligible.  I didn't run for this position with the goal of milking extra pay from the taxpayers.  Some other areas where I have exemplified the commitment to service rather than self-service include:

• I have never claimed mileage during my time as County Board Supervisor.  This includes a seminar in Green Bay where a carpooling option was available, but due to a schedule conflict I had to commute separately, consequently I did request mileage.
• I donate through direct payroll deduction 1 month of my County Board salary to the United Way, specifically targeting worthy organizations who partner with our County Government in some fashion (this is done through monthly deductions that equal 1 month of my salary.
• I will be purchasing a Parks sticker next year to support our very important park system.

For Supervisor pay, I know that City Alderman and School Board members receive significantly less than County Board Supervisors do.  It is quite probable that we are overpaid, and making a reduction of $600 per year in our pay rate is a healthy step towards changing that.  I think this is especially important when we are making tough financial decisions including the elimination of funding to worthwhile organizations like Friends of Abused Families, Big Brothers & Big Sisters, and Boys & Girls Club, and when we are asking our neighbors to buy annual park stickers to fund and support our wonderful park system,

Today's Board Meeting (Night Meetings, Parks, and the Homeless Shelter)

Today was an action-packed meeting.  Here are some highlights.

Night Meetings---This passed by a vote of 16-9.  The resolution will take effect in May of 2018, when the new board takes office.  One Supervisor, Supervisor Schleif, expressed concern about his own schedule conflict with the new time.  I enjoy working with Supervisor Schlief and hope that he can find away to still serve on the County Board.

I, along with fellow committee members Supervisors Kelling, Otten, and Heidtke, faced an unfair and vindictive accusation from Supervisor Merten, who is still bitter that I held her daughter (County Treasurer Jane Merten) accountable for several severe acts of negligence.  The most recent of these was the mishandling of 4 tax-deed properties where the mortgage-holder was never notified of the tax delinquency.  Supervisor Marilyn Merten's accusation was that we deliberately and strategically tried to push Supervisors out of office by choosing the date and time we did.  A review of the agenda packet for our last meeting will show that we chose the evening with the fewest conflicts.  I will continue to deflect these barbs and as well I will continue to hold County Treasurer Jane Merten accountable for any future acts of gross negligence she engages in.

Homeless Shelter---This was passed, by a vote of 22-3, allowing the homeless shelter to be built on County Land.  The only cost to the County is $10,000 in landscaping, which is very small 1-time cost.  I like the new design of the building, and look forward to seeing Family Promise break ground.

County Parks---This was the tough issue of the day, one we spent almost 2 hours on.  We as a board were considering (and ultimately approved) a conceptual plan for making our parks self-sufficient.  A major component of that plan involves user fees for people who use the park.  Much like the $20 user fee I pay every year so that I can take my dog to Rolf's park, this plan would require park-goers to buy a daily or yearly pass. 

Being one of the newer Supervisors, I petitioned the Supervisors who opposed this plan to show an alternative plan for preserving our parks.  None of the Supervisors who objected to the user fee presented any alternative.  Since I want to preserve our park system, and since there was no other plan presented that would do that, I voted for this plan.

Other key points to the plan:

1. A few small parks and undeveloped properties were classified as low priority, and will be sold off.
2. Other revenue options including a beer garden and corporate sponsorship are being looked at.
3. The major parks in our park system will all be maintained or even improved upon through this plan.

Night Meetings May Again Be On The Horizon

The County Board is forming an advisory committee to look again at night meetings.  As you might recall, I made a motion from the floor last spring to change the meeting times from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and my motion fell just 2 votes short. 

This time, a committee composed of Supervisor Kelling, Supervisor Otten, Supervisor Heidtke, County Clerk Ashley Reichert, and myself will review this issue.  My hope is that we can work as a team to put forward a proposal that will win even stronger board support and ultimately be successful in changing our meeting times to increase public accessibility. 

I firmly believe that it is right and best to hold meetings when the broadest spectrum of the community can attend, rather than holding meetings at times when only a smaller portion of the community can attend without taking time off from work.  With the reliever route, I spoke with several concerned citizens who wanted their voice heard, but couldn't make it to the morning meetings due to work conflicts.

Our first meeting is April 10, at 7:00 a.m.  The irony of meeting at 7 in the morning to talk about night meetings is not lost on me.

I Oppose a Potential $253 per Year Property Tax Increase

Now that I have your attention, let me tell you what is going on.  National retailers like Walgreens, Shop-Ko, and Menards are all trying to skimp on paying their property taxes, by shifting part of their property tax bill to us.  They are using a legal theory called the Darkstore theory, which bases the property value of profitable stores on the value of vacant stores.

The League of Wisconsin Municipalities estimates that if every national retailer in West Bend is successful in adopting this strategy, the average property tax bill for homeowners like us in West Bend will go up $253.89 per year.

Walgreens has already succeeded in pushing $160,000 in property taxes onto us.  Their 2 West Bend stores were valued at $7.5 million and $6.8 million, but they have succeeded in getting those values reduced to $2.5 million.

Luckily, help is on the way.  County Board Resolution 64, which I proposed, works to support State Legislators from our area, like Senator Duey Stroebel, who are seeking to end the Darkstore Theory.  It mirrors a similar resolution put forward by West Bend Alderman Chris Jenkins.

Releiver Route Updated Schedule

In my post on January 22, I had posted the schedule that was published in the agenda packet for the January 14th Joint meeting of the Executive and Public Works Committtees.  That schedule has been changed.

The change of the 2050 plan to Route 11 ill now be voted on at the February Joint meeting of the Executive and Public Works committees.  This meeting will occur on February 7th, and if the changedis passed, it will g to the full County Board on February 14th.

Right now, looking at the old route and comparng it to Route 11, Route 11 is a more effective route so it makes sense to change the plan.  The old route gets off at Highway K, just like the new route, but works its way towards Arther Road and is much less efficient.

Having this plan in place will also enable us to quickly submit a proposal for federal grant money if any new federal funding for road-building, similar to President Obama's 2008 stimulus plan, becomes available.  In a discusson with the County Administraor, he mentioned that if we had pursued this in 2008, the Federal Government would probably have covered 80% of the construction costs.  We know that President Trump is considering enacting a similar stimulus plan.  While I am generally against stimulus spending, as it is our money that it being taxed and is equivalent to park barrel spending, if Trump is going to do it we should at least be ready to try to get our fair share.  If we can turn a $25 million dollar project into a $5 million dollar project, that is worth pursuing (setting aside the issue of whether we should be build the reliever route or not).

For these reasons, changing the route is something that makes sense to support, and it might be fiscally irresponsible to not keep this option open.  I do want to investigate the intersection of Highway K and 175 before finalizing my decision on how I will vote on this.

Approving this plan would not mean that we start building, it just means that the official plan would be updated from the route approved more than a decade ago.  It also would not mean that I will support the reliever route when it comes before the Board.

Reliever Route---Upcoming Schedule

We have some more information on the reliever route, includng a specific schedule. This is a project I have been paying a lot of attention to, as it is a project whose costs will exceed $20 million dollars. Because of the potential cost and scope of this project, I want to hear from people in my district about it.

First the schedule:

• January 17th---The preliminary engineering study became available.
• January 24th (7:00 a.m.)---The Public Works and Executive Committee will be holding a joint meeting at the County Fair Park to discuss the engineering study.
• January 31st (6:30 p.m.)---Public listening session at the Hartford Town Hall related to the engneering study.
• Week of Febuary 6th---Joint meeting of the Public Works and Executive Committees to dicuss the economic impact study.
• February 28th (6:30 p.m.)---Public listening session at the Hartford Union High School related to the economic impact study.
• Week of March 6th---Public Works Committee meeting to consider the reliever route project, and adoption of Route 11.
• March 14th (7:30 a.m.)---County Board meeting to consider the reiever route project if approved by the Public Works Committee.  At his meeting, we will only be looking at the route, and not how we will fund it.

So with the current schedule, on March 14th I finally get my turn to decided if we will be proceeding with the reliever route.  I remain undecided on this issue, but a concern is that the engineering study increased the projected cost to $23.9 million dollars.  This engineering study is called a "30% study" which means that 70% of the details remain unstudied

At this point, I think that I will be deciding this issue based on the following criteria:

1. Which is greater, a) the cost of the project and its negative impacts on the agricultural community of Washington County or b) The potential for increasing the economic growth (new businesses) in Hartford as well as the potential to avert economic losses (businesses leaving) in Hartford.  In other words, does the County gain more than we lose?
2. Will the reliever route receive adequate use, or is it a potential boon-doggle (like Milwaukee's trolley or "streetcar")?  This is a concern I have been evaluating since the beginning of my review of the reliever route project.
3. What do my neighbors in West Bend believe?  IF YOU LIVE IN DISTRICT 3 IN WEST BEND, I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU.

No Reliever Route Meeting

This evening I attended a meeting of the No Reliever Route group.  They are a group of citizens who will be affected by the highway 60 reliever route, if it is approved, and they are banding together to oppose the Reliever Route that is being proposed.  County Board Chairman Rick Gundrum.

I appreciated the opportunity to hear their concerns about this proposal, and the courtesy they showed me.  I met a lot of very nice people at the meeting, people who I would be happy to call my neighbors.  I heard a lot of good questions asked by them, and many of those questions mirror questions I also have related to this project.

I have not decided yet how I will vote on this proposal, I am waiting for the last key piece of information, the economic impact study.  Right now the timetable that is being published for the joint Executive Board and Public Works Committee meeting next week Tuesday indicates that the full County Board may finally get a chance to weigh in on this proposal for the March meeting.