November 6, 2017 at 1:53 p.m.
Highway G Landfill expansion advances to county board
Highway G Landfill expansion advances to county board
Past developments
The LVG leases the land the current facility is on in the town of Cloverland
There's about a decade worth of use remaining on the existing land at the site and in order to expand, Vilas County would have to withdraw new territory from the county forest and - to demonstrate the public good would not be compromised by the swap - purchase new land to replace the taken earth.
Getting this done has not been easy.
With forestry related issues backed by an account separate from the county's general fund with $7 million in it, the department has had to engage in numerous conversations with stakeholders about how to fund the purchases.
At a meeting in early October, representatives of the LVG and county officials engaged in a back-and-forth over costs related to acquiring any new land. While members of the Vilas County Forestry, Recreation and Land Committee wanted the 14 towns involved in the LVG to share the costs related to the county project, Landfill Venture Group
Executive Committee chairman Scott Maciosek rebuffed a number of their comments.
When forestry committee vice chair Art Kunde pointed out the strong figures in the LVG financial statements, Maciosek clarified most of the funding was under restricted use.
"A lot of the money in our accounts is controlled by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and specifically reserved for the testing of closed land," he said at the time. "We can't touch it."
Later on in that meeting, Kunde suggested a process where each of the towns would pay between $1,000 and $2,000 to help with expenses, but this was also claimed by Maciosek to be another difficult concept for each of the communities to handle well.
With no other ideas proposed, the board members and Maciosek opted to set a joint meeting between the LVG and county officials for the future. As of Nov. 1, this is scheduled to take place on Nov. 27 to again discuss what will be done on the project.
Resolution for the board
During the most recent meeting of the forestry committee, Vilas County forest administrator John Gagnon revealed the LVG wants firm and final financial numbers ahead of the late November meeting, sparking a debate amongst the committee on what should be done about costs related to purchasing the land in St. Germain needed for the proposed swap.
Right now, it is estimated to cost more than $90,000 to obtain.
Kunde wanted to know how many zeros the group felt comfortable putting on their final number. In his view, the proposal could be crafted any number of sound ways, but had to be done in order to take some of the financial burdens off of Vilas County.
"No one here is asking for $100,000, although this would be nice," Kunde said. "If we could get the LVG to come to something in the area of $50,000 over three or four years, between 14 towns this is not a big number. But it eases the pressure on the county."
From there, committee member Jay Verhulst - remembering the financial statements discussed in the October meeting - asked fellow committee members whether Vilas County would be able to get a more detailed look at the DNR rules imposed on the LVG. Out of curiosity, he wondered if all of the funds were tightly restricted by the state.
In response, the other committee members clarified the majority of the LVG funds were reserved for land reclamation after a cell at a landfill closes down and could not be appropriated to assist in the financing of further expansion at the Highway G site.
Upon hearing this, Kunde reiterated his position on the towns needing to assist in funding through his multi-year payment plan. The effectiveness of this concept was questioned by chairman Steve Doyen, who asserted several towns may not pay.
"There's no guarantee towns will pay. Some might not even give $1,000," he said. Pausing to turn his hat around backwards, he then claimed, "If I've got my town chairman hat on and you ask me to kick in funds, what's to stop me from saying, 'When you've got $7 million in your general fund, why do we need to pay more?' This is what you'll hear from towns."
After critiquing the proposals from others, Doyen then called for a resolution to be sent to the county board, which would allow money from the general fund to be released to pay for the land in St. Germain which forestry has its eye on. As it is a county project, he feels it should fall on the county to provide the majority of the funding in any way at all.
"One department shouldn't have to suffer in their budget because we need something for the towns," Doyen said. "This is a county landfill, I think it needs to be on the county. Without our towns, we don't have a county. When something like this comes up, it has to be first on our priority list."
Ultimately, after debating what to do, the committee voted unanimously to send a resolution to the county board asking for $98,000 to be withdrawn from the general fund in order to help with the landfill project.
Evan J. Pretzer may be reached via email at [email protected].
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