Minocqua town board approves pond hockey request

The Minocqua town board at its Nov. 6 meeting approved a request by Will Jeffery and American Pond Hockey to use town facilities of the Aqua Bowl and parking lot of the Campanile Center for the Arts two weekends, Feb. 7-8 and Feb. 14-15, for a total of $800.

Jeffery’s request will need to be made again next year for the board to review. 

It was also indicated at the meeting Rocky Reef Brewing Co. could resubmit a retail permit application in order to serve the events’ official beer. The board previously denied an application by Rocky Reef because, as town chairman Mark Hartzheim indicated, there was uncertainty the event would tangibly benefit local community organizations. 

Hartzheim told The Lakeland Times after the meeting, the discussion, which lasted the better half of an hour, was “a lot of talk and a lot of words about something that’s really, really simple.”

“All we’ve ever asked from businesses and organizations that come in, that are for-profit ventures that want to use public facilities, we just have a town policy and past practice that we will allow that … provided there is a benefit to a local non-profit organization that gives back to the community,” he said to the Times. “So that’s kind of just our past practice for allowing for-profit ventures to use public facilities. So it’s really simple.”

Hartzheim said the board wanted Jeffery to identify a local non-proft organization which gives back to the community “and show us how you’re going to benefit them in a tangible way.”

Jeffery did provide the board with two non-profits he said will benefit from the events’ revenues, as well as be promoted at the events, which were the Minocqua Fire Department and the Lakeland Hawks Ice Arena. 

But Hartzheim indicated that was unclear to the board before the Nov. 6 meeting. 

“He had proposed things like ‘Well, we’ll have an organization here and they’ll get exposure through the event’ or ‘We’re giving an in-kind contribution through providing services or use of our equipment’ and we said ‘Well, no, what we need is to show a financial, tangible financial benefit to a local service organization,” Hartzheim said. “That’s what we can rest our hats on to continue to consistently handle this type of request. And I’m not sure why it got to be as complicated as it was. I don’t know if there was miscommunication or misunderstanding, but when you just distill it down to what we’re looking for, he gave us the assurance here’s two local organizations that will financially benefit from this event and the sales made at this event.”

Hartzheim indicated Jeffery possibly thought the board wanted him to “partner with a non-profit.”

“It’s not equal billing, we just want you to show that you’re benefiting these local organizations and just tagging them on your promotional materials,” he said. “It doesn’t mean they’re at the heart of the event or a co-sponsor of the event … it’s just we need to be able to show there’s local organizations benefiting from your for-profit use of these public facilities.”

What Jeffery requested and what the board approved, Hartzheim reiterated, aligns with how the board has handled these instances in the past.

“It’s well in keeping with past practice at this point and it sounds like everybody’s on board,” he said. “It jives with everything (Jeffery) is trying to do. Everybody seems at this point now to be agreeable to moving forward and all the necessary boxes checked.”

For Rocky Reef, Hartzheim said it was indicated some proceeds from the beer sales would benefit community organizations as well. 

He said it will essentially be a formality at this point for the board to approve Rocky Reef’s retail permit once it’s resubmitted.

“That’s all we were trying to do from the beginning,” Hartzheim said. “I think it was a lot of jogging in place and maybe misunderstanding to arrive at where we did because it was all much more simple than it seemed to be. But whatever roundabout way we took to get there, we got there and that was the original goal to begin with.”

Trevor Greene may be reached via email at [email protected].