Village Board has one month to decide on grant application
By Tracy Ouellette
SLN staff
Even though the Village of East Troy has been granted an extension to repair or remove the East Troy Dam, the Village Board was informed at its Jan. 15 meeting, it will need to make a decision on which Department of Natural Resources grant it wants to apply at the Feb. 5 meeting.
Village Department of Public Works Director Jason Equitz told the board they would need to know if the village was applying for a grant to repair the dam or one to remove the dam at the next meeting because there were requirements for each that had to be completed before the applications could be submitted.
Sarah Nunn, of Lynch and Associates, the village’s engineer, said there were studies they needed time to do which had to be submitted with the applications. Nunn said the grant applications were due by April 30.
Equitz said the village had been granted an extension from March 1, 2018 to Oct. 1, 2018, but he knew there was talk of a possible referendum and wanted the board to know that if it was going to be on the spring ballot, the deadline to get the question in was Jan. 23
Village Board President Scott Seager said he didn’t think it was necessary to go to referendum as information needed to make an informed decision was still being gathered.
Seager told the board he and staff had been meeting with the East Troy Lake Association about the possibility of forming a lake district and more information on that possibility would be available for the board by the next meeting.
Trustee Forty Renucci said the board still didn’t know the answer to several questions such as who would own the new land created if the dam was removed and what would be the impact on the property values of the homes around the lake.
The ownership of the reclaimed land is a complicated issue and the village attorney is looking into the matter. As for the property values, Village Administrator Eileen Suhm has said at previous meetings, the exact impact might not be known for a while, when, and if, the properties are sold.
Seager told the audience that the board was doing everything possible to keep the lake, but in the end, it would have to make its decision based on the best interest of the community as a whole.
Trustee Matt Johnson asked Nunn what the chances were of East Troy getting the grant to repair the dam.
“Very slim,” she replied.
She went on to explain that the village only met about one-third of the criteria for the grant.
“That being said, it really depends on who all applies for the grant,” she said.
The board instructed Nunn to bring back a cost breakdown of what repairing the dam would have on property owners in the village.
“I would like to see the cost per property owner if no grant money is available at all, across the whole village, so everyone understands what that is,” Johnson said.
Nunn said she would bring back the tax impact breakdown per $100,000 property value.
Nunn also told the board, if they didn’t receive the grant the asked for, they could file for a two-year extension on the dam repair/removal until the next DNR funding cycle for dams came up. She also said they weren’t locked into using the grant if they got one and then chose to go in the other direction.
