By Anne Trautner
Staff Writer
The state will continue providing licensing and inspection services for restaurants, food retailers and recreational facilities in Walworth County.
The Walworth County Board voted 7-2 on March 20 against having the county take over those services for state departments after area businesses owners requested inspections be kept in the state’s hands.
The board adopted resolutions saying health inspections and licensing should not be a priority of the county health department as long as those services are provided by the state. Further, the resolution says, county staff shall spend no more time promoting or planning the idea of taking over state health inspections.
County supervisors Carl Redenius and Kenneth Monroe voted against the resolution. Redenius said he heard from about 25 constituents concerned about food safety in some restaurants in the county, and he believes the county should have researched exact cost increases for restaurant owners before making a decision.
Healthcare workers, including state employees who provide the county’s inspections, recommended that the county take over.
“We currently provide the service to Walworth County. And we do a good job, and we are doing a better job than we have in years past. We plan to continue to do quality improvements in the services we provide to the county going forward,” said Chuck Warzecha, director of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Bureau of Environmental and Occupational Health, at a public hearing before the Walworth County Department of Health and Human Service Board on Feb. 19.
“But having said all of that, we still feel that the local service delivery model for the program is the more effective model,” Warzecha said. “It’s been found throughout the state and throughout the country that these programs work best when they are being provided in concert with other local service delivery programs.”
After listening to Warzecha and 14 other people speak at last week’s public hearing, the Walworth County Department of Health and Human Services Board voted 4-2 to table the issue until July. At that time, the board wanted to review how the state had handled inspections and licensing over the past two years and would consider a preliminary budget for the county’s Department of Health and Human Services.
County health board members Jerry Grant and Joe Schaefer voted against the Feb. 19 motion to table the issue.
“We had maybe 75 people here today, taking an afternoon off, going out of their way to come to a public hearing, and all of a sudden they want to lay it over,” Schaefer said. “I think we should take the bull by the horns. … I think the County Board has a job to do and they should do it.”
“What (tabling) amounts to is that you could end up with a whole new county board,” said Grant, who will no longer be on the board in July. “I am for the board to decide what is going to happen with this project…. It is not fair to take all new board members and try to retrain them.”
At the hearing, the board listened for more than an hour to people speak out both for and against the county’s proposal. In addition, board members received hundreds of letters that were equally divided on the issue, board member William Wucherer said.
The proposal was a five-year plan that the county’s Department of Health and Human Services put together to localize public health and environmental services for the community.
“It is a gradual plan to have local control. We want to be here for you, work with you and ultimately, together, we are preventing and protecting our community from preventable illness,” said Janis Ellefsen, Walworth County’s public health officer.
The plan would guarantee annual inspection for the county’s 990 facilities that are licensed and inspected by the state, Ellefsen said.
“Our current state inspectors are really dedicated, competent inspectors and we like them very much,” Ellefsen said at last week’s public hearing. “But the capacity and the resources at the state level to keep up with the number of facilities in Walworth County is huge.”
In Wisconsin, 70 percent of local health departments provide health inspections for businesses in their counties, Ellefsen said.
“Every single health department that has taken this on is happy they have done it,” Ellefsen said after talking to people at about 25 county health departments from across the state that run their own inspections.
The Walworth County department was hoping to partner with community businesses, agencies, fire departments and building inspectors. By being local, the response time to emergencies would be faster, Ellefsen said.
The county program would have been funded solely by licensing fees with no tax levy increase, Ellefsen said. Restaurants and recreational establishments currently pay the fee to the state; if the program would have been switched to the county, the fees would be paid to the county instead, with the County Board setting the licensing fees, Ellefsen said.
“The state really prevents us to charge more money than it is to sustain this program. We would be in so much trouble if we used fees from this program to support our other public health programs. It is an environmental program and we must use the fees for environmental program services,” Ellefsen said.
But business owners didn’t trust that fees wouldn’t increase.
“We can’t afford more fees,” said restaurant and bar owner Dennis Salverson, who has been in the hospitality business for more than 60 years in Whitewater. “I’m struggling now, and I’ve been in this business virtually my whole working life. I don’t need more fees. I don’t need to have what seems to be another bureaucracy here in Walworth County. Who is going to pay those people? They’ll never get enough money from the fees unless they keep raising them.”
“We feel that the State of Wisconsin has been doing a great job for us and do not see the need for the county to change the service,” Susan Pruessing, marketing and public relations manager of the Walworth County Fair said on behalf of the fair board. “We, the board, would like to stay with the state and hope you will make this decision to do this and not burden our county with the financial burden this would cause.”
Jim D’Alessandro, who owns a motel in Williams Bay, worried that local agents could have their own agendas.
“You could have neighbors around the corner that don’t like your business and they lobby their county supervisors,” D’Alessandro said. “It’s nice to have a degree of separation. When the state inspectors come, I always have a good experience with them. I like it that they are from out of town.”
“I know what agendas are all about. Nothing against the county, I just think the state will be more unbiased,” said Joe Brickner, owner of Farmer’s Inn in Darien.
Brickner said he worries more about upsetting customers than he does about food inspectors.
“I’m not worried about them as much as I am about the people who come in my tavern,” said Brickner, who has been president of the tavern league and motorcycle clubs. “Some of the guys I ride with are about twice my size and half my age. If I gave any of them food poisoning, I’d be hung up outside of my place.”
Pat Grove, Walworth County’s former health officer, spoke out last week in favor of the county’s plan, as did Sara Burton-Zick, who was health inspector for Du Page County in Illinois for 32 years.
“I was quite surprised that you were not considering this,” Burton-Zick told the board.
“Public health protects all people in a community regardless of race, sex, age, creed, ability or income. All people,” said Sara Nichols, clinic manager of Open Arms Free Clinic. Nichols has 15 years of experience working in public health and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Boston University School of Public Health.
“Both my education and personal experience make me a firm believer of local agents of public health,” Nichols said. “By saying no to this proposal, you are saying that where this money goes is more important than the health and safety of me, my family and everyone who resides in Walworth County.”
Editor Vicky Wedig contributed to this report.
I live in Willabay Shores in Williams Bay. Myself and other seniors and family are dealing with a drastic health condition that our board and lakes management are refusing to address. In the unit I purchased in 2017, the common area above garage has – as they call it – a firewall that is up against my unit. It has never been sealed or taped therefore fumes and carbon dioxide are seeping into my unit. Lakes assured me when I purchased that they would foam coat the area to seal off fumes. Still not done and the board is refusing to repair. We have 38 buildings and I am told most have the same problem. Please help.