By Kellen Olshefski
Staff Writer
Homeowners living on East Troy’s Mill Street raised concerns about upcoming construction costs to the Village of East Troy Board at its Sept 16 meeting.
Village President Randy Timms was unable to attend Monday’s meeting due to work obligations and Trustee Dustan Stanford was nominated to fill his seat for the meeting.
Mill Street resident Kim Schwartz addressed the board at the beginning of the meeting during the citizen participation time of the meeting.
Schwartz decided to bring concerns to the board after reading a previous East Troy Times article about the Mill Street project published the last Wednesday in July.
Under current ordinances, residents along Mill Street would be looking at special assessments of roughly $8,000 to $10,000 to complete the project.
Schwartz, speaking for both herself and other residents of Mill Street, said people living along the street can’t afford to pay such high amounts.
Schwartz further noted the high level of traffic that comes down Mill Street, especially taking into consideration the location of the post office and the diversion of traffic down Mill Street when East Troy’s square is not being used. She also mentioned the postal service’s large trucks as well as the public works building on the corner of Austin and Mill Street.
“We’re a little concerned, yet wondering how else maybe this can be dispersed among [other] village residents, instead of just the residents on Mill Street, to try and less burden us and the maybe 10 of us that are on that road,” she said.
As the board has been discussing and exploring options to tackle issues such as this in the past few months, Stanford noted board members generally agree with this stance.
Though Stanford said he couldn’t say whether it would be resolved by the time the project begins or not, it is being looked at and a referendum is still an option the board is exploring.
Schwartz said this is something she could see as being an appropriate solution.
“I run the streets of East Troy often and I can see it’s not just our road that needs some tender, loving care done to them,” she said.
“We’re just a little frustrated that we’re not the only ones using that road … the whole 53120 zip code technically uses that road so we have a little extra wear and tear than other roads that were recently redone.”
Stanford said the board welcomes Mill Streets residents questions and in the result nothing happens, payment programs are available to make assessment payments “as painless as the law will allow” for assessed homeowners.
Trustee Ann Zess said before the village begins the process and before any work is begun, the board fully intends to notify and meet with Mill Street residents about the project.
According to Mill Street resident Daniel Donegan, comparatively, for some of the homes on Mill Street, $8,000 to $10,000 would equate to 5 to 10 percent of the value of those homes.
Donegan arrived late to the meeting due to unforeseen circumstances and the board granted him a citizen participation period hear his concerns before going into closed session to.
Though Donegan said, “what has to be done has to be done,” he also said it’s just not equitable and the board needs to look for a fairer way to tackle this.
“I don’t think that the public road in front of my house is my responsibility to fund the entire project cost,” he said. “If that’s the case, then I want to have some say as to who gets to drive down it and we don’t have that.”
Donegan noted that while everyone benefits from Mill Street, sewer pipes are different as not everyone benefits from his sewer or his water.
He also said if the board was to break down the costs of the project, they could probably “do some creative things as to who’s responsibility is what,” and create a scenario in which members of the community share the cost.
While other residents have welcomed the idea of a referendum to tackle the issue of special assessments, Donegan said he “doesn’t think the referendum is going to fly because no one in this economy is going to vote for a tax raise.”
“Somebody’s going to have to be progressive about this,” he said.
“It’s not a deal breaker, don’t get me wrong we’ll make it through this and I think most homemakers will, but again, not in my house particularly but in other houses in that district, you’re looking at a 5 to 10 percent of their homes value.”
