Board credits new court branch for expected additional revenue
The village of Walworth is accepting bids to repair Read and Adeline streets.
The village board voted unanimously Monday to go forward with projects on those two roads, even though it will cost the village more than what was originally budgeted.
The village budgeted $105,000 for this year’s street capital expense. Road repairs to Read and Adeline streets are expected to cost about $116,000, Village Trustee LeRoy Nordmeyer said.
Utility repairs, such as fixing manholes, will cost an additional $5,000 to $6,000, Nordmeyer said. Theoretically, the village may face a total of $122,000 or $123,000 in street capital expenses, or $18,000 over the budgeted amount, Nordmeyer said.
However, village trustees expect to have sufficient funds because of higher-than-budgeted municipal court revenue. The village board had budgeted $100,00 for municipal court revenue this year, but anticipate bringing in more than that because of the village’s new municipal court branch.
Municipal courts handle cases such as traffic violations, first-time drunken driving offenses and juvenile matters.
Village trustees formed the new court branch and appointed Charles “Pat” Hubertz judge on Feb. 10, about two months after village trustees asked Judge John “Jay” Peterson to resign. Peterson, who was reelected to a four year term in April 2011 in, has been municipal judge in Walworth since the court was formed in 2006.
There have been no allegations of wrongdoing on be-half of the court or Peterson However, the board had voiced concerns about the municipal court’s rising amount of unpaid fines and Peterson’s handling of indigency cases. Trustees were upset in November when Peterson ordered that a lawyer, rather than police, conduct pretrial negotiations for the municipality, a procedure the board had not budgeted.
In the court’s first branch, Peterson now has jurisdiction over zoning ordinances and parking tickets, while Hubertz handles all other past, existing, pending and future cases.
No court was held in January or February because the village did not have a court clerk. The court is caught up on good cause hearings and is now starting indigency hearings, Police Chief Chris Severt said.
In May, the municipal court brought in $19,000, Severt said.
“I think there’s a pretty good chance we are going to go beyond the $100,000 we budgeted [in municipal court revenue],” Village Board President David Rasmussen said.
Road repairs on Read Street will cost approximately $61,000, Nordmeyer said. New curbing on Read Street will cost an estimated $15,500, but that could be assessed, Boss said. Repairs on Read Street will cost about $4,000, with milling and blacktop costing more than $41,000, Nordmeyer said.
Those estimates for Read Street include going 20 feet into each First, Second and Third streets at the intersections, Public Works Superintendent Tim Boss said.
Removing and replacing concrete and curb on Adeline Street will cost about $21,000, while milling and blacktop are expected to run about $32,775, Nordmeyer said.
The Public Works Department has a little money in another category to do some small patching work on other streets, Boss said.
In other business, the Walworth Village Board:
• Is considering not renewing the Charter Franchise contract, which is up in February 2016. Board trustees would like a contract that is less than 15 years, which is what Charter demanded with the current contract. In addition, Village Trustee Ed Snyder IV has raised objections to the $7 fee that Charter now charges for each cable box a household uses.
• Decided to take down the village’s ash trees in the fall and replace them with another type of tree. The village has lost about 15 trees to the emerald ash borers so far, Boss said.
