Board shoots down alternate plan to keep it at Chilton site

Menasha resident Wayne Fischer was one of seven Calumet County residents who spoke during the public participation portion of Tuesday's Calumet County Board meeting. The subject for all seven was county plans for a new $7.8 million building for the highway department. Six were vehemently against, and one simply thanked the board for considering an alternative.

"Arrogant" was certainly the kindest thing said about the supervisors by residents who piled out of the meeting room as soon as the vote was taken. "Idiots" was probably the second nicest thing said about them, and the rest of the things said about them, loudly, aren't fit to print in a family newspaper.

In short, the folks who showed up at Tuesday's meeting were hot about the board's July decision to spend $350,000 for a design for a shiny new $7.8 million building, possibly in the Town of Chilton, to replace the outdated, Depression-era building the department now occupies in Chilton. And according to those folks, they are a microcosm of the larger community.

"It's frustrating," said Carol Austin of Chilton, who has voiced her displeasure with the highway shop plan at the past three monthly county board meetings.

"It's arrogant of them. Nobody wants this," she said after the vote. "We have a business and my husband talks to people every day. Like he says, maybe two people out of hundreds he talks to do want this garage. The Towns Committee came here and told them they did not want this. And they chose to ignore them. I don't know. People are very frustrated with the inability of the government to act for the public and represent the actual people."

"I haven't had anybody who has told me they are for this big project," said John Schwartz, chairman of the Town of Chilton. "I guarantee if I went upa nd down the road, I would hear, 'Go for the altnerative.' Who goes for the first bid?"

Schwartz was one of seven residents who spoke during the public participation portion of the meeting, and the only one who did not voice vehement opposition to the project. He politely, and perhaps politically, thanked the board for what they were about to do, and that was consider a resolution to spend $90,000 of the $93,933 balance the Highway Department has in its account for design of a combined highway maintenance shop, office space and wash bay on the current site in Chilton. The resolution did not have a final cost for building on the present site, but the figure $3 million was brought up more than once.

The resolution was jointly introduced by Supervisor Alice Connors, who represents Chilton, and Supervisor Tom Laughrin, who introduced a similar resolution that was voted down in July.

Connors reminded her 20 fellow supervisors that she and two other opponents of the $7.8 million highway plan were not at the last board meeting when Laughrin's alternate plan was shot down 10 to 8.

"If the three of us would have been there, that would have passed," she said in trying to convince her colleagues to support an alternate plan on the present site.

"We all agree something has to be done," she said.

At times it seemed the issue of a new building for the highway department was secondary to the board members expressing their personal philosophies, such as Joel Taylor, a board member representing the odd chunk of Appleton claimed by Calumet County.

He clearly enjoyed the role of hard-headed fiscal realist in a roomful of flaming idealists and romantics.

"Clearly I'm in the minority in this room. But I happen to feel like I'm making the only non-emotional fiscal decision here in supporting the building of a new highway facility. We absolutely need this," he said.

Taylor then took up where he left off last month by putting words in the mouth of Alice Connors.

"When I talked to Alice about a month ago, I said, 'Alice, you got to think long term,' and she said, 'I don't care about long term. I care about, heh, I care about my consituents and what they're saying to me.'"

This month Connors was there to call him on it, and she eventually did, saying her statement was taken out of context, and also mentioning his misquoting her at last month's meeting when her presence was required at a natonal meeting.

So what's next? Everything that happpened at the July meeting proceeds as voted on:

Proposals are due for design firms Aug. 24. The up to $350,000 contract will be awarded Sept. 7, and the finished design is expected Dec. 7.

Why the Day of Infamy was chosen as the delivery date for the finished design is anyone's guess. A cosmic joke, maybe? If so, Calumet County residents aren't laughing at the prospect of another 18 cents per $1,000 of assessed value on their future tax bills.

Chilton resident Steve Austin (standing) was one of seven Calumet County residents to speak during the public participation portion of Tuesday night's Calumet County Board meeting. Austin specifically asked the county supervisors to "stop the madness" of spendthrift government.

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