Door County Municipal News

Welcome to “Notes from the Grove” providing information about Liberty Grove town government to residents and visitors.

• The town hosted the Mining Safety Refresher Course on Jan. 23. Seventy courses are held throughout the state for contractors and persons involved in working in mines, pit and quarry operations. The courses are conducted in winter and early spring as employers begin to start-up after seasonal layoffs. The four town crew members attend each year as well.

• Darcie Pilz is the new Door County North community coordinator. She and her husband have moved to Liberty Grove. A get together was held at the North Fire Station to meet her. On behalf of the town board I want to extend our welcome to her as we look forward to working together in support of local businesses.

• Twenty-nine people, including the board and administration, attended the information session on town finances and the budgeting process. Michael Konecny from Schenck CPA’s Green Bay office provided information on the town finances and answered questions from those in attendance during the two-hour session. He provided comparisons of Liberty Grove to eight other towns in Wisconsin that are somewhat similar. In six different categories the Liberty Grove percentage of budget expenditures were similar. When the two bonds were acquired, one for the North Fire Station and the second for the Town Hall addition and remodeling, a decision was made to pay down the indebtedness in a short period of time. Both bonds will be satisfied in 2018. The town spends 37 percent of its budget on that debt service. The finance committee will begin work on a five-year budgeting plan. Highway and buildings and grounds have in place rolling five-year plans, which help in projecting future expenditures for their respective areas.

• The town board adopted Resolution 1-14 to accept the Nine Tools of Civility. The board will schedule informational session in spring for the Nine Tools of Civility for presentation to the community.

• Former supervisor Ann Miller, who was a key player in the development of The Door County Coastal Byway, provided the following bit of history of highways in Door County, “What we did find out when doing the byway master plan is that Highway 57 was the first hard surface road in Door County. The state of Wisconsin in 1916 built a ‘macadam’ hard surface road because of the importance of tourism and commerce in the county. The bicycle, farm and folks that had to use the roads all unified to lobby the state for assistance in building the hard surface roads. By 1917 they had 150 miles of hard surface roads here in Door County. Macadam is where they mix sand/gravel and tar and combine it to form a hard surface over a prepared road bed.”

• The town hall was open during the latest cold snap to provide emergency warming shelter for residents.

In other municipal news…

GIBRALTAR

At its monthly meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 5 at 7 pm at the town hall, the Gibraltar Town Board will again discuss implementing a noise ordinance. The town has also released its road brushing guidelines, which the town board approved on Jan. 8. The guidelines are posted on ppulse.com.

STURGEON BAY:  The City of Sturgeon Bay Municipal Services Department would like to warn residents of the dangers of letting children build forts near the road, especially in snowbanks. With the large amounts of snow accumulation, children may think it’s a great place to build a fort or build a tunnel.

Besides the risk of the fort or tunnel collapsing and trapping a child inside, there is also the risk of a snow removal vehicle not seeing a child inside of one while plowing or pushing snow banks back to help widen the streets. If your child would like to build a fort, please consider doing so further into your yard, away from the street.

The City of Sturgeon Bay Municipal Services Office is accepting applications until Feb. 10, 2014, for full- and part-time seasonal street and parks department positions. Hours and wages vary depending on the position. A full listing of positions available may be found online at sturgeonbaywi.org or by stopping in the Municipal Services office, 835 N. 14^th Ave., Sturgeon Bay, between 7 am and 3:30 pm weekdays.