News Bulletin: Selvick Marine to Become Sarter Marine Towing

Don Sarter at the helm of one of his tugs. Submitted.

WHAT HAPPENED

• Don Sarter – a longtime Selvick Marine employee and co-owner with Sharon and Susan Selvick since 2014 – purchased the company from the Selvick twins last month with his wife, Julie. “Nothing will change,” Sarter said. “Same customers, same people. Except for the company name. It will soon become Sarter Marine Towing. That’s in the process now.” The company has eight of the mighty, green tugboats that ply the waters of Lake Michigan, providing the titled towing services, along with ship docking and ice breaking. Sarter has spent 45 years with Selvick and 46 with Roen Salvage, for which he is project superintendent. He was in Chicago on a Roen job when he talked with the Peninsula Pulse. Selvick Marine was founded in 1969 by William and Yvonne Selvick, making it one of the oldest existing tug services on the Great Lakes. In 1994, Sharon and Susan purchased the business from their parents.

• The Sturgeon Bay Common Council approved the conceptual plan for the Westside Waterfront produced by the Ad Hoc West Waterfront Planning Committee. The plan will serve as a guide to future development, but it does not tie the city to any particular building, park or development. During its Aug. 6 meeting, the city also issued bonds for $2.3 million for capital expenses, including two fire engines, two patrol cars and a road grader. The city planned on an interest rate of 2.25 percent, but when finalized, the rate came back at 1.5 percent, netting $85,000 in savings for the city. 

• Cropland cash rent paid to Wisconsin landlords in 2019 averaged $142 per acre, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. Non-irrigated cropland rent averaged $137 per acre, up $3 from last year. Irrigated cropland rent averaged $237 per acre, down $1 from 2018. Pasture rented for cash averaged $40 per acre, unchanged from the previous year. Wisconsin’s farm real-estate value – a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms – averaged $4,950 per acre. This was up $50 per acre, or 1 percent from last year’s level. Cropland value, at $4,850 per acre, was up $110 from a year ago. Pasture, at $2,310 per acre, was up $50 from last year.

COMING UP

• Requests to consider updating rules related to recreational vehicle regulations and wetland mitigation are among the items the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board will address Aug. 14. The board meeting will convene at 8:30 am in the Jefferson Room at the Jefferson Street Inn, 201 Jefferson St. in Wausau. There will be an open forum during which attendees may provide testimony on matters that are not otherwise on the meeting agenda. Comments should address broad general policy, not day-to-day operations of the Department of Natural Resources. Among the agenda items for the Wausau meeting will be deciding to accept donations, among them one from the Friends of Potawatomi State Park for an accessible fishing pier. The complete August board agenda is available at dnr.wi.gov. Search for the keyword “NRB,” and click on “View agendas.” The public must register in advance with board liaison Laurie Ross to testify at the meeting and during the open forum (remotely or at the meeting). The deadline for Ross to receive requests to testify and written comments is Aug. 9 at 11 am. Registration information is available on the NRB pages of the DNR website. No late requests or comments will be accepted. People can watch the meeting on the internet by going to the NRB agenda page of the DNR website and clicking on “Webcasts” in the “Related Links” column on the right. Then click on the August meeting. After each meeting, the webcast will be permanently available on demand.