By Brian Roebke
Editor
“It could not have gone better” were the words of Village of Wrightstown Clerk/Treasurer Michelle Seidl the day after last week’s general election.
The village had 1,882 voters, a 90 percent turnout. With 109 new registered voters, there are now 2,113 registered voters for the next election.
“I was thrilled when I got here this morning and I started going through everything,” Seidel told the village board. “Even in the smaller elections sometimes because we’re a dual county municipality, we have ballots that maybe accidentally the wrong person gets a Brown County ballot, that did not happen yesterday.”
With the magnitude of the election, Seidl was thrilled there weren’t any ballot errors.
Board members told Seidl they received good reports on the election.
Trustee Sue Byers noted she loved the touch screen voting. The person who helped her with that told her they were “really awesome” and thanked the board for purchasing them.
“We went that route because we felt they could be wiped down easier and we could have a little bit more control,” Seidl said. “I’m really glad to hear that.”
President Donald J. Trump won the village with 1,081 votes compared to former Vice President Joe Biden’s 558, a 66-percent mark for the incumbent that will be leaving office in January as a result of the Electoral College voting.
“I definitely want to give Michelle and the poll workers kudos because they did an awesome job yesterday,” Village Administrator Travis Coenen said. “It was even during the busy time in the morning and a couple times throughout the day things moved through so well.”
Coenen said while some communities are cancelling Christmas parades, the village is moving ahead with theirs and spreading it out. However, the event with Santa after the parade will not happen.
Seidl also reported the official aggregate assessed value in the village. Brown County is $240,839,100, while Outagamie County is $53,292,300. Both are increased from 2019.
Coenen said even though the village completed its reevaluation about a year ago, the residential values are now in the 90-percent range.
“Compared to our surrounding communities we’re doing really good because most of the surrounding communities were in the 80s for the past few years already,” he said.
Coenen noted Halloween went well despite fewer than usual kids on the prowl for candy, and the bingo bash and Halloween bash were cancelled.
He told the board the Town of Wrightstown’s incorporation request was denied and he had not heard anything back from anyone in the town like one of the incorporation board members suggested.
Coenen said he did contact their leadership and their legal counsel.
The board approved a rezone request by Midwest Expansion/Matriarch Ventures, LLC for Tax Parcel 300002400 (Outagamie County) from (M-F) Multifamily Residential with PDD to (R-1) Residential with PDD and for Tax Parcel 300002401 (Outagamie County) from (B-1) General Business with PDD to (R-1) Residential with PDD.
This is the proposed subdivision at the southwest corner of Golf Course Drive and Theunis Drive.
Superintendent of Public Works Andy Vickman reported the village received a notice of non–compliance for its reported overflow at the wastewater facility on May 28 following 2½ inches of rain in a short period of time.
“It’s a standard procedure there, there was no further action needed,” he said. “We were able to intercept everything before it got into any storm sewer.”
The overflow spilled onto the non-permeable space.
Vickman also pointed out there were 14 applicants for the vacant wastewater operator position. They interviewed five candidates and came down with two people who were great, with one of them being offered the position.
Fire Chief Mike Schampers reported the ISO people were in the village to review the fire protection and will return their findings in 4-6 months. “In our feeling it went very well,” he said. “We don’t have any concerns that our number would go the wrong way for any reason.”
ISO Insurance Services Office, known as ISO, creates ratings for fire departments and their surrounding communities that calculate how well-equipped fire departments are to put out fires in that community. The better the “ISO fire score,” the better homeowners insurance rates are.
Vickman also noted the village received 19 bare-root trees though the “First Downs for Trees” program though the Green Bay Packers and Wisconsin DNR.
Most of them, including nine different species, will be held to plant next year including in Mueller Park.