|
Municipal Trick or Treat
Halloween is the perfect time to talk about how you get along with neighboring jurisdictions. Does the community next door collaborate with you, offering to work through boundary agreements, shared services and community-wide prosperity? Or is everything a battle, sometimes legal, sometimes not? Is it “Trick” or “Treat” time in your neighborhood?
In our neighborhood, at the State Capitol, legislators are discussing a bill that will significantly modify municipal laws that allow cities and villages to rationally plan future growth and economic development opportunities. The draft legislation forces cities and villages to provide sewer and water service and exempts newly-designated “Urban Towns” from extraterritorial plat and zoning laws.
One of the ways to push back against this late-October “Trick” is to show the WHOLE bucket of “Treats” that appear when communities collaborate. To do that, we need your help. We need to hear about examples of intergovernmental collaboration, boundary agreements, extraterritorial zoning agreements and shared services. We know that most communities in Wisconsin work together with their neighbors, but we need specific examples. Please email back to us with a couple of sentences describing recent examples of inter-municipal cooperation.
Your stories will help us in our communicating with legislators as some seek to change current law.
Storm Water Utilities Under PSC Regulation?!?!
Senate Bill 455 introduced by Senator Feyen and Representative Schraa would subject storm water utilities to the full authority of the Public Service Commission to regulate rates and services. This practice would be costly and time consuming, could redirect commercial or industrial fees to residential customers, may require construction authorization on stormwater projects, and could shift costs associated with EPA and DNR compliance with TMDL’s and MS4 permitting. The League opposes this bill.
Please contact your legislators and convey your concerns. Here's some food for thought:
- Rates are already subject to review and oversight at the local level. Equivalent runoff units are calculated to address the stormwater issues fairly between residential, commercial, and industrial classes. If a business thinks that the costs are too high, they can raise those issues with their local elected officials who control the utilities.
- In addition to local control, there is already the option of PSC oversight. Any person or business can petition the PSC to review matters if they believe that rates are unreasonable or unnecessary.
- PSC review of rates is a time consuming and expensive process for local utilities. It requires retaining accountants, attorneys and engineers and formal contested hearings before the PSC.
In short, PSC review adds an expensive and unnecessary step for local utilities and takes control of local decisions away from local officials. Substantively, the reasons that costs have increased has been related to DNR requirements on TMDLs and stormwater management, as well as the need to control flooding events to protect homes , businesses, and infrastructure.
Historic Filled Lands
Municipalities located along the Great Lakes and certain commercial rivers have experienced redevelopment challenges because of legal title issues for land adjacent to or near the waterway. This is particularly challenging for Ashland, Bayfield, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Green Bay, Marinette, Sturgeon Bay, and Superior. In most cases, the land was once part of a waterway but was filled decades ago either by natural processes or possibly even as part of legislative or common law authorization. Most of the land at issue is located in urban areas and has been developed and used for commercial or industrial purposes.
Senate Bill 541, introduced by Senator Stroebel and Representative Wittke, creates a voluntary process where a municipality works with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to develop and authorize a waterfront development plan with parcels that include land that may have been part of the submerged bed of a Great Lakes water. This bill would allow for changes to commercial rivers and amendments to existing lakebed grants.
The key to a successful application is the public use components identified within a plan. The bill does include requirements for such a plan.
The League and the Wisconsin Realtors Association initiated this legislation. For more information see the article in the Municipality Magazine from our April 2021 Land Use edition (pg. 11-13).
Workforce Legislation
Last week the State Senate significantly modified the Governor's proposed workforce package before passing it on a 20-11 vote.
The Governor's special session workforce bill, September Special Session Senate Bill 1, originally called for about $1 billion in spending to boost the state's workforce. The bill makes various changes to state law generally related to child care and the workforce. For a detailed description of the original bill, see the Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s summary
The Senate substitute amendment that was adopted by the Senate last week replaces the Governor's workforce package and adds $2 billion in tax cuts, creates an apprenticeship grant program for technical and tribal college students, and with JFC approval, boosts WEDC's Provider Assistance for Licensing program for childcare licensing. To review all of the new provisions you can read the Legislative Council Amendment Memo.
Today, the Joint Finance Committee met on the substitute amendment and voted it out of the committee on an 8-4 vote. The bill is now available for scheduling in the Assembly.
| 
