Source: Marshfield News Herald (Marshfield, Wood Co., Wis.)

December 21, 2005

Transcribed by: Crystal Wendt

Clark Co. Board tables plan ordinance

Decision brings applause from attending public

By Matt Conn - Marshfield News-Herald

NEILLSVILLE -- The Clark County Board voted 19-6 Tuesday night to table until April a resolution to create a county comprehensive plan ordinance.

The vote drew applause from many of the about 80 people watching, who crowded into the board room.

The measure has been staunchly opposed by members of the Committee for Fairness in Law Inc., some of whom were at the meeting distributing stickers with a hand-written "NO."

"The people couldn't speak, so we wanted some way of expressing ourselves," said 21-year-old Lydia Palmer of Neillsville, whose father, Clark Palmer, is chairman of the group. "The land belongs to the people. When they vote 'yes' to this, they're giving our rights away."

However, Supervisor Steve Amacher said such a reaction reflects only a vocal minority. Amacher serves as chairman of the committee that has crafted the comprehensive planning -- based on state Smart Growth law -- ordinance for the past five years.

"Some of them have to file nomination papers, so they're looking over their shoulders," Amacher said of the board members who will be up for election in April. "It was disappointing to see it not even get a vote."

Supervisor Bob Rogstad of Greenwood, who made the motion that tabled the resolution, intends to offer a resolution to hold an April referendum on the comprehensive planning ordinance.

Amacher said that his committee had confirmed with the state Department of Administration that if the Clark County Board did not pass the Smart Growth ordinance, the county must reimburse the state about $190,000.

"I don't know where that would come from," Amacher said.

Peter Helios of Granton, a volunteer on Amacher's committee, and said he thought the Smart Growth ordinance would be an asset to the county. The 58-year-old said the planning committee members were careful to retain individual rights.

"There's no way ... we would put in anything that would be restrictive to anybody's land," Helios said. "We're landowners, too."

However, 49-year-old Kenneth Parnewicz of Green Grove said he and the rest of the landowners not on a county committee could make their own decisions.

"There are people in the county that penny-pinch," he said. "We cannot afford to do all the stuff they want to do. Nothing comes free."

According to the University of Wisconsin-Extension, Smart Growth establishes a comprehensive plan that applies to all cities, villages, towns, counties and regional planning commissions in Wisconsin. It redefines the 1920s "master plan" and "county development plan" added in 1967. The law was enacted in 1999 and provides the framework for a unified land use planning and regulation enabling law for the state, according to the UW.

The board also voted to:

Transfer about 80 acres in the town of Levis to the Ho Chunk Nation, which had claimed it had legal rights to the property

Accept donations from the Lunda Charitable Trust for capital improvements at Bruce Mound Winter Sports Area

Approve sale of about 2 acres of county land in the town of Worden to private landowners Frank and John Gurklis.