Abbotsford school board hears wind turbine discussion

The Abbotsford School Board made time to hear out Clark County Supervisor Fred Schindler who spoke about the wind turbine project that is being proposed in Clark and Marathon Counties.

Schindler told the board some of the health and safety concerns that he had been notifying the public of at town hall meetings representing Farmland First. He asked the school board to motion for a recommendation that the district would give to the City of Abbotsford Common Council regarding the turbines.

Kraig Schindler made the motion saying, “For the health, safety and well-being of our students that the School Board of Abbotsford is in support of the City of Abbotsford, to enact any and all zoning ordinances to restrict the placement of all wind turbines and related equipment the maximum distance from the school and City of Abbotsford again for the health, safety and well-being of our students.”

Board member Yvone Vazquez said she hadn’t heard too much about the turbine discussion and asked if there were any benefits to having turbines in the area. Fred Schindler said for the three percent of the population that sign the turbine contracts, there will be payments made from the company to those land owners. Schindler then said the other 97 percent are forced to deal with the adverse effects of the turbines.

The board voted in favor of the recommendation to the city by a vote of 8-1 with Vazquez as the only “nay” vote.

The district chose to go with their health insurance consortium’s decision to switch health care providers for next year.

The consortium, made up of Marathon County Special Education, Edgar, Marathon, Athens, Spencer, Rosholt and Abbotsford, received a quote from the previous year’s health insurance company, WCA, which reflected a 14% increase in rates.

In turn, they decided to send the insurance options out to bid. The consortium recieved bids from three companies, Aspirus, Security Health and WCA.

The consortium accepted a bid from Aspirus which included two options for staff to sign up for. They could choose the freedom plan which allows staff to sign up for the Aspirus Signature Network, where the district covers 84% of the premiums and the employee is responsible for 16% or the Aspirus Freedom Network, where the district covers 77% of the premiums and the employee is responsible for 23%. The two plans reflect a 15% increase in rates for the district from last year or a 2% decrease from last year for the Freedom and Signature plans, respectively.

District Administrator Ryan Bargender said after hearing about the consortium choosing Aspirus as their next health insurance provider, WCA came back with a 7% increase proposal. He said the consortium chose to stay with Aspirus’s proposal instead.