Safety concerns

Marathon County Board not ready to allow ATV/UTV traffic on certain high traffic rural county highways

The Marathon County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to send back to committee an ordinance that would allow ATV/UTV traffic on rural county highways under 1,500 average daily vehicles.

Marathon County Board of Supervisors voted, 19-13, to refer the ordinance to the county board’s public safety committee or further review. The decision not to approve the ordinance followed Thursday comments by county board chairman Kurt Gibbs, town of Cassel, who said trucking company officials told him allowing ATV/UTVs on busy commercial highways like CTH N would be a safety issue.

Gibbs said he was concerned that large gravel trucks, including those that operate in the towns of Cassel and Marathon, would not be able to slow in time to avoid hitting ATV/ UTVs that might be travelling between 20 and 35 miles per hour, especially at night.

Gibbs said it is common to slow vehicles ATV/UTVs without using brakes. In that instance, he said, trucks would not be able to see the slower moving ATV/UTVs and there could be an accident.

“We need to seriously look at this,” Gibbs said. He reminded supervisors that the county’s mission statement calls for Marathon County to be the healthiest and safest county in the state.

Supervisor Jean Maszk, Mosinee, said that ATV/UTVs could safely be operated on low volume county roads like CTH X and C, but not on a commercial truck route like CTH N. She called mixing heavy trucks and ATV/UTVs on CTH N “very dangerous.”

She added: “I was a truck driver, so I know what it is like.”

In other board business:

_ Board members passed a resolution authoring Fond du Lac County to sell up to $240 million in bonds to have Bug Tussel Wireless, LLC, Green Bay, upgrade broadband in several Wisconsin counties, including Marathon. The Marathon County project will require up to $25 million.

_ Board members approved a resolution opposing a state mandate that would force counties to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for housing. Supervisor John Robinson, Wausau, argued that local officials best knew how to use federal dollars, not the state. “I am tired of Madison always telling us what to do,” he said. “It’s time we send a message to Madison.”

Robinson said public input called for spending ARPA dollars on childcare, broadband and housing.

_ In public participation, Kam Yang, a Hmong man from Wausau, gave a dramatic statement where he said he will move his family out of the county because of ongoing racism, including being fired from a local credit union for no reason.

“Marathon County is so racist,” he declared, saying that he was often told on the street to “go back to your own country.”

Yang, an experienced banker with a business degree from UW- Eau Claire, complained to credit union management about credit union customers who said they would not deal with him because he was “an Asian guy.” Soon after, he was terminated without reason. “It turned my world upside down,” he said.

Yang said it was awful that a credit union would not support a minority employee, especially given the history of credit unions which, in their early years, provided loans to immigrants when conventional banks would not.

Yang said he filed a complaint with the state and now is negotiating a settlement with the credit union.

“I will be moving away and take my family,” he said. “I don’t want my children to experience the same racism I experience.”