Village board questions need for a crosswalk in Gilman
Currently, despite a highway running right through the Main Street of Gilman, there are no crosswalks installed, linking one side of the village to the other. A community member would like to change that and made a request to the village, to add a painted crosswalk at the Main Street/Third Avenue intersection, which was discussed Feb. 14.
“The cost is the paint and labor to put it in, and to maintain it,” said Gilman Police Chief Tom Tallier, who added it is a rarity that someone has to wait for more than a couple vehicles to pass, in order to safely cross the road.
If the village board approves the crosswalk, Tallier will take care of the permitting process through the state. Cheryl Rosemeyer, village trustee, made sure she understood the rules of the road, as confirmed by Tallier: if they are within the crosswalk, a pedestrian has the rightof- way, but if they are not within the crosswalk, the motorist has the right-of-way. Tallier did mention that with the addition of a crosswalk, technically, he should then enforce jaywalking, because citizens would break the law if they don’t use the specified crosswalk.
Rosemeyer also felt a crosswalk to have would be better suited by the old daycare, where kids cross the highway coming to/going from the school, while trustee Ericka Bertsinger questioned if signs would need to be installed, pointing out there is a crosswalk. Tallier said they could install signs, but that they are not required.
“I’m not opposed to it, but I guess, to me, without signage, they’re not even going to realize it’s there, until they’re right on top of it,” said trustee Russell Baker.
It was agreed to “sit on” the matter, before approving it.
Members did approve beginning a Comprehensive Plan process for the village, as the plan is supposed to be updated every 10 years.
“We haven’t done it,” said village clerk Candice Grunseth.
The problem with that, is that the village needs the updated plan to apply for most grants. When asking for quotes, three answered the call, with Northwest Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (NWRPC) giving a cost of $11,300, to research, review and develop the planning narrative, in a complete overhaul, while Cedar Corp. gave a quote of $47,355 without a grant or $23,151 with a grant, and SEH said it would be $18,000, but not as a complete redo.
It was a clear choice for the trustees and NWRPC was selected as the preferred service.
Grunseth also reported that they are working on GIS mapping for the village water and sewer systems, as the village was approved for two grants and are working on a third. That way, if someone has a question about where a valve is, the information is right at their fingertips.
“This is a big deal for us to get that,” said Grunseth. At a prior meeting, it was agreed to go ahead and enter into a PFAS settlement, but even though village public works director Dave Kroeplin provided all the requested information to join the lawsuit, it was then released that an additional 10 years of monthly water averages were needed. Of course, going that far back, the information is not saved on a computer, so the settlement idea was abandoned.
“We decided it’s probably more waste of time, than trying to get a small settlement,” said Kroeplin.
Kroeplin was also in the middle of a couple weeks of testing Gilman Cheese’s influent levels, to see what they’re doing differently, for BODs and suspended solids.
“They were really high before,” said Kroeplin.
