Granton Village Board discusses enforcement of school truancy rules, village ordinances

By Cheyenne Thomas Alack of law enforcement in the village of Granton was a major topic of discussion related to several agenda items at the regular meeting of the Granton Village Board on Sept. 11. The board listened to a request for ongoing communication from the Granton Area School District regarding enforcement of truancy rules, as well as discussed its ability to enforce several of its own ordinances related to animals and parking.

Granton District Administrator Nancy Popp and K-12 Principal Amanda Kraus came to the board to ask if there was a way to establish connections with other local police departments to help the district enforce its truancy rules. According to Kraus, the district has a four-step process it follows for any student who is truant, with the last step involving law enforcement. Since the former village constable Mark Ramberg retired back in 2018, the village has had no law enforcement of its own. Both the school and the village have since relied on the Clark County Sheriff’s Department to respond to certain situations where law enforcement would be needed, but there are some issues that the sheriff’s department handles differently than local law enforcement.

“With no village police force to go to, we go to the Clark County Sheriff’s Department,” said Kraus. “Their level of response at the county level is a more escalated response than what we would have with our own law enforcement. For us, it makes us wary to move forward with the process to reach the fourth step. Families essentially know there is no fourth step, so we were wondering if there are partnerships or something that we can use.”

Village trustee Bryan Vine said the lack of local law enforcement has been an ongoing struggle for the village. Many of the village ordinances, he said, are unable to really be enforced since they can only be enforced by village law enforcement rather than a county officer. The village has contacted the City of Neillsville about sharing an officer part-time, but no permanent solution has been found.

“We have reached out to Neillsville in the past to help us enforce our ordinances,” he said. “Maybe this is another topic we can discuss with them to give us some assistance. We can look into either Neillsville or Loyal and see what they have to say. We have a lot of ordinances we can’t really enforce without our own officer.”

Later on in the meeting, discussion was had on two separate village ordinances that highlighted this concern about the lack of officers in the village to enforce ordinances. The first was about winter parking. During the months between Nov. 1 toApril 1, the village doesn’t allow overnight parking on its streets so village crews can plow the roads. Vine proposed an idea to allow for parking on designated sides of the streets during the winter months, provided the vehicle has a permit that would be paid for at the village office. The question remained on how to enforce the changes to the ordinance to have winter parking. The item ended up being tabled to next month’s meeting for further discussion on how to change and enforce the ordinance.

The board also discussed its animal ordinance. The board wanted to amend the current animal ordinance to specify all types of land within the village limits had to obey the ordinance, but the copy of the document the village had for its records had a printing error that made portions of the text unreadable.After discussing enforcement regarding a resident’s failure to register their animals, and how to find the original document for the ordinance, the board decided to table discussion on any changes to the ordinance until they were able to find a copy of the original document.

In other action taken by the board at its meeting, the board discussed the hitching post used by the Amish on Second Street. While the board discussed its replacement, the question was asked if it would be better to keep the hitching post where it was or to have it moved to a different location. After discussing a few other location ideas, the board decided to table the matter to allow them to investigate other potential sites for the hitching post before making the decision to replace its current one.

The board also discussed the temporary mailboxes that residents on Main Street have been using for the past several months during the street’s construction. With the street nearly complete, the question was asked if mail should revert to being sent to mailboxes along the street, or if the temporary mailboxes should be used through the winter months to make sure the curb and gutter are allowed to properly cure before any snowplows are used on the edges of the new street. The board decided to table discussion until its next meeting.

The board also listened to a short presentation on the loans for Safe Drinking Water and the Clean Water Fund. The village should be receiving funds from the Safe Drinking Water grant within the next few weeks to pay for Main Street construction costs, but a few hiccups on funding for