Greenwood council votes down permits for communication tower

By Valorie Brecht At its most recent meeting, the Greenwood Common Council said no to a proposed communication tower. The Towers LLC was seeking a conditional use permit, structure location permit and wireless telecommunications facility permit in order to install a 95-foot monopole telecommunications tower on Parcel 231.0563.000, owned by Stieglitz Dairy LLC and located off Highway 73 on the north side of the city in the highway business district.

The council made the decision to deny all three permits Nov. 15, upon recommendation from the planning and zoning commission, which heard from residents at a public hearing at Clark Electric the night prior.

The planning and zoning commission made a recommendation to deny the conditional use permit because the tower would be “detrimental to the comfort of our citizens,” “an impairment with the adjoining land” and “an impediment of future developments”; and there were concerns with the site access road off of State Highway 73, and noncompliance with the colocation affidavit within the search ring. The council followed that recommendation.

The commission also made recommendations to deny the structure location permit due to noncompliance with colocation, and to deny the wireless telecommunications facility permit for the same reason. The council followed these recommendations as well.

Council member Tracy Nelson asked a clarifying question at the council meeting.

“The recommendation is specific to the site, correct?” she asked.

“Yes,” said city clerk Kayla Schar.

“They would have to come back for a new application for any other site because these applications are site-specific,” said city attorney Bonnie Wachsmuth.

“The reason I ask is because last night, it seemed like people were mainly concerned about the location of the tower, not the tower itself,” said Nelson.

The Towers LLC has the ability to appeal the council’s decision.

As recently as July, The Towers LLC had applied to build a tower in the village of Webster in Burnett County.

Other business Also at the meeting, the council approved an operator’s license for Warren Leschnisky.

The council also approved purchasing a submersible mixer for the treatment plant for $6,800.

“It’s pretty essential in the train of treatment. It helps with bio phosphorus removal. Otherwise we have to put more chemicals in,” said Utility Director Trent Johnson. “If we get four years, that’s about all we can expect out of it.”

Another item up for approval was a maintenance agreement with Energenecs, a company based out of Saukville that provides process equipment, water and wastewater control systems and engineering services.

“We will mostly have them there to calibrate our meters,” said Johnson. “Since they’re there, we’ll try to have them do multiple tasks at one time.”

The agreement will be for 16 hours’ worth of work, or two trips for Energenecs personnel. It will cost $2,372.

“We might need them for more, but this will get us at least 16 hours at a reduced rate,” said Johnson.

The council also agreed to move the city’s funds from First State Bank to Forward Bank, since First State Bank will be closing Dec. 8. The reason the city had money in both banks was in an effort to support both businesses in the community.

The council also approved a library budget for 2024 of $74,617.47.

In his report to the council, Police Chief Bernie Bock said that he had met with an insurance representative from the League of Wisconsin Municipalities Insurance, and was made aware of a shoot/don’t shoot-type training that was available to the city, that runs police officers through different video-based scenarios and how they should respond. Bock said he is going to look into bringing that to the city and having city officials participate, so they can see the type of situations police officers face.

Street Supervisor Dave Hinker reported that the public works crew had their dump truck inspected, put snow removal equipment on the dump trucks, did molding work on the garage door and did some tuckpointing at the library, as there was a leak in the brick work. They are working on Christmas decor, picking up brush and trimming trees. Other ongoing projects include additional tuckpointing at the library and cleaning the sidewalks.

Johnson said the wastewater treatment plant had its annual inspection Nov. 9 and no big changes needed to be made.

The council decided which days City Hall would be closed for Christmas. It will be closed Friday, Dec. 22, and Monday, Dec. 25.