Minutes of the Richland County Zoning & Land Information Committee

Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013

 

Item #1            CALL TO ORDER The Zoning & Land Information Committee meeting was called to order by Chairman Rasmussen at 1:30. Those present or signed up to speak were Larry Sebranek, Bob Holets, Marilyn Marshall, Jim Lewis, Virginia Wiedenfeld, Gaylord Deets, Ken Hanson, Randy Poad, Jeanetta Kirkpatrick, Ron Salinger, Connie Champnoise, Sharon Swiggum, Terry Berg, Mike Bindl with Cheryl Dull taking minutes.

 

Item #2            Approve agenda and publication Moved by Marilyn to approve the publication and agenda, 2nd by Virginia. Motion carried.

 

Item #3            Approve minutes of the AUGUST 5, 2013 meeting   Bob stated item #2, no 2nd. Item #5 Virginia was not opposed to anything with Deed restriction, no date for next meeting. Moved by Bob to approve minutes as corrected, 2nd by Marilyn. Motion carried

 

Item #4            To hear a petition of Randy Poad to rezone 6 acres from Agricultural/Forestry to Agriculture/Residential in Section 28 of Town of Buena Vista (9)     Randy Poad is present, he stated he is selling crop land to his brother, he is keeping the remainder although the land is not adjoining. The irrigation pivot is sitting on Randy’s land. They want to get all the farm land onto 1 parcel. Bob questioned if the remaining 34 is legal? Mike stated he is not sure but there are no buildings on it. Virginia suggested when the 34 is resurveyed, get it rezoned if less than 35 acres. Moved by Bob to approve and send to County Board, 2nd by Virginia. Motion carried.

 

Item #5            To hear a petition of Susan Unruh to rezone 31 acres from Agricultural/Forestry to Agriculture/Residential in Section 16 of Town of Marshall   Ken Hanson is present to represent Susan Unruh. Ken presented this is 31 acres, they want to rezone to Ag/R. There is an accepted offer to purchase contingent upon the rezone and that they can build another building. Ken stated that when purchased in 2002, there seemed to be no problem, now to build another building it needs to be rezoned. This was originally owned by Symons who owned a lot of land and sold this off. Originally it was 39 acres, Hanson sold off 5 acres with another 40 acres, which made it legal but it left 30 acres with this parcel. Moved by Bob to approve with a Deed Restriction to limit to one house and send to County Board, 2nd by Jim Lewis. Motion carried.

 

Item #6            Proposed budget for Zoning office  Mike presented the Zoning Budget. Mike is keeping the fees the same. He is trying to budget accounts better. Example 1 ink cartridge is $100. He is shifting money from one account to another to be actual. For upcoming revenue, he has  cut back on WI funds, Sanitary permits and mapping. We will not have as much revenue as we have in the past. 2012 we were over $35000 on revenue but it also causes us to go over in expenses. In expenses, the only thing we have to change is we are expected to cover our salary so we need to come up with over $8000 to cover the increase. He has presented the same increases as last year that the committee turned down. The closest to balancing the budget is raising the Maintenance Fees. Everything else will only increase the revenue a few hundred dollars. Other ideas are to raise other fees. Jeanetta stated the $8000 does not cover the 14% health insurance that they have not told departments about yet. Richard question that some of the revenues don’t go to zoning, the Platbook raised us over $5000 but it goes to the General Fund. Jeanetta states they do it with every department. Jeanetta stated the committee voted on the Platbook and it was to go to the General Fund. Bob questioned why we don’t treat all revenue for Revenue generating departments the same and they get their own revenue. Mike explained that if everyone that was late pumping would come into compliance before we assess late fees we would lose revenue and if all the reports that are currently late would come in we would get an additional $10000. Bob ask if there is a large enough incentive to get people to maintain their system. Our next step will be go from a $50 citation to a $200 citation plus court cost. Jeanetta ask what percent of the budget is covered by fees and the rest tax levy. Mike stated 68-70% is covered by fees. Mike presented he has an actual to budgeted number on the last page 81.3% was actually covered our budget with fees. Bob ask if he budgets the same amount will it cover the raises? He had to make up a reduction in tax levy by about $8000. Jeanetta stated Mike works on getting actual numbers and not on what we could get. Bob ask why would Zoning predict that their revenue would decrease. Mike explained that we are to the 5th year of our 3 year sanitary maintenance cycle and we will not issue as many sanitary permits as we have because we have been catching the failed systems and getting them replaced. Bob feels that with looking at the actual revenue with what was budgeted we are higher then budgeted so we have met our budget. Mike asked do we want to keep the same budget as last year without raising fees? Moved by Larry to go with the budget as presented, 2nd by Bob. Motion carried.

 

Item #7            Proposed Land Information budget  Paul presented his Land Information (Retained Fees) Budget:  The first 5 items are from the Land information for 50 hours. The middle items are the same. New equipment is over by $5000 because we thought last year the plotter would cost $7000, this year it went up dramatically. The plotter came in at $14500.00. Bob questioned why the plotter would cost $7000 and now it went up to $14500, than why is Paul budgeting $2000.  New equipment this is, the IT department thought all 3 servers could be replaced with 1 larger server at $15000. The Sheriff’s server needs to be replaced, one is the GCS server, and the Register of Deeds server. When IT made this suggestion if was lower and as the meeting went one the price went up. Budgeted is a mapping upgrading for $8000, seems there are always upgrades needed and it wasn’t used last year. Paul explained one thing is the highway parcels were never put in with precision and were put in hastily just to get them on the map another is that we didn’t have coordinates on all our corners. When the computerized mapping was done, some of the corners were put in with an educated guess. Bob questioned, the other coordinates that have been done were out of Grant funds. We have the option of hiring someone or contracting for it. Larry asked what happened to last years $8000? Paul stated it is still sitting there to be used. Paul explained that if the money is not spent, it is just kept there to be used later. Mike explained the new printer/scanner will scan large prints. Bottom line is $33583.13, last year it was $25883.61. Retained fees do not collect interest.

 

Land Records Grant: We receive from the state as the difference of what we collect and $50000.00. We have to tell the state what project we will work on, all of this and in the future will be sent on coordinates. We started in Buena Vista and are on the Northern tier of the County. Of that, $26132.00 will be spent on coordinates. Lynn has been the only one recently using the Training/Education. Paul thinks $610 for Training/Education should not have been applied to this fund because it doesn’t balance but that it might have been earned interest. Grant funds collect interest.

 

Electronic Access fees: We get $2 of every recorded document. This money is set up to make sure our data is accessible to the public. We have 2 different private companies that are paid out of this fund. Public access computers come out of this fund. $1000 was put in for public computers.

Virginia questioned, none of these are tax levy dollars? Bob stated the servers will have to go to finance. Bob does not want to approve that 3 servers will be replaced by one, that needs more oversite. Moved by Virginia to approve the budgets and send to Personnel/Finance, 2nd by Jim. Motion carried.

 

Item #8            UW-Madison request to GIS data to archive   Paul presented this was on last months agenda. Paul was asked to get more information on what it will be used for. Paul stated he received information that this is only used of students and information that they would use. Bob asked why only 23 counties contribute to this archive? Paul said he asked that also and the info he received is they have signed with any county but elsewhere it says they have Geo Spacial data for 52 counties. 23 are the ones that have signed agreements, they have paid fees ti 4 counties. Only a few have flat out refused to provide data. Richard questioned how much work would this create for Lynn, Mike thought less then an hour. Bob ask what is to protect the confidentially? Mike added that at County Board 2 months Ben told us we were charging too much with relation to the Open Records law and that the option is charge them $50 or give the info away because it is public record. Moved by Larry grant the request, 2nd by Virginia, Motion carried.

 

Item #9            SWWRPC Data Sharing request  Mike presented he sent out a copy of the email that was sent to him. This morning Lynn received an email from the person that was suppose to be here today that they had too many people gone out of the office and had to stay there to cover. They would like to enter into a data sharing agreement that we would both benefit from. They are interested in residentially owned and absentee owners. Jeanetta has been approached twice indicating that there are 5 counites that are in the group and we are the only county that has charged them for information and they want to be treated like the other counties. The information they gather is for us about us and so it would make since to share the info. They are requesting it for a “non profit” partner. Moved by Bob to give it to them, 2nd by Virginia. Motion carried.

  

Item  #10         Primate Sanctuary  Mike presented that he has talked to Gaylord and Richard prior. It needs attention. The same group came to Iowa County for monkeys and other animals that the UW is doing research on. They would care for them, wash them, feed them, give them the medicine they need. The concern was that is was next to a county park. The concern was what happens if they get loose. He was contacted after the last Zoning meeting, they stated the state feels it is the same use as a dog kennel. The Ordinance states a kennel needs to be more then 1300 feet from a residence. They now feel the land was out of the question because they don’t want to go through a conditional use permit. They are now looking at property in Grant county or an unzoned township. Mike feels it should be addressed in the new zoning ordinance. Bob stated dogs are domestic and we had come up with a definition for exotic animals. Jeanetta added that there was a guy in Vernon county that had an exotic cat and had to move out of the county.

 

Item # 11         Non-metallic mining 

a.                Frac sand  Mike suggested a 6 month extension on the Moritorium. Moved by Bob to extend 6 months and send to county board for approval., 2nd by Larry. Motion carried.

At 3:25 pm. Connie Champnoise ask for the floor to discuss frac sand mining. She thanks the county for the opportunity to serve on the Subcommittee.

 

b.                Possible subcommittee creation  Mike presented, last month a sub-committee was discussed. He presented a list of Mary Ann Stanek, Megan Thompson, Jim Chitwood, Ben Southwick, Connie Champnoise, Larry Sebranek, Bob Holets, Richard Rassmussen, Cathy Cooper, Ken Anderson, Darin Gudgeon and maybe someone from SW Regional planning. Virginia suggested an odd number of people, but Jeanetta added that Ben would only be a consultant not a member. The goal is to come up with language to regulate Frac Sand mining. Bob questioned why we couldn’t use something another county has drafted and not reinvent the wheel. Richard stated this committee would regulate all types of mines not just Frac Sand. Jeanetta added that we need to be careful coping another counties ordinance, we need it more specific to our county.  Mike stated an issue is the zoned, unzoned, and self zoned townships. Ron Salinger questioned by creating a committee, does it end the moratorium or would it continue? A resident from Richwood spoke to his concerns about Frac Sand, the blasting, endless trucking and fine silica sand in the air. He went on to say he attended a meeting by the River Board and it was a very emotional meeting. They have stopped all the mining in their jurisdiction. Moved by Larry to send Mike’s list of names to Committees on Committees, 2nd by Jim. Motion carried. With a maximum of 5 meetings.

 

Item #12          Complaints  None

 

Item # 13         Pay Bills  None

 

Item #14          Adjourn  Next meeting will be Monday, October 7 @ 9:00. Moved to adjourn at 3:33 pm by Bob, 2nd by Virginia. Motion carried

 

Minutes respectfully submitted by Cheryl Dull.