Advertisement Despite his and other objections, the council voted unanimously in favor of the deer feeding ban for its initial reading. Another vote is required for final passage.
While Schmitt admitted there were good intentions behind the ordinance, he said it was approached incorrectly. Schmitt, one of three residents to speak in opposition to the ordinance, also argued that without data, if it got to the point where the city would decide on eradication, “where would you put the hunters? This is city-wide ordinance. Where would you put the hunters if you can’t identify the problem areas?”
Asking for more data on which to base any newly created or changes to existing ordinances, Schmitt was one of three citizens complaining about the proposal to council members.
Knute “Skip” Temte also found fault with wording in the ordinance: “The City of Onalaska finds that the intentional feeding of deer is a nuisance.”
“Where’s the data?” Temte asked. He argued the data the city used was statewide data and not specific enough to Onalaska to warrant such a sweeping ordinance.
He also argued that nuisance deer and the feeding of them was a civil issue, should be taken up in the courts and that law enforcement had more important things to do.
Bob Erickson, who lives in a neighborhood where deer are a problem, said he thinks the city’s ordinance is flawed but better than nothing. He complained the city has been looking into the problem since March and it is only getting bigger (because of the growing deer population).
Alderman Bob Muth, who brought the ordinance to the council, said passing an ordinance is just the first step in addressing a problem that affects the entire area, not just the east side of the city.
“The people on the west side are missing the point of how the problem affects everyone, from diseased deer affecting other animals, songbirds, vegetation,” Muth said. “There are a multitude of ways the deer (problem) is affecting everyone.”
He said some people are arguing to go to step eight or to eradicating deer with controlled hunts. “We can’t do that.”
City attorney Sean Flaherty suggested one way to address the issue is to pass the ordinance but not make it effective until surrounding municipalities enact ordinances. “Then there would be a real regional impact. Onalaska can take the proactive approach and blaze a trail, but it won’t do any good if no one else does it.”
La Crosse is working on a similar ordinance. The proposed Onalaska ordinance will be brought back to the council, probably next month, for its third and final reading.
Boundary issues
The city might see more cooperation on the deer feeding problem from Hamilton and West Salem than they are seeing with the boundary agreement issues. Mayor Mike Giese reported that there was supposed to be another meeting where both municipal leaders were to come back with their attorney’s explanations of why the proposed memorandum of understanding was not in their best interest and to discuss whether to forget about trying to come up with such a memorandum and just go for a boundary agreement.
However, that meeting has not happened and Hamilton and West Salem leaders don’t seem inclined to have such a meeting.
“It’s quite clear they’ve cooled quite considerably on the issue,” Giese said. “The last correspondence I had is that no more meetings should be held by West Salem.”
Alderman Dennis Aspenson said if that’s the case, the city should go directly to the developers that approached the city a year or so ago, which started the whole boundary agreement discussion. “Tell the developers they are better off dealing with Onalaska,” he said. “If you want to wait for discussions from other governmental agencies, that’s fine. But we should not be caught sitting on our hands.”
Pay check
After lengthy discussion, council members asked the city’s human resource specialist, Hope Burchell, to obtain data on municipal employee pay from Baraboo, Chippewa Falls, Weston, Menomonie, Wisconsin Rapids, Marshfield, Plover, River Falls, Kaukauna and Monroe.
The city paid for a study to help ensure Onalaska employees’ pay is comparable to the pay in other similar municipalites, but city officials are now undertaking their own evaluation.
The process of evaluating the city’s compensation plan will continue with a special council meeting Aug. 21.
Other business
The policy also outlines four snow plowing sections and the priorities for clearing operations. The first priority in each section would be main streets that are arterial and collector streets for through traffic and which includes streets around schools, clinics and fire stations. The second priority would go to residential streets and the third priority would be alleys.
Theresa Capaul requested the city work with the Metropolitan Transit Utility to expand the bus coverage area and hours of the system.
Contact Jo Anne Killeen at joanne.killeen@lee.net or (608) 786-6816.
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