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Minute of the Richland County Zoning & Land Information Committee
Meeting
Monday, December 05, 2011
Item # 1 The Zoning committee meeting was called to order by Chairman Richard Rasmussen at 9:30 am. Those present or who signed up to speak were Richard Blakeslee, Bill Seep, Donald Hill, Gary & Corrina Mott, Gaylord Deets, Bob Holets, Matt Filus, Paul Klawiter, Allen Marshall, Judy Schutzkus, Virginia Wiedenfeld, Marilyn Marshall, Jim Lewis, Michael Bindl with Cheryl Dull taking minutes.
Item #2 Motion by Marshall, seconded by Lewis, to approve the publication and agenda. Motion carried.
Item #3 Moved by Rasmussen declared the minutes approved as mailed.
Start of Public Hearing 9:31 am.
Item #4 The committee heard a petition from Gary & Corrina Mott to obtain a conditional use permit to allow a placement of an agricultural structure within 500 feet of a non-ag structure under separate ownership in Section 12 of Dayton Township.
Mott explained his intent for the building is ag storage and a shop. Their closest residence is John Peckham who lives across the road. Mott presented a letter signed by his 3 closest neighbors stating they do not have a problem. Photos that were mailed out the with packets show the area for the building being leveled.
Moved by Marshall to approve the petition, seconded by Holets. Motion carried.
Item # 5 The committee heard a petition from James Daniels to rezone .69 acres and .50 acres from Commercial to Residential 2 in Section 14 of Westford Township.
Richard Blakeslee is here to represent the family. He presented to the committee he is not sure why the property is zoned commercial but did not believe it was ever used for commercial. The mother owned 3 parcels. She passed away and now the 2 sons want to split the 3 parcels into 2 parcels with each getting a house. Mike explained to the committee that it was zoned commercial because the father had a lawn mower business at one time. This was taken to the BOA last week for lot size, side yard setbacks and highway setbacks; it received approval. Bill Seep is here from Westford Township to state the township is in favor of the petition.
Moved by Holets to approve the petition and send to County Board on December 13th, seconded by Virginia to approve the petition. Motion carried.
Item # 6 The committee heard a petition from Donald & Susan Hill to rezone 2.45 acres from Agricultural/Forestry to Residential 2 in Section 32 of Westford Township
Don Hill stated he is rezoning to get a fixed rate mortgage. Bill Seep stated that Westford Township is in favor of the rezone. There is one neighbor hear who did not sign up to speak stating he does not have a problem with it.
Motion by Marshall to approve and send to County Board on December 13, seconded by Deets. Motion carried.
Item # 7 The committee heard a petition from Judith Schutzkus to rezone 31.6 acres and 14.15 acres from Agricultural/Forestry to Agricultural/Residential in Section 7 of Eagle Township
Allen Marshall presented the land has 2 residences and they want to split them into 2 parcels of 31.6 and 14.15 acres on Round Barn Ln. Judy Schutzkus stated her mother had a life estate; she has passed away and Judy cannot afford to keep both houses. Parcel A is 6.43 acres and is being sold to a neighbor who owns more land next to her so that will make it a legal parcel. Holets questioned if it is split and rezoned if it could be split smaller later? Bindl stated yes but they would need an easement and a CSM. There was township approval. Rasmussen questioned if it was approved today could a deed restriction be put on the property to keep it from being split further?
Motion by Holets to approve the rezone with a Deed restriction put on the property so it may not be split further at a later day and send to County Board on December 13 for approval, seconded by Marshall. Motion carried.
Item # 8 Paul stated this situation started about 6 months ago when the Land Information Committee was working on the 2011 Land Information Grant. One project from the grant was the Section Corner database which would contain all the information concerning the section corners. We are now on the remonumenting faze, next is the population faze. The Land Records committee wants to be able to go to the internet and click on the section corner to bring up the tie sheet. Paul stated the county has been working with MSA for around 10 years and Matt has just revealed that we we’re not getting what we thought we were. It was discovered the monument project was not completed and needs to be redone. The Zoning Committee questioned why we didn’t get what we thought we were getting. Klawiter stated Todd Halverson from MSA headed up the project along with Mike Goebel of which neither could give anyone an answer of what was happening with the project. After they both were paid it was discovered we did not get what we paid for. Holets questioned if before we paid the bill was Klawiter able to check what MSA had completed. Klawiter stated he tried the website and couldn’t see what he thought he should see so he called Halverson. Halverson e-mailed Klawiter the information he was looking for but didn’t explain to him how to get it on the website. Filus stated when he took office he learned that there was a website and when he got the log in information he couldn’t get it to work either. Filus spoke with Halverson at that point and ask if there was money left in the grant to finish the project. He was told by Halverson there was no money left and MSA was working pro bono. Holets stated if we didn’t get what we contracted for we shouldn’t have paid the bill and ask Klawiter how the contract read. Klawiter stated in hind sight we didn’t request a completed version and that the actual contract was 2 sentences. Klawiter stated the Land Information Officers understood it would be completed, ready to use and felt if it wasn’t to be completed ready for use MSA should have told them that. Rasmussen asks why when Paul requested monumenting information from MSA they had it but we didn’t? Rasmussen questioned who uses the information, of which Filus stated surveyors do. Klawiter told the committee we have already paid MSA $3000. Filus explained that MSA built a custom application to view the data but when we switch to the new web software it will not work.
Filus has drafted a proposal taking over where we are now and completing what is needed to make the project work; which was included in the packet that was mailed. Filus also discovered that when they scanned in 2010 they only scanned the most recent documents, did not scan all of them and the scans they did are not compatible with the Register of Deeds Office software. Filus has proposed 85-125 hrs to verify that all the sheets have been scanned and renaming the files. Filus stated when we migrate as planned to new software the current application will not work. Holets ask “so what we got is not usable?” Gaylord ask when a survey comes in who will attach it to the corner. Filus stated he would which would be part of his regular office hours. Holets questioned if the monumenting website had been bid out? Klawiter stated it was not bid out. Bindl questioned if some of this work is something Dull could work on to keep costs down? Dull ask if it would be easier to rename them first by Page and Volume and then see what pages are missing. Filus stated that it was possible but there may be a page with (a) that we would not know about, but it may be a start. Filus proposed completing the project for $8,970 to $11,400. Filus stated the University has an application that was designed just for this purpose and that may be what they may consider. Holets questions after everything is scanned, the next step would be the actual database development? Filus figures is will take one day to build the database and the rest of the time will be linking the data. Holets ask if a surveyor needed to do the linking for if someone else could do it. Filus did point out his rates were not survey rates and that the 30 hours he quoted came from MSA who stated they could have someone do it in 30 hours, also if he had to recheck some ones work, he would rather do it himself. Deets ask if only surveyors use this information? Filus stated others may but it would mostly be used by Surveyors. It also will tell the general public what is out there and will direct them to the ROD page to pay for their copies. Deets questioned what the advantages were for the cost? Filus stated it serves the general public, but we have this information and without the website we would have to refer people to the ROD office to get it. Deets stated for the cost he doesn’t feel it is something we need right now. Klawiter stated a portion of the cost of creating the database and organizing the documents would be out of a grant in the amount of $3,000. Population of the database would be faze 2 of the project. Klawiter stated there is not enough money to complete it under this grant but there is accumulated money in the current grant fund or maybe it could come out of next year’s grant. Filus suggested to use some of the money that has been set aside for corners as the bid came in lower than anticipated. Of which Klawiter added there would need to be a revision sent to the state. The faze 1 would be completed from grant funds that need to be spent by June 30, 2012. Wiedenfeld suggested that maybe faze 1 could be completed and that they come back to discuss were faze 2 would come from. Holets questioned in 2 years will what Filus be creating be compatible with the next new software and if Dull could help with the scanning? Filus thought the scanning part was only about $800 of the proposal, he felt the bid he gave was on the high end and would not exceed the maximum amount. He would like to be able to test his database and sent it to the state to load and thought if Dull did some of the work then some of the grant money could be used to develop the database.
Motion by Holets to let Dull do the portion she is able to do to save some money and let Filus complete the balance out of the grant with the database design being included for $3,750 being the maximum amount, seconded by Wiedenfeld. Motion carried.
Item # 9 Klawiter stated the Land Information committee had a meeting about 6 month ago that brought all this to light at which time the committee ask if there were any other consultants they could consider. Shortly before that time ADC had approached the county to present their software. At that time the committee looked at their package along with another one and narrowed it down to MSA and ADC. There are 2 issues, one is the website and the second is the consulting. Klawiter discovered that ADC does claim to have a consulting service which is larger in size than MSA’s. ADC currently provides websites for Register of Deeds, the Treasurer and Land records. If we went with ADC we would only be dealing with 1 company instead of 2. Klawiter added Lynn Newkirk is not a Land Information officer but had requested to sit in on the deliberation process concerning mapping because she works closely with MSA and GIS mapping. Due to the failure with the section corner program the committee felt they owed it to the county to look at other vendors. The Land Information committee feels comfortable recommending another vendor but it is not a majority do to Newkirk and Bindl wanting to stay with MSA. They gave ADC and MSA a chance to provide the County with a sample contract. They didn’t get a sample contract from MSA, what they got was an offer to lower the price. The first year ADC would charge $1250 and MSA $6000. For technical support MSA charges $62/hr with ADC at $85/ hr. The second year after buying new programs; MSA would charge $2000 and ADC charging $3000.
Pros and cons – We received a copy of the contract from ADC but not from MSA. We submitted questions to both and received responses from ADC not MSA.
Holets ask if Klawiter has called MSA about this, Klawiter stated he talked to Halverson and that Halverson suggested that he come over here to talk to the committee. The committee met with Halverson and again ask him to submit answers to the question but still have not received them.
Cathy Cooper has a program designed by MSA she like but she can’t do reports and can’t query it. ADC bid $12500 to recreate that program and MSA bid $6000.
Bindl added through this whole process Newkirk does the most work with mapping and that she is in contact with tech support at least once a week. Of the $3500 MSA has charged in the past $1000 of it was for tech support. MSA would lower their yearly fee by $1000 but would charge $62/hr for support. He also feels that the contracts we signed are not detailed enough and we don’t know what we are getting. The Zoning/Land Information committee feels Ben Southwick should review the contracts and then they should come to the committee.
The website contract expires 12/31/11 and if we change vendors, the website could be down 3 months. Holets would like items such as this brought to the committee sooner because we are now under the gun and we need a decision now. Wiedenfeld ask what happens if we don’t act today and the contract expires? Klawiter stated he didn’t know.
Motion by Holets to give MSA 2 weeks to get a detailed contract to us and continue with MSA on a month by month basis if we go with ADC to keep our website up. If we don‘t get a detailed contract we will move on. Mike suggest 1 week. Holets retracted his two week proposal to 1 week as Bindl suggested. Seconded by Wiedenfeld. Motion carried.
Item # 10 Filus presented that he has a proposal by ADC to build and host the website so the committee should be aware it will be coming back in the next couple of months.
Item # 11 Wisconsin Stevens Point student has request free data sharing for information on Fish Farms. Motion by Wiedenfeld to charge the Wisconsin Stevens Point student ½ of the normal cost of $2000, seconded by Holets. Motion carried.
There is also a request from the DNR and FEMA for floodplain and LIDAR layers, when they are done with the use we will get information back from them. The DNR has a grant to work on 100 miles. If we qualify as one of the top agencies that needs map hazard done it would be done for free.
Motion by Wiedenfeld to give the information to DNR and FEMA, seconded by Marshall. Motion carried.
Rasmussen left at 11:40.
Item # 12 Bindl met with Ben Southwick concerning the Merry Farm. They discussed family farm business vs. commercial zoning. Southwick recommended a CUP as a family farm business. In 2003 it changed from a permitted use to needing a conditional use but the fact remains that he use to do it for free and since starting up has started to charge people and we don’t know at what point he started charging. This came about because of a resident of the county came in wanting to do what Hank Newenhouse was doing. She has since decided she may not proceed with her plans because she doesn’t want her taxes going up and she doesn’t want to be required to get State permits.
Item # 13 Bindl informed the committee that a resolution is going to County Board next week because Pedley’s name is on the resolution for the Shoreland Ordinance making her the only one that can make changes. Southwick is redrawing the resolution to both remove her name and add Bindl’s or remove the name completely.
Item # 14 No bills to pay
Item # 15 Next meeting is set for Wednesday, January 4th at 1:00 pm. Motion to adjourn by Holets at 11:55 am, seconded by Wiedenfeld. Motion carried.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Cheryl Dull